Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT And I Think It's Gonna Be A Long, Long Time
By Al Lowe | Season 7 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2006.09.26
This scene could only have annoyed me more if Babette, Emily and Mrs. Kim had ridden a three-seat bike through the square singing "Three Little Maids from School." I find all prolonged Taylor/Kirk moments to be worse than dental surgery, and the addition here of Luke at his most curmudgeonly does not help at all. Shut up, everybody. Essentially, Luke hates the idea of a red light camera and vows to go against Taylor on it, and Taylor invites him to attend the unveiling ceremony happening that afternoon. "Well," Luke yells, "I don't see how I can avoid it, considering it's right in front of my damn diner!" Kirk: "I'll put you down for plus-one."
At the Dragonfly, Lorelai is surprised when Rory arrives out of the blue. "The prodigal daughter returns!" she says, mugging the title from last season's big turning-point episode. Michel, whose injured wrist is now completely splinted and wrapped, is less enthused to see Rory, as usual. "Isn't she the sweetest, Michel?" Lorelai asks him. "Hmm," he snarks. "Beyond all human understanding." Rory's real reason for coming home was because she was at loose ends without Logan. She says their goodbye was awful. "There's nothing good about a goodbye," Rory says. "It's a very poorly named ritual. It was a bad bye, a very bad bye." At least, I think that's what she says -- the Bledel slur is prominent in this scene. It's also possible she said that "Imus a shoofly, a merry shoofly," but I doubt it. "I just miss him so much," she pouts. "And it's only been seven hours. Can you imagine what it will be like after...." She sighs and decides that she doesn't even want to talk about it and that she needs coffee. Lorelai leads her to the nectar of the Gods while assuring her that she can always vent to her if she needs to. "I'm the perfect vent...er...izer. Venterator." Rory says she doesn't need a venterator; she just doesn't want to talk about it. "What's going on with you?" she asks, changing the subject. Oops. Lorelai doesn't want to talk about her relationship woes, either. "Look, I don't want to talk about this right now, okay?" she says. "But I want to tell you; I have to tell you." Lorelai says that she's barely holding it together and says Rory has to promise she won't make her talk about it after she gives her the info. "What?!" Rory asks, starting to panic, and Lorelai finally heaves a heavy sigh and does the big reveal. "Luke and I split up," she says. Rory: "You mean like, you had a fight?" Lorelai: "No, we had a break up, like a real-life parting of the hearts." Rory is upset and asks why this happened. "Rory," her mom says, "you promised." Rory thinks back: "No, I didn't..." Lorelai says the promise was implied and really does not want to discuss it. "Well," Rory says, thinking it over, "you know, I guess we don't have to talk about stuff." Lorelai emphatically agrees. "Yeah," she says. "We don't always have to be talking!" A cheer is heard from my house as I imagine long minutes of silence coming from the screen...but they are dashed when she goes on to say that they'd better talk about how much not-talking they're going to be doing. Great idea.