Season 2, episode 6
Presenting Lorelai Gilmore
Emily and her DAR friends convince Rory to come out at a debutante ball. Lorelai tries to talk her out of it, but gives in. Christopher is surprised as well, but agrees to do his part escorting her around the floor. Dean also reluctantly agrees to come. Miss Patty tries to teach him and Rory how to waltz, but Rory struggles with the "following" part.
Lorelai mercilessly mocks the whole concept of "being a lady." Richard fights with Emily and reveals that he is being phased out of his company. After the ball Christopher reveals that he is dating a woman named Sherry.
Maid of the week: Liesel.
Tropes
- Acoustic License: Rory thinks her parents play Rammstein too loudly in the car, though she's in her room in the house several yards away.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Inverted. Lorelai hates everything about debutante balls: the coming out to society, how every girl dreams of this day, the flowers, the music…but the cake is actually pretty good.
- Blank Stare: Rory's only reply to the suggestion that she use her grandma's hair stylist.
- Book on the Head: Lorelai walks around with a book on her head while lecturing Rory about what ladies can and cannot do when they're getting ready for the ball. Rory lies on the couch eating kung pao chicken.
- Brick Joke:
- The thing about Neil Young looking cool in a tux. He's Neil Young, after all.
- Katie, the debutante who would be prettier than Rory if not for the scrape on her face from a horseback riding accident, is brought up at the meeting and shows up briefly at the ball so Libby can express her sympathies.
- Comically Missing the Point: Emily's friends discuss how admirable Lorelai's walk is. In a word, it's fast.
- Convenient Slow Dance: Lorelai and Christopher get one when Rory and Dean are having trouble in a lesson, and Chris decides to demonstrate how easy it is. Of course, the only other person who has gone through debutante ball lessons in the room is Lorelai, so...
- Daddy Didn't Show: Subverted, but it's discussed that this is something Christopher has a habit of doing. When Lorelai tells Rory he's "definitely" agreed to escort her, Rory expresses shock and surmises that means there's a 50/50 chance he'll actually do it. Lorelai says he sounded pretty sure, so that bumps the odds to 60/40.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The daughters of the Daughters of the American Revolution arrange a debutante ball.
- Dowry Dilemma: Rory convinces Lorelai to let her go to the debutante ball, and Lorelai gets ahead of this problem by giving her a porcelain dog figurine as dowry.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Rory puts her hair up to pretend she's a lady.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Elizabeth "Libby" Doty.
- Pun: Lorelai gives Christopher credit for coming through. So much credit, she claims, that he can buy a sofa with it.
- Product Placement: Christopher drives a Volvo.
- Schedule Fanatic: Defied so hard by Chris that Lorelai finds it hilarious that he even has a schedule to check.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: After she gets a dictionary, Rory asks her parents to attenuate the cacophony.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai refers to her parents as George and Martha.
- Emily has fundraisers with themes like Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
- Lorelai claims it's not their fault her parents were re-enacting The Lion King without the puppet heads when they arrived.
- Then asks if Terrence McNally has heard about them.
- Jess wears his Metallica t-shirt.
- Going to the patio is like being the drummer in Spinal Tap.
- Lorelai is convinced Emily made Lily Tomlin do Moment by Moment with John Travolta.
- Chris asks if Lorelai told Rory about socialites Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke, or Gloria Vanderbilt to talk her out of being a debutante. Lorelai says the girl is ready to marry Cary Grant, get offed by her butler, and design blue jeans.
- Lorelai thinks Christopher would sooner sit through Endless Love than go to a debutante ball.
- Dean thinks Neil Young is cool because he's Neil Young.
- Rory bribes Dean with a promise to watch BattleBots with him for a month if he comes to the ball with her.
- Rory wants to read the Oxford English Dictionary, and by the sound of it she does.
- George Lucas wishes he had the sound system on which Christopher plays Rammstein.
- Rory thinks she'd be better off in a corner than on the dancefloor, but Lorelai doesn't think so.
- Lorelai stores her Viennese waltz between The Brady Bunch reruns and the lyrics to "Rapture."
- Lorelai figures Sherrie is named after the Journey song.
- Lorelai tells Luke she left behind a glass slipper – and a business card in case the prince is really dumb.
- Lorelai refers to Rory as "Shecky" in reference to the comedian Shecky Greene.
- Sincerest Form of Flattery: Jess subverts this by sarcastically dressing in a flannel shirt and backward cap and mimicking Luke's table cleaning style.
- Take That!:
- According to Lorelai, ladies can't do anything on principle. All they can do is walk around with a book on their head and recite the mantra "I am completely helpless."
- The other debutantes don't want to wear the wrong lipstick for fear of looking like a hooker. Or a teacher.
- Teen Pregnancy: Lorelai refers to hers as her way of getting out of attending her debutante ball.
