One's Got Class and the Other One Dyes
Lane's band practices very softly in Sophie's music store. Lorelai gets a call from Debbie, a mom from Star Hollow High where Rory used to go. She wants Lorelai to tell her daughter's class about her business success. Lorelai agrees and promises to convince Luke to give a talk as well.
Mrs. Kim is very excited about Lane's Seventh Day Adventist college applications. Lane decides to dye her hair purple as an act of rebellion. She enlists Rory's help to do so. She ends up regretting it when her mother comes home and dyes her head back to black.
Lorelai gives the talk, but gets sidetracked by constant inquiries about her pregnancy. Dealing with it badly, she gets shanghaied by all their moms who do look like each other. They yell a bit, then make the mistake of calling Rory a mistake, which inspires Lorelai to turn the tables on them.
Tropes
- Berserk Button: For Debbie and her mom friends, claiming you don't regret your teen pregnancy in front of their teenagers.
- Blatant Lies: Lorelai does her very best to pretend she hasn't forgotten all about Debbie and the other Stars Hollow moms.
- Brick Joke: When bleaching her hair in preparation for the purple hair dye, Lane tells Rory that the Kim house doesn't have seven-up, but they have something called salad water. Later, when she freaks out about having had the audacity to dye her hair purple, Rory tells her that it's crazy to want to dye her hair back to black. Lane replies that she just drank a gallon of liquid salad, so "crazy" is kind of an everyday thing for her.
- Call-Back: Jess recalls the time Luke fixed Lorelai's porch. It's a Series Continuity Error, though, since that happened before he came to Stars Hollow, and he speaks about it like he has first-hand knowledge of it happening.
- Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: "Women, right? You can’t live with ‘em, you can’t keep ‘em from jumping in the closet."
- Captain Obvious: The girls at the school seem obsessed with the observation that if Lorelai had had sex at a different time or with a different man, the resulting kid wouldn't have been Rory, as though that is any less true for any of them.
- Closet Shuffle: Shane jumps into the closet when Lorelai comes into the diner, but according to Jess, it wasn't necessary.
- Confusion Fu: Lorelai tries this on Luke to get him to agree to talk to a high school class about his job by talking nonsense. He calls her on it, but that doesn't stop her.
- Continuity Nod: Lane mentions Henry when discussing her interest in Dave.
- Death Glare: Rory gives Shane one across the counter.
- Dumb Blonde: Played With. Shane is never shown to be particularly stupid compared to other people her age, but when Rory is annoyed with her chatting on the phone instead of doing her job, naturally she corrects her grammar.Rory: And by the way, there's no such thing as "bloaty." There's "bloat," and there's "bloated," but not "bloaty."Shane: Thanks! That's fascinating!Rory: To you, how ice is made is probably fascinating.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Luke hates being known as "Butch" Danes, his nickname in high school sports.
- Foreseeing My Death: Lorelai has dreamed premonitions about her death. They're all cartoonish and slapstick.
- Foreshadowing: When they are buying the hair dye, Lane gives a passionate speech about how she wants a color that screams "this is me" while waving a bottle of hair dye in the air. Rory points out that that is her – it's black dye. Later, when she gets cold feet, Lane dyes her hair black.
- Funny Background Event: After arriving at the school, Lorelai spots Lane running across the square with her hair full of bleach.
- Genius Bookclub: Jess reads We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews.
- Godwin's Law: When the angry moms come at her for not deflecting their kids' questions, Lorelai makes a joke about her being Poland and the kids being Nazis.
- Grammar Nazi: Rory and Jess both correct Shane's use of "bloaty."
- Hypocrite: Debbie and the other moms are so protective of their kids, they call Lorelai's kid a mistake.
- Informed Flaw: Shane is treated like a ditz, but never shown to be either stupid or intelligent. All we know about her is that she likes to make out with a guy who reads between make-out sessions.
- Love Informant: Rory tells Lane it's really obvious that she likes Dave.
- Love Martyr: Jess accuses Luke of being one when they get into an argument about his relationship with Shane, which Luke feels isn't healthy. Jess turns it around and criticizes Luke for his passive approach in his relationship with Lorelai, doing nice things and hoping she'll fall for him while putting his dating life on hold. Jess is determined not to do this, despite not actually caring for Shane, because he is convinced that the girl he likes doesn't care about him.
- Neologism: Shane feels "bloaty."
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair: Lane attempts to do this with the neon purple hair, but changes her mind before anyone but Rory sees her it. Once her hair is dyed black again, she takes joy in the fact that her hair is still technically dyed (even though it looks no different), and keeps Rory's photo of her purple hair as a reminder.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Lane talks about her feelings for Dave, comparing her "first love" to Rory's relationship with Dean. Lane raves that it must be the best feeling in the world to "love a guy who actually knows you love him and who loves you back," oblivious to Rory's recent conflicted feelings about Dean and Jess. Rory is visibly uncomfortable and keeps trying to change the subject.
- Punny Title: Lorelai is the one who's got class in the title, but it's a high school class and she's a speaker.
- Product Placement: 7-Up as a cure for the burning sensation of hair dye.
- Shout-Out
- Lorelai asks Rory to turn her face back to the front if she dies of her head spinning like Daffy Duck's.
- Lane watches The Johnny Yune Show with her mother.
- Lane's as yet unnamed band practices "London Calling" during band practice.
- Kirk once played "Bohemian Rhapsody" and got shut down by Mrs. Kim. Kirk still can't hear Queen without crying.
- Dave swears he won't let Lane become the band's Pete Best.
- Lane considers pink hair dye, but thinks it's too… P!nk. And too Kelly Osbourne. And too Gwen Stefani.
- Lorelai does an impression of Louis Armstrong.
- Lorelai teases Luke about liking Jimmy Buffett.
- Rory quotes Ace Ventura.
- Lane tries to distract herself by thinking about Vin Diesel.
- Luke sarcastically quotes "zip-a-dee-doo-dah" to express how much he hates his alma mater high school.
- Lorelai quotes Scarlett O'Hara at Luke.
- Lane bleaches her hair and feels like singing "I Have No Brain" looking like the Scarecrow.
- Luke calls the moms approaching Lorelai "High Noon in Stars Hollow".
- Jess references Leave It to Beaver.
- Lorelai insists that Lane's band has to get famous so she can introduce Lorelai to Bono.
- Slapstick: Lorelai's premonitions about the future predict that she will die of slipping on banana peel and falling into a tub of ice cream. There is also a distinct possibility that her head will spin around several times, and she can't believe Rory won't promise to make sure it faces forward at the funeral after everything she has done for her.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Lorelai calls Debbie "Deb." Debbie assumes she is teasing because she remembers that she hates being called Deb, so to hide that she doesn't even remember meeting her before Lorelai pretends she's right.
- Teen Pregnancy: The only thing the Stars Hollow high kids want to know about Lorelai is what she did when she got pregnant at sixteen.
- The Talk: Though Lorelai is only trying to give a talk about business management, the class she is talking to try to turn it into this.
- Verbal Backspace: Most of Lorelai's talk at the high school consists of her trying to explain to the kids that she doesn't want to talk about having Rory at 16, catching Debbie's glare, and trying to talk her way out of what she just said about having a kid at 16.
- Vicariously Ambitious: Mrs. Kim is excited about Lane's Christian college applications. She wants to fill out the questionnaire herself.
- Ye Goode Olde Days: Defied by Luke, who thinks kids were just as stupid when he went to school with them as they are now.
