Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT And I Think It's Gonna Be A Long, Long Time
By Al Lowe | Season 7 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.25.2006
Back at home, they look around the crap shack for something to put on Lorelai's swelling eye. Rory heads to the kitchen, suggesting ice. "You know I don't cook," Lorelai calls. Rory protests that having ice in the freezer is, actually, the opposite of cooking. "All you have in here are like, batteries, and film and I think something that used to be an ice cream sandwich," she says, as Lorelai enters the kitchen with a bunch of stuff from the bathroom. "You're not putting shaving cream on your eye," Rory says, and Lorelai, with a small sigh, says no; she's just getting rid of some of Luke's stuff. "Steak!" Lorelai says, suddenly. "Steak, is supposed to be good for a black eye." Rory has an even better idea: a bag of frozen peas that will mold to the contours of her face. "But steak has actual healing properties," Lorelai insists. "Something about the juices or the fats is good for the skin." Rory shudders at the idea and says she's going to the store to get some ice. "And steak!" her mother says. "And peas. And ice cream! And then when I'm done using it, we can eat it! It's Black Eye Dinner!" Rory: "Says the woman who can't cook ice." Lorelai says she's too injured to cook, anyway, and Rory heads to the store, giving her a cold battery to use on her eye.
In town, Rory encounters the whole town that has come out to watch Taylor's big unveiling of the red light camera. Luke, meanwhile, refusing to emerge from the diner to watch the festivities sees Rory sees through the window and they share a very awkward wave. Taylor kicks the action into high gear, giving a speech about safety and traffic and yadda yadda. Though his message is no doubt important, I tune out his voice because if I don't it pierces my brain so severely I can hear him with my nose. The gist is that Kirk will demonstrate the camera's functionality by driving Taylor's '64 Thunderbird through the red light.
Miss Patty does the honors of waving him off the starting line, in the style of Cha Cha DiGregorio, and Kirk revs his engine and blows through the red light. The camera's flash, however, is amazingly powerful and, blinded by the light, Kirk weaves the car all over the road, veers sharply and crashes through the front of Luke's diner! Even though he could have killed everyone in Stars Hollow, no one is hurt -- not even Kirk. "I'm OKAY!" he screams, leaping from the wreckage, and the whole town rushes to the scene.