Season 6, episode 2
Fight Face
Rory's first day at community service. As tradition dictates, it's in the second episode of the season. Lorelai looks at pets to adopt, which worries Miss Patty to no end, but she ends up adopting a dog and naming it Paul Anka. Meanwhile, Rory is bored out of her mind at her grandparents' house. Luke decides to remodel Lorelai's house instead of buying the Twickham house. Rory goes to Luke's after her first day and learns from him that her mother got engaged and didn't tell her.
Lorelai has owned a hamster, a rabbit, and a turtle. She adopts a rescue dog.
Maid of the week: Esperanza, whose crime may have been speaking Spanish, which she couldn't help since she grew up in Guatemala. Later replaced by Draguta from Romania.
Tropes
- Absurd Phobia: Cocoa is scared of popcorn, framed pictures, and lint. It also freaks him out when his owner drinks anything, thinking they're gonna drown. Words that begin with a Q are also a touchy subject for him.
- Angrish: Lorelai discovers a hole in her bedroom wall and becomes unable to form sentences. Luke sees it, realizes it's T.J., and also becomes unable to form sentences.
- Apologizes a Lot: Rory on her first day of community service.
- Berserk Button: Luke gets inexplicably angry about there being a frisbee on Lorelai's roof.
- Bilingual Bonus: Rory tries to speak Spanish with the Guatemalan maid. Made funny by the fact that Alexis Bledel is Mexican and her first language is Spanish.
- Brick Joke: The badness of the remake of Bewitched.
- Comically Missing the Point: To a question on whether being engaged feels good, Lorelai answers that the Twickham house is a bit on the Versailles side.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Literally. Sookie makes a few childish jokes about Luke and Lorelai, but when Lorelai makes a "that's what she said" joke, Sookie thinks she's being too childish. Lorelai asks why she can't be twelve when Sookie can be twelve.
- Lorelai thinks Luke has no right to bemoan the inconsistencies in Star Wars movies, but has every right herself to complain about the remake of Bewitched.
- Informed Attribute: Lorelai comes up wih a number of quirks for her dog, a couple of which seem legitimate.
- Like Mother, Like Daughter: Listening to Emily educate Rory about the prison system, you suddenly understandwhere Lorelai gets her tendency to list things off while adding commentary.
- Meaningful Rename:
- T.J. wants to change his already fake initials to "A.J." so he can be in the first chapter of the phone book, as few people read it to the end.
- The new dog, Cocoa, who Lorelai plans to gradually rename Paul Anka.
- Metaphorgotten:
- Lorelai gets woken early in the morning and says, like T.J. just put it: "the sun ain't even warm yet."
- T.J. claims that "okay" to a self-starter is like glue to a horse.
- Never My Fault: T.J. sledgehammers a hole in Lorelai's bedroom wall. It's not his fault, though. The guy (Luke) said "okay" so he just went for it.
- Plot Hole: Luke is bothered by how much Anakin couldn't fly four feet up a hill to defeat Kenobi.
- Product Placement: Club soda.
- Replacement Goldfish: Cocoa/Paul Anka is Lorelai's replacement for Rory.
- Shout-Out
- Sookie's "Lorelai is gonna bolt" litany is like a Kenny Chesney song.
- Sookie points out that Lorelai's eyes get very Runaway Bride when she thinks of bolting.
- Luke is bothered by the plot holes in Revenge of the Sith. Later on he declares himself victor of an argument with Lorelai because he's on a roof and she's on the ground.
- Lorelai argues that you can't argue with George Lucas because he owns a city.
- Lorelai feels they ruined Bewitched, but not by casting Nicole Kidman.
- Miss Patty thinks watching March of the Penguins is as close to an animal as Lorelai should ever be.
- Lorelai renames her dog, Cocoa, Paul Anka.
- Richard is busier than "blonde beanpole" Ann Coulter.
- Lorelai wants to hold onto her house when they move to the Twickham house, so she can rent it out to Korn or Iggy Pop.
- Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson… the members of the D.A.R. discuss which Founding Father was better in bed. One thinks James Madison.
- Lorelai can't get much clarity out of Luke's explanations of construction work, declaring it the worst first draft of Who's On First? ever.
- Title Drop: Emily tells Rory she better leave her fight face at home when dropping her off for community service.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: 300 hours in six months is about twelve hours a week, so Rory could have worked in a part-time job if she wanted.
