Recap / Gilmore Girls S 02 E 01

Season 2, episode 1

Sadie Sadie

Max has proposed to Lorelai with a thousand yellow daisies. Lane fears she's getting shipped off to Korea permanently instead of just for the summer. We learn that Lane's Korean name is Hyung Yung. Rory brings Dean to a Friday night dinner. Lorelai hesitates to tell her parents about her wedding, but Sookie, being Sookie, forgets to ask and calls Emily to ask her to clear her schedule for Lorelai and Max's surprise birthday shower. Upset and saddened, Emily instructs Richard to call Rory and apologize, lest when she decides to get married she won't tell them either.

Maid of the week: Antonia, who actually works there for two Friday night dinners.

Foods:
• roquefort canapés
• live lobsters
• brussel sprouts in garlic oil
• beefaroni (made with not-really-beef)

Tropes

• Annoying Background Event: The entire town gradually gathers behind Lorelai and Rory as they walk to the diner, and then they press their faces against the window to see her tell Luke about Max's proposal.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Max ordered a thousand yellow daisies. A thousand. Take whatever's the price for a yellow daisy. That's how many thousand dollars Max, a high school teacher, spent on a proposal.
• Artistic License – Law: Lane is worried about being sent to Korea permanently, even though she's seventeen. Granted, the age of majority in South Korea is nineteen, but being an American she could probably convince the US to let her come back when she turned eighteen.
• Bilingual Bonus: Sookie has a lot of Spanish-speaking staff at the inn.
• Blatant Lies: Rory claims the sound of her mother yapping is just a Connecticut jackal that comes into the house sometimes.
• Captain Obvious:
  • Emily heard through the grapevine that Rory finished in the top three percent of her class, and can't figure out how Lorelai could already know that.
    Emily: Who do you know at Chilton?
    Lorelai: (pointing) Rory.
  • Sookie checks that it is Max she's getting married to when Lorelai shares the news with her.
• Continuity Nod: Dean mentions that the first time he met Emily was on the night of the dance.
• Embarrassing First Name:
  • Subverted with Jackson's cousin Bonbon, as that's his real name.
  • Subverted and downplayed with Lane's Korean name, Hyun Yung.
• Everyone Can See It: Rory points out that everyone knows Luke has a thing for Lorelai. Everyone except Lorelai, at least.
• Handshake Refusal: Richard refuses to shake Dean's hand.
• Heel Realization: When Sookie accidentally spills the beans about the wedding, Emily realizes they might end up alienating Rory, too, by not being accepting of her boyfriend.
• History Repeats: Discussed; when Lorelai is trying to comfort Rory after she and Richard got into an argument over Dean, she points out when Richard saw Dean, he was afraid Rory was making the same mistake Lorelai had made before, and lashed out at Rory because of this.
• Just a Flesh Wound: A lobster proves its freshness to Sookie by pinching her hand so hard she bleeds. People rush to her aid, but she assures them she's an excellent clotter so they don't have to worry.
• Literal-Minded: Rory wants Lorelai to walk down the aisle carrying a bouquet of something that smells really good. Lorelai suggests pot roast.
• Not Again: Jackson sees Sookie's bandage and asks if she's been making cutlets again.
• Not So Above It All: When Emily is taking drink orders, Lorelai asks her to get a beer for Dean, which he's horrified by, and Rory also asks for a beer. Lorelai and Rory both admit they were having some fun with Dean, and Emily admits she was laughing at Dean about it as well.
• Product Placement: Twinkies
• Quitting to Get Married: Lorelai is offended when Luke suggests she's going to do this, but mentions that she'll ask her dad how many goats she's worth.
• Rule of Three: Max narrows it down to three rings.
• Sarcasm Mode: The mode Emily enters when someone comments on the hugeness of her house.
• Shipper on Deck: Everyone in town who's been shipping Luke and Lorelai wants to see her tell him that Max proposed.
• Shout-Out:
  • Rory wants Lorelai to walk down the aisle to Frank Sinatra.
  • Lorelai begs Rory to talk about "something other than the marriage proposal for 200, Alex".
  • All in the Family had a Running Gag of Archie pretending to hang himself, and Lorelai can sympathize.
  • Bootsy informs Lorelai that Ivana Trump gets a gland from a pig's head injected into her butt twice a year to keep her young. Lorelai hopes she's not kosher.
  • Lane feels her predicament is like the Sally Field movie Not Without My Daughter.
  • Lorelai thinks Luke can't be interested in her as when she called him Ranger Bob he didn't find it amusing.
  • Lorelai calls Emily "J. Edgar Hoover".
  • Michel wants to live forever, like on Fame.
  • Lorelai wants the dress Stephanie Seymour wore in the Guns N' Roses video.
  • Max refers to Lorelai as Cujo after she barks in excitement at the 1920's wedding ring.
  • Rory figures Cher and Gregg Allman are in favor of breakups.
  • Lorelai's wedding ring was supposedly ripped off Zelda Fitzgerald's cold dead hand.
  • They watch The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story on Dean's first movie night back.
  • Richard loans Rory Mencken's Chrestomathy by H. L. Mencken.
  • Lorelai figures Stephen Hawking isn't bad at math.
  • Since Richard was ten he wanted to watch La Traviata at the La Scala opera house.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Directly referenced by Lorelai when Rory imagines she knows when dinner's ready.
  Lorelai: Do I look like a timer? Silly rabbit…
  Rory: …timers are for kids.
• Title Drop:
  • Sookie points out that Lorelai will be a "Sadie, Sadie, married lady".
  • Lorelai tells Dean that by being verbally abused by Richard, he's officially become a Gilmore Girl.
• The Unfavorite: Lorelai points out that she's her parents' least favorite daughter. She's their only daughter, unless you consider granddaughter a kind of daughter. Lorelai even explains her parents' behavior by calling Rory "the daughter they didn't have".
• Western Zodiac: Bootsy, the kiosk stand guy, tells Lorelai that it's a bad month for Leos.

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