"Richard, who we know from the Digger debacle can be quite wicked,
continues to filter everything through his business world prism,
unable to put Lorelai's relationship with Digger, and now Luke, into
any other context. In recent episodes, the nuttiness seemed like
harmless fun -- Emily's panic room; Richard's barbershop quartet with
flashy vest -- but now it's darker. The "re-meet" Luke efforts
illuminate the post-separation Richard v. Emily dynamic and their
complete inability to get past their obsession with social status. I
understand that some (on the TVwoP board and elsewhere) prefer their
Richard and Emily nice and cuddly, but we are realizing that absent
their marriage - even though it often ran cold - they are ill-equipped
to engage in normal social interaction with those not in their
immediate upper-class Hartford circle, and incapable of assessing a
Lorelai suitor much beyond the extent to which he will fit in at the
club and society gatherings. In fact, they can barely communicate
with each other: Richard finds out about Emily's dinner with Luke and
Lorelai via his valet (nicely pronounced with the hard "t" by national
treasure Edward Herrmann), who had been gossiping with Emily's maid.
Prisoners in their own castle, detached from both the "real world" and
each other, they have become much more mean-spirited."