Season 8, episode 3
Summer
It's summer time at Stars Hollow. Lorelai and Rory enjoy some fat-shaming by the pool. Rory decides to save the Stars Hollow Gazette from shutting down. Lorelai is invited to be on the advisory committee for Taylor's musical.
The Stars Hollow musical is shown for the first time to the committee that Lorelai is part of. It resembles Hamilton, references Magneto, and has nine ABBA songs at the end. Lorelai doesn't know how to feel about the fact that she can predict its cancan number, referring to herself as Nostradamus. At the meeting after, Sophie Bloom suggests playing I Feel The Earth Move, but it is voted down as not catchy at all.
Jess visits Rory at her job at the Stars Hollow Gazette. She tells him she can't find the box with her underwear, is too broke to buy new underwear, and that she's probably too old to be one of Paris' surrogates. He tells her she's a writer and should write about something that's important to her, like herself and her mom.
Lorelai is introduced to Emily's new boyfriend, Jack Smith. They go to visit Richard's grave at the cemetery, where they meet Rory, who tells her mother that she's writing a memoir. Lorelai decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail after listening to a song with an ambiguous message about living life to the full.
Tropes
- Acting for Two: In-Universe, Violet plays all the female characters in the musical.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
- The couple in the musical when it reaches the twentieth century are afraid of many things: viral diseases, terrorism, tank tops, really small air plane seats, and man buns.
- Rory vents to Jess that she has no job, no credit, and no underwear.
- "Balls" Gag: In the Stars Hollow musical, a soldier comes in from standing outside in the cold and hands his musket and musket balls to his wife, who remarks that his balls are frozen.
- Black Comedy:
- Michel thinks being nice to children makes him sound like a child molester. No wonder he doesn't like them.
- The musical pokes fun at how people used to have a bunch of kids in the hopes that at least one survived to adulthood.
- Blatant Lies:
- When Luke asks if she smokes pot, April gives a very unconvincing "No". A little later she just as unconvincingly claims she totally smokes pot. Eventually, she admits that she only smoked it once.
- Rory claiming she was thoroughly vetted before she got the editor job at the Gazette.
- Brick Joke:
- The girls being uncomfortable with overweight Pat walking around in his swimshorts and trying to hide the fact.
- The secret bar which is only a secret everyone keeps from Taylor.
- Rory's tap dancing apparently comes back to haunt Lorelai when the actors in the musical tap dance on stage.
- Nat looking dead.
- Emily not being sure exactly what food Berta makes.
- Rory repeatedly calls Logan without meaning to.
- Call-Back:
- April's nose ring hurts, but maybe not as badly as Paris's.
- Stars Hollow is going to have a Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer event this year, too.
- Jess walking into the Gazette and getting Rory's attention is filmed similarly to their first meeting in season 2.
- Jess helps Rory find purpose and direction in her life, mirroring what he did in season 6 that led to Rory re-enrolling at Yale.
- Rory told Emily to go to the club, where she meets a man she wants to date, and Lorelai gets mad at Rory for it. That's a role-reversal from "Emily Says Hello".
- Child Hater: Michel figures fatherhood is going to be a lot of pretending for him.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Rory repeatedly acts directionally challenged when she and Lorelai argue about which side of Stars Hollow is east and which is west.
- Babette wonders who reads the Gazette for the articles.
- Taylor wrote a play in college and gave it to Edward Albee and asked him to call him if he had any criticisms, and he never called.
- Lorelai tries to take Rory's new that she's writing a book about them this way.Lorelai: Are we fighting crime?
- Rory dumps all of her problems onto Jess when he visits her at the Gazette, including the fact that she's unemployed, she's failing in her life's ambition, and she can't find the box with her underwear in it. Jess offers to lend her money to buy new underwear. Rory tells him that was not the point of her rant.
- Continuity Nod:
- The guy in the musical in one of the 18th century scenes comes in from the night of standing outside in the cold that was reenacted in every season of the original run.
- Esther remembers Jess as a punk.
- Jess suggesting Rory write a book gives her Naomi Shropshire flashbacks.
- Rory comes across an article in the Stars Hollow Gazette archive about a certain teen mom named Lorelai Gilmore moving to the town.
- Continuity Snarl: Subverted or Zig-Zagged depending on which version you go with. Lorelai claims Emily called Rory Susan until she was two, but Emily calls her Rory in a flashback in season three taking place on the day Lorelai ran away to Stars Hollow, which according to some characters was when Lorelai was sixteen, but according to Mia was when Rory was two.
- Creator Cameo: Carole King as Sophie plays her hit I Feel The Earth Move, but nobody thinks it's catchy, not even herself.
- Cut Scene: From the Stars Hollow musical, the song Unbreakable.
- Fee Fi Faux Pas: Lorelai apologizes to the surrounding gravestones for saying that she's "dying to hear" about Rory's book.
- Foreshadowing: When Taylor brings up the closing of the Stars Hollow Gazette, a couple of people say they're gonna miss the seasonal poem. Rory takes over and removes the poem, causing a lot of readers to complain.
- Gold Digger: Averted with both Emily's new boyfriend Jack Smith and herself, according to Lorelai.
- Hidden Depths: Taylor knows his hip-hop.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: The trope (and the trope naming quote) is referenced by Rory about herself. She feels she failed at her chance to be successful at journalism and her writing career. She's so depressed that she thinks she can't succeed anymore. Jess jokingly tells her she's still a contender and suggests a topic for her.
- Incest Subtext: The couple in the Stars Hollow musical claim to be siblings.
- I Need a Freaking Drink:
- Rory anticipates Lorelai feeling like this and offers her vodka.
- Rory offers Jess "lunch" while at the Gazette, and pulls out a bottle of scotch. She empties her glass and downs another while unloading on him.
- Insistent Terminology: Rory is not back, she's just here.
- It Will Never Catch On: The guy in the 19th century scene of the musical claims basketball will never catch on.
- Lampshade Hanging: The rap number in the musical points out that it's a rap, just like in Hamilton.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Doyle is mad that Rory edited his article the same way he edited her articles at Yale.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Defied. Lorelai tells Rory she doesn't want people knowing about her life.
- Lyrical Dissonance:
- Zig-Zagged in the musical. There is some quite upbeat music on the songs about how much things sucked in previous centuries, but the melody gets more ominous as we move closer to modern day.
- The cut song has a sad melody and mostly broken lyrics, but also some determined and hopeful lyrics.
- Malicious Misnaming: A musical version. The musical complains about "poo-poo-Putin".
- Mistaken for Racist: Lorelai objecting to the rap number gets misconstrued by the other board members as "racial".
- Mondegreen Gag: While the air conditioner in the ballet studio goes, everyone does this. Rory shouts to Lorelai that Luke asked if she has the time, and Lorelai replies that she gave it to him.
- Must Have Coffee:
- Emily when Lorelai calls her the morning after she went to the club like Rory suggested.
- Lorelai when she comes back from visiting her father's grave.
- Never My Fault: Luke feels he doesn't have to take responsibility for anything in his relationship with Lorelai because he lets her call the shots.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lorelai accuses Rory of hooking Emily up with a guy when she admits sending her to the club. Rory claims she thought Emily would only play backgammon.
- Not What It Looks Like: Lorelai's story that she kept going to therapy alone after her mother stopped just further convinces Luke that she is cheating.
- Odd Name Out: According to Taylor the woman playing the lead in the Stars Hollow musical must be a great singer, a terrific actress, a wonderful dancer, and a good whittler.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: It was weird enough that Emily kept a maid for more than a week, but letting her move a tv into the living room and eating in front of it? Rory thinks she's being Punk'd.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: While Rory is ranting about the Gazette shutting down, Lorelai is discussing how ridiculous it is that people keep saying Violet played the titular character in the roadshow version of Kinky Boots when the title refers to a pair of boots and not a character.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Defied. Lorelai tries it on Rory, but Rory isn't having it, as that is how Lorelai and Emily's relationship works, not hers and Lorelai's.
- Product Placement: Luke denies grounding up a guy named Pat LaFrieda and putting him in his burgers.
- Pun:
- Lorelai says of Noam Chomsky that "to noam is to love 'im". April doesn't get it.
- "Roundbottoms up", in reference to drinking at Rory's desk which still has the name tag of Roundbottom on it.
- Rags to Riches: Lorelai's story is an inversion, as Rory mentions.
- Repeat After Me: Taylor makes the whole committee take an oath to not divulge the content of the musical to anyone. They swear by "god or Allah or whatever you pray to" and keep repeating what he says after the oath is obviously over.
- Running Gag:
- People saying Rory is back and Rory (and at one point Lane) insisting she is not back.
- People keep insisting that Violet played Kinky Boots in the play Kinky Boots. Lorelai keeps explaining that there is no such character, and that Violet played Trish the factory worker.
- People telling Rory the seasonal poem should be in the Gazette.
- Rory accidentally calls Logan three times in a row. Apparently a few times off-screen too.
- Dewey and Brandon, the two boys who hold parasols for Lorelai and Rory early on, also get enlisted to help deliver newspapers, and when Lorelai announces that she wants to hike the Pacific Crest trail, Luke points out that she can't take them with her.Lorelai: I know, their mothers wouldn't let me.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai says she cheated on her metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the boy sitting next to her.
- Lorelai keeps trying to watch Les Revenants with Luke but he keeps falling asleep and forgetting the plot.
- Logan bought Matilda tickets for him and Rory.
- Rory thinks Nat the composer looks like a White Walker. Later she tells a kid to pretend she is Khaleesi from the same show.
- Luke is wearing a Lifeguard shirt at the pool.
- Michel wants a George Clooney tequila.
- Lorelai feels that The Godfather has a quote for every occasion.
- Rory thinks the newsroom is out of an Aaron Sorkin movie.
- Rory claims she learned about computers from Halt and Catch Fire, and she didn't watch it that closely.
- When they deliver newspapers, Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made For Walkin" plays.
- The thirty-something gang love There Will Be Blood, and everything by Paul Thomas Anderson.
- Doyle reviews The Jungle Book (2016) and insists that Michael Bay likes adjectives.
- The day after delivering newspapers, the girls aren't sure if they watched Baby Monitor: The Sound Of Fear or Co-ed Call Girl the previous evening. Rory claims she would have remembered watching Tori Spelling. Lorelai thinks Tori should do a Lifetime movie.
- The rapper in the musical, representing the working class, references Magneto and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
- The guy in the musical is scared of anything by Jeff Koons.
- According to Babette, both Simba and Tevje have been dethroned as kings of musicals by Taylor's masterpiece, the Stars Hollow Musical.
- Babette references School of Rock and The Book of Mormon in her review of the musical.
- Taylor's mentor is apparently Edward Albee, the guy who wrote Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
- Taylor thinks Lorelai better tell RZA and Busta Rhymes they can't rap since Hamilton did it.
- Taylor apparently has the phone numbers to Benny and Björn from ABBA.
- Carole King plays her 70's hit I Feel The Earth Move.
- Lorelai's only experience with theatre was her role as Lucy in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
- Emily does not watch Matlock.
- Richard's gravestone has a quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on it.
- Jess thinks Rory's bottle of whiskey in her desk drawer is very Lou Grant.
- Jess would be happy for Dave Eggers to know his press exists.
- Rory mentions Nora Ephron's neck.
- Doyle sent Rory a copy of a script for The Mysteries of Laura.
- When Emily asks Lorelai what she thinks of her new boyfriend Jack Smith, Lorelai can only reply that she "ain't sayin' he a gold digger".
- Rory asks Lorelai what she thinks of Queens, where she is considering moving, but Lorelai thinks she means the band Queen.
- Lorelai tells Rory to find herself another ghost, Mrs. Muir.
- Lorelai thinks Maggie Smith could play Emily in the movie about her leaving Rory in a bucket that time.
- Lorelai wonders if Colombia is so angry about Narcos that they refuse to export coffee to the U.S.
- Lorelai wants to do Wild. Book, not movie.
- The Smurfette Principle: The Stars Hollow musical has the couple sing about being male and female versions of each other.
- Show Within a Show: The Stars Hollow musical.
- Take That!: Taylor tells Lorelai she'll have to pry the revolving stage number from Nat's cold dead hands. Lorelai wonders aloud if there is any other way to pry something from Nat.
- Vague Age: Subverted, as Lorelai finally finds out how old Michel is when he invites her to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. He complains that the problem with having long-lasting friendships is that they can backdate you.
- Viewers Are Goldfish: In-universe, Luke tends to forget important things about shows he and Lorelai watch, like that some of the characters are zombies.
- Visual Pun: Babette says that they don't have to sweat like pigs at town meetings anymore just before Petal runs across the screen.
- Writers Cannot Do Math:
- It is only the summer of 2016, but Lorelai still insists Rory is thirty-two.
- April, on the other hand, claims she's twenty-two, but she turned 13 in the spring of 2006, so she should be twenty-three by now.
