Thea got dragged down to a Friday Night Dinner. Thea had honestly forgotten all about the stipulation for Rory's Chilton tuition.

So, when Lorelai knocked on the door, a new maid answered the door.

The maid said, "Yes?"

"Hey," Lorelai said.

"Hello," replied the maid.

"You're new," Lorelai pointed out.

"I started yesterday," the maid replied.

Lorelai asked, "What's your name?"

"Liesl," the woman answered.

"Okay, Liesl," Lorelai said. "I'm Brigetta. This is Gretel."

Thea rolled her eyes at that. How rude. "I'm Thea. Emily and Richard are expecting them."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Liesl said. "Please come in." She let them in. "Uh, can I get you a drink?"

It sounded like Emily and Richard were arguing.

"You know what, that's okay. I can get it," Lorelai said. "Why don't you go hide in the kitchen?"

Liesl asked, "Really?" Lorelai nodded. Liesl looked relieved, "Thank you." She took off.

Rory asked, "What is going on?"

"I don't know," Lorelai replied. "I think George and Martha are joining us for dinner."

Richard and Emily came down the stairs. Richard was saying, "I didn't know that my every conversation needed to be reported to you, I stand corrected."

"I have been the co-chair of the Starlight Foundation for the last eight years," Emily said.

"I know this, Emily," Richard said.

"And the Black and White Ball is the main fundraising event of the season," Emily continued.

"Its one year," Richard replied.

"The co-chair cannot miss the main fundraising event," Emily continued.

Richard joked, "Why? Won't the chair be there?"

"Is this a joke to you?" asked Emily.

"Emily, I have too many things to take care of at work," Richard said. "I don't have time for frivolous parties."

Emily started, "Frivolous parties? Friv – ooh." She went upstairs.

"Well, where are you going? Come back here," Richard said, going after her.

"That looks and sounds bad," Thea said to herself.

"I know," Lorelai agreed, clearly enjoying the fight for some reason. "I wish I had popcorn."

"Mom," Rory started.

Lorelai shushed her, "Incoming."

Emily and Richard went back down the steps.

Emily was reading from some invitations, "The Hartford Zoological Silent Auction, the Mark Twain House Restoration Fund luncheon, the Harriet Beecher Stowe Literacy Auction..."

"I can read those myself, you know," Richard said.

Emily said, "This is the fourth event you've taken upon yourself to turn down on our behalf. And I am on the board of all those foundations. Now how do you think that makes me look?"

"Like your husband is busy and has a great deal of responsibility," Richard said.

"Well, I have responsibilities too," Emily retorted.

"I understand that your social engagements are important," Richard said.

"They're not just social engagements," Emily said.

"Anything at which you serve tea is a social engagement," Richard told her.

Thea was stunned at that.

"That's it," Emily said. "I am gonna get a tape recorder so you can hear how pompous and condescending you sound." She started to go upstairs.

"Wha – uh, Emily," Richard said, getting her to stop in her tracks.

"No, I wouldn't want you to take my word for it," Emily said. "I might be delirious from all that tea I've been drinking." She started heading upstairs.

It looked like someone was going to be sleeping on the couch tonight – or at least the guest bedroom.

"Oh, stop this," Richard said, following after her.

Scratch that – at least the guest bedroom for a week.

"Maybe we should leave," Rory said.

"Are you kidding?" Lorelai said, "We've got dinner theater here."

Thea asked, "Why are you happy to see your parents arguing?"

"Yeah, they're obviously in a fight," Rory said.

Lorelai asked, "Yeah?"

"One that they probably wouldn't want us to see," Rory said.

"Hey, we stumbled in here completely innocently. We came for dinner as usual, per their request. We had no idea we were walking into The Lion King without the puppet heads."

Thea was sure that The Lion King wasn't the appropriate analogy for the fight.

Emily and Richard came back downstairs, this time Emily had a tape recorder.

"Get that thing out of my face," Richard said.

"Just say the tea thing again," Emily said, holding out the tape recorder.

Thea was smirking because she kind of was amused by Emily's antics.

"You are behaving like a child," Richard told Emily.

"Turn around when you talk, would you? I'm not sure how good this microphone is," Emily said.

Richard finally noticed Rory, Lorelai, and Thea, "Oh."

"What?" asked Emily. She noticed the three.

Lorelai clapped, "Brava! Encore! I'm sorry, does Terrence McNally know about you two? Get me the phone!"

Emily and Richard looked embarrassed.

Lorelai and Rory chose to sit at the counter, just to irritate Thea, she guessed.

Liberty and Luke seemed like they had been swamped with customers for some reason.

Luke came over to fill up Thea's mug with coffee, speaking to her and her friends, "Coffee...orange juice...whatever you two are taking. Shout out your orders now, before I serve you all steamed spinach."

Thea and her friends said their orders.

"Okay," Luke said.

Thea asked, "Isn't Jess supposed to be helping?"

"Yeah, but I bet he's bailing on us," Liberty said, going to serve some other customers.

Luke went to talk to Lorelai and Rory.

Jess came down the stairs.

Luke spoke to him, "Jess, you were supposed to be down here...what the hell is that?"

Thea angled her head. He wasn't wearing anything vulgar to her. She asked, "What are you talking about?"

"That," Luke said, pointing at Jess's shirt.

"It looks like a shirt to me," Todd said, clearly not seeing a problem.

"Change," Luke told Jess.

"What?" asked Jess.

"Go upstairs and change your shirt," Luke ordered him.

"I like this shirt," Jess replied.

Luke asked, "How can you like that shirt?"

"It brings out my eyes," Jess retorted.

Georgia snickered, surprising Thea and Liberty.

Luke told him, "Hey, part of the deal of you staying here is that you work here, and when you work here, you will wear proper work attire, and that is not proper work attire. Now go upstairs and change into something that won't scare the hell out of my customers."

It was just a regular band t-shirt. Nothing to be scared over. Thea had seen way worse shirts on boys at school. Although, she will admit, it wasn't exactly work attire.

"Whatever you say Uncle Luke," Jess said, going upstairs.

"Just wear a regular, plain t-shirt," Liberty called after him. "It doesn't matter the color."

"Gross shirt," Lorelai said.

"Yeah," Rory replied.

"Good band," Lorelai added.

"Oh yeah," Rory said.

"I prefer Megadeth myself," Todd told them.

Rory and Lorelai looked at him.

Francine had something important to tell Thea, so after school, Thea had to get on a bus to Hartford and to Francine's house.

The maid, Sierra, at Francine's house let Thea in. Thea found Francine in the kitchen, looking through a dress catalog.

Thea was confused, "You wanted to see me?"

"Next week, there's a debutante ball," Francine said. "You're the right age for it."

"Oh," Thea replied, "I guess, I'll do it, if you want me to."

"You can get out of it if you want," Francine said. "I don't want to force you into it."

"I'm offering to do it," Thea said.

"You know, your dad has to walk you out," Francine said.

"I can get someone else to do it," Thea said. Francine knew that Thea didn't have a relationship with Christopher.

Francine nodded, "Okay. That's fine."

Thea said, "Don't I need a dress for this thing?"

"Yeah," Francine replied, grabbing her purse.

Francine took Thea to a dress shop to get a dress. While the seamstress hemmed the dress  to get it fitted perfectly, Francine said, "I'll be right back. I have to get something."

"Wait, Grandma," Thea started. Francine took off, leaving Thea to stand there awkwardly looking at the shoe selection because the seamstress didn't want Thea to move

So, when the fitting and adjustments were done, Francine finally came back.

Thea changed into her regular clothes while a co-worker put the dress in a garment bag for gowns along with a pair of long white gloves.

Thea had gotten a pair of regular white heels and when they were in the car, Francine handed a gift bag to Thea.

"I thought these two would look good with your dress," Francine said.

Thea opened the gift bag and took out two jewelry boxes. She can tell that there was a necklace inside each box.

She opened one and spotted a necklace  that had a pink pearl on a chain. She opened the other box seeing a pink pearl string necklace. She would bet her two cats that they were real pearls too.

"Thank you," Thea said. "You didn't have to."

"I wanted too and I want you to look more beautiful than the other girls so Straub and I can brag about how you're our granddaughter," Francine told her.

Thea smiled at that.

It turned out that Rory was also going to the debutante ball and Christopher was going to present Rory at the ball.

Thea wasn't that surprised, but all she can think of who was going to present her.

Jackson was out of the question, because it felt weird that her boyfriend's mother's boyfriend would present her. Same went with Ethan, Aiden's dad – word would get out that Ethan was a wife-killer...

There was Luke. It would be weird...

Luke asked, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Well, I need someone to present me at the debutante ball," Thea said.

"And I'm aware that your father is going to present Rory," Luke said.

Thea looked at him.

Christopher would present Thea because he would (probably) want to look good, even though he was no father to her. She didn't want him to present her.

Annette was going to be there for her as well.

Luke sighed, "I'll do it, Teddy. Stop giving me that." He didn't want to, but for Thea, he will do it, because he cared about her. He asked, "Which one of your boyfriends is going to be your date?"

Thea had considered that; but Francine said not to bring two guys with her.

"Todd," Thea told him.

Luke seemed confused, "Todd?"

"Because I didn't want the other to feel left out," Thea said. "So, they agreed to let Todd go with me. It's a favor for a favor arrangement."

Luke asked, "A favor for a favor?"

"He agreed to come with me as long as afterwards, we'll get ice cream and get brain freezes," Thea said.

"Of course that's what he wants," Luke replied.

Francine and Straub helped Annette and Luke out with the attire. Luke and Todd would've preferred to rent a suit but Francine and Straub insisted that the both of them get a suit essentially for free. It was pretty awkward for Luke and Todd; because Luke clearly didn't want to wear a suit with tails and Todd just didn't want to dress up in something very expensive. Annette, however, just wanted to spend a rich person's money, which was something that Thea didn't blame her over, because Thea found it kind of amusing.

Thea and Todd had gone to Miss Patty's for a dance rehearsal with Dean and Rory.

"Now, keep counting in your heads," Miss Patty instructed. "Look each other in the eye. Dean, Todd, are you both leading?"

"I have no idea," Dean said.

Todd said, "I'm not, because I don't see why the girl can't lead."

Miss Patty turned the music off, "Okay okay, stop stop stop. Now remember, one of the most important things in ballroom dancing is to remember to spot, otherwise you're gonna get dizzy. So, what you wanna do is you wanna pick out something to focus on. I usually like to find a lonely seaman. Then when turning, whip your head around and find your spot again." She spun around three times, "Hello sailor, hello sailor, hello sailor. Now you try it." She went to mess with the radio.

Dean spoke to Rory, "You've gotta be kidding me."

"I think you can do it without the 'hello sailor' part," Rory told him.

"Rory," Dean started.

"BattleBots," Rory said.

"For the rest of your life," Dean replied, like that appeased him.

Thea didn't get it, as she focused on Miss Patty and spun three times, just to try it.

"Do I really have to say 'hello sailor' because that's weird," Todd said.

"Now take it from top," Miss Patty said, playing the music.

Thea and Todd got in the dancing positions and started trying to maneuver around the studio without running into Dean and Rory.

"Hey, you guys are really improving," Lorelai said. "Now you're actually facing each other."

That was directed towards Dean and Rory, naturally.

Christopher asked, "Anyone need a break?" He held up to-go cups of coffee. There was four, one for Lorelai, one for himself, one for Rory, and one for Dean.

"Okay, take five, but don't sit down because your muscles will get cold," Miss Patty told them. She went outside for presumably a smoke break.

Lorelai asked, "So, how's it going?"

"Actually, I'm not very good," Rory said. "Thea and Todd are doing well though. Maybe an extra hour and they'll be good enough to go."

Maybe that's because they don't seem all that interested in each other and it's getting awkward for them, Thea figured. She and Toddy liked each other platonically so it's just a fun thing for them to do.

"Yeah, and it's really making me look bad because I'm a natural," Dean said.

"Well, maybe you just need a glittery glove and really freaky face," Lorelai replied.

Todd looked at Thea clearly thinking, 'what the hell does that even mean' look.

"At one point Miss Patty thought Dean was gonna get hurt, she made me sit in the corner and watch," Rory said.

"Hey! Nobody puts Baby in the corner," Lorelai quoted.

And Miss Patty made Todd go outside because he was beginning to crack up at that.

Georgia came by, "Hey, are you done yet?"

"No," Thea said going outside to talk to Georgia.

Todd ended up recounting the story with Miss Patty dancing with Dean.

Georgia laughed at that.

Thea looked back in the studio. Lorelai and Christopher were dancing together.

Georgia said, "My mom was showing me these pearls that she made Francine get her. They were more expensive than our entire house and our car put together."

Todd nodded, because his suit was very expensive too.

Miss Patty had Thea and Todd go back inside the studio.

"No, you guys just need some practice," Christopher told Rory and Dean.

"Listen to your father, Rory." Miss Patty, "Your adorable, adorable father."

"Come on; let's get you out of here before you become Patty's next husband," Lorelai said.

"See you guys later," Christopher said. He went over and said in Patty's ear, "Bye Patty."

"Oh, the way you toy with me," Miss Patty flirted.

Todd grimaced a little.

Francine and Annette took Thea to the ballroom. Thea held the dress bag that had her name on a nametag attached to it.

Annette asked Thea, "Do they really expect you to walk down those stairs in heels?"

"I think so," Thea said, a little intimidated by the thought.

A woman came over, "You are...?"

"Theodosia Gilmore," Thea said.

"You are to head up the stairs. The preparation room is on your right," the woman said to Thea.

Thea went upstairs to the preparation room with the woman.

"Put your dress there, put your makeup on over there," the woman instructed. "There's only one lighted mirror. Listen up, ladies, everyone must be beautiful and ready to go by seven-thirty."

It was only five-forty, that left almost two hours to get ready.

So, Thea took her time trying to get ready. She got dressed in the dress and put on the white panty-hose. She went to apply eyeliner and lip gloss.

Rory had arrived. She had the non-lighted mirror.

"I can't believe we have an hour-and-a-half," Rory said.

"I know," the girl said to Rory. "I am never gonna be ready in time. God only knows if the swelling on my nose is gonna go down. I had to go and inherit my father's nose. I'm Libby."

Thea looked at Libby; her nose looked fine to Thea.

"Rory," she said.

"Uh, which one should I wear? I've thought about this all month and I cannot decide," Libby said.

"Oh, well, that's a tough one," Rory said.

"I know," Libby continued. "This is red-read and this is orange-red. The wrong one and I will end up looking like a hooker." She hissed out, "Or a teacher."

"Wow, that's a lot of pressure for you," Thea said.

"The two minutes you are standing on those stairs tonight will determine the social status for the rest of your life," Libby ranted.

"Wow, what if you trip?" asked Rory and Libby at her in disbelief. "I mean, not that you would. You wouldn't. I might. Probably will actually." She added, "Could be a real Cirque du Soleil kind of night."

Libby admonished, "You should not even joke about stuff like that. Ow." To the woman fixing her hair, she snapped, "There's a head under there, you know."

Libby held a flask and Rory had a book and Thea was bored.

Libby offered the flask, "Midori sour?"

Rory shook her head, "Oh, no thanks."

Thea looked at the flask, "Sure." Rory gave Thea a look as Libby handed the flask over. Thea took a sip. "Yeah, no more for me thanks."

"More for me," Libby said. "At my last coming out, I shared with this girl who couldn't handle her booze." She looked like she was remembering the incident, "Neon green puke all over her white dress." She snickered a little.

Thea asked, "Is this your second coming out?"

"Oh, this is my fifth one this year," Libby said.

"Wow," Rory replied.

Thea nodded, "This one is our first."

"You know, they say four out of five debs marry their escorts," Libby said.

Thea was probably going to be the one that wouldn't marry her escort. Thea had two boyfriends; she wasn't looking for a third.

"Kind of like the dentists with Trident," Rory said.

Libby said, "Well, I figure, five coming out balls, five escorts, one of them has to stick, right?"

"Good logic," Rory pointed out.

Libby asked, "So, are your escorts the one?"

"No," Thea said.

Libby asked, "Why not?"

"Because he's just a friend," Thea said.

"Oh, 'just a friend'," Libby said, using air quotes; at least one air quote.

"I have two boyfriends and I just couldn't leave the other out, so they agreed on letting me take our mutual friend with me," Thea said.

Libby asked, "Did you just say you have two boyfriends?"

Another girl, with big hair curlers in her hair, came over, distracting Libby, "Katie, hi." Katie had a large pink bandage on her cheek, "too bad about your face."

Katie asked, "Is it horrible?"

"No, you can hardly tell," Libby said taking Katie's hand and walk off with her, "Just walk sideways."

"My god," Thea said.

Rory nodded in agreement.

Todd came over to Thea on the staging area. "What's up?"

"You look like a magician," Thea told him.

"I know," Todd said. "All I need is the top hat and a scantily clad woman by my side..."

"Hey, thanks for coming with me," Thea told him.

"Anything for my friend," Todd said.

Libby came over, "Hey, is this your escort?"

"Yeah, he is," Thea said.

Libby and Todd looked at each other.

"You look like the woman my aunt used to rob banks with in the all-girl bank robbing gang," Libby pointed out.

"Yeah, my mom was the leader of that gang," Todd replied with a grin.

Libby said, "What are the odds?" She spotted Rory and Dean.

Thea looked at Todd, "Yeah, what are the odds of that happening?"

Luke came up to them, "You ready to go, Teddy?"

Thea nodded, "Just do me a favor."

Luke asked, "What is it?"

"If I fall, go down with me," Thea told him.

Luke gave her a small smile, "Yeah, after I get done laughing at you first."

"That's all I ask. Thank you," Thea replied.

Luke patted her shoulder, "Anything for you, Teddy."

After the introduction speak and going through people, the lady at the podium said,

"Lorelai Gilmore, daughter of Christopher Hayden and Lorelai Gilmore."

Rory and Christopher went ahead.

Then the lady said, "Theodosia Gilmore, daughter of Christopher Hayden and Lorelai Gilmore."

Luke and Thea walked down the stairs together, with Thea holding onto Luke's arm. There was applause and possibly confusion because Thea had a different man with her than who Rory had.

Todd was smirking and mouthing 'trip' at her repeatedly.

When they got to the bottom, like tradition, Luke kissed the back of Thea's hand, Thea curtsied, and Luke walked away. Todd went over and Thea took his arm and they walked down the aisle.

Annette, Francine, and Straub were smiling widely at Thea and Todd.

They all got to Stars Hollow and towards the diner.

Liberty and Jess seemed to have had things under control while they were gone.

Oddly enough, Jess was dressed like Luke.

Luke asked, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Working," Jess said wiping down the counter.

"I tried to talk him out of it, but he said he was older," Liberty said.

Luke asked, "So, you think this is funny, huh?"

"I'm sorry," Jess said. "I thought this was the uniform."

Liberty asked, "So, how was the debutante ball?"

"Well, the fan dance was extremely humiliating and a girl with the same name was you said that Christopher was a hot dad and that if he was my and Rory's step-dad we could've taken him away from our mom," Thea said.

Liberty looked disgusted.

"And that she's the niece of one of the woman in my mom's banking robbing gang," Todd added.

Liberty seemed baffled, "What are the odds of that happening?"