Season 1, episode 8
Love and War and Snow
The mayor announces at a town meeting that Rover will not leash himself and that the 224th anniversary of the Battle of Stars Hollow is coming up. There is going to be a reenactment of the events, which consist of twelve guys who waited all night for an enemy that never showed. It snows, which makes Lorelai poetic. Rory stays with her grandparents that night because of the blizzard. Max's car breaks down as he passes through Stars Hollow and when he runs into Lorelai they go on a date. Lane calls Rory and tells her to be a more accessible friend and that she touched a guy's hair. This episode marks the only time Emily mentions her younger sister Hopey, who lives in Paris.
Maid of the week: Anna, who bought frozen pizza.
Gilmore cook: Florence, who waited too long to call in trapped-by-the-blizzard.
Gilmore chauffeur: Lance, who went to pick up Rory from school before the weather got worse.
Tropes:
- Analogy Backfire: Mayor Harry suggests Luke go stand in line for toilet paper in the Soviet Union if he feels like pointing out that they live on stolen land. Luke replies that the Soviet Union is no more, which is a pretty good reason not to go stand in line there.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Emily is freaking out about the oven buzzing. Then it comes out that she knows the buzzing is the oven's way of saying the food is ready, it's just that she doesn't know where the timer is so she can't turn it off.
- Rory tells Emily about the time Sookie served pizza with foie gras on. It was pretty good once they took the foie gras off.
- Bookworm: Rory walks around with her chemistry book open. She seems to be reading but claims she is just looking for the bookmark.
- Captain Obvious: Rory is Lorelai's favorite daughter.
- Comically Missing the Point: Luke asks if Lorelai's parents never explained the concept of weather to her, since she feels like snow is her present from a fairy.
- Deadpan Snarker: Shout out to Richard, whose wit is the driest of any character this episode.Emily: These Friday dinners are the only proper food that child eats all week.Richard: Rory, are you in any way malnourished or in need of some international relief organization to recruit a celebrity to raise money on your account?Rory: I'm good.Richard: She's good, Emily.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Stars Hollow has a mayor who is not Taylor, but an old man named Harry.
- Luke thought his father was crazy for being a re-enactor. Seems a bit disrespectful compared to later depictions.
- Emily and Richard Gilmore sent their chauffeur Lance to Chilton to pick Rory up. In later episodes there is no mention about having a chauffeur after all, Emily and Richard are seen driving cars on their own.
- Lorelai soliloquizes about her love of snow.
- Lorelai says that her best birthday happened when it snowed, though later seasons would establish her birthday as being near the end of April, which is late in year for snow even in Connecticut.
- Foreshadowing: Lorelai's debutante ball that never happened is discussed. Rory's won't happen in a while yet.
- Richard gets angry with someone from work, who's younger than him, over the phone. Richard getting angry at work becomes important in "Forgiveness and Stuff."
- Friendship Moment: When Rory comes home the morning after spending the night at her grandparents, she and Lane make up, they hug, and Rory declares Lane comes first.
- Irony: Emily insists that Friday night dinner is the only real meal Rory gets in a week, on the same day they don't have a cook and Rory prepares frozen pizza for them.
- Moment Killer: Though not intentional - Lorelai and Max are making out and heading up to Lorelai's room when Lane appears and Max notices her staring.
- Noodle Incident: Lane's band director warns everyone not to put their instruments to their mouths until they get inside the building, telling everyone to remember what happened to the flutist last year.
- The Nose Knows: Lorelai smells snow a day before it falls.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Played for Laughs when Rory gets grossed out when Lorelai says the voicemail from Max sounds "sexy." Played for Drama when Rory comes home early and finds that Max spent the night, the first time Lorelai has ever brought a guy home, and it's both squick and shock at what this change could mean for their lives.
- Shout-Out:
- Max is correcting a paper about Emily Dickinson titled "Emily Dickinson, get a life!"
- Lorelai calls Lane in her band uniform "Sgt. Pepper".
- Rory wonders if Rich Bloominfeld still wears Star Trek shirts.
- Lorelai suggests Rory tell Emily that she's having Satan's baby.
- Rory thinks Dean should read Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë.
- Dean thinks Rory needs to read Hunter S. Thompson.
- Emily expresses concern about road conditions, Lorelai say she'll build the ark while Emily gathers the animals.
- Lorelai would have to be Wonder Woman to brave the treacherous roads.
- Lorelai asks Rory to remind Emily that she "arrived not a member of the Junior League
, and I'd like you to leave the same way." - Lorelai and Max watch House on Haunted Hill (1959).
- When Emily insists the salmon that Richard disparages is a "delicacy," Richard replies, "Potato, po-tah-to".
- Emily used to have a crush on Errol Flynn.
- When Luke sees Lorelai and Max walk, Rickie Lee Jones' version of "Someone to Watch Over Me" plays in the background.
- Lane puts on The Cure to drown out the awkwardness.
- A major Judy Blume moment according to Lorelai.
- Too Much Information: Lorelai says she's going to listen to Max's message until it stops sounding sexy. Rory doesn't want to hear it.
