Episode Report Card Pamie: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Tristan - Cute = Jess
By Pamie | Season 2 | Episode 13 | Aired on 02.04.2002
Gazebo. Lorelai tells Luke that his burgers taste better outside. He says that if the roof of the diner starts leaking, he'll just rip it off. Lorelai tries to get Luke to admit that this is nice. There's an argument about which one is more stubborn. Lorelai says that as long as everything is exactly the way she wants it to be, she can be totally flexible. Lorelai offers a fry. Luke offers a carrot. They both decline. Luke asks who Lorelai wanted to get her basket. Lorelai says that last year she sold it to the sprinker guy who fixed her sprinklers half-price. This year, her rain gutters are completely clogged, so she thought she could work her magic on the Collins kid. Luke says she's very practical. She says this is also a nice concept -- having someone you love or have a crush on bid on your basket and then having a romantic lunch with him. Luke says he's sure someday she'll find the right guy for this thing. Lorelai agrees that someday that will happen. Luke sighs and says that this is nice.
CuteDean interrupts, of course, and tells Lorelai that he has to talk to her. Lorelai just leaves Luke as she normally would do. CuteDean says he's not doing so well. Lorelai says it's no big deal. CuteDean says he's trying to convince himself of that, but he just can't. He says he's worried about Rory. He thinks Jess is trouble. He says that he's always had a feeling about him. CuteDean says Jess is a jerk, which is the lowest word you can use on a WB teen drama. He says that Jess fights in school, when he shows up. He says that Jess is always around. Lorelai tells CuteDean that he's jealous. CuteDean says that Rory always being nice to everybody is going to get her into trouble. CuteDean always talks like he's out of breath and like he's reading his lines from far away. He says that Jess is just using Rory to get to CuteDean. That's pretty funny. I would totally think that Rory is taking advantage of CuteDean to spend time with Jess. Lorelai tells CuteDean that he just has to trust Rory. She says Rory won't do anything to mess this up. CuteDean walks away. Why doesn't anyone say goodbye in this town?
Rory is confessing to Jess that she first read The Fountainhead when she was ten, but she didn't understand it until she was fifteen. I read it at seventeen, but I liked Atlas Shrugged much more. It was probably because I read it at nineteen. Jess says that he can't get through the book because "Ayn Rand is a political nut." Rory says that nobody could write a forty-page monologue better than she could. Is this supposed to make Jess endearing? He reads the same books as any other boy Rory's flirted with, including CuteDean, and they all hate Rory's taste in books. All of them. Rory should date her grandfather. Jess says he'll try again tomorrow if Rory gives Hemingway another chance. She agrees. ["Of course fucking Jess loves fucking Hemingway." -- Wing Chun] Jess says, "You know, Ernest Hemingway only has lov-er-ly things to say about you." I make a mental Old Man and the Sea joke here. Rory asks why Jess is only nice to her. Jess says that screwing with CuteDean is an important step in being able to sit there and be nice to her. Rory realizes that he had planned on outbidding CuteDean. Duh, Rory. Jess tries to change the subject and offers to buy her a pizza. It goes on for a while until Rory decides to get pizza with him. She walks away. Jess sees that Rory's bracelet from CuteDean has fallen off on the bridge. He picks it up and pockets it to the strummy impending breakup music.