Gilmore Girls - I'm A Kayak, Hear Me Roar

With Richard back home, but still not totally back together chaos ensues at the Gilmore household. Lorelai tries to hold everything together and in the process seems to grow closer to Emily, however our hopes for that are smashed by the end. Meanwhile, Rory and Logan are celebrating his 25th birthday. They join his father, Mitchum, for dinner and while all seems to go well the dinner conversation leaves Rory feeling confused.

Lorelai makes an unexpected visit to Rory's apartment at the crack of dawn (6 am!). Paris and Doyle are already fully awake and practicing yoga. It seems like every episode that girl just gets weirder and weirder. Rory is also awake, thanks to Paris and Doyle. So, she and Lorelai go for a ride where Lorelai breaks the news that she and Chris have split up. She tells Rory that "it just wasn't right" and that they both knew that. Rory tells her that she's not totally surprised. They both agree that no matter what though Chris will always be a part of their lives, after all he is Rory's father. Rory asks who else knows and Lorelai tells her that it's just her that knows. We find out later in the episode that it's more like the whole town knows, including Luke. As they are talking they run out of gas. Ironically, these two who are always yapping on their cell phones don't have their cell phones on them this time so they are forced to start walking to find a gas station.

Apparently they must've found a gas station because we never hear about that again. Next time we see the Gilmore girls they are arriving at the older Gilmore's house for dinner. It is just Emily waiting for the girls to arrive. After some casual talking Emily offers up "mocktails" instead of cocktails because if Richard can't drink she doesn't want anyone drinking. Lorelai isn't real pleased about this. A night with Emily without alcohol, you'd have to be one brave person! Richard finally comes down but is in a horrible mood and complains about having to be pulled away from watching golf. He demands that they begin dinner right away. Once they are seated he starts griping about eating fish for dinner. Emily tells him it is Sea Bass and that it does not taste fishy which sparks an entire conversation on fish making Richard even more angry. He abruptly leaves dinner to go back to watch golf. The Gilmore household is always such a joy.

Rory makes Logan breakfast in bed for his birthday. She has to convince him to get back in bed instead of working. He's closing the deal to buy an internet company and is looking over the press release. He still hasn't told his father anything about it. He tells Rory that he'll let him find out when it's in the Wall Street Journal. What a close, loving family. Emily calls Lorelai at home and in the Emily way of doing things asks tells Lorelai to pick up a prescription for Richard. After Emily hangs up on Lorelai, Lorelai jokingly continues talking saying how she'd be more than happy to pick it up and by the way her and Chris broke up. Of course since Emily already hung up she hears none of this.

Luke's sister and brother-in-law show up and plead for Luke to let them stay with him while an exterminator gets the moths out of their house. Moths? Only on Gilmore Girls would that be reasonable and even then it's still questionable. Back at the Gilmore house Richard and Emily are sitting down at lunch and once again Richard is not happy with his meal. This time it's soup that he's unhappy about. During his complaining the doorbell is ringing and the maid is nowhere to be found so Emily has to answer the door. She is disgusted that she have to do such a trivial thing. It is Lorelai at the door with the prescriptions that Emily asked her to pick up. One question - why do Lorelai and Rory ring the door bell? I can't figure that one out. While Emily is away from the table Richard calls in the chef and after some arguing he fires him. Now the Gilmore's are without a chef, their maid is in hiding somewhere in the house, and the nurse that they hired to care for Richard can't stand either one of them. The Gilmore household is falling apart. Lorelai calls Sookie to come help hold things together and whip up something good, well, not-so-good for him health-wise but something he'll like.

Rory is still busy in birthday celebration mode. At the moment she is trying to put together a bunch of different birthday activities like a piñata, pin the tail on the donkey moose, twister, and so on. As she's doing this Logan calls and tells her that his dad wants to take them both to dinner. She agrees, but isn't too excited. Moving on, Luke has a full house with his sister, brother-in-law and their baby. They tell him about their plan to start traveling to various places to sell their home-made crafts. Before too long the conversation finds its way to Chris and Lorelai. Luke tells his sister that he heard they split up. She sort of presses him to give her a call, but her husband tells Luke not to call her -- not to open that "Pandora's box" again.

Logan and Rory arrive to have dinner with his dad, Mitchum. From the start Mitchum seems rather chipper (yes, I said chipper). He asks Rory whether she is still doing journalism and he compliments her on it. He really seems to be laying on the chipper-ness at this point. Logan gets a call and leaves the table leaving just Mitchum and Rory. He tells Rory what an asset she has been to the family and how great she has been at guiding Logan. Umm... WHAT? Is this the same guy and the same family that were so rude to Rory that they left her in tears? Am I missing something? Rory is just as confused as yours truly. He goes on to tell her that they've still got work to do. She asks what work to which he responds, to help Logan decide his next step. He then tells Rory that they will help her too. He says that they own newspapers all over the world and that she could write for any one of them, he tells her to take her pick. What an amazing offer, but I am sure there are more strings attached than what is being said. Rory is still confused with this new attitude from Mitchum and asks about his past comment to her that she didn't "have it." He tells her "circumstances change." On that note Logan comes back to the table unaware of the conversation between Rory and his father. They eat dessert and that is the end of dinner as we know it. Afterward Rory and Logan head back to his place where she has decorated and filled the place with activities mentioned earlier. When Rory leaves the room for a few minutes Logan gets a phone call telling him that his company has received a cease and desist order from a company in California alleging patent-infringement meaning his entire business deal is screwed. A friend and I, who is a major Gilmore Girls fan like all of you, talked after the show and she suggested a possible twist to this plot involving Mitchum. What if Mitchum bought the patent before Logan's company filed for it? Or, what if Mitchum just had the cease and desist order sent to scare Logan? With Mitchum being so overly nice to Logan and Rory, and his mention of Logan's next step, I just wonder if this couldn't be true. What do you think? Any other thoughts on what Mitchum's upto?

Lorelai is still at her parents house trying to keep things from turning into a full blown catastrophe, or from Emily also suffering a heart attack. She and Emily start to go over some of Richard's business dealings since Richard hasn't been able, nor willing, to do any business. Emily finally breaks out the alcohol to Lorelai's delight. As they are going through some of the things on the computer Lorelai blurts out that her and Chris split. Emily is stunned and tells Lorelai that she doesn't know what to say. Emily speechless? Did I just see a cow fly passed my window? Emily truly is speechless and says nothing more about the split, instead she continues asking about different business things. Lorelai tries to teach Emily how to use the computer and Quicken. Emily starts to catch on a little bit. After some drinks Emily seems a little tipsy and turns into a more nice, not-so-stiff Emily. It's too bad she isn't just drunk all the time. She talks proudly of how Lorelai is so independent and really doesn't need a man to make it through life. On the otherhand, Emily is very dependant on Richard. She compares them to a kayak (hence the episode title), without Richard she is rowing the kayak but just keeps doing circles and the faster she rows the more circles she does and gets nowhere, whereas Lorelai is able to row her own kayak without anyone. Lorelai jokes, "I'm a Kayak, hear me roar!" In one of the best mother-daughter moments between Emily and Lorelai, Emily tells Lorelai that she'll be just fine after the divorce. This is now two episodes where we are beginning to see a more real, friendly Emily ... could she finally be changing her ways? Don't get your hopes up. Lorelai wakes up the next day after spending the night at mom and dad's house to Emily at the table reading the newspaper. After the touching moment the night before we imagine a nice mother-daughter breakfast with maybe some laughter and gossip, but Emily won't have any of that. She is short and snippy with Lorelai complaining that she now has to cancel the big party she had been planning for Chris and Lorelai. Obviously hurt, Lorelai says she better get going. As she is leaving Emily just barely mumbles a thank you to Lorelai for helping. I always get my hopes up that these two will eventually find level ground and get along, but Emily just doesn't seem to want to or if she does she doesn't show it real well.

Next week's episode looks to mainly center around Lane. Lorelai throws Lane a baby shower and it looks to go awry when Lane goes into labor during the shower. They are seen pushing Lane in her bed through the streets blocking traffic and causing havoc. I must admit, judging from the previews I'm really not that interested in next week's episode. As interesting as Lane can be I just don't see the need for an entire episode revolving around her, even if it is the birth of her child. There seems to be a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up and with the show only having maybe one more season I think the writers should really focus on the central characters and moving them along.