Gilmore Girls OK, I am going to...

Gilmore GirlsOK, I am going to just come out with it: I hate the dress. It's too foofy and too frilly, and I'm not really not sure about the white... sorry, blush silk-and-tulle-with-crystals-and-a-really-big-sash part. Miss Boho Hip in a traditional wedding gown? Please. It just doesn't fit. (I kinda liked Sookie's barefoot wedding-on-the-beach idea, but that's probably too Renee-and-Kenny for Lorelai.) That said, I absolutely loved everything else about this episode. Who else but Lorelai Gilmore would wait eight years to fall in love with Luke, plan their entire wedding in one day, then obsess that it was so right it had to be wrong? (Genius domino effect: The strapless dress led to summer flowers to matching invitations to a coffee break to the picture on the wall of the rose-covered church that happened to be right around the corner with the perfect reception room to Pastor Todd to his sister's catering business approved by Sookie. All on sale! June 3! Done!) Do we believe the signs? There was snow falling outside Lorelai's bedroom window. (And Anna's, too.) But he still hasn't told her. (Did you see next week's teaser?) My favorite moments? Mr. Loves-the-Ladies Logan professing those three little words in front of Rory's sketchy apartment? Crazy-strict Mrs. Kim doing vodka shots with Lane at her kitchen table? Cool-hand Luke insisting he has regular contact with his long-lost daughter? Hard to choose the one. But I am going to go with Rory's mandatory and first-ever therapy session, when a few little reminders (dropping out of Yale, stealing a yacht, the name Logan) sent her sobbing through two boxes of tissues. "He told me he loved me! Nothing for weeks! And now he loves me! Is he serious? What, do I get another Birkin bag?" No, just a lot more therapy, 'cause it's breakthrough time! I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of that going around.   Robin Honig

House
House and Stacy are stuck in Baltimore overnight due to inclement weather while the "kids" try to solve the case of a famous journalist whose fall has left him speaking gibberish. That happened to me once when I fell off my bike and cracked my head on the asphalt. Concussion. I haven't ridden downhill, standing up, with no hands, ever since. I tell you, it's the darnedest thing to think you're speaking in proper sentences only to have nonsense coming out of your mouth. If only House had been working my case.... Anyway, Stacy admits that she likes curry and that, though she can't have it all the time, she craves it now and again. This is sexy lawyer-speak for "House, I want you now!" It turns House on so much that he plants a couple of kisses on her, yet he can't refuse the siren call of his true love his work. When House leaves Stacy alone in the hotel room because the "kids" call in with more symptoms, he goes and scribbles random words in red lipstick on the airport's wall. This would probably earn most frequent-fliers a fine at least. House, though, can do so for hours without any harassment from security. What he can't do is leave a backpack on the plane without boarding. I loved how that security guard tracked down the pack's owner lickety-split and then left him standing in the hall, still not on the plane! I bet House didn't have to remove his shoes at any checkpoints either. Really, why bother with scripting airport security if it's not going to make any sense? It's nice to know that House can make sense of things from afar and diagnose his patient with cerebral malaria. (Yay! It's not a tumor!) What's disturbing is that his team is basically useless without him. Exactly what is House teaching them, or are they just slow learners? They didn't even order a MRI, House's favorite test. I did notice that in House's absence, Chase was smug, Foreman was insecure and Cameron was somewhat commanding. House, however, was unchanged. Thank goodness the show is named for a certain surly doc, or it just wouldn't have been the same.  Rhoda Charles

The Shield
Hmmm. I wonder if, after the teary send-off Rawling got at the end of last season, the show's lost its edge. Let's see now: a funeral-parlor brawl sends a corpse tumbling out of its casket, and a moment later Gardocki catches a crucifix across the back of his skull. So I'm thinking... no. And just in case I still have any doubts, Vic turning a fire hose on a high-school riot douses those doubts promptly. And as Vic and the Strike Team race the "kill clock," Forest Whitaker's Kavanaugh is introduced, trying out his gum trick on Aceveda, who gets him started on the old Crowley murder by giving him Lemansky as Vic's weak point. All together now: Uh-oh.

By the time we watch Tina building up to nothing but trouble, everyone betting on who the father of Dani's baby is, the kill-clock plot coming to a close and Kavanaugh pulling Lemansky out of his house, we realize that as much of a talent as we lost when Glenn Close walked last season, Whitaker will do just fine as a substitute. Dutch watches a dolled-up Tina walk out of the station (oh, Dutch you schmuck), Corinne takes a stick of gum, Aceveda looks the Crowley case file over, Gardocki works the crucifix kid over and Kavanaugh asks Lemansky the killer question, "Who do you think I want?" Just in case you didn't get it the first time: Uh-oh. Michael Peck