Category: S1Ep1: Pilot

Friday Night Dinner

Along with her parents’ agreement to give her money to pay for Rory’s tuition at Chilton, Lorelai must in turn agree to have dinner with them every Friday, thus setting in place the pattern of the entire show. She also has to call them once a week to give an update on Rory’s schooling and her own life – this weekly phone call is not mentioned again, and although Lorelai seems to particularly hate talking to her mother on the phone, we never hear Emily (Kelly Bishop) complain that she has missed a phone call. We must assume that either Lorelai dutifully complied each week, or that Emily almost immediately accepted that she would not follow through. Neither sounds quite likely, knowing their personalities. Maybe Lorelai made Rory do the phone call.

The choice of Friday night for the family dinner fulfils at least three functions:

  1. Friday was the very next day of the week, so Emily was making sure that the dinners began straight away with no chance for Lorelai to change her mind or wriggle out of it
  2. Friday night is a popular night for social events, thus ensuring that plot-wise there was always the potential for conflict over the Friday Night Dinner and other responsibilities
  3. It brings to mind the Jewish Shabbat, with the holy day beginning at sunset on Friday evening, usually celebrated with a family dinner. This gives the Gilmores’ Friday Night Dinner a feeling of ritual and ceremony, and underscores the marking of cycles of time that each dinner symbolises. (I don’t believe this is a stretch, as Amy Sherman-Palladino is of Jewish heritage).

Business class

While Lorelai is visiting her parents in Hartford to ask them for money, she says that she just finished her business class. Later we learn that as well as working full-time, Lorelai also attends community college in Hartford two evenings a week to study business.

In real life, there is only one community college in Hartford – Capital Community College. This college offers a 4-semester associate degree in Management (Entrepreneurship), suitable for those wanting to improve their work qualifications, or equip them to start their own business. It sounds ideal for Lorelai’s needs.

Bridge

Lorelai and Emily

When Lorelai visits her parents, she makes conversation by asking about her mother’s bridge club. Contract bridge is a complicated card game played by two teams of two against each other, a variant of the older card game whist. The most common form in the United States is duplicate bridge, and it’s a card game which is more commonly played among older people. It is a game of skill involving strategy and tactics, which seems in line with Emily’s character: in fact she is just about to outplay her own daughter.

Zsa Zsa Gabor

SOOKIE: Where’s your paté?
LORELAI: At Zsa Zsa Gabor’s house.

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917-2016) was a Hungarian-American film and television actress and socialite, known for her extravagant Hollywood lifestyle. During the show, Lorelai and Rory would routinely label any behaviour they considered overly fancy or pretentious as being like Zsa Zsa Gabor.

“Protestants love oatmeal”

SOOKIE: I’ll make cookies [to celebrate Rory getting into Chilton]. Protestants love oatmeal.

Sookie has a number of eccentric beliefs in regard to food, and this seems to be one of them. The reason for her statement is something of a mystery to me, unless she is thinking of Quaker Oats, whose logo has a man dressed in 18th century Quaker clothing to represent simplicity and honesty. (The company was not founded by Quakers, and never had any connection with the religion).

The interesting part is that her saying this seems to imply that Sookie herself is not a Protestant, although this is never confirmed in the show.

“You didn’t ….”

RORY: How did this happen [her getting into Chilton]? You didn’t . . . with the principal, did you?
LORELAI: No, honey, that was a joke.

Lorelai’s joke was possibly an allusion to the 1994 film Forrest Gump, directed by Robert Zemeckis and with Tom Hanks in the title role. In the film, Forrest’s mother (played by Sally Field) has sex with the principal to persuade him to allow her simple-minded son (IQ of 75) to attend school. Forrest Gump was the #2 film of 1994, and won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Britney Spears

RORY (upon first seeing her new school uniform): I’m gonna be in a Britney Spears video?

Britney Spears (born 1981) is an American pop singer. Her debut album was … Baby One More Time, released in 1999. In the music video for the title track, Britney Spears is dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl in a uniform. The single … One More Time went to #1 worldwide.

Harvard University

LORELAI: This is it. She can finally go to Harvard like she’s always wanted and get the education that I never got and get to do all the things that I never got to do and then I can resent her for it and we can finally have a normal mother-daughter relationship.

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachussets, and one of the most prestigious educational establishments in the world.

Being accepted into Chilton will help Rory get into Harvard, because Gilmore Girls implies that Chilton is a Harvard “feeder school” – one whose selective admissions process, academic culture, and strong college counselling will provide a clear advantage.

The real life “Harvard feeder schools” where a high proportion of students go on to Harvard are Boston Latin, Phillips Academy in Andover, Stuyvestant High School, Noble and Greenough School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Trinity School in New York, and Lexington High School.

This is the first time that we learn that Rory has “always wanted” to go to Harvard. The fact that Lorelai immediately says that Rory will get the education she never got and do all the things she never got to do suggests the source of Rory’s goal.

From the very first episode we begin to suspect that Rory’s role, in her mother’s eyes, is to fulfil all Lorelai’s hopes and dreams that ended when she gave birth to Rory, and to grow up to be the new, improved, child-free Lorelai.