Forgiveness And Stuff originally aired December 21, 2000.  It was written by John Stephens and was directed by Bethany Rooney.

In Forgiveness And Stuff, a medical emergency brings Emily and Lorelei together, when the holidays can’t.

We open up with a previously on segment.  So from there, the town is getting ready for their annual Christmas pageant.  The baby Jesus doll loses it’s arm, and Rory suggests getting a new doll, but Taylor doesn’t go for that idea.  When Lorelei and Rory are leaving Patty’s dance studio, we see that a dog is walking around with the arm in it’s mouth, which was really funny to see.  Things are still weird between Lorelei and Rory, and Rory has spoken to Dean since “it” happened.  Lorelei and Emily aren’t getting along either, to the point that Lorelei gets uninvited to Emily’s Christmas party.

Rory goes by herself, and tries to talk to Emily about what happened.  Emily either changes the subject or tells Rory that the party is not the appropriate time to talk about it.  Richard’s pretty focused on work, and is feeling really warm, so he goes to adjust the thermostat.  Meanwhile, Lorelei heads over to Luke’s for food after finding Dean tapping on Rory’s bedroom window.  We find out that Richard is in the hospital, so Luke drives her over.

Random thought: They must have one hospital for that entire area, because the message for Lorelei didn’t seem to mention which hospital.  It must be a really nice (and very big) hospital.  I know it’s a fictional town, and it’s probably the one closest to Richard and Emily’s house, but still.

At the hospital, Emily just wants to know what was going on with Richard, and doesn’t care about anything else.  Understandable, but has no one in her life been in the hospital before?  Because she really doesn’t care about that paperwork.  Luke’s reactions to the different patients going by was really funny.  Richard is fine, he just had a touch of angina.  Emily’s surprised that Lorelei came, but he is her dad, and while she’s not getting along with Emily, Lorelei seemed willing to put it aside.  And Emily and Lorelei do work things out.  Rory and Lorelei work things out as well.

The one scene that really stuck out was when Emily and Richard were talking about how Emily was going to die first because she didn’t want to live without them.  It really shows a different side of Emily.  She does come across as a little harsh (and she’s definitely accused of being a little controlling, which does come across sometimes) so it was nice to see how much she loves Richard.

Pop-culture references: Metamorphosis by Kafka, Charro

Favorite lines/scenes: Taylor: “Okay, listen up, the arm is missing.  I repeat, the arm is missing.”

Patty: “Our before Mary is about to become an after.  Who else in town is knocked up?”

Final thoughts: I liked this episode, but not as much as the previous one.  We see the fall-out of the previous episode, but things are pretty much resolved by the end of the episode.  I thought it was a good episode, even if it was pretty standard.  It gets 3 mugs of coffee.