Episode Report Card Pamie: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Same Time Next Year
By Pamie | Season 4 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.17.2003
Richard asks Emily if a Bloody Mary needs two shakes of Tabasco or four. Emily takes the Tabasco away to make it herself. Richard flirts with Emily, saying he likes standing so dangerously close to his wife. He's interrupted by the Whiffenpoofs, Yale's a capella group. Now, I know they're supposed to be hot studs who get all the Yale action, so I'm going to assume that this group of singers is a poor representation of the caliber of gentlemen normally singing about dear old Swanee or Savannah or whatever it is those guys like to sing. I'm not even really allowed to make all the Whiffenpoof jokes a girl from the University of Texas would normally make, because Djb's brother was one of them.
Meanwhile, Emily lays into her maid for not having enough celery, for putting Rory's Newtons on a plate and not on a doily, and for not doing what she's been paid to do correctly the first time. Lorelai offers to get the celery, but Emily says that Lorelai wasn't hired to get the celery. Lorelai asks if there's something wrong. Emily says there isn't. Richard brings along all the Poofs to sample Emily's famous Bloody Marys. Emily complains that there isn't enough celery. Richard laughs and says that the boys will be fine without celery. "How does Pennilyn Lott know that Lorelai is opening an inn?" she asks Richard, who tries to play dumb for a second, but is clearly caught. Emily says that they only talk to Pennilyn Lott once a year, here at the game. Lorelai hasn't spoken to Pennilyn, and Emily certainly hasn't, so how has Pennilyn Lott learned about this information on their daughter? "I told her," Richard admits. Lorelai tells the 'Poofs to make like their name, and they run away. Richard admits that he's had lunch with Pennilyn Lott once a year every year since he and Emily got married. Emily cannot believe that Richard has been lying to her for thirty-nine years. Poor Emily. She feels humiliated. She tells Richard to go for a walk. He leaves. Lorelai runs up and says that it was wrong, but that Richard didn't want to upset Emily. Emily says he shouldn't have lied to her for almost forty years. Frustrated, she turns on Lorelai, and says that if Lorelai hadn't insisted on talking to Pennilyn after Emily had told her not to, then none of this would have happened and everything would be fine. Lorelai can't believe she's getting blamed for this, and asks Emily if everything would truly be fine if Richard was having secret lunches with Pennilyn Lott for the next forty years without Emily's ever finding out. Emily only knows that everything would have been fine if Lorelai hadn't talked to Pennilyn Lott today. It is this scene that saves this episode -- that, in fact, makes this episode. I love these actors. Emily tells Lorelai that she wasn't even supposed to come today -- that it was supposed to be Richard and Rory and that's it. "Okay!" Lorelai shouts, and leaves.