Season 7, episode 3
Lorelai's First Cotillion
The maid of the week is a literal child. Emily has taken her on to prepare her for society living. Lorelai begins to doubt whether she has ever made a decision for herself that wasn't just defiance of her mother. Babette feels like there's something new about Luke's but can't quite put her finger on it. Rory walks in and notes that it's Luke's new baseball cap. Paris is sick of all the coddling of the people she hires people to tutor.
Zach is bummed that Lane is avoiding him and thinks she wants a divorce. When she tells him she's pregnant he claims Brian must be freaking out and goes on to avoiding the subject. Michel demands Lorelai take him to the cotillion.
Christopher tells Lorelai he loves her.
"Maid" of the week: No one, really, because Charlotte tries to fill that role to practice her hostess skills.
Tropes
- Adorably Precocious Child:
- Charlotte is a ten-year-old who is tasked with learning how to be a hostess. She does get the amount of ice you should put in a drink wrong, though.
- Michel thinks all the cotillion children are this.
- Artistic License – Law: Called out by Lorelai, who feels awkward being served a martini by a ten-year-old.
- Call-Back:
- Lorelai thinks Rory has some catching up to do since she didn't have to stay for dinner in the season six finale, so she should go to dinner alone.
- Six seasons later, Rory informs Lorelai that she's not in the habit of calling other people's dads "dad".
- Continuity Nod:
- Rory figures Emily already knows about Luke because of the whole house debacle at the end of season six.
- Lorelai tells Charlotte she knows all the good escape routes from the Gilmore house.
- Lorelai makes a joke about Rory's "coming out" party in season two as a "coming out as gay" party, which is different from what she said at the time about coming out as being ready to get engaged to a guy.
- Lane mentions the time she dated Henry Lee.
- Continuity Snarl: Rory points out that Henry was Lane's second cousin, which was never mentioned before, so she is probably getting him mixed up with Yong Chui.
- Captain Obvious: When Rory refers to someone as "Dad", she means her own dad.
- Generation Xerox: Caroline is the Lorelai of the cotillion group. Basically, she's not that into tea parties and is doing her own thing.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Lane never even considers not having the baby.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lorelai refuses to eat her poptart because she isn't sure she would have liked them if Emily had made her eat them as a child, but when Rory takes it she gets mad.Lorelai: Hey!
Rory: I like them. - Immediate Self-Contradiction: As Lorelai puts it: "Kick me. Not hard, just enough to cause internal bleeding."
- Informed Judaism: Played with. Lorelai asks Rory to claim to have converted to Judaism to make Friday night dinner less awkward when she tells them about her breakup with Luke.
- Irony: Now Sookie knows what to serve children, but this time the children to be served would rather eat the gourmet food she served in the children's birthday party back in season four.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Subverted with Lane's. She tells everyone, just not Zach.Lane: A lot of people wait a full twelve weeks before they tell anyone.
- Parental Neglect: Lorelai comments that while other kids were hugged and kissed, she was made to keep proper space and distance.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Inverted and exaggerated by Rory when she refuses to sext Logan on her phone, because she uses it to talk to her mother.
- Product Placement:
- Lorelai is no longer sure whether she likes Pop-Tarts.
- Michel thinks the cotillion girls are like Madame Alexander dolls come to life.
- Paul Anka found a way to do his business in Michel's Prada loafers.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: Defied by Paris, who asks rhetorically how the student who can't construct a proper sentence is supposed to make it through the essay secrion of the SAT, and interrupts the tutor who tries to answer.
- Shout-Out
- Charlotte's Web is one of Rory's favorite books.
- Helen Keller and Stephen Hawking could have a more connected conversation than Rory and Logan.
- Charlotte calls Lorelai a regular Imogen Coca.
- Rory reads Sexus by Henry Miller to learn how to sext.
- Lane reads What to Expect When You're Expecting and finds it horrifying.
- Lorelai is like Noel Coward and Slim Keith rolled into one.
- Charlotte is like Shirley Temple and Mother Theresa and "someone with very good table manners" rolled into one.
- Take That!: Lorelai claims Charlotte is like Shirley Temple and Mother Theresa and someone with very good table manners rolled into one. (Charlotte is not the one being dissed.)
- Too Much Information: Paris sexts with Doyle while talking to Rory and tells her that.
- Tough Love: Paris thinks her tutors are too nice to her students.Paris: Fear is a great motivator!
