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Grandpa is recovering well in the hospital and will soon be discharged, so Rory returns to Yale. There she finds a sweet care package from Logan, prompting Paris to tease that Rory has whipped him into submission. Rory is wary about attending the Grandpa Economics class without Richard being there, but her fears are immediately forgotten when she gets a look at the hot(tttttttt) TA serving as his replacement. As a matter of fact, she goes totally moony over him, even going so far to confess her one-day-long crush to Logan, and oh, God, they are insufferably mature and in love and CUTE about it. Featuring none of those qualities, Christopher shows up at the Inn to make his excuses to Lorelai about his recent behavior, but she's not letting him off the hook. Later, at the house, they have it out, and for once she won't let him run over her. When he insists that she still has feelings for Luke and tries to weasel out of their commitment, she is adamant that she is completely dedicated to her relationship with Christopher. But, you know, Chris "needs space" because he is "an ass," so off he goes to his mama's while Lorelai does what she can to distract herself, planning a memorial service for the grief-stricken Michel's beloved Chin-Chin. Lorelai decides that the only thing to do to save her marriage is cut Luke out of her life, but a conversation with Sookie helps to bring out the feelings she has been avoiding for so long. In the most heart-shredding, sob-inducing, emotionally-wrenching scene ever, she ends things with Christopher. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
The whole Gilmore clan is doing laps around the ICU nurses' station as Richard takes his daily exercise. "You're lookin' good, Dad," says Lorelai. "If I had to guess, I think you're clocking it at about a forty-five-minute mile, which puts you just behind Mrs. Abalone." As usual, Emily can't stand it when Lorelai says anything even mildly amusing, and gives her the patented "Lorelai. Really." Richard, however, thinks it's a fair assessment, seeing as how Mrs. Abalone had her bypass a whole two days before his. To prove his growing strength, he straightens his shoulders and pushes forward. "How's this?" he asks, and Lorelai and Rory burst into wild crowd noises, declaring him the new slow-walk champ, much to Emily's chagrin: "Would you two stop? You're making a scene!" Richard, however, is game for hijinx. "Mr. Gilmore," says Lorelai, mock-interviewing him, "any opinions about the allegations of steroid use among your fellow athletes?" Richard: "Well, I consider myself proof positive that it can be done, and done clean." Emily rolls her eyes again (a condition she might want to ask Richard's doctor about while they're at the hospital) and goes on talking about all the beautiful flower arrangements that have been sent to the house. She is, she says, tired of white roses -- they are not in mourning, after all -- and finds colorful arrangements like the one Christopher sent to be much more inspiring. First of all: huh? I hate this show, sometimes. Does Emily like Christopher, or not? She so pointedly gave Lorelai the raised "got your back" eyebrow last week when she picked up the Christopher Sucks vibe, and now she's all braggy about the flowers he sent? Secondly: whatever. Why would it not strike anyone as weird that Christopher would be sending Richard a flower arrangement to the house, like a family acquaintance? He is, in fact, a family member -- an in-town family member -- and it would be far more normal for him to be AT the hospital at least once a day. And if the flower arrangement is supposed to symbolize Chris's emotional distance from the family, why is Emily touting it like he did something impressive? In conclusion: hate. Lorelai changes the subject anyway, gossiping about another patient, the elderly Mrs. Santiago, who has been having a young male visitor that Lorelai has just learned is not Santiago Jr., but the old woman's boyfriend. Everyone gasps in horror as she reveals her inside info from the night nurse: the guy is thirty-two years younger than Mrs. S. "What on Earth could they have to talk about?" Emily wonders. Lorelai hams it up, nudging Rory: "I don't think they're doing a whole lot of talking, if you know what I mean." Emily demurs: "I most certainly do not know what you mean." They're all cruising along so circularly and blabbing so non-stop, it reminds me vividly of this MAD TV spoof I recently saw. Its utter meanness and total stupidity notwithstanding, we must admit that some of it is spot on.
Hanging back a bit, Rory and Lorelai have a sidebar. Rory says she thinks she will hang out in Stars Hollow a bit longer, until Grandpa goes home from the hospital. "What?" Lorelai says, overly-alarmed. "We already decided!" This gives Rory the perfect opening to whip a huge anvil out of her pocket and smash her mom on the head: "Well, yeah," she says, really apropos of nothing, "but haven't you ever decided something and then changed your mind?" They try to make the whole thing about Rory's uncomfortable feelings about how things are going with the family. She's worried about Richard, of course, and also about the weirdness between her parents. "What is his problem?" she asks, of Christopher. "It was just a character reference!" Exactly, Rory. Thank you. Lorelai tells her that she shouldn't worry about it, and that Christopher will come around and they'll settle it. They make another lap and pass Mrs. Santiago being escorted by her stud. "Her boyfriend? Really?" Rory asks, shocked anew. "She's got a nice butt," Lorelai shrugs, to Rory's alarm. "It's the hospital gowns. Believe me, I wish I did not know that." My God, that was endless. In truth, I really liked this episode, but I am recapping here with a mild hangover from bourbon and rump shaking -- I was out among the youth of Athens, GA last night, shaking my moneymaker in a manner not seen since my nightlife heyday of 1995. But listen, they played "Push It." What would you have done? Even my aged husband was unable to resist the magnetic pull of the dance floor. "The DJ is relentless!" I screamed as the guy spun through the unlikely, but deadly, combo of Ludacris and Culture Club. "I KNOW!" he cried. "Tonight, my hips, they do not lie!"
Lorelai arrives at the Inn to the welcoming concern of her staff. She thanks several of them for calling to check on her while she was out. Sookie is happy to hear that Richard is doing well and enjoying the cookies she sent over to him, but all glib conversation ends when they run into a morose Michel in the lobby with one of his dogs, Paw Paw. It's bad news. His beloved (but evil) Chin Chin has died. "Paw Paw," says Michel, "is beside himself." A quick cut to Paw Paw reveals that this is so. Behind his fuzzy mask lurks a broken heart. Lorelai and Sookie express their condolences, but Michel is not placated, particularly by Sookie. "You didn't even like him," he snarks. "Sure I did," says Sookie, attempting to reminisce. "That little guy..." Michel reminds her that she referred to Chin Chin as "a walking flea circus." She tries again, remembering when she once dropped a barbecue sandwich at a picnic, and Chin Chin rushed by and conveniently scooped it up. "That was Paw Paw," says Michel, offended. "Chin Chin didn't even like barbecue." When Sookie shrugs it off, Michel gets even more angry, wondering if her "two stinky children are interchangeable!" Lorelai steps in again to break it up, saying that she knows Chin Chin meant a lot to him, and that he should have a memorial or something. "That would be nice," says Michel. "Could you do it by tomorrow?" Oops. Lorelai wasn't offering, but instead of saying that she might not have the time seeing as how both her marriage and her dad are in danger of fatal decline, she hems and haws and says that she'll get right on it. Michel goes off with the mourning Paw Paw to put together the extensive guest list.
Rory arrives back at her apartment to find Paris crossing off items on Operation Finish Line. "I went to the Sigma Chi party without you," Paris announces. Aw. My dad was Sigma Chi. Picture me now doing the informal handshake and singing inappropriate songs in his memory, and yet nodding in total agreement with Paris, who declares the party "asinine." She says she is glad that Richard is going to be all right, and passes on some of her pre-med knowledge for him: "You tell him that if Bill Clinton can give up cheese fries and pork grits, [Richard] can get by without his five o'clock martini." Mmm. Why are all the wonderful things in the world so bad for us? Those sound like courses one, two, and three of the hangover cure I need right now. Paris brings Rory up to speed on the stuff she's missed in the two days since the semester started, including giving her a copy of the notes Paris took in the "History of Feminism" seminar they're taking together. "What's with the blacked-out sections?" Rory asks. Paris says she doesn't mind sharing what the teacher said, but that she wasn't about to share her own insights into the materials: "If there's one thing I learned in that first lecture, it's there's not room for many women at the top." Rory smirks that Gloria Steinem would be so proud. "Whatever," shrugs Paris. "The facts speak for themselves. Nadine Strossen is the head of the head of the ACLU, not Nadine Strossen and her very best friend." Paris reminds Rory that she will need to have her paper topic for that class picked by week, but says she can probably get an extension if she "plays the Grandfather card." Rory sighs that she won't have to do that, because her grandfather is fine. In that case, Paris says, Rory should be ready to exchange résumés according to the schedule -- they're exchanging résumés with each other to review and return by the night. Rory says that she forgot, having been at the hospital, but that she will get it to her tomorrow. The thing is, Paris has twenty-one résumés, all tailored and nuanced toward particular positions. I adore Paris, but this is boring me to the core -- mostly because all these scenes are just too gabby and too long.
Rory sees a box that has come for her from Logan. It is a second-semester senior survival kit, containing stress-reducing items...like bags and bags of coffee. A real boyfriend would have supplied bottles and bottles of Maker's Mark, but perhaps I should not project my own needs onto Rory here. The box also contains a brilliantly tacky inspirational marble keepsake engraved "Anything's Possible." Rory immediately calls Logan to thank him: "Finally, someone gave me an inspirational keepsake!" Logan: "Well, good, because 'the world is your oyster,' to quote the other inspirational keepsake I was considering buying." He offers to come up and hang out with her that night, considering her difficult Grandpa week, but she assures him that she's all right. She sincerely thanks Logan for being there for her during her hard time, and they schmoop some cute goodbyes until his ten o'clock meeting shows up. "Good," says Rory, "I've got a ten o'clock cereal waiting for me." She smiles, and hangs up. "What's with the goony look?" Paris asks her. "Your face -- it's right out of a Harlequin Romance." Paris says she's amazed at how much Logan has changed. "Between the women and the drinking, that kid was on the Colin Farrell Freeway about to pull over into the Robert Downey, Jr. rest stop." Hee. Paris congratulates Rory on changing Logan -- making him a better person, just as Paris herself did with Doyle (whom she hilariously refers to as "quite the ladies' man"). "Let's face it," Paris concludes, "we took two wild stallions and we broke them." Rory says she doesn't think she really broke Logan. "Oh, you broke him; you broke him hard," says Paris. "You own him." Rory is uncomfortable with this notion, but Paris is on a roll: "Hey, let's make them get tattoos. It'll be like we branded them!" Oh, beautiful. Doyle's tattoo could be just the words "PLEASE HELP ME" across the back of his neck, and Logan's could be two big dollar signs on his eyelids.
Back at the Inn, Michel has called a memorial-service planning meeting with Lorelai and Sookie. They, naturally, have not had a chance to plan anything yet, and have to think on the fly as Michel sits before them with his binder, getting more and more hysterical. "Well," Lorelai hedges, "first of all, we thought we would put him in a box...a bag?" Michel nearly strokes out, and Lorelai has to admit that animal disposal is not really an area of her expertise. Which explains why Christopher is still living in her house! Ba dum bump! HA! Sorry, yes. That was low(e). Look, I'm desperate, here. Nothing's funny about a dog funeral. Just ask Lorelai and Sookie, who are getting shot down at every turn, as everything they suggest is deemed wrong by Michel. Finally, it is determined that the service will start at twilight. Michel suggests gerbera daisies in reds, oranges, and yellows, to complement Chin Chin's fur. He goes on to discuss the programs. Lorelai: "The...programs..." Sookie, squinting: "You want programs?" Michel is, again, offended: "Do you think when the Princess of Wales died and was interred at Althorpe, the Spencer family was asked whether or not they wanted programs?" Lorelai cringes that no, they probably weren't. "You know what?" Michel shrills, getting fed up. "Why don't we just use fax paper and hey, why not print them out on the computer. After all, it's just a dog!" Lorelai calmly assures Michel that they will make the programs and the service nice, and he is placated enough to discuss the menus, at which point Lorelai abandons Sookie to Michel's lunacy. Now is a good time to mention the rather unfortunate and totally rare wardrobe malfunction going on with Lorelai's dress and hosiery in this episode. Something ain't right. The dress looks exactly like one I wore to a dance in ninth grade (although, fine, I'll stipulate that mine had a bubble skirt), and the mauve hose are identical to the ones I wore with that ensemble as well. Let's hold off on bringing back hosiery that makes us look chronically bruised, okay? Please.
Making her escape, Lorelai goes out to the front, where she runs into Christopher. "Hi," he says, earning a mildly sarcastic "hi" in return. "I guess we should talk," he mopes, and Lorelai leads him away as Michel and Sookie get into it about crudités in the other room. "If your child died," Michel rants, "would you serve crudités?" Officially too much -- let's not joke about children dying, thanks.
To get away, Lorelai leads Chris to some overly-patterned side room and closes the door. "Well, obviously," he opens, "we have some issues." It is, very clearly, not the best start, and Lorelai, for once, does not have the patience to put up with his selfish bullshit. "'Issues'?" she snaps. "What issues? We got in a fight and you took off." Instead of apologizing, Christopher says that he was "mad." Eek -- wrong again. "Oh, you were mad?" Lorelai whips back. "Well, then, never mind." Christopher tells her not to be sarcastic and, missing the perfect opportunity to tell HIM not to be a whiny BITCH, Lorelai insists instead that he not tell her what to do. Good enough, but Chris goes on to say that he needed some space, which...the dude is batting zero with these lines. Lorelai rightly points out that they are married, in which case getting some space means walking around the block or getting a beer, not taking off. "My father was in the hospital," she says. "You weren't there." Instead of apologizing profusely and falling to the floor, clinging to Lorelai's knees, begging her forgiveness and flagellating himself, Christopher snits that he had turned off his phone and all, but that he came as soon as he heard. Yeah, says Lorelai, but he only stayed and hour and then left again. "I didn't feel like staying when I saw who else was there," argues Christopher. OH MY GOD. Will no one punch this guy in the nuts? I swear, at this point, I want Lorelai to leave this dude, give Luke the brush-off, and start dating women. I mean, shit, why NOT? I'm in a little bit of a man-hating mood these days -- not my own husband, but some other husbands I know are having 1/3-life crises and behaving Christopher-style to their gorgeous and generous wives -- and I'm advocating full-on lesbianism. It's hot, you can share wardrobes, and nobody gives you attitude when you explain you have the cramps. Hello? Where's the downside? Is Gypsy from the car shop single? Lorelai says for the three millionth time that she did not invite Luke to be there, and when Chris slings back that she didn't ask Luke to leave, either, Lorelai's had enough: "No, I didn't. He's my friend. He brought food. You weren't there." Christopher counters that he was there; he checked in. "'Checked in'!" she says. "I'm not the 6:40 to Buffalo!" Christopher whines that he's just sick of seeing Luke, but Lorelai is out of sympathy. She was in that hospital for two days, eighteen hours a day, and she didn't even know if Christopher was coming back. "I needed time," he drones. "I needed YOU," replies Lorelai, going on to beautifully and simply twist the knife: "You know what the worst part of it was? When you weren't there, part of me wasn't surprised." Whhhewww -- my husband and I jinxed each other with an "aaawww, daaaaamn." That was a good one. Lorelai goes out on that zinger, saying that she has too many things to get done, and that they'll have to talk later.
Lorelai's at the front desk when Rory calls on her way to class, asking for help to get into an economic mood. "Uh, supply and demand! Profit margin! Pork bellies!" Lorelai attempts, but Rory is still dreading the class, which she only signed up for because Richard was teaching it: "I'm not naturally Econ-crazy." Lorelai asks whether anyone really is. "Oh, yeah," says Rory. "First thing I learned last semester. People find the Gross National Product endlessly fascinating." Lorelai agrees that this is weird. Rory asks if there's been any word from Christopher, causing Lorelai to go into immediate placation mode, saying that he came by and that they argued again, but that everything will be fine. Rory, however, has somehow matured into an actual adult in the span of two days, and will not let Chris off the hook. She insists that she is on Lorelai's side -- not just because Lorelai's in the right and Christopher is completely overreacting to the Luke character reference, but because she always will be on her mom's side, not matter what. "Even if I cut off your hair while you were sleeping?" asks Lorelai. "Would you be on my side then?" Rory says she would, no matter what, and asks how Lorelai is really feeling. "Oh, uh, good. Fine," says Lorelai. "You know, medium. Rare. Medium rare. Well, rare. More like sashimi." Aw. Lorelai says it's tough, because Christopher tends to avoid conflict when things get complicated. (I'll spare you my "pffft! Pot! Kettle! Black!" rant about conflict-avoidance in this couple.) Rory tells Lorelai to call if she needs anything. "I will," says Lorelai. "I've got you on speed dial." Rory is amazed: "You programmed your speed dial?" "Oh, no," Lorelai assures her. "That's metaphorically speaking. I can dial really fast, though." Cute.
In class, Rory is thrown off-balance when she meets Richard's substitute, Tucker Culberson, who is cute with a capital K, all the way down to his studious blazer and glasses. "Oh, well, hello, Professor Culberson," says Rory, downright red-faced with attraction. She blinks like Scarlett O'Hara as he explains that he's only a grad student, TA-ing for Richard. I can't say I blame Rory for the insta-crush. I am married to a TA; there's just something about all that corduroy. It's irresistible! She flubs through their conversation with a megawatt smile and practically giggles her way to her seat. Very cute. Alexis Bledel is so damn fresh-faced, it's like she's made of ice cream.
Back at the CrapShack, Christopher is watching a basketball game (which I just now realized is my alma mater, Alabama, against Kentucky, Roll Tide) on his new flatscreen when Lorelai comes in. They get right into it. Christopher says he's been thinking about things and that she's right, he shouldn't have taken off. She cuts him no slack, agreeing, "You're right, you shouldn't have." Christopher says that Lorelai needs to understand that when he read that letter, it made him crazy, but Lorelai can't take any more of that and snaps that it wasn't a letter, it was a character reference so that Luke could get custody of his kid. "Don't do that!" Chris yells. "Don't make me think this is all in my head!" Strongly, Lorelai insists that it is: "I chose you. I married YOU." Christopher says that it's not that simple, and finally tells her about the fight he had with Luke at the gazebo. When Lorelai freaks that Christopher didn't tell her before, he says it's not something she's exactly proud of: "I mean, this is what it's come to. I'm fighting the guy in the street." Lorelai says that if she had known, she could have been more sensitive. Christopher says that it's so much more than that, and spirals that their problems are his problems. He shouldn't have pushed Lorelai to marry him. She was engaged to Luke and needed time to disengage. He goes through the ridiculous history of their relationship: they were too young to get married when Rory was born, too ill-fated to end up together when Sherry got pregnant, etc. Lorelai desperately argues that all of that may be true, but that they're together now: "We'll work this out." Christopher lowers his head: "I don't think we can. I don't know what else to do." Lorelai is shocked: "We can work on this." Christopher doesn't see it that way: "Work on what? Work on you thinking that I'm the man you want to spend the rest of your life with?" He says that he's been asking Lorelai to marry him for twenty years (really?), and now that they're finally married, he still feels like he's asking her. "That's terrible," says Lorelai quietly. "I'm sorry if you feel that way. That's not how I feel! I'm IN this." He says that he wants to believe her, but instead of continuing to talk about it, he says he needs to get back to his mom's to see Gigi. HUH? A three-minute conversation about the imminent demise of a twenty-three-year relationship and...that's it? Dude, sack up! He leaves, saying that they'll talk more tomorrow. Well, yeah, it wouldn't be hard to talk more, considering that you've hardly talked at all.
The day at the Inn, Lorelai is distracted by work while Michel hops around her bitching about his unhappiness with the memorial service. He complains that all of the Inn's pillows depicting cats have not been removed, per his request. Also, Sookie is not giving the reception menu enough attention. Furthermore, he adds, Lorelai has not handled the flowers and program with the speed he would prefer. He screams at her about it, and finally, she gets in his face: "Michel, back off. I happen to have a few other things on my mind right now, so forgive me if I haven't been able to put all of my energy into your dog funeral!" Harsh, but necessary. Michel goes cold: "I apologize if my loss has come at an inopportune time for you. I will try to schedule the death when it is more convenient." He stomps away before Lorelai can slap him and demand that he snap out of it.
At the Yale bookstore, Paris is seeking out the books she hid for Rory's classes during the Grandpa hospitalization. When she can't find one of them, Rory goes to look elsewhere and runs into her hot TA. She flips, yet again, when sees him. Even without his glasses, he is higher-educationally smokin'! He says he wanted to thank her for the good review she gave Richard about Tucker's teaching. "I think he was talking about class," he says, "unless you happened to see the Econ grad students take out the Comp Lit grad students in Ultimate Frisbee." She goes all goofy again, sort of cutely making a fool of herself, and he leaves.
Back at the Inn, Kirk delivers Chin Chin's awesome daisy wreath for the memorial service. "Hey, Christy," says Lorelai to one of her employees walking through, "will we see you tonight at the memorial?" When Christy tries to decline, Lorelai interrupts: "Let me rephrase that. We'll see you tonight at the memorial. Attendance is mandatory. Thanks!" In the kitchen, Sookie has whipped up food worthy of a dignitary: "Some of my finest work wasted on a dog funeral and a petty little man." Lorelai says she knows that Michel is being impossible, but that he's going through a hard time right now. Sookie say she knows: "I made him some fat-free brownies, too." She adds that the whole kitchen staff will be there: "Not that Michel will say 'thank you' or modify his behavior in any way to say that he's grateful, but just so you know, you're doing a really great thing." Lorelai says she feels guilty for going off on Michel, but Sookie reminds her that Lorelai has a few things on her mind as well. Speaking of which, says Lorelai, she talked to Christopher. "GET OUT," Sookie commands her staff.
Lorelai gives Sookie the dish: she explains that Christopher does not think she even wants to be in the marriage. "But you do, right?" Sookie asks. Lorelai says yes, of course, but that Chris's jealously of Luke is blinding him. She has decided that the only way to settle things with their marriage is to cut Luke out of her life completely. But...is he even in her life? I mean, he showed up at the hospital and she wrote him the reference, but otherwise, it's not like they're hanging out. Sookie says, though, that Luke is still a big part of her life: "It's just that it's Luke. You were friends for years, before you were together, and then when you were together, you were really together." She says that she knows Lorelai has moved on, but that all those feelings for Luke didn't just disappear over night, and that Lorelai just moved very quickly. Wait a second -- they have already had this conversation, before Lorelai and Christopher got married, right? Unfortunately, it didn't work that time, either. Lorelai says that her feelings for Luke didn't instantly disappear, but that she put all that behind her and married Chris, who loved her and wanted to marry her. Sad, sad. She says that Luke was kind to her and loyal, but also distant and uncommunicative, and didn't want to marry her: "I tried everything I could to work it out. And of course I have feelings for him; that's what Christopher's responding to, and that's why, in order to save my marriage, the only thing I can do is cut Luke out, right?" Siiiiigh. Wait a SECOND. Now Lorelai has feelings for Luke? When we've been through a whole season thus far of them passing each other like acquaintances? No looks of yearning? No drunk dials? No...anything that would indicate to anyone real or fictional that either of them had anything but mildly wistful recollections of each other? It bugs me. I mean, I guess I would be complaining about something else if she had married Chris and sat around mooning over Luke, but my point is...why have Lorelai marry Chris at all? Just to put the nail in that relationship once and for all? Maybe. Oh, hi. Don't mind me. I'm working some stuff out in private over here. Sookie puts the hard question to Lorelai: if there were no Luke, ever, in the picture, would Christopher still be The One? Lorelai furrows her brow, but doesn't answer.
Later, Lorelai takes Michel into the music store to arrange for the memorial music. He grouches that he doesn't know why they are bothering, snarking, "Why not just turn on the radio and hope for the best? Maybe we will get lucky and some heep-hop station will be playing Snoop Doggy Dogg." They see Zach, whom Lorelai has hired to perform, and whom she has also obviously coached through his reaction to Michel. "Hello. Michel," says Zach, robotically. "I'm very sorry to hear about your loss. It totally blows." Zach has been awesome in these last two episodes. He says he was, at first, thinking about using the mandolin in the ceremony. "But then I'm like, 'Whoa, Zach, are you tripping? It's got to be acoustic guitar. Way more soulful.'" He says that he's been thinking about the selections, and is leaning toward David Bowie: "You see where I'm going? 'Diamond Dogs'?" Michel is crestfallen: "Whatever. David Bowie sounds like a hoot." Lorelai, however, is now fully committed to the funeral, and explains that they don't actually need a song that features dogs for the ceremony. "More Princess Diana," she says, "less 'Diamond Dogs.'" Zach gets a worried look: "You want Elton John?" Lorelai says that they were thinking more dignified, like Mozart or Bach... "Céline Dion," Michel interrupts. Zach's fear deepens. "Oh," he says, "don't make me do that." But, no, he's going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice. "Actually," Michel says, sniffing, "'My Heart Will Go On' was Chin Chin's favorite song." As Zach shivers, Lorelai goes through the sheet music on the wall, dropping Luke-shaped musical boulders on us all the way: "My Heart Is Crying for You," "My Heart is Waiting," "My Heart Stood Still," etc. Desperately, Zach tries to suggest something else, but in the end, Lorelai finds it.
On the street, Lorelai is surprised when Michel says that he needs to stop by Luke's. He reminds her of the time a troupe of mimes came to stay at the Dragonfly: "It was a very stressful time for me: guessing at what they wanted; watching to see what they were pointing at to know what to fetch them." Haaa! Michel says that when they finally left, he needed comfort, so he stopped at Luke's and bought a hamburger. "I know," he says to her shock. "It was a moment of insanity." He says he realized on his way home exactly how many minutes of intense training it would take to work it off, and threw it away, only to find later that Chin Chin had fished it out of the garbage and devoured it, obviously enjoying it more than any of his fancy dog food. "Today," says Michel, "I will eat one in his memory." They stop in front of Luke's. "Wow," says Lorelai, "what a sacrifice." She says that she will go on to the printer's to look at the programs, and Michel goes inside, leaving her on the sidewalk to stare in at Luke, who is looking super-fly in his flannel, beautifully backlit by, I don't know, a grease fire? Whatever, it's romantic, okay? They share a sad wave.
Speaking of romance, Rory arrives back at her apartment to find Logan waiting on her doorstep. She is overwhelmed with happiness to see him, and they go inside to see that, according to the Operation Finish Line schedule, Paris is off experiencing campus life at a bellydancing class. Rory and Logan do some smooching, and Rory says that she needs to talk to him. They sit down and, in serious tones, and in light of the whole thing that happened with Marty, she makes a ridiculous pre-emptive confession. She tells him that the grad student filling in for her grandfather is rather good-looking and that, when she ran into him at the bookstore, she got all silly and, gasp, that she Googled his name to find out more about him. Logan, for his part, is mildly amused but completely understanding. Why Rory would feel like she needs to tell him about this crap, I don't know, but Logan is nice about it: "It's just a crush." He says that he can't be upset about it since he has, on occasion, found other girls attractive. "I love you," he tells Rory, "and I want to be with you." While I am sad that this must mean that Professor Studly was just a device to show us how great Logan and Rory are, and thus we will never see him again, I must admit that it sets up a nice contrast between Logan's new-found maturity and Christopher's...well, never-found maturity. Rory finally has to ask what she's been worried about since Paris said it: "Did I break you?" Logan has no idea what she's talking about, and tells her so, but it only leads to their again declaring how much they feel like they belong to each other. In fact, Logan declares that the whole thing's his fault. He says that he was obviously a jerk about Marty, and now he's got Rory so freaked out that she feels like she has to confess every time she recommends a book to another man: "But you don't. I trust you completely and I'm not worried about us." Aw, MAN. See what you have done to me, Rosenthal? I'm over here getting all starry-eyed about Logan? Rory, in fact, says that she is not worried about them at all, either, and they realize with a start that they are missing out on a chance to watch Paris bellydance. How I wish we all could have seen it.
Not so funny? Zach plays an emotive "My Heart Will Go On" at Chin Chin's memorial while, in the congregation, the snootiest dogs of Stars Hollow and their respective owners look on and weep. I guess Paul Anka and Chin Chin were not friends, because he is not in attendance. Lorelai, however, listens reflectively to the song in her black dress, looking sad and beautiful.
Later, Lorelai arrives back at her house where Christopher is sitting in the dark. She is already crying as they sit on the couch. "It's not just Luke," she says after a moment. "I mean, you were right, there were feelings there. Because, when that ended, I just jumped." Christopher quietly says that he pushed her. "But if that's all it was," she says, "we could fix it, you know, with time." She says that Chris has always been a wonderful possibility for her: "But it's just not right, and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Sad, Chris says that he should have known: "It took me twenty years to get you to say yes." Sobbing, Lorelai looks in his face and says that she needs him to know something: "You're the man I want to want." I don't know how David Sutcliffe is living through this, Lauren Graham is killing it that hard. He sweetly says that he does understand. "You have no idea how badly I wish..." Lorelai weeps. Chris: "I do know. I do." Lorelai continues to sob there in the dark, and to comfort her, Christopher takes her hand as we fade to black.