Episode Report Card Pamie: B+ | 162 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT Jess Fans, Unite!
By Pamie | Season 4 | Episode 12 | Aired on 2004.02.03
Rory turns off the television and says she wants to talk about Paris's boyfriend(s) situation. She thinks it's unfair that Paris is having an affair with her professor while stringing along poor Jamie. Paris says it's not an affair, and that she's surprised Rory suddenly wants to discuss this. Rory says she doesn't want to, she's been forced to, because Jamie's been drilling her for answers. This scene has been brought to you by Uncomfortable-Looking Turtlenecks. Uncomfortable-Looking Turtlenecks: when you're going to do a scene involving a sticky situation and want to look even more tense than the script indicates. After a joke about C-Span (I don't know any show with as many C-Span-centered punchlines as this one has), Rory tells Paris that she's got to make a decision between the two. Paris tells Rory to call him "Asher" and not "Professor," because it makes him sound old. "He is old!" Rory yells. Paris: "He's sixty. Today's sixty is what fifty was twenty years ago. And he's got the body of a forty-year-old." Rory says this isn't a May/December romance, it's more like a May/Ming Dynasty romance. Paris says that this is very common these days. Rory says it's awkward, because her grandfather introduced the two of them. Paris: "Well, hot men tend to run in packs." This really is the -- and I never use this word -- squickiest episode in this show's history. Rory agrees with me, forcing Paris to invoke Season 1: "Mary, you are such a prude." Rory says that at least she's not mean to people who love her. Paris says that Jamie just can't take a hint. He was her first real boyfriend. The pot chimes in: "Well, you got lucky with him." Paris says that Jamie's crazy about her, and she's never figured out why. Rory breaks character to tell Paris not to get self-deprecating, because it's obnoxious. Paris picks up the phone and ends her relationship with Jamie thusly: "Hey, it's me. We've gotta end this. Now. There's just no reason to prolong it. Sorry you came all the way out here. Well, Rory showed me the way. She made me see there's just no point in going on." Rory tries to get out of the blame, but Paris doesn't backtrack. She apologizes to Jamie and hangs up: "This was good. It was right. I'm glad I did it." Paris goes off to her room, and Rory ends another scene looking off and thinking about other people's problems.