Ballroom & Biscotti

Welcome back, Stars Hollow lovers. Who'd have known the show would still be here for the fourth season? We'd have known, that's who.

We open with strummy-strummy-la-la music. Pull back from Babette's garden gnomes to Lorelai and Rory pouting in their front lawn as a taxi van pulls away. Lorelai growls at it as it leaves. "And we're home," Rory moans. I guess Lorelai's supposed to look like she raided an Irish gift shop before she left, but she's wearing clothes easily purchased at Delia's or Urban Outfitters. Lorelai complains about how long the van ride was: "Everybody's life flashed before my eyes. That's how much time I had!" She says it felt longer than their train ride from Paris to Prague, when they had a group of French schoolboys behind them, singing and smelling like a soccer field.

"Oh my God!" we hear Babette warble from her doorway. She runs out of her house and over to the girls, shouting "You're back! Morey, they're back!" She asks if they're hurt or bleeding. She's hysterical. Lorelai says they're fine. "They're fine!" Babette shrieks. She jerks her head back toward her front door. "Morey! They're fine! Morey!" Morey opens the door and asks, "Yeah?" "They're fine!" Babette screams again. Babette says she was terribly worried, because according to the itinerary that Rory had given Babette, the girls were supposed to be home on Saturday. Lorelai shoots a raised eyebrow at Rory. "The itinerary that Rory gave you?" she asks. Rory looks away, faux-innocently. Babette further explains that when the girls didn't come back on Saturday, she panicked. "Morey!" she shouts. Morey opens the door. "Yeah?" "Didn't we panic?" she asks. "Yeah," Morey agrees. As he shuts the front door again, Lorelai asks Morey if he ever thought about just staying outside at times like these. Babette says that by Sunday night, she was terrified, and sure that the girls had been kidnapped by crazy Sandinistas, so she began calling consulates: "Aw, jeez, all of 'em!" Babette says they should go inside so that she can hear all about Europe: "Morey! I'm goin' in!" She runs past the girls and over to the house, where I'm assuming the front door is locked, but whatever. Lorelai asks Rory why she gave Babette an itinerary. Rory thought it would be good for someone to know where they were in case there was an emergency: "If we were caught smuggling hash over the border and we were thrown in some Turkish prison, wouldn't you want someone to know we were in Turkey?" Lorelai wants to know where they got this hash they were smuggling. Rory quickly responds, "You were at a café, you met a guy, he was sweet-talking you, he put the stuff in your purse when you weren't looking." Lorelai wants to know if he was cute. "He was not bad for a hash dealer," Rory replies. Lorelai gives Rory's gigantic backpack an appreciative pat.

Babette has a key. Just for all of you trivia buffs out there. She's already inside, making cocoa, when the girls walk through their front door. Lorelai once again reminds Rory that the only reason they have to have Babette make them cocoa right now is because Rory gave her an itinerary. "I may have given her an itinerary," Rory says, "but you're the one who got us busted for drug-smuggling." Rory leaves, and Lorelai notes, "Reality has absolutely no place in our world."

In the kitchen, Babette once again says that she wants to hear all about Europe. Rory and Lorelai take seats at the kitchen table. Lorelai gives a run-down of all the things they saw. Rory brags that Lorelai touched the Pope. Lorelai explains that she really just touched his car, until one of the Swiss guards ("in the fruity-cool clothing") busted her. But she got away with it: "Flirting with a guy in a pom pom hat and a skirt is quite an accomplishment." Lorelai gives Rory the signal to yawn -- the signal of which is, conveniently enough, to mime a yawn. Rory immediately busts out her fake yawn, which Babette takes to immediately. Not even finishing the cocoa she's been making, Babette high-tails it out of the house, screaming to Morey that she's on her way home. Rory wants to unpack, but Lorelai thinks she should wait until tomorrow. "No, if I leave stuff til tomorrow everything's gonna get gross," Rory moans. Lorelai points out that everything is already gross.

Rory gives a happy sigh as she walks into her bedroom. Lorelai follows, and plops down on the bed. She moans and groans, joyous in how good the bed feels. Rory tells her not to get too comfortable. Lorelai tell Rory to smell her pillow. She says she'd forgotten that pillows don't have to smell like feet. Rory hangs her jacket up in the closet as Lorelai says it's good she did this youth-hostel thing in her thirties. Rory falls into her closet, holding all of her clothes in her arms, cooing, "I missed you! I missed you all!" Hee. Lorelai says that if she had done this trip in her twenties or teens, she would have been naive enough to think that youth hostels were romantic and exotic. But in your thirties, you're old enough to know that they are gross and should be avoided at all costs. But Rory's still talking to her clothes, telling them that she had a dream about them in Copenhagen: "And you were there, and you, and you and you!" Lorelai says that they should go to sleep right now and wake up early so they don't blow this week being jet-lagged. She wants to get into a normal sleeping pattern right away. Huh? Lorelai? Did they switch the lines here or something? Lorelai leaves to take a shower, allowing Rory time to make out with her sock drawer. Rory tells Lorelai to close the door. She opens her sock drawer and flirts, "Hello, boys." This prompts a disgusting conversation between my boyfriend and me as to why a girl would call her socks "boys," and why a boy would only call his socks "girls." I'll tell you my favorite part, though. He said, "But you put stuff in socks!" "What stuff?" "Never mind."

Kirk's in the credits. And Lane. And Paris. And Michel. So even though three of these people aren't in this episode, they're still around for this season. And because they were sick of the Jess v. Dean debate, both boys are gone. Look what we did.

The morning Lorelai and Rory are laying out and labeling all of the souvenirs. Lorelai is on the phone with one of the consulates, letting them know that both Lorelai Gilmores are home safely. More trivia for your make-at-home Gilmore Girls game: Babette's last name is "Dell." Lorelai tells the Belgian consulate that she and Rory both loved the fries. Lorelai says she's taking a break before calling the Netherlands. Rory says that Babette only did this because she loves them. Lorelai: "Well, be a little less lovable, would you? Because it's costing me a fortune." Lorelai says she'd rather Rory were more like one of those girls about whom people would say, "Oh, really? She was kidnapped? Hey. Well. Thin the herd." Rory asks whom the rosary beads are for. Lorelai says they're hers. Rory asks what she needs them for. "They're cute," Lorelai says. "They're for prayer," Rory informs her. Lorelai: "Well, pray they match my blue suit?" Hee. I've got about seven different rosaries because I, too, find them "cute." But I don't know if I'd wear them as a fashion accessory. Wait. I do wear a Our Lady of the Guadalupe medallion every once in a while. And it says "Pray for Us" on one side, which really makes my boyfriend uncomfortable, because he, like Rory, thinks I'm getting a Jacuzzi and queen-sized bed in my junior suite in Hell. Lorelai asks whom the Pieta placemat is for (Gypsy). I am totally coveting Rory's shirt in this scene. And Lorelai's shirt.

Another confusing turn of events: Lorelai has scheduled their week. This is the last week before Rory leaves for college, so Lorelai wants to make sure they've gotten everything covered. Today is distributing gifts and then hitting the mall. Tomorrow they see three crappy movies and then dinner at Emily's. Saturday they're off to New York for art galleries and the Strand. "Yes!" Rory shouts, which is what I shouted as we passed it in a cab this summer, the closest I got to going to the Strand. In fact, the other people in the cab were like, "That would be your favorite place in the world, Pam. Biggest bookstore in the world. There it goes. It's so tiny now. Bye, Pam's favorite place. We're off to see the Matthew Barney exhibit! Woo! Yay, Cremaster Cycle!" ["The Strand? Not so great. It's cramped and hot and all the books -- even the new ones -- have coffee stains or cigarette ashes on them. It's just as well you didn't go, because you would have been really disappointed." -- Wing Chun] Lorelai is still talking. Sunday, they pick up school supplies and then there's a barbecue at Sookie's. Monday is mani-pedi-facial, haircut, and stocking up for Tuesday, the day of all days: the day they watch all three Godfather films with extra showings of the Sofia death scene. Back when I lived in Austin, I did a theatre piece once with two friends called We Are So Much Better Than Everybody Else, where we had a contest to see who would be crowned The Rightest. We took questions from the audience concerning movies, and would discuss the answers. Then the audience would vote on who was the rightest out of the three of us, settling all arguments for the year. Although I had mad points for "What are your five favorite movies?" because Chuy had the balls to answer, "I'm going to put Citizen Kane as my favorite movie, even though I've never seen it, because I'm sure it is." But the winner and still champion, since we've never held a rematch, was my friend Jeff who, when asked "What's the worst line from a film ever?" stood up immediately, crossed his eyes and whimpered, "Dad?" and then spun on his heels and fell on his face. The audience broke into applause. I still say mine's a pretty good answer, too: "Is it raining? I hadn't noticed." But yay, Jeff. You are still the rightest. See you soon. Rory says that Tuesday will be the perfect day. She says they have just enough biscotti from Milan to last them the week. Lorelai says that everything is in order, so they should get going delivering gifts. There's so much stuff, though, that the girls don't know how to get it out of the house. Lorelai says they need some tote bags. Rory doesn't know where, how, or why they'd have a tote bag. Lorelai: "Every woman who's ever purchased seventy-five dollars' worth Clinique products has some tote bags!" Hee! You also get tote bags from: movie festivals, interactive festivals, screenwriting festivals, charity events, walkathons, and being Djb's friend. Rory says they don't have any tote bags. Lorelai wonders how they're going to get that stuff out of the house.

Cut to Lorelai and Rory walking down the street wearing their gigantic backpacks. "Now we're the quirky backpack ladies!" Lorelai complains. Rory notes that they've had worse nicknames in the past. Lorelai says that they should be efficient with this, working clockwise around the town from Miss Patty to Andrew. They will stick to the "My mom touched the Pope" anecdote, since it's quick, peppy and everybody likes a nice Pope story. Rory asks whether they have time to stop at Luke's as she's starving. Lorelai says they do. "This is our week. This week we do anything we want." Rory says she likes this week. As they head toward Luke's, Lorelai wonders if Luke and Nicole actually went on their cruise. Rory wonders why they wouldn't go. Lorelai says that Luke would actually have to pack, leave, and buy a bathing suit, all three of which would prevent him from going. Rory says that Luke could use a vacation, and that he really seems to like Nicole. Lorelai gets all weird, as she's supposed to do whenever someone mentions that Luke might not fawn on her from afar.

Lorelai and Rory see that Taylor's soda shoppe is now open, and right inside the doors we can see Taylor and Luke is a furious argument. Luke is telling Taylor that he is going to kill him, and that he should have killed him a while ago, the minute Taylor put up the unicorn topiaries in the park. Rory says to Lorelai, "Oh, I missed that!" Lorelai decides that this is a biscotti moment. The girls crunch into biscotti, sans coffee. Luke is furious with Taylor for installing a giant window in one wall of the shoppe -- the wall that Taylor shares with Luke's diner. Luke: "You can see my entire diner! And when I'm in my diner I can see your whole stupid store!" Taylor can't understand why Luke's is a "diner," but his is a "stupid store." Luke begins tearing through the soda shoppe, pointing out all of the stupid things. He says of Taylor's old-tyme striped outfit, "All you need is [sic] six dancing penguins and Mary Poppins floating in the corner to bring back the worst two hours of my childhood!" Lorelai giggles at Rory and nods: point for Luke. Taylor says he doesn't think Luke even had a childhood, and that he came out a bitter, surly killjoy. Luke screams that Taylor can't change the basic structure of the building without Luke's okay. Taylor gets nervous and antsy. It seems that Luke's hand is dangerously close to the wax lips. Luke gleefully buries his arms into the wax lips. He then touches all of the different candies in the store, tossing them into the air with great abandon. Lorelai suddenly remembers: they forgot Luke. They couldn't find any gift good enough for him, and then they forgot entirely to get him anything. Lorelai curses herself for not getting him that matador outfit. Lorelai says they'll have to pick up something in Stars Hollow and pass it off as European. Rory says that, in Stars Hollow, everything you buy has a Hello Kitty stamped on the bottom. Lorelai says that they can't go into Luke's empty-handed. Rory complains that she's hungry. They head in the other direction, and we can see that Luke and Taylor's fight is still raging on.

Sookie's. Sookie runs down the front steps to hug the girls. She's quite pregnant now. "Hey! Don't squish baby!" Jackson yells from the front door. Everybody hugs. "You look older!" Sookie gushes to Rory. "Oh, thanks, Sookie!" Rory says back. Sookie says she can't wait to hear everything they did and everything they ate. She asks if it was warm, since she read that it was warm. ["It was -- 'warm' enough to kill thousands of French people." -- Wing Chun] As Sookie keeps asking a barrage of questions about Anne Frank and Steven Spielberg, Jackson gently leads her back into the house. Sookie has already heard that Lorelai touched the Pope. She asks if they'd like some quiche. Lorelai says that first she needs to look at Sookie sideways. Lorelai touches Sookie's stomach and introduces herself and Rory to the baby. Rory's a bit baby-shy, and doesn't want to come too close to the belly. Neither does Jackson, actually. Jackson says he'll like it when it comes out. Lorelai asks if it's a boy or a girl. Before Sookie can say, Jackson shuts her up. He's wearing a button that says he doesn't want to know the sex of his baby. He's going old-school on this, and wants to be surprised in the delivery room, just like Ricky Ricardo and Dick Van Dyke both were. (It's a two-Dick Van Dyke episode.) Sookie does know the sex of the baby, and is willing to tell Lorelai in a secret room. Jackson convinces Rory to stay on his side, promising to pace the waiting room with her, ready to give out cigars. Rory likes the sound of that, and puts on a button. I guess Lorelai will have to be Sookie's Lamaze coach. "Welcome to 1954," Jackson says to Rory as he hands her a bowl of buttons. Lorelai and Sookie leave to find out the sex of the baby. Rory and Jackson lean back on the couch, smugly. "So, you hear about that whole Sputnik thing?" Rory asks Jackson. Jackson calmly responds: "Oh, Eisenhower's on top of it." Ha.

Lorelai can't believe that Jackson isn't going to be in the delivery room with Sookie. Sookie says she doesn't even like Jackson to see her shaving her legs, so she doesn't mind that he's not going to be there. Sometimes this show gets so weird with its old-fashioned notions. Sookie shouts that she's opening the shed. She does so. It's a boy. Sookie and Lorelai hug and coo about boys. "Jackson will finally have that son to prune the trees with," Sookie says. Lorelai says it's all so exciting. "I know nothing about little boys," she says. "Me neither!" Sookie giggles. Lorelai and Sookie pull up a couple of blue chairs and instantly turn the subject back to Lorelai, and how nice it is that she's home. Then Lorelai asks whether Luke went on the cruise. Sookie says he did. Lorelai determines that it's good he went, because he needed a vacation. Sookie says she thinks that something weird happened on the cruise, because Luke wouldn't talk to her and Sookie about it the last time they went to the diner. Lorelai asks if it was because Jackson was wearing that creepy button. Sookie says that Luke seemed kind of freaked out about something, but that she doesn't know what. Lorelai can't even hide her smile to ask if maybe Luke and Nicole got into a fight. Lorelai asks if Sookie's going to name the baby "Lorelai." Sookie: "Absolutely. That wouldn't be confusing at all."

Walking over to Luke's, Rory can't believe that Lorelai took jam from Sookie's house and is planning to pass it off as fine fancy jam from France. Lorelai says the label says fruits de la terre. Rory says Lorelai didn't even spellcheck it. Lorelai says that in her world, the person who made this jam was an illiterate orphan named Sochelle. "As in Sochelle crab," Rory notes. "Exactly. Sochelle was born by the sea, or so said the note left in the bassinette when the nuns found her on the steps of Notre Dame." Lorelai says that every sad story has to have nuns. Sochelle had nothing -- no father, friends, or education -- only a burning desire to make great jam. And now she's the most successful jamstress in all of France. Rory skips off to give Lane her gift. "Don't give him the jam," Rory begs. Lorelai says she can't hear Rory, now that she's so far away. Rory goes into Kim's Antiques, but sadly we don't get to follow her.

Luke's. Lorelai says bonjour and then asks Luke in French whether he knows how to tie his shoes. Luke gives her a cup of coffee. "You remembered," she coos. Luke says that a couple of things about her stuck. He asks if she had a good time. Lorelai responds in French, "Your cat smells." She said they had the best time. They were supposed to come in on Saturday, but stayed longer. Luke says he knew she was supposed to come back on Saturday. "Keeping tabs on me?" she asks. Luke says it's always good to know from which direction the tornado is coming. Lorelai tells a rather pointless story about camping out with Rory at an Irish hotel called the Clarence, waiting to see if Bono made an appearance, since U2 owns it. He didn't. They sat in a bar for two days and did nothing but eat soda crackers and funky cheese. Lorelai says that she told the group of girls they were hanging with in the Irish bar about Luke. "Señor Swanky Pants," she calls him. Why is Lorelai gushing about Luke to a group of strangers on the other side of the world? Because she looooooves him, that's why. Lorelai says they got him something. Luke tries to play his excitement cool, but he's kind of blushing. And Lorelai's trying to not look like she's lying. But as soon as Lorelai busts out the part of the Sochelle story that includes the word "jamstress," Luke knows it's bullshit. Lorelai drops the game and confesses that they never found anything good enough for him. Luke says they're even, since he didn't get her anything on his trip either. Lorelai asks how the cruise was, and Luke immediately walks away, busying himself with clearing tables and refilling cups as he makes tiny noises to answer questions instead of inviting a discussion. Lorelai asks what they did on the boat. "Oh, you know, we fluttered around and ate and there was a magic show and a singer and pillow mints and...you know, that's it." Lorelai asks if they had a good time. Luke makes a beeline to check on her order. Lorelai yells that she hasn't ordered anything yet.

Rory passes Kirk, who's hanging up a poster with her face on it. She says hello, and he says, "Bienvenido, Señora Gilmore." She's a señorita, Kirk. Rory runs back to inspect the poster, which features a terrible photo of Rory with a clip-art crown Photoshopped to her forehead, and declares her the Ice Cream Queen.

Taylor is giving triple innuendo directions to his ice cream jerks about how to serve up a bowl of ice cream. It's totally just to give Taylor this line: "Nice symmetrical balls there, Joshua." Ha. "Easy on the nuts! Easy on the nuts!" Whee! "One cherry!" (Still with the cherry thing, I see.) "Present your sundae with the Taylor tip." Dirty! Rory says hello, and Taylor calls her "Your majesty" and asks if she's there to check on the kingdom. Taylor gives her free ice cream, asking if she'd like an extra cherry. He says that if the Stars Hollow Ice Cream Queen wants two cherries, then she gets two cherries. Why not? She gets two of everything else she wants. Rory says that Taylor didn't ask if she wanted to be the Ice Cream Queen. Taylor says he couldn't very well ask her when she was traipsing all across Europe. He's already rented a cape and a crown, so all he needs is for Rory to wear a nice floor-length gown, preferably in sage. Rory says she can't do it, and that she's too busy right now. She only has a couple of days left before she goes to school, and she's already got every moment planned, so she's going to have to pass on this one. "Oh," Taylor says. Rory says she can try to come by. Taylor says: "Oh, can you? Really! You can find time in your busy day to come by and eat my free ice cream and take my free balloon and get yourself a free glitter hand stamp? You can, uh, swing that? You don't have to pass on that, huh?" Taylor says that Rory's always been the head pilgrim girl or whatever ridiculous queen or princess the town has needed for a holiday function, so he had no reason to assume she'd be passing on another chance to have the town celebrate Rory, particularly on a day before she leaves her humble minions to go off to smarter pastures. "It's my own fault," Taylor says. "I should have figured that once you got into Yale everything would be different. No, I understand. You're no longer our little Stars Hollow Rory Gilmore. You belong to the Ivy Leagues right now. It's time to cut those small-town ties and go off and do something important like go to drama school or have one of those high-class naked parties with that Bush girl." Rory tries to protest, but Taylor gives her the hand and says he'll see her on the quad. I do love it when someone tarnishes Rory's princess crown a little. Rory and Lorelai spot each other through the enormous Luke/Taylor shop window. Lorelai waves and mimes, "What's wrong?" Rory pouts a major pout and holds up her poster. Lorelai is, for once, speechless, and has to lower her head in time with the last guitar strum of the song.