Season 3, episode 17
A Tale of Poes and Fire
Rory and Lorelai write pro/con lists to decide what college to go to. The Poe society visits Stars Hollow to recite The Raven. Jess becomes employee of the month at Walmart. There's a fire at the Independence inn. Paris stopped coming to school after she got her rejection letter from Harvard.
Pets:
• The stray cat, Papaya
• Satchmo the spider, named for Jackson's uncle.
Kirk's job:
• Selling t-shirts with printed slogans.
• He's considering a career as Edgar Allan Poe.
Tropes:
- Artistic License: Poe reenactor Fred Larson is wrong about the presidency of Andrew Jackson, even though he uses it as a reference point for Poe's stint in university.
- Blatant Lies:
- After it comes out that Jess works forty-hour weeks, Lorelai and Rory begin doubting that he is still going to school like he insists.
- Lane trying to convince her mother that Jess is only there to borrow a random brass item that happens to stand right next to her bed. Mrs. Kim is not fooled.
- Brick Joke: Instructed to entertain the kids, Rory asks Lorelai how one entertains kids. Lorelai suggests taking her socks off and doing a puppet show, to which Rory replies that clearly Lorelai has never entertained kids either. The next time we see Rory she is barefoot in her slippers and putting on a sock puppet show for a group of kids.
- The Bus Came Back: Papaya the stray cat returns at the end, so we don't have to worry that she got injured in the fire.
- Call-Back: Lorelai vows to build a statue of the fire marshall, 80 feet tall. This is like in season one when she and Rory were so impressed with Max's knowledge about stoves that they swore to build a statue of him several stories tall.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Sookie thinks the reason the stray cat isn't eating her food and just looks at her is that it doesn't know how to eat.
- Kirk wants to know how he can have a career as a Poe, asking advice of a man who only has a hobby cosplaying as Edgar Allan Poe. Kirk feels that the Poe cosplayer is the one missing the point.
- Continuity Nod:
- Michel calls the Cheshire Cat Inn, which Lorelai and Rory stayed at.
- When Paris accuses her of having spent her early childhood watching Gumby, Rory mentions that she was more a Peewee Herman kind of gal, whom she mentioned having been a fan of back in season one.
- Lorelai tells Luke about her dream about being pregnant with his twins.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Lane is explaining to Rory that it's unfair for her to take her innocent friendship with Young Chui with it's air of innocence and accuse it of being romantic – realizing as she says it that Young Chui acts like he's in love with her.
- Friend to All Living Things: Sookie and Jackson have become this after becoming pregnant, force-feeding stray cats and making prosthetic legs for spiders.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- Lindsay isn't quite as friendly to Rory as when she bought her a fridge magnet in the fourth grade.
- Nicole isn't quite as fond of Lorelai as before Luke spent half a date talking about Lorelai either.
- Hand Puppet: Tasked with entertaining children, Rory takes her socks off and uses them as puppets named Mr. and Mrs. Sock Puppet. They argue a lot, especially about taking out the garbage.
- In-Universe Factoid Failure: At least one of the Poe cosplayers gets it wrong what year Poe was court-marshalled and who was president at the time.
- Irony: Rory speculates that Poe's own works drove him to drink.
- Love Informant: Rory informs Lane that Young Chu is in love with her.
- Must Have Caffeine:
- Nicole's coffee habits remind Luke of Lorelai's.
- Luke criticizes Lorelai drinking coffee in the dream where she was pregnant with his twins.
- Neologism:
- "Do not mock the 'sciencificity' of the pro/con lists." —Lorelai
- Lorelai also sarcastically calls Poe "funalicious."
- Non Sequitur: The Hattlestads aren't as thrilled as you'd expect to hear that no human body parts are buried in their room.
- Other Me Annoys Me: The two Poe reciters disagree about when they went to Harvard in the eighteen thirties.
- Plug 'n' Play Prosthetics: Sookie and Jackson accidentally tore a leg off the spider Satchmo and tried to give him a paperclip prosthetic by jamming one end into the spider, killing him instantly.
- Plot Parallel: As Rory lampshades, Nicole has a bit of a Lindsay attitude.
- Refuge in Audacity:
- Lorelai and Sookie hijack Luke's diner so they can serve their guests breakfasts. Lip service is paid to getting his permission after they have already convinced his customers to switch to Sookie's pancakes.
- Lorelai tells the kids to annoy Luke and pretend it's a game.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai references The Tell-Tale Heart.
- Fans of Edgar Allan Poe don't get into it like trekkies.
- Lorelai feels that Yale will educate the next Meryl Streep.
- Two recitations of The Raven in a row take place in the dance studio.
- No rest for Rory's Mark Twain's house field trip anecdote.
- Lorelai calls Rory Jerry Lewis for her sock puppet show.
- Rory suggests Lorelai get home in time for Billy Joel's appearance on Charlie Rose in case he cries.
- Paris seems to be watching Part of Me, the 1992 version.
- Rather than Gumby, Rory watched Peewees Playhouse as a young child.
- Paris feels that you could record a Justin Timberlake video over her interview tape, that's how much is sucks.
- The Yale "pro" list is "the length of Nicholas Nickleby."
- Lorelai feels that Hank Williams would be too depressed to write a song about her night of self-exile from her own home.
- Lorelai shouts "Stella" at Luke.
- Then she quotes Ed Wood at him.
- Jess denies putting Phil Spector up to setting the inn on fire.
- Jess quotes Family Feud on Rory's having a good answer.
- Sincerest Form of Flattery: Kirk sells t-shirts with printed local gossip on them. He got the idea from a guy in another town who does the exact same thing.
- Slut-Shaming: Invoked, as Lorelai takes offense to Luke's asking if the twins he talked to that she was pregnant with in her dream were his.
- Take That!:
- Princeton doesn't advertise how many cleaners it has, so Lorelai decides it's a filthy, dirty stinkhole.
- Lorelai figures in a parallel universe where everything is the exact opposite of here, sitcoms will be funny.
- Louise thinks there's a lot more air in the room without Paris.
- Take That Me: Rory can't understand why the kids love her sock puppet material, insisting that she put no effort into it.
- Too Much Information:
- Paris avoids discussing Jamie with her mother as she only takes it as an invitation to discuss her own sex life.
- Downplayed: Lorelai informs Rory that her boyfriend snores. Rory insists she didn't need to know that.
- The Unhug: Luke tries to hug Rory when he learns that she got into three Ivy League schools. He isn't good at it, as he lampshades.
