Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A | 2 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT The UnRelenting
By Al Lowe | Season 6 | Episode 3 | Aired on 09.26.2005
There's a party of sorts going on at Lorelai's. Luke comes in to find her entertaining the construction guys with her Daniel Day-Lewis retrospective. "You should see her rendition of My Left Foot," one of the guys says. Luke is not at all amused: "Yeah, I've seen it. Thanks." But no, Lorelai says, she's switched it up and now does it with her right foot. Totally different! Luke is even less amused to see Paul Anka's new trick. Lorelai: "Pizza!" Paul Anka: "Bark!" Lorelai: "Pizza Pizza!" Paul Anka: "Bark Bark!" Lorelai: "Salad." Paul Anka: "[Total silence.]" It is pretty cute, I must say, but I am a sucker for dogs. When Lorelai goes to the kitchen to get more treats, a petulant Luke reminds her that the guys are there to work, and that Lorelai is not required to give them a USO show. She says she knows; she just wants them to have a good time. I'm sure they are having a good time, actually, since they seem to be there twenty-four hours a day, which must mean she and Luke are paying them double and triple time, or something, for which they'll be willing to watch that dog do any number of tricks. Anyway, as Luke points out, "Half of them have seen you naked. How much more fun can they have?" Tom's in the kitchen, drawing up plans for real work, so Luke pointedly asks whether other clients feed their construction crews pizza and beer to win them over. "Nope," Tom says. "'Course, the 'naked thing' has been done to death." I love Tom. He goes on to ask what they'd like to "do" with the kitchen during all this remodeling, and is met by Lorelai's blank stares as he lists of innumerable options for islands and stools and counter space. "This strange man is scaring me," she says to Luke, who assures Tom that the kitchen is fine.
Just when we think we're safe, T.J. rolls in from the most recent wild goose chase these people have sent him on: a trip to find the hard-won "Mystic hammer," which he had to drive all day to buy in, of course, Mystic, CT. I love the whole concept of the Mystic hammer and all, and if the scene ended here, I'd be fine. Instead, we all must suffer more tedium in the form of T.J. than I can even recap. For no reason at all, he goes over to the door off the kitchen that leads to Rory's room, and starts going on and on about the unused room and how, if you knocked out that wall, you could make more space. Sensing Lorelai's extreme discomfort, Luke tries to shut T.J. up, but he continues: "You could turn it into a weight room, or a workshop. Or, hey, a pork-smoker room!" Yes, certainly, a pork-smoker room. ["I'd far rather have one of those than a Rory these days." -- Wing Chun] T.J. goes on for several minutes on the benefits of having a pork-smoker room in your house -- his uncle had one; they called it the "dead pig room" (which, okay, is kind of funny). He says he could have it up and running for Lorelai in a week. "All I'd have to do is drive over to Boston to get one of those special sledgehammers Tom was telling me about," he goes on, before Lorelai finally shuts him down, super-annoyed, yelling at him to leave the room alone and stomping out. Seemingly mortified that he has insulted her, T.J. asks Tom, "Is she Jewish, or something?" Siiiiigh. Build me a "dead T.J. room" and we'll talk, Palladinos. ["But, shout-out, of sorts, since Pamie was always as convinced of the Gilmore's Judaism as she was that the Independence Inn was in Hartford, and neither was the case, bless her heart." -- Wing Chun]