I felt for Emily. I mean, Lorelai pointedly didn't answer when emily asked if she would visit of her own volition. Her speech to Rory made it clear she was doing it against her will and hating it all along. Of course Emily flipped, she contributed a lot more to Rory's prep school years than tuition, and now she's facing going back to the old Christmas and Easter schedule, as though the last three years has meant nothing good to Lorelai. And on her birthday, too, like she was giving herself a present by ridding herself of them.
I get that Emily was karmically paying for her critical hostility to Lorelai, but I don't blame her for secretly harboring the delusion that Lorelai was glad they'd dragged her back into their lives. Lorelai wasn't supposed to feel guilty about clearing her debt to them, she was supposed to feel guilty for withholding Rory and herself from them when she didn't need them.
Rory didn't understand because She would do almost anything for her mother. All the while Lorelai was daydreaming about ridding herself of the unwanted pests that ruined her first sixteenth birthday, Rory was running around like a crazy person to make her feel special. She doesn't get why Lorelai wouldn't give that kind of effort for her own parents.
Loved the condescension in Lorelai's defensive speech, though. "You only know the warm and fuzzy Richard and Emily..." As if! But Rory has the strength to be a giver to people like Jess and Paris, maybe loving the Gilmores for who they are comes a little easier to her.
I guess it's a little like what Luke is going through with Jess. I mean, he was kidding himself that Jess cared about staying or respected his opinion enough to take him seriously about the need for school. Would Luke rather Jess attended school of his own free will or because he was being forced by an arrangement? It was always Jess's intention to seek his independence and move on from his cranky uncle's strangling authority, but just the same - in those moments when their respective dependents were trying so desperately to escape their arrangements, Luke and Emily must have been feeling pretty used.