Season 8, episode 2
Spring
Lorelai and Emily go to therapy together. They are frustrated that they can't game the therapy because they don't know how it's scored. There's an international food festival in Stars Hollow. The manager of a website keeps pestering Rory to come in for a job interview, but Rory has already signed up for writing an autobiography with nutty British celebrity Naomi. Lorelai is worried about Michel leaving. Emily tells Luke about Richard testament money to him to franchise his diner and Rory goes to a Chilton alumni gathering.
Paris and Doyle argue in front of Rory, who offers to watch the kids for a while. Her friendliness with Doyle makes Paris suspect the two are having an affair. Emily quits therapy because it's failing to change Lorelai. Lorelai fails to tell Luke about it, knowing he wouldn't believe that she decided to go to therapy alone. He learns it anyway through Emily, but takes his time mentioning that to Lorelai.
Rory tries her hand at reporting on lines in New York. She finds it so boring she falls asleep and forgets to listen when people speak, whereas Lorelai masters the art of standing in line immediately by convincing the people who sell stuff to let her go first. Rory ends up bonding with some people standing in a collectibles line and has her first one-night stand with a guy dressed as a Wookie.
Paris's nanny: Clementina
Bertha's sister: Isabella
Tropes
- Ambiguously Gay: Taylor seems unaware of it, but Gypsy and everyone else in town believe he is gay.
- And Starring: Kelly Bishop.
- Artistic License – Awards: Kirk's first shortfilm from season 2, "I Love Your Daughter", won the coveted Good Try award at a film festival.
- Artistic License – Geography: Averted. Unlike in the original show, the I-5 is now on the Pacific coast, like in reality.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Kirk's short film is mostly bad set production with realistic bad acting, but includes a couple of people who aren't acting at all.
- Petal doesn't necessarily grasp the concept of acting, because when Kirk mourns her death in his short film she runs to comfort him.
- Bait-and-Switch: While Emily is looking at places for Luke to open diners, her assistant says the one they're looking at is going to explode. Emily wonders if she's that sure it's going to be popular, but Luca says they illegally tap the gas and it's literally going to explode.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Rory had lots of work-ethic in the original series, but apparently only functions well when someone else sets her goals for her.
- Big Eater:
- At the international food festival, Luke and Rory take it for granted that they can't let Lorelai go unsupervised.
- Mrs. Kim's Korean choir eats a lot of bread, eggs, and fruit.
- Brick Joke: Rory reveals to a class that she took musical composition and wasn't very good at it. Later Headmaster Charleston offers her any teaching job of her choice, except musical composition.
- Call-Back:
- Mrs. Kim tells one of her chorists: "Sing out, Louise Tang!" When Rory was getting puffed, Francine told her: "Sing out, Louise!" in reference to the book of that title.
- In season two there was an auction of picnic baskets. It is supposed to be annual, but we never see such a thing again before this episode, where Lorelai bids on Sookie's basket. She outbids herself, just like Kirk did when he bought Sookie's basket in season two.
- She ends up with the basket of someone named Cassie, and acknowledges that she's not the person Cass intended that basket for, which happened all over that season 2 episode.
- Lorelai has another dream about the musician Paul Anka being her dog.
- Emily still has issues with Lorelai running away with her baby in 1985.
- Emily talks about Lorelai hiding all her relationships from her. Lorelai admits that it has been a habit of hers, most prominently when she was dating Jason in season four and Richard and Emily only found out through Jason's father who only found out through a private investigator.
- Paris accuses Francie of still wanting hemlines shortened and being in "cahoots" with Rory. Francine wonders in she accidentally walked in 2003.
- Lorelai is a lot more relaxed about Rory sleeping with a (nearly) married man than she was in seasons four and five. And more chill with Rory cheating on her boyfriend with at least two guys than she was when she dated Dean while being interested in Jess in seasons two and three.
- The Cameo:
- Mr. Kim makes his first appearance ever for a few seconds.
- Jackson is at the food festival, being assigned to represent the Virgin Islands.
- Tristan is seen briefly flirting with someone, but he's not played by the same actor.
- Francine shows up for one scene.
- Captain Obvious:
- Kirk requires this sometimes, such as when Luke explains to him that there is bacon in a BLT sandwich.
- Luke wonders why his phone is ringing. Lorelai explains that someone must be calling him.
- Rory makes sure to clarify that the wookie she slept with was a guy in a wookie costume.
- Child Hater: Played with in Paris's family. Her kids prefer the nanny to their mother, but she kind of prefers the nanny to the kids too.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Lorelai mistakes the compost pile for a dish.
- Emily asks why Luke coughs and he says he swallowed a bug. She wonders why on earth he would do that.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Cheshire Cat inn still exists.
- Emily mentions her and Richard's separation in season 5.
- Paris still finds Stalin inspirational.
- Francine, leader of the Puffs back in seasons two and three, is also at the Chilton alumni gathering. Paris asks if she is there to get hemlines shortened again or is in cahoots with Rory – again.
- Lorelai mentions the time she was married to Christopher.
- Rory briefly tap dances out of excitement.
- Continuity Snarl: Rory claims she took a composition class while at Chilton, a thing we never heard about in the original series.
- Cult: Liz and T.J. accidentally joined a vegetable cult.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Emily and Lorelai completely miss the point of therapy, especially the therapist's notebook.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Lorelai does an impression of a guy she called Trombone Stan.
- Foreshadowing: Rory interrupts herself on the phone to Logan and explains that she thought the "baby" was gonna throw up. Logan asks if she's had any big life changes. She tells him she is just sitting Paris's kids.
- Generation Xerox: Paris was raised by her nanny, and she lets her kids be raised by their nanny.
- Good Luck Charm: Rory considers the red dress she can't find to be this.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Mrs. Kim's choir sings Amazing Grace in Korean.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Subverted when Kirk objects to the Vietnamese pork dish at the festival, declaring it pig genocide, and Luke points out that he ate a BLT sandwich yesterday. Kirk is immediately consumed with guilt.
- Michel is mad that the B-list actress guests stand in front of the mirrors and admire themselves, preventing him from standing in front of the mirrors admiring himself.
- Lorelai fires her chefs while complimenting their cooking.
- I Ate WHAT?!: Kirk is horrified when he realizes there's bacon in a BLT sandwich which he has eaten.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Defied. Luke hints to Cesar that he should make up an excuse why he can't cover for Luke while he looks at properties with Emily, but he doesn't.
- Innocent Swearing: Mrs. Kim says the Korean choir she houses sucks eggs, but meaning that all they do is eat eggs.
- Irony: Naomi Shropshire accuses Rory of being unaccustomed to people speaking fast.
- Lampshadehanging: Morrie points out that Taylor has always been very condescending.
- Literal-Minded: You can't bring food you've purchase elsewhere to the local cinema, but as Babette points out it doesn't say you can't make food at home and bring it.
- The Living Dead: Played with with Petal, who after her movie death is played by a stuffed pig, but then she subverts it by wanting to comfort Kirk while he's screaming "Whyyy?" to the heavens.
- Meaningful Name: Lorelai and Luke invent meanings for his last name "Danes", though it's literally an English word, meaning "people from Denmark".
- Noodle Incident: Emily accuses Lorelai of writing her a terrible anonymous letter on one of her birthdays.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: In-universe, Sandy thinks Rory's adventure with the Wookie is too unrealistic to report on.
- Sex for Solace: Like how she used to handle upset in the season four finale onwards, Rory has sex with a Star Wars fan she's never met before and never learned the name of.
- The Shrink: Emily has found a very ineffective one who just encourages the two to communicate and express their feelings while she watches.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai doesn't think therapy was such a Penn & Teller show before she broke the silence either.
- Lorelai quotes Alanis Morissette in pointing out how ironic it is that Emily wants her to both speak and shut up.
- Naomi wants her biography to read like Aeschylus.
- Taylor is a fan of Liza Minnelli.
- A guest at the Dragonfly acted on Law & Order.
- Michel lists Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Daniel Radcliffe, Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Lawrence as more interesting guests than the B-listers who stay at the Dragonfly.
- Lorelai dreams that her dog, Paul Anka, is the musician, Paula Anka. Rory comments that it's good she didn't name him Mickey Rourke.
- Lorelai thinks Natalie Portman is a better name than Neta-Lee Hershlag.
- She also thinks Joaquin Phoenix is better than Joaquin Bottom. (Rory claims she made that up.)
- She also doesn't think anyone would want to watch Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dance if they called themselves Virginia McMath and Frederick Austerlitz.
- Lorelai claims not to write letters like Edith Wharton.
- Naomi thinks Winston Churchill is a fat poof.
- Logan thinks Rory talking to Naomi is like Fiddler on the Roof.
- Kirk has shown Eraserhead many times.
- Paris quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson.
- Elizabeth Taylor wouldn't grasp Emily's argument that marriage is more permanent than room mates.
- Paris mentions The Art of War (Sun Tzu) to the students.
- She gets mad at Francine and shouts "Take a powder, baby John!" after her.
- Paris thinks Doyle's bragging would have made Dorothy Parker barf.
- The guy who interviews Rory for a newspaper job says she's no David Foster Wallace though she has potential.
- Lorelai wonders who Emily expect her to turn into in therapy. Claudia assures her it probably wasn't Queen Latifah.
- Lorelai claims Emily strikes more chords than Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.
- Watching A History of Violence, Lorelai insists that Viggo Mortensen's interpretation of diner owner Tom Stall is based on Luke.
- Naomi did not come up with the next Cloud Atlas.
- Lorelai thinks Rory wants to write about lines like in Scarfies.
- Rory apparently has a thing for Star Wars.
- Lorelai thinks teen pregnancy is only hot in Outlander.
- Rory tells Sandee to Get Shorty.
- Show Within a Show: Kirk's second short film.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Naomi accuses Rory of being a typical American who just doesn't listen when Naomi talks about this month's boyfriend.
- Too Much Information:
- Paris tells Rory that she misses the volcanic sex she and Doyle used to have. Rory feels that she didn't need to know that.
- Defied, as Lorelai is so immune to this she even asks her grown daughter if the guy she slept with kept his Wookie costume on.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Rory claims to be thirty-two, implying that her birthday has been moved to either quite early in 1984 or sometime in 1983, at any rate a time her mother would have been fifteen, unless her birthday has been moved to 1967, which we haven't heard about.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: The headmaster of Chilton offers Rory a teaching job if she gets her M.A. first, and it makes Rory feel like she has failed at life.
