Season 3, episode 2
Haunted Leg
There's a mouse at the inn, which Michel thinks they should pass off as a baby since people like those. Emily is still mad that Lorelai walked out last week. Lorelai gets a cold and Luke's health advice makes her wish they were still fighting. Kirk asks Lorelai out. She is torn, mostly about how to reject him. Luke finds it hilarious. So does Rory.
Rory starts senior year. Starting school is often done in the second episode of the season. The student council holds welcoming speeches for the parents, with Paris reprising her visionary style. In the first meeting she talks about how the school library has a lot of books about the French revolution, but only a few anout the crusades. Francine, leader of the Puffs, wants new rules about mandatory skirt lengths. She shanghais Rory into a bathroom to intimidate her about how she is the real leader of the senior class.
Emily wants to meet Lorelai for lunch. Turns out she talked to Chris and figured out he wasn't in love with Sherry. He shows up by himself at Friday night dinner to yell at Lorelai for having a reaction to his getting back with her for a couple of days before going back to Sherry. Jess tries to strike up a conversation with Rory, who is too offended by his having a girlfriend to speak to him.
Kirk's job: Delivery guy.
Maid of the week: Sarah, who struggles to remember which bell is which.
Maid whom Emily loved, who worked for her about 30 years ago: Daiha.
Provides examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Linda Lea
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Shauna Christie, who Emily thought was a nice girl, but who shot her husband after catching him with the babysitter.
- Francine, class president of the senior class. Sweet on the outside, threatens Rory with filibuster when they're alone.
- Brain Bleach: Rory would prefer not to have the image of Francine giving Paris a major bikini wax, as she threatens if Paris doesn't agree to shorten hemlines.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Rory, in spectacular fashion, reams Christopher out when he tries to blame Lorelai for her not calling him.Rory: I didn't call you back because I didn't want to. Me. Mom had nothing to do with it.Lorelai: Okay, honey, calm down.Rory: You promised me. You promised me at Sookie's wedding that this was going to work, that you were going to be there, you promised me.Christopher: Honey, please understand.Rory: No. I always understand, and I don't wanna understand! I don't even really wanna talk about this right now. I've got Mom, that's all I need. Go be somebody else's dad!Christopher: Don't say that.Rory: (to Lorelai) I'm going upstairs. Call me when he's gone.
- Captain Obvious:
- Emily tells Lorelai if she had a nickel for every time she used an excuse to leave the room with Rory she'd be a very wealthy woman. Lorelai points out that she is a very wealthy woman.
- Women have gotten pregnant since the beginning of time. Emily is right about that. Not that it particularly affects Chris's choice to stay with Sherry when she gets pregnant, but it is true.
- Compliment Backfire: Subverted, since Lorelai knows Kirk, and knows that "prettier than anyone except girls in filthy magazines" is intended as a compliment.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Francie threatens Paris with a major bikini wax.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Rory didn't mean to agree with Luke, she just gave what seemed like the correct answer to his rhetorical question.
- Imaginary Friend: Lorelai's is the ruler of the universe, Empress Bobo Belle, who forbids displays of maturity.
- Insane Troll Logic: Chris argues that 45 unreturned phone calls is evidence that Lorelai is lying about not keeping Rory from him.
- Irony: Sarah, the maid who is genuinely incompetent, gets to keep her job for a while longer than the competent ones because Richard teased Emily about being unable to keep a maid.
- Karma: Lorelai is afraid this will punish her for rejecting and/or lying to Kirk.
- Literal-Minded: When Francie calls Rory "Goldilocks," Rory points out that her hair is brown.
- Product Placement:
- After Lorelai wishes out loud that her leg was haunted, Rory advises her to only take one packet of TheraFlu at a time.
- Hanes, who Lorelai thinks should have given her classmate Linda Lea an endorsement deal since she couldn't keep her knees together while sitting in a skirt on a stage.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai quips that an acquaintance of Emily's who shot her husband must have been a fan of Annie Oakley.
- Michel names the American field mouse "Mickey."
- Lorelai fell asleep trying to watch The Legend of Bagger Vance.
- Lorelai claims being family didn't work out for Sister Sledge.
- Sookie argues that no one told Degas he painted too many dancers.
- Lorelai thinks agreeing to a lunch with her mother is like saying "sounds fun!" to a ride with Clemenza.
- It's obvious to Francie that Rory is the Meyer Lansky and Paris the Margaret Thatcher and makes Jimmy Carter look like Martin Sheen.
- Francie calls Rory Goldilocks.
- Francie instructs Rory to tell her problems to Noam Chomsky.
- Helmut Newton is Louise's godfather.
- Paris doesn't want shortened hemlines to be her "gays in the military,"
i.e. what the Clinton administration is remembered for. - Lorelai wants a Freaky Friday event with Rory, but Rory finds it redundant.
- Shane is Jess's girlfriend.Rory: Shane? As in "come back"?
- Jess thinks Rory and Dean walk around like an Andy Hardy movie.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Sherry's
- Title Drop: Lorelai wishes that instead of saying she has a bad cold she could tell people: "Yeah, I don't feel so good, my leg is haunted."
