Season 2, episode 8
The Ins and Outs of Inns
Lorelai and Sookie get excited about the inn they want to start. Emily asks Rory to sit for a painting. Jess is bored and fakes a murder. The owner of the Independence Inn, Mia, comes to visit. She encourages Lorelai to start her own inn so she can sell the Independence inn, which makes Lorelai doubt her decision. She and Sookie have a fight.
Maid of the week: Marcella
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Rory tries very hard to hide that she found Jess's fake homicide prank funny.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: After the townspeople have accused Jess of stealing and setting off fire alarms, Lorelai claims to have heard rumors that he controls the weather and wrote the screenplay to Glitter.
- Blatant Lies: Taylor claims to have started the meeting early because of an issue in the business community, but Luke sees through it because he owns a business in town and yet wasn't invited.
- Brick Joke:
- Lorelai and Rory named their house "the Crap Shack." When Lorelai tries to come up with a different name for the Dragonfly property than "the Rachel Property" she mentions that "the Crap Shack" is taken. Later Michel independently comes up with "the Out House."
- Taylor complains that Mrs. Lanahan drove to Woodbury to buy lettuce when his store was closed for a brief fake murder investigation. When the townspeople try to verify it, they find that Mrs. Lanahan has fallen asleep in her seat. Lorelai comments that the old woman really shouldn't drive anymore.
- Captain Oblivious: Fran acts like she has never even heard of death.
- Censorship by Spelling: Taylor and Luke's argument about whether Jess faked a murder.
- Chalk Outline: Jess draws one to fake a murder scene, much to the horror of Stars Hollow residents.
- Comically Missing the Point: A Stars Hollow resident thinks the empty chalk outline on the sidewalk means someone stole the body.
- Continuity Nod:
- Lorelai and Sookie named the Dragonfly property "the Rachel Property" because Rachel's picture got them into it.
- Lorelai asks Luke to fix the broken goat on the chuppah he made her.
- Jess's garden gnome theft gets mentioned. Luke says he returned Pierpon.
- Continuity Snarl: Did Lorelai run away when she was seventeen, like repeatedly stated in season one, or fifteen years before Rory turned seventeen, as stated in this episode?
- Crazy Enough to Work: Painting Rory reading a book, instead of on a throne holding a swan like Emily wanted.
- Distinction Without a Difference:
- Lorelai subverts this by insisting that her first business venture is identical to Luke s first venture into business, except for the fact that she is not doing it alone, she is not okay with failure, and has someone to learn the entrepreneurship ropes from, namely Luke himself.
- Taylor thinks the policewoman is doing this when she says there is no dead body outside his store, just a chalk outline of a body outside his store.
- Rory reminds Lorelai that Taylor said there would be consequences if the were late to another town meeting, but Lorelai reminds her that he actually said there would be severe consequences.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": He'll make an exception for Mia, but Luke does not want to be called Lucas.
- Freak Out: Lorelai freaks out about the enormity of her and Sookie's business venture.
- Funny Background Event: Jess pointedly ignoring a diner customer gesturing for more coffee, despite the fact that he is clearly holding coffee.
- Genius Ditz: Sookie's tendencies toward this finally get brought up. She is great at cooking, but couldn't write a budget if her life depended on it.
- Hidden Depths: After Rory's "Reason You Suck" Speech, Jess quietly shows his gratitude to Luke by fixing a toaster in the diner that had been broken, while denying he did it.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his commitment to dark pranks, Jess fixed Luke's broken toaster without being asked.
- Literal-Minded: Emily tells them Richard is in Akron, Ohio, Lorelai incredulously replies "get out of here!," which Emily takes offence to.Emily: I will not get out of here!
- Metaphorgotten: Luke tells Lorelai there's no button you can push to make starting a business easier, so Lorelai wonders if there's a lever she can pull or a knob she can turn.
- Mind Screw: Luke defends Jess by saying he'll deal with a problem that he doesn't necessarily agree he has.
- Obfuscating Stupidity:
- Does Fran really think she'll live forever?
- Does Mia really not understand Michel's accent or is it just an inside joke between her and the Gilmore girls? Is it only when he's sucking up?
- Papa Wolf: Don't hold a secret meeting about Luke's nephew if you don't want Luke's enmity.
- Pun: Sookie comes up with the name "The In Inn" for the Dragonfly B&B.
- "Reason You Suck" Speech: Rory chews Jess out for making Luke the town pariah for his behavior.
- Running Joke:
- What to rename the "Rachel Property."
- Mia's inability to understand what Michel says. When he finally does she is very proud.
- How Rory and Lorelai should only ever own fake animals keeps running with the wooden goat they named Gilbert. He lost his head and can Luke please reattach it?
- Shout-Out:
- When Lorelai sat for her portrait she was going for a Billy Idol thing.
- Sookie hopes the owner of the Dragonfly property isn't Donald Trump.
- Luke is accused of having been a Trekkie in his teens.
- Emily wants Rory to pose for her painting sitting regally on her throne with a swan next to her. Swans and thrones are so Siegfried and Roy if you ask Lorelai.
- Lorelai links Jess to Glitter and Zulu.
- Town meetings remind Jess of To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Rory accuses Jess of trying to be Holden Caulfield.
- Rory seems to be reading Moby-Dick in the painting.
- Lorelai sarcastically calls the painting of Rory "a notch below Rembrandt."
- Small Town Boredom: Jess fakes a murder to spice it up a little.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Mia claims Lorelai came to Stars Hollow exactly fifteen years previously, in which case Rory would have been two and Lorelai eighteen, although it was thoroughly established in season one that Lorelai ran away at seventeen, which would have put Rory's age between 6 months and one-and-a-half at the time.
