About:
Gilmore Girls S7.E14 “Farewell, My Pet”
Drinks Taken: 27
Cups of Coffee: 5
We’re 60 weeks into our little Rewatch Project, and these are two beautiful, heartbreaking episodes. We’ve got a hospital visit, a breakup and a dog funeral, and tons of great, meaningful interactions between our beloved characters in between.
So let’s get to it, 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!
7.13 “I’d Rather Be In Philadelphia”
We open where we left off last week, with Lorelai, Emily and Rory rushing to the hospital to be with Richard after his heart attack. Much of this episode’s action takes place in the hospital, with all of our Gilmore girls rallying around our Gilmore guy. They’re all scared and stressed, and they’re each dealing with it in their own way. Lorelai’s calling Chris, over and over and over, hoping to reconcile with him in light of this big thing that’s happened, but he’s not answering the phone after their blowout of last week. Her last call to him says it all – although she never gets mad, she just sounds sad and resigned and solemn: “My husband’s…not here. That’s not okay, Chris, you know? It’s not okay.”
Logan, on the other hand, is being amazing. He took a freaking HELICOPTER to the hospital to get to Rory as quickly as possible, and he instantly jumps in, helping where he can, even though work’s been so busy for him. We learn, briefly, that he’s buying another Internet company and spending his trust fund to do it, but he doesn’t spend much time talking about work because he’s too busy taking care of the Gilmores like the total mensch he is. Emily and Lorelai are both so impressed with him – Lorelai has fully come around on Logan, saying cutely, “He’s not half bad, that kid. He’s almost okay.” And any of you readers who once hated Logan must have come around here, too. When he helps Rory gather all of Richard’s favorite records and books and odds and ends and Rory thanks him, he says, so easily, “Of course! But you don’t have to thank me. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” What a sweetheart.
Sookie sends baked goods, Michel uses his nice voice, Miss Patty and Babette run errands, Emily even puts the fish man to work (she’s obsessed with making sure Richard starts eating enough heart-healthy fish) – and then Luke, who heard the news from Babette, shows up. And he says the best, most wonderful thing: “I swear I didn’t even know what I was doing. I just walked right out of the diner and drove straight here. Now that I’m here I realize I might be in the way, but if there’s anything I can do, I want to do it.” Lorelai is so touched, and so am I – Luke’s manner here is so solicitous, so caring but matter-of-fact and helpful, so genuinely kind. It’s the Luke we remember and love from the very first season – not the Luke he became in Season 6, breaking all of our hearts. Emily gives Luke SO MANY tasks, impossible ones like finding Richard’s car somewhere at Yale, and Luke takes them all cheerfully, happily. God, I love this guy.
Lorelai’s annoyed with Emily for giving Luke so much to do, but mostly she’s upset because Emily is being so businesslike, dealing with Richard’s will and insurance, etc. Finally, she snaps at Emily, “What has to be dealt with is that dad could be dying! What you’re dealing with is phone calls and a checklist. You’re not his secretary. You’re his wife.” And Emily’s speech, as she grows more and more tearful and finally breaks, KILLS ME:
Emily: “Yes, and what do you know about being a wife? You’ve been married for, what, 40 days? That’s nothing. Your father and I have been married for over 40 years. For 2/3s of my life, I have been the wife of Richard Gilmore. I run his household. I plan his meals. I buy his clothes, entertain his business associates. When he loses his reading glasses, I find them. When he wants a nightcap. I make it for him. If he can’t remember the name of a colleague’s wife, I whisper it in his ear. That’s what I do – I take care of him. That’s my job. That’s who I am. If I could be performing his surgery right now, I would be, but I can’t! It’s out of my hands. It’s out of my hands, and there’s nothing I can do but wait. I could lose him, Lorelai. He’s my whole life, and there’s nothing I can do!”
GAHHH. Lorelai immediately realizes what a jerk she’s been and starts comforting Emily, and the two women seem to grow a little closer from this exchange.
Finally, all of the girls get to see Richard, and he’s doing okay – he’s going to be fine, with some lifestyle changes (like more fish). When he and Emily are alone in the hospital room together, and she starts rattling off all of the items on their checklist she’s handled, he just sweetly, sleepily tells her, “Sounds just fine, Emily. That sounds just fine,” and drops off to sleep as Emily watches over him with the most loving look on her face.
AND THEN. That jerk Christopher finally deigns to arrive – just as Luke’s checking back in with bags of food he made for the whole family, including lots of fish, because Luke is the actual best. Chris looks sour and pissy to find him there, acting like he has a right to be angry even though he’s been missing for two days while his wife’s been frantically calling to tell him her dad’s in the hospital. I HATE YOU RIGHT NOW, CHRIS. Luke, like an adult, says “I’m gonna get going,” and Chris, like an infant, replies, “Yeah, you should.” Then he starts giving Lorelai a hard time immediately, like that’s what she needs to hear at that moment. Emily walks up and appears to absorb the scene, sending Chris off to see Richard (and leave Lorelai alone) and then tells Lorelai with that strong, authoritative way she has: “It’ll be all right.”
And one last thing! Zack’s taking over for Lane at Luke’s as she nears her due date. Pretty sweet. Also gross.
How many times do I have to drink?
10.
How many cups of coffee do the Gilmore girls drink?
2.
Flirtation quota
I’m so in love with Luke and Logan right now. These are “when the chips are down” guys. Chris may be charming, and he may be crazy about Lorelai, but he is NOT a “when the chips are down” guy.
Best/most dated pop culture reference
The title refers to Richard’s declaration when Lorelai asks how he’s feeling. Rory giggles approvingly: “Ronald Reagan,” and Richard gently corrects her: “Quoting W.C. Fields.”
Sookie’s best dish of the episode
She sends lemon bars and pecan squares, which are basically the perfect hospital snacks.
Lorelai’s craziest outfit/Kirk insanity
Nope.
Outfit MVP
I’m giving it to Emily, for uncharacteristically not thinking twice about showing up to the hospital in a track suit because she’s so concerned about her husband.
Michel madness
As sweet as he is when Lorelai calls the inn, he still edges in to ask a few questions about how to handle annoying guests, because he’s Michel and he can’t help himself.
Best Gilmore Gal witticism
Looking over Richard as he sleeps, Lorelai: “Should we draw a mustache on him?” Rory, finishing her joke: “He’s already got a mustache!”
Random observation
While this is certainly a retread from a Season 1 episode, I don’t mind it. After all, if a man ends up in a hospital once with angina, it stands to reason that, six years later, he might end up back there with a heart attack. But I especially like what it brings to light about Chris and Luke. It’s a very organic way to carry Lorelai to her realization of the next episode.
7.14 “Farewell, My Pet”
Emily, Lorelai and Rory are still supporting and surrounding Richard as he gets closer to being sprung from the hospital. Rory doesn’t want to go back to school yet because she’s so worried about him, but Lorelai convinces her – and really, he does seem to be doing fine. Rory gets back to her apartment to find a sweet Paris, who’s hidden all of the books Rory needs for the semester in the bookstore so Rory won’t get stuck with used copies, which is Paris’ way of saying I love you. Logan’s way is more overt: he sends a care package full of goodies. MAN he is so sweet lately – which makes Rory feel all the worse when she gets a crush on the cute TA taking over Richard’s class in his absence. She finally, guiltily, confesses her crush to Logan, who responds in the most mature and loving way, even taking responsibility for making her feel like she has to report every little crush to him after the way he acted about Marty. I’ve gotta say, I’m super into Logan lately.
I’m super NOT into Chris, however, who’s still avoiding poor Lorelai. Rory tells her that she is unequivocally Team Mom, even when Lorelai tries to convince her that she doesn’t have to be mad at her dad, but I like that Rory is anyway. Finally, Chris comes back from his mom’s house so they can talk, and Lorelai schools him appropriately for disappearing on her – especially during such a bad time – and Chris, eventually, agrees that it was wrong of him. But he tells her he doesn’t think they can fix this, because he knows she’s still in love with Luke. Lorelai tries her hardest to convince him otherwise, to convince him that they can still make the marriage work, but they end the conversation unresolved, because Lorelai has to head back to the inn.
For what? For Michel’s dog funeral. Chin-Chin, one of Michel’s two Chows, has died. He’s heartbroken but also incredibly high-maintenance, as is his way, and Lorelai’s trying her best to accommodate his many, many funereal requests while dealing with her own messy life. She does snap at him, once, and he gets very sensitive, as Michel is wont to do, but they make up in time for a beautiful dog funeral, complete with Zack playing an instrumental version of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” on the acoustic guitar – during which Lorelai looks heartbroken and deeply thoughtful.
She heads home to talk to Chris, and their conversation breaks my heart. Of all of the scenes in Gilmore Girls‘ run that make me cry, I think this one makes me cry hardest – even though I don’t want Lorelai to be with Chris. I think they’re doing the right thing here. It’s just that Lauren Graham is so powerful in this scene, and Lorelai wants so badly to make this work, but she knows she can’t. It makes me cry so hard, every single time.
Maybe I’m crying most here for the fact that LAUREN GRAHAM WAS NEVER NOMINATED FOR AN EMMY.
How many times do I have to drink?
17.
How many cups of coffee do the Gilmore girls drink?
3.
Flirtation quota
Logan, YOU’RE KILLIN’ ME. Stop being so damned cute and sweet and perfect!
Killing me harder: as Lorelai is passing Luke’s, she peers in and sees him through the window – and they wave at each other sweetly, a little shyly. This is after Lorelai’s decided that she has to stop seeing Luke in order to make her marriage work, and that one, brief wave makes it clear to her that she could never cut this man out of her life.
Best/most dated pop culture reference
Paris, telling Rory that she never thought she and Logan would last: “I’m just being honest. I mean Logan Huntzberger? 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.”
Sookie’s best dish of the episode
Her menu for Chin-Chin’s funeral is insane: “I’ve got a walnut arugula gorgonzola crostini, a little caraway cornbread with apricots, bacon, and a little jalapeno jam, beef tenderloin chiffonade in little focaccia rounds, and sweet potato biscuits with pork tenderloin and a little apple chutney…some of my finest work all wasted on a dog funeral and a petty little man.”
But even more so, she’s serving up some truth as Lorelai confides in her about Chris: “If there were no Luke, I mean, no Luke in the past, no Luke in the picture…Would it be Christopher? Would he be the one?” This little bit of wisdom appears to be just what Lorelai needed to hear, to give her the strength to end it with Chris.
Lorelai’s craziest outfit
Nope.
Outfit MVP
I really like this dress.
Kirk insanity
He’s been volunteering at the florist to “give something back.” Still, he wants a tip.
Michel madness
Well, dog funeral. But also the way he keeps talking about Sookie’s “stinky little children” and how she’d feel if they died cracks me up.
Best Gilmore Gal witticism
When Rory asks Lorelai how she’s doing, Lorelai: “Oh, good. Fine. Medium. You know, rare – medium rare. Rare. More like sashimi.”
Random observation
I give Chris full credit for acknowledging that he pushed Lorelai into marriage. He takes responsibility for rushing her into the decision, and he regrets it. And Lorelai acknowledges to Sookie why she said yes: “Yes, I moved quickly to a man I love, who loves me, who wanted to marry me. When Luke and I were together, he was kind and loyal and thoughtful. The guy built me an ice-skating rink, for godssake. But he was also distant and uncommunicative, and he didn’t want to marry me. And I tried everything I could to work it out.” It’s just this comedy of errors that isn’t comedic at all, a series of sad circumstances that ended in a marriage that never should have happened. But I can understand where both Lorelai and Chris were coming from, and that makes this good drama. We can see why they’d think getting married might be a good idea, but we also knew from the beginning that it wasn’t. And now it’s over, and that’s sad, but it also means we can move on to much, much happier developments.
And that’s it for this week! Meet me back here next Wednesday morning as we cover “I’m a Kayak, Hear Me Roar” and “Will You Be My Lorelai Gilmore?”
And I leave you with a question, dear FYA readers: what scene, of all the sad scenes in Gilmore Girls‘ history, makes you cry the hardest?
