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The morning after! Rory wakes up in Logan's empty apartment, surrounded by the detritus of the swinging bash she threw him and finds that he's left her a beautifully wrapped...model rocket ship. Summer has started, and Rory is at a loss without him. Paris gives her a lecture to enlighten her about her limbo status. Lorelai, on the other hand, is experiencing nothing so romantic as that. She opens her eyes to the gross reality of last night's mistake -- she really did slept with Christopher. When Luke arrives at her house later that morning to discuss things, she tells him "it's over" and gives him the brush off. It's not the only bad news he's getting today. Taylor (annoyingly) informs him of a new red light to be installed in front of the diner that will require his power to be cut off. Except that what actually happens is that Kirk, during a demonstration of the system, DRIVES his CAR, through Luke's DINER. To heal their broken hearts, Lorelai and Rory decide to "not talk." So...they spend several minutes talking about not talking, and decide the best thing they can do to keep from talking is to play racquetball. This doesn't work, but they do have an hilarious conversation on the court about Logan's rocket (not like that), the meaning of which Rory finally discovers, though her heart is broken anew when he asks her to come to London at Christmas instead of the summer. After his diner tragedy, Luke realizes that he is ready to marry Lorelai and makes a desperate plea for them to get back together. She, however, insists that it's over and finally reveals to him that she slept with Chris. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Rory wakes up amid the wreckage of the farewell party she threw for Logan, sad and alone. Welcome to Season 7 of Gilmore Girls, subtitled: "My boyfriend's gone, and we're gonna be in trouble." She stumbles through all the mess -- and smiles when she sees that Logan has somehow left a beautifully wrapped, secret present for her on the bar. She opens it to find...a model rocket ship. Just what every girl wants! She looks at it, clearly confused.
Also confused? Lorelai, who is also just waking up in Christopher's bed. Oh, mom and dad, you've been up to NO GOOD. Urgh. I was hoping we'd find out that -- HA HA -- last season's big finish was some cleverly disguised sequence that would end with Miss Patty loudly kvetching in the diner that, suddenly, in her dream, the swamp monster was Christopher! And he was in Lorelai's bed! But, no. Lorelai, too, looks disappointed that this reality is actually real and does that uncomfortable Morning After escape maneuver where she insists that she can't stay, over his many protestations. "I can't," she says. "Paul Anka." Chris smirks. "Oh, there's no way he could be performing this early," he says. "Check your tickets." She gets dressed while he rattles on, and finally has to cut him off with a firm "no." Her face when she leaves gives us all the evidence we need that she is as squicked by her own behavior as we are.
When, moments later, Lorelai does the shoeless walk of shame into her house, she is greeted by a honking "you're baaaack!" It's Babette, who scares the crap out of her. "Yeah, it's my voice," Babette says. "Frightens a lot of people...it's the nodules on my vocal chords. The more I strain my voice, the more they grow. It's nature's way of trying TO GET ME TO TALK SOFTER!" Wincing, Lorelai tots up the score: "Babette: 1; Nature: nada." No kidding. I hate to bust on the legendary Sally Struthers, but those kids in Africa called and asked that she stop screaming at them. They've got enough problems. Save the Children...from Deafness, is what they're saying.
Babette tells Lorelai that she broke in to, you know, feed Paul Anka and do a load of her "intimates." As one does. Lorelai makes a move to check her answering machine and needn't bother -- Babette tells her before she can even get there that there are no messages. Furthermore, Babette screeches that she already knows why Lorelai's so anxious to check them: everybody knows about her fight with Luke. "You know Adrienne Bittenberg's daughter, Becky?" Babette asks. "She's got a huge mouth?" Lorelai defends the maligned Becky, saying that the girl is not a gossip. "But," Babette insists, "she has a huge mouth." She says that Becky and another girl were behind Doose's seeing how many devil dogs Becky could stuff in her mouth and that when the other girl had to race for help, she overheard Lorelai's fight with Luke in the street. "Well," Lorelai says, "I'm glad she had the presence of mind to listen in on our argument while her friend was choking to death." Babette brushes this off. Presumably, Becky Bittenberg is dead. She offers some empty platitudes about every couple having fights and it being good for clearing the air, or whatever, and then immediately and not subtly tries to find out where Lorelai spent the night. Lorelai hedges, and makes it clear that she's ready for Babette to scram. "Oh, I'm just waitin' for my panties to dry," Babette says, but is brought up short when she sees that no, Lorelai really, really is ready for her to leave, probably because she has a migraine from all the yelling going on in her house at this ungodly hour. Babette leaves, asking that her panties be put on a delicate spin cycle, and saying that Luke will probably call soon: "They always do!"
Rory, in a very pretty dress, is wandering the halls at school when she grimly notices that Paris's summer job -- tutoring would-be Yale students -- is headquartered in the Daily News offices. Rolling her eyes, she walks in to see Paris lecturing a mother and her timid daughter, who Paris has already deemed unworthy of tutoring. "Do you want your kid to spend her life behind the counter at Dunkin' Donuts?" Paris asks. "Because that's where she's headed -- selling chocolate donuts and glazed fritters for the forty years to people in business suits who actually gave a crap about their academic future." Besides making me very hungry, this alarms the mother, who says her daughter has great potential. "Well," Paris tells her, "so did Charles Manson." How I've missed Paris. She continues to berate the mother and kid half to death until the mom is practically begging Paris to help. "She's got a C average, which means she's either lazy, or stupid," Paris says. "I can work with either. Frankly, sometimes stupid is easier. I can scare the stupid out of you; lazy runs deep." A brilliant equation. Reverse it, and it's a perfect analysis for why reality TV shows are still attracting participants and viewers. Paris makes both the mother and daughter take aptitude tests so that she can figure out whose fault it is that the girl is so dumb. Love it.
Rory has witnessed it all and is suitably impressed with Paris's business plan. She tries to make an excuse for being there, but Paris sees through it -- she knows Rory's depressed that Logan's left. "Breakups are tough," she says. Rory's eyes go big. "We didn't breakup!" she says, defensive, and asks why Paris thought they did. "I don't know," she shrugs, and runs down the facts. "Wealthy, good looking, hedonistic heir to billion dollar multi-national media conglomerate moves to London and spends nights pining away for his college girlfriend? Who's watching that movie?" Rory is frustrated and says that she and Logan are still together and that no, they didn't really have a talk about it, but that the nature of their commitment is "kind of understood." Paris rightly smirks: "Yeah, because that worked out so well the last time." Rory pouts as her friend continues on being the voice of reason. Logan, Paris says, need to be told exactly where the relationship stands and what Rory's expectations are. "He's got to know where the red lines are," she says, "or he's going to leap right over them and into bed with multiple British floozies." Rory tries to shut her up, but Paris won't have it. "He moved to London, Rory," she says, "the most romantic city in the world!" When Rory reminds her that, in fact, Paris (the city) is thought to be the most romantic, Paris (the girl) sarcastically demurs. "Ah, right," she says, "London is just the most sex-obsessed." Rory looks blue.
But...not as blue as Luke, who has shown up at Lorelai's house as she is leaving for work. She says that she doesn't want to talk right now and tries to get past him. He clearly is not on the same page about their fight -- he quietly apologizes, saying that he's sorry about last night, but that she kind of ambushed him and now that he's had a chance to think about it, he wants to discuss it. Lorelai reminds him that she gave him every chance, and that there's nothing left to discuss. "It's over," she says. "It was over last night and it's over now. It's over." With that, she jumps in the Jeep and leaves him standing there, looking forlorn. Now, how is it that after I was so on the edge of stabbing Luke all last season, I now feel so sorry for him? Oh, yeah. Quit messing with my emotions, non-Palladinos. Do I hate him, or not? Lorelai, in this episode, seems to be running on fumes, like she has no feelings about him OR Chris, other than that they both suck.
At the Dragonfly, Michel and Sookie are having an arm-wrestling match in the kitchen. It amuses me that (1) Michel would ever engage in any activity that might cause him to sweat in his fancy suit; or (2) he thinks he could ever beat Sookie, or anyone -- including Paul Anka -- arm wrestling. She whips his ass, naturally (making an excellent Over The Top joke in the bargain).
Lorelai walks in, distracted, while Sookie taunts him, and barely even acknowledges Michel's insistence that he might have to take time off to get his wrist X-rayed. I may have to get my eardrums X-rayed because Sookie, though I love her, proceeds now to kill me with a one-minute-solid non-stop monologue about how she developed her wrist strength from whisking flipping cast-iron skillets around. It's cute and Gilmorian, but what you should care about is Lorelai's sad, sad face as she stands there, not listening, before Sookie finally notices. "Honey," she says, "something's wrong, huh?" Lorelai admits that there is. "It's not spiders on the ceiling, is it?" Sookie asks, cringing because she can most likely guess the real problem, which Lorelai confirms: "Luke and I are over." Sookie tries to make it not true. "No," she smiles. "You guys had a fight." Lorelai says that they had "The Fight," but Sookie rambles on that people always have fights and that the bad ones can seem like The Fight, but that surely everything is really okay. "It wasn't just the fight, Sookie," Lorelai says. "It was him not fighting for me. I gave him an ultimatum, and he let me walk away." Sookie desperately insists that Luke will come back, that he wants to marry her, and that he'll get it together. But Lorelai shakes her head. "I'm done," she says. "I don't want to see him anymore. It's over."
Sookie can't believe it, though. "I get that you're mad," she says, reassuringly. "Luke's been a real jerk, frankly. Being mad at him makes all the sense in the world." She says that if Lorelai's so mad that she needs to believe, for the time, that they're over, she gets it. Thing is, though, she doesn't get it, so Lorelai has to deliver the bomb: "I spent the night with Christopher last night." Sookie blinks. I rub my hands together hoping for an explosion out of Sookie, because, while I think Lorelai got the big time shaft in this whole Luke/secret kid game, I haaaate that she slept with Christopher. And I hate it for Lorelai, especially -- I appreciate that people make mistakes, and I like it that she at least seems to regret it, but I wish there was some serious retribution in the form of a BFF Smackdown right here. Sookie is sympathetic, though, really just wanting to figure out a way that it's okay and that Lorelai and Luke don't break up. "Things happen," she says, attempting to be pragmatic. "It's not Disney, but it's the real world, and you don't have to tell him. Luke doesn't have to know, and things don't have to be over." Lorelai, however, is not going for it. "I need it to be over," she says. "I can't take this anymore." She likens their relationship to a moving car. Luke's the driver, and she just wants to be in the passenger seat. Instead, she says, even though she loves Luke, he won't let her in. "He's locked the door, and so I have to hold on to the bumper," she says, getting more and more adamant. "Life goes on, and the car goes on, and I get really badly bruised, and I'm hitting potholes and it hurts! It hurts!" So, yesterday, she says, she had to let go of the bumper. "Because it hurts too much," she yells. "It hurts too much!" With real sadness, Sookie says, "Okay."
Okay, sidenote: This Secret commercial they are playing right now...with the two women sitting there all nervous while one of them tries to tell her secret? The secret is that she's in love with her friend, right? Surely, I'm not the only one getting that vibe. It's so sweet, I nearly can't take it.
Luke's at the diner, harassing Cesar, being rude to the customers -- business as usual. He complains that Lane is not yet back from her honeymoon, saying that surely seven days is long enough for two people to sit in a mountain cabin and come to the dreadful realization that they've chained themselves together for life. Nice. The thing is, he's all grumpy, yes, but it's the normal grumpy -- neither he nor Lorelai seem terribly upset by their breakup. Cesar corrects Luke that Lane and Zach are in Mexico, anyway, and that being on the beach with the hot sun, it may take them a little longer to realize how miserable they're supposed to be. "Cesar, are you being funny?" Luke growls. Cesar: "You tell me." Heh. He determines that, uh, it would appear that Luke does not find him, or anything else in the entire world, funny. And things are about to get way less funny, which is unfortunate for us all. While assaulting a complaining customer's wrongly-cooked eggs, Luke notices that Taylor and Kirk are outside, getting up to some kind of traffic-related shenanigans. He barges out to find that, in fact, Taylor is installing a red light camera, which he claims will safeguard the town against scofflaws.
This scene could only have annoyed me more if Babette, Emily and Mrs. Kim had ridden a three-seat bike through the square singing "Three Little Maids from School." I find all prolonged Taylor/Kirk moments to be worse than dental surgery, and the addition here of Luke at his most curmudgeonly does not help at all. Shut up, everybody. Essentially, Luke hates the idea of a red light camera and vows to go against Taylor on it, and Taylor invites him to attend the unveiling ceremony happening that afternoon. "Well," Luke yells, "I don't see how I can avoid it, considering it's right in front of my damn diner!" Kirk: "I'll put you down for plus-one."
At the Dragonfly, Lorelai is surprised when Rory arrives out of the blue. "The prodigal daughter returns!" she says, mugging the title from last season's big turning-point episode. Michel, whose injured wrist is now completely splinted and wrapped, is less enthused to see Rory, as usual. "Isn't she the sweetest, Michel?" Lorelai asks him. "Hmm," he snarks. "Beyond all human understanding." Rory's real reason for coming home was because she was at loose ends without Logan. She says their goodbye was awful. "There's nothing good about a goodbye," Rory says. "It's a very poorly named ritual. It was a bad bye, a very bad bye." At least, I think that's what she says -- the Bledel slur is prominent in this scene. It's also possible she said that "Imus a shoofly, a merry shoofly," but I doubt it. "I just miss him so much," she pouts. "And it's only been seven hours. Can you imagine what it will be like after...." She sighs and decides that she doesn't even want to talk about it and that she needs coffee. Lorelai leads her to the nectar of the Gods while assuring her that she can always vent to her if she needs to. "I'm the perfect vent...er...izer. Venterator." Rory says she doesn't need a venterator; she just doesn't want to talk about it. "What's going on with you?" she asks, changing the subject. Oops. Lorelai doesn't want to talk about her relationship woes, either. "Look, I don't want to talk about this right now, okay?" she says. "But I want to tell you; I have to tell you." Lorelai says that she's barely holding it together and says Rory has to promise she won't make her talk about it after she gives her the info. "What?!" Rory asks, starting to panic, and Lorelai finally heaves a heavy sigh and does the big reveal. "Luke and I split up," she says. Rory: "You mean like, you had a fight?" Lorelai: "No, we had a break up, like a real-life parting of the hearts." Rory is upset and asks why this happened. "Rory," her mom says, "you promised." Rory thinks back: "No, I didn't..." Lorelai says the promise was implied and really does not want to discuss it. "Well," Rory says, thinking it over, "you know, I guess we don't have to talk about stuff." Lorelai emphatically agrees. "Yeah," she says. "We don't always have to be talking!" A cheer is heard from my house as I imagine long minutes of silence coming from the screen...but they are dashed when she goes on to say that they'd better talk about how much not-talking they're going to be doing. Great idea.
Rory suggests that in order to not talk she and Loreai go to the movies. Or, maybe shopping. Or perhaps they could go to a bar and throw back a few. "Yeah," Lorelai scoffs, "because drunk people never feel like talking. Ooh! We could go to a club." Rory rolls her eyes. "Yeah, because all hot spots get rolling right around lunch time." Lorelai sighs and says that this is the reason men play sports. "Sports!" Rory says. "We could play sports!" Lorelai reminds her that they hate sports, but suggests they try running. "We could easily talk while we were running," Rory says. "Not," Lorelai answers, "if we were hurdling!" Or, she says, they could do "that kind of running that's like... you leap around a tree and up a hill and..." Rory interrupts: "You want to run cross country?" Lorelai shakes her head: "Well, not the whole country! Maybe just Michigan."
Michel returns to his desk to sort his Post-Its and Rory and Lorelai quiz him about his sporting life. "Well, since I am maimed, potentially for life," he drones, indicating his bandaged wrist, "I may never play sports again." The thought of Michel playing sports, ever, provides more laughs than this entire episode, combined. Lorelai asks him to think back to the time before his life-altering tragedy, and he suggests that they try racquetball. They are intrigued and must know more. "Can we wear cute outfits?" Rory asks, getting to the important part. Michel: "I do." They are sold. Lorelai tells Rory to go home and get ready; she'll see her in an hour for racquetball. "And remember," she adds, "no talking." Rory agrees, with one provision. "Except for smack talking," she says, "because I am so gonna kick your butt in racquetball! I mean, my balls...they are gonna bounce so much further than your balls." Heeee! BALLS! Stop saying it! How Michel held it together without stuffing a stack of Post-Its in his mouth, I don't know. "Okay, well," Lorelai says, trying to get in on the smack, "you haven't seen my great top...flick wrist...spin...." Rory holds up her hands: "We'll learn the terms." Lorelai nods and tells her to go home and study.
At home, Rory is unpacking Logan's rocket (hey!) when he happens to call to announce that he has landed at Heathrow. She tells him she's off to play racquetball with her mom. "This is a really bad connection," he says. "It sounded like you're gonna go play racquetball with your mom!" Rory says that she may have a hidden talent for it, he doesn't know. What sort of crazy pills have these Gilmore people been slipping into my drinks lately? Because, do y'all find Logan cute all of a sudden? I mean, is it just because I am mad at Luke and Lorelai that I find Rory and Logan kind of charming? Are they brainwashing me with that Secret commercial? What is happening? Where am I? What's -- I start watching One Tree Hill?
Logan asks Rory whether she liked the present he left for her. "Like it?" she says, laughing nervously. "I...love it!" He is so relieved, saying he worried that maybe she wouldn't understand it, but that of course, she does. "Of course I got it! I loved it!" she says, like it's a foregone conclusion, though she does not get it at all. Happy, he says he's got to go (he calls her "Ace" again, thus causing me to reverse my decision to maybe like him) and Rory hangs up, more confused than ever about the rocket.
Speaking of the rocket...well, that's just what happens when we return from commercial, straight to the racquetball court, where Lorelai and Rory are sitting on the floor, speaking of the rocket. Lorelai doesn't get it, either. "Is it filled with anything?" Lorelai asks. "Gum, or candy, or anything?" Rory scoffs: "Gum?" Her mom is offended. "What? Rocket Gum! It could be a thing!" Rory, growing more frustrated, says that it's just a model rocket and wants to know what it means. "Rocket...rocket...Rocketman?" Lorelai tries. "'Crocodile Rock.' 'Benny and the Jets.' 'Candle in the Wind.'" Rory asks if she's just saying Elton John songs. Lorelai: "He is just so talented." Rory pouts and suddenly has an idea. "What about space?" she asks. Lorelai: "It's...the final frontier?" Rory says no, what if Logan meant he wanted space away from her. Lorelai says that can't be it, and Rory goes back to the drawing board. Squinting with concentration, she suggests that maybe it's code. "Like, I'm his rocket, right?" she says. "Like I'm his rock E.T. I'm his rock...in the Eastern time zone!" Lorelai breaks it to her that that's dumb. "Yeah," she shoots back, like Rocket Gum is sweeping the nation! Lorelai says that when she makes a zillion dollars on her brilliant Rocket Gum invention, Rory will have to eat her words. "Or, more likely, chew those words, and blow a bubble with them," she says, because what Rory doesn't realize is that Rocket Gum will be filled with helium and, when chewed, shoot the chewer into the atmosphere. The cuteness of this scene is overwhelming. Where has the cuteness been for about twenty-five episodes? On the racquetball court? They admonish themselves for talking when they said they wouldn't, and Rory admits it's her fault. "So maybe now," she says, "you'd like to talk about Luke." Lorelai smirks. "You know what?" she says. "I'd rather racquetball." Of course, on her first attempt at the sporting life, Lorelai serves a racquetball...right into her eye. "Okay," she says. "We're done."
Back at home, they look around the crap shack for something to put on Lorelai's swelling eye. Rory heads to the kitchen, suggesting ice. "You know I don't cook," Lorelai calls. Rory protests that having ice in the freezer is, actually, the opposite of cooking. "All you have in here are like, batteries, and film and I think something that used to be an ice cream sandwich," she says, as Lorelai enters the kitchen with a bunch of stuff from the bathroom. "You're not putting shaving cream on your eye," Rory says, and Lorelai, with a small sigh, says no; she's just getting rid of some of Luke's stuff. "Steak!" Lorelai says, suddenly. "Steak, is supposed to be good for a black eye." Rory has an even better idea: a bag of frozen peas that will mold to the contours of her face. "But steak has actual healing properties," Lorelai insists. "Something about the juices or the fats is good for the skin." Rory shudders at the idea and says she's going to the store to get some ice. "And steak!" her mother says. "And peas. And ice cream! And then when I'm done using it, we can eat it! It's Black Eye Dinner!" Rory: "Says the woman who can't cook ice." Lorelai says she's too injured to cook, anyway, and Rory heads to the store, giving her a cold battery to use on her eye.
In town, Rory encounters the whole town that has come out to watch Taylor's big unveiling of the red light camera. Luke, meanwhile, refusing to emerge from the diner to watch the festivities sees Rory sees through the window and they share a very awkward wave. Taylor kicks the action into high gear, giving a speech about safety and traffic and yadda yadda. Though his message is no doubt important, I tune out his voice because if I don't it pierces my brain so severely I can hear him with my nose. The gist is that Kirk will demonstrate the camera's functionality by driving Taylor's '64 Thunderbird through the red light.
Miss Patty does the honors of waving him off the starting line, in the style of Cha Cha DiGregorio, and Kirk revs his engine and blows through the red light. The camera's flash, however, is amazingly powerful and, blinded by the light, Kirk weaves the car all over the road, veers sharply and crashes through the front of Luke's diner! Even though he could have killed everyone in Stars Hollow, no one is hurt -- not even Kirk. "I'm OKAY!" he screams, leaping from the wreckage, and the whole town rushes to the scene.
Speaking of rushing, that's just what Rory has done to get home and tell Lorelai the whole story. She apologizes for refusing so many times to see any of The Fast And The Furious movies and announces that she has now come to understand the awesomeness of cars crashing into things. She tells the whole story of Kirk's drive into the diner while Lorelai listens with horror. Rory is describing Kirk's Evel Knievel exit from the car, when she realizes that Lorelai has been sorting a bunch of stuff into piles in the living room. She says she's just getting more of Luke's things together. "This is Luke's?" Rory asks, picking up a camo mini skirt which I would love to see Scott Patterson wear. Lorelai says no, it's hers, but that she wore it when she went to see Jarhead with Luke. It brings back romantic memories for her, apparently, because she was wearing it when she threw up movie theater hot dogs in the parking lot and Luke held her hair. Nice. Rory is suitably moved. She throws the skirt into the reminds-me-of-Luke pile, across from the Luke's-stuff pile. "What's that pile?" Rory asks about a third stack. "Those," Lorelai explains, "are Babette's intimates."
Rory goes through the piles growing more alarmed when she sees that Lorelai is getting rid of Bop It. You'd think she'd be thrilled about that, considering that the game turns Luke into a violent abuser. She picks up a spatula, wondering why Lorelai would throw that out as well, and makes a sad face, saying it must be because Luke used to make her breakfast. "Oh, he did," Lorelai says, "but that's not why I'm getting rid of it -- although now that you mention it, the waffle iron has got to be dumped." Lorelai explains that the spatula has got to go because one night, when she and Luke were having a disagreement, they further disagreed over whether the disagreement was a spat or a fight. She said the former, he insisted on the latter. She proved her point, however, when she explained to him that fight cannot be diffused in the moment, but that a spat can easily be diffused with the use of a...spatula. Is your heart breaking? Mine, too. But, you know, Lauren Graham's heart... not so much. I don't know how to explain it, but I am not feeling her like, feel this whole breakup. Shouldn't she be crying, at some point? Don't get me wrong, I love the actress so much I think she should have a ninety-five Emmys. I think, as a matter of fact, she should have so many, they rename the Emmys the Grahammys. Get it? COME ON. Okay, fine. But what I'm saying is, she's always so awesome and in this episode, I expected crying. Or at least some personal horror over the Christopher angle.
Rory says that she's sad and insists that her mom tell her what the story is with Luke, since she saw him today and doesn't know how to feel about him. "You shouldn't hate him," Lorelai says, bland. "There's nothing to be angry about." She repeats how she gave him an ultimatum and he didn't go for it, so it's over. Rory frowns again and pauses before whipping out the contents of her shopping bag and offering them to Lorelai. "Steak or peas?" she asks.
Back at the diner, Luke is up in Taylor's grill. "You never listen to anybody, Taylor," he says. "You just barrel along and decide what's best for everybody, consequences be damned!" Ah, a little transference, here. Except, well, that's all true of Taylor, totally -- also, his car is IN Luke's DINER. Taylor sputters around saying that this is not his fault, and Luke becomes entangled and enraged between Taylor and the tow truck guy, who is pressuring him to have the car moved out of the diner right away. Luke freaks, saying he hates being pressured into decisions, and flips out while the other guys continue to needle him. In the background, a never before seen Asian man is cleaning up the diner. Is this...is this the long lost Mr. Kim?! How great would that be? I'm just going to pretend it is, since they never tell us where he is, as if Lane was just hatched from an egg.
Back at Lorelai's, she and Rory have just about cleaned out the house, totally, leaving bare walls and empty tables. Lorelai figures that she'll have to just go to IKEA to redecorate, but Rory has an idea. She goes and brings the rocket out to the coffee table, suggesting Lorelai use it as a decorating tool. "Well," Lorelai concedes, "it doesn't remind me of Luke at all." Rory says the frustrating part is that the rocket doesn't remind her of Logan, either. Lorelai asks why Rory doesn't just call him, but she says that she can't until she figures out the rocket's meaning. "See?" Rory pouts. "This long distance thing isn't working, already." Lorelai reminds her that he just left, but Rory says that she's already completely confused and she's afraid she's got their relationship all wrong and he thinks something different than she does, just like he did when he slept with all those bridesmaids. Right, right. Now I remember why I hated him.
Rory goes on and on about how, now that he's in London, she can't gauge how he's feeling anymore, because she can't see his face. "His eyes always give him away," she says. "Logan has very expressive eyes." Lorelai nods. "I've noticed," she says. "It's one of the things he and Bette Davis have in common." Hee! Funny, but...why not suggest that Rory -- and I know this is so crazy -- just ask Logan how he's feeling. I know, it's so radical! Seeing how frustrated Rory is, Lorelai cuts to the chase. "So," she says, "go to London." Rory is surprised. Rory says that she can't just go to London. Lorelai disagrees -- she says Rory and Logan would have a great time in London together, and since Rory doesn't even have any other plans for the summer anyway, she should just call him and go. Rory allows herself a small smile and looks at the rocket. "I need to do some more Googling," she says, and Lorelai sighs and goes to bed.
At his diner, Luke sits alone among the wreckage and thinks in the dark.
Upstairs, in her cutey pajamas, Lorelai sits on the bed looking morose. Suddenly, she must again be reminded of Luke. She gets up and drags all the bedding to the floor. The phone rings, and when she sees who's calling, she cringes. It's Christopher. "Just checking in," he says to her total silence. He tries again. "I had a really great time last night." Now she's really cringing and he can tell. "Don't worry," he says. "This is not a booty call." Lorelai: "It can't be, because you're not eighteen...and this is not 1997." Good one. Except, hello, it totally is a booty call. He gives her the patented "I was thinking you could come over tomorrow night and I could cook us some dinner" routine, which she immediately kiboshes. "Let's not make more out of it than it was," she says, clearly uncomfortable. "I don't think it should happen again." He is obviously disappointed, but tells her that he's there for her if she needs him (EW!) and they say goodnight. Man, it is painful. She hangs up and sighs.
Later that night, Lorelai is awakened by Rory, who has figured out the rocket thing once and for all! "I have been Googling rockets, you know?" she says. "Rocket ships, rocket love, rocket London, Logan rocket, and let me tell you, it has not always been a pleasant journey; people are freaks." Oh, girl. I hear you. Finally, she says, she found a crazy blogger named Rocketboy who connected her with RocketChamp465, who recognized the rocket from her description. It's from an episode of The Twilight Zone called -- hey, wait a minute! -- "The Long Morrow" that Rory says she and Logan watched on their first date. "We were on the couch..." she starts, and is interrupted by Lorelai's Chachi impression: "Wa, wa, wa!" Rory rolls her eyes and goes on, explaining how this Twilight Zone was Logan's favorite episode and explains the whole "Gift of the Magi" element of the story. "He spent forty years alone in space just waiting to see her," Rory says, "and he was willing to come back as an eighty-year-old man, giving up almost his entire life, just to spend those last few years with her." She is glowing when she tells Lorelai that when she and Logan watched the episode together, he said, "That's true love." Now, how anyone could have a fave Twilight Zone episode besides the infamous Shatner one...I honestly do not know. In all my frequent travels, I have never, ever gotten on a plane without making a joke about it. As a matter of fact, I think that thing on the wing is what brought down Oceanic 815, and I won't be satisfied until the truth is revealed!
Lorelai's jaw drops and she is happy when Rory gleefully says that this is the most romantic gift she's ever been given, and that she is going to call Logan and go to London. "Yay!" Lorelai says, and she insists that it's okay that Rory go, even while she stays behind to deal with this Luke stuff.
Rory immediately calls Logan, who is just starting his new job. "I just got in to the office," he says. Rory: "On a dare?" Good one, Ace. She excitedly asks him silly questions about his office and whether or not he has a secretary named Moneypenny. "My secretary's name is Steven," he laughs. Rory: "Steven Moneypenny?" Cute. She says that she's calling to thank him for the rocket, again, because she wants him to know much she really, really loves it. "I'm glad," he answers, flatly. She says that she can't wait to come see him and is thrilled when he says he already got her a ticket and is FedExing it tomorrow. "Oh, my God!" she trills, obviously thinking it's a ticket to leave immediately. But...no. "So, tell your mom you're not going to be home for Christmas," he says. Aw, man. Poor Rory. She covers her heartbreak and listens to him excitedly plan their two-week holiday vacation. When he has to cut the call short to go to a staff meeting, she hangs up, dejected.
In the morning, Lorelai wakes up to hear Luke pulling into her driveway. She sighs and goes outside, looking at him blankly. He is desperate and begging. Y'all, my hate of Luke is over. I can't be mad at him now. He is teary and babbling, saying he doesn't care about the whole diner crash, and that nothing matters to him without her in his life. She listens, unaffected, as he goes on and on about how he's ready to elope to anywhere she wants. He won't stop talking. "You were right," he says. "I need to be faster; I need to move faster; I need to think faster. So, well...here I am!" Firmly, she repeats that it's over. "No," he says, breathless. "You can't just say that it's over. It's not over. You can't just decide that it's over; I'm in this, too! And, I'm not going to let it be over." Again, he says they can go right now and get married. Right now. Kudos to Scott Patterson, who shows more real emotion here than I have ever seen him show, especially when Lorelai says the only thing she can say to make him stop: "I slept with Christopher." And, quicker than he came in, he's gone.