Category: S1Ep18: The Third Lorelai

Gilmore blood

Trix is pleased that both Lorelai and Rory are taller than average, and after quizzing them on their health, glad to hear they are strong and healthy. She tells them that they must have a majority of “Gilmore blood”, as Gilmores simply never get sick. This must be why Lorelai and Rory remain healthy in spite of their junk food-loving lifestyle – they truly hit the genetic jackpot.

At the time, it doesn’t make much sense that Trix should be so mad keen on “Gilmore blood”, as it was her husband who was a Gilmore. In a later season, we learn that Trix married a distant relative, and she was born a Gilmore as well.

Trix

We finally meet Richard’s mother Lorelai Gilmore (Marion Ross), who he calls Trix as her special pet name. It seems to be a Gilmore tradition to have a nickname that’s unrelated to your real name, as neither Rory nor Trix are actually short for Lorelai. Trix is a stereotypical scary old lady who frightens even Lorelai into good behaviour, and turns Emily to jelly.

It is notable that Trix and Richard are very close, just like Lorelai and Rory, while Trix despises Emily. Trix treats Emily the same way Emily treats Lorelai, which doesn’t quite make sense unless Emily’s mother died when she was fairly young, and Trix is her main “mother type” relationship.

If the family pattern continues through to the next generation, it suggests that Lorelai will dislike the man that Rory marries and constantly give him a hard time for not being good enough for her daughter. This doesn’t seem unlikely, as Lorelai was never a huge fan of any of Rory’s boyfriends.

Furthermore, it suggests that Rory will have a distant relationship with her child, as Richard does with Lorelai. Again, this isn’t implausible, as Rory has a colder personality than her mother, and doesn’t seem to really like children. If Rory’s husband is as hard on the child as Emily is on Lorelai, then we can expect another rebellious teenager to emerge – that only Lorelai can control.

“Diamond pendant”

RORY: Where is she [her great-grandmother] now?
EMILY: In the living room, scratching the diamond pendant I bought her against a mirror.

A common technique in the past to test if a diamond was real or fake was to rub it against glass – if it made a scratch or scrape mark on the glass leaving the jewel untouched, then the diamond was genuine.

Many modern artificial diamonds can actually pass this test, and if you’re unlucky, it is possible to damage a real diamond rubbing it against glass, so it isn’t really helpful. It is probably going to ruin Emily and Richard’s mirror, so it’s inherently selfish as well as rude.

“A little more on the left”

(They put the hat rack in Emily’s foyer)
EMILY: Watch it, watch your head. Get it over here. Okay yes, yeah, I think that was about – no I think it was maybe a little more on the left. Oh God, I should have put tape down.
LORELAI: Mom, you don’t think that the coat rack could’ve moved a quarter of an inch in five years?

Emily told Lorelai that the hat/coat rack from Richard’s mother had never been used or even taken out of the crate before she regifted it to her, but now it seems that the rack had been in Richard and Emily’s house previously.

For that matter, Richard’s mother hasn’t been to Hartford for over twenty years and has never seen the rack in their house, so why does it need to be placed in a very specific position that she will remember?

“The beginning of a wonderful friendship”

RORY: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship.
TRISTAN: Who’s Louis?

Rory is referencing the 1942 romantic drama film Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz and based on the unproduced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick’s by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison.

Set in Casablanca, Morocco during World War II, it is about an American nightclub owner named Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) who must choose between his lost love Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and helping her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a Czech Resistance fugitive, escape from Vichy-controlled Casablanca so he can fight against the Nazis.

When the corrupt prefect of police Louis Renault (Claude Rains) tries to arrest Victor, Rick forces Renault to instead assist Victor and Ilsa to escape by holding him at gunpoint. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa leave with her husband. Louis suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville, in the Congo, and in the final scene Rick says, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Rory seems to be suggesting that she and Tristan could form a friendship based on doing the right thing – that is, forgetting all about their kiss (which was apparently mutually enjoyable) and putting others’ needs before their own. Tristan doesn’t recognise the slight misquote, which dooms him as a potential love interest. Even Dean got Rory’s movie references.

Casablanca was the #9 film of 1942, received very good reviews, and won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Its reputation has only increased with time, and it continues to be well loved and popular with audiences. Casablanca is generally regarded as one of the best films ever made, and a shining example of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

This is another of Lorelai and Rory’s favourite films.

Hannibal Lecter

RORY: You said you were going to swear off girls – it’s funny.
TRISTAN: You don’t think I can?
RORY: No, I think you can, I just think it would be hard for you. It’d probably involve some kind of lock up facility, one of those Hannibal Lecter masks.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a character in a series of suspense novels by Thomas Harris, first appearing in the 1981 Red Dragon as a highly intelligent and cultured cannibalistic serial killer.

Rory is almost certainly thinking of the 1991 horror-thriller film The Silence of the Lambs, directed by Jonathan Demme, and based on the 1988 novel of the same name by Thomas Harris. In the film, Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is incarcerated for his crimes, and while being tranferred to another psychiatric facility is forced to wear a mask that acts like a muzzle (it doesn’t work).

The Silence of the Lambs was the #4 film of 1991 and won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and a Best Actor for Hopkins. Hannibal Lecter is often regarded as one of the most frightening villains in cinema history.

Interestingly, the director of the sanitarium where Hannibal Lecter is confined is named Dr. Frederick Chilton, a self-important, incompetent man who is easily outwitted by Lecter. The film strongly suggests that Lecter will eventually murder and eat Chilton in revenge.

This is possibly where the name Chilton came from for Rory’s school, to suggest a strict and pompous confinement, yet with a certain laxness as well, giving the possibility of escape.

Miss Manners

LORELAI: You gave me a second hand present, like something you got at the junk store.
EMILY: You’re being a little dramatic. It was still in the crate.
LORELAI: You actually went, “Huh, what should I get Lorelai this year? You know what, I can’t be bothered. Let’s give her something we don’t want anymore”.
EMILY: You’re not funny.
LORELAI: What would Miss Manners say about this?

Miss Manners (born Judith Perlman in 1938, now Judith Martin) is an American journalist, author, and etiquette expert. Since 1978 she has written an advice column which is published in over 200 newspapers around the world.

Miss Manners does give her blessing to regifting, as long as the present is still new (not used), and that the recipient never finds out. She would think it quite okay that Lorelai received the unwanted hat rack from her mother still in its crate – the real rule of etiquette Emily has broken is telling Lorelai that her gift was previously given to her. Although as Emily says, she would probably understand if she met Richard’s mother.

“The fish flies at night”

EMILY: [on phone] I need the hat rack.
LORELAI: [whispers mysteriously] The fish flies at night.

A parody of the messages given in code in spy films, such as the James Bond and Mission Impossible series. Lorelai decides her mother’s comment sounds like a code sign, so she jokingly gives the “countersign”. Get Smart often used ridiculous signs and countersigns like this.

It’s rather similar to an exchange in the sitcom Murphy Brown, where Murphy tells someone she’s pregnant by saying in shock, “The stick turned blue!”. The other person thinks it must be code for something, and mutters back, “The dog barks at midnight”.