Season 7, episode 20
Lorelai? Lorelai?
Rory dreams that she gets expelled from Chilton, that her mother needs a break from her, that Paris and Doyle own her childhood home and consider her a charity case, and that her job is picking up trash.
Luke is going on a boat trip with April. Rory isn't getting her job offer back. Lorelai thinks Luke wearing a hat she gave him years ago is a gesture. Zach gets a job offer as guitarist for local band The Vapor Rub on their tour.
Rory tanks her final, bringing part of it home. April cancels the boat trip vacation because she gets to go to summer camp. Babette and Miss Patty do karaoke. Rory thinks Lorelai should give it a go.
Logan asks Lorelai's permission to propose to Rory.
Tropes
- Actor Allusion: Lauren Graham is from Hawai'i, where Rory dreams Lorelai is taking off to.
- Blue Screen Of Death: Rory gets a version of this from all the rejections she receives.
- Call-Back:
- Rory's nightmare is to have a career in community service, which she did in season six.
- Rory still thinks the D-grade is horrible, like in season one.
- When Rory lost track of Chilton student Anna Fairchild while she was visiting Yale, she said Chilton was going to retroactively kick her out, which she dreams happens in this episode.
- Continuity Snarl: Not too many episodes ago, Rory said her twelfth birthday was ice skating in Central Park. While that doesn't entirely preclude it being Huckleberry Finn-themed, she can't have also spent it in the Mark Twain museum in Hartford like she says, seeing as Central Park is in New York and Hartford is in Connecticut.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Parodied. Paris and her fellow pre-meds try to order a corpse cake for their graduation party. However, Hartford bakeries draw the line at dead people pastry, so they have to settle for an erotic cake of a naked man instead.
- Hollywood Tonedeaf: Zigzagged like this trope has never been zigzagged on karaoke night. Kirk sings okay, Lorelai misses all the notes, and Babette sounds like an active sandpaper machine. Miss Patty sings well, though.
- Karaoke Bonding Scene: Lorelai sings I Will Always Love You. The first verse goes to Rory, but since Luke is there and Lorelai is tipsy, he gets the second verse. The refrain is probably shared.
- Literal-Minded: Zach wonders if he should be this about potato rolls, as he is not about finger sandwiches.
- Nightmare Sequence: Downplayed. Rory has a dream that she's back at Chilton and getting expelled, her mother abandons her to go live in Hawai'i, that Paris and Doyle live in her childhood home with their kids, and that her career is community service.
- Product Placement: Bernie's Barnacle in Maine.
- Shout-Out:
- Paris in Rory's dream mentions The Satanic Verses.
- Rory's final is irony from John Milton to Lord Byron.
- Babette and Miss Patty discuss whether people listen to "Weird Al" Yankovic for the irony.
- Miss Patty wants to sing Barbra Streisand at the karaoke bar.
- Lorelai tells Luke he was warned about going on a boat trip by Dead Calm, Open Water, Das Boot, and Titanic.
- Babette and Miss Patty say good-bye in The Sound of Music.
- Rory feels she could have written about Paradise Lost for hours.
- To cheer Rory up, Lorelai points out Alanis Morissette struggled a lot before Jagged Little Pill. Part of her struggle was dating Dave Coulier.
- Jackson Pollock also struggled before his breakthrough.
- Mark Twain had to work as a steam boat pilot before he made it as an author.
- Rory was a huge fan of Huckleberry Finn around the age of twelve.
- Detroit isn't just about Eminem, Iggy Pop and Motown according to Zach.
- Rory wants Lorelai to sing early Madonna at karaoke night.
- In Zach's opinion, if you're gonna do Boy George, at least commit to the high heels and make-up.
- Lorelai sings I Will Always Love You. Lane wonders if it's Whitney Houston, but Rory knows it's more Dolly Parton.
- Take That!: Alanis Morissette may have been successful from the start, but that was in Canada.
- Themed Party: Rory's 12th birthday party was Huck Finn-themed.
- Title Drop: When Logan asks Lorelai for permission to propose to Rory, she is frozen in shock, and the episode ends with Logan asking: "Lorelai? Lorelai?".
