“Where are you, Heaven?”

CHRISTOPHER: Where are you, Heaven?

Christopher is listening to the harps playing in the background, although teasingly, it could also be understood as Christopher addressing Lorelai as Heaven.

Note the bowl of ripe, rich red pomegranates on the table. They are potent symbols of fertility, as a possible foreshadowing of what is to come. Red often seems to be a danger signal of love triangles in Gilmore Girls, and there could be two such triangles here – Lorelai, Christopher and Sherrie, and Lorelai, Christopher and Rory.

More pertinently, they are a reminder of the Greek myth of the fertility goddess Demeter, who lost her beloved daughter Persephone to the god of the Underworld, Hades. It was decreed that Persephone should be returned to her mother – but only if she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in the Underworld. She had eaten six pomegranate seeds, so spent six months of every year with her husband, and the other six with her mother (thus explaining the cycles of the seasons, for nothing will bloom or grow while Demeter mourns the annual loss of her daughter).

Likewise, Christopher’s phone call brings up Lorelai’s fear of losing Rory. Already worried that her parents might lure her away into their life of luxury, she now grows afraid that she could lose Rory to her father. This seems unlikely, as Christopher is far less interested in Rory than Richard and Emily are. But as Harvard University is near Boston, it must be causing Lorelai a little anxiety for the future. The six month pomegranate deal sounds an awful lot like a shared custody arrangement.