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Taylor freaks out because he is snowed in at his sister's house and thus cannot run the annual winter carnival. The townies agree to let Kirk do it, but then Taylor returns to Stars Hollow incognito to spy on the proceedings, which include Lorelai setting up a booth for Paul Anka to tell fortunes. Logan pours on the gifts and flowers trying to get Rory back -- he even rents out the coffee cart to follow her around. Luke and April have their first father-daughter get-together in the park, and agree to meet time at the diner, though he later tries to renege out of nervousness about Lorelai, and gets an earful from Anna about his responsibilities as a parent. Paris is having big dramas at the paper, and Rory is caught in the middle when the staff plans a hostile takeover. Logan comes to the Inn to meet with Lorelai to attempt to ask for her help in charming Rory. Conversely, Zach tries to have a showdown with Mrs. Kim, but it's more of a shootdown. At the diner, Lorelai runs into April, who introduces herself as Luke's daughter. Lorelai is rightfully shocked and upset. Rory helps her to gain perspective, explaining that this same thing happened to Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale and that they worked through it. Luke apologizes to Lorelai for being so overwhelmed about everything, but when she volunteers to postpone the wedding, he jumps at it, making her very sad. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It's the middle of the night, Lorelai and Luke are in bed, and bells are ringing. No, not like that. They're asleep when they hear church bells ringing and wake up to see that it's 3:12 in the morning. Luke, somehow, seems to be wearing a sweater in bed? I don't know. Maybe Connecticut is colder than I thought. Luke says he had been dreaming that he was shopping for a car and he wondered about trunk space and the salesman opened the trunk and...it had enough space. "Very mundane dreams," Lorelai says, in unison with the whole world. They hear someone shouting incomprehensibly in the streets. Lorelai asks what they're saying. "There was..." Luke says, trying to decipher it, "...a clown beating?" Lorelai: "Not again!" Hee. No, it's really a town meeting that's being called, and Luke is understandably less than pleased. He tries to go back to sleep, but Lorelai insists that they attend. "We might miss something," she says. Unfortunately, she's quite wrong. The whole town turns out for the meeting to find that Taylor is not even there, and that he has set up a videoconference from the remote location of his sister's house in Maine, where his nephew continually throws ping-pong balls at him and calls him a "doo-doo head." That's the only funny thing about this scene. At all. Hearing Taylor say, "Do not call me a doo-doo head."The huge emergency is that he is snowed in and will not be able to get back to run the annual Winter Carnival. This announcement is met with yawns. No one can see the problem, and Taylor can't see that they don't care he won't be there. He says they've never had to cancel a carnival, and the crowd goes...blah. They still don't get what he's so het up about. "I won't be there to run the carnival," he says, dramatically. "Draw the obvious conclusions!" Ah, light dawns on Miss Patty. "Kirk," she says, "can you take over?" Kirk says sure, and thus the meeting ends with all of them filing out as Taylor rattles on with his carnival recommendations.
At the diner later, Luke is so tired he's pouring people coffee into their teacups. "Now you've got a hybrid," he tells one customer. "That's very in right now." Lorelai, despite having kept such late hours, is full of vim. She says she saw the sunrise, paid all her bills, and, for the first time ever, saw the beginning of The Today Show. While Luke sleeps on his feet, she rambles on that Katie and Matt are much more serious in the first half-hour than in the second, which she says makes sense, because people can deal with bad news when they first wake up. "But then," she says, "just as they're heading to the office, you leave them with a dose of Matthew McConaughey, People's Sexiest Man and whoosh they're rarin' to go." Luke says that, yes, Matthew McConaughey always gets him rarin', and the fan-fic just writes itself. Lorelai goes on that she's even volunteered to have a booth at the carnival this year and that she has her concept all worked out. She asks Luke if he has any special plans for later today and he suddenly becomes all goofy, overcompensating for his secret plans with April, Secret Daughter, whom he is visiting later on. He leaves her with a kiss as the guy with the hybrid coffee-tea (Cofftea? Don't bother, I just trademarked it.) announces that he's not loving it too much.In her scary stairwell, Rory sighs and picks up what appears to be yet another bouquet of flowers from the reptile Logan. They are beautiful flowers, and the dozens of bouquets inside are beautiful as well. Paris is less than pleased, saying that the criminal element surrounding the apartment might see all the flowers and gifts and think they're rich. "They scream bling," Paris says. "Bad guys see roses, then they come for our diamonds." Rory reminds her that they do not have diamonds. "The doo-wop group doesn't know that," Paris retorts, and tells her to put these latest flowers by the neon sign that says "Come Pistol-Whip Us."
In a snow-covered park...somewhere...Luke meets up with April. He's awkward about it, which I think we are supposed to find charming, but I cannot stand this whole concept, so I don't. What I DO find charming is the actress who plays April, and the character of April, herself -- but I am telling you, Palladinos, we have seen this kid before and her name was Season 1-4 Rory and unless you're going to twist this plot around to make it to where Lorelai somehow impregnated Anna, I am not going for this mess at all. Luke reaches out to shake April's hand, and when he holds it too long, she tells him that "this is how the avian flu spreads, by the way." Mortified, he says that yes, he heard a guy say that on CNN. "Right," she says. "They fired my favorite, Aaron Brown. He was comforting." Luke's trying to fit in, so he says that yes, he was, and sits down. She asks him if he likes to hang out there in the park. They miss a clear and easily set-up molester joke right here, but I suppose it would be inappropriate. He says no, and she wonders then why they are meeting there. "I thought kids liked parks," he says. April points out that it's 41 degrees outside, and not exactly peak park-going season. Luke says there's still stuff to do. "I mean, we could have a snowball fight," he says, at which April eagerly tells him that when her friend Remi got into a snowball fight once, she got her retina detached.
Luke says that time, he'll think of something better to do. He's not sure, he says, what sort of stuff kids are into. Asking the one in front of him might be a good start, but instead he goes on that they'll be making these meetings a regular thing. What I don't like about this is that no one is asking April if she wants to hang out in parks with this strange man. She seems to be okay with it, though, and tells him that she's off all week, since her school is a year-round school. "We get weird times off," she says. Luke suggests that they meet up tomorrow, if she wants, and tells him that she likes to do stuff with Morse code and talk to her internet penpal in Bangalore. She says what she'd like to do is come over to hang out at the diner. "My diner?" he asks, suddenly nervous. "Wouldn't that be boring?" She says no, that diners fascinate her. "The hustle, the bustle, the Monte Cristos," she says. "It'll be fun." Luke is obviously nervous, but finally says sure, that would be fine. He asks what she wants to do right then, and she says she's been watching a group of guys play Frisbee and counting how many times they drop it. "The one with the hat," she points, "is a big, fat butterfingers."Things are strummy at the Inn as Lorelai signs some papers while Kirk harasses her about her carnival booth entry. "We do things like ring-toss and rope-ladder climbing," he says, "your choice is unorthodox." Lorelai says that's just it, that she's unorthodox. "I'm liberal," she says, "with a touch of reform and a smidgen of zippity-pow!" Kirk says that he's just concerned that everything go well, since this is the first time he'll be running the carnival. Lorelai promises him that her booth will be a smash hit. "Your promise means nothing to me," he says. "You break them all the time." Lorelai is incredulous and asks when she's ever broken a promise to him. He lists such examples as her 1997 promise to bring him back a souvenir pen-and-ink set from Colonial Williamsburg; her 1999 promise to put in a good word for him at Al's Pancake House when they had a batter boy opening; and "year 2000, you promised to teach me to swim. I still don't know how to swim. What if there's a tsunami?" Do I need to say anything about how unfunny a tsunami joke is? Right. Hey, I know. Even better: What if there's a hurricane and more than half the town is displaced and Weird Al Yankovic, who is really the only celebrity that could possibly represent Kirk, has to go on television and talk about how President Bush doesn't like quirky people?
He follows Lorelai over to the desk, where she welcomes the representative of the New England Maple Syrup Council, who is there to have a meeting. Kirk interrupts -- he's still hung up on Lorelai's booth idea -- to ask the guy if he, personally, would pay a whole dollar to get his fortune told by a dog. "A dog," he continues, "that has no experience telling fortunes." Clearly afraid, the guy says that he doesn't know, and Kirk finally leaves, declaring that he's been no help.
Things are strained at the offices of the Yale paper. Paris fusses at an editor who is using a posed, trite picture for a story, and tells her to get another picture. "But it's a team photo," the girl says, as Paris moves on to her mark. "You like the Washington Post, do you?" she asks. The guy says he guesses he does. "Because they like to split their infinitives," she continues, "the Washington Post. But I don't." The guy goes to fix it as Paris moves on to Rory. She asks if she checked in via the new system -- a big magnetic board that contains colored magnets that represent where everyone is at any given time. "If they're at their desk," she says, "it's a green magnet." ["You'd think someone that anal about split infinitives wouldn't commit a noun-modifier-agreement misdemeanor like 'their desk.' Shut up, Paris." -- Sars] Rory points out that if someone is at their desk, Paris can just glance over and see them at their desk. "But I'd have to glance all around," Paris says. "This saves extraneous glancing." I used to work in an office exactly like this. When I say "used to," I mean six months ago. I can't quite describe the pain of having to endure such systems as a professional person who has surpassed the age of thirty. Rory, for her part, is finding it pretty insufferable now. She says she is headed for class, but can't escape before Paris makes her denote it on the board with an orange magnet.In the hallway, she is confronted with the coffee cart. She tries to excuse herself and go around him, but the guy explains. Logan has rented his services for the day, and he is to follow her around so as to be ready whenever she needs coffee. She tries to shoo him away, but the guy says he's already been paid "a lot."
Anna is sorting through pillows or something and calls out to April, who is in the other room, asking if she's watching TV. April says yes, and Anna asks if she's watching something stupid. April says yes. "You promise?" Anna laughs, and I am now convinced beyond any doubt that all these Anna/April scenes are just Lorelai/Rory scenes that got cut from early episodes and they found them lying around and decided hey, these are funny after all -- let's just put New Rory in glasses and make her a science nerd. And instead of having her run an Inn, we'll make New Lorelai, uh...she'll have some business where she somehow pays a mortgage and bills by selling, oh...goofy shit no one needs.
The phone rings, and it's Luke. "So," she jokes, "she came back with all her fingers and toes; very successful first outing." Luke says yes, it was nice, and Anna smiles, saying that April had a good time, too. "So," she continues, "[April] is coming by your work tomorrow." Ah, Luke begins the backpedaling. He says he's not sure it's going to work out for April to come by. "There's gonna be lots of people," he says, "swooshing around, and all." Anna just laughs, and says that April likes people swooshing around her. "Pans of hot grease..." Luke says, trying again. "There'll be pans of hot grease swooshing around her?" Anna asks. Luke says that there will be if April's in the kitchen. "Well," Anna laughs, "keep her out of the kitchen if there's any grease swooshing." She goes on that April is very low maintenance and Luke can just set her up at a table. Luke tries more backtracking. Now he's not sure there will even be a table. Anna is growing more and more impatient. "Luke, no," she finally says, "it doesn't work that way." He tries to act all offended, saying he doesn't know what she's talking about, but she tells him that he's not being cool and that "there's no great time to be a parent, Luke. You just are one." She says if he's going to make plans with April and get her hopes up only to cancel, then this whole arrangement is off. Luke doesn't want that to happen. "You're either all in or all out," she says, and he gets all panicky and apologetic, saying it's okay for April to come by tomorrow. Anna's still pissed, and says goodbye. Here's reason one million that this whole thing just bugs: If Anna's so damn uppity about Luke's parenting skills and her daughter's time and life and all that, why did she allow April to do the DNA project to start with? Argh. I just hate this ridiculous fifteen-shark-jumping contrivance.
At Yale, Rory walks into the campus bar to find the entire newspaper staff having a bitch session about Paris's insane behavior. They all clam up when Rory walks up, admitting that this is a war council "about Kaiser Gellar and her Reign of Terror." The paper is unreadable, they say. Paris rewrites their stuff and then rewrites her rewrites, and the copy gets worse every time. "She used to be good, right?" one girl says. "Wasn't Paris good at one point?" They say she was, before she was editor, but that "now she's Augusto Pinochet in a pantsuit." Good one, random dude. They tell Rory that they are seriously considering Howell-Rainesing her, and I get sad all over again about ol' Howell, with whom I share a home state. Rory is surprised, but not overly, that the staff is considering ousting Paris via the board. She asks why she wasn't invited to participate in this conversation. "You're in Paris's pocket," one of them says. Rory denies this. "You're best friends, right?" a girl asks. "That's what Paris is always saying." Rory stops them to set the record straight: She's devoted, she says, to the paper. She are Paris are not best friends. And she's not immune having the crap bugged out of her by Paris's behavior.I pause to consider the warning bells that Rory MIGHT hear right now, had she ever attended Sunday School and heard the story of Peter's three denials of Christ. Not to go all scripture knowledge on your ass, Rory, but you're being a gargantuan dink. Paris is your friend "for the most part"? Nice. You've only known her ten years now or something, and shrew though she can be, she's your friend. Ugh. Rory tells the rest of the staff that maybe they should talk it out and try to figure out ways to fix things before going to the board. "Fine," one guy says, "but allow us our cathartic purging." Rory tells him to purge away, and generously offers them all coffee from her personal cart, which is still following her around. "He does a great mocha latte," she says.
Lorelai is walking through town when she bumps into, surprise!, Taylor, disguised in a track suit. "I got lucky last night," he says, "and caught a plane out of Maine." Lorelai: "Even with the rain in Spain?" Hee. Taylor says that he's incognito to take his Huckleberry Finn opportunity to come back and spy on the carnival, to see how it runs without him.
Lorelai heads over to the carnival area and runs into Zach, who is hauling stuff around for the booths. She asks him how things are going. "I'm great," he says. "I lost my girlfriend; my band's broken up; my best friend won't speak to me; and I'm reduced to working as a five-dollar-an-hour carny. Bob Dylan should write a song about me." Instead of punching him in the face and saying all of that evil was wrought by his own hand, she attempts to make him feel better, saying that he'll get through it eventually and, like everyone else, move on. He freaks, thinking she's implying that Lane has moved on from him, and wanders off saying, "Oh my God," over and over again. "Hope I cheered you up some," Lorelai says, before turning to see that Kirk has planned a fortune-telling booth to go right to hers. "Well, frankly," he says, "I have my doubts about your dog's ability to predict the future." He goes on to explain that in order to satisfy carnival customers, he's putting the real thing door to her booth, "so that no one walks away bamboozled." Lorelai tries to explain that there is no "real thing. It's all fake. Those tarot cards are not real; my dog cannot predict the future." Kirk: "So you admit it!" Lorelai sighs, and says that she was never hiding anything. "That's fraud," Kirk says, and goes on to say that his girlfriend says that tarot cards are real. "Well," Lorelai says, "I like your girlfriend, but the tarot cards are no more real than my dog."
They are interrupted by her phone. It's Luke, getting the ball of subterfuge rolling. He wants to know what her time's like today, he says, because he has something he needs to run past her in person. She asks if it can wait until tonight, since half of her staff is out and she has the syrup council to deal with. "I just barely got away to come here," she says, "and get in an argument with Kirk." Correct me if I'm wrong (by which I mean correct me in your head, not in an email), but if she's in the park, isn't she pretty much standing directly in front of the diner? Right, so couldn't Luke just walk out and, I don't know, tell her that he has a secret kid he's known about for months now and, oops, forgot to mention? Instead, he sounds relieved that she is going to be too busy to drop by the diner today, and asks several times if she's sure that's the case. Everything about this Luke storyline and all his behavior surrounding it makes me like him less. They agree to meet up that night, and she goes off in search of Kirk. Meanwhile, Zach looks across the park and sees Mrs. Kim talking to a Very Hot Korean-American Man (VHKM). They are laughing it up, and VHKM tells her to keep warm and to tell Lane he'll see her later. Zach looks completely crestfallen.
Luke looks out the front door of the diner and sees April on her bike, talking to the postman. He commands her to come inside immediately and berates her for talking to a stranger. I'd be a bit more upset that she left her cute bike in the middle of the sidewalk, but whatever, he doesn't know what he's doing. Luke says the postman could be a strangler for all she knows. "He seemed to know you," April says. Luke answers that, of course, that's Jake the postman, and he's known him for fifteen years. "You've known a strangler fifteen years," April says. Luke says he's not a strangler, but she shouldn't talk to people she doesn't know and should not trust anyone. She says in that case, she'll go lock her bike. "No," he sniffs, "you don't have to lock your bike; this is a safe town." April shrugs. "Well," she says, "I'm confused."
Luke asks what she's going to do. "Sit and color?" he asks, and she laughs. "I haven't colored in six or seven years," she says. "But that takes me back. Coloring. Wow." She says also that she doesn't really feel like reading, and that his salt and pepper shakers look a little low, so maybe she can fill those. He seems reluctant, but says okay, and as he walks away she shakes her head, laughing again that he suggested coloring.
The New England Syrup Council is having -- I can hardly type it without gagging -- a syrup-tasting. They're drinking it out of espresso cups, and Lorelai and Sookie, watching from the corner, are grossed out. "Why don't they pour it on something," Lorelai says. "A waffle...a pancake." They're sickly fascinated by the whole thing until the head syrup guy starts distributing spit buckets. Ew, indeed.
Lorelai escapes and is confronted with Logan, sitting in the waiting area. She gives him a flat hello, and he says he just needs a minute. "I can't fathom," Lorelai says, "what a minute of my time is going to do for you." He says he knows she's not his favorite person in the world, and she confirms this, saying he's pretty low on the list, right above the guy who thought up smallpox blankets. Logan has the nerve to say that he figures he's got to a notch or two higher than that. Lorelai reminds him that he's in no position to have an opinion on that, and recaps all the fun stuff Rory has been up to since his bratty ass arrived on the scene. You know, getting arrested and convicted, dropping out of school, fighting with her family, et cetera. "No, wait a minute," she concludes. "You ARE my favorite person." Logan again dares to say that he figures he can defend himself on a few of those points, but Lorelai...does not agree. "No," she says. "You can't. Why are you here?" He says he misses Rory terribly, knows he made a mistake and is trying everything to fix it, but she won't budge. "Can you blame her?" Lorelai drones, and I pray that soon, she will physically kick his ass out the door, but instead he continues, unharmed. "I'm trying to show her how I feel," he says, and Lorelai flips it, saying it sounds like Rory is trying to show him how she feels, too. Logan says he's not giving up until he exhausts all his options, and asking for Lorelai's help is one of his tactics. She actually budges a little, though I cannot imagine why, and says that he has moxie. He says he gets it, he thinks, from his dad. "I hate your dad," she tells him, and he says he does, too, pointing out that they have that in common. ARGH. Why is everyone acting so stupid in this episode?Lorelai must be all concerned about this conversation because, going against her original plan, she heads to the diner. Here, she runs into a cute little girl filling the salt shakers. She says hi and asks what the girl is doing. "Chores," April says, and they have a little chat about the universal hatred of clumpy salt. "So," Lorelai asks. "Who do you belong to, Cesar?" The girl is confused. "You're not Cesar's?" Lorelai asks, and April says no, not according to the lab results. Clearly charmed, Lorelai asks how she landed the gig. "My father owns the place," April says, and we see the "Uh-WHA?" face come over Lorelai. "Your father?!" Lorelai says, and April says yes, her biological father. She's not sure what to call him, since this is all kind of new. "Not the biological part," she says. "That happened years ago." She goes rambling on about the salt as Luke comes around the corner and sees all. "I thought you couldn't get away," he says to Lorelai. "I got away," she answers, her heart clearly wrenching around like it's going through a pasta machine. They go outside, where Lorelai stands with her arms folded. "I don't believe it," she says. "This is for sure?" Luke says it's for sure, and she asks when he found out. He says he just found out, but when she calls him on it he has to admit it was two months ago. "I know I should have told you," he says -- but frankly, he doesn't seem all that sorry about it. Lorelai says the girl is cute, and he goes into a rambling story about how the whole thing happened, and how he wanted to forget the whole thing at first, and then how he changed his mind. Lorelai is sad and furious, simultaneously. WHY she doesn't kick him in the nuts, I have no idea. If I was her, I'd stuff his head down the mailbox, slam it closed, and leave him there. SHUT UP, LUKE, with your I'm-sorrys. Man, it makes me mad.
Rory arrives back at the Yale paper, and sees that Paris has issued numbers to the staff which they have to wear on caps on their heads. Rory is frustrated by this and tells Paris that the atmosphere is getting toxic at the paper. She tells Paris a very condensed version of the staff meeting story and says they all feel a lot of pressure because of her new methods. "They think it's that bad?" Paris asks. Rory: "You've taken away the magnets that indicate when people are in the bathroom, so now they're afraid to go." Paris says she understands the concerns, and goes in to talk to the staff, where she proceeds to call Rory out as an informant. "Am I tough?" she asks. "You think it's going to be any easier entering the workforce with every newspaper in the country cutting back on staff?" She asks if they'd attempt the same sort of "flaccid coup" if she were a man, and tells them to suck it up and get to work.
Ninety-seven commercials later, Rory is back at her apartment, again confronted with Logan. This time he has Krispy Kremes, and with that, even I am starting to bend his way a little. He asks if she got all his stuff, and she says yes: "What's , a marching band? A parrot who says I'm sorry? You have to go." She turns to go in but he stops her, saying he has a letter from her mother. She lets him in, and he explains how he went to see Lorelai and says he waited while she wrote the letter for him to give to Rory. She opens it and starts reading, laughing (awkwardly) almost immediately. Logan asks, along with the rest of us, what the letter says, but she won't tell. She must be at least slightly swayed, because she says she'll consider going to dinner with him. She kicks him out, telling him to leave the donuts.I can't understand why Lorelai didn't just wait to give Rory the letter in person, because apparently Rory goes directly from her meeting with Logan to her mom's house, bearing laundry. "Your letter," she says, laughing all the way, "was brilliant. It has got to be anthologized." She continues, saying Logan was totally flummoxed by the whole thing, and is all smiles until she sees that Lorelai is really upset. "Luke has a daughter," Lorelai says. Rory: "And we'll talk about the letter, later." Rory is shocked as Lorelai explains about seeing April at the diner and what Luke said about it. "He waited two months to tell me," Lorelai says. "What does it mean that he kept a secret like this?" Lorelai says the girl is cute and seems smart, like Rory. Yeah, that sounds familiar. She's freaking out, she says, and Rory can't blame her and proceeds to speak the wise words that men are dumb sometimes. "You didn't ask about the mother?" she asks, and Lorelai says she just kind of ran away, not knowing what to do. Rory says Luke must be doubly freaked out, seeing that he's Mr. Responsibility and everything. "Maybe this is a cheesy perspective to offer you," Rory says, "but Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale went through this same situation." She explains how Gavin found out he had a daughter he didn't know about and that he and Gwen made it work. "As far as I know," she adds. "If they can, you can," she says. Rory says that the situation is the same, except that Luke and Lorelai don't sing, of course, "but, really, neither do Gwen and Gavin, but they're still together...I think." Lorelai says, yeah, she and Luke just need to talk more. "Maybe I'll tell Luke about Gwen and Gavin," she says. "I mean, if there's any people whose lives Luke would relate to, it's Gwen and Gavin."
At the winter carnival, townie hijinks are ensuing as Taylor sneaks around pretending to be a German tourist and Kirk accuses little kids of counterfeiting carnival tickets. Things are going good at the doggy swami booth. Poor Paul Anka even has a swami outfit on, and I must say he looks pretty good in it. Rory tells Lorelai she can run the booth alone if Lorelai doesn't feel like being there. "It's good for me," Lorelai says. "Nothing's a better distraction than a dog...in a turban...telling fortunes..." Rory laughs, saying it's a cliché for a reason.
Across the way, Lane is manning her booth, a game called "Toss the Sybarite into the Hellfires." Hee. The prize is a tract called "Hell Is Waiting For You, Sinner," and I love it. Helping out and laughing with Lane is the Very Hot Korean-American Man, and Zach watches all of this from behind another booth, hating every second of it. When VHKM goes to Babette's booth to knock down some bottles, Zach follows him and once again becomes an Uberjerk, getting all competitive and macho about the game. Babette is alarmed when Zach starts throwing the balls really hard at everyone else's bottles, and asks him what's the deal with him being all Goose Gossage. Zach's on a mean streak now, though, and practically bumps chests with VHKM, hilariously yelling, "Welcome to the S.H., bitch!" VHKM shakes his head, and Babette wonders who she's supposed to give the prize to. "Give it to Asian George Clooney, here," Zach says. "I'm outtie."
He heads straight to Mrs. Kim and accuses her of already getting Lane paired off to "the Korean Brad Pitt guy with the Italian loafers and the super-white teeth." Mrs. Kim sighs and says that that is Lane's uncle. "That can't be her uncle," Zach says. "Uncles are old." Mrs. Kim says that nevertheless, Joe, the Very Hot Korean-American Man, is in fact Lane's uncle. "Okay," he says. "Oops. But, just to be clear here...she's not hot on her uncle, right?" He tries to leave, but Mrs. Kim stops him. "We settle this now," she says. "I am not going to get in your way." As usual, we cut away from Zach, leaving him in a state of confusion.
Lane is testing out the Swami Doggy booth, giving the wheel a spin. Lorelai reads out her fortune. "You will sing songs of gemstones!" she says. Lane: "Of gemstones!" Rory bursts everyone's bubble, asking what that means, and Lorelai said she was pretty tired when she wrote that one.
Luke comes over now, and asks if they can walk and talk for a minute. He apologizes again for how she found out and said he didn't know how to tell her. Lorelai, for whatever reason, is understanding. "Luckily," Lorelai says, "you're with a woman who has raised a daughter. I can help." Now, here is where he should drop to the ground and flagellate himself, swearing that he is unworthy of her forgiveness. I mean, is a little flagellation too much to ask? This was a big fucking deal, right? Instead, he breaths an audible "whew," saying he's been really overwhelmed with everything, including June 3rd. He says it's all happening too fast. Lorelai says they can postpone if he wants, and instead of being a grown man and saying he can handle anything, he again looks relieved and says yeah, he wants to postpone, that that will really help. Lorelai looks shocked and hurt that he is so up for the postponement. I want her to kick him in the nuts, but she doesn't, which makes me twice as mad. They awkwardly kiss and agree to meet later at his place, after which she walks away, sad and worried.