By Al Lowe
Rory says farewell to her position as the Yale editor, and is very sad and confused about what she's going to do with her adult life. Ahhh, welcome to the rest of your LIFE! Adulthood sucks! Oh, sorry. This leads her to call Lucy and Olivia and invite them to Stars Hollow where they sit around coloring their hair (pink!) and melting down about the future. Arriving back at Yale, Rory meets Lucy's boyfriend who she is surprised to find is her old pal Marty. He pretends that he doesn't know her and hurts her feelings. Hey, what could be worse than Lane having Zach's baby? Having two of them! Lane's having twins, and is finally forced to tell Mrs. Kim that she's pregnant. MamaKim is so happy, she insists they move in with her. They turn her down. Lorelai and Chris fly to Paris where they dump Gigi off with her mom and promptly fall asleep from jet lag. They wake up starving and run around the city trying to find something to eat, and end up doing a lot of remembering about "when [they] were sixteen." They hurry back to the hotel for sweet, sweet lovin'. Sorry, again. Finally, Christopher pulls some strings and takes her to the fanciest restaurant in Paris at 5 in the morning...where they get all I-love-you-kissy-kissy-oooh-la-la. They're so swept up by the sun coming up over the Eiffel Tower that Christopher proposes. Not only does she say yes, but they go ahead and get married. Here comes the ugh.
Lorelai, Christopher, and Gigi are preparing to leave Lorelai's house for the airport. "Okay, sweetie," Lorelai says, leaning down to Gigi's level, "what do we say to Mommy when we see her at the airport?" Gigi responds with an enthusiastic "Bonjour!" Lorelai gilds the lily, suggesting, "'Bonjour, maman! What's the haps?'" This, sadly, will probably have to be scrapped, since Lorelai doesn't know the French for "haps." I was about to make a crack just now about how little the people of France are likely to appreciate Lorelai's non-stop quirkiness, but I then remembered that they have allegedly bestowed demigod status on Jerry Lewis there, and thus will not hesitate to give Lorelai a huge "hello, nurse" and a pie in the face (traditional Parisian greetings for funny Americans who never know when to stop talking). Chris assures Gigi that even after they meet up with Mommy, he and Lorelai will be staying with Gigi all day until she gets settled in. Of course, they'll probably never tell us, but I wonder how it's going to go down for this four-year-old who doesn't remember her mom and will be with her exclusively in a city where people wear nothing but black clothes and children begin smoking at the age of four-and-a-half. Gigi asks if there will be any food on the plane to France. "There will be food," Lorelai says, "but airplane food is one of life's cruel jokes, so just in case, we have snacks out the wazoo."
Christopher comes out of the house hauling luggage, and Lorelai asks whether he's sure the flight leaves at 3:30, because she feels like she remembers it being later. "It's, uh, 3:30-ish," he says, not assuaging her skepticism. "Why do I feel like the departure is 6:15?" she asks, but he puts her off again. After saying au revoir to the house, and agreeing that Gigi is going to have big-time fun spending two months with her mommy, they take off for the airport. Chris mentions that they'll have to stop for gas, but Lorelai wonders, after he has made such a big deal of having to hurry for the airport, how they'll have time. "Because," he says, smiling triumphantly, "our flight's not for three and a half hours!" Ha ha! Fooled you, Lorelai, and fooled me, too, until a reader with more than two ounces of sense alerted me to the very dumb math involved in Chris's alleged charade. What time is it that they're actually leaving? If the flight IS at 6:15 and he was trying to trick her into getting there for a 3:30-ish departure...what time is it, now? 7 AM? Where is the airport? How long does it take to get there? Because three and a half hours prior is not in any way a ridiculous amount to time to leave for an international flight. I realize that these are picky details but...honestly, the joke doesn't work if there's no joke! If he's not fooling her into actually leaving early, what's supposed to be so funny? ["For those of us who have spent five hours at an airport gate because of their dad's compulsive earliness, there really is no joke." -- Wing Chun] Conversely, if two trains leave Chattanooga five hours apart, at what time will the southbound cross the prime meridian? I don't know, either.
In Stars Hollow, Rory and The Quirks are sitting in the porch swing, hair foils on their heads, looking through Rory's scrapbooks. She shows them a picture of Dean, whom they pronounce cute, and a photo of Rory working on the Chilton paper. Ah, the good ol' days. Let us take a moment to remember them fondly, especially since the few minutes are taken up by Lucy, who goes into what can only be described as a quirkspin, talking about how Boyfriend is going to flip out about her new hair color and how Boyfriend himself has great hair, like one of the Rice Krispies guys. It is so irritating that I want to shave my teeth when they're done. Even Alexis Bledel is visibly pained. They then go inside, where the girls notice Rory's growth chart inside the closet. "Can you believe you were this short in 1991?" Lucy asks pointing to a low mark on the door. Aw, shit. I graduated high school in 1991. OLD. ["Class of '92, right here, and I feel you. Yesterday I had to run out of a Hollister because the music was too loud." -- Wing Chun] "Check it out," Olivia says sweetly. "The year you shot up like weed." Rory laughs: "That's when I finally stopped smoking." Rory is slightly wistful looking at her little timeline, but distracts herself with the prospect of Rice Krispies treats.
Back in Paris, Christopher and Lorelai arrive, all dressed up, at yet another closed restaurant. It's L'arpege. Lorelai points out that if the place was closed in the middle of the night, it's still going to be closed at 5 in the morning, but Chris knocks and, surprise surprise, the door is opened by a dashing maître d', who leads Chris and Lorelai to their table, which is surrounded by a veritable coterie of restaurant staff. "What is this?" Lorelai whispers excitedly, asking how in the world Christopher pulled it off. Lorelai looks so beautiful and the Eiffel Tower is visible through the restaurant window and yes, fine, this is very romantic, sure. Fine. What, is my heart made of stone? For thirty whole seconds, my gargoyle heart softens. Until...Christopher starts talking about how he had been thinking about how their teenaged dreams of going to Paris got derailed -- "I'll say," Lorelai gushes -- and that it's amazing that, after everything they've been through, here they are like no time has passed at all and nothing has changed. Hmm. No time at all, like Rory's whole life? But then, Chris adds, he remembered that the one thing that has changed is that now he's totally loaded. "You totally bribed them to open," Lorelai says, shocked. But...how? Did he call the owner at home somehow or...I know, I know. It shouldn't matter. But it does! It's allegedly 5 AM and they're about to sit down to a full-course French meal? Augh! Whatever: Lorelai is suitably impressed. "Anything for you," says Chris. "Anything." She says that this is all wonderful and that she's happy. As a matter of fact, she would have been happy with a croissant on a park bench, which he reminds her was part of their teenaged Paris dreams. "I'd still sleep on a park bench with you," says Chris intensely. With fresh wet eyes, Lorelai looks back and tells him to name the bench. "I love you," she whispers to him across the table, and I believe her. "I love you, too," he says and after making plans to return to their beautiful hotel bed after their meal, they lean across the table for a romantic kiss in front of the shining Tower.