Gilmore Girls S02 E02 – Rant meal, extra cheese.

Previously: Lorelai got engaged and didn’t tell her parents.
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Hammers and Veils

Grace: We open at the Gilmore girls’ house, where Lorelai comes downstairs wearing a newspaper veil. Honestly I’m kinda impressed with the pleating since I can’t even fold a newspaper hat. Lorelai asks if she should stick with shoulder length or go “full Diana” and Rory is distracted by reading the newspaper veil. She suggests that her mother go into an actual store and try on an actual veil, so Lorelai admits that she went into a wedding dress place the other day and it was awful. Rory says fine, we’ll go together, and despite Lorelai’s panicked excuses, Rory pushes her out the door.

Annie: I don’t understand Lorelai’s protests, you would think a day spent trying on over-the-top crazy dresses with Rory would be right up her alley. IDK.

Grace: Where you lead, I will follow.

Chilton. I thought it was summer? Oh, apparently it is, because Paris and her minions are looking at a bulletin board while Louise complains about summer school. They don’t even get free dress for summer school? When Rory appears, Madeline starts chatting with her, earning glares from Paris and Louise. Rory helps her out by reminding her that they’re not speaking after the whole Tristan thing. Madeline remembers, but forgets again a second later when she recommends that Rory check out a volunteer gig building houses. So, Habitat for Humanity?

Annie: Absolutely Habitat for Humanity. Do you have to pay royalties to mention a non-profit? Because Amy Sherman-Palladino is not about that life.

Grace: Paris insists that Rory will hate it, describing how it’s hours of hammering and dirt and misery. Rory asks why Paris even cares if she goes, and if Paris is planning on being mad about Tristan being a manipulative manbaby trying to date Rory forever. “I have great commitment.” So it’s decided that yes, Paris is staying mad and yes, Rory is going to the Not Habitat for Humanity thing tomorrow. Madeline waves goodbye as the Paris-ytes storm off.

Henry comes up to Rory at the bulletin board. He pauses awkwardly, so Rory assures him that Lane is fine. Henry says he called once but Mrs. Kim answered and he panicked. (A: I’d have panicked, too, Henry. Mrs. Kim is intense.) He actually continued calling and hanging up until she finally threatened to have the FBI trace the call and sounded so scary he just stopped. He worries Lane thinks he forgot about her, so Rory offers to give Lane his number.

Driving up to the Gilmore mansion. Lorelai still can’t believe that Rory has volunteered to build a house. “Don’t these people have enough problems without having you as their contractor?” Rory says there will be professionals there to supervise and it’s for college credit. She goes to ring the doorbell, but Lorelai wants to pull her engagement ring off first. Rory says Lorelai has to tell her parents she’s getting married in 3 months, issuing a 2-week deadline when Lorelai brushes it off. Emily answers the door with the announcement that they have to eat fast because Richard has an early flight the next day. She drags the girls into the dining room and orders them to start eating their salad, even though the traveler himself isn’t there yet. Sure enough, Richard is annoyed that they started without him, and surprised when Emily says his flight is at 6:00. Oh, no, turns out he’s just teasing Emily, who launches into an explanation of how many times she checked with his secretary. Richard asks to speak with Rory privately. Out on the terrace (I wanted to say patio but it didn’t sound fancy enough) Richard apologizes again for last week. This was their first fight, and he didn’t care for it. Rory assures him they’re fine now and hugs him. It’s sweet.

Annie: It is sweet. I really love the relationship between Rory and Richard. He can be really shitty sometimes to Emily and to Lorelai and to Rory, but these scenes hit me right in the feels.

Grace: Richard decides to give Rory her present now, so they march past the dining room.

Lorelai tries desperately to make small talk about the salad dressing, but Emily just keeps eating. Slipping her engagement ring on, Lorelai announces she has something to tell her mother. There’s a bit of awkward lead-in where Emily says she has only “heard rumblings” of Max, but Lorelai finally tells her they’re engaged. Stone-faced, Emily says that’s nice and they’ll try to make it to the wedding.

Stars Hollow. The girls are walking through town while Lorelai rants about what a mistake it was to tell her mother that she’s getting married, and she should have known better.

They head into Luke’s where Rory orders a “rant meal, extra cheese.” Lorelai insists she’s done ranting and wants an “acceptance meal and a side of fries.” Luke asks what’s going on, and when Lorelai tells him, he goes off on weddings ruining families. It includes the line “My life meant nothing until you used my toothbrush” which I just have to mention because FSoG trauma. (A: TOO SOON.) (G: I HAD TO SAY IT.) Lorelai changes her order to “Luke is giving Lorelai a migraine meal.” “Blue cheese or ranch?”

Gilmore girls’ house. Rory is running late for Not Habitat for Humanity, but Lorelai has a present for her. It’s a hammer! A bedazzled, fuzzy, pink hammer.

Annie: I legitimately hate this hammer so much. This is a lot, even for Lorelai. I get that it’s kind of a joke, but just. No.

Grace: Rory reluctantly takes it in an effort to get out the door, but runs into Lane. Lane is dropping off a bunch of contraband so her mother won’t find it while she’s in Korea. There’s also a manila folder she calls the “Lane Kim retrieval kit,” which includes Korean phrases and a number for the American consulate. Still no return date from her parents, then. She’s leaving right after Lorelai’s surprise engagement party. Rory asks if she called Henry, and Lane did. “He likes me. He’s perfect. I’ll never see him again.”

Annie: Poor Lane.

Grace: Rory has made it outside the house now, but Dean is there. He wanted to hang out today. Girl, you didn’t call your boyfriend and tell him you were building a house today? I mean I know he doesn’t need to know her every move but surely it’s not unreasonable to let him know about plans that will probably take up the majority of a day he would assume she had free. He was even going to let her wander around the bookstore for 6 or 7 hours. I don’t like Dean, but that line was endearing. Rory promises pizza and online book shopping tonight.

Annie: Oh, Dean. I really, really hate Dean, so I feel like I can never comment on him because I see absolutely everything he does through my ‘he’s a creepy, controlling jerk’ glasses. I have issues, guys.

Grace: Not Habitat for Humanity. Rory taps a guy on the shoulder and gets a lecture about interrupting a man with a saw. He calls her Chilton and asks if she has a hammer. She pulls out the pink one from her mom, so she’s bolder than I would have been. Construction Guy brings her to a spot on the job site and tells her to work there, wear sunscreen, drink water, and duck or run if she hears the words “duck” or “run.” Rory was hoping for a little more instruction than that, since people have to actually live in these houses, but Construction Guy is apparently done with the orientation. Our girl awkwardly starts putting nails into a random 2×4 when Paris appears! Evidently she didn’t get the memo about not interrupting people with dangerous tools because that hammer seemed to barely miss her. Paris put together this entire wall, so she wants Rory to go work somewhere else. Rory’s impressed with her expertise, but Paris says it’s just about appealing to Harvard. She’s been volunteering in a frightening number of ways since 4^th grade. Rory looks pensive.

Stars Hollow. Dean meets Rory getting off the bus. He wants to talk about their plans for the night, but Rory is freaking out about being behind on extracurriculars. She’s been studying forever, but that won’t be enough, and she needs to catch up on helping the blind or orphans or…something. Dean doesn’t see what that has to do with tonight. (A: WHATEVER, DEAN!) They made plans, and now she’s blowing him off. Rory insists that this is important, but Dean feels like she doesn’t have time for him anymore. She doesn’t understand why he’s acting like this. They both stomp off.

OK, look. Dean undermined his point with his mocking tone here, but I’m *gag* on his side with this one. I can totally understand Rory feeling overwhelmed. But holding up Harvard as more important than everything is not the way to get your boyfriend to be supportive. Ask him to bring over pizza and help you color code your index cards. I get where she’s coming from, but she’s not being a good girlfriend here.

Gilmore girls’ house. Lorelai is prepping for a date while Rory sits surrounded by an alarming number of pamphlets. She demands to know why Lorelai never took her camping. If Rory had wilderness skills, she could be a Firefly troop leader, but she can’t. She’s called a bunch of places but still has no leads on volunteering. Lorelai suggests what I was saying earlier – the lists are made, why not call your boyfriend? Rory says they’re in a fight. Lorelai offers to cancel on Max and help Rory get organized, but Rory says she has to do this on her own. Um…why? Lorelai tells Rory again to call Dean and leaves for her date.

Date. Lorelai is clearly preoccupied and explains about Rory. Max offers to help out with finding extracurriculars, so that takes care of that. Talk turns to the wedding, and Max mentions that his parents are super excited about it. His mom even offered Lorelai her wedding dress. Lorelai says it’s great, but she’s clearly upset that her mother had such an opposite reaction. Max tries to comfort her and offers to go someplace else for dessert. Lorelai agrees, but with a manic look in her eye that makes me think she’s going to do something else.

In the car, Max is still trying to fix things, while Lorelai gives directions. She tells him to pull into…her parents’ driveway! This should be fun. Max jumps out of the car to try to talk her out of it, but Lorelai is determined. Emily answers the door and Lorelai pushes her way in. She starts telling her mother how confused she is while Max hovers awkwardly by the door. She’s confused about why Emily can’t keep a maid when most of them are women from war-torn countries who survived horrible things. (Fair question, actually.) She’s confused about why her mother couldn’t muster up a little fake enthusiasm when she told her she was getting married. Lorelai asks why Emily has never been happy for her when anything good happened, ever. And I know this isn’t true because Emily loves Lorelai, but it’s clear that that’s how it honestly feels to Lorelai, and that in itself is incredibly sad. She asks if Emily knows how it feels to tell your mother you’re getting married and have her brush it off. Emily, who has been stony throughout all of this, finally snaps and says it might possibly feel like finding out from a complete stranger that your only daughter is getting married and didn’t bother to tell you. She shows Lorelai to the door. Max, for some reason, decides this is a good time to mention that his parents want to get together with Richard and Emily for lunch. Emily shuts the door after them.

  Annie: Ooof. This is such a tough thing. So much of the relationship issues between Emily and Lorelai could be fixed if these two could just use their words like normal adult humans and communicate. But passive-aggressiveness, silence and lies by omission make for much better TV. I get that Emily must be hurt, but Sookie didn’t know she was the first to break the big news to Emily, because Emily didn’t speak up. And Lorelai didn’t know that Emily was being cold about her announcement because Sookie was the one to break the news to her, but OMG, TALK TO EACH OTHER.

Grace: Independence Inn. Sookie is trying to get Michel to pick a cookie for the engagement party. Lorelai comes in looking for coffee, and Sookie tries to stop her from going in the kitchen. Because, as we see, the kitchen is covered in cakes and heart-shaped pastries and all the other sugary food for the surprise party. (A: Sookie is such a good friend to Lorelai.) Lorelai is obviously touched. Then she asks if Sookie invited her parents. Sookie is dismayed and asks if Emily told Lorelai about the party. Not exactly.

Engagement party in the town square. Kirk is yelling on a megaphone and Lane is the DJ. She and Rory chat a bit and it’s mentioned that it’s 8:00 but she has a 10:00 flight and now all I can think about is why she’s not at the airport already.

Lorelai and Max are opening up wedding gifts on their thrones. Apparently he’s teaching a guest course at the University of Toronto so he’ll be gone all summer. Speaking as someone who planned a wedding while in a separate state from her fiancé, I can affirm that this will be rough. Miss Patty is leading a bunch of tiny tap dancers in a routine in the gazebo, prompting Kirk to worry about the structural integrity. Rory makes knowledgeable remarks about the construction, explaining, “I built a house yesterday!” Dean comes up to apologize. He says he was an idiot who got jealous of Harvard, even though he loves that she’s that ambitious. (A: But does he, though?) Rory, for her part, admits that she didn’t help with her tunnel-vision freakout and doesn’t want to make him feel unimportant. She even offers to help him organize his extracurriculars for any colleges he might want to apply to, but Dean is more concerned with kissing. Lorelai excuses herself for a minute, confiscating Kirk’s megaphone on the way.

Luke’s. Luke is refilling ketchup bottles when Lorelai walks in to ask why he’s not at the party. He says he was busy. With the ketchup bottles. Lorelai asks if he can leave the Worcestershire sauce for tomorrow night and come join the party because it’s a big night for her and she’d like him to be there. She leaves and he looks after her longingly.

Engagement party. Sookie is thrilled that her desserts are such a hit, while Jackson is moody. She gushes until Jackson explodes. He claims he’s not stupid, he sees the signs in all the marriage talk. He announces that he’s not ready to get married, but he would be willing to move in together. Sookie just starts laughing. Jackson follows her, insisting he was serious as she laughs even harder. Rory sees Lane getting in the car and they wave sadly to each other.

    Annie: The visual of Lane with that giant suitcase will always stick out as one of the best visual gags on TV IMO.

Grace: Luke comes out of the diner and sees Lorelai, who waves happily at him while dancing with Max.

Gilmore mansion. Lorelai stops by with two (real) veils and asks for Emily’s opinion. Emily coldly says that Lorelai is quite capable of deciding for herself. Lorelai apologizes, saying they don’t communicate well, and Lorelai knows she shares part of the blame for that. “When something good happens to me, I’m just afraid you’re going to make me feel bad about it. When something bad happens to me, I’m always afraid you’ll say I told you so…You think your words don’t have any effect on me. But they do.” I think it’s one of the most honest things Lorelai has been able to say to her mother so far, and that last part gets at one of the roots of their problem. They each assume that because the other doesn’t quite know how to listen, she doesn’t care.

Emily doesn’t respond, so Lorelai starts to go when Emily suddenly says that her head is much too big for a veil. Way to connect there, Emily. She says Lorelai should consider a tiara instead. “A tiara?” “That’s what I wore.” Lorelai agrees to think about it.

Annie: I absolutely love this scene between Lor and Emily. It gives me hope that maybe they’re learning and taking baby steps towards fixing their relationship. I am here for this!

 

Next time on Gilmore Girls: Bachelorette party times in S02 E03 – Red Light on the Wedding Night.