Episode Report Card Kim: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Happy Birthday, Baby!
By Kim | Season 3 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.21.2003
Friday Night Gilmore Dinner. Richard, Emily, Rory, and the serving staff sing "Happy Birthday" to Lorelai. The maids take the cake before Lorelai blows out her candles. Lorelai protests, but Emily says that the maid can do it. Lorelai isn't happy, but Emily says she thought only children liked to do that. Richard offers to let her blow out the tapers on the table. Emily suggests that they have dessert in the living room, so they move out. Rory and Lorelai have a whispered conversation during which Rory says they have time to have cake before Lorelai's town party. Richard offers champagne, and Lorelai accuses him of trying to get her drunk so that she will forget that they didn't let her blow out her candles. Emily asks if this will be a story she will tell people for the rest of her life, like the bunny story. Lorelai starts complaining about how her mother gave away her rabbit when Lorelai was a kid, which ends up with Richard guessing that the rabbit is now in a shoebox somewhere. Richard offers up a toast to Lorelai on her thirty-sixth birthday. Lorelai laughs and says she's only thirty-five. Richard realizes she's right.
Lorelai thanks her parents for the dinner, and then reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope, which she gives to Emily, joking that it's from her long-missing rabbit. Emily, suddenly very serious, asks what it is. Lorelai says it's the money she owes them for Rory's school, which she promised she would pay back. Lorelai thanks them very sincerely for helping out, and adds that Rory wouldn't be going to Yale if it weren't for Emily and Richard. Emily stonily says that Lorelai's welcome and then says that Lorelai must be relieved that her debt is paid and that she doesn't need her parents anymore. Lorelai is confused, because she didn't say that. Emily says that Lorelai won't have to talk to them or come over for dinner anymore. Lorelai protests, but not as strongly as you might think. Like if she had just said right here, "We'll still come over for dinner," it seems like this whole thing could have been avoided. Lorelai says that she's just paying back the money she owed. Emily thinks it's unkind of Lorelai to use her birthday to inform her parents that she won't be coming over anymore. Lorelai didn't say that. Emily thinks the money says that. Lorelai suggests that it might be better if she and Rory came over voluntarily and not due to some threat. Emily asks if that would happen. Lorelai doesn't answer the question, instead saying that she always promised to pay them back, so it shouldn't be a surprise, and she was trying to do a good thing with the money Richard gave her.