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Lorelai opens the door to find her dad standing there, wanting to talk about Rory. "I don't like what I see in that girl," he says, giving the perfect set-up for Lorelai to crack, "My eyes?" Ignoring this, Richard says that he doesn't like it that Rory has lost focus and is running around planning tea parties for the DAR: "She's heading in the wrong direction, and I don't like it." He's thought long and hard about it, and they "need a plan." Lorelai flips. They HAD a plan. He's the one who abandoned it! He tells her he doesn't like her tone, and Lorelai says that apparently "the proper tone went out with the plan." I get where Lorelai is coming from on all this. Sure, I know she's supposed to be all mature and the mother and rise above all these indignities shoved on her by her child and her parents, but...well, I'm in somewhat of a vengeful mood myself these days. There's only so much bullshit you can take, and I kind of feel like Lorelai has taken enough. Richard, however, feels like it would be a good idea to shovel on some more. His new, brilliant plan involves all sorts of bribes and tricks to get Rory to go back to school. He suggests changing the terms of her trust fund, or buying her a car, or a townhome! "Don't you see," he says, "if there's something in it for her, maybe we can get her to change her mind." Ugh. Lorelai tries to end it there, thanking Richard for the dollhouse, and making to leave. He can't believe it and asks if she's even listening to him. "Uh, no," she says. Richard is flabbergasted, but Lorelai puts the kibosh on his dumb plans: "I want Rory to want to go back to school. She used to love to learn, and read, and study, and it was freakish, but it was her." She says that Rory will have to find her way back there, and the minute she wants and asks for help, Lorelai will be there: "I will fly in faster than the Gulfstream I'm sure you're going to offer to buy her , but until then, I'm sorry, you're on your own." Calling Lorelai impossible, Richard leaves in a huff.
Back from commercial, Luke has joined Lorelai on the porch to help her move the dollhouse inside while she rants and raves about her father. "Pretending like it's an accident that Rory's floundering," she says, incredulous. "Nothing's an accident. He caused this; he made this happen." Luke is supportive, I guess, but mostly he is trying to figure out how to lift the dollhouse, which apparently weighs a metric ton. Lorelai says that her father was being especially low by bringing up Rory's birthday like she didn't even remember it. "'She's turning twenty-one, Lorelai, did you know that?'" she mocks. "Of course I know that. I was there when she was turning nothing!" She says it's just like her parents to double-cross her, and then get mad when she won't help them undo the double-cross. Nostalgia overtakes her and she reveals that, actually, she and Rory had long-standing plans for her big birthday. They were going to go to Atlantic City and be sitting at a blackjack table ready to play 21 the moment Rory turned twenty-one. Then they'd take their winnings and buy twenty-one things. "And then," Lorelai says, looking at Luke, "there was a thing about twenty-one guys that wouldn't really be appropriate anymore since the engagement." All sad, Lorelai says that Rory probably doesn't even remember the plan. Luke assures her that Rory remembers, and Lorelai sighs, going in to order pizza and finally mentioning that the top comes off the dollhouse, making it possible to move the thing.
“ I must stop here to comment on Logan's jacket, which features a frayed collar and lapels and looks like he dug it out of the Oliver Twist costume trunk down at the community theater playhouse. ”
Rory is asleep in her old room in Stars Hollow. Ah, because she's dreaming. And in the dream, she is reenacting this scene (you're welcome, I looked it up) from Season 1 when she turned sixteen, except this time, her mom is Madeleine Albright. The former U.S. Secretary of State climbs in bed with Rory Gilmore. Well, everybody else seems to be doing it these days...oh, just kidding. How awesome is this? Albright is one fantastic lady -- what a coup for this show -- and doesn't do too bad a job as an actress, either. How I wish at the end of that scene, though, she had turned to Rory and said: "Now, get your ass back to Yale and stop whining and mumbling and having sex with the twerp. Do you think I became the mofo-ing Secretary of State by quitting every time someone had the audacity to suggest that I wasn't the embodiment of perfection? I fled Nazi persecution! I have a PhD from Columbia! I speak five languages! AND, I was all up in the middle of that whole Bosnian Serb thing that no one understands to this day! Plan a party for THAT." Alas, that is not what happens. Instead, we see Rory start awake, Logan at her side, and pout, probably realizing that her actual mom, though not a member of both the Carter and Clinton administrations, is not too shabby.
Lorelai walks across the square and runs into Babette and Morey coming from their Halloween shopping. They will be hanging Morey once again this year, and Babette is clearly disappointed to learn that Lorelai will only be hanging caramel apples from the trees, like she always does. "Not very scary," Babette says. Lorelai comments that, to a diabetic, dangling caramel apples might be downright terrifying.
At the pool house, Rory and Logan are (avert your eyes!) MAKING OUT on the couch. Actually, they are having a threeway with her Birkin Bag, and are interrupted when Emily knocks at the door. She sends Rory off to look for something in the bedroom so that she can surreptitiously ask Logan whether he has made any special plans for Rory's birthday. I must stop here to comment on Logan's jacket, which features a frayed collar and lapels and looks like he dug it out of the Oliver Twist costume trunk down at the community theater playhouse. Anyway, he raises his eyebrows, saying he has made no plans, and it's clear that he has planned nothing, because he didn't even know it was about to be Rory's birthday. Emily barely waits for Rory to emerge from the bedroom before asking how she would feel about a birthday party to be held at the house. Rory reluctantly agrees to a party, and Emily leaves, beaming about Rory turning twenty-one and ordering the youngsters to get back to whatever they were doing. "Hey," Rory smirks, taking Logan by the arm and leading him back to the sofa. "Grandma says." Logan can't believe Rory hadn't told him about the birthday, but she shrugs it off, saying she's just not that excited about it. Finally, it comes out that she's bummed, remembering her legendary plans with her mom. "My mom and I have been planning for my twenty-first birthday since...well, my first memory is kindergarten," she says, "but I have a feeling she was talking about it before then." Cute, but strange, seeing as how Lorelai wasn't even twenty-one herself when Rory went to kindergarten. Rory explains the whole scheme to Logan exactly as Lorelai explained it to Luke. "It was a pretty big thing," she says, "and now we're not talking and it's not going to happen." Logan says he knows she misses her mom, though the concept is a little hard for him to grasp, and he sweetly offers to take her to Atlantic City himself. ["Because he doesn't really understand her!" -- Wing Chun] She declines, saying that a party will be fine, and they celebrate by making out all over again. I miss making out on couches, man. Don't you? That is some fun, right there. Not that I'd ever make out on the couch with Brent Bracknell in the den while my parents were like ten feet away in the living room, or anything. I totally never did that. Repeatedly, every weekend for three years.
“ Emily is fondly remembering her own twenty- first birthday party and how she insisted that her invitations had to be trimmed in real pearls. 'I could not be convinced that it was at all tacky,' she says, 'or impractical. I was right, and that was the way it had to be.' What a shock. ”
The day, Rory is at the dining table, sampling cakes while Emily "helps" choose the invitations for Rory's birthday party. If this party is week, how are they going to get these invitations out in time? Anyway, Emily is fondly remembering her own twenty-first birthday party and how she insisted that her invitations had to be trimmed in real pearls. "I could not be convinced that it was at all tacky," she says, "or impractical. I was right, and that was the way it had to be." What a shock. Rory is not really paying attention, and when Emily suggests the lace invitations, she half-heartedly agrees. Emily moves on to the menu selection: "What do you think about sushi? Sushi feels young, doesn't it?" Rory says she certainly hopes so. "You don't want any old sushi hanging around." Emily says that they'll have a bar on the patio, but wonders if Rory would like a special tray-passed drink, like a Sidecar or a Gin Fizz. Rory's head is still not in the game and her grandmother is frustrated. She asks if Rory would just rather she plan the whole thing herself. "Sure," Rory says. "You've got good taste; I trust you completely." ["And that's how my mom planned my whole wedding reception: because, like Rory, I didn't care at all." -- Wing Chun] Emily shrugs and agrees, but says she'll need a little guidance on the guest list. Looking down the list, she wonders if the address for Rory's little "Asian friend" has changed. "Lane," Rory says, a bit forcefully, but not forcefully enough, because Emily just goes and does it again when Rory says that Lane will want to invite her boyfriend. It exhausts me that Rory doesn't smack her grandma down when she says stuff like that. Moving on, Emily asks if she should add Paris to the list, also: "Are you two friends? I never really can tell." Hee. A bit uncomfortably, Emily asks if Lorelai should be added. Rory's face lights up as if she never considered this, and she says yes, Emily should add her mom to the list. That decision made, Rory snaps back to the task at hand, deciding on the chocolate praline crunch cake for her birthday celebration. My own birthday was the day after this episode aired, and I wish I had seen it in time to order that same cake for myself because...how good does that sound?
Lorelai arrives home to find Babette and Morey setting up their Halloween gallows in their adjacent yard. They've added some new light effects, you know, to make everything grosser. Lorelai is impressed with their efforts. She is also wearing a gorgeous coat that I would like to own. What? Did you not just read that it's my birthday? Lorelai goes into her house to find Luke cooking dinner. He has just discovered that Paul Anka is scared of peas. Lorelai adds them to the list on the refrigerator, asking what Luke's making that smells so good. "Fried chicken," Luke says, causing her eyes to roll back and forcing her to spontaneously propose to him all over again. She tells him she has a whole new idea for Halloween. He seems slightly disappointed, asking if she's not going to hang her caramel apples again. She says that's not scary enough, and that she's decided to do something totally different and will need his help. Without asking what, he agrees. Unfortunately, she wants to do a skit where she plays a crazy mad scientist where she turns the whole front yard into her laboratory. "So, I come out and I do mad-scientist banter," she says, "like, Hhey, who here's from Bellevue?' and 'Girl, Interrupted, that sounds like my idea of a feel-good movie.'" Luke blinks in silence, and Lorelai says she'll work on the banter. That's not even the best part, though. The best part is when she brings Luke out, puts him in the electric chair, electrocutes him, and then throws him on the operating table and pulls sausages out of him that will look like intestines. Luke has a couple of logistical questions, like...all of it. How's Lorelai going to get him on the table? How's she going to cut him open? And what are the odds of her convincing him to do it in the first place? "Because," Luke finishes, "I'm thinking they're right up there with Pia Zadora making a big comeback." Aw. Pia Zadora is always getting the shaft. Lorelai is amazed that Luke doesn't want to participate in her big Halloween Distract-Me-From-My-Sadness Plan, and says that this conversation is not over. Lorelai grabs a head of broccoli, apparently the only vegetable Paul Anka endorses, and goes looking for her dog.