Season 1, episode 11
Paris Is Burning
Max and Lorelai date. He lends her a book. Then he crosses a line he couldn't have guessed was there by asking Rory not to call him Mr. Medina when they see each other outside school, and Lorelai starts ghosting him.
It's parents' day at Chilton. Lorelai talks to Max and they argue about whether to break up and end up on "make out right now". Paris spots them and spreads the story around. Rory calls her out on it the next day and Paris admits she shouldn't have done that to Mr. Medina, she just wanted people to talk about something other than her parents' divorce.
Sookie asks Jackson out. Lorelai and Max agree to take time apart.
Pets mentioned:
• Dog: Buttercup
• Hamster: Skippy
Foods:
• Squab, at Friday night dinner.
• Leftover pepperoni pizza of unknown age.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Geography: There's no good reason a kitten found by the highway between Portland, Oregon and a town in Nebraska would end up in a shelter in Connecticut, yet Buttercup was allegedly found by highway 85, and Lorelai knows it well enough to declare that it's a sad highway.
- Blatant Lies:
- Max claims he used to cook for an aged widow to avoid saying that he used to cook for an old girlfriend.
- Lorelai pretends to like Swann's Way, unconvincingly, then admits that she hates Proust.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: Apparently Rory had an evil pet hamster once that made fun of Lorelai. In the end she stopped cleaning its cage and just threw tissues in there. They claim not to know what became of it.
- Brick Joke: Lorelai's inability to handle perceived insults from a pet hamster is brought up again when she makes excuses for ghosting Max.
- Captain Obvious: During their argument, Lorelai sarcastically asks Max if they're in high school, then remembers that they are at that moment physically in a high school building. She clarifies that that's not what she was referring to.
- Cat Fight: Discussed; when Rory, angry at Paris for gossiping about Lorelai and Max kissing, asks Louise and Madeline to leave, Louise says, "Oooh, catfight."
- Child Hater: Buttercup the rescue dog.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Max lends Lorelai Swann's Way and tells her to read it, she sits down right there and starts to read it.
- Foil: Paris's mother makes Lorelai look like such a great mother Rory can't be mad at her anymore.
- Gesundheit:Lorelai: (talking about Buttercup) Her lineage includes cocker spaniel, golden retriever, bouvier des flandres-
Rory: Gesundheit.
Lorelai: Thank you. - Hypocrite: Lorelai wants to keep her dating life apart from her kid, but demands that Rory spend time with her date while she finishes her make-up, then uses that as an excuse to break up with him.
- Inspirational Insult: Lorelai's snide comment to Sookie about her not dating for years inspires her to ask Jackson out.
- Les Yay:
- In-universe. Rory sarcastically asks Lorelai not to make out with her French teacher Mrs. Collins. Lorelai promises nothing before she knows what she looks like.
- The next day at school, Paris asks Rory if she's going to kiss her.
- Running Gag: Lorelai puts things in weird places. Non-socks in the sock drawer, ice skates with the frying pans…
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title is a pun taken from the documentary Paris is Burning, but otherwise shares nothing with it.
- If Lorelai had kept watching This Old House she'd be 500 pounds.
- Lorelai always wanted to be able to start a sentence with "as Marcel Proust would say…".
- She could have said "as Michael Crichton would say," but that's less catchy.
- Lorelai borrows Max's copy of Swann's Way.
- Mr. Medina recites a poem by Emily Dickinson in class.
- Louise thinks Marilyn Monroe was dumb and that's why she married Arthur Miller, who was clearly not dumb.
- Max says he can call Rory Rebecca when they're not at school.
- Max asks Rory not to call him "Mr. Medina" out of school, so she comes up with Norman, then changes it to Alfred.
- Sookie points out Lorelai's dating patterns by singing Ricky Martin songs.
- Paris's parents' divorce should make Hugh Grant feel pretty good about himself.
- Lorelai makes sure Madeline and Louise said normal "hello" to Rory, and not a "here's Johnny" hello.
- Mr. Medina says Walt Whitman read Homer, William Shakespeare, Dante and that novelist Edna O'Brien said every writer should read some Proust every day.
- Lorelai calls her mistake a mistake because it wouldn't answer to "Al".
- Took a Level in Jerkass:
- Lorelai lampshades herself being this to Sookie and apologizes.
- Lorelai still thinks it's okay for her to ghost Max.
