EMILY: Oh, and that attitude – I wanted to slap that monosyllabic mouth of his. And God forbid they’re in another accident together or his heap of a car breaks down and Lord Jim has decided cell phones are beneath him and they’re stranded in the middle of nowhere. How can you let this happen? He had a black eye. He belongs in jail!
Lord Jim, 1900 novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel features a young British seaman named Jim, who is working on a steamship where the captain and crew abandon the passengers when the ship begins sinking. Although Jim argued for the passengers being saved, he leaps into the rescue boat with the rest of the crew.
Wracked with guilt, Jim finds other jobs on ships, but leaves abruptly once his disgrace becomes known. After getting into a fist fight in Bangkok, Jim is offered the chance to redeem himself by becoming a trade representative in a village on a remote island that that is shut off from most commerce. He becomes successful here, and called “Lord Jim” by the villagers, but comes to grief two years later.
Jim doesn’t seem terrifically similar to Jess, and I can only think Emily is thinking of the fist fight (which Jess didn’t get into, but she thinks he did), and the life of disgrace which leads him to find sanctuary in a remote village (which is how she apparently sees Stars Hollow!).
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 