After the longest "Previously" of all time, we open at Luke's. Apparently, Lorelai found time to get her hair done. Lorelai tries to grab the plate of food Luke's about to serve to someone, and gets upset when he doesn't give it to her. Luke asks if she's okay now. Lorelai acknowledges that she had a meltdown of such monumental proportions that they're now making a movie out of it -- Meltdown in the Park. Baz Luhrmann is directing and Alec Baldwin will be playing Luke. Luke hopes Alec Baldwin will be slimming down for the role. My boyfriend turns to me and says, "Daniel Palladino wrote this one. Now I can tell, too!" It's the mean factor. When the characters are unusually mean -- not bitter or spiteful, but mean -- that's the mark of Daniel. Lorelai asks if she can work on her laptop in the diner. Luke asks if it makes noise. Lorelai says that she does.
Kirk arrives with a pink polka dot bag under his arm. Luke asks what's up with the "gaybag." Kirk explains that his girlfriend -- whom we haven't seen since her invention, prompting me to wonder if she now lives "in Canada" -- went out of town with some friends and asked Kirk to watch her dog. Hence the bag. Kirk goes on to say that he found out his girlfriend went out with girl friends, because he called the hotel to check the names, "not that I don't trust her." Luke: "Clearly." Luke then unleashes (heh) a string of names that could be either male or female.
Luke leaves to get Kirk coffee and runs into Lorelai's phone cord, currently making Luke limbo behind his counter. Lorelai tells Luke not to worry -- she's using the fax line that Luke never uses, so she's not tying anything up. Luke rants that Lorelai made him get the fax line even though nobody would ever make orders by fax, not that he ever bought a fax machine to find out if that would be true. So Luke's spending twenty bucks a month on what, now? Yeah, can you tell I've been crazy-broke for a year and trying to budget? Every character on this show bleeds money from the pores on either eating out, fancy clothes, college tuition, renovations on inns, newborn babies, living at a house and an apartment, living in Stars Hollow but working in New York City, or buying everything at all times. It's hard enough living in L.A. watching Lexus after Lexus drive past you, but when you're supposed to feel sorry for Lorelai and Rory's money woes, it's really hard when you watch them saunter off in Juicy Couture. Ahem. Moving on. Lorelai says that she loves email, and that she and Rory write to each other every day. She tells Luke that email is a return to romantic letter-writing times. Ooh, now I get to pimp my own upcoming comedy show, about a return to the romantic letter-writing times! See how that works out? Yay! Lorelai says that she always pictures Charles Dickens writing letters, with his feathered pen, in his weird accent, asking about Big Ben and "tuppence-a-bag." Luke drops his dial-up argument with Lorelai when he realizes that Kirk's gaybag means there's a dog in his diner. Kirk denies it (dropping a Radiohead reference in the process), and then orders a pound of raw hamburger with his oatmeal. Kirk walks back to his counter to find that Lorelai has made a tower with menus to hoist the phone cord higher in the air. It's a little like when JoBeth Williams turns around to find that all of her kitchen chairs have been stacked on top of the kitchen counter. Luke says he shouldn't have to limbo in his own place. They're distracted again by Kirk, who's now talking baby talk to the dog (telling the dog he has "sleepy face," which is seriously cute). Kirk covers by saying he was looking for his Lucky magazine, and then suffers a bite to the finger. "Paper cut," he says. Lorelai and Luke stare at each other. Luke proceeds to limbo, and we go to opening credits.
“ Paris still coats the doorknob with an aerosol spray. Rory points out that it's deodorant. Cue the classic Daniel Palladino vaudevillian punchline: 'Then what the hell did I spray under my arms?' Soon, you too will be able to spot one of these scripts in eight minutes flat. ”
Yale. Paris is upset that Rory's walking around the dorm room so carefree when she has a cold and is probably still coated in germs. When I watched this episode for the first time, I had a fever of 102, and in my near-delirium and misery, I kind of thought Paris was talking to me. It was scary. Rory says she's not contagious anymore. Paris still coats the doorknob with an aerosol spray. Rory points out that it's deodorant. Cue the classic Daniel Palladino vaudevillian punchline: "Then what the hell did I spray under my arms?" Soon, you too will be able to spot one of these scripts in eight minutes flat. Poor Paris is using Rory's old iMac, I think. From Season 1. Poor Paris. Rory gets a cell-phone call from Lane, who is standing in her new, completely empty apartment. Hey, Lane. Who pays your cell-phone bill these days? Rory asks how Lane can afford the apartment. Lane says she's sharing with mfTL and Brian, and that it's totally innocent. She has her own room, and they'll sleep in the living room. She moves her stuff in the day, as long as MamaLane hasn't sold all of her things. Lane celebrates the arrival of her first piece of mail (her mailbox is apparently in the center of her empty living room): a Chinese menu. Rory suggests that Lane frame it. Rory hangs up to find Paris holding a lighter under their doorknob. "Fire kills germs," she explains. She holds her sweater over her face like Nosferatu and continues, "And I'm sleeping with one of the other girls tonight." Rory declares that to be "very The L Word." I want Paris's clothes from that scene. I can totally pull off the sexy spinster look.
Luke's again. Lorelai is done doing her email, and thanks Luke for putting up with her. Luke says he only fell once. Lorelai says it was graceful. Luke looks around, and then hands Lorelai something. Lorelai plays Carnac with it. (I'm guessing two-thirds of you have no idea who the hell that is.) Luke tells her to hide it and look at it later. But Lorelai doesn't like to wait for anything, so she opens it up, sits down, and declares, not quietly, that Luke has just handed her a check for thirty thousand dollars. She goes right to the guilt, saying she never asked him for it correctly, and that she doesn't feel right taking it. Luke wants her to have it. Lorelai doesn't want to take it until they figure out how she's going to pay him back, when, and with what interest. They haggle on a napkin until they're both satisfied. Lorelai uses the napkin to ask how Nicole feels about all of this, since it's probably partly her money as well. Luke tells Lorelai not to worry about Nicole, and that Lorelai's not going to see her. Lorelai writes a thank-you on the napkin. I'm guessing it's more for the Nicole part than the money part. Lorelai does her famous pout, and leaves.
“ Richard wants to go to the place Digger took him to last week, which had a hip clientele, like Moby. Only if Digger took Richard to the past. ”
Emily's. Lorelai arrives to find Emily ripping someone a new one over the phone. Lorelai takes off her coat, and I think to myself, "That girl has so much money put aside for clothes." I don't think I've ever seen her repeat an outfit, but we do see Rory wear the same thing more than once. Emily, too. And obviously Luke. But Lorelai is always wearing something different. Emily is trying to get dinner reservations, since their loin was burned by the about-to-be-unemployed cook. Lorelai enjoys repeating that Emily has a burning loin. Emily, as if someone knew what I was thinking, tells Lorelai that she can't believe she's wearing that dress again and how it's rather inappropriate for going out to dinner. I do believe it's a cocktail dress, so I'm not sure how it would be inappropriate for any place that takes American Express. Emily tells Lorelai to hit a store and update her wardrobe, as Richard emerges from that mysterious place they keep him in every other episode. He teases Emily, saying she's done enough shopping for a lifetime: "Methuselah's lifetime." Richard teases Emily a bit more about her shopping habit, until Emily offers to leave the room and let Richard and Lorelai starve. Richard has already forgotten that dinner was ruined. Richard says he heard the word "loin," but didn't think Emily meant dinner. Lorelai shudders and says that this is making her uncomfortable. Emily accuses Richard of only half listening to her, and then they fight over where they'll eat dinner, as well as which restaurants they like and don't like. Richard wants to go to the place Digger took him to last week, which had a hip clientele, like Moby. Only if Digger took Richard to the past. Speaking of the past, Richard and Emily then argue about which of the Beatles are still alive and which are dead, a conversation Lorelai begs them to pause until Rory is there to witness. Emily tells Richard to change into something more appropriate. You don't like his Colonel Mustard look, Emily? She then begs him to shave his caterpillar mustache. Men have a fascination with their facial hair that women won't understand. I've learned that the only way to make a man shave off whatever scratchy face stuff is sloughing your lips and cheeks is also to refuse to shave until he does. Most men can take your leg hair growing long, but the second they see your pits filling in, they're offering to loan you their Mach 3 while they're still shaving their upper lips. Emily says they have to leave immediately, and they don't have time to change clothes. As they leave, Emily tells everyone to plan what they want to eat as they have to order as soon as they get there. Lorelai reminds Emily that they have to wait for Rory. Emily says that Rory isn't coming because she's been sick all week. She asks Lorelai if she didn't know that, but Lorelai lies that she knew that, totally. Emily says she's going to order the sea bass, and then they...oh. Oh. Okay. That's fine. End of scene.