Month: March 2018

Valium

RORY: Can we go for a weekend [to stay with Richard and Emily]?
LORELAI: We’ll see how much Valium Auntie Sookie can lend Mommy, okay?

A possible confirmation that it was Valium that Sookie gave Lorelai when she hurt her back on the night of Rory’s dance.

It also confirms that Lorelai and Rory aren’t a “democracy”, as she told her daughter in the first episode. Here Rory wants to spend a weekend with her grandparents in Martha’s Vineyard, and they never go because Lorelai doesn’t want to. Rory could have gone by herself, but Lorelai doesn’t facilitate or encourage that either. Rory probably could have forced Lorelai, but if she did that she wouldn’t have been Rory (and she and Lorelai would never have had the close bond they valued so highly).

Touché

LORELAI: The both of you are going directly to hell, I hope you know that.
RICHARD: Well, at least we’ll be well rested.
LORELAI: Touché.

In the sport of fencing, touché is said to acknowledge a hit made by your opponent; it means “touch” in French. In colloquial use, it acknowledges during a conversation that the other person has made a good point at your expense. This is a slight callback to Richard’s fencing prowess in college, mentioned earlier.

The Rental in Martha’s Vineyard

LORELAI: What’s going on?
RICHARD: Oh, your mother and I have just secured a place on Martha’s Vineyard.

Richard and Emily are pleased at the price they got their summer rental on Martha’s Vineyard for, due to the unexpected death of the previous tenant. We don’t know what kind of house it is, except that it is said to be a fine property with a library, and larger grounds than they had before, suggesting something pretty fancy.

Today you could rent a very nice house on Martha’s Vineyard for around $5000 a week in the summer, but a luxury property might be $10 000-$15 000 a week, and one on the waterfront could easily cost around $40 000 a week.