The Lorelais' First Day at Yale
It's the Lorelais' first day at Yale. Lorelai can't drive Luke's misogynistic truck with an uncooperative gear stick. Nicole's co-workers try to negotiate the settlement with Luke, unwilling to accept that they have already reached an agreement.
Tropes:
- 555: Luke claims his imaginary lawyer's phone number is 555-5555. Played for Laughs since the man he's telling already fell for his previous lawyer-joke.
- Berserk Button: Paris can't handle annoyances. She has a life coach named Terrence to help her with it.Tana: Where are we gonna put the couch?
Paris: *incoherent angry noises*
Terrence: Paris…
Paris: She was baiting me!
Terrence: Fish can choose not to bite. - Big Eater: Subverted, as the Lorelais sample all the local takeaway food joints and throw a party to get it all eaten.
- Blatant Lies:
- Lorelai is afraid of Yale rules and makes up stories about non-existent people telling her it was okay to park there and to bring your own mattress. Later Luke joins in, assuring the woman he was just driving the mattress around to air it.
- How Nicole's lawyers treat everything Luke says about not wanting anything from Nicole in the divorce.
- Call-Back: The episode title echoes season one's The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton.
- Captain Obvious: Lorelai can't get the key out of the ignition on Luke's truck. Luke shows her you have to giggle it a little. She accuses him of never mentioning any jiggling. He says it's common sense.
- Catchphrase: "Copper boom!" – what Lorelai heard of what Rory said that morning, now their battle cry.
- Child Prodigy: Rory's dorm mate Tana is fifteen years old, at least for another half-a-week.
- Circular Reasoning: Luke wants the truck but not the mattress. So does Lorelai. Whoever takes the truck gets rid of the mattress. No one wants the reponsibility of getting rid of the mattress.
- Contrived Coincidence: Paris becoming Rory's room mate is this, which is why Rory doesn't buy it, so Paris admits that she made her dad make it happen.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Paris has abandoned the tight ponytail she used to wear at Chilton, leaving her hair down to show that she is trying to be more relaxed and easy-going.
- The Fatalist: When Lorelai asks to borrow Luke's car a little longer he assumes she wrecked it.
- Godwin's Law: Lorelai tries to do this to herself in an attempt to cure Rory of her bout of "mama's girl"-ness.Rory: Do something to make me hate you!Lorelai: Um... "go, Hitler"?
- Green-Eyed Monster: Jamie thinks Paris could be sleeping with her life coach, which she doesn't think.
- Meaningful Name: Tana, weirded out by city-themed naming, informs Paris that in Medieval times, names were often descriptive of the person having them.
- Then she subverts it by denying that her own name means anything, even though a quick search reveals that it means "fire goddess" or "star goddess," which she may not have wanted to admit.
- "Paris" doesn't mean anything besides "capital of France and name of maybe a few other cities," but "Tana" is the name of several places in the world. Then again, using the "city name" mnemonic, Tana guessed that Paris's name was either "Rome" or "Athens."
- Memetic Mutation: In-universe, "to lorelai" becomes Yale slang for sampling fast food.
- Never Heard That One Before: Invoked by Luke, who figures his Dewey, Cheatham & Howe joke won't impress Nicole's lawyer's bosses since they must have heard it before.
- No Longer with Us: Paris' nanny. She started her own business. You don't really need a nanny when you're in college.
- Non Sequitur: Tana has memorized some facts to help her converse, but she never overhears that Lorelai is the queen of these when, earlier in the day, she interrupts Rory's rant about the ID card with a question about veneral diseases.
- Pun:
- Luke claims his lawyer works at the firm Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. (Do we cheat 'em and how)
- Lorelai clarifies that when she says Luke and Nicole were rash, she is not referring to the skin condition type of rash.
- French-accented Rory contrasts double-entendre with entendre singular.
- Running Gag:
- Lorelai can't drive Luke's misogynist truck, but it doesn't stop her from trying.
- The series-wide running gag about Lorelai being late for everything gets run here when Lorelai apologizes for returning the truck late and Luke admits he told her to get it back three hours before he actually needed it.
- What to do about the mattress.
- Sarcasm Mode: How Luke talks to lawyers, whose presence he considers evidence that the sun has set so they can come out of their coffins.
- Shout-Out:
- Rory thinks Lorelai's college walk looks like "Alfalfa coming to pick up Darla."
- They argue about whether Pat Summerall and Lady Bird Johnson are dead. They agree that Orson Welles is dead, though.
- Luke and Nicole went to see a guy singing Frank Sinatra songs at the cruise, at least that's what they thought.
- Luke and Nicole made sure it was Frank Sinatra, and not Tina, Bill, or Frank Jr.
- The night before that, it was a guy playing Mozart on glass.
- Paris has a life coach, like on Oprah.
- Rory thinks her photo on the ID makes her look like Keith Richards.
- Lorelai figures Luke's new friend Chip is too busy taping his Carmen Electra poster to his ceiling to remember that Luke promised to help him.
- Lorelai promises to mock fans of Evanescence.
- Lorelai wants to sing a Motown song, like "You Can't Hurry Love."
- Rory and Lorelai do their own version of the French guys in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- Take That!:
- Luke informs Nicole's lawyers that the reason he doesn't want a lawyer is that they waste time and money and are evil middlemen who slither into your life when you're at your most vulnerable so they can clamp on and suck like leeches until everyone but them are distraught and penniless.
- Luke introduces the lawyers to Lorelai. They ask if she's a lawyer. Luke says no, she's carbon-based.
- Someone complains that the German take-out fell on the Chinese. Lorelai comments that that's Germany for you.
- Take That Me: Rory berates herself for being a mama's girl, not being independent, and letting her grandparents talk her out of Harvard and into Yale.
