Nag Hammadi Is Where They Found the Gnostic Gospels
It's a cold day in Stars Hollow. Jess takes his car to the mechanic. Lane follows Rory home from Yale. Liz sells ear rings from Luke's counter and brings her new boyfriend T.J. to meet Luke and Jess. It doesn't end too well, with Jess berating Luke for wanting to fix Liz. Lorelai hears about it and berates Jess for being an ungrateful jerk. Lorelai brings Rory to a fundraiser and pretends to be there with Jason. Rory is the only guest who seems to care about the thing they are fundraising for, obscure manuscripts. There is another festival in Stars Hollow.
Richard and Jason's secretaries: Shawna and Marjorie.
Tropes
- Black Comedy: Lorelai speculates that maybe Sylvia Plath wasn't "crazy", just cold. As though sticking your head in an oven is a sane solution to being cold.
- Blatant Lies:
- Lorelai tells Jess to leave Rory alone because she has moved on and is happy, even though Rory is thrown by the fact Jess is back in town and has a lot of mixed feelings towards him.
- Liz's lie about not being in contact with Jess comes apart when he shows up knowing stuff Luke only told Liz earlier that day.
- Brick Joke: Rory shouting "My town, I leave!" at Jess at the Winter Festival as the reference to the earlier conversation with Babette and Lorelai about Jess's odd behavior.
- Captain Obvious:
- Jess declares that he's leaving before he walks away.
- When told the story, Lorelai comments, "way to state the obvious".
- T.J. informs Luke that he is not Liz.
- Luke points out that he cut himself on the window, Lorelai remarks that that's why it needs fixing.
- When Lorelai tells drunk Luke about her running into Liz and thinking she was him, he points out that unlike his sister, he's a man.
- When asked about Floyd's body language, Lorelai says all signs pointed to him being alive.
- Jess declares that he's leaving before he walks away.
- Complexity Addiction: Lorelai mocks her parents' obsession with filling seats and making the women present pretend to be in relationships by suggesting that she stuff a coat under her blouse to pretend to be pregnant and have Rory dig a tunnel.
- Continuity Nod: Subverted. A big deal was made about Richard's secretary Marjorie not following him to a new firm in season two, but now Richard has a secretary named Marjorie, and nothing is made of it.
- Embarrassing Nickname:
- Lucas "Butch" Danes.
- Inverted with T.J., or Thomas Jefferson, whose real name is Gary.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: Rory wants her own moment to leave Jess, who has been avoiding her, but her attempt at this is just to run aimlessly in zig-zags around the town square. Jess lampshades this by telling her they look like idiots.
- Festival Episode: It's time for Stars Hollow's Winter Festival again.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Emily is stressed out about only filling half the tables at a fundraiser and needs a gimlet.
- Insert Song: They play "Mona Lisa" by Grant Lee Philips at the Stars Hollow festival.
- It's All About Me: Lorelai jokingly makes all of Emily's complaints about her.
- Love Confession: Jess, to Rory. He doesn't stick around to hear her thoughts on the matter.
- Mistaken for Romance: Liz, actually, figures Lorelai is Luke's wife Nicole based on Lorelai looking like Luke's type and asking her to remind him to fix her window.
- Not Big Enough for the Two of Us: Discussed. Rory interprets Jess bailing from any room she's in as him being angry and leaving in a huff, and gets annoyed—if anyone has the right to be angry, it's her and Stars Hollow is her hometown, not his, so she should get to be the one to leave in a huff. Lorelai and Babette agree with her, and are angry on her behalf that Jess has dared to return. Jess, of course, wasn't there for this conversation (and is avoiding her because he also agrees with this sentiment), so when they run into each other for the third time and Rory childishly declares "My town, I leave!" and runs away, he's understandably confused.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Inverted. Lorelai expresses sympathy that Jason's father is mad about Jason leaving his firm to work with Richard. Jason doesn't understand what she means. Lorelai points out that he was so cold to him. Jason assures her that is their normal.
- A Rare Sentence: "I'm gonna make out in the coatroom, don't eat my chicken."Rory: That's going on your tombstone.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Luke likes the band-aids with Barbie motif.
- The Reason You Suck:
- Jess tells Luke in no uncertain terms that it's really annoying that he tries to solve other people's problems.
- Lorelai learns of this and hunts down Jess to give him a speech about how much he sucks for being that mean to the man who gave him a home for over a year.
- When Jess and Rory's paths cross for a third time, Jess asks to talk and Rory lays into him about leaving and his radio silence.
- Rule of Three: Jess and Rory's paths cross three times.
- Sarcasm Mode:
- When Lorelai guesses "murderer" for the unidentified sleeping guest, Rory points out that it's unlikely that he would take a nap first.
- How Gypsy conducts business.
- Luke deals with T.J. using this, like when T.J. offers Luke Luke's beer from Luke's own fridge.
- Shout-Out:
- The title mentions The Gnostic Gospels.
- When they find an unidentified person sleeping in their house, Rory guesses it's Robert Downey Jr..
- Rory wonders if Lorelai will have Luke fix the window before or after their reenactment of Alive.
- Lorelai thinks Jess could pull off a good "Adrian!"
- Lorelai thinks maybe Sylvia Plath was just cold.
- Jess is reading Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them in a nook in the bookstore.
- Rory mentions Frances Farmer.
- Jason recalls meeting his father at an Aquaman party.
- Luke says he'd go to a Styx and REO Speedwagon festival if it weren't for Journey also being there, they freak him out.
- Stealth Insult: Not that Emily's intent gets by Lorelai, but her "it's not your looks that keep men away" comment qualifies.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Downplayed, but Rory and Jess run into each other at Weston's presumably because they assumed the other would be at Luke's.
- Stunned Silence: Safe to say, when Rory said she had imagined "a hundred different scenarios" of her and Jess meeting again, him dropping an Anguished Declaration of Love wasn't one of them.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Liz tells Lorelai, without being asked, that Luke knows she's borrowing his truck.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Invoked and Played for Laughs. Lorelai goes downstairs and sits on a person wrapped in blankets who is sleeping on the couch, believing it to be Rory. When it turns out not to be Rory, Lorelai jumps straight to "murderer, who has come to kill us", to which Rory replies that this assumed murderer must have felt like taking a nap before getting around to killing them.
- Title Drop: Subverted. The speaker at the event says they'd still be rooting around Nag Hammadi, and Lorelai naturally asks what Nag Hammadi is. The episode title provides the answer, but it's never said in the episode.
- Verbal Backspace: Lorelai when she realizes she is not screaming at Luke, just someone driving his car.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Rory gives Jess a piece of her mind for leaving without a word last season.
