Season 2, episode 12
Richard in Stars Hollow
Richard being retired drives Emily crazy so she convinces Lorelai to have him visit Stars Hollow for a day. Lorelai and Rory go to rent a movie. Rory sees two boys looking at a "kind of mature" cover of a movie and alerts Kirk to the fact.
Richard spends the next day with Lorelai in Stars Hollow. He criticizes her eating habits, her work habits, and her coffee drinking habit. When Dean tries to give Rory a car he built himself, Richard pays Gypsy to look for faults with it. She can't find any, but after looking it over three times she breaks off the windshield wipers just so Richard will stop demanding that she check it again.
Paris, wanting the Franklin to compete with The New York Times, tries to find something shady in Stars Hollow, refusing to believe it's as boring and idyllic as Rory believes. Taylor putting all rental movies rated above G behind a curtain ends up being her story.
Maids of the week: Graciella and Heloise.
Kirk's job of the week: rental store manager.
Dean's parents' jobs: his dad builds stereo systems in a shop a few blocks from Gypsy's, his mother works part-time transcribing medical records.
Provides examples of:
- The Alleged Car: Dean put together a car. Richard finds it to be this trope, and demands Gypsy check and recheck it until she finds something wrong with it. In the end she breaks off a windshield viper to get rid of them.
- Blatant Lies:
- Lorelai claims Headmaster Charleston was kidnapped to get Rory to stay home on the day she is to spend with Richard.
- Lorelai and Michel tell separate people that they will get the first towels they get.
- Bookworm: Rory shows Richard her book collection, which when her shelf overflowed she stacked under her bed and crammed into her drawers.
- Call-Back: In the previous episode Emily said she didn't want anything in return for co-signing Lorelai's loan. This episode she wants Lorelai to pay her back by taking over Richard for a day.
- Captain Obvious: Emily feels she is being this trope by pointing out that her hair looks fine because she gets it done every Wednesday.
- Captain Oblivious: Emily has no idea how much Richard hates retirement.
- The City Narrows: What Paris is seeking when she gets off the bus in Stars Hollow, and it's all Played for Laughs. She asks where the "bad part" of town is, and Rory ends up gesturing vaguely to shut her up. When Paris demands an explanation, Rory settles on "people are very upset about the color of that fence." Paris later accuses Luke of running a drug den/brothel in the diner's upstairs apartment and Reverend Nichols of being a conspirator in it when Jess comes down the stairs.
- Comically Missing the Point: Paris visits Stars Hollow to get the dirt on it. Rory sarcastically introduces her as Angela Lansbury, but Luke doesn't pick up on it and proceeds to call her Angela.
- Cool Car: Paris insists she won't get the feel for the town arriving in a BMW.
- Dark Humor: The conversation about who to kick out of the mausoleum. The conclusion is aunt Cecil, because of her terrible knock-knock jokes.
- Death Glare: Luke's when he gets fed up with Paris saying that his diner is a breeding ground for prostitution and drug dealing.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Subverted. Lorelai once got kicked out of summer camp for refusing to call the counselor "Peaches."
- Green-Eyed Monster: Lorelai's boss originally had a problem with her not wearing a jacket at work, but she realized it was only due to jealousy. She is her own boss, by the way.
- Ignorance Is Bliss: Lorelai wants to remain ignorant about what she is eating, because whenever she has eaten something really good in her life it always turned out to be something gross. It turns out to be true about the food she is eating this time, too.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Richard uses a more traditional "I want to go organize my stamps" when he only wants to be alone.
- "Knock Knock" Joke: Aunt Cecile didn't quite grasp that there should be a punchline at the end.
- Metaphorgotten: Getting Rory into Yale would be a breeze for Yale-alumnus Richard, but Lorelai doesn't like breezes as they mess up her hair.
- Must Have Caffeine: Richard notes that both Lorelai and Emily drink a lot of coffee.
- Parental Fashion Veto: Normally you no longer have this when your kid is 33 and lives on her own, but that doesn't stop Richard from telling Lorelai she shouldn't wear a jacket.
- Rule of Three: Richard works out that both his wife and his daughter drink three cups of coffee in the time it takes most people to drink one.
- Shout-Out:
- Lorelai observes that all four Gilmores are fine, just like The Judds.
- Richard found a first edition Gustave Flaubert behind his several Winston Churchill biographies.
- Three Days of the Condor, The Show, The Jerk, Dances with Wolves, The Three Faces of Eve, Bull Durham, and The Postman, with Tom Petty who makes you want to mail something are all movies the Lorelais consider renting.
- As well as a film marathon of Ruth Gordon, Harold and Maude and Rosemary's Baby, and a good episode of Taxi.
- The worst film festival ever would be showing Cool as Ice, Hudson Hawk and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.
- Nancy McKeon will be playing Lorelai in the movie about her day with her dad.
- Lorelai claims Anita Bryant left a hole in Florida that Richard can fill.
- Rory introduces Paris as Angela Lansbury as she tries to find the seedy underbelly of a quaint New England town.
- Paris claims Stars Hollow is so boring it would make Frank Capra want to vomit.
- Lorelai hugs Rory so hard after a day with Richard that she has to defend herself by quoting the Nazareth song "Love Hurts."
- Lorelai references Grease when Richard and Dean drive off.Lorelai: Don't you feel like we should have been standing between them, waving a flag or something?
- Lorelai insists that in no universe visited by Kirk or Spock could Richard's criticism that day be construed as constructive.
- Jess puts grown-up movies in the covers of Bambi and Dumbo after the town council debated whether to censor Babe so as not to offend people who keep kosher. Apparently, they ended up putting it behind the curtain.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: In the talk about who to move from the mausoleum to the annex in the event that Lorelai should someday get married, Lorelai and Richard independently vote aunt Cecile.
- Stalker with a Crush: Emily finds it creepy that Richard follows her around the house and stares at her, and comments on how much coffee she drinks.
- Take That Me: Richard really hates being retired, and cites all the reasons his wife doesn't want to spend the day with him, concluding that he has become a burden.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Paris is convinced that Stars Hollow is this, and will not be dissuaded.
- Troll: Jess comes downstairs to the diner to Paris interrogating Luke about the town's supposed seedy underbelly, and cannot help but gleefully collaborate just for the hell of it.Paris: Hey, where’d he come from? What’s up there? Is that where you keep the girls? You got yourself a little cathouse up there?Jess: Wow, I think she got you Uncle Luke. You better give up now.Luke: Do not add to this insanity.Jess: An innocent boy like me should not be raised in an atmosphere like this.Luke: Jess.Jess: I wanna be good, life’s just not letting me.
- Visit by Divorced Dad: Subverted. Both Dean's parents apparently moved from Chicago to Stars Hollow after their divorce.
