Previously on The Gilmore Girls: Who cares? Pamie's in Aspen kicking the asses of snowmen and ski bunnies right and left, and I am in charge! HA HA! Now is my big chance to talk some real smack about Dean and how NotCuteDean he actually is! Except, he's not even in this episode. Oh, fine.
Previously, Richard and Emily reconciled and announced their plans to have a vow renewal ceremony in celebration of their perfect union (of evil). Luke and Lorelai fell more in love, while Rory did some stupid stuff I'm embarrassed I'm going to have to type out later. We've all been 20, Rory. Please stop reminding us of how pretty, yet how very, very dumb we once were. The shame never dies! You just get older!
We open when Lorelai walks into Luke's diner and waves to him as he lists out an order over the phone to the boat supply catalogue. He gives her the brush-off, prompting her to crack, "Huh. Apparently now we've been married for forty years?" I mean, not that he's busy or anything.
He apologizes and explains that the suppliers can't actually supply anything he needs. Lorelai is, naturally, not the least bit sympathetic and shows him some fisherman's boots in the catalogue, sexily pointing out that "they're yellow! And cute! I'll look like the Morton's Salt girl." Certainly we can all agree that that's hot stuff, so he orders them. The boots are the only things the suppliers have in stock, so they'll be arriving on Tuesday. Instead of thanking Luke for his generosity, Lorelai busts his chops about his plans to go to her house that night and work on the boat with only the power of his flannel-covered muscles. She theorizes on how he is probably trying to come up with ways to throw himself down the stairs hard enough to sustain the perfect injury to get him out of attending her parent's vow renewal. He retorts that his actual plan is to be mauled by a wild boar just enough to where he won't be able to go to her parents' thing, but "after some stitches and a transfusion, I'll still be able to make you coffee." Is it any wonder she loves the man? He supplies the two things every woman needs to be happy: shoes and caffeine. Plus the bonus of the above-mentioned flannel-covered muscles.
Anyway, Lorelai says it will be fine for him to come do his boat stuff -- she'll be home with Rory, watching a Cop Rock marathon. God. Are any Gilmore Girls viewers even old enough to remember Cop Rock? At what drug-riddled Hollywood party did that pitch get bought? Who had to snort coke off whose penis to get it sold? Singing policemen? Dancing judges? On TV? I know it seems impossible, young readers, but you know, it was 1990, and people were wearing a lot of neon. Luke glosses over this blast from the past to plea again for his freedom from the "wedding," and gets shut down once more before he realizes his girlfriend and her adult child are about to watch a marathon of a show about jazz-handing law enforcement. "Did you say 'Cop Rock marathon'?" "Yeah," Lorelai answers, picking up her free coffee and donuts. "Trying to figure out what you see in me?" Luke hems, and she shuts him up with, "Wait 'til you see me in the boots."
Dude. Y'all. How does Pamie do this? All those words in two minutes! I've been teasing her for years about how long these recaps are, and now I understand. Pam, I'm sorry.
Night falls and Rory and Lorelai are organizing their carbo-load for the evening. Lorelai doesn't know how to make instant mashed potatoes what with the mixing of the water and butter and all, which frankly is just as well. She opts instead for tater tots while Rory "burns" some "hip CDs" on her "laptop." These kids today. Luke shows up to work on his boat, and admonishes them for eating unhealthy food, saying it will take five years off their lives. Doesn't this man cook French fries in a diner? Lorelai counters, "Yeah, they would be the five where I would be wearing fuchsia lipstick way beyond my lipline, so I wouldn't want 'em anyhow." Just as mother and daughter are about to get cop-rockin' with a tray full of sugary delights, Emily calls and ruins everything, as usual.
Claiming that her dress is "falling apart," she insists that she's on her way over to have Lorelai fix it. When hearing her daughter's suggestion that she take it back to the woman who made it, she answers, "When a woman gives birth to a crack baby, you do not give her a puppy." These old people today. I can't figure out fast enough whether that's insulting or not, and neither can Lorelai. She barely has time to interrupt when Emily pulls the ultimate Bridezilla, saying that "it's the most important day of my life, Lorelai!" A bit unkindly, but oh so truthfully, Lorelai points out that "it's not even the most important day of your marriage." Ignoring the clear signs that she is not welcome, Emily says she'll be there in half an hour.
The Girls lament that they may be able to get through all their donuts and pancakes before she gets there, but probably won't make it to the tater tots and the pizza tower. They plan to split up their evening and get rid of Emily as fast as they can. "She comes, I fix, she goes, we rock. Now eat!"
Luke is electrically sanding his boat when Emily arrives. I guess he smells the sulfur in the air as she creeps up on him, because he turns around and drops the sander, making a fool of himself. Uncomfortable conversation ensues as she denigrates his boat and acidly implies that his "hobby" is stupid, but at least he has one. "Idle hands and whatnot." Instead of attacking her with the sander, he attempts politeness and congratulates her on the big event to take place the day.
Here, Emily pulls the Penultimate Bridezilla, and explains to Luke that one congratulates the groom, one gives best wishes to the bride. I screamed when this happened on the show, because it was bad enough, but then even worse, the rage was still fresh when I was at an office function the very day and this hag I work with gave a colleague of mine the same speech. Right in front of everyone. With the all-too-often heard caveat of "it's just Southern etiquette." Y'all, I had to step in with a well-timed cough and a tsk. Because in all of etiquette, Southern or not -- and honestly, that "rule" is in no way "Southern" -- it is ironically true that the most rude thing you can do is correct someone else's etiquette. It is unbelievably foul. (And, damn, I have to say it, I happen to know that that office lady's mother is from Philadelphia, so I don't know where she gets off.) So, to watch this scene again and recap it causes the blood to boil something fierce, and fantasies of Luke sanding off Emily's makeup dance in my head. But we must proceed.
Emily goes inside and barely has time to insult the food selection before handing off her wedding suit to Lorelai and pointing out three nonexistent loose beads. Lorelai races up the stairs to do a speed-repair on the jacket, clearly indicating that Emily need not even bother sitting down, because, hint, she'd be leaving so soon.
After about 30 seconds, Lorelai comes running back down the stairs while Emily frets to Rory over her what to do with her hair the day and her lack of faith in her wedding planner. They try to hint Emily out the door, but she pretends not to notice and goes to the kitchen to get a drink just in time for the phone to ring. It's Richard, calling from his bachelor party. We see him in his cups, smoking a cigar with the lads at his club and he explains how he's "figured it out" that Emily saying she's going over to "spend time with The Girls" really meant that they're throwing her a bachelorette party. Then I get mad when he reminds them not to go too crazy because he "needs her sober and looking beeauuutiful for tomorrow," and one of his cronies shouts, "Otherwise, you don't have to go through with it!" Gag. Need I get into how gross that is? And need I mention that if my husband were to ever say anything like that to, or about, me that I would shank him between his fourth and fifth ribs?
Instead of hanging up and saying, "My parents are assholes," Lorelai gets off the phone and she and Rory panic about having to throw an impromptu bachelorette party for the sixty-year-old matriarch of the family who has been married now for forty years. Somehow, however, they pull it together, and we cut to a little while later when Lorelai opens the door for a sleepy Sookie, carrying in a tray of delicious pot-stickers. (That's Kay Starr singing "It's a Good Day" in the background. No one else in the world but me could have named that tune in two notes, my friends. That's a little recap bonus for y'all. Ask your granny if you think I'm wrong.)
The bachelorette party is cute, featuring all the women from Stars Hollow Emily doesn't know. My only complaint is that there is not enough Lane, and MamaLane is not there at all. That ain't right. We do see a minute or two of Rory and Lane trying to explain to Kyong just what is going on that night, and of course they can't explain it, because it doesn't make sense. This scene kind of made me love Rory. I just thought she was cute in it, okay? Don't freak out.
Miss Patty asks Emily to tell everyone about this wedding she's having (to which none of those gathered are invited). Emily explains that it will be fabulous, and asks Lorelai to confirm. Lorelai does, even adding that it will be "ab-fabulous, sweetie darling," and her mother laughs further and says that she finds her daughter to be so funny, even though she never understands a word she's saying. "But she's so entertaining! Like a chimp!" Then she asks Gypsy to confirm that Lorelai is like a chimp. Gypsy asks that Lorelai arrange it so Emily not speak to her anymore. Lorelai: "If only I had that power."
God. If only she DID. Because…a chimp?! Will no one smack Emily in the mouth? I guess not, because she continues to rant on about how great everything will be at this party (to which none of these people are invited, I'll say it again), and how her dress, which she just said an hour ago was made by a crack whore, is incredible. "The woman who made it is a genius." Lorelai and Rory roll their eyes at each other and rightfully so. Another lengthy discussion goes on about how they have ripped the room away from the Sheldrakes and how stubborn and selfish said Sheldrakes were for daring to try to have their party in Emily and Richard's chosen room. After Lorelai presents her mother with a re-gift box of Penis Pasta, Emily blessedly goes upstairs and passes out, snoring. Praise God. Now would be the perfect time to smother her with a pillow, but they don't.
However, Lorelai grabs up Emily's planning book containing her fancy seating charts for the wedding dinner, and gets down to some hijinks moving people around: "Oh, the Ramseys' divorce must be legal by now -- time for a little reunion!" Rory looks over her shoulder, sees Logan's name on the seating chart, and muses that it maybe it was a little mean of her grandparents to oust the Sheldrakes across town to another club. Huh, Rory. May-be.
Her mother explains that her parents can justify such behavior to themselves because they are rich snobs who live in a world of entitlement and feel like they can do anything they want with no consideration for the feelings of others. Rory starts to look uncomfortable, probably because she can see the off-camera anvil of irony about fall on her mom's head. Lorelai goes on to compare such behavior to that of the "Life and Death" brigade Rory wrote about in the Yale paper. Rory gets her back up about this, because now Mama's talkin' about her man, and calling him selfish, and she throws down a little, accusing Lorelai of reading whatever she wanted to into the story, and saying, "Just because you have money doesn't automatically make you a jerk!" Lorelai says she didn't mean it like that, and an awkward silence falls. They agree to change the subject.
day: The Gilmore girls are running behind schedule. "Rory," Lorelai says, "that childish punctuality of yours has worn off. My baby's a woman!" Luke knocks and then walks in because the door was unlocked. He expresses concern, but I can't figure out why, because aren't there only about twelve people living in this town? And don't they all know each other? Lorelai and Rory come in and neither of them is dressed for the wedding, saying they're "getting dressed there." Luke is upset, because he would have done the same thing to avoid wrinkling his pants. They race out the door, Luke asking "aren't you going to lock up?" Lorelai shouts out for Babette to lock up on her way out, and it is revealed that Babette was there all along, passed out on the couch. It is universally agreed (myself included) that Luke looks nice, and they make for the wedding site.
They arrive, selling each other out to the elder Gilmores for their lateness. Emily reports that everything is an "utter disaster" and that she has fired her wedding planner mostly because the seating chart was such a mess. Way to go, Lorelai. Cousin Marilyn (a.k.a. Mrs. Cunningham) is there to pinch hit. Richard reveals that "Marilyn was once an intimate friend of Cecil Beaton. He named an end table after her." Okay, that's funny. Emily further complains that the women's group that owns the club refused to move their painting class out of the salon, and even though her wedding will in no way take place in the salon, she's still furious about it.
The geezers then notice, finally, that Luke is standing there. He flusters around, trying to wish them congratulations or best wishes, and they notice his wrinkled pants. When Richard suggests that his tailor (who, I guess, is on hand somewhere?) press Luke's pants, Emily pshaws and says, rudely, that she's sure those aren't the pants Luke intends to wear to the wedding, and that he will surely change before the ceremony. Just how far away from Stars Hollow is this club that his pants had a chance to get that wrinkled?
Cousin Marilyn arrives and molests everyone, talking about how gorgeous their skin is, and stage whispers to Lorelai -- in a nod to Desperate Housewives, I guess -- asking if Luke is a gardener. Cousin Marilyn has always wanted to have an affair with a gardener. I love Marion Ross.
As all the ladies leave to get ready, Richard pulls Lorelai aside, asking her to take two necklaces, hold them up to her mothers' dress, and determine which one would match best, so he can give it to her as a gift. She agrees to this subterfuge, walks into her mother's dressing room, holds them both up and asks, "Which one do you want?" Barely looking, Emily chooses one and says "the other for my birthday," then gives Rory a lesson on how important it is to "find a man who can pick out your jewelry." I quite agree, but agree just as much with Lorelai, who adds "or can steal it."
Rory says she's going to change, and Lorelai tells her to "come back as Thora Birch." Because I'm a nerd, I thought at first this was a literary reference, but then I remembered Thora Birch is another young actress and thought about calling Pamie in Aspen to get the pop culture lowdown on what that was supposed to mean. Maybe some scandal du jour between La Birch and the beautiful Alexis Bledel? But then I felt dumb, and couldn't do it. Don't y'all miss Pamie?
Emily laments over her hair and has a Bride Panic Moment, asking, "Lorelai, why am I doing this?" Good question. But, in response, Lorelai simply holds up the diamond necklace and all questions are answered. Emily's so nervous, she considers taking a Seconal. (Lorelai: "Excellent idea, Judy.") I sigh and daydream of her taking a handful, especially after insulting Lorelai's hair (which, as always, is stunning). She quickly apologizes (for the first time, ever) for being cruel to her daughter, and explains she's just nervous because "I'm getting MARRIED!" Lorelai reassures her with, "Mom, it's a fake wedding. J.Lo has them all the time!"
Emily takes this moment to rhapsodize about how wonderful it is to have a husband and partner who is always there for you (she thinks this because she pays someone else to do his laundry), and asks Lorelai, "Don't you think you'll ever want to be married." The women of the world hold their breath as Lauren Graham shyly but radiantly answers, "Actually, I do." I throw my arms around my husband, who is acting like he's not crying. Emily realizes Lorelai is talking about Luke (yay!) and abruptly stops all the mother-daughter bonding with a cold "well, that's nice." Rory comes back out of the dressing room wearing a tailored suit and tie and saying, in a voice tinged with Snoop, "Best man in the house." OH, FINE. She looks fantastic.
Lorelai complains that Rory gets to wear "like, a costume" and she has to wear a dress. She suggests that she get to dress like Emily's maid. "It'll be whimsical, and I can wear flats." Emily dismisses her, and Lorelai leaves, saying, "You so like [Rory] better." Hello? Has she ever watched this show? Is she just now noticing?
Cut to the wedding ceremony. String quartet. Roses everywhere. Honestly, there are enough roses in this joint to make this fake wedding more expensive than my real one. Cousin Marilyn is still working Luke on the gardening tip. Rory and her grandfather step out to receive. Lorelai descends the staircase and walks down the aisle wearing a periwinkle shantung dress with a wine sequined wrap sweater. What am I, The New York Times society editor? She looks gorgeous, in any case, and is followed by her mother in the wedding suit. I don't care for it, but she wears it well. During these strolls by her mother and grandmother, Rory takes a moment to look longingly into the congregation at Logan and admire his frosted tips. Why, Rory? Why?
The officiate starts rattling on about "I choo-choo-choo-choose you" and everyone looks around the room to the ones they have chosen. Richard at Emily. Luke at Lorelai. Rory at Logan. Logan to some trampy girl he's brought as his date. In the background, we see Christopher sneaking in late, and we wonder why this damn wedding doesn't have bouncers, because we know he's only there to bust up all the happiness he can get his hands on.
We fade to commercial as Richard and Emily start their vows. It's a classy touch.
Back from the break, the reception dinner is starting. Luke remarks overly much about the flower arrangements, causing Lorelai to ask him to be "a little gayer, please." Everything and everyone is beautiful. Luke is disturbed about the dancing later on, and Lorelai is more disturbed about the number of people in attendance whom she hates. They work out a plan where Luke will run interference for Lorelai when they get into a situation where she might have to introduce him to someone whose name she can't remember.
They look across the room and see Lorelai's Aunt Totsie. Lorelai warns Luke about letting his guard down around the Totsie: "She hugs you, you smell like her for a month."
Rory spies Logan at the party, and so she can effectively stalk him without him noticing, she hides behind a big guy wonderkilling to another guest how the whole "first cousin, second cousin, cousin-once-removed" thing works. It's still hard to understand, but the long explanation gives Rory ample time to make a lot of assumptions about Logan and his date.
As Cousin Marilyn gets "Totsied," Lorelai sees Christopher come in, and takes this exact moment to explain to Luke about how she had to go over and comfort Christopher a few weeks ago with an all-night Tequila Fest. Luke clearly is annoyed, but mostly because she's acting all excuse-y and strange about it. And, oh yeah, because this is the first he's heard of their little party. My favorite part is that she says she's only telling him now because Christopher is there and in case it comes up, she doesn't want Luke to feel shanghaied. "Yeah," Luke snarks. "That would be bad." Chris walks up and things get worse, and she steps all in it gushing about how she and Luke are dating, have been dating for months, and wow, time flies when you're having fun, RIGHT, LUKE?!
Ugh. It's awful. Luke is the only one among them with even an ounce of class, and he tries to make things more comfortable, but fails. They take their seats as Richard and Emily take the dance floor for their first dance as a...re-married, never-having-been-divorced, couple.
Richard tells a story about how he chose the song for their dance, and on the surface, you kind of have to love it, because he loves his wife, and that's sweet. But, man, these people are such jerks. The story goes that when Lorelai was three, she went through a phase of chronic ear infections and screamed all night long to where they couldn't "keep a nanny longer than a week." Lorelai says what we're all thinking: "Yeah, that was the terrible part about it. The searing pain was just a side note."
Richard goes on that because they couldn't hire someone to love their kid, it fell to Emily to stay up all night with Lorelai. The only song she could find to soothe the baby was "Wedding Bell Blues," a song about trying to get a man named Bill to finally consent to marriage. Richard says the song drove him crazy: "Some woman complaining about wanting to marry a man named Bill -- not exactly Cole Porter. Emily would tease me, saying, 'If only your name was Bill, this could be our song.' Well, Emily, just for tonight, and tonight only, my name is Bill, and this is our song." See? Sweet. But still, they're jerks.
Emily, of course, is quite moved and they begin to dance. She can't believe he remembered the song. I can't believe he was complaining about his wife having to sit up with their three-year-old who had an ear infection. Meanwhile, Christopher is hitting the bottle hard and looking ominously over at Luke and Lorelai, while Rory looks wistfully over at Logan.
The emcee invites everyone who's "in love" to join the happy couple on the dance floor. Lorelai asks Luke to dance, swearing she will dance just as spazzy as he does. "I do not dance spazzy," Luke says, and then takes her out there and proves it. Rory and Christopher, the lovelorn among us, wander into the women's group painting class, where Christopher tells Rory the story of his first kiss with her mother. They were fourteen and Lorelai walked up and kissed him the parking lot of the A&P because she just wanted to know what it would be like. "Lorelai always knew what she wanted, and she'd go out and get it." Rory asks, for her own reasons, if he liked it that Lorelai kissed him first, and he answers, "Who could not like getting kissed by a Gilmore girl?" Then he waxes fond about how it was the greatest day of his life, which is dumb.
This was all just to steel Rory's nerves to make a move on the hated Logan, and we can see her wheels turning as the scene cuts to Luke spinning Lorelai around the floor with just a "touch of spazzy." As "Moon River" swells in the air, Rory crosses the room with determination, towards Logan. They have an obnoxious exchange that makes him look like the King of All Asses and her look like the Queen of Desperation. God, I hate it so much I had to pause the Tivo and walk around flexing my fingers for five minutes, reliving all the embarrassing scenes of my early twenties when I engaged in similar ignorant and painful displays.
Rory finally asks him dance, just so she can boldly (she thinks) ask if he likes her and also ask if he's ever going to ask her out. He gets quiet and she regrets it immediately, trying to pull away so she can go begin "burrowing myself into the ground. I should be in China by midnight." Poor, stupid girl. But wait, it gets stupider.
"Rory, Rory," Logan says, acting for all the world like some kind of grown-up and not a guy who just three years ago got his first driver's license. He says he's thought several times about asking her out, but that he doesn't think it's such a good idea. I hope y'all are sitting down, because the thing he says is, oh, say it with me, "because you're special." Then the patented "you're so special, you're girlfriend material and I'm not boyfriend material. I can't do commitment! If I were to date you, there would be no dating. It would be 'something' right away. I'm not that guy." She, naturally, throws dignity to the wind and says that she's not looking for commitment; she just wants to get to know him and spend some time with him.
OH MY GOD. RORY! Please run AWAY. Run away from Logan! Logan's Run! Do it now! Because, child, here is the problem: He's an asshole, but guess what? HE is NOT LYING. YOU ARE.
This scene made me cringe like I have never cringed BEFORE. Oh, LORD, how many times have young women of a certain age said those lines? Countless. And how many times have we meant them? ZERO. I am in pain just sitting here remembering one particular midwestern gentleman to whom I uttered those very words. My very own Logan. May he burn in eternity for Jedi mind-tricking me into believing myself.
And as much as it's her responsibility to keep it real, which she isn't, he still plays the asshole card by doing the whole "you may say this now, but later..." like he is God's valentine to all womanhood, and has to school the little girl on the true power of his mighty magnetism. Seeeeeriously, I wish I could reach into the TV and throttle everybody in this scene, which goes on forever. To prove that, no, really, I'm a total bad girl and proud of it, she drags him off into a side room where they drink champagne out of a bottle -- something that's physically very difficult to do, in reality. He asks her, assholishly, if she's sure she wants to "do this," and, taking a page from her mama's book, she says, "I just want to know what it would be like," and plants a super-awkward kiss on him. Because she's wearing a suit, he cracks, "I feel like I'm kissing a guy." She kisses him again, prompting him to say, "And, apparently, I had no idea what I was missing."
Now, clearly, he was talking about how he didn't realize how great it would be to kiss Rory, but I am telling myself he's really saying he didn't realize all that he had been missing by never kissing a guy.
Commercials. Have y'all seen this thing about this new show The Starlet? Y'all, that's Faye Dunaway. What the frig? Oscar-winning Faye Dunaway, I'll remind you. The end of the world is nigh.
Meanwhile, back at the wedding, Richard and Emily are smooching it up to the sound of clinking glasses. Lorelai brings Luke another beer and realizes that in her absence he's been Totsied. They gag as Christopher walks up and joins in the fun. He uses the Totsie to spin out a few old yarns about him and Lorelai and all their childhood baby-making antics. He's drunk. Lorelai tries to brush him off by claiming to not know what he's talking about, and it just goes downhill from there. As an escape plan, she asks Luke to dance, but Christopher warns that she'll get "second-hand Totsied." That's pretty funny, but why didn't they think of "Totsie-by-proxy"? Show me the money, Hollywood.
Luke sits rigid while Christopher gets his digs in, mentioning unnecessarily that he and Lorelai had lunch at the inn last month. Blessedly, Cousin Marilyn comes over, announcing that Emily wants a picture in front of the cake with the wedding party, and helpfully points out that she saw Rory going off with that "darling blond boy. I'll forgive her for not noticing that I was chatting with him earlier!" Hee, Mrs. C. Lorelai says she'll go find Rory, and just to get away, Luke tags along. Because he's evil, Christopher follows.
Lorelai walks in on Rory and Logan, mid-snag, with their shirts untucked and hair fully mussed, takes a beat, and says, "Grandma wants a picture." Rory: "Of THIS?" Ha! Lorelai gets her motherin' in gear and does a full-on frustrated eye-roll and even let's out a "What are you doing?! God, Rory, I SWEAR!" Christopher hears his daughter's name and busts in, menacingly. Lorelai drags him out while he yells about the "guy in there, pawing my daughter." Of course, Luke can't stay out of it, because he actually does care about Rory, and he rushes in to do the same.
Lorelai sends the kids out the back way, introducing herself to Logan, while the inevitable showdown breaks out between Luke and Chris over who cares more about Rory. Chris: "Rory is my daughter and Lorelai's daughter. That's it!" Luke: "Well, I'm with Lorelai." Chris: "For now."
Oh, no he di'in'. Except yes, he did. He goes on, ranting about how he and Lorelai are meant to be together, as everyone knows. "Emily knows it!" Luke pulls a "Wha?" face, as Christopher continues going on and on about how he knows he made a mistake and how Lorelai needs to be with him. It's not too late! Even Emily told him it wasn't too late! Lorelai is trying to get a word in, insisting she doesn't know what this drunk fool is talking about, and Luke excuses himself from the drama. She follows, and gives Christopher a beautiful brush-off, finally yelling him down, viciously.
Cousin Marilyn sideswipes Lorelai on her way out, dragging her over to get the picture made. "You cannot keep a room full of Anglo-Saxons waiting for cake this long -- they start to form more clubs."
The family gathers in front of the cake, its two youngest members looking uncomfortable for their own reasons, and in a beautiful ten-second scene that I hope wins ten Emmys, right as the flashbulbs pop, Lorelai leans in to Emily's ear, hissing, "You and me. We're done."