Forgiveness and Stuff episode #1.10 | written by Elise

Elise's Comment:

The episode opens on the people of Stars Hollow preparing the Christmas Pageant, Rory looking for the baby Jesus's arm, Lorelai sowing Kirk's costume, and both of them not speaking to each other. It's very nice to see Stars Hollow getting ready for Christmas: the bell orchestra on the gazeebo, the lighting of the tree, the Gilmore home... Luke's Santa Burger! As Lorelai tells Luke at the end of the episode: "It's hard to imagine living somewhere else".

Lorelai is uninvited to her parents' Christmas dinner (2 weeks before Christmas, as Luke notes), leaving Rory alone with the "gown-up gang". This leads to a series of apple tarts passages (see quotes below). Spending the evening away from Hartford, Lorelai encounters Dean at Rory's bedroom window (notice how Dean used to be associated with trouble in SH, which changed abruptly during the second season).

No Christmas dinner means only one thing: a meal at Luke's. However, her evening is cut short to the news of her father's illness, which pushes Luke to close the diner and offer Lorelai to take her to the hospital. As angry as I was with Emily in the previous episode, I now sympathize with her. Behind that severe facade is an emotional woman very much in love with her husband. In fact, as she tells Richard, she "demand[s] to go first". You can see that this crisis brought Lorelai (who is very moved by seeing her father ill), Emily and Rory closer, leaving the previous night's arguments behind. We finally saw a connection between Luke and Lorelai. All those comments about "looking good" and the cap Lorelai gave Luke (which he is still wearing 3 years later). Emily also got to know the "ice man", as she refered to him in Rory's Birthday Parties, whom, she realizes, is actually very nice. Notice how Luke drinks peppermint tea? Ironic from the man who works in a coffee shop. Reminds me of this dairy farmer I know that doesn't like milk.

Overall, one of the best Christmas episode I have ever seen on television (because of the sublty of the Christmas theme) and far the best Holiday episode the writers of the show would produce.

Fun fact: I noticed a painting on the hospital wall, behind Luke when he comforts a crying Lorelai. It caught my attention, because only a week ago, I found a clipart of that same image. ***

Christmas Songs (featured in the episode):
Thanks For Christmas - XTC
So This Is Christmas - John Lennon
Do They Know It's Christmas - Band Aid
Wonderful Christmas - Paul McCartney

Lorelai: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Lane: A book sends the wrong message.
Rory: What are you talking about?
Lane: You have to look at what a gift says to the other person, not to you. Remember two years ago, I got my mom that perfume?
Rory: Yeah.
Lane: Ok, to me that said, ‘Hey mom, you work hard, you deserve something fancy’. Now to my mother, it said ‘Hey mom, here’s some smelly sex juice, the kind I use to lure boys with’ and resulted in me being sent to Bible camp all summer.

Rory: Well what about the apple tarts? You wait all year for those apple tarts.
Lorelai: I can live without the apple tarts.
Rory: You’ve made up songs after eating five of them with lyrics that contradict that last statement.

Alan (guest at Christmas party): Where’s your mother?
Rory: Oh, well, she...
Alan: Over by the apple tarts I assume.

Lorelai: We’re being passed by senior citizens.
Luke: I’m going as fast as I can.
Lorelai: Bye Grandma, bye.

Lorelai: He [Richard] lived his life the way he thought he was supposed to. He followed the rules taught to him by his non-fishing-non-Barbie-buying dad. He worked hard. He bought a nice house. He provided for my mom. All he asked in return was for his daughter to wear white dresses and go to cotillion and want the same life that he had. What a disappointment it must have been for him to get me.
Luke: I can’t imagine anyone seeing you as a disappointment.

Lorelai: I bet you’d buy a Barbie for your daughter.
Luke: Yeah, well, I’d probably give her the cash to buy it herself and meet her by the baseball cards.

Emily (seeing Luke): Were you on a date?
Lorelai: What?
Emily: You have an escort?
Lorelai: No, it’s Luke, Mom.
Luke: Which is her way of saying we weren’t on a date.
Lorelai: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.

Lorelai:God this sucks.
Luke: Hey come on, you gotta think positive here - bright side, good thoughts. Rainbows, unicorns, clowns, little cute...furry - ok I’m out.
Lorelai: Thank God.

Lorelai: You don’t look so good.
Luke: Thanks.
Lorelai: That’s not what I meant. You know you always look good.
Luke: Yeah?
Lorelai: I mean you always look healthy. [...]But you don’t look so healthy now. Now you look...
Luke: Unhealthy.
Lorelai: Yes. [...] Oh what? So I said you look good. We’re not in 5th grade. ‘You look good’, big deal. Stop staring at me.

Emily: So what exactly is going on between the two of you?
Luke: Nothing. Really. We’re friends, that’s it.
Emily: You’re idiots, the both of you.

[written December 1, 2003]