LUKE: You look nice, too.
LORELAI: I had a flagellation to go to.
A flagellation is a severe whipping given as corporal punishment, usually to the point of bleeding, and often performed in public to increase the humiliation and provide a spectacle. Such punishments were common in the past, and although long abolished in Western nations as a legal punishment, are still routinely handed out by the justice system in other countries around the world.
The word has a specifically religious meaning in Christianity, with The Flagellation of Christ (pictured above) being the scourging administered to Jesus Christ prior to his crucifixion by the Romans – a standard pre-crucifixion punishment at the time.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 
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