Season 1, episode 17
The Breakup, Part 2
Rory is mourning her breakup by avoiding thinking about it, letting everyone think Dean dumped her. She decides to go to a Chilton party with Lane to get her mind off him. Paris is there because her mother forced her to go. Lane meets Henry and gives him her phone number by telling him how to find it in the phone book.
Tropes:
- Acoustic License: Rory asks Lane if she is to pretend to be sick and having to go home while Lane is slow-dancing with Henry, who doesn't seem to hear a thing.
- Amusing Injuries: Played with. Babette thinks Rory will find it encouraging to learn about all the truly awful men she dated before she met Morrey.Babette: I got pushed out of a moving car once!
- Artistic License – Law: Luke exercises his right not to serve Dean… but Dean hasn't ordered anything and has in fact not entered the diner.
- Big Fancy House: Madeline's house is one of these. When Lane asks if Rory's grandparent's house is the same size she disagrees that it's not as "Hearst castle."
- Blatant Lies:
- Lorelai lets Rory think she's getting rid of the Dean box, but she hides it in a closet where Rory is bound to find it eventually.
- Break the Haughty: Tristan's girlfriend Summer rudely breaks up with him very loudly and publicly at Madeline's party; this leads to him sitting in a room alone and acting noticeably sad and unlike the obnoxious jerk we usually see.
- Catch-22 Dilemma: You have to get to Luke's, but you'd have to go past either the store where Dean works or the school where he plays basketball when he does not work. You don't know whether he works today or not. There's always Peach Street, except Dean lives on Peach Street.
- Comically Missing the Point: Madeline informs Rory that it's her stepfather's house, just as Louise asks Rory where "he" is, meaning Dean. Madeline replies that he's in Japan.
- Continuity Nod: Rory mentions Dean seeing her room for the first time and picking up Colonel Clucker.
- Continuity Snarl: Paris claims to have gone to Chilton for nine years, though it's supposed to be a high school and those last a maximum of six years and Chilton only seems to be four years, with Paris in sophomore year.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Lane subverts this and lampshades it. Henry is exactly what her mother wants her to date.
- Dramatically Missing the Point:
- Jackson yells at Sookie that she's missing the point of him cooking dinner for them as she keeps trying to take over, thinking he's doing this trope by using the wrong ladle.
- Rory starts crying when Tristan kisses her, and he thinks it's because he accidentally bit her lip.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Lorelai claims to have been in labor for fourteen hours. In later episodes it will have been about half an hour.
- First Kiss: This episode includes Rory and Tristan's first, and only, kiss of the series.
- Flipping the Table: Played with. Max places a table between himself and Lorelai as a way of keeping their hands off each other. Max quickly flips the table away from them and they get back at it.
- Funny Background Event: As Lorelai assures Rory that the town has bigger things to worry about than Dean breaking up with Rory, Luke wrestles Dean right outside the window they’re sitting next to.
- Headlock of Dominance: Luke puts Dean in a headlock, claiming it's part of exercising his right not to serve him, despite being on the street outside the diner.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: After leaving Max's, Lorelai comes home to find Rory in tears, on the couch with a huge tub of ice cream.Rory: [in tears] I'm ready to wallow now.
- Hypocrite: Lorelai calls herself a hypocrite for telling Rory how to get over a guy when she herself hasn't gotten over Max.
- Obsessed Are the Listmakers: To get over the break-up, Rory makes a detailed to-do list concerning grocery shopping and home improvement.
- Plot Parallel: Tristan gets dumped by Summer at the party, and Lane is finding her first boyfriend while Lorelai is getting back with an ex, so now Rory ends up comforting Tristan who is in roughly the same position as herself.
- Pun: When Lane introduces herself, Louise asks if it's as in "walk down a."
- The Scapegoat:
- Miss Patty, Luke, and Kirk all want to take the blame for Rory and Dean getting together in the first place.
- Sex with the Ex: When Rory asks Lorelai how long it took her to get over Max, she can't give an answer. This leads her to thinking about Max which leads her to go Max's which leads her and him to… well.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai has read every Nancy Drew mystery ever written.
- Love Story, The Champ, An Affair to Remember, and Ishtar are all good post-breakup wallow movies according to Lorelai.
- She wonders if they should include Old Yeller, although she admits that might be just a guy's crying movie.
- Upon learning that she might not get coffee that morning, Lorelai quotes Kevin Bacon's character's reaction to Chris Penn's character's revelation of the no dancing rule in Footloose.Lorelai: Whoa, step back!
- Climbing through the back alley makes Lorelai feel like G.I. Jane except she gets to keep her hair.
- Lorelai figures staying home reading The Bell Jar would have the same effect as going to a Chilton party.
- Summer would rather dance to Outkast's "Miss Jackson" than talk to Tristan.
- Paris doesn't think Madame Curie was voted "most likely to dress like Jennifer Lopez."
- Take a Third Option: As it turns out, you don't have to go by the school or the store, you can climb a high fence and wade through an alley full of garbage cans.
