Those Are Strings, Pinocchio

How is Paris neither the valedictorian nor the salutatorian?

We open with the mark of Daniel Palladino: the Troubadour, singing a song about a Peace Train. Lorelai and Rory, loaded down with their European backpacks, shove the Troubadour out of their way, calling him "Peace Boy."

Inside Luke's, we see that other guy who is sometimes Cesar, when Cesar doesn't have any lines. Lorelai halts the "wuss patrol." The girls throw down their backpacks and complain about how heavy they are. Lorelai doesn't even want to backpack across Europe now that she knows how heavy backpacking across Europe is. Lorelai was picturing spry, accommodating, mustachioed men who would carry their backpacks for them. She's glad her new walking shoes are now broken in. Luke chastises Lorelai for trying to take her shoes off in his diner. Lorelai says she doesn't see a "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" sign. Luke declares himself the sign, and asks them if they can move their backpacks. Rory whines that they can't. Luke moves them himself, so Lorelai asks him to grow a mustache and follow them around Europe. Luke says he already has travel plans of his own: he's going on a cruise up to Alaska with Nicole. Doesn't it take a very long time to drive across Canada over to the coast? I'm just guessing. ["It would probably take them about five days, if they were stopping every night and not driving straight through. Glark and his dad once made it from Los Angeles to southern Ontario in eighteen hours, without stopping." -- Wing Chun] Luke might want to close the diner for more than two weeks. Also: since when does Luke close his diner for anything? Lorelai teases Luke for getting so intimate with Nicole, and asks if he plans to propose. Luke does not plan on proposing, and didn't realize a cruise was such an intimate affair. Lorelai thinks that after spending a few hours on The Love Boat, and one too many mojitos from Issac, he might be singing a different tune. Luke tells them to drop it. Lorelai begins singing the different tune again -- the one that starts, "The Love Boat!" She tells Luke that if he had a radio in his diner, she wouldn't have to sing songs.

Luke changes the subject by asking Rory if her graduation is still Wednesday at 4. Rory tells him again that he doesn't have to come. Luke says he wants to, since feels like he went through Chilton with her over the past three years. Rory says she wants him there, and is glad he's coming. Lorelai and Rory decide they aren't hungry anymore, so they go home to rest. Luke asks them to not leave their backpacks at the restaurant. Rory tells him to store them for him, avoiding the great joke: "Put them where Jess used to be." Lorelai promises that they'll hire a flatbed truck to haul them away. I'll bet they could hire Kirk to wear a mustache and follow them around Europe. Lorelai and Rory leave, bickering over which one should have to carry the other. Luke raises his hands, wishing there was a joke or a moment to end this scene on, but...no. Opening credits.

Sookie and Lorelai stand outside the Dragonfly. They yell for Luke to hurry up and get out of there. Luke walks out and complains that he walked right into a cobweb. Lorelai and Sookie feign sympathy for .02 seconds and then ask for the story on the inn. Luke says it's not so bad. Sookie and Lorelai are sure that means it's also not so good. The floors need work. The roof is fine, but needs some shingles replaced. Kirk yells from the top floor that he hasn't yet found any mold, which he terms "silent death." Kirk tells us how Ed McMahon's dog suffered memory loss because of the mold in his house. Kirk neglects to mention how ol' Ed sued the companies that were supposed to rid his house of mold for millions of dollars. And he won. Is it weird that my spellcheck knows the name "Ed McMahon"? I think so. Luke tells Lorelai that they're going to have to spend money to fix the inn, but that it won't be a money pit. Sookie and Lorelai celebrate their good fortune. I don't know why Lorelai still hasn't brought up the whole "I can't pay for the inn because Rory has to go to Yale" thing. Luke says they could probably have the inn up and running in five months. Sookie says that's plenty of time to have the Independence find their replacements. If the Independence Inn is so close to her heart, how come Lorelai doesn't mind opening an inn that's in direct competition? And why wouldn't she want to start it with Mia, the woman who raised her, and who gave her and Rory a chance when nobody else would? Kirk runs from the house screeching: he found a mouse.

Chilton. A girl gives her farewell to the videocamera, talking about how close she was with everyone at Chilton, including the janitorial staff. Paris impatiently waits nearby. Rory reminds Paris that people get a little nostalgic at these graduation things. Paris asks Rory how her valedictorian speech is going. Rory tries to blow past the subject, so Paris tells her that she's not upset about Rory beating her for valedictorian. And salutatorian, I say again. Paris has done some research, and found out that most valedictorians who went on to Ivy League schools then went on to less-than-stellar futures. She lists off some of her findings, including business failures, suicides, divorces, obesity, and car crashes: "One suffocated when his cat fell asleep on his face." Rory thanks Paris for the info. Louisa props a leg up on the chair and tells the "AV geek" to pan up her body, since this will be the best she ever looks in her life. Paris pushes Louisa out of the way and announces, "AV geek? I'm going to need six minutes." The AV geek tells her she's only allowed two. Paris launches into her six-minute speech.

Independence Inn. Michel and Sookie are behind the desk. "I hate this," Michel drones. Sookie explains to us that they currently only have one guest, since the rest of the Inn is still under construction from the fire. Again I wonder, why do they still have a gourmet chef on the books when they don't have a kitchen? Michel complains that he pulled towel duty today, and that it's awful when you know exactly who those towels belonged to: "It's his mites on those towels." He says it's degrading. Sookie complains about her deteriorating chef skills. Michel wishes for mental stimulation. Sookie wishes she could fry a dead animal in a skillet. "I should have been a dancer," Michel moans. "My mother put me in dance school and I rebelled. I wanted to kick the football. I should not have." Sookie says that Michel looks like a duck when he dances. I hope Lorelai plans to hire Michel at her inn, because if this is the last episode for Michel, I will cry. Michel tells Sookie he's getting mighty sick of her. They bicker over towels. They bicker about the guest. Sookie keeps saying the word "stupid" over and over again until Lorelai walks up and scolds them for arguing in front of their one guest. Sookie won't stop, and teases Michel again for wanting to be a dancer. Michel asks how long they can keep the Inn up when most of the rooms are closed, they have one guest, he's doing "mite towels," and the owner's son is walking around wearing a frown while he evaluates things. Lorelai says that John, the owner's son, is only there to figure out what renovations need to be done so they can open up all the closed rooms. She tells them to stop worrying. Michel and Sookie just abandon the front desk together in an awkwardly directed moment.

The phone rings, and Lorelai answers it. It's Emily, who wants to know if they'll be sitting together at the graduation. Lorelai takes her sweet time "thinking it over" and then says that of course they'll be sitting together, since they're family. Emily says she knew that, but she wasn't sure if Lorelai remembered. Richard is also on the phone, and he wants to ask Lorelai about a gift for Rory. Richard narrates his walk toward the couch while talking on the phone, prompting Lorelai to joke that this is like the days of radio. Once Richard and Emily are seated together, they ask Lorelai if they can buy Rory a car for graduation. This is suddenly not a problem for Lorelai, who doesn't mind this kind of extravagant gift because Rory will need a car to be able to drive all the way from Yale to Stars Hollow every single moment she's not in class. Lorelai concludes, "So it's really kind of a present for me, too." And therefore it's fine. Emily and Richard aren't amused that they're somehow giving Lorelai a gift. Lorelai asks them to not buy Rory a gas-guzzler, a Ferrari, or a Lamborghini. Lorelai says she'll maybe see them at the graduation. They hang up. Richard and Emily share a look.

John, the owner's son, walks up to Lorelai's front desk and begins rifling through a drawer. Lorelai tells him she just lied to her friends and co-workers by saying it wasn't a big deal that he's there. He says that they have to close off three more rooms, and that the estimate isn't pretty. Lorelai says they'll be left with only two rooms if they close off three more. "Mom's leaning toward selling," John says. Wouldn't Lorelai be close friends with John, since he would have been around the Inn while they were both growing up? Why do I always try to make this show fit all the rules, when they don't care? Lorelai says it'd be sad if the Inn closed, since Rory grew up there, as did Lorelai. Yeah, well, once you open your inn and take away the Independence's remaining clients, you'll be pretty much slamming the final nail into the coffin, won't you, Lor? ["Plus I think the jury's still out on whether Lorelai ever grew up." -- Wing Chun] John doesn't want to hear Lorelai's maudlin monologue, either, so he excuses himself back to his group. Lorelai tells him to be careful not to trip over their guest. He promises he won't, and we fade to commercial. I wish this episode were at least funny.

Why does Kate Hudson get to keep being in movies?

Jackson and Sookie's house. Lorelai interrupts their evening alone by shouting through their door that they'd better not be in bed. She's brought champagne to celebrate. Lorelai tells Sookie to get glasses and orders Jackson to put on any music he wants, as long as it's festive. Lorelai immediately negates Jackson's first two choices of festive music until he suggests something she likes. The music's on, the glasses are ready. Lorelai pours two glasses of champagne for herself and Jackson, and pours a glass of apple juice for Sookie. They raise their glasses, and Lorelai announces that the Independence Inn has just closed down. They're all out of jobs. Sookie and Lorelai have no income, and therefore Lorelai can't afford to pay for the Dragonfly, because somehow her weekly salary at the Independence was going to be enough to offset the cost of Yale, but without her five hundred bucks a week or so, now she can't afford to buy a building and put her daughter through an Ivy League school. Television money is awesome. I wish I had a television job, like Monica's sometimes-chef work that allows her to live in that kick-ass apartment with Chandler, who's interning. ["Hey! He has a real job now! He's a copywriter!" -- Wing Chun] Or Joey, who works every once in a while. ["Dude, he's on Days, remember?" -- Wing Chun] ["Yeah, now. But for the first million seasons he lived off Chandler and sandwiches. And how much does Phoebe charge by the hour, anyway?" -- Pamie] Or how Frasier lives in the richest apartment in Seattle by being a radio-show host. I write a weekly column here and I wrote a book. Can I have Carrie Bradshaw's brownstone and thirty-thousand-dollar closet of shoes? Anyway, the three pretend to still be super-happy as they drink their drinks and realize that they won't see each other as often and will have to find different jobs now that their dreams have died and a baby's on the way. You'd think Sookie and Lorelai would be happy to know the Inn has closed so there's no competition with their own inn. Why not take out a loan? Or see if Mia wants to be a part owner in their inn? I must stop caring so much. Do you think all this faux happiness is exactly how all the actors look after getting a script like this at a table read? Working so hard to pretend you're happy with the way things have turned out?

Townie alert! Taylor reads off his latest proposal, but he's been talking so long that the entire town hall has drifted off. He asks for all in favor and those opposed, but nobody raises a hand on either request. Gypsy gets her one line of the season here. She's sitting to CuteDean, who is without MrsDean. In fact, there's an empty chair to him. Babette tells Taylor that his voice always makes her think of her grocery list. She nudges Morey and tells him they need croutons. Taylor wants to talk about the deer population. The town groans, because they're sick of Taylor always complaining about the deer. Nobody wants to kill little Bambis, and the only person with an actual deer problem is Taylor, who has brought a photograph of his back yard (CuteDean is getting paid to help Taylor present Exhibit A (Kirk wants to know how much)) to show how the deer are eating crops. Taylor pretends not to have noticed that his example is a photograph of his back yard. Kirk suggests releasing a pack of wolves to eat the deer, because then all they'd have to worry about is the roving pack of wolves. Miss Patty pulls rank and declares the meeting adjourned and this topic postponed for another year. The townies file out.

Rory walks in and finds Lane, who tells Rory she's got to go because she's still grounded. She hands Rory a shopping bag full of photographs from her prom. It's a second-by-second photo essay of the evening. How sad is it that Rory didn't get to go to prom at all? And that we didn't get to see Lane go to prom? And that Lane is still so grounded that she's not going to be allowed to be at Rory's graduation? And that Lane's still going to that college she hates, but she doesn't seem upset about it? And that Dave didn't come to the town meeting to at least sit with Lane for the fifteen minutes she's allowed out of the house this week?

Anyway, this entire scene is so that CuteDean and Rory can be alone in Miss Patty's studio right now. CuteDean is still pissed off at Rory for not throwing him a bridal shower. Rory's solution is to offer him a few wedding tips she learned from the Inn. Like: make sure the photographer takes candid photographs along with posed shots. Brilliant. And don't give the ring to the ringbearer until the last second. CuteDean says it's been overwhelming, renting the hall and stuff. Rory then takes fifteen minutes making the two of them sit to each other before she hands him a Williams-Sonoma catalog, telling him to pick something so she can buy it. She's even highlighted things that he'll need, like everything. Hey, Rory? You think they might register for gifts? Anyway, CuteDean's stoked that Rory will buy him a set of knives, a blender, or some mixing bowls. He'll need that Swiss Army Knife on the set of Young MacGyver. CuteDean: make Rory buy you a bed. Hysterical! Rory tells CuteDean to figure out, with Lindsay, what he wants, and let Rory know so she can order it. The strummy-strummy-la-la music comes on here, just for me, I know, and I have to pause the TiVo because this is the saddest moment of the season for me. "Bye, Dean," Rory says. So much potential, so many opportunities lost. "Bye, Rory," CuteDean says. So many moments that were good and then it all kind of died, didn't it? Their love for each other, our love for them...it all dissolved in a sea of apathy. He was such a good character in the beginning, all strong and silent, supporting her and urging her to be a better person. Now he just seems kind of clueless and pathetic. Married. Whatever. Goodbye, CuteDean. I know I've prematurely wished you goodbye before, but I'm pretty sure this is it for you. Thanks for at one time being the boyfriend I wish I had. Get a haircut; stay in school. And don't wear long sleeves under a polo shirt again, please.

Sookie and Lorelai are pinning Rory's graduation gown to her. Rory mumbles a very long sentence about not being able to fit in the dress now that they've pinned it. Sookie moans that she should go, since she has a "stupid" job interview tomorrow morning. It sounds like it's for a much better job than the one she has: if she got it, she'd be an executive chef four nights a week. Sookie says she can't imagine working somewhere else. Rory's all, "What are you guys talking about?" and once again she finds out that Lorelai was keeping information from her. Sookie excuses herself as Lorelai sits and tells Rory they're not buying the Dragonfly. Why did they put that weird gray cardigan over Rory's pretty pink dress? Rory tells Lorelai that she should use the rest of Richard's money (funny, I thought it was Lorelai's money) to pay for the inn, and they'll scrimp by. "They"? Rory, you just graduated. You are on your own, sister. Have fun getting a jobby-job. Lorelai confesses to Rory that they didn't get financial aid, and then explains to Rory why Yale didn't give them financial aid (things we already know, so I don't have to recap them here). Rory says she doesn't want that money to pay for Yale. She says she'll take out a student loan. Lorelai doesn't want Rory to graduate college deep in debt, like the rest of us had to do. Rory says she'll change her major to Business or Engineering to make sure she'll graduate to a great job that'll make her tons of money. Yes, I heard that amused, jaded, cynical "Ha!" from all of you graduates out there. Lorelai tells Rory she's not allowed to change her degree from Journalism, something so many of you angry Ivy Leaguers were complaining about on the forums, saying that Harvard and Yale wouldn't offer an undergraduate journalism degree. Lorelai tells Rory that she'll need to work as an intern or Tom Brokaw's toupee straightener when she gets out of college. Rory says there has to be another way. Lorelai says there isn't, and promises to have an inn of her own someday, but Yale comes first. Rory storms out of the room, saying she's off to "rail at God for a while." Lorelai takes a second before she says, "Tell her I said hi."

Love how they used that second in the midway teaser to make it look like Rory and Lorelai were in a fight. Not that there has been a second of actual conflict in this episode. But then really, that's the only thing that has actually happened in thirty minutes. They summed up the entire episode in Lorelai saying the money was paying for college, Rory saying no, and then Lorelai calling out Rory's name. What is driving this thing? The promise of the end of the season? Waiting for Rory's speech? I am so bored!

Lorelai is standing over a living room's worth of clothes, complaining that her packing elves didn't show up in the middle of the night to pack. Hey, here's an idea: if you don't have any money? Don't go flying to Europe. Rory holds up a black turtleneck and asks what Lorelai thinks. "You hate the graduation dress I made you that much?" Ba-dum-bum. And when does Lorelai sew? And...I'm stopping now. They decide that the turtleneck is perfect for Europe, since it's black and will hide the dirt and wrinkles. Rory says they both need to cut weight from their packs. She says that Lorelai doesn't need five pairs of boots. Lorelai says she'll drop some boots if Rory drops some books. Rory says she needs all of her books. Rory tells Lorelai she doesn't need so many panties (she calls them "undergarments," but since I'm a real human being, I say "panties" or "underwear"), since they'll be rinsing in Woolite every few days. Lorelai is grossed out at her panty future. Rory asks why Lorelai is bringing three full tubes of toothpaste. Lorelai says she needs a back-up one in case she loses a tube. Rory says she can bring twelve books and a dictionary if Lorelai needs three tubes of toothpaste. Lorelai threatens to bring a gallon of mercury, since it's so heavy. They decide to cancel the trip, and Rory's off to graduation, saying she loves her dress. I'd love it more if she took off that cardigan. The trip is back on when the girls agree to nine books for two toothpastes. Whew! I was worried.