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Luke punches Christopher. IN HIS FACE. Ahhhhh, such sweet, sweet satisfaction. Then, it's less sweet, because T.J. shows up to help him rebuild the diner, so I tune out. UNTIL...it becomes clear that Kirk has taken advantage of the greasy spoon shortage and opened his own open-air diner. Kirk performs a full-on Luke impression, as a matter of fact, with the flannel and the hat, and the 'tude. When T.J. finds out about Luke's breakup, he drags Luke home to talk it over with Liz. She doesn't exactly make Luke feel better, telling him that he and Lorelai were never in sync, anyway. Zach and Lane return from their honeymoon with tales of fiasco. "Mexico sucks," Zach declares, as Rory goes to comfort Lane, who had a nightmare of a time. She declares that she is now on to the "marital sex conspiracy," and that she and Zach had a complete meltdown in the romance department. Rory suggests the insane idea of trying it in a bed time. Except, well...guess what, y'all? Mrs. Kim was right. Lane got pregnant on her first time. 'Cause that's what you get, folks. Lorelai runs into Luke in the street, where he declares that he is completely fine and over her. He is the King of All Asses about it, and she is shocked. She comforts herself by redecorating her home into a crazy Asian paradise. This cheers up Rory, who is sad that she and Logan didn't get to take their Asian tour. They talk about Asian stuff and watch karate movies for a really, really long time. Everything's great until Christopher calls and Rory overhears his confessional message on Lorelai's answering machine. She doesn't handle it well. When he sees Lorelai later, Luke apologizes for being mean to her, and says that they never belonged together, anyway -- that she belongs with someone like Christopher. As kind as he is, it breaks Lorelai's heart much worse than it was before. She finally cries over Luke, and Rory comes home to comfort her. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Luke's mad. When Lorelai told him that she slept with Christopher, he didn't bother responding. Rather, his face went through nine or ten stages of grief, he charged directly back to his truck and took off. Hmm. What would make a man feel better after finding out that his fiancée has done the dirty with the ONE MAN who could really ruin everything? "Well," you're saying, "he could punch that guy in the face." Which is exactly what Luke does. Oh, the sweet, sweet satisfaction when Christopher opens his door to find Luke standing there and, without preamble, receives a Jersey handshake right to the schnozz. How I loved it.
Lorelai, meanwhile, is up early, waiting impatiently for Rory to wake up and have breakfast, which she has prepared. Herself. With her own hands. Breakfast. Lorelai. Coffee AND waffles! Rory is also surprised. "I got up early this morning," Lorelai says to her daughter's shock, "and I thought, 'What better way to pass my time than make some of my famous, homemade waffles?'" Rory plays along: "I can't believe I forgot about your homemade waffles, seeing how famous they are." Lorelai nods: "Infamous, really." She goes on to say that, initially, on waking early, she couldn't decide how to pass the time "until my one and only offspring, the fruit of my loins..." --Rory interrupts, telling her it's to early for mention of "loins," but Lorelai goes on -- "loin fruit that she is, straggled out of bed." But then, Lorelai says, she asked herself, "WWTBFCD?" Rory squints as she translates: "What would The Barefoot Contessa do?" Right, Lorelai says. Rory has to break it to Lorelai that "barefoot" is one word. "Shut up, loin fruit," Lorelai shoots back.
Lorelai then asks what made Rory sleep in so late: "Are you just sleepy, or has last night's 'my boyfriend gave me a love rocket' elation worn off?" Rory says that the love rocketness has worn off slightly, and tells her mother about her conversation with Logan and the visit he's planning for Christmas. Lorelai looks suitably disappointed for her, but Rory -- GET THIS -- actually reacts with maturity and selflessness. I know. Read it again! She did! For once, Rory, don't shut up! "I get it," says Rory. "He is starting his first real job. He needs time to adjust and focus. It's good that he's trying to be a grownup, so now I'm trying to be a grownup. So why am I going to be all pouty?" Lorelai, naturally, has no concept of such a course of reasonable thinking, but is supportive...
...especially when Rory collapses to the table saying, in spite of her burst of maturity, that the whole thing stinks. She's most upset, apparently, that the Asia vacation she and Logan had planned is now kaput, and runs back to her room to show her mom all the research she did on the trip. "Wow," Lorelai says. "Were you planning on visiting Asia, or invading it?" Because, yeah, Rory's done a little highlighting and Post-It-ing. Apparently, she and Logan were planning on going to China and Vietnam AND Japan AND TIBET. Now, my husband will be the first to tell you that my geographical education is limited to...well, my house. Look, I'm not proud of it, okay? But it's true I don't know where anything is, and I admit that to you before even asking this question: Can one actually travel among all those countries easily and in a limited amount of time? I mean, is going to Japan from China like me going from Alabama to Georgia? I know I can look it up; quit yelling.
Okay, fine. I just looked it up. Are you happy now? Wow, I had no idea where the Philippines were. That is embarrassing. Listen, this whole recap is going to be awkward, for several reasons. Firstly: my already-demonstrated stupidity about Asia. Second of all: I will be typing half of it on a plane while jetsetting my way to Pamie's house tomorrow, watching the episode on my iPod. Seriously, are you impressed? Because that impresses me. I am pretty technologically backward, so for me to perform such a feat will be crazy mindblowing, indeed. Thirdish: my in-laws happened to be making an overnight stop at my house when this episode aired, which meant we all had to gather around the TV like a happy family and watch, together, the episode that happened to feature the word "sex" about, oh, nine hundred times in a row. And now back to your regularly scheduled recap. My sincere apologies for the sidetrack.
On her way out the door to work, Lorelai tells Rory that Lane called and is back from her honeymoon: "And she sounded kind of tired, which is good, I think. Tired after a honeymoon? Bodes well." Rory tests out some of her newfound maturity: "My married friend, Lane, and her married husband, Zach. Nutso." Lorelai comments that Rory has spoken like a true adult, and heads out to work.
Luke arrives at the diner, truck full of rebuilding supplies, and finds T.J. there waiting to help him on the construction project. T.J. is, as you no doubt guessed, so very painfully annoying. He asks Luke if he wants help unloading the truck, and then immediately begs off, saying that he has to finish the cup of coffee he's drinking -- which, incidentally, he bought for Luke and then drank himself, assuming that Luke would be late, which he wasn't. Just repeat that last sentence about six times in a hodge-podge Boston/Philly accent, and you will get the gist of this scene. Luke, naturally, is irritated by T.J.'s rambling, leading T.J. to suggest that they go across the street to the new diner to get some coffee. "What diner across the street?" Luke asks, with growing dread, and then turns to see...
...an open-air copy of his own diner manned, across the street, by none other than Kirk. The interloper is even wearing (to much less effect) a flannel shirt and backwards cap and has a coffee-cup shaped sign reading "Kirk's." Luke loses it, and asks Kirk why he's doing this. Kirk says that he's just filling a need: Stars Hollow residents really needed a place to "come and get a piece of pie, a cup of Arbuckle's, and a soupçon of small-town charm." Luke clenches his jaw and points out that Stars Hollow already has such a place: "Luke's! Ring any bells? Sounds a little like 'Kirk's,' doesn't it?" Kirk smirks (hee!). "Luke," he says, "if you're suggesting that you were the very first person to ever name a restaurant after yourself, I think that Denny, Arby, and Tony Roma might have something to say about that, not to mention Mr. Chuck E. Cheese." When Luke, in his rage, remarks that that last restaurateur is not even a person, Kirk scoffs again: "Do you really think a giant mouse opened a national restaurant franchise by himself?" He goes on to say that he heard Luke's was out of business, causing Luke to go right over the edge: "It's closed for repairs!" he says, stopping short of also punching Kirk, which I could easily get behind, "because some nincompoop, yesterday, drove his car through my diner!" Kirk, the nincompoop in question, dares to be offended and, even though they are already outside, asks Luke to step outside, where he threatens to sue Luke for slander. This is so ridiculous that I cannot even suspend disbelief to laugh at it; sometimes the townies are less "quirky" than they are "annoying as shit" -- or, as in this case, "clearly mentally ill and asking to be punched." "You're gonna sue me after you crash a car into my diner and bust a giant hole in my wall?" Luke rages. Kirk fails to acknowledge the sense of it: "For all you know, I have brain damage." Luke: "Oh, I'm pretty sure you do!" Why he bothers, I don't know, but he rages on a bit longer before charging back across the road to work on his own diner. He fails to heed my wishes of leaving behind a ticking grenade.
In the Inn's kitchen, Sookie is giving Lorelai a sushi-making lesson. "Slice it up," Sookie says, coming to the end, "and voila! Or, whatever they say in Japan. Ari...gato!" Lorelai: "Karate!" She is very impressed with Sookie's California rolls, but they come up with some even better ideas for the medium: meatloaf sushi, fried chicken sushi, Chinese food sushi, PB & J sushi! All sound awesome to me. Not awesome: Lorelai reveals to Sookie that she told Luke about sleeping with Chris. Sookie is appropriately mortified. "Why?" she cringes, and Lorelai tells her of Luke's visit that morning: "And he wouldn't take no for an answer, so I had to tell him. It's the only way he was gonna believe me; because it had to be 'no.'" Sookie is upset: "Did it have to be? Did the answer have to be 'no'?" Lorelai gets surly: "No. I mean, I guess I could be married right now to someone who really doesn't want to be married to me and to someone who doesn't know that I slept with someone two nights before we got married." Sookie: "Well, when you put it that way..." Lorelai says that telling Luke was one of the most horrible moments of her whole life: "What am I gonna do, you know? I have to be fine."
Rory arrives at the house of Hep Alien and meets Zach coming out the door. "So, the honeymoon's over," she greets him, and adds a smirky "Is the honeymoon over?," hitting him with the one-two cliché punch. Zach, as humorless as ever, says that the whole trip was a parasitic fiasco: "It was the Stones at Altamont times a billion. Mexico suuucks!" Part of why it sucked so bad was that Lane and Zach had been so psyched to go. Zach had found this amazing deal at "Pedro's Paradise," which, instead of being an awesome condo with a beach view and a Jacuzzi, turned out to be a nasty room in some dude named Pedro's apartment, "twenty-three miles from the ocean with a view of a billboard for Mexican nasal spray."
(Note: I am now writing this recap from a plane. Are you freaking out at my mad tech skills? Do you know how much time I had to spend communicating with Pamie, AB Chao, and Glark in order even to figure out how to do this? AB was like, "Well, first you turn on your computer..." Beyatch. And now I am on the plane and yes, of course the woman in front of me just put her seat back. Oooh, seat 13A, I will get you for this. I don't know if you know this about me, Internet, but I am six feet tall. I need the extra half a millimeter provided by the upright seatback. Being from a race of giants makes air travel a challenge. So, now the screen is, like, leaned forward and I can hardly see what I'm typing, and yet...I soldier on. For you and only you.)
Zach continues to fill Rory in on the evil vacation, complete with Pedro's jerky friends, who stayed up all night playing the Devil's music and talking about Lane and Zach in secret code. Or, you know, Spanish. "Anyway," Zach concludes, "on the second day I got some parasite and I've been barfing, Linda Blair-style, ever since." He says he is feeling better, but that it now appears as though Lane has been afflicted with the same illness, so Zach's off to Doose's to get her some "ginger ale and saltines -- which, by the way, was all we ate in the way of Mexican food." Rory says she's sorry their trip was so sucky. "Yeah, well," Zach says, "live and learn. Now I know not to drink the water in Mexico -- which, by the way, somebody should really tell you." Yes, exactly. Someone should also probably mention to Zach not to stick his hand in a blender or drink battery acid or give his money to Malawaiian princes. "I'm glad you didn't kill Pedro," Rory says. "He's not worth it."
In the apartment, Rory finds Brian playing videogames (natch) and wearing his souvenir sombrero. Lane, meanwhile, is all pitiful on her bed. "I heard Pedro's Paradise wasn't so paradise-y," Rory says as Lane groans. "But guess who I heard it from? Your husband! Can we not squeal about that?" Lane says she's not really up for squealing, but that Rory can be her guest. Rory apologizes, saying of course Lane doesn't feel like squealing, what with the parasite and all. "I actually feel okay right now," Lane says. "My aversion to squealing is more emotional than physical." She tells Rory that on, like, the fourth day of their trip, Zach got so paranoid that Pedro and his friends were talking lasciviously about Lane "in code" that he lunged at Pedro: "I just stared at him, lying on the floor, and I thought, 'I just married that man." Believe me, every woman says that on the fourth day of her honeymoon. My moment came when my husband ordered steak tartare in Paris and PROCEEDED TO EAT IT. ["At least you had a honeymoon. When you get married four weeks out of grad school and are totally broke, some parts of the wedding experience get scratched off the agenda." -- Wing Chun] Rory: "And you didn't squeal for joy?" Lane says that she just went and stared at Pedro's poster of Spuds Mackenzie and ate a saltine. She adds that she's feeling good enough for a walk, and they head out so that she can tell Rory about the further disaster of her honeymoon: "Besides, if I start barfing in public, you can just pretend it's because we were partying too hard." Rory agrees that this would do wonders for her rep.
Back at the diner, Luke is back on the job when T.J. arrives with some ideas on how to freshen the place up with a new design. He envisions a log cabin theme...with stained glass windows. But not the scary religious kind: "It could just be an image of a happy animal," like a smiling penguin or a peaceful-looking giraffe. "You think I should put up a stained glass window of a peaceful-looking giraffe on the side of my diner?" Luke asks. T.J.: "I'm just spitballin'; nothin's written in stone." When Luke doesn't love his ideas, T.J. accuses him of being in a mood, forcing Luke to apologize to keep from explaining about his breakup with Lorelai.
(Another note: I know I don't normally put a lot non-essential details in a recap, but I can't help myself this one time. The whole "recap on the plane" thing I had going on where I thought I was such a techie bad-ass? Right. My computer battery died oh, about thirty minutes into the flight. So, now I am in a coffee shop ON MY VACATION, watching the episode on the screen and recapping, right across the table from Pamie, who is currently conquering Hollywood with her genius.)
How Luke keeps from shooting T.J. with a nail gun, I don't know. Especially when T.J. announces that he's grateful for the opportunity to be out of the house, since "being pregnant makes Liz incredibly horny." Horny for T.J.? I'm trying to imagine a world in which this would be chemically possible. And now I'm considering shooting myself with a nail gun. And now I'm making a silent joke in my mind about getting nailed. And, scene. Luke asks if perhaps they could stop discussing his sister's sexuality, and so T.J. decides to...keep talking about it, and just for kicks, discuss Lorelai's as well. He recommends that Luke consider knocking up Lorelai to get those hormones going. "I got a feeling pregnancy would make Lorelai particularly randy," he says, causing Luke to have to escape. "You know what? I think I'm gonna go get that primer," he says, desperate. "I'm just worried about the hardware store running out, because, you know, it's the primer season."
In the gazebo, Lane sits Rory down to tell her that she knows. She's in on the conspiracy. Sex, she has finally come to discover, sucks. "Oh, no," Rory says, genuinely concerned. "Sex was bad?" Lane tells her to drop the act -- she's known about Santa Claus for years, and now she knows the truth about sex, as well: "You know what's funny? I really thought my mother was an insane prude when she said sex was bad for women, but now I see that, in fact, my mother was the only woman who wasn't willing to maintain this ridiculous, pervasive, media-supported charade." Rory asks which charade Lane's talking about. "That sex is normal," Lane laughs. "That sex is a wonderful part of life. That sex is...sexy. I mean, can we just not admit it, sex is not sexy." Rory says that sex does not, in fact, have to be horrible, but Lane is on a roll. She says that it speaks to the potential power of women that this lie could have been perpetuated for so long, throughout history. Rory is sad: "So, sex with Zach was bad?" (Can I remind you here that I was watching this with my in-laws? Yes. Thanks. Can you say "sex" a few more times, please?) Lane says that the sex with Zach was, in fact, unbelievably bad. Rory asks if it was bad every time. Lane openly scoffs and cringes: "Yeah, right, 'every time.'" She shudders, and Rory realizes that she only tried it once. "That's right," Lane says, "and I'm out." Rory assures Lane that the first time can often be weird -- that her own first time had its weird aspects (like, say, that she was doing it WITH A MARRIED GUY), but that it does get much better. Lane rolls her eyes: "Umm...sorry. I just don't believe you."
Rory gets serious: "Okay, you have got to walk me through what happened. I mean, not graphically, but...help me out here." Lane gives her the (literally) painful details. She and Zach decided that, since they had waited so long to have sex -- "and, God, if I had known what it was like, I would have gladly kept waiting" -- they would reenact the love scene in From Here To Eternity. Brilliant. "Wow, ambitious," Rory says. "Sex on the beach." Except, as Lane points out, what the movies never tell you is that sand? Is actually dirt: "It was dirty; it was cold; my hands were shaking. And I'm trying to remember stuff from school about condoms and bananas, and suddenly I realize...we've got crabs!" She means that there were actual, live crabs that were scuttling all over them. "And I was thinking," says Lane, "we took three buses from Pedro's apartment. For this." Rory is really upset for her, and says that once Lane feels better, she needs to try sex in a bed. "I'm open to the idea of a sexless marriage," Lane assures her. "I mean, it happens for some people, eventually. Why wait?" Rory again tells her that a bed with the added benefit of a comforter can really make a difference, but Lane remains skeptical.
On the street in town, Lorelai and Luke cross the crosswalk at the same time. Lorelai apologizes for, like, being outside at the same time he is, but Luke blows this off, cockily: "No, you don't have to be sorry. I'm fine." Lorelai sympathetically tells Luke that he doesn't have to be fine, because the situation is weird and she's not exactly fine, herself. "You're not?" he asks, and Lorelai says that of course she isn't. "Well, maybe you should punch Christopher's lights out," Luke suggests helpfully. "That really seemed to do it for me!" Lorelai is stunned and instantly furious. "Oh, so your boyfriend didn't tell you?" Luke snarks. "You two really need to work on your communication skills." LOVE IT. Listen, I am not letting Luke off the hook for his complete asshattery of last season. Not in the least. The way every character on this show is behaving right now is like looking into a window of adulthood in all its worst forms. I feel bad for Lorelai for getting shafted the way she did, but she is not blameless, of course, and adding the Christopher element to the equation nearly eliminated any empathy I felt for her. That being said, Luke is still being a huge, colossal idiot, but I must say I'm fully behind his violence against Christopher at the very least. That punch was a long time coming, and Lorelai should thank him for it. I guess Lorelai disagrees, though, because she tells Luke that if he needs to get his anger out, he should take it out on her, since she's the one he's mad at. Au contraire, he insists, saying he doesn't even care, and that she's the one who's still hung up over the whole thing. "So we're not getting married," he says, totally condescending. "It's okay by me. I mean, you're the one who proposed in the first place." She is, for once, speechless at his unbelievably unkind words, and the collective gasp in my house nearly sucked the air right out of the universe.
Back at the diner, more T.J. bullshit is going on and...look, it's not that I hate the actor who plays T.J., because at times he's kind of funny, but...in very, very limited quantities, is what I'm saying. He tells Luke that he and Liz have extra tickets to go and see the Hockettes, and that he wants Luke and Lorelai to go with them. Luke tries everything he can to beg off, but the mosquito-like T.J. won't leave him alone until Luke finally admits that he and Lorelai have split up. T.J. leaps on him and wraps him in an unbreakable bear hug and demands that he come over to dinner that night with T.J. and Liz.
Rory arrives back at her mom's house, which has been transformed into a Generic Asian Paradise, complete with a humongous Buddha, wall hangings of Hello Kitty, and Chinese lanterns everywhere. "You made Crazy Asia!" Rory says, thrilled, as Lorelai helps her into her handmade kimono. "Believe it or not," Lorelai says, "this is an exact replica...of what you would see in the other Asia!" Rory laughs, delighted: "Asia is a lot smaller than I thought. More intimate, and more...fragrant!" Lorelai says that Miss Patty donated a bottle of her Opium perfume to the cause and that, while spritzing it around, there was a flip-flop incident that caused spillage. Rory compliments Lorelai on the decorations: "The poster of Mao is a nice touch.And the one of Sandra Oh because, oddly, you have a poster of Sandra Oh..." Lorelai: "Well, she's a goddess." I wholeheartedly agree. This is a painfully cute scene and I do love it, but...wouldn't the old Rory just have GONE to Asia? Why does she even need Fake Asia? She and her mom should just blow off (not like that) all these goobs and go by themselves.
Rory and Lorelai walk around the feng shuied furniture as Lorelai gives Rory a tour of Asia: "First stop: Japan. Land of the Rising Sun." Rory dutifully follows, camera in hand. Lorelai goes on describing Japan: "Rruled by Hello Kitty, where we are gonna make our own sushi!" Rory is skeptical of this plan: "You, me and raw fish. Is that safe?" Lorelai says that she took a lesson, but that if Rory is scared, they can skip the fugu. After the sushi, Lorelai goes on, they will take an invisible rickshaw to the rice paddies (Rory's room), where they will origami paper cranes: "Then, we'll take a bullet train, straight back to Tokyo, where we will relax with some Tai Chi, in preparation for the kabuki play I wrote!" It's a genius plan, and Rory agrees, though she can't help pointing out that Tai Chi is actually a Chinese art. "I knew that," Lorelai says. "We'll teach it to the Japanese." Rory: "That's nice of us!" This fantastic voyage will conclude with dessert sushi and educational videos such as The Bridge On Tthe River Kwai, The Joy Luck Club, and Enter The Dragon. Also on the marquee, the Tom Selleck (who I love) classic Mr. Baseball, and, for its perpetuation of racist stereotypes, Breakfast at Tiffany's, featuring Mickey Rooney in perhaps his most embarrassing role as the Japanese landlord. "All right," Lorelai says, "let's make some sushi!" Rory: "But, I'm scared!" Lorelai lets her in on a little secret: "The fish is really fried chicken."
Later, Rory and Lorelai argue about the ranking on the deliciousness of their invention: dessert sushi. "You are honestly asserting that you like the Tootsie Roll-marshmallow-Twizzler roll better than the Butterfinger-Junior Mint-chocolate chip-Jujubee roll?" Lorelai asks. Rory says that she just doesn't think Butterfingers go with Jujubees. I have to agree, though Lorelai does call her crazy. In her defense, Rory says, she does like the Oreo-Red Hot sashimi, in which the Red Hots act as a dessert sushi wasabi. They figure they'll make their first and second million dollars on the dessert sushi invention, but decide to make the third million by go-go dancing. I'd give Lauren Graham a million Grahammies if she'd go-go dance for me, privately. Wait. Have I said too much? Possibly. I have had about sixteen cups of coffee, so, don't look at me like that. Rory and Lorelai make the unthinkable mistake of kind of making fun of Enter The Dragon, and Lorelai decides that what they need is fried ice cream. "Ugh," Rory says. "Cows must envy your stomachs. I'm so full, I feel like one of those cats that's bred to have no legs." Oh, Bledel. You killed me right there. So full you're like a cat with no legs? That's brilliant. Lorelai says that her hunger is more spiritual than physical, and goes off to the kitchen to try to figure out how to fry up some ice cream, which, she discovers with great shock, they do not have. "The one time I feel like cooking," Lorelai calls from the kitchen, "and there's no ice cream to fry?!" When the phone rings, Rory is too much of a legless cat to answer it, and Lorelai tells her not to get it, anyway, since they are out of the country. Rory smiles when the machine picks up and she hears it's her father, but the smile is short-lived when she hears his message: "I know you said it was just a one night thing. I want to talk about it, and about you and me, so call me so we can talk."
Lorelai comes back into the room, her face pale. Rory knows. And is pissed. "You slept with Dad," Rory accuses. Lorelai cringingly admits that this is true, and Rory rants on: "That's just...I can't believe you slept with Dad. Is that why you and Luke broke up? Because you slept with Dad?" (Hello, in-laws. I hope you are enjoying this show I'm required to watch about women freaking out and sleeping with the fathers of their illegitimate children. As you've always suspected, I am the epitome of class. Why don't we just switch over to the Playboy Channel right now?) Lorelai is upset that Rory has discovered what happened, and tries to reassure her, saying that her breakup with Luke had occurred prior to the Dad-sleeping. "For how long?" Rory snarks, really pissed. "I mean, it couldn't have been long, because you and Luke have only been broken up for, what, three days?" Lorelai hangs her head and says yes, it happened the night of the breakup. "Wow," Rory says, disgusted. "Sounds like you were in quite a hurry. Did you put a dummy in the passenger seat so you could use the carpool lane?" Kind of a weird insult, but it stings nonetheless. Lorelai gets offended and gives her a "Hey! Rory!" in the mother voice, but Rory rants forward: "No! You don't get to 'Rory' me. You slept with Dad!" She asks if Lorelai and Chris are "an item" now. Lorelai, frustrated, says no, and that the whole thing meant nothing. "Mom," Rory says, getting more angry. "You slept with Dad." Lorelai: "For the love of God, will you please stop saying that?" Rory says she can't help it; she's just so shocked and upset. Lorelai defensively throws up her hands, saying that she's not perfect; even Gwyneth Paltrow dyed her hair that unattractive brown color, and if Gwyneth's not perfect, how can anyone expect Lorelai to be? "Yeah," Rory snarks. "Because what you did is equivalent to dyeing your hair. That's great." She's particularly upset that if her parents start up this bullshit again, it will mess up all their hard-won relationships: "Things were finally good between you two, and between me and Dad. Did you not care that things were finally really good between me and Dad? I mean, did you not want us to be close? Did you mean to ruin that?" Lorelai is crushed -- she says that of course she did not mean to mess things up between any of them. She loves that things between all of them have been good, and apologizes again: "I was hurting; I was heartbroken and it happened. I slept with Dad. It's over now and it was a mistake." I kind of wish Lorelai would stop saying "Dad" like she's talking about her own dad. A lot.
Despite her mother's clear regrets, Rory is still mad and can't stop ranting. I'm glad someone is saying it, so I can't even tell her to shut up. I mean, it's hard to call your mom a skank ho, I'm sure. She says that when Lorelai told her about the breakup, she knew her mom was going through a hard emotional time and need some space: "But what you didn't tell me was that you slept with Dad? Instead you're walking around joking about origami and marshmallow sushi like I'm some idiot five-year-old." Rory is near tears by now. Lorelai quietly tries again to say that she's sorry, but Rory's having none of it. "You know what, Mom?" she says. "If you're heartbroken, you rent An Affair To Remember, you have a good cry, and you drown your sorrows in a pint of ice cream. You get a hideously unflattering breakup haircut. You don't sleep with Dad!" On that note, she stomps out the door, leaving her mom in Crazy Asia, all by herself.
T.J. and Luke arrive at Liz's for dinner. Kissing her belly, T.J. reminds her, "Keep your hands off me, you sex maniac." I guess somehow T.J. has informed Liz of Luke's news, because she hugs him immediately and says how sorry she is. They sit down to have some White Russians (yum), and Luke says he really doesn't want to talk about it, though frankly, if it would keep T.J. from saying the word "hormones" anymore and discussing how horny Liz is, I'd think Luke'd be willing to talk about anything.
Rory arrives at Lane's, letting herself in. "I just had to get out of my house," she calls on her way back to the bedroom. "If I were there for one more second, I think I'd have to karate-chop my mom." She's just getting worked up when she arrives in Lane's room to find her looking sick and wan, sitting on the floor. "Are you okay?" she asks, worried. "Did the doctor say you have a parasite?" "In a manner of speaking," Lane smirks, as much as she can in her condition. "I'm pregnant." Rory: "Shut up." Hee. But, yes, please do, Lane. Because, come on. I am all about the suspension of disbelief, but if Lane had sex a week ago, she would not be finding out today that she is pregnant. The math ain't right, and about this one thing, I can't just let it go. Plus, ARGH. Can't one of the twenty-year-old girls on this network go a few weeks without getting married and/or pregnant? It drives me CRAZY, especially on this show, which is allegedly about girl power. Rory makes her repeat a few times that she really is pregnant, though she is obviously miserable to do it. "I guess the combination of saltwater and seaweed and discount Mexican condoms and terrible, terrible sex," she says, "leads to a baby." Again, if that's all it took, I'd be sitting here typing this recap while my twins, Queso and Cancun Lowe were down for nap time, you know what I'm saying? So, shut up, CW.
Lane says that she hasn't told Zach yet; she's just been sitting there, freaking out. Rory can't get over that she only did it one time and now she's pregnant. Lane: "That's what you get, folks, for makin' whoopee!" She says that when the doctor told her, she just started throwing up, but not with morning sickness or anything: "This is the kind of throwing up that you do when you're going to have to do something you can't do." She says that maybe one day she'd be a good mom, but not now. She has this whole mental picture of pushing a pram in heels and a skirt with her hair in a bun. "Very Madonna in her Madge the British mommy phase," Rory jokes, but Lane ain't laughing. She says that when she's a mom she'll be calm and wise, and have her act together, which is the opposite of what she is like now. She's freaking out because she knows nothing that mother's are supposed to know, like how to change a diaper and use her wrist to check if the bottle is hot: "It's just one false move, one misstep, and I'll ruin it." Rory tries to reassure Lane with a modified "Gwyneth Paltrow is not perfect" argument: "So, who's perfect? Nobody. Not even...mothers." Dodging the Lorelai-shaped anvil, Lane is still skeptical: "I'm scared." Rory tells her again that she can do it: "You have nine long months to study about bottles and wrists," she says, adding that if Britney Spears and Courtney Love could have and raise children, surely Lane can do it. "Yeah," Lane says, "I bet I could be a better mother than Courtney Love." Rory says yes, of course, and that Lane already knows, unlike Michael Jackson, not to name a baby Blanket. "I do know that," Lane agrees, still nauseated. "Do not name your baby after an inanimate object." Um, okay...Lane. Rory cheers Lane up, talking about celebrity baby names, setting up potential play dates for Blanket Jackson and Pillow Cruise. "When it's nap time," Lane says, "they'd be totally set." Rory says that then they could invite Apple Martin over for a snack and listen while Banjo, Rachel Griffith's baby, played for them. "Then, they could all jump into Mia Farrow's Satchel," Rory answers, "and make fun of what's-his-face..." Laughing, Lane remembers: "Pilot Inspektor Lee!"
Back at Liz's, T.J., Luke, and Liz are all waiting for her tuna casserole to be ready while Liz lectures Luke about the inevitability of his breakup with Lorelai. "I love Lorelai," she says, "but the two of you were never in sync. For one thing, you never really moved in together." Luke says that was a logistical thing. "And then when you found out you had a daughter," Liz goes on, "you never told her. That's not normal, Luke! That's not how people in a healthy relationship act!" THANK YOU. It took LIZ to point this out? Two dozen episodes last season and we're waiting and waiting and we hear it from LIZ? Crazy. Liz and T.J. go on and on giving more and more examples of how Luke and Lorelai were never "on the same plane." Luke disagrees, and finds himself saying that he and Lorelai didn't break up because they were on different planes or because of the space/time continuum or any of that: "Lorelai and I just did not work out. We broke up because we weren't right for each other. It wasn't space, it wasn't time. It was us. We didn't belong together. We never really belonged together. We wanted to, but we didn't." Man, that is seriously depressing. You NEVER did? How many seasons has this damn show been on?! Also depressing: Liz's casserole is still stone-cold, since the oven doesn't work...
...so Luke has to run out to the store to get something they can actually eat. Naturally, he runs into Lorelai, who's she's buying ice cream. "I guess both of us avoiding Doose's didn't work out too well, huh?" snarks Lorelai. Luke says that he's not there to avoid Doose's, but that this is just the closest market to Liz's. Lorelai: "Right, because you're not affected by this. You're not mad. I forgot." Luke sighs a hugely heavy sigh, saying that he is affected by it and that he was mad before, but that he knows he was a jerk and is sorry. "No," Lorelai says, relieved. "I was the jerk. I was SUCH a jerk." Luke says that he's still mad, but that he won't be, eventually. "Really?" Lorelai says, with a little bit of hope in her eyes, but oh, so sadly, it is quickly extinguished. "It's not your fault, it's not my fault," Luke says, resigned. "It's just we're not right together. You're you; I'm me. I just want to stop pretending we're someone else. You don't belong with me. You belong with someone like Christopher." He says that they should stop fighting it: "You can go back to being Lorelai Gilmore and I'll go back to being the guy in the diner who pours your coffee." Oh, the tears. Mine, I mean. Is that not the most heartbreaking thing you've ever heard? Lauren Graham's face goes through all the stages of grief. She can find no words; she finally just says that her hand's getting cold from the ice cream, and leaves.
At home, the tears finally come. Lorelai cries on the Crazy Asia couch, where Rory finds her when she arrives back at the house. Silently, Rory curls up to her, comforting her imperfect mom.