Season 2, episode 10
The Bracebridge Dinner
The Lorelais participate in a snowman building contest. Lorelai and Sookie are very excited to arrange a dinner for the Bracebridge group. The group cancels a reservation at the inn, so Lorelai invites everyone to a dinner so the preparations won't go to waste. Paris gets invited. Jess joins Rory for a sleigh ride. Richard finally tells his wife that he is retired.
Provides examples of:
- All Women Love Shoes: Lorelai apparently has 64 pairs of shoes. That's 128 shoes.
- Amusing Injuries: Bootsy got kicked in the head by a horse once.
- Anachronism Stew: The Bracebridge dinner is set to the 19th century with Shakespearean talk that they refer to as "Old English" and, according to Paris, the nylon costumes and ice cubes were out of their time as well.
- Angrish: Sookie is smad.
- Bilingual Bonus: Several. Paris speaks Portuguese to her nanny. Lorelai tries a German phrase. Subverted when Lorelai and Sookie
- Blatant Lies:
- Luke told Jess his mother wanted him to come home for the holidays but that Luke told her it was best if he spent them in Stars Hollow. He is convinced Jess bought it.
- Lorelai denies any knowledge of how the picture of the ugly baby ended up in Rory's bed.
- Emily feels that "one size fits all" is this for the hotel slippers.
- Captain Obvious:
- Michel shows the cleaning guy how to dust the top of a painting without jumping. (By taking the painting off the wall.)
- Bootsy asks Luke if he can see the horses standing three feet away from him.
- Bootsy later points out that all minutes are sixty seconds long, so you can't have a short minute.
- Captain Oblivious: Luke thinks he has discovered the secret of parenting: lie to your kid. Even if he turns eighteen this year.
- Conspiracy Theory: Lorelai thinks the seemingly professional snowman builder has been recruited by an organization to steal the victory from locals.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Lorelai does not like that Sherry feels somewhat entitled to Rory.
- Hollywood Board Games: Paris, a Lonely Rich Kid and an Academic Alpha Bitch, mentions that she beats her nanny at Monopoly every time. Left hanging in the air is that, other than complimenting her own intelligence, she doesn't play board games with her parents because they are not interested in spending time with her.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lorelai agrees with Mrs. Kim that people have too much stuff. Rory points out that she has 64 pairs of shoes. Lorelai comments that that fact only proves that people have too much stuff.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Rory is opposed to fighting in the schoolyard, but concedes that Chuck Presby is a jerk.
- Kick the Dog: Referenced by Lorelai when she suggests that instead of doing a nice thing by inviting Richard and Emily, they can do a nice thing by stopping their non-existent habit of kicking dogs.
- Like Mother, Like Daughter:
- Lorelai and Emily put on face cream the same way. Rory finds it a bit freaky.
- Richard discusses how Emily is a list person. This tendency is also part of Lorelai and Rory's characterization.
- Running Gag: The picture of the ugly baby keeps turning up in odd places.
- Secret Test: Sookie makes up a type of mushroom to check if Jackson is just saying he has delivered all the types she ordered.
- Shout-Out:
- Rory wants to rent The Godfather III.
- Rory feels their competition is the Michelangelo of snow.
- Rune thought the alarm would go off if he took down the picture frames like on The Thomas Crown Affair.
- Like The Shining, but instead of Jack Nicholson they'd have Rune.
- Lorelai thinks Sherry is like a young Tammy Faye Bakker.
- Lorelai guesses Rory thinks they should invite Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn to the dinner.
- Lane finds a Pixies reunion unlikely.
- Morey mopes that Charlie Parker was late for everything, so he wants to be too.
- Paris is reading The Iliad for the third time.
- Lorelai refers to her parents as the joyless luck club.
- Lorelai wants to pull a Ben-Hur and take down Taylor's sleigh.
- Lorelai decides she's Dr. Dolittle when the driver of her sleigh hears her tell the horse to "giddy up" and gets the horse moving.
- Lorelai and Rory's snowman is based on Björk.
- They have Old English Abbott and Costello at the Bracebridge dinner.
- Kirk's refusal to break character reminds Lorelai of the episode of I Love Lucy where she tries to get the Buckingham Palace guards to react to her antics.
- Richard was appalled by Czech kids boom-boxing Cher. He decided to get them to stop by standing next to them humming Mozart.
- Bootsy got drunk and sang "Hotel California."
- Lorelai paraphrases the tagline for Days of Our Lives.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Christopher and Sherry have a puppy in the Christmas card photo, but no dog of theirs is ever seen or mentioned again.
