Season 2, episode 18
Back in the Saddle Again
Richard hates being retired. In a bout of Call-Back irony, he spends it building a car. Rory's school project is to come up with business ideas. She enlists Richard to help her group design a product. He does, but it doesn't win the contest. It makes Richard rethink his retirement.
Michel's French mom Gilly comes to visit. Their relationship is surprisingly similar to Lorelai and Rory's, but when Lorelai lets slip that Michel normally wouldn't eat pasta, Gilly gets terribly concerned about him.
Rory gets an A on her physics test and her group lands in the top ten of her economics class project. She has philosophy homework.
Provides examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Giselle "Gilly" Gerard.
- Berserk Button:
- For Lane, getting the aptitude test result that she is best suited for sales. For the fourth time.
- For Michel, telling his mother that he doesn't eat carbs, and by extension that she tries to be a more caring mother as a result.
- For Richard, his high school team losing the business fair.
- Brick Joke: Brad returns to Chilton because his rabbi told him to face his fears. Later, Rory informs Lorelai that she had to "convince a boy that Paris wasn't gonna hurt his rabbi".
- Circular Reasoning: Emily thinks the fact that disturbed people think therapy is a good thing does not speak well of the profession.
- Cool Car: The one Richard works on in his retirement.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Dean won't stop calling or coming over and ends up washing Rory's car while he waits.
- Handwriting as Characterization: Discussed when the girls notice the specials board has been changed to reflect a new dish. Lorelai lavishes compliments on how neat and orderly the handwriting is, thinking it was Luke who wrote it. Rory informs her that the handwriting is Jess's, and she can tell because he's been annotating all her books. Lorelai immediate rescinds all her praise and guesses that Jess's marginalia is things like "play basketball, eat a sandwich."
- Informed Judaism: Brad's rabbi has advised his parents to let him face his fears, i.e. send him back to Chilton to attend school with Paris. This is the first time we hear of his being Jewish.
- Literal-Minded: Lorelai walks into Luke's diner; Luke says "sit wherever you want." Cue Lorelai asking a customer if he can move tables so she can sit at that one.
- Malaproper: Narrowly averted by Michel, who thinks the expression about what happens when you assume has something to do with a donkey.
- My Beloved Smother: Michel's mother is quite concerned about his strict diets.
- Open Secret: Lorelai feels that she couldn't have guessed that Michel's mother didn't know he didn't eat carbs, seeing as everyone in Stars Hollow knows it.
- Product Placement: Lane mocks her aptitude for sales by doing a pitch for whip-o-matic. Subverted since she's basically doing an impression of a 70's commercial, but Ronco was still in business at the time of the episode.
- Pun: Dean wants Rory to come to his softball game, but she has to study.Dean: You can't glance up between nihilistic theories?Rory: I could, but what would be the point?
- Retail Therapy: For Michel and his mother, this is a hobby.
- Self-Deprecation: Gilly says she didn't raise Michel to be rude. Michel insists that she did.
- Shout-Out:
- Waiting for Richard, Lorelai tells Emily that Godot was just there and said "I ain't waitin' for Richard," grabbed a roll and left.
- Richard was only interested in oil painting as long as he thought he could get to the level of Paul Cézanne.
- Discussing margin writing, Rory claims that Mark Twain did it. Lorelai says it had to be "build steamboat, write Huckleberry Finn."
- Paris informs Madeline that the instructions she's reading is not Bhagavad Gita so she doesn't have to read so thoroughly.
- Rory has finished Candide.
- Paris refers to Madeline and Louise as the Pigeon sisters.
- Lorelai is reading a Mötley Crüe book The Dirt, which she strongly recommends to Rory because it just keeps getting grosser.
- One of the design options for the locker first-aid kits is Rolling Stone.
- Michel only discusses fluffy subjects like Posh Spice and David Beckham with his mother.
- Paris feels that another group's project is a Buster Keaton routine waiting to happen.
- Vicious Cycle: Lorelai wouldn't have felt guilty about not helping Rory with her "fictional business" project for her economics class, but she would have felt guilty about not feeling guilty.Lorelai: And you can see how that could just go on forever.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Michel and his mother continuously hurl insults at each other.Michel: (laughing) You are evil.Gilly: (also laughing) Your soul is empty.
- Yes, Except No: Rory prefaces her request for help with her business class project by telling Lorelai she probably won't want to do this. Lorelai replies yes, unless it's something she doesn't want to do.
