Episode Report Card Pamie: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT She Bop, He Bop a-We Bop
By Pamie | Season 5 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.18.2004
Lorelai's in glasses, on the phone. She tells Rory they'll pick her up at 6:30. Rory is walking through the campus at Yale. Lorelai says it'll be a classic slate of Stars Hollow activities. Isn't it Saturday? Why did Rory have to go home early last night, and why are there classes on a Saturday? Then Lorelai gets another phone call. Lorelai puts Rory on hold and answers the call. It's Emily, who wants to give Lorelai the secret code for the panic room. Lorelai thinks Emily should give it to Richard. Emily says that Richard wouldn't come to her rescue if she were on fire. Anyway, after much discussion, Emily slowly gives the code. It's 11111. It's the code the room came with, and Emily doesn't know how to change it. Lorelai promises she won't forget the code, but Emily thinks she should write it down just in case. Lorelai clicks back over to Rory, who thinks Emily should give the code to Richard. Lorelai thinks her parents should just divorce and get it over with. "Don't say that!" Rory protests. "It's not funny." Lorelai says that Emily's getting more insane and sharing the insanity with everyone. Rory -- of all people, RORY! -- says, "Divorce is not the answer." She tells Lorelai she knows that Richard misses Emily terribly, due to the fact that he finished The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Lorelai asks Rory to "de-Mensa" the reference. Rory explains that Richard has enough time on his hands that he's reading, not out partying and wearing vests, but sitting alone, reading big books. Lorelai asks Rory why she didn't tell Emily all of this at dinner. Rory knows that Emily would have been jealous that Rory had lunch with her grandfather and she didn't want to have to get into it: "The less you tell Gramma, the better." Lorelai celebrates Rory's breakthrough. Rory says she really, really, really hates what's going on with Richard and Emily. Me too. It's pretty dull. Rory and Lorelai s-l-o-w-l-y get off the phone so that we can watch Lorelai hang up, toss the phone, and then settle in for a good pout on the couch.
But then boom! Lorelai's at Richard's poolhouse, where she finds Richard indeed reading big ol' boring books. Lorelai says she had stopped by to pick something up from Emily, but that she's not home. Richard tells her that Emily's at her DAR meeting, as she is every week at this time. Lorelai fakes forgetting, and says maybe one day the DAR girls will go wacky and meet late on a Saturday afternoon. I don't really understand Richard and the breath mints but he says he always forgets he already has a box of mints and buys another and soon he has a bowl of mints, and the cycle continues. "Kind of like me and men," Lorelai says. Richard is confused, and Lorelai explains that without Emily there to make a biting comment, she had to do it herself. Richard apologizes for the mess. His valet is with his sick mother, leaving Richard in the lurch. Lorelai then wonders if we get the word "lurch" from The Addams Family. And then Richard....ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-- wha? HUH? Man. Lorelai prods Richard until he eventually tells her that he joined a barbershop quartet. Mystery vest solved! ["I had thought from the look of it that we were going to learn Richard had taken up competitive ballroom dancing, which would have been cooler." -- Wing Chun] Lorelai tells Richard to talk to Emily! Next scene! Wait! Can we watch Lorelai say goodbye and then walk all the way out of the room, closing the door behind her? Awesome!