An explosive weekend of fireworks! An explosive weekend of fireworks, food, music and fun is set to draw thousands to Docklands as the annual Firelight Festival returns bigger and better in 2018.
The City of Melbourne has announced a packed program of events and activities for opening weekend celebrations from 29 June to 1 July.
Chair of the Prosperous City portfolio, Councillor Kevin…
Gilmore Girls: S1/E16 Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers
Here’s another one of those yearly town events that I love so much, the Firelight Festival. A celebration so sappy and filled with tales of romance, it’s sure to make you circle the date in your calendar and hibernate for the whole month, if the last thing you want to hear about is love. The town is preparing for a bonfire and a hefty bowl of infamous “Founder’s Day Punch,” while Deany-boy is preparing for a night out with Rory to celebrate their three month anniversary. If I weren’t so jealous that Rory has a boyfriend that cares about anniversaries, I might be a little weirded out that Dean cares THAT much about random anniversaries like three months.
Dean sets this night of romance for Friday night, even though he knows Rory is busy on Friday nights perpetually until the Earth is unceremoniously sucked into the pits of a hungry black hole. He says he did this because he has to work on Saturday, which leaves a very Sophie’s Choice option of who is least dangerous option; either upset Emily Gilmore and her Friday Night Dinners or Taylor Doose and the inner workings of his market. So, of course, Rory asks Lorelai to talk to Emily and get her out of dinner. After shoveling on some heavy mocking about the improbability of Emily Gilmore giving two craps enough about a three month anniversary to let Rory out of dinner, Emily makes Lorelai eat crow and agrees to let Rory miss this week. I always laugh about it, since Lorelai always seems to think she knows everything her mother’s going to do or say and this was a nice little kick in the butt.
Lorelai has also been dealing with her own issues so far this episode. I guess she’s feeling lonely or something because she starts hating on everything love related, including the Firelight Festival (which responds in kind by attempting to murder her with a falling star). I just have no sympathy for Lorelai with this stuff. It’s been a whole WEEK since she slept with Christopher (at first I thought it had at least been a few weeks, but she does actually reference the Christopher events as happening last week). Seriously? You were proposed to a WEEK ago. Albeit it was an entirely messed up and inappropriate proposal, but still, a week, and now she’s walking around all mopey and feeling sorry for herself. Meanwhile, Luke has been pining for you for years, so he’s allowed to be pissed off about all the love around him, but sorry Lorelai, you’re not.
But his gruffness isn’t going to stick around for every long in this episode, because in a strange little turn of events, a blast from the past shows up at his door. Knock Knock. Who’s there? Rachel. Rachel who? Rachel, Lorelai’s favorite topic, that’s who! We don’t exactly see much of Rachel in this episode, at least we don’t see the important parts, like Luke really confronting her about her abandoning him.
This episode really gets going though when Lorelai heads to Friday Night Dinner alone, only to be surprised with a blind date set up by her mother with the creepiest man on the planet. A man so boring, he is probably the ONLY person on the planet to bore Richard Gilmore with insurance talk. He makes my skin crawl no matter how many times I’ve seen this episode. At this point it’s pretty obvious Emily is just throwing spaghetti at a wall and trying to make anything stick when it comes to getting Lorelai hitched. Apparently just about anybody will do (except Luke, of course).
Across town we meet up with Rory and Dean finishing up their romantic Italian dinner. By the way, thanks for reminding me how much I hate turtlenecks, especially on men, Dean. Of course it’s cutesy and whatnot, but it’s what you’d expect for teenagers doing something special. But he’s got more surprises lined up for Rory. Oh yes he does. After a quick stop at the Firelight Festival to catch a fight between Taylor and the Mayor, they head to the junkyard, cause that’s where you go for your three month anniversary. Duh. Dean offers up a shell of a car and says it’s hers when he’s finished rebuilding it. Really, it is a romantic scene and gesture. Sure, it’s kind of overkill to give a car, but it really does sound like something a teenage boy would do for his first love. Dean then offers more when he tells Rory he loves her. Rory being a brainy over-thinker, of course, has a little difficulty returning the gesture. She’s tries to be honest and tell him she’s not sure if she’s ready to say that yet, because she’s right, it is a really big deal, especially when you’re that young. This does NOT go over well with Dean. He basically takes this as an offense. It’s really frustrating though, because Rory is trying to be open and honest and explain to him why she’s not quite ready to say it. Sure, she could just say “I love you,” but it would be worse if she said it and wasn’t totally sure if she really felt it. Boy, does Dean crap all over her for it too. What a horrible position to be in and what a horrible position to put this girl that you supposedly love in.
Things aren’t looking so good at Gilmore Manor either. Lorelai has had her fill of Mr. Creepy and heads to her room and one of her old escape routes. Just as she’s heading out the window, Richard comes in and catches her. Instead of ratting her out, Richard listens to her pleas to let her escape and tells Emily he can’t find her. Following an earlier scene where the two of them can’t even be in a room alone together and carry a conversation, this is a nice redemption for their relationship and the ways in which Richard understands his daughter more than she realizes.
During the bonfire at the Firelight Festival, Luke and Rachel have a very short conversation that doesn’t really go very deep into their history. Luke just asks why she’s there and we don’t get much resolution as to why she flits around. Maybe all of the confrontation between her and Luke right after she shows up again happened off camera, but I can’t imagine Luke would be able to let it go without letting his feelings about it out. I wish we had seen something like that instead of the friendly, calm conversation at the bonfire. I can’t believe Luke would just welcome her with open arms.
Rachel goes off to take pictures and Lorelai takes her place on the bench next to Luke. They have a nice conversation that mirrors the one Luke just had with Rachel. It’s similar to the comparison from the last episode of Christopher and Luke. Luke’s time with Lorelai is just easy, while his time with Rachel is hard and full of past hurts and baggage.
Lorelai heads home and, uh oh, she’s feeling lonely again, so what does she do? Calls Max, of course. Ugh. Good thing his answering machine is as far as it goes. This time. But then Rory shows up and announces in a stunned voice that her and Dean have broken up. *tear*
3.5 tubes of lip gloss out of 5
Potent Quotables:
Paris: “Spawn in front of someone else’s locker, please.”
Lorelai: “Let’s focus on you, the Lady of the Evening. No hooker reference intended.”
Day 8: What is one Stars Hollow event you wish you could attend/recreate in your own town? Um...probably the Firelight Festival. It just was so cute, like Valentine's Day in the spring, but also you could be single too. Or the Bid a Basket Festival, but that was a little sexist. And...meat-market-y.
Day 8. What’s the one Stars Hollow town event that you want to attend/recreate in you own town?
So many of them would be fun... All of them, really. But I've always been really drawn to the dance marathon. It's actually stupid, because I can't dance to save my life, but it seems like dancing isn't really the point of the dance marathon. The point is to drink lots of coffee and spaz around trying to stay standing for 24 straight hours. I think that would be fun. :) Especially if the winners got a huge trophy.
I'm also super in love with the firelight festival, but I wouldn't want to recreate that in my town. I'd want to attend it IN Stars Hollow. :) With the bonfire and the Founder's Day punch and everyone forgetting to bring anything to start the fire with... that's probably my absolute favorite Stars Hollow event.
