Recap / Gilmore Girls S 03 E 21

Season 3, episode 21

Here Comes the Son

Rory prepares for finals while Lorelai tries to learn all the phrases she might need in Europe. Jess has left Stars Hollow and arrives in Los Angeles where his father lives with his girlfriend. Lorelai is mad that Emily is still mad that she paid back the Chilton loan.

Rory's study method: Interleaving and chunking subjects. As long as we're assuming this isn't the first time she reads her textbooks all the way through.

Maid of the week: Lupe, who probably gets fired for being too efficient.

Tropes:

• Aerith and Bob: Sasha goes back and forth on how to name her dogs: Angus, Chowder, Rufus, Legolas, Caligula, Mudball, General Lee, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Spot.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Miss Celine calls Rory "Sabrina" because she looks like Audrey Hepburn's character in the movie of the same name.
  • She calls Lorelai "Natalie" because she looks like Natalie Wood.
  • Jimmy calls Sasha "Sash."
• Artistic License – Cars: The way Rory wears her seatbelt is not in any way safe.
• Berserk Button: Don't schedule chill time for Rory when she is busy studying for her finals. It makes her mad.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Jim came up with quite an elaborate story to hide that he visited Jess on the West Coast, which Sasha didn't believe, though she didn't guess the truth either.
  • Emily comes up with an elaborate lie for why Lorelai couldn't stay for dinner even if she'd wanted to, which comes apart when Richard walks in and hears that Rory is staying for dinner.
• Bookends: The episode begins and ends with Rory obsessing about her exams and Lorelai being excited that it's almost "backpacking through Europe" summer vacation.
• Calling Me a Logarithm: Lorelai pretends to think "valedictorian" is Chilton slang for "dirty skank."
• Captain Oblivious: Even knowing Madeline and Louise, Rory doesn't understand what they mean by "jeans are out."
  Rory: Out of what?
• Captain Obvious:
  • In showing Jess around, Jimmy points to various parts of the landscape and names them.
    Jimmy: Ocean.
    Jess: I wondered what that was.
  • Louise wonders aloud who decides whether jean jackets are in or out. Madeline figures it's Marie Claire.
• Continuity Nod: Rory still takes Russian history, like in season one.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Deliberately by Lorelai:
    Lorelai: You have to sleep, it's what keeps you pretty.
    Rory: Who cares if I'm pretty if I fail my finals?
    Lorelai: Okay, you got this so completely backwards.
  • The entire argument between Jim and Sasha about Jess just consists of her asking questions and Jimmy treating them like statements.
• Dark Humor: Jimmy asks if the reason Jess isn't running from the police is that they haven't found the head yet.
• Disappeared Dad: Jimmy feels strongly that he should not have stopped being this.
• Distinction Without a Difference: When informed that jean jackets are out, Rory asks: "Out of what?" Madeline replies "vogue," but Louise thinks she means the magazine "Vogue" and corrects her to "No, Marie-Claire".
• Friend to All Living Things: Sasha certainly has a soft spot for stray cats and dogs, even biters. Jess even suggests pretending he's a dog so he can crash.
• Gaslighting: Emily is adamant that they never had a "dinner time" in the Gilmore house, despite Lorelai remembering it was 7:00 PM her entire childhood.
• Guinness Episode: Invoked by Sasha thinking it's more likely that Jess is attempting to jump across America on one foot than that he came to California to see his estranged father.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Lorelai instructs Rory to stop being intimidated by Paris, then immediately acts scared when Paris shows up.
  • Sasha lets stray animals crash at her place, but Jimmy isn't sure she'll let Jess, even though she kinda told Jimmy he could.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Listening to her mother's string of obvious lies, Lorelai realizes where she gets her fast-talking from.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Sasha's daughter Lily moves invisibly between hiding places.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: For a spinoff about Jess that didn't happen.
• Punny Title: The episode title is a pun on "here comes the sun."
• Refuge in Audacity: Madeline and Louise casually rip out a page of every yearbook they sell. The only one to call them on it is Brad, but even he accepts it when they take it one step further and tear off the picture he wanted and hand it to him.
• Right Behind Me: When Lorelai tells Rory on the phone from across the room that she'll have to stand up to Paris at some point, Paris walks up behind her. Subverted, since she doesn't seem to have heard the part about Rory being intimidated by her.
• Rule of Three:
  • Jess manages to introduce himself to Sasha on the third attempt.
  • Sasha's pets either followed her home, are there to hang out, or just needed a place to crash.
  • Lorelai tried to avert this trope with traffic tickets, but fails.
• Shout-Out:
  • The episode title is a pun on The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun."
  • Johnny Depp is who you ask about in France, and Antonio Banderas is who you ask for in Spain, according to Lorelai. In Italy it's all about Gore Vidal according to Rory.
  • Rory sometimes has nightmares that Christiane Amanpour is really stupid.
  • When Rory hits Bolshevik revolution overload, oh hey, Anne Boleyn is going down.
  • Lorelai claims the reason Rory can't hear through the wall is that she put kryptonite in her waffles.
  • Sasha refers to herself as "the man with the beard" in The Wizard of Oz.
  • Sasha's dogs are named, among ordinary dog names, Legolas, General Lee, Caligula, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis.
  • Celine advised Audrey Hepburn to get speech therapy. She thinks Rory looks like Hepburn in Sabrina, and Lorelai like Natalie Wood.
  • Tova Borgnine supposedly showed Celine why you shouldn't wear green around grass.
  • Paris doesn't want to be "Felicity without the hair issues."
  • Olivia de Havilland put a stop to Miss Celine's retirement plans.
  • Emily pretends to have read The Lovely Bones.
  • In a last ditch attempt to avoid telling Rory about Jess leaving, Lorelai suggests the reason Luke runs away from them is that he's seen the horror movie The Glow.
  • Jimmy finds it ridiculous that Jess thinks he didn't want to talk to him when he came to Connecticut, since that would mean he travelled cross-country just to listen to a David Bowie song. Granted, classic Ziggy, but still.
  • Jess assures Jimmy he doesn't want a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles birthday party".
  • Lorelai comments that some dipstick named Shauna thinks Rory was in South Pacific.
  • Lorelai calls Rory "my little Holly Hunter in Broadcast News."
• The Un-Hug: Lorelai gives Paris a hug in an attempt to get her to relax. Paris doesn't get it.
• Verbal Backspace: Jess begins to tell Sasha he's her boyfriend's son but changes his mind and says he's Jess to see if she had heard of him before.

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