Gilmore Girls: It Should've Been Lorelai
January 31, 2025 5:09 PM - Season 2, Episode 14 - Subscribe
Christopher brings his girlfriend to Rory's debate. Lorelai brings Christopher to Friday Night Dinner. Rory brings Lane a new CD.
Rory and Lorelai enter the oddly-empty Luke's and immediately receive a phone call on the diner phone. Lane, hyper-grounded after Mrs. Kim found out about Henry, the boy Lane never actually dated and has now "broken up" with, watched them enter the diner through her antique spyglass and is using up some of her precious few moments of phone time to get the hot goss from Rory and ask for her help in securing the new Belle and Sebastian single.* Rory has a debate for school on Friday.
While the gals are watching TV at night, Paris drops by for some spur-of-the-moment debate prep. (LORELAI: "Hi Paris... were we expecting you?" PARIS: "You should've been." Paris is the best.) Rory needs to work on her Words Per Minute and do something to rectify the effects of having milk with her morning cereal. Anyway, Christopher calls up because he's in the area, and Lorelai suggests that he come to the debate.
At the debate, one of their opponents turns out to be Brad at his new school! Go Brad, who goes catatonic the moment he sees Paris step on stage. Rory and Paris win the coin-flip and get to be pro-euthanasia, and they win handily. (We don't see much of Rory's performance, but while Paris both goes over time and mispronounces "Willamette," she's as ruthless as you'd expect.) Lorelai and Sookie are able to find Christopher in the audience, but he's brought his new girlfriend Sherry along with him. They're all going to go out, which means Rory has to ditch out on celebrating the victory with Paris, who takes that badly, but I don't think this is ever revisited.
I don't know what to say about Sherry, especially since from what I can tell a lot of people found her annoying and awful, but I like her fine. She strikes me as a weird and anxious person trying to put on a very brave and friendly front to power through a tricky situation that it's important to her goes right. Namely, she wants to start off on the right foot with Rory, so that they can have a decent relationship if things keep getting serious with Christopher.
To that end, she makes herself clear to Lorelai (but in a deeply weird way, saying that she doesn't need to be besties, friends, or anything else with her), and asks to take Rory out for the evening. Which means Christopher coming in Rory's stead for Friday Night Dinner, where Emily grills him on his relationship and generally having his life together and eventually throws kind of a fit - directed at Lorelai - that it was supposed to be her that he settles down with and for whom he got his shit together and now nothing is right and it's Lorelai's fault for not making this particular dream come true.
Rory and Sherry had a decent night out, it seems, though Sherry sounds like a bit of a try-hard. She's certainly no threat to Rory & Lorelai's relationship, anyway, but- OH NO IT'S ZERO HOUR!
Rory runs out of the diner to the gazebo. She clocks Lane and Mrs. Kim stepping out to go to Bible Study, and gives Kirk the nod. Kirk intercepts them, introducing himself to Mrs. Kim - who has known him since he was two but may have forgotten him - and asking her about store hours. While they briefly converse, a jogger in a hoodie, and keeping his face covered, runs past and drops a CD into Lane's purse. Rory then meets the jogger - Michel, it turns out! - at the gazebo. He's been running around the town square for an hour because Lorelai never told him that the plan was pushed back an hour, and he promises to never do a favor for Rory again.
So yeah, Chris and Sherry show up, and Sherry wants to find Rory to say goodbye before they head back to Boston, so Lorelai has a moment alone with Christopher to tell him that she realized that part of her had always been waiting for him and self-sabotaging her relationships, but that she's past it now and can just be happy for him.
Which Christopher responds to with a big ol' "fuck you," essentially, and leaves Lorelai stunned in the diner all by her lonesome.
*Best as I can tell, this would have to be "I'm Waking Up To Us." This episode aired in February 2002. B&S didn't release any singles in 2002, but "I'm Waking Up To Us" dropped in November 2001, and wasn't officially released stateside, so it could plausibly have taken that long to reach the imports bin at the cool Hartford record shop. It's fine, not my favorite. The small-scale heist scene later in the episode is set to "Legal Man," which I like better but had been out several years by this point.
A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh
Soundtrack:
"Legal Man" - Belle and Sebastian
Random Guest Star Watch: Mädchen Amick (Twin Peaks) as Sherry.
Rory and Lorelai enter the oddly-empty Luke's and immediately receive a phone call on the diner phone. Lane, hyper-grounded after Mrs. Kim found out about Henry, the boy Lane never actually dated and has now "broken up" with, watched them enter the diner through her antique spyglass and is using up some of her precious few moments of phone time to get the hot goss from Rory and ask for her help in securing the new Belle and Sebastian single.* Rory has a debate for school on Friday.
While the gals are watching TV at night, Paris drops by for some spur-of-the-moment debate prep. (LORELAI: "Hi Paris... were we expecting you?" PARIS: "You should've been." Paris is the best.) Rory needs to work on her Words Per Minute and do something to rectify the effects of having milk with her morning cereal. Anyway, Christopher calls up because he's in the area, and Lorelai suggests that he come to the debate.
At the debate, one of their opponents turns out to be Brad at his new school! Go Brad, who goes catatonic the moment he sees Paris step on stage. Rory and Paris win the coin-flip and get to be pro-euthanasia, and they win handily. (We don't see much of Rory's performance, but while Paris both goes over time and mispronounces "Willamette," she's as ruthless as you'd expect.) Lorelai and Sookie are able to find Christopher in the audience, but he's brought his new girlfriend Sherry along with him. They're all going to go out, which means Rory has to ditch out on celebrating the victory with Paris, who takes that badly, but I don't think this is ever revisited.
I don't know what to say about Sherry, especially since from what I can tell a lot of people found her annoying and awful, but I like her fine. She strikes me as a weird and anxious person trying to put on a very brave and friendly front to power through a tricky situation that it's important to her goes right. Namely, she wants to start off on the right foot with Rory, so that they can have a decent relationship if things keep getting serious with Christopher.
To that end, she makes herself clear to Lorelai (but in a deeply weird way, saying that she doesn't need to be besties, friends, or anything else with her), and asks to take Rory out for the evening. Which means Christopher coming in Rory's stead for Friday Night Dinner, where Emily grills him on his relationship and generally having his life together and eventually throws kind of a fit - directed at Lorelai - that it was supposed to be her that he settles down with and for whom he got his shit together and now nothing is right and it's Lorelai's fault for not making this particular dream come true.
Rory and Sherry had a decent night out, it seems, though Sherry sounds like a bit of a try-hard. She's certainly no threat to Rory & Lorelai's relationship, anyway, but- OH NO IT'S ZERO HOUR!
Rory runs out of the diner to the gazebo. She clocks Lane and Mrs. Kim stepping out to go to Bible Study, and gives Kirk the nod. Kirk intercepts them, introducing himself to Mrs. Kim - who has known him since he was two but may have forgotten him - and asking her about store hours. While they briefly converse, a jogger in a hoodie, and keeping his face covered, runs past and drops a CD into Lane's purse. Rory then meets the jogger - Michel, it turns out! - at the gazebo. He's been running around the town square for an hour because Lorelai never told him that the plan was pushed back an hour, and he promises to never do a favor for Rory again.
So yeah, Chris and Sherry show up, and Sherry wants to find Rory to say goodbye before they head back to Boston, so Lorelai has a moment alone with Christopher to tell him that she realized that part of her had always been waiting for him and self-sabotaging her relationships, but that she's past it now and can just be happy for him.
Which Christopher responds to with a big ol' "fuck you," essentially, and leaves Lorelai stunned in the diner all by her lonesome.
*Best as I can tell, this would have to be "I'm Waking Up To Us." This episode aired in February 2002. B&S didn't release any singles in 2002, but "I'm Waking Up To Us" dropped in November 2001, and wasn't officially released stateside, so it could plausibly have taken that long to reach the imports bin at the cool Hartford record shop. It's fine, not my favorite. The small-scale heist scene later in the episode is set to "Legal Man," which I like better but had been out several years by this point.
A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh
Soundtrack:
"Legal Man" - Belle and Sebastian
Random Guest Star Watch: Mädchen Amick (Twin Peaks) as Sherry.
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posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:18 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]