There’s The Rub
Season 2, Episode 16
Original airing: April
9, 2002
My Rating: 68
The Good:
This was a good episode for some serious character and story
development. Emily and Lorelai had one of the first real conversations about
their relationship that we’ve seen. And the Rory/Dean/Jess triangle was pushed
way forward with some great moments from Paris.
The Emily and Lorelai storyline didn’t start off great as we
treaded back over old ground with Emily being overbearing and Lorelai being
visibly annoyed. We’ve been here and seen this a lot. There’s some variation of
doing it in bath robes and sheets, but it’s really not that funny or exciting.
Then they sneak off campus for dinner and things get good!
It’s really nice to see them having a cocktail and laughing together. And the
one dance with Chad the Silver Fox was quite fun. I completely understand
Emily’s anger during the slow dance. The cheek to cheek dancing was too
intimate and Emily allowed herself to end up in that position, albeit with some
aggressive body language from Chad. Where Emily goes wrong, of course, is
blaming Lorelai for the situation. Emily was the one who could have pulled away
more strongly from the man. But having been put extremely out of her comfort
zone, Emily lashes out, which is a perfectly understandable reaction.
And it leads to a great conversation in the hotel room.
Emily asks the question “Why can’t we have a good relationship?” but she
doesn’t really want to hear the answer. She gives reason after reason why the
way she raised Lorelai was proper. But the idea of being friends obviously
appeals to her and it’s great to see her run with it when Lorelai suggests
stealing the robes.
Meanwhile, the younger generation was getting in to all
kinds of interesting hijinks.
The best stuff was with Paris. When push comes to shove and
Paris is worried about her grade, she’ll overlook all else to find a good study
partner. All of her conversations with Rory were excellent, witty, and the
perfect amount of quick that these two actresses are just getting better at
doing. And the number of moments Eliza Weil had to shine in this episode were
numerous. Some of my favorites were seeing her eyes light up when she learned
there was mac and cheese, her excitement to be asked to dinner, her hesitant
hope that perhaps she and Rory are kind of some realm of friends, asking if
they were having a sleep over, and her quick reversion to threats if Rory
freezes her bra. It was all brilliant and great fun to watch.
Jess was also cute all over the board. Showing up at the
house was extremely presumptuous, of course, but the heat going on in the
kitchen with Rory was not all from the food! It’s really fun to watch these two
fire back and forth with their tangible chemistry. I liked how the cinematography
emphasized their conversation with quick cuts back and forth on their faces. It
definitely amped up the tension.
Jess is really pulling off the sexy vibe in this episode.
Every scene with Rory has him slightly in her space, just enough to raise an eyebrow.
And watching her shove him out the door was surprisingly cute considering it
was easy to guess that Dean was about to catch him leaving the house.
The Jess and Paris overlap was great. Having Jess, Paris,
and Rory sit around and eat food while debating literature was a scene this
show was born to do. These three characters have needed to be in a room
together since Jess was introduced and it was utter perfection. On top of that,
it highlighted even more how much Jess and Rory have in common. Dean would have
never kept up at that dinner table.
Speaking of Dean, I was onboard with the second half of his
story. I thought his anger at finding Jess at Rory’s house was completely
reasonable. She told him she wanted to be alone and then he came over (which
was annoying but see The Bad for those thoughts) and found Jess of all people
being hurriedly shoved out of the house. I think anyone would be upset by that.
I also really liked Dean’s response to seeing Jess and Rory
in the diner the next day. For the first time we got to see a reaction from him
that wasn’t over the top anger and jealousy. I actually felt slightly bad for
him and touched by his question to Lorelai, “Rory wouldn’t lie, right?” And I
also believed Lorelai’s answer. Rory wouldn’t lie and, personally, I don’t
think she is. I think she finds Jess fun and interesting, but I don’t feel like
she is aware if she finds him attractive. I think she’s still devoted to Dean
and doesn’t fully realize how her behavior is starting to veer in the other direction.
Finally, I’m glad to see the show is going forward with the
diner expansion storyline in a tangible manner. It would have been easy in TV
world to just say it happened and the next time we see Luke’s apartment, it’s
significantly bigger. I like seeing them go through the motions and it allowed
for a very cute moment of Jess giving Rory the umbrella.
The Bad:
In terms of what I didn’t like, aside from finding the first
half of the Lorelai and Emily storyline a bit boring, I was mostly rolling my
eyes at Dean. He continued his habit of dismissing Rory’s requests and
generally being a pain about the whole thing.
I was really annoyed with his reaction in the kissing scene.
While I can understand a teenage boy being a bit upset that he can’t spend an
unsupervised night with his girlfriend, I thought his reaction was extremely
childish. First, I can’t imagine that he thought it would be ok to hang out at
the house with Lorelai gone. Sure, Lorelai was encouraging Rory to do something
slightly crazy (for Rory’s standards), but I still don’t think she would be
thrilled with the idea of Dean being there. Secondly, who cares what he wants
in this situation?! If Rory says she wants a night alone, that is not an
unreasonable request. And Dean’s unconvincing “I’m not mad’s” with the severe pouty
face didn’t endear him to me. The worst was his line “I’m a saint”; just
irritating.
But what I really found disappointing was the show tacitly
acknowledging that Rory has to lie to Dean to avoid fighting with him. We had a
hint of this in the last episode when Rory’s response to Dean seeing the
missing bracelet was to lie about a rash. But it was really explicit in this
episode. Paris has to literally save Rory with a line about liking Jess and
Rory has to lie to Dean’s face. And while I like how this feeds in to Paris and
Rory’s relationship, I really don’t like that the show is still pushing Dean as
a great guy while seeming to point out that he’s a controlling boyfriend who
doesn’t listen to or respect Rory. In this way, I don’t blame Rory for lying.
Dean was obviously unwilling to hear anything else and Rory’s flinches and
crossed arms hugging herself showed pretty well that she was terrified of his
anger.
Favorite Moment:
I absolutely loved Paris’ face breaking in to a gigantic
smile when Rory invited her to stay for dinner and she saw mac and cheese on
the table. It was extremely sweet.
The Bottom Line:
Overall, I enjoyed the second half of this episode a lot
more than the first and I really appreciated how we got a lot of focus on two
on-going storylines. It felt like a good step for Lorelai and Emily and there
was definite progression on the Dean/Rory/Jess love triangle.
