Rewind: Gilmore Girls 118 "The Prodigal Daughter Returns"
2005-11-16 / 1:06 a.m.
In "Prodigal," Rory moves out of the Big House and in with Lane, where Zack makes annoying, thinly-veiled and completely unjustified references to Rory using up resources (ok, yes, it's still kind of endearing). She hounds the editor of the Huntzberger paper she quit for a job, and despite being so doggedly determined, blatantly inappropriate (she sneaks her portfolio into the editor's private office, also if you observe costume changes the boss-stalking occurs over several work days) and persistent almost to the point of not being cute any more (I mean, what does she do that isn't completely adorable? It's Alexis Bledel, for god's sake, even her flat acting performance in Sin City wasn't a tenth as bad as Reese Witherspoon's Indian dance sequence in Vanity Fair) Anyway, she gets the gig and comes home to Lorelai's open arms. Yay! I bet we're going to find out next ep that Logan is her new boss.
Major conflicts:
Emily is upset that Rory moved out without so much as a goodbye and thank you after their tea-party fight; she disappears for a few days and is found by Lorelai checking out a plane she is planning to buy. Boy, talk about stress-shopping. I could see her going crazy in the women's suit department at Saks but a plane? Emily is SO Emily.
Lorelai hates the antique cherub-ridden bedroom set Luke inherited from his grandmother that he has unwittingly parked in her newly finished and expanded bedroom. This results in some choice quips, notably this as they are about to enter the bedroom:
Luke: Close your eyes.
Lorelai: It's ok, Luke, I'm not afraid of it anymore.
There is also a conversation between Sookie and Lorelai on the subject, which I am too lazy to report, but I liked it.
Luke gets upset when he walks in on Lorelai and Sookie listening to a message Christopher (grrr) is leaving on the answering machine; Lorelai in a guilty panic hits the stop button when she sees Luke. A blow-up ensues, they make up within the episode (hott, Gilmore-style) but Luke ends up with his own trust issue where he's at fault: a nerdy little girl shows up at the diner who is doing a science project for school on DNA and needs his hair to see if he's her father. We later discover that he is, in fact, her dad. She's a cute little thing, Anne Hathawayish but nerdy in a way that even Rory never was and never will be (she first appears wearing a huge pink safety bike helmet). In the midst of the frenzied reconciliation between the two Lorelais Luke is unable to reveal this little tidbit to his fiancee. Phew, at least it wasn't that woman he married, or whoever that was that was a photographer and living with him for a while or something. God, I can't remember her at all.
Want the real blow-by-blow? Check out Al Lowe's write-ups at TV without Pity. They rock.