About:
Gilmore Girls S6.E12 “Just Like Gwen and Gavin”
Drinks Taken: 33
Cups of Coffee: 10
I wish this weren’t bumming me out so hard, but it is. These two episodes in particular, while fun and funny and well-written as always, are really hard to watch.
Let’s give it the old college try, but first, a reminder of our drinking game rules:
The Gilmore Girls Drinking Game Rules
Drink once every time:
Lorelai or Rory drinks coffee.
Emily gets flustered by Lorelai’s bizarre sense of humor.
Sookie is controlling about food.
Paris is controlling about anything.
Michel snubs a customer.
Luke is crotchety.
Taylor has an absurd scheme for Stars Hollow.
The girls acquire massive amounts of food and then fail to take even one bite.
Drink twice every time:
Kirk has a new job.
You see a town troubadour.
Emily gets a new maid.
On to the episodes!
6.11 “The Perfect Dress”
Lorelai and Rory finally went on their Atlantic City trip! They return all happy and hung-over and full of excitement, and I’m thrilled to note that they did everything they said they were going to do. Rory leaves to go back to Yale and moves in with Paris and Doyle in their super sketchy off-campus apartment. This apartment is SO scary, you guys. Paris and Doyle take up Krav Maga just to protect themselves. I always joke that my mom never thought my perfectly nice college apartments were safe enough, but I 100% agree with Lorelai when she sees Rory’s new place and is just: “No. No. No No No No No.” Rory insists, however – she’s kind of excited to rough it after the ease of living at the elder Gilmore mansion.
Paris is still terrorizing the Yale newsroom staff as editor, and they all seem to reeeeally hate her, but she’s happy to have Rory back on the features beat. Logan shows up at the newsroom, at Rory’s coffee cart, at her scary apartment, and every time she gives him the cold shoulder. She’s still furious that he dumped her without even really telling her, even after he gives her a pretty damn good apology, telling her that he tried to move on but couldn’t because he loves her. Rory is not trying to hear that (particularly since this is the first time Logan’s told her he loves her; he didn’t even reciprocate when Rory said it to him).
She leaves to make it to her mandatory therapy appointment (mandatory for all students who suddenly drop out of school and then want to re-enroll), and then we have one of my favorite Rory Gilmore moments of all time. Girlfriend BREAKS DOWN. She is so unnerved by her past tumultuous few months, and by Logan, and I cannot stop laughing when she sobs: “I-I don’t think I can take running into him every day in the halls and the paper and the coffee cart. Oh, my god. I’m gonna have to quit drinking coffee, and I love coffee! I REALLY LOVE COFFEE!” She ends up getting saddled with two months’ worth of sessions for this hilarious outburst.
Meanwhile, Lorelai’s trucking along with her wedding plans, and GAH THIS MAKES ME SO SAD. Okay! Okay. I can do this.
She and Sookie are working on the details together, and it all starts to feel like a blessed endeavor – like fate. She finds the perfect dress (definitely her words, not mine), and the dress fits and it’s on sale, and it’s strapless so that means summer, and summer means daisies, so the flowers are done, she found affordable invitations printed with daisies, and on sale catering and a rose-covered chapel with a carousel and a dozen other details, all perfect and on sale and completed in one day – and their wedding date is now June 3rd, five months from now. As she’s telling Luke all of this, it starts to snow, and we all know how Lorelai loves her snow, and she just feels so certain that it’s all fate. …Until she’s allowed to think about it too long, and then she starts to worry that the dress is wrong (YES), and that it’s weird that everything was so easy.
And maybe there’s something to her feelings of disquiet, because Luke still hasn’t told her THAT HE HAS A DAUGHTER. He goes to April’s mother’s house, and we meet Anna, played by the great Sherilyn Fenn (who also played Jess’ dad’s girlfriend in the ill-fated spin-off pilot that never turned into anything). I love Sherilyn Fenn (along with Madchen Amick’s Sherry, she’s a great shoutout to that other quirky townie show Twin Peaks), but I haaaaate Anna. She seems fine in this episode, sure, but I hate that she’s quirky and beautiful and wears crazy clothes and sews and raised a brilliant, brainy daughter all by herself because THAT IS LORELAI. Stop edging in on Lorelai’s territory, Anna! Especially because, as we’ll see in future episodes, Lorelai does Lorelai MUCH better. This is Anna:
So Luke goes over there to tell Anna that he wants to support April financially, but that he knows they have their own lives so he won’t try to have a relationship with them. But then he finds April’s website and sees more evidence of how smart she is and sees pictures of her growing up, and he calls Anna to tell her that he wants to see April on a regular basis, too. Anna agrees, if April agrees, and she’ll keep Luke posted.
I guess this is all well and good, whatever – we never expected Luke to be anything but a stand-up guy. But when he goes to Lorelai’s house to finally, finally tell her the truth, she walks down in her wedding dress (typical Lorelai – she doesn’t care about the bad luck tradition, she just wants to make sure Luke likes it), and he’s silenced by her beauty and her joy. (I mean, she is beautiful, but what are these blind people thinking with that dress??) He tells her she’s perfect and she grins and floats up the stairs, and he stares up at the ceiling in frustration. JUST TELL HER, YOU IDIOT.
Finally, Lane has been moping and grumping around Mrs. Kim’s house ever since she and Zack broke up. She’s surly and miserable and hateful to everyone, and Mrs. Kim accepts it patiently – until enough is enough. And then she closes all of the blinds, locks the door, stands on a chair to recover a cloth-wrapped bottle from the highest cabinet and unwraps it to reveal: sake! Mrs. Kim, you minx! She pours them both a glass and tells Lane, “Lane, it’s been six weeks since you come home. You have grieved, and now we move on.” Lane considers this, and then nods. They drink their sake cups, and then Mrs. Kim pours them one more. I LOVE MRS. KIM.
How many times do I have to drink?
17.
How many cups of coffee do the Gilmore girls drink?
5.
Flirtation quota
Logan telling Rory that he loves her kind of counts, and Luke telling Lorelai that she’s perfect kind of counts, but both of these doofs have screwed up in so many other ways lately that I don’t care.
Best/most dated pop culture reference
On their Atlantic City entertainment options, Lorelai: “Well, it came down to Journey without their original lead singer, INXS without their original lead singer, Queen without their original lead singer, the Supremes without Diana, and, weirdly, the James Brown Band without James Brown.” Rory: “But we wound up seeing Tony Danza, who was sublime.”
Sookie’s best dish of the episode
She’s way too busy being the BFOTB (best friend of the bride) – she is very, VERY excited to help Lorelai plan her wedding. SIGH.
Lorelai’s craziest outfit
God, I wish I loved this dress. But it is AWFUL. It fits her miserably, and it’s this sad, droopy mishmash of fabrics that gives her the dreaded Wonky Boob and makes the super-fit Lauren Graham look like she has a beer gut, and I do not understand it AT ALL.
Outfit MVP
Weird pic, but Rory’s back-to-school ensemb is the cuuuutest.
Kirk insanity
Michel madness
On dates that won’t work for the wedding, Sookie: “Michel’s bad every Saturday from now until February, because he signed up for his booty boot camp again.”
Best Gilmore Gal witticism
Lorelai’s advice for Rory’s therapist appointment: “They always want to ask about your mother. It’s okay. Say whatever you want. But make sure you start with, ‘My mother’s very hot’…” Rory: “Yes, that won’t seem at all disturbing to the doctor.”
Random observation
Does it seem to anyone else that Anna is actively flirting with Luke? BACK, YOU HARLOT! HE’S TAKEN.
6.12 “Just Like Gwen and Gavin”
Ugh, okay. Luke keeps actively lying to Lorelai about April because all of a sudden he’s THE WORST. He and April hang at the park and it goes pretty well, and then she wants to spend some time at the diner. Luke is a lying jerk, so he completely panics and tries to cancel on April just to keep Lorelai from finding out. Although Luke sucks, Anna’s response to his attempt to cancel gives us our first sign of how much she sucks, too – she immediately blows up at him and tries to take April away forever. Canceling on your kid the second time you ever hang out is a bad idea, but Anna’s so ready to hate him and call the whole thing off immediately. She’s a drama queen and also seems possibly crazy.
So Luke brings April to the diner after ascertaining that Lorelai won’t be in all day, because he’s a big lying liar. Lorelai’s schedule changes and she drops by and meets April, who cheerfully tells her that her dad owns the place. Lorelai’s face, god. It slays me. Luke walks around the corner and sees Lorelai standing there devastated, and they head outside to discuss. He isn’t anywhere NEAR apologetic enough considering he’s kept this huge secret from her for two months; even though he says “I’m sorry” several times, it’s all in this rushed way that doesn’t feel earnest. Lorelai says she needs some time to digest, and then decides to forgive him because she is AMAZING. She says she understands that this is a big deal and she wants to help him, and she’s being astonishingly gracious, mature and supportive, not that Luke deserves it. Because then that giant idiot starts talking about how “it’s all” moving too fast – meaning the wedding, coupled with April. GUT PUNCH. Lorelai kindly offers to postpone the wedding, obviously hoping Luke won’t want that, but he jumps to accept so fast, it breaks my heart. So now June 3rd is no longer their wedding date, and all of a sudden I hate Luke and I want to cry forever.
Meanwhile, Logan’s still trying to win Rory back to no avail. He’s sending her endless floral arrangements, fruit baskets from Harry & David (he’s clueless, but I want one!), and he even hires a coffee cart to follow her around for the day. (Now you’re talking, Logan. Much better than a Birkin Bag.) Finally, he goes to Lorelai to beg for help.
Man, that Logan’s a charmer. Even Lorelai, as determined as she is to hate him, isn’t immune, and I love when her stony face finally cracks and she gives him a small, unwilling smile. She sends him back to Rory with a sealed letter and a box of donuts, and whatever’s in the letter (and oh, how I wish I knew – Rory is cracking up as she reads it and later tells Lorelai, “It has got to be anthologized!”) seems to work, because Rory grudgingly tells Logan she MAY allow him to take her to dinner. That’s good enough for him, and it looks like things are going to work out between these two crazy kids.
Rory’s also busy dealing with fallout from Paris’ Augusto Pinochet impersonation at the Yale newsroom. She’s taken to making them wear caps with numbers on them because she can’t recall their names, and she created a huge board with colored magnets so she knows where everyone is every second of the day; then she takes away the bathroom magnets because “they were going too much.” Rory promises the other staff that she’ll talk to Paris, but it just makes things worse as Paris decides to punish everyone for attempting a coup, and they all glare at Rory like she intentionally tried to sell them out.
Meanwhile, the Winter Carnival is back in Stars Hollow, and there’s this weird plot where Taylor says he’ll be out of town but then he disguises himself as an Eastern European jogger to check up on how Kirk’s handling all of the arrangements. It’s all kind of silly, but it allows for two great things: Zack sees Lane with what turns out to be her hot uncle and thinks she’s moved on, and he’s jealous and heartbroken until Mrs. Kim awesomely tells him, upon realizing that he wants Lane back, “I am not going to get in your way.” And finally, Lorelai sets up a dog psychic booth with Paul Anka and OMG HE LOOKS SO ADORABLE AS A SWAMI. (Pic below.) Paul Anka has replaced Luke as my favorite man on this show.
How many times do I have to drink?
16.
How many cups of coffee do the Gilmore girls drink?
5.
Flirtation quota
Logan’s really pulling into the lead here.
Best/most dated pop culture reference
Well, the episode title comes from a great conversation between Lorelai and Rory, as Rory tries to comfort her mom that Luke’s betrayal doesn’t mean he doesn’t trust her or isn’t trustworthy, and that it worked out fine when the same thing happened between Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale. But my favorite pop culture reference is when Zack’s trying to intimidate Lane’s uncle (before realizing he’s her uncle), and he says “Welcome to the SH, bitch!”
Sookie’s best dish of the episode
Nada – she and Lorelai spend most of their time at the Dragonfly trying not to gag as they spy on a maple syrup tasting convention.
Lorelai’s craziest outfit
Oh lord, this fake fur bomber jacket is terrrrible.
Outfit MVP
But hello, Paul Anka! You look MARVELOUS, dear.
Kirk insanity
He’s actually amazingly sane this week! He does a great job running the carnival without Taylor.
Michel madness
Nope.
Best Gilmore Gal witticism
Kirk’s concerned about Lorelai’s plan for a winter carnival booth, and he tells her he fears it’s too unorthodox.
Lorelai: “That’s because I’m not orthodox. I’m liberal with a touch of reform and a smidgen of zippity-pow!”
Random observation
Lorelai has grown so much over the years – the way she handles this situation with April is profoundly sensible and understanding. Too bad Luke squanders it like a big fat lying jerk.
That’s it for this week! Meet me back here next Wednesday morning for “Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and “You’ve Been Gilmored.”
And I leave you with a question, dear FYA readers: am I being too harsh on any one of the following points?
- Lorelai’s wedding dress
- Anna
- Luke
