Episode Report Card M. Giant: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mailer than Thou
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 6 | Aired on 10.25.2004
Later, Rory lets herself into her dorm room and crashes onto her bed, still reading Glenn's Times article. She looks miserable. Which is understandable, since she's apparently had some kind of brain aneurysm and it takes her all day to read one newspaper article. I had an aneurysm just last weekend that left me able to speak only gibberish for, like, hours. Or maybe it was just a migraine. Speaking of migraines, Lorelai calls. She's got a non-rhetorical question: "Do you want to laugh?" We see that Lorelai's sitting in her kitchen, looking at Luke, who has apparently decided to pull a Sylvia Plath rather than go on another date with Lorelai. Or maybe he's just fixing her oven. Lorelai tells Rory about a "bit" that Luke just did, where he banged his head inside the oven. Luke is of the opinion that banging his head in a way that hurts like hell does not constitute a "bit." Luke, when you're dating Lorelai, everything is a bit. Also, he's still calling it "the stove." Is that a New England thing, or a sloppy writing thing? Since I'm just subbing I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Lorelai senses that something's wrong with Rory -- "You have Bambi voice," she says, which sounds to me a lot like normal Rory voice, and Rory complains about being behind because everyone else at the paper did journalism stuff while she "ran away to Europe with Grandma...to deal with [her] own personal whatever." Some of us have been spending a lot more time waiting for Rory to deal with her own personal whatever. Lorelai assures Rory that she'll catch up: "You're catch-up girl. Not to be confused with ketchup girl...You were a mustard-and-relish girl from day one. A little condiment humor for you." Yeah, damn little. Luke bangs his head in the oven again and lets out an "Ow! Jeez, what the -- aaaaaaargh!" straight out of vaudeville. Lorelai giggles and asks him to do it again louder for Rory. Rory tells Lorelai she sounds happy. "I am, kid," Lorelai beams. Must be the boyfriend's cranial trauma. I know that when I was in the emergency room with my aneurysm last weekend, my wife Trash was climbing the walls with glee.
Norman Mailer's in the Dragonfly. I don't know why, okay? He just is. It's Norman Mailer, playing Norman Mailer. Some young sycophant -- who I assume is being played by Stephen Mailer, whoever that is, because the opening credits listed "Norman and Stephen Mailer" -- is interviewing him over iced tea. Mailer is being all crusty and crotchety, as he is, though not in a particularly entertaining way. Lorelai breezes past on her way to the kitchen, where she tells Sookie that Mailer's here "for the third time this week." Which is weird, because it sounded to me like that interview was just getting started. Maybe they just stared at each other the first two days. Lorelai's all excited about the Dragonfly's imminent future as a literary hot spot, but Sookie's not sharing the love. In fact, she's kind of grumpy that Norman Mailer is sitting at a table for four and ordering nothing but iced tea. Lorelai tries to cheer her up, but Sookie's already been spoiled by the days when Billy Joel would show up at the Independence Inn and pack it away. "There was a man who knew how to eat," Sookie says approvingly, "and he was almost able to hide it." Lorelai wishes Sookie could see the cool factor of having a respected and thirsty, if not particularly hungry, author in the house. Looks like she's just going to have to keep wishing.