Season 1, episode 9
Rory's Dance
There's a dance at Chilton. Rory decides to go and convinces Dean to accompany her. Lorelai manages to injure her back while sewing Rory's dress. When Emily comes over to see Rory off she decides to stay the night to take care of Lorelai.
At the dance, Tristan and Paris's date-slash-cousin both hit on Rory. Dean and Tristan fight. Rory and Dean have a look inside Miss Patty's dance studio and end up falling asleep while reading Dorothy Parker. Miss Patty and her friends find them early in the morning. Emily and Lorelai also fell asleep and wake at about the same time, having a couple of minutes to freak out about Rory not being home yet before Miss Patty calls to tell what happened.
Lorelai argues with Emily about history repeating with Rory getting knocked up at sixteen by a guy who reminds Lorelai of Christopher. Lorelai yells at Rory about the same thing.
Tropes:
- Blatant Lies:
- Lorelai insists she reads the Chilton newsletter.
- Rory asks Dean to the dance using a barrage of this.
- Lorelai tries to avoid Emily taking care of her while she has a backspasm using these.
- Tristan claims to dislike Rory.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Rory puts her hair up, like she will do every time she dips into upper class activities.
- Feminine Women Can Cook:
- Averted with Madeline's mother, who can make soup, as long as you're okay with it being green and lumpy.
- Emily's cooking skills are not exactly put to the test in this episode, but she makes Lorelai toasted bread with banana mash for butter, and they both agree that it tastes awful.
- Genius Bookclub: Rory is reading The Portable Dorothy Parker.
- Hypocrite: Emily accuses Lorelai or being a bad mother for risking "letting" her daughter get pregnant
- Mind Screw: Emily wants Dean to figure out that he's supposed to come to the door even though Rory told him to honk.
- Pun: Tristan makes a pun about how novel it is that Rory is reading a novel.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai thinks they should go to Turkey and stay in that place from Midnight Express.
- Rory's opinion of dances is based on Sixteen Candles.
- 98 Degrees is associated with being miserable.
- Tom Waits is associated with having a good time.
- Lane calls Rory Blanche.
- Lorelai think Rory can make money off of her bitterness like Oscar Levant.
- When Emily hears Lorelai is going to make Rory's prom dress, she says, "You're not using the curtains, are you?"
- Rory reads a novel by Mary McCarthy standing in line.
- Lorelai introduces her mother as "Emily Post
". - Rory thinks The Outsiders is a good analogy for her social status at Chilton.
- Louise can tell that Dean is not To the Manor Born by looking at him.
- Rory carries an anthology of Dorothy Parker in her purse.
- Emily loves Barbara Stanwyck.
- Lorelai thinks she could have gotten Fred MacMurray to off Richard if she'd wanted to.
