Gilmore Girls: Hammers and Veils
January 27, 2025 6:11 PM - Season 2, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Rory learns about volunteer work. Sookie throws Lorelai an engagement party. Emily promises to come to the wedding if she's in town.

We open on Lorelai trying on a veil. Well, not a real veil, but a mock-up veil made of newspaper. Rory is more interested in reading the paper than giving any useful advice.

At Chilton: Summer School Edition, Rory runs into Paris, Madeline and Louise while trying to look over a bulletin board. Madeline and Louise seem bored and over the whole grudge thing, but that's just because they lack Paris' grit and determination. Madeline lets slip that there's a volunteering home-building event the next day, and Rory's in, over Paris' objections and then denials that she was objecting. Rory also runs into Henry, acting as a go-between for his and Lane's thus-far-thwarted attempts at romance.

At Friday Night Dinner, Emily is cold, but Richard takes Rory aside to apologize for his behavior towards Dean in the previous episode, and the two make up. Inside, Lorelai tries to break the tension by telling EmIly about her engagement. Emily's reaction is a beautiful exercise in passive-aggressive rage, which means that once again the girls are hitting up the diner on their way home, where Luke says that there's nothing like a wedding to wreck a family.

In the morning, Lorelai hooks her up with an obnoxiously frilly and bedazzled hammer as a joke, but once at the job site, Rory has to produce it for the gruff site foreman who shows her where she'll be working, tells her to drink water and duck when someone says "duck," and gives her zero instruction on what she should actually be doing. Meanwhile, on her way out the door, Lane gave Rory a goodbye and a kit to rescue her from Korea if needed, while Dean whined at her for doing volunteer work instead of hanging out with him.*

Paris is still being cold to Rory, but tells her that she's been volunteering with this organization for years while also doing tons of other stuff to beef up her college applications, since everyone who's applying to the ivies can be expected to have a 4.0 GPA and 99th percentile test scores. This puts the fear of god into Rory, who returns home after a day's work to find Dean still being all like "When are you carving out time for Habitat for Boyfriends, huh?!" and at home, Lorelai has trouble responding to her freakout about finding more volunteer opportunities at this point in the game (this is, of course, in keeping with Lorelai's longstanding misunderstanding about how college applications work, which in Lorelai world is mostly about how long and hard you've been wishing for it.)

At dinner with Max, Lorelai hears about Max's family's warm and joyous reception of the news, and starts stewing up her resentments towards her mother again. As they leave the place, Lorelai detours them to the Hartford house so that she can go in and yell at her mom a little bit while Max stands in the doorway. Lorelai opens up and gets real, real vulnerable here before Emily drops the bomb that she heard about the engagement from Sookie, and nothing is solved.

Sookie apologizes, of course, and the party is great, of course, with Lane DJing when she should be at the airport already, and Kirk yelling at people through a megaphone. Dean apologizes and everything goes back to being whatever on that front.

The next day (I think?) Lorelai pops in at the Hartford house to ask Emily's opinion about some veils. She tries to brush Lorelai away, but Lorelai sticks with it, until Emily says that she shouldn't wear a veril at all, but maybe a tiara. After all, Emily wore one at her wedding.

This is honestly a mostly forgettable episode (for me anyway), but that last scene hits.

*This won't be the last time that the show treats volunteerism as almost purely a cynical and mercenary way for privileged kids to pad their resumés. I can see that rubbing some people the wrong way, but to me it's totally fair to the world that the characters inhabit. Also, in that light, I appreciated Rory wanting clearer instruction since real people are presumably going to be living in the house they're building.

A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh

Soundtrack:
"Love Will Keep Us Together" - The Captain & Tenille
"Until the Real Thing Comes Along" - Dean Martin
"One Fine Day" - The Chiffons
"Love is Everywhere I Go" - Sam Phillips

Random Guest Star Watch: Biff Yeagar as Tom. Yeager isn't a household name, but fans of podcast "The Greatest Generation" will know him as a bit of a dark-horse B-lister.
posted by Navelgazer (1 comment total)
 
Early on, it seemed like Dean had his own interests. Now, his only interest seems to be Rory. You think he'd be more understanding about her drive and desire to succeed.

The fight between Lorelai and Emily feels very real and I like how awkward Max is there. The end scene about the tiara is sweet. But I agree this kind of a nothing episode for the most part.
posted by edencosmic at 8:17 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]


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