Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT The UnRelenting
By Al Lowe | Season 6 | Episode 3 | Aired on September 26, 2005
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Work continues apace on Lorelai's house. Everyone is fooling T.J. into thinking he's the contractor on the job. T.J. is...a huge idiot. Rory has got this community-service thing in the bag -- she's actually running the show now with the road crew and all her other restitution jobs. Paris is torturing Lorelai twice-weekly with lunch meetings at the Inn, and the Dragonfly staff is about to revolt as a result. Rory starts her job at the DAR and fits right in, gossiping about stupid stuff. Sookie constructs what is perhaps the most fantastic wedding cake of all time. Logan comes back from Europe. Yay? He keeps giving Rory these pitying looks because he's enrolled in school and she's not. Lane and the band are finally coming off tour, $9,000 to the richer. Rory joins the DAR. Now, what's the most important thing you need to know about this episode? Everybody's hair is perfect. Also, by God if this hour didn't almost make up for the last two episodes, which royally sucked by comparison. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Construction continues at Lorelai's house, causing her to continue sleeping on the couch. Upon waking, she and Paul Anka go to the kitchen to "have a little breakfast," which includes enough donuts and Pop-Tarts to feed twenty-five bingeing actresses. Oh, wait, more like twenty-five hungry construction workers: the breakfast is for them. Thank goodness. All the pastries -- much like the ones we often see laid out at The Grandparents' -- were scaring me. Lorelai calls the guys in, encouraging them to get breakfast "while it's hot and nutrient-free." She warns them to inspect the bagels carefully: "Either they're new, or from my baby shower." (Cute, but did Lorelai have a baby shower, really? At age fifteen? This has possibly been covered in past seasons, and I did not see it or do not remember.) She also tells the guys that they've been playing favorites all week with the Pop-Tarts, and now somebody's going to have to be a man and start eating the Shredded Wheat. They groan appropriately. Paul Anka has quietly been sitting in his own chair at the table through all of this, and when one of the guys goes to pet him, Lorelai reminds everyone only to pet the dog with their non-watch hands: "In case you don't remember, watches cause him to freak out, jump up on the counter, and kick my once-working toaster across the room." I love it that Paul Anka is allegedly so crazy off-camera.
Luke comes in with muffins for all, grumbling loudly about having to give out free food to everyone, and he and Lorelai walk outside to overhear T.J. giving a string of nonsensical orders to the construction team. My favorite is when he tells one guy to dig a drain to keep the basement dry. "This house doesn't have a basement," the worker says to Tom, the actual contractor. "It certainly does not," Tom says, going over to Luke and Lorelai to discuss the issues with their fake contractor. Lorelai says they're going to keep the charade up to the bitter end. T.J.'s so cute in his toolbelt, she says, and plus, he polishes his helmet every night with real silver polish. "That's what he thinks silver polish is for," she says. "To polish anything that's silver." Somehow, she finds this adorable, and I get that we're watching TV, but having someone who apparently has the legal faculties of a nine-year-old bang holes in her walls and wreck the joint every single day...well, it's disbelief I cannot suspend. People like this show because it's smarter than a lot of other television, which makes it rather charming. Stupid dumb-asses aren't charming, nor are they in any way "adorable." If Lorelai wants something adorable to destroy her home, perhaps she should adopt a monkey. This T.J. business just isn't funny. This isn't Joey. Also, it's expensive -- Luke says that Lorelai is paying T.J. a regular contractor salary for work he's not doing, and then paying Tom 10\% more to do his actual contractor's job, which T.J. thinks he's doing himself, but which Tom is actually doing. "You should hire Blake Edwards as your contractor." Good one, Luke, but don't go trying to apply logic when passive-aggressive subterfuge works just as well (if by "just as well" you mean "not at all"). Why, everyone is enjoying this little ruse! Right? Wrong. Tom says they're not in danger, since although T.J. has horrible instincts, he has absolutely no follow-through. Lorelai is off to take a shower at Babette's, and Luke wants to know why, since her own shower is working. Seems some of the guys -- you know, Pete, Joe, Slim -- saw her naked, due to a T.J. error. Luke is displeased, but Lorelai says that it's no big deal. When she walks away, one of the fellas strolls up to Luke and gives him a congratulatory pat on the back.