Category: S1Ep21: Love Daisies & Troubadours

Girl Scouts

CLARA: Are you here to see my brother?
RORY: Oh, no. No. Not at all. I’m, um, with … the Girl Scouts.
CLARA: I’m gonna be a Girl Scout someday. I’m a Brownie now.

The Girl Scouts are the equivalent of the Girl Guides, and a sister organisation to the Boy Scouts. Formed in 1928, they have over 10 million members in 145 countries. The Brownies are for girls aged 7 to 10. They are the youngest stream in the Girl Scouts.

In real life, there are Girl Scout troops all over Connecticut, including in the Wallingford area, where Stars Hollow appears to be located.

Winchester Mystery House

LORELAI: And you just need to give this situation [with Rachel] a fair chance.
LUKE: I know.
LORELAI: And that starts with ceasing work on the Winchester Mystery House here.

The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California that was built as the home of Sarah Winchester, the wealthy widow of the firearm magnate William Wirt Winchester, the treasurer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.

Constructed between 1884 and Sarah’s death in 1922, the house is rumoured to be haunted by the ghosts of all those killed by Winchester rifles, with tabloids of the day claiming that Sarah intended the house to be used as a refuge for their restless spirits (although other rumours said that she tried to ward off their spirits by building the house). Her biographer finds no evidence to support either claim.

Built without an architect, the house is very large and has many oddities, such as stairs that lead nowhere, and windows overlooking other rooms of the house. Some of the more bizarre curiosities may have been added after Sarah’s death to make the house seem more eccentric, while others may be due to the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. The Winchester Mystery House is privately owned, and operates as a tourist attraction.

Lorelai connects the lengthy and haphazard building of the Winchester Mystery House to the work that Luke is doing on her home.

Sarah Winchester was originally from New Haven, Connecticut, so this reference links the state that Gilmore Girls is set in with the state that it is filmed in.

Amusingly, Jared Padalecki, who played Dean Forester in Gilmore Girls, later went on to play Sam Winchester in Supernatural, with his surname chosen in honour of the Winchester Mystery House. Sam’s brother is named Dean – their first names are a nod to Sal and Dean from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, previously mentioned.

Sad Lonely Guys (Natural Loners)

LORELAI: Lee Harvey Oswald.
LUKE: John Muir.
LORELAI: The Unabomber.
LUKE: Henry David Thoreau.

Lorelai and Luke disagree about the romantic ideal of the male loner, with Lorelai seeing them as sad, lonely misanthropes, and Luke as mystical hermits of the wilderness. Luke sees himself as the latter, while Lorelai is worried he could be the former.

Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963) was an American ex-Marine and Marxist defector to the Soviet Union, described as quiet and withdrawn. According to four federal investigations, he assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963; there is a strong public belief that he didn’t act alone. Oswald was murdered by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while he was being transferred from the city gaol to the county gaol, and never stood trial or gave testimony.

John Muir (1838-1914) [pictured] was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His essays and books about nature have inspired millions, and his activism helped preserve Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park, and other wilderness areas. He co-founded The Sierra Club, a prominent conservation organisation, and he has many things named in his honour, including the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada, and the John Muir Way in Scotland. He is known as “Father of the National Parks”, and has been described as a patron saint of the environmental movement. As a young man, Muir spent many years hiking alone in the wilderness, but in middle age he married and had children, although still needing to spend time in the wilderness to refresh his spirit.

Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, and previously discussed.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American author, poet, naturalist, and philosopher whose writings are early examples of environmentalism, and who advocated hiking, canoeing, and the preservation of wilderness (although when he actually went deep into the wilds, he came back with a new appreciation for civilisation). Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, or, Life in the Woods, which describes living a simple life in natural surrounds. It is based on a period of over two years that Thoreau spent living in a wooden cabin near Walden Pond among woods near Concord, Massachusetts. The book is both a memoir, and a spiritual quest to discover a better way to live. It tells of how Thoreau managed to enjoy his solitude in the woods, but also the companions that he met, and the friends who came to visit him, and how he enjoyed that too.

That Luke selects Muir and Thoreau as his models of loners, one who married and had a family, and the other who enjoyed friendship and companionship, suggests that he does not wish to be completely alone or isolated in life.

Milk and Cookies

LUKE: It’s just a little weird having her [Rachel] in my place.
LORELAI: I thought that’s what you wanted.
LUKE: It was. Is. I’m just … I’ve just been living alone since forever. And I just got used to putting the milk someplace in the fridge and finding it in the exact same spot. You know what I mean?
LORELAI: Oh, we don’t even keep milk in the house.
LUKE: Well, then cookies.
LORELAI: Cookies almost never make it out of the car.

Luke admits that having Rachel back in his life isn’t what he thought he wanted – even he notices that he puts wanting her in the past tense before quickly correcting himself.

It is absolute nonsense that Lorelai and Rory don’t keep milk and cookies in the house. We have often seen both in their kitchen, and the milk is especially needed because they drink so much coffee.

 

“Crossed over into the dark side”

LORELAI: You have crossed over into the dark side, Luke.

An obvious joking reference to the Star Wars science-fiction movie franchise, which has Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) as one its major protagonists, and “the dark side” as the forces of evil. More specifically, it is a reference to the 1983 Return of the Jedi; in the movie’s final fight scene, Luke is tempted by the Emperor to kill his father and cross over to the dark side.

Return of the Jedi was the #1 film of 1983, and received mostly positive reviews. It won a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects at the Academy Awards.

Fans of the films may find Lorelai’s comment amusing (or thought-provoking) in light of the more recent films in the franchise.

Sadness Soot

After Lorelai explains to Rachel that Luke has been doing handyman chores around the house for her, she walks past the Town Troubadour, who starts to sing this song, but is interrupted by the whistling rival troubadour from across the street.

Sadness Soot is from Grant Lee Phillips 2001 album Mobilize, earlier mentioned. The song seems to be giving advice to Rachel, as it talks about embracing solitude without feeling sad, and being able to move on. It fits in with her final decision regarding Luke. Could it also be telling Lorelai not to be afraid to be alone, and that she doesn’t need Max?

“We were supposed to meet for lunch”

RACHEL: We were supposed to meet for lunch, but he didn’t show.
LORELAI: Oh.
RACHEL: Again.

First Luke leaves the diner just as it opens, and now he’s skipping coming home for lunch with Rachel in order to do work on Lorelai’s house. No wonder Rachel is suspicious and resentful, and seems hurt and upset. Notice that this is a slight echo of Madeline being “out to lunch” – by skipping lunch, it shows Luke is losing contact with his life with Rachel.

Notice that in the background the Stars Hollow Fire Department is holding a fundraiser – a sign that problems have reached emergency levels in Rachel and Luke’s relationship. Lorelai is wearing red to match the fire engines, showing the source of the emergency.

Miss Patty’s Ballet Class

MISS PATTY: Flutter flutter, quick quick, flutter flutter, quick quick. And your hearts are broken, your prince has betrayed you, you’ve been shot with an arrow, and now … you’re dead.

Miss Patty’s class is doing Swan Lake, a ballet composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877. The story, based on Russian and/or German folk tales, is about Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse. A handsome prince named Siegfried falls in love with her, but the sorcerer tricks him into agreeing to marry the sorcerer’s daughter, Odile.

Miss Patty seems to describe the ending of the ballet, where Odette is heartbroken over Siegfried’s betrayal, even as she forgives him for it. In most productions, both lovers die in order to break the curse, although by drowning, not getting hit by an arrow – it is early in the ballet where Siegfried nearly shoots Odette, thinking she is a swan.

Miss Patty may have created her own unique ending for her production (a rather grim one to teach children – children’s productions often substitute a “Disney style” happy ending). Then again, the music used in this scene is Lake in the Moonlight, which plays during the first scene of the ballet. She could be telescoping the ballet into a single scene for her class.

The use of Swan Lake expresses Rachel’s fear that Luke has feelings for Lorelai, demonstrating that she feels betrayed and heartbroken over it. In this episode, both Rory and Paris also fear that the boy they like has found a new girlfriend, only in those cases, the fear is unfounded. Swan Lake is yet another work referenced in which doomed love leads to suicide.

Judy Garland and Courtney Love

MADELINE: So I’ve decided I’m now completely into Judy Garland. Did you see the TV movie? Pretty intense.
LOUISE: I think they used my mother’s medicine cabinet in that.
MADELINE: She was the Courtney Love of her day.

Judy Garland, born Frances Gumm (1922-1969) was an American singer, actress, and television hostess. She began performing in vaudeville as a child, and signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer as a teenager; she made more than two dozen movies with them, including The Wizard of Oz in 1939, where she starred as Dorothy Gale.

After being released from her contract, she went on to have a highly successful career as a singer, and hosted The Judy Garland Show. She received numerous accolades, including a Juvenile Academy Award, a Cecil B. Mille Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Despite her great success as a performer, the pressure of becoming a star so early in life affected her physical and mental health, and her self-image was poor as she had received so much criticism from movie executives, who thought she was unattractive. As an adult, she suffered from alcohol and substance abuse, as well as financial instability. She died of an accidental dose of sleeping pills, aged 47.

The “TV movie” that Madeline mentions is probably Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, a two-part, four-hour miniseries directed by Robert Allan Ackerman, and based on the 1998 book Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir, written by Lorna Luft, Garland’s daughter. The miniseries starred Judy Davis as the adult Judy Garland, and Davis received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance. The miniseries was first shown on TV in late February 2001, so Madeline has been “completely into” Judy Garland for around two months.

Louise’s comment suggests that her mother, the mysterious adulteress, also has a problem with addiction to prescription medication.

Courtney Love (born Courtney Harrison in 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and artist. She gained recognition as the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band Hole, formed in 1989, and is perhaps best known for her personal life following her marriage to Kurt Cobain, front man for the grunge rock band Nirvana. She has been very open about her struggles with drug addiction, including to heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, and prescription drugs such as Rohypnol.

Apart from both having problems with substance abuse, there is no comparison between the lifetime as a major star that Judy Garland had, and Courtney Love’s career, which makes Madeline’s comment seem ignorant, and disrespectful to Garland, that she’s supposedly “completely into”.

Furthermore, Love’s numerous addictions have led to several legal cases, often including assaulting others or disorderly conduct, while Garland’s substance abuse brought more personal misery. Love has declared herself clean since 2007.