Season 2, Episode 13
A-Tisket, A-Tasket
(Original Air Date: 2/5/2002)The annual Stars Hollow charity picnic basket auction brings more drama than anticipated when Jess outbids Dean to score a lunch date with Rory. Meanwhile, Lorelai's basket is also drawing unintended attention after it is revealed that Miss Patty is using it as an excuse to auction off Lorelai to eligible bachelors; out of desperation, Lorelai convinces Luke to bid on and buy her basket.
Jess and Kirk get their overpriced baskets right away, but everyone else has to wait until the auction is over. Rory's went for $80 and Lorelai's for $52,50. Sookie's only goes for $35, as Andrew won't bid $40 without the guarantee of pie. Luke and Lorelai have their picnic in the gazebo. Lane tries to use the cover of going on a date with her cousin Dave to arrange a secret date with Henry, but the payphone is broken so he called the Kim house, and it ends with them breaking up.
Rory and Jess eat on the bridge across the lake. Rory loses her bracelet and Jess finds it and keeps it. Jackson thinks Sookie should forget about moving in together, saying he'd rather they get married. Dean talks to Lorelai about Rory and Jess, leading to Lorelai talking to Rory about Jess, leading to an argument that lasts until next Friday.
Next Friday night dinner, Rory and Lorelai have it out in front of Emily. Emily agrees with Lorelai, taking a dig at Lorelai's youthful mistakes in the process, which makes Lorelai change her mind about Rory spending time with Jess.
Tropes
- Bachelor Auction: A rare female variation where women make picnic baskets that the men bid on and go on a date with the maker of the basket.
- Blatant Lies: Henry called the Kim house and, faced with Mrs. Kim on the phone, he pretended to be selling subscriptions for The Wall Street Journal.
- Call-Back: Jess tells Rory about the time and place Luke pushed him in the lake. He asks if Rory wants to try that method of catharsis.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Lorelai jokes that Miss Patty has small change to give to male strippers, but Miss Patty thinks giving a stripper a quarter would be insulting.
- Sookie misses Jackson's hints that he wants to move in with her, but the trope kind of applies to him too, since he's known Sookie for a long time and still tries to drop her hints. Later he accuses her of telling him to renew the lease on his apartment, and she thinks he's upset because he doesn't like the apartment.
- Kirk ups his own bid at the auction. He knows it, too, subverting it.
- Luke doesn't get why people at picnics would sit on the ground when they can sit on chairs.
- Henry sarcastically asks if Lane wants him to slow down when she jumps in his car. She replies yes, of course.
- Complexity Addiction: Lane's plans to date Henry are many-layered. It's what eventually convinces him it's not going to work.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Dean is not pleased when Jess outbids him, then becomes angrier when Rory decides not to back out of the lunch date.
- Deadpan Snarker: Jess, per usual.Dean (to Rory): Don't go.Jess: Oh, jeez, man, she's not shipping off to 'Nam.
- Death Glare: Mrs. Kim's prevents anyone but Lane's cousin Dave from bidding on her basket.
- Distinction Without a Difference: In fairness, there is a difference between living together and being married, but as Sookie points out, they can't be married without living together.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Dean is convinced Jess doesn't care about Rory and is only trying to get to Rory to mess with him.
- Foreshadowing: Lorelai claims she participated in the basket auction this year in hopes she could get the buyer to clean her gutters. Next time it comes up, this year's basket-buyer Luke will suggest she hire Rory's basket-buyer Jess to do it.
- Genius Book Club: Rory and Jess discuss Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway during their picnic together.
- Lethal Chef: What Rory packed in the basket. She tricks Jess into eating it by telling him Dean would have.Jess (after taking a bite): Dean is an idiot.Rory: Dean never would've fallen for that.
- The Matchmaker: Miss Patty invites three guys to buy Lorelai's basket and go on a date with her.
- Oblivious to Hints: Jackson isn't yet quite up to date on how much Sookie is this trope, so when he drops half a dozen hints that he wants to live together he gets mad that she doesn't pick them up.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Emily is worried about Richard spending time at the club smoking cigar with other men because it's out of character for him.
- Plot Parallel: Rory and Lorelai go on lunch dates with mirror characters Jess and Luke. Jess manipulated his way in by outbidding Dean over Rory's protests, while Luke reluctantly outbid Lorelai's suitors because she begged him to. Luke and Lorelai spend the date in the gazebo, which is important to Lorelai, while Rory and Jess spend theirs on the bridge over the lake, which is important to Jess.
- Shotgun Wedding: When Jackson suggests marriage, Sookie wonders if it's because he's pregnant.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title is the name of a nursery rhyme
. - Lorelai watched Sunset Boulevard and decided to save herself for William Holden. She's known him for years from Sabrina and Stalag 17.
- She thinks it's a more realistic relationship than Rory's with "Andy Hardy".
- Jess comments on to Rory and Dean having a "vertical From Here to Eternity moment" in front of the glue he's looking for.
- One of the guys Miss Patty procured for Lorelai (without her asking) has seen Ghostbusters 124 times.
- Jess says Dean is no Lenny Bruce.
- Dean walks away in a huff and tells Rory he'd do a silly walk, but he isn't feeling very John Cleese.
- Lorelai claims to love Dungeons & Dragons.
- Rory tried to read The Fountainhead at ten, but it was over her head and she had to try again at fifteen.
- Jess doesn't want to because Ayn Rand was a political nut.
- She promises Jess to give Ernest Hemingway another go.
- Lorelai said she wanted to read The Children's Hour while watching Julia with Jane Fonda in a main role.
- Rory isn't sure when she moved to Salem
- Jess has presumably watched a lot of Sylvester Stallone movies, Lorelai guesses.
- Lorelai makes Rory promise to be The Boy in the Plastic Bubble kind of careful.
- The episode title is the name of a nursery rhyme
- Stealth Insult: Emily can't let Lorelai be right about setting boundaries for her daughter without taking the tiniest jab at her, as shown when Rory's interest in Jess is brought up over Friday night dinner.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Rory calls Jess out on being nice to her, but a jerk to everyone else.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Luke knows Lorelai so well that he guesses all that's in her basket is two stale Pop-Tarts and a Slim-Jim.
- You Just Told Me: Rory gets Jess to inadvertently admit that he planned the basket-buying and Rory-dating.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Lorelai starts accepting Jess when Emily agrees with her that he is trouble.
