Writer:	Amy Sherman-Palladino
Director:	Sarah Pia Anderson
Star:	Keiko Agena (Lane Kim),  Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore),  Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore),  Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore),  Edward Herrmann (Richard Gilmore),  Yanic Truesdale (Michel Gerard),  Melissa McCarthy (Sookie St. James),  Scott Patterson (Luke Danes)
Recurring Role:	Sean Gunn (Kirk Gleason),  Liza Weil (Paris Geller),  Jared Padalecki (Dean Forester),  Chad Michael Murray (Tristan DuGray),  Liz Torres (Miss Patty),  Sally Struthers (Babette Dell),  Ted Rooney (Morey Dell),  Teal Redmann (Louise Grant),  Jackson Douglas (Jackson Melville)
Guest Star:	David Booth (Lars),  Bridget Ann White (Mitzi),  Nora Zehetner (Girl #2),  David J. Coleman (Waiter),  Jonathan Ficcadenti (Kid #3),  Sharmila Devar (Harvard Rep),  Greg Rikaart (Kid #4)

This episode is the first time that we start to see Paris' infatuation with Tristan. (edit) This episode serves as a bookend with season 6 (Rory's 21st birthday), particularly the scene where Lorelai climbs in bed with Rory. We learn Rory was born at just after 4 a.m., by the time on the clock here reading 4:03 a.m. In this scene, Lorelai talks to Rory about the night she was born (a tradition between them, we learn). In season six, when the mother and daughter are on the outs, Rory has a dream that Madeline Albright is her mother and climbs into her bed at 4:03 a.m. The dream almost exactly mirrors the dialogue here. Incidentally, the furry pink clock in this scene (on Rory's night table) is also used in the season six scene and is mentioned by Lorelai on The Deer Hunters as a clock that purrs. (edit) This is the first of many times that Emily insinuates that Luke and Lorelai are more than just friends. (edit) This is the first of only 2 times in the series where Rory's birthday is commemmorated. The two birthdays shown in the series were the big milestones--16 and 21. (edit) When Emily and Richard first come in Sookie and some guy are standing in front of them, the scene goes to Rory and Lorelai and then back to Emily and Richard who now have no one standing in front of them. Lorelai then goes to the kitchen and tells Sookie her parents are here and Sookie responds as if this is brand new information. (edit)

Emily: (About Rory) I spent days planning this party, making sure everything was perfect. Making sure the food, the music, the guests, everything was perfect. And she humiliated me in front of my friends.
Lorelai: You don't know her! You've never tried to know her! Like you never tried to know me!
Emily: Oh, you'd like to think that, wouldn't you? I know you perfectly. Do you think I sit going "Why does Lorelai do this? Or that? I don't know. She's such a mystery to me."
Lorelai: That's it. I give up.
Emily: Oh, if I had a dollar for every time you gave up-
Lorelai: (In tears) You could pay for this party, couldn't you? (edit) Richard: (asking about Tristan) Who's your friend?
Rory: I don't know but this is Tristan. (edit) (Lorelai and Rory are in Lorelai's room in Emily's house)
Rory: I guess I should go downstairs and apologize to Grandma.
Lorelai: Oh, give it a minute...
Emily:(appearing in doorway) There you are!
Lorelai: She'll find us. (edit) Luke: That's the wrong table.
Rory: Since when is there a right table?
Luke: Since the coffee cake I baked for you and the stupid balloons I blew up for you are at that table over there. (edit) Sookie: Hangover?
Lorelai: Emily.
Sookie: Oh. Got it, moving on. (edit)

When Rory and Lane go to Luke's diner, he says that he blew up balloons for her and put coffee cake on the table, but when they get there, the balloons are floating. Balloons can only float if there is helium in it, not when there's air. (edit) When Rory attends the college fair, her mind is still set on attending Harvard University. However, she's wearing Yale colors, blue and white, and ends up attending college at Yale in later years.

Possible Explanation: Blue and white also appear to be Chilton colors. As she is currently attending Chilton, this isn't that odd. (edit) Rory mentions to Lane at the diner that she has only been at Chilton "a couple of months." But that particular day is October 8th {her birthday}. Are you trying to say that Chilton started the semester in early August? That's not odd it itself, but factor in that Rory had transferred from Stars Hollow High. That means the public school has ALREADY started. I know of no school system {other than North Carolina} that starts their academic year before Labor Day and during the heart of summer.

EDIT: She may have been using this term loosely. She had probably fallen into a routine that made her feel like she'd always gone there. You know the feeling...a month can go by real slow!! Also there are many schools on the East Coast that start before Labor Day and are not private. (edit) When we see Richard giving Rory a birthday card, Richard has a cigar in his hand. Then Rory says "you didn't have to do that," and the camera quickly goes back to Richard. Then we see Richard take a card out of his jacket pocket with the same hand he had the cigar in, but we don't see the cigar or smoke again after that. (edit) On the invitation given to Tristan, it clearly says that Rory was born October 8. However, October 8 was a Sunday in the year 2000 and not a Friday. We know that Rory's birthday party and her actual birthday were both on a Friday because Lorelai tried to get out of her mother's birthday party for Rory, but Emily said that since Lorelai and Rory hadn't planned anything, they would have the party instead of Friday night dinner since it was Rory's actual birthday. (edit)

Lorelai: Well, you know what they say when you assume things.
Emily: No, I don't, what do they say?
Lorelai: That you...shouldn't.
Emily: Very clever.

The expression is, "When you assume, you make an 'ass' out of U (you) and ME." (edit) Lorelai: (about Emily's plans for Rory's birthday party) She did agree to make the string quartet learn "Like a Virgin".

"Like a Virgin" is a song by Madonna. (edit) Lorelai: (sighs, hands Rory a drink) Here.
Rory: What is it?
Lorelai: A Shirley Temple
Rory: What are you drinking?
Lorelai: A Shirley Temple Black.
Rory: (sniffs at it) Wow.
Lorelai: I got your Good Ship Lollipop right here, mister.

In 1950, at the age of 22, Shirley Temple, retired from film, married businessman Charles Black, taking his name. A "Shirley Temple-Black" is a Shirley Temple with a shot of Kahlua, an "Adult version" of the children's bar drink made with 7-Up and Grenadine.
Good Ship Lollipop, of course, is the trademark song of actress Shirley Temple from the movie Bright Eyes, but clearly also a reference to the state enough ST-B's would put you in, too, singing and dancing. (edit) Lorelai: (to Rory) Yeah, huh? That was a pretty Freaky Friday moment we had back there.

Freaky Friday is a book (which was made into a movie) about a mother and daughter who have difficulties understanding each other. They both come to know one another in a completely different way when they switch bodies. (edit) Lorelai: (to Jackson) You didn't build one of those machines like in The Fly did you? We're not going to find you wandering the streets wearing a raspberry head crying, "Eat me!"

The Fly is a 1986 remake of a 1958 sci-fi film about an eccentric scientist whose teleportation device inadvertently melds him with a fly. (edit)