Season 2, episode 2
Hammers and Veils
Lorelai prepares for her wedding. Rory takes summer classes at Chilton (Shakespeare, physics, "obscure" Russian poetry) and signs up to help build houses for the homeless. Henry, who takes trig, asks Rory to ask Lane to call him. Emily is mad that she didn't hear about Lorelai's wedding from Lorelai and gives her the silent treatment, so Lorelai, who doesn't know that she already knows, tells her she's getting married and Emily keeps giving her the silent treatment.
Lane gives Rory phone numbers and all the info she needs to report her missing to Interpol when she leaves for Korea for the summer, still convinced she might not be coming back. Rory goes to build a house with her pink feather hammer. Paris tells Rory about impressing Harvard by doing charity since fourth grade, which freaks Rory out since she thought studying her ass off would be enough. Dean isn't a fan of all the extracurriculars. Rory claims the local library only has twelve books.
Lorelai calls her mother out on being a jerk, and her mother responds by calling Lorelai out on not telling her about the wedding before she had told everyone else. Lorelai discovers that Sookie is preparing a wedding shower with lots of pink frosting. Kirk expresses concern that the gazebo can't hold up all the little girls tap-dancing, which gives Rory a chance to show off her knowledge of two-by-fours that she learned building a house the previous day. Rory and Dean make up. Jackson tells Sookie he's not ready for marriage, but is willing to move in with her, which cracks her up. Lorelai apologizes to her mother and asks her wedding fashion advice.
Maid of the week: Marina
Charity work Paris has done since fourth grade: handed out cookies at a local hospital, leading a study group for teenagers, been a camp councilor, taught seniors to read, managed a suicide hotline, manned a runaway center, saved dolphins, taught sign language, trained seeing-eye dogs – and, of course, built houses.
Tropes
- Call-Back: Lorelai's big head comes up again, this time in the form of fashion advice.Emily: Your head is much too big for a veil. You could try a tiara.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- When Lorelai tries veil lengths with newspaper veils, Rory starts reading her.
- Emily takes a minute to realize that Richard is teasing her when he asks repeatedly if she's sure he has a flight in the morning.
- Lorelai rants about how her mind told her mouth not to say anything to Emily and turned out to be right and is now rubbing her mouth's nose in it.Rory: Your mouth has a nose?
- Lorelai initially interprets "I have no wilderness skills" as "I hate the purse".
- Rory asks Kirk why he isn't practicing with the seven-year-old bridesmaids. He says he doesn't tap dance anymore, neglecting to mention that he is also not seven.
- Sookie gushes about Lorelai's engagement and wedding. Jackson interprets it as her hinting that he should ask her to marry him.
- He says he's willing to compromise and move in together, which Sookie finds hilarious, thinking he's joking.
- Before that, Jackson assured her he didn't need a piano falling on his head, which Sookie doesn't think anyone actually needs.
- Continuity Nod: Lorelai claims that wedding dress stores give her cotillion flashbacks, like the girl at the wedding at the inn in season one.
- The Ditz: Madeline can't get it through her head that she is not supposed to speak to Rory.
- Godwin's Law: Lorelai comments that Emily's maids can survive dictatorships, "but five minutes with Emily Gilmore and people are begging for Castro".
- Hidden Depths: Paris has been working for charity since she could walk. As a result she has accumulated a lot of skills such as construction and sign language.
- Hypocrite: Paris allows herself to talk to Rory on the construction site, but she won't let Madeline.
- Hypocritical Humor: Emily calls Richard's secretary an idiot just as she fails to pick up on Richard's pretending to have forgotten that he has a flight in the morning.
- Metaphorgotten: Lorelai talks about how her mind told her mouth not to tell Emily about the wedding, and ends up saying her mind and her mouth are no longer talking to each other.
- Pink Means Feminine: Lorelai makes Rory's hammer pink, and Sookie uses exclusively pink frosting on the wedding food.
- Product Placement: The Heinz family's little joke is making the ketchup slower and slower.
- A Rare Sentence: "Mom, I'm gonna build a house" as far as Lorelai is concerned.
- Rule of Three:
- Lorelai considers three veil length options: shoulder-length, longer, full-on Diana.
- She tried on three dresses at a wedding dress store.
- Emily called Richard's idiot secretary three times.
- Sookie claims that when Max and Lorelai think back to their wedding day, they'll remember three things: the guests, the songs, and the cookies.
- Literally with Kirk's wedding shower rule that you can only have three treats at a time.
- Running Joke: Madeline keeps forgetting that she's not supposed to speak to Rory.
- The Scapegoat: Downplayed. Rory blames Lorelai for not teaching her any wilderness skills (her excuse is "I couldn't get you to step on wet grass until you were three") and never forcing her to learn the accordion.
- Shout-Out:
- Rory is taking a summer class on Shakespeare.
- Louise quotes "happy happy joy joy" sarcastically.
- Paris is still mad about the PJ Harvey thing.
- She insists Rory is the only one who thought they had a deep Thelma & Louise thing going on.
- Lorelai wonders aloud what happened to television host Xuxa.
- Lorelai calls the maid "Speed Racer."
- Luke comments that Lorelai and Emily's fight must have been a good episode of Oprah.
- Lorelai tells Rory before she leaves to build houses: "I mean it, Timmy, no falling down a well."
- Lane plans to base her autobiographical novel's title on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but with her it's in Busan.
- When Lorelai gets tired of the "Rory's building a house" routine she can do "Who's on First?"
- Rory never pegged Paris as a Bob Vila kind of girl.
- Dean plans on watching Barbarella with Rory.
- Rory tells Lane: "Hey, Mister DJ put the record on."
- Lane plays a Sinatra-medley and should maybe skip The Damned tunes at Lorelai's wedding shower.
- Elizabeth Taylor bought a wedding dress at Willow.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Or Stop Assuming I'm Stereotypical. Rory doesn't think Paris should just assume she doesn't like construction work or carpentry. Then again, she is genuinely surprised when she learns Paris has been building houses for years.
- The Talk: Upon learning of the impending wedding, Max's father gave him the talk 2.0.
