Previously: A red flag bachelorette party.
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Grace: We open on the road with the Gilmores. Lorelai is bemoaning their lack of “tunes” while Rory is more concerned with the fact that they have no idea where they are. “My complaint is legitimate, yours is infantile.” Lorelai says the point of this trip is to be spontaneous, and they can’t be lost if they don’t know where they’re going. I thought the point of this trip was to leave a man at the altar, but okay, sure, spontaneity it is.
Karina: The things we tell ourselves.
WHERE YOU LEAD
After a stop at Haden’s Nut House, Lorelai calls Sookie because she hasn’t told her best friend about leaving her fiancé days before the wedding. Lorelai’s attempt to be breezy about this life-altering decision includes the line “to figure out what happened, you’d have to dig up Freud himself and have him work on me full-time,” which is probably true. She asks Sookie, who is resignedly cutting up the magnificent wedding cake she made for Lorelai, to tell Miss Patty about cancelling the wedding so the whole town will know within the hour.
Karina: SOOKIE EVEN NAMED THE CAKE!!! I love how she has absolutely no chill whatsoever. Clyde, the cake, was a fine cake indeed.
Grace: Sookie is adorable. RIP, Clyde.
When Lorelai hangs up, Rory has possibly figured out they’re heading toward Portsmouth, NH. Lorelai remembers a guy she knows who runs a B&B up there. Rory makes a face, but Lorelai insists that this isn’t a regular B&B, it’s a cool B&B. They decide to go check it out, but due to the whole spontaneous thing, Lorelai doesn’t want to call ahead.
The Cheshire Cat B&B. The girls are wishing they’d called ahead. The front desk lady asks if they’d like to ring the service bell, even though she’s sitting right there, since guests usually love doing that. She’s oddly insistent about it. Lorelai gives it a ding, then asks if they have a room and if her old friend is around. Apparently Ring the Bell Lady (LeDawn) bought the place from him last year. The Gilmores are just now noticing all the chintz and china. Lorelai pulls Rory away to have a not at all subtle conversation about how much she doesn’t want to stay here because it’s too cutesy, but Rory doesn’t want to die of exposure in the Jeep. Rory wins. They follow LeDawn upstairs, stepping over a cat on the stairs. I’d like to note that they claim this is a large cat, but since I own two cats that are 20 lbs each, I just laugh.
LeDawn shows them to a room with a ton of flowers on the walls, curtains, bedding, etc. Lorelai asks if they’re moving, and LeDawn is like no it’s just the foil on my perfectly normal wallpaper that gives it that vertigo-inducing effect, isn’t it adorable? Apparently B&Bers love a peaceful place to unwind from their hectic lives. Personally I’m getting a headache from the chaos on my screen, but sure, peaceful. LeDawn asks about Lorelai’s job, and she says she’s in publishing for some reason. Handing them an activity list, LeDawn leaves the girls in their flower power bower. They mock the guest book for a minute, then rush downstairs to get some food. Unfortunately, it’s cocktail hour at the Cheshire Cat, and Lorelai is not about socializing. Look, I hate chit chat as much as the next introvert, but Lorelai’s disdain for perfectly pleasant people throughout this episode is a little grating. Rory’s convinced, though, so back upstairs they go.
The girls are hungry and bored, but it’s too early to go to bed and the B&Bers downstairs are playing some obnoxious music. Rory says they could talk about Max, but surprise surprise, Lorelai doesn’t want to. Rory asks if Lorelai’s sure she’s not just running scared, since she’s done that before…with Max, in fact. Lorelai claims she’s a grown woman who has earned the right not to be quizzed about her social life by her 16-year-old. I mean, sure, if you didn’t bring your 16-year-old on your altar-fleeing road trip.
Lorelai doesn’t want to have this discussion, but Rory does. Everyone was excited, including Lorelai, and now she’s suddenly changed all their plans. Lorelai says moving some boxes in the closet is not reason enough for her to get married, which just made me think of the discussion about making space for Max and how she was not doing that last episode. Rory thinks she’s scared and she’s going to regret it. Lorelai tells her the Flower Power Bower is not the place to have this fight and to go to sleep.
Karina: Not marrying someone you don’t have feelings for is a good thing but like you said, the execution left a lot to be desired.
Grace: The next morning, Lorelai thinks the flowers on the wallpaper are growing. And she wrote “Satanic forces are at work here” in the guestbook. Rory wants food, so they check the activity list to see if the coast will be clear. They might have time to escape, except it turns out the other guests are watching hummingbirds out the parlor window. LeDawn offers them scones. Their hunger overwhelms their desire not to interact with other humans. Two of the guests start asking Lorelai about publishing, and she makes up some children’s book titles like The Horse That Wanted to Bark. Another guest asks how it ends, and Lorelai mumbles, “He dies,” through a mouthful of scone. She excuses herself to make a very important publishing call, leaving Rory looking trapped.
Lorelai calls Sookie, who’s at Luke’s. She holds up the phone so Lorelai can hear Luke trying to kick Kirk out after eight cups of coffee. The news about the canceled wedding has spread just like Lorelai wanted – except to Mr. Loner Diner Owner. Lorelai asks Sookie to tell him right now, so she does. As Lorelai hangs up, Luke gives Kirk refill #9 and says everyone’s coffee is on the house today. Sookie sips her coffee knowingly.
Karina: Oh, Luke. *le sigh*
Grace: Cheshire Cat. Lorelai rescues Rory from the B&Bers who are telling her about their son until the grown man says they don’t even know if Rory is “on the market.” Why is this a thing that people do? Seriously. Why?
Away from the others, the girls consult the map to figure out what’s nearby. Rory is listing places off when suddenly Lorelai says she knows where they’re going. She CRUMPLES THE MAP and tells Rory she’ll like it.
Karina: WHO FOLDS A MAP LIKE THAT IT IS GIVING ME ANXIETY!!!
G: Harvard. Rory is agog. Lorelai wants to go inside, and after a bit of “But Moooooooooom we can’t!” Rory follows her in. They wander around campus, stopping at a coffee cart. Lorelai is looking at some postings for roommates when Bland Harvard Guy walks up, blatantly checks her out, and starts flirting. Lorelai plays along, agreeing that they have “Sheff’s class” together, while Rory laughs from the sidelines.
Continuing the tour, Rory stops to gawk at the utterly gorgeous library. Lorelai reads from the pamphlet that it’s just one of the libraries housing a 13 million volume collection. Rory starts having an existential crisis at the enormity of what she still does not know, because she’s 16 and has only read 300 books.
Lorelai sneaks them into a residence hall, with Rory playing the part of me in high school and whispering “We’re gonna get in trouble!” Her mom, the grown woman, calls her a worrywart and tries to act nonsuspicious by chatting with some girls they run into in the hallway. After seriously weirding out actual Harvard students, Lorelai finds a room with an open door and convinces Rory to go in. They talk about what Rory’s dorm will be like, and it’s kind of cute until Lorelai wants a picture of Rory sitting at the desk. They leave just as the girl who actually lives in the room comes back, and I just noticed Lorelai forgets her coffee. That poor girl really needs to shut her door when she’s gone.
Smartypants Classroom Building. Lorelai goes to find a restroom while Rory slips into the back of a philosophy (I think?) lecture. She drops her coffee, causing the entire lecture hall to whip around and stare. I was once in a class where my friend left, drove back to her apartment to get the project she’d forgotten, came back, and slipped back into class without anyone noticing. A dropped coffee cup would not attract that much attention. Anyway, the professor asks if Rory is in or out, and she takes a seat.
Karina: While I have not been to Harvard (aside from walking the campus years ago) and uni may be a bit different in the states, I have never been to a lecture this big that was so quiet.
Grace: Lorelai is looking at a board of Harvard valedictorians and stares pensively at the one from 1990. When I was younger I thought she was sad because Rory was going to leave her and go to college, but now I realize that 1990 would have been the year she graduated from college if she’d gone. She hears Rory’s voice and goes back to the classroom, where Rory is participating in a discussion on stoicism. Rory rejoins Lorelai and they head out, Rory gushing about how she can’t wait to go to college while Lorelai gives one last look at 1990.
Stars Hollow. Lorelai says every time she leaves town, she expects it all to look different when she comes back, but it never does. Townsfolk keep gesturing sympathetically as they drive past, so they definitely know about the breakup. The girls roll up to the Gilmore house, where Luke’s chuppah is still standing in the front yard. Everything’s the same.
Gilmore Manse. Lorelai is showing slides of their Harvard trip to Emily, who complains that Lorelai’s fuzzy photography hurts her eyes. Emily prefers prints, which are easier and faster to get through, but that’s precisely why Lorelai likes slides. Emily asks why they would go on a road trip so close to the wedding anyway. Lorelai starts to explain, but she dances around the subject so much that Emily assumes she eloped. She starts yelling about how she knew Lorelai would do anything to keep her out of this wedding, which, oof. Lorelai finally interrupts that the wedding is off. She assumes her mother is thinking something snarky, but Emily was just thinking she’d have to return the gift. Emily offers dessert, but Lorelai follows her, asking what the gift was. Her mother retorts that she’s not getting it now, so she doesn’t get to know. She keeps guessing until Emily decides she’s going to keep the gift in a closet somewhere until Lorelai does get married, and she won’t know the gift until that day. Lorelai is a total grownup about this, by the way.
Stars Hollow. Lane comes dashing across the town square to greet Rory. She’s back from Korea! Turns out it was truly just an open-ended ticket, and she was allowed to come home. Also Korea is “bootleg heaven” so the teenagers start talking about music while Lorelai heads into the diner. Luke pours her coffee and says he’s sorry about what happened with Max. He’s been feeling guilty for how he came down on Max, which I’m honestly not remembering, but Lorelai says it’s all totally fine. After all, he built her a chuppah! Luke forgot about the chuppah and says he’ll take it down right now so it’s not mocking her, but Lorelai wants to keep it. Luke looks adorably happy that his totally platonic friend is keeping the very personal gift he handmade for her. Lorelai tells him about their trip to Harvard and how Rory fit there. Luke asks how she’s taking that, seeing Rory fit so well at college. Lorelai says she loved it…and hated it. It’s been making her think about her own life. She’s also decided that she and Sookie are finally going to start their own inn. Luke promises to let her pick his brain about business ownership anytime. Maybe over dinner, with some candlelight, a little wine…
Outside, Lorelai calls Sookie to start talking about taking serious steps toward starting an inn. I think we’re supposed to feel hopeful about the future, but I honestly thought Lorelai was going to call Max in that moment (did she call him at any point to actually tell him the wedding is off, by the way? Does he know he’s not getting married this weekend?) because she looked so sad. This episode ends so weirdly, since Lorelai spent the whole time literally running away from her problems and now we’re supposed to believe she’s going to make successful business moves on her dream because she’s inspired by…thinking about all the things her daughter will have that she didn’t? I don’t know.
Next time on Gilmore Girls: Jess comes to town in S02 E05 – Nick & Nora/Sid & Nancy.
I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.
