Season 1, Episode 2
The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton
(Original air date: 10/12/00)Rory starts at the rigorous Chilton Prepatory, and finds that she may be in over her head. Lorelai makes a bad first impression with the headmaster, but a good one with the father of one of Rory's classmates, who asks her on a date. Emily and Lorelai butt heads over Emily's over-involvement in Rory's life at Chilton.
Tropes
- Aborted Arc:
- We never get to see Rory help Paris rebuild her project.
- Lorelai suggests bringing Rory and Lane to Hartford when she has business class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but we never get to see that either.
- Academic Alpha Bitch: Paris is introduced in this episode, along with her Girl Posse.Paris (to Rory): You'll never catch up. You'll never beat me. This school is my domain and the Franklin is my domain. And don't you ever forget that.
- Ascended Fangirl: Rory wants to be like Christiane Amanpour.
- Bait-and-Switch: Hanlin Charleston tells Rory about how he's friends with her grandparents and ate lobster puffs at their house recently, then tells her none of it will benefit her.
- Book on the Head: Seen in Ms. Patty's dance class: "Now, walk smooth. That's the new Harry Potter on your heads. If they should drop, Harry will die, and there won't be anymore books."
- Brick Joke: Lorelai repeats the demerol excuse for naming her daughter for herself that Rory related in the previous episode.
- Call-Back: The Gilmore girls stand in fron of the door to the principal's office like they stood in front of the Gilmore house in the previous episode, with the same dialogue minus the cold.
- Companion Cube: Downplayed with Babette's love of her garden gnomes. She may not talk to them, but she judges people by how they treat them.
- Comically Missing the Point: Rory tries to pull this on headmaster Charleston, pretending all she got from his discouraging speech was that he liked her grandparents' lobster puffs.
- Death Glare: Paris really doesn't like it when Rory beats her to a history question. After all those threats.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The local auto repair shop is Musky's, not yet Gypsy's.
- Rory is far less tolerant of her mother's quirkiness than she will later be known for.
- Babette judges Mick for kicking a garden gnome, whereas later when he's Kirk it comes out that Babette has known him his whole life.
- Rory's English teacher is Mr. Remmy, not yet Max Medina.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Tristan dubs Rory "Mary," who doesn't understand the nickname until Lorelai explains it to her.Lorelai: Mary. Like Virgin Mary. It means they think you look like a goody-goody.
- The Evil Counterpart is Mary Magdalene, which is what the kids at school would have called Rory if they thought she looked like a slut.
- Establishing Character Moment: Michel is rude to a guest's face, establishing his disdain for them, though he doesn't make it a habit to let them know it in later episodes.
- First Day of School Episode: Subverted. It is not the first day of school, but it is Rory's first day of school at Chilton. However, transferring mid-semester serves to make fitting in (socially and academically) more difficult.
- Foreshadowing: Rory declares that if Lorelai dates Luke they'll break up and then they'll no longer be able to eat at his diner.
- Helicopter Parents: Emily "puts in a good word" for Rory at Chilton and runs away with ideas to improve Rory's life (such as buying her a car and installing DSL at her and Lorelai's house) before Lorelai puts her foot down.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Parodied with Lorelai comments that there's nothing like friends, "especially if they're old," actually meaning old friends rather than friends who are old.
- Naked People Are Funny: Apparently one of Miss Patty's students tries to take her leotard off, which has Miss Patty telling her that this is not Brazil.
- Product Placement: Drella doesn't look like she has Panasonic stamped on her ass.
- Running Gag: Lorelai mentions to everyone it's Rory's first day at Chilton. They demand to know if the below outfit was really what she wore to drop her off.
- Then when she's changed into her dry-cleaned suit everyone comments that she should have worn that outfit to Rory's first day at Chilton, like she was originally planning on.
- Scale Model Destruction: In trying to open her stuck locker, Rory backs into Paris who is carrying her project causing it to shatter all over the floor.Paris: Get away from me.
- Shout-Out:
- Lane shows up with XTC's Alpha Venus vol. II.
- The girls thought Chilton looked less "off with their heads" the last time they were there. Lorelai looks for a hunchback in the bell tower.
- Lorelai admits that she looks like "that chick from The Dukes of Hazzard."
- Rory was in the German club until the other members left after watching Schindler's List.
- Louise calls Rory a dixie chick.
- The Chilton English teacher and Paris tell us that Leo Tolstoy's favorite author was Charles Dickens.
- That Fyodor Dostoevsky preferred George Sand and Honoré de Balzac.
- That War and Peace and Anna Karenina were inspired by David Copperfield.
- And that Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Little Dorrit were also influences.
- Animaniacs: Tristan makes a point of saying "Hellooo Mary!" like they say "Hello Nurse!" on that show.
- Miss Patty has her kids balance Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on their heads.
- Lorelai figures William Shakespeare could turn her family drama into a good play.
- Lorelai argues that she doesn't want fast internet because The Shining is such a cautionary tale about working all the time instead of having fun while it dials up.
- Smart People Know Latin: The school song is sung on demand, any time, any place. You get extra points if you sing it in Latin.
- Stealth Insult: Calling people the names of women who played important roles in the life of Jesus is about as stealthy as it gets.
- Teen Pregnancy: Not something you can see your guidance counselor about. You have to see the school nurse or coach Rubens about that.
- Underdressed for the Occasion: Due to oversleeping and running late to drop Rory off at Chilton, Lorelai ends up meeting the headmaster dressed in Daisy Duke shorts, a pink tie-dye t-shirt, and cowboy boots. She tries to cover it up by wearing a trench coat, but takes it off at Emily and the headmaster's insistence. Lorelai seems more embarrassed about this than Rory.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Chilton dad flirting with Lorelai says he'll tell his daughter Julia to look out for Rory, but we never see or hear from a student named Julia.
- You Look Familiar: Sean Gunn pops up, not as Kirk but a guy called "Mick" to install a DSL for Rory. Fanon has it he just couldn't be bothered to change the name tag, but it doesn't explain why Lorelai acts like she's never seen him before.
