Season 3, Episode 07
They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They?
(Original air date: 5/22/02)It's the annual Stars Hollow Dance Marathon and Lorelai is determined to win the trophy. She presses Rory into service as her partner, while Dean comes along to support her. Tension brews when Jess crashes the marathon with his girlfriend, Shane, in tow. He and Rory snipe at each other all night. A frustrated Dean finally has had enough and publicly calls Rory out on her attraction to Jess, leading to a loud and angry break up in front of the whole town.
Friday night dinner: super-chicken
Tropes
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Donna Delain, Kirk's dance partner.
- Agony of the Feet: Rory's feet hurt by the end of the marathon. Dancing for 24 hours will do that.
- Almighty Mom: Mrs. Kim bustles over when Jess talks to Lane about Rory over the sandwiches she's serving. And scares him.Mrs. Kim: Who are you?
- Babies Make Everything Better:
- Jackson wants four kids in four years.
- Inverted with Luke who refers to childbirth as "dropping another sucker in this mess."
- Blatant Lies: If Stanley's wife was going to do physical checks at the dance anyway, she was always going to find out that Lorelai wasn't deformed.
- Brick Joke: Rory describes how every year, Taylor gets “punch drunk” at the dance marathon and starts telling stories about how he always wanted to be a magician. Later in the episode, we see him doing exactly that to an uninterested Miss Patty.
- Call-Back: After Rory leaves the dance marathon, Jess finds her at the bridge at Larson's pond, which is a significant place for Jess and where he took her on their picnic lunch. The framing of the shot is also nearly identical to Luke finding Jess after the car accident, and yes, that is the bridge Luke pushed him off of.
- Captain Obvious: Lorelai is surprised that her vintage shoes break since they haven't been worn a lot. Rory points out that "not a lot" in sixty years is still a lot.
- Child Hater: Downplayed and discussed. Luke explains why he doesn't like kids and Lorelai tells him he doesn't have to.
- Comically Missing the Point: Madeline and Louise don't get why the 75th anniversary of the Franklin is more important than the 74th.
- Contemplation Location: Jess's thinking spot has now also become Rory's, as she retreats to the bridge to process the break-up and come to terms with her feelings for Jess.
- Everyone Can See It: Dean calls Rory out on obviously being into Jess.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Stanley's wife isn't happy with Lorelai coming to the dance looking like she hasn't recently been in a traffic accident, even though she's no longer dancing with Stanley.
- Heroic BSoD: Rory has this after Dean abandons her on the dancefloor.
- I Have to Go Iron My Dog: Downplayed. Having made sure Dean and Rory are definitely broken up, Jess says he has to go take care of something, leaving Rory a bit puzzled since he just left a rather personal conversation. He's going to break up with Shane, but she doesn't know that.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Lorelai insists that the competition is about endurance, not style, then immediately asks Rory to flip her.
- Innocently Insensitive:
- Lorelai can't understand why Stanley Appleman would get mad at her for insisting she doesn't want to sleep with him.
- Kirk will not let the crying teenager hugging her mother in the middle of the floor ruin his victory lap.
- "Knock Knock" Joke: Lorelai instructs Rory to tell her a joke to keep her awake.Rory: Knock knock.Lorelai: Haha, that's a good one.
- Love Informant:
- Rory informs Paris that Jamie likes her. Paris can't quite wrap her head around it.
- Dean becomes possibly the hundredth person to confront Rory with her feelings for Jess. Unfortunately for all involved, this was during his break-up speech.
- Memetic Loser: In one last attempt to convince her mother to ease up on Kirk, Rory points out all the ways in which he is a total loser.
- Once a Season: Invoked. Rory told Dean about all the predictable things that happen in every dance marathon: Andrew gets mad and walks off in the first fifteen minutes; Taylor starts doing magic tricks; Kirk takes a victory lap to the theme from Rocky...
- One Drink Will Kill the Baby: Sookie accidentally agrees to "four in four," Jackson wanting four kids in four years. Lorelai invokes this trope by pointing out that if Sookie's gonna be pregnant and/or breastfeeding for four years straight she won't be able to have a cocktail for the same length of time.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Paris is late to class because she overslept. The teacher thinks she's joking. Then Rory asks if she can skip a Franklin meeting to go to a town dance with her mom, and Paris is okay with it. It is of course because of Jamie, and how shocked she is that a guy she likes likes her.
- Operation: Jealousy: Started by Jess when he shows up with Shane and tries everything he can to get on Rory's nerves. Rory takes the bait and counters it by using Dean. Shane is pretty indifferent (or doesn't realize) she's being used, but Dean definitely notices and does not appreciate it.
- Product Placement: McDonald's
- Relationship Upgrade: For Jess and Rory.
- Schmuck Bait: When the man who danced with Lorelai at last year's dance marathon, Henry "Ho-Ho" McAffee, declared that he was hungry, Kirk decided to dance past him waving a McDonald's apple pie. It worked. Ho-Ho let go of Lorelai's hand and they lost.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: Dave comes up with a string of lies on the spot, telling Mrs. Kim his parents are in private Bible study nearby and he will bring them by.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title is a play on They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
- Dean suggests that Dave has met a girl who is a major Who-fan and that's why he's listening to The Who.
- Rory declares Lorelai "the Howard Roarke of Stars Hollow", referencing a book she recommended to Jess back in the basket auction episode.
- Andrew's girlfriend claims to have dated Liam Neeson.
- Lane accuses Jess of being a Tony Manero wannabe.
- Sookie claims to already be aware that her husband isn't Winona Ryder.
- Jess reads The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann at the dance marathon.
- Kirk takes his victory lap to the Rocky theme.
- Stage Magic: Taylor tells Miss Patty about pulling coins out of people's ears, and says he levitated a rottweiler once.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Enforce by Lorelai when she tells Dean to pick a team, whatever it is, it needs him to hold Rory up while she's out.
- Teen Pregnancy: Lorelai jokes that having another kid might not be as much fun without biology finals and headgear.
- Trash Talk: Kirk does this to his competition on the dancefloor.
- Troll: Dean thinks the girl strategy of calling a guy and immediately hanging up is so ridiculous, he starts suggesting ways to interpret whatever Lane hears before hanging up as him having a girl over.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: One of Lorelai's heels falls off after 23 hours of dancing.
- What Have We Ear?: When Taylor is sleep-deprived, he starts hallucinating that he's pulling coins out of people's ears.
