Episode Report Card Pamie: C | 14 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT The Dangers of Danielworld
By Pamie | Season 2 | Episode 17 | Aired on 2002.04.16
Rory knocks on the upstairs apartment's front door. Where's all the construction? Jess answers. He calls her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Rory tells him that Luke needs him downstairs because it's Cesar's day off. Jess says he'll be down in a minute, and goes back to watch television. The clock behind him reads 7:10. Rory grabs Jess and tells him that Jeannie's going to fix whatever problem's going on this episode. Jess complains that Rory ruined the end of the episode for him as we hear the I Dream of Jeannie theme song playing in the background.
Downstairs, Kirk tells Lorelai that he needs more Equal. Lorelai says there's a packet right in front of him. Kirk says he needs seven packets. Lorelai accuses him of squirreling away packets for home use. Kirk scoffs that he does no such thing. Lorelai opens seven packets of Equal and dumps them into Kirk's coffee. She makes him take a sip. He winces and says that the coffee is now perfect. Jess jumps into the room, complaining that Rory pushed him. "Sue me," Rory says. Jess complains that he could have broken his neck. Rory says, "As long as it's not your arm." She hands him a pitcher. "We need your arm," she adds. Do we really want Rory and Jess to become a mini-Lorelai and Luke? It's not cute. It's repetitive. Jess grumbles and takes the pitcher. Rory holds his shoulder and pushes him to work.
Luke grumbles to Lorelai that it took twenty minutes to get past the busy signal and now he's on hold. Lorelai asks who he's calling. It's the mortuary in Florida where Uncle Louie is. Turns out Louie spent most of his life in Stars Hollow but retired in Orlando. Luke has to move the body up here because his dad wanted his brother buried next to him. Luke says that they were really close and Louie didn't have a wife or kids to look after things. Before Luke's dad died, he asked Luke to take care of everything once Louie died, and that he should make sure Louie got a proper, respectful funeral. Luke says that since Louie's a war veteran, the Stars Hollow Revolutionary War re-enactors will be attending the service. Luke admits that the entire thing makes him nauseous, but that it's what his dad wanted. The mortuary picks up, and Luke goes back to his phone call. He hangs up and tells Lorelai that he needs to pick out a coffin in Hartford before the body arrives. How fast does a body travel from Orlando to Hartford? Lorelai tells Luke to go now. Luke says he has to close up first. Lorelai, who doesn't really have a job of her own, says she can watch the diner while he's gone. Actually, she said "we." Does that mean Rory stays home from school to work at the diner? She's not going to be happy about that one. Lorelai says that this will give her time to number the tables. She threatens to arrange them in a different order. Luke tells her to leave them alone. She says they're not Feng Shui. She scoots Luke away. By the way, I love how the trailer for this episode had to lie and make it sound like this was going to be about Luke and Lorelai spending so much time together because the truth was that this episode was too boring to have a quick teaser line. "Luke's uncle dies and Lorelai speaks diner talk. Sookie's planning a wedding and then changes her mind about what she'll do. Jess is grumpy. Rory is bossy. It's all new, before Smallville."