“You’re gonna be a Sadie”

SOOKIE: You’re gonna be a Sadie.
LORELAI: A what?
SOOKIE: A Sadie. [sings] “Sadie, Sadie, married lady. Meet a mortgagee.”
LORELAI: Funny Girl!
SOOKIE: Streisand!
LORELAI: Love it!

Sookie sings from Sadie, Sadie – the song which gives this episode its title. As Sookie and Lorelai’s dialogue makes clear, it’s from the musical film Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand, and previously discussed. Lorelai and Rory have both called each other “funny girl”, and here Lorelai confirms that she loves the film.

In the movie, this song is sung when Fanny Brice, the comedienne and Ziegfield Follies star who is the subject of the film, marries her husband Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif). What Sookie and Lorelai do not acknowledge is that the marriage was a mistake: Nick was a gambler and criminal, and he and Fanny separated after he was sent to prison.

Almost every reference to marriage in this episode, while Lorelai is deciding whether to marry Max, is negative in tone, with a focus on marriages that don’t last. Lorelai doesn’t seem to take notice of these many hints.

Fame

MICHEL: I figure if I stay alive long enough, these scientists, they will be able to cure anything including death, therefore ensuring my indefinite existence.
SOOKIE: So you’re gonna live forever, like on Fame?

Fame is a 1980 teen musical drama film directed by Alan Parker, and inspired in part by the musical A Chorus Line. It follows the lives of students attending the High School of Performing Arts in New York (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School), from their auditions through four years of high school.

The movie’s theme song, Fame, has a chorus which begins, “I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly high”. It’s sung by Irene Cara, who had the lead role of Coco Hernandez in the film. The song reached #4 in the charts, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, while the entire movie score won another Academy Award.

The movie was successful and well-received critically. It has become a franchise with several television series (one in the early 1980s that Lorelai and Sookie would remember very well), a stage musical, and a remake.

“A study on rats”

MICHEL: I am weighing my turkey.
SOOKIE: Why?
MICHEL: A group of scientists did a study on rats where they cut their daily calories by thirty percent.
SOOKIE: And you felt left out?
MICHEL: No, the rats lived thirty percent longer. And the scientists were so impressed that they cut their own calories just like the rats.

Michel is referring to a famous and oft-cited 1934 study, which found that when scientists cut the calories of mice by 30-40% but still gave them all the nutrients they needed, they lived longer than expected – sometimes twice as long as the expected lifespan.

It has been difficult to prove conclusively that this works on humans also, and sometimes it doesn’t even work on mice – the mice have to be young and well-fed to begin with for the calorie reduction to be of any use. Older and leaner mice died earlier than expected when on a calorie-restricted diet (which doesn’t seem like good news for Michel, who isn’t all that young, and already slim). Furthermore, mice on a calorie-restricted diet can find it harder to fight infections.

Since 1997, The Calorie Restriction Society has been collecting data on its 900 human members who are on calorie-restricted diets, but it may be decades before a definitive answer is reached. However, a 2012 study on monkeys found no difference in lifespan between subjects who ate a normal healthy diet and those who ate a calorie-restricted healthy diet.

It’s notable that Michel is eating turkey, since in the Pilot episode he said he didn’t eat meat. Possibly that was a dietary fad, or perhaps he only considers red meat to be “meat”.

“Yo prefiero tener los huevos suave”

SOOKIE: Carlito, we’re running out of clarified butter. Ooh, chop that finer. No hard boiling. Yo prefiero tener los huevos suave. Ooh, that looks good. Add a little pinch of oregano, I think we’ve got it.

As Sookie gives instructions to her assistant Carlito, she partly speaks in Spanish. Her one sentence in Spanish can be translated as “I’d prefer the eggs to be soft” – I think she means the eggs to be poached or perhaps soft-boiled, but you can’t actually see what Carlito is doing.

I’m not completely sure, but as Sookie receives her lobster order just after this, it’s possible she is planning to make a variation on Lobster Benedict, where you serve lobster with poached eggs and a hollandaise sauce. Another possibility would be lobster salad with soft boiled eggs – or possibly the eggs and lobsters are for two separate dishes.

Lorelai and Max Get Engaged

At her parents’ house, after spending some time restlessly examining her empty ring finger, Lorelai phones Max in a panic. After her conversation with Luke, she begins demanding of Max where they will live, tells him that she wants to keep working, and doesn’t want to change banks. It turns out Max hasn’t thought about these issues either, but figures that if Lorelai is asking about details like which bank they will use and where they will keep their shopping coupons, she is saying yes.

We never get to see how, or even if, Lorelai accepted Max’s proposal. He seems to assume that she is saying yes, but just wants to iron out a few details. We see Lorelai’s face when she realises what Max is saying, and she looks sad and anxious rather than joyful. We never see the rest of their conversation – the next thing is Lorelai coming in, smiling at Rory, and them screaming and hugging.

Did Max and Lorelai get everything sorted out, and did Lorelai truly say yes, or has Lorelai allowed herself to be railroaded into marriage because it’s what Max and Rory want? It’s dubious whether Lorelai would have agreed to the engagement if she saw Max face to face rather than talked to him over the phone.

It’s ironic that Luke’s insistent questioning of Lorelai about her future marriage with Max, designed to put her off the idea or make her think twice, actually had the effect of pushing her into an engagement with Max. He has been well and truly punished for his poor behaviour.

J. Edgar Hoover

RICHARD: Rory, wonderful news. You finished in the top three percent of your class.
LORELAI: Oh yeah, Dad, J. Edgar Hoover over here was just telling us.

John Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was the first Director of the FBI, and instrumental in its founding in 1935. Lorelai is making fun of her mother’s “spy work” in discovering that Rory is in the top 3% of her class from Bitty Charleston, the headmaster’s wife.

Rory had got herself into the top 10% by the time of the midterm exams, and now the top 3% by the time she completed her final exams for the year. This rise is remarkable, and not very believable in a prestigious school full of excellent students. She started late, began the year getting a D and missing a vital test in her best subject, English Literature, and only got a B+ for her Biology midterms – surely that would bring her average down a bit further than that?

Luke Hears Lorelai’s News

With great trepidation because everyone has made it seem like such a big deal, Lorelai tells Luke that Max proposed to her. He has already guessed (or heard it on the Stars Hollow grapevine), and deliberately behaves in a nonchalant manner.

She is already taken aback, when he begins questioning her about what her plans for married life with Max are. Of course she doesn’t have any – she hasn’t even decided whether to marry Max or not, let alone thought about the reality of it.

Luke’s questions, which are quite rude and intrusive, have the effect of making Lorelai realise in a panic that she and Max haven’t had even one conversation about where they will live as a married couple, whether Max expects Lorelai to keep working, if they plan of having children together, or even how they will manage their joint finances.

Incidentally in this scene, you can get a good look at the coffee brand that Luke uses in the diner. It’s Hills Bros. Coffee, a brand from San Francisco sold since the early twentieth century. It was owned by Sara Lee in 2001, and is now owned by Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA.

Hills Bros claim their coffee has a bold, smooth flavour, but reviews for it tend to say it smells better than it tastes, and is generally pretty mediocre, although very strong and good value for money. Somehow Luke manages to make this average, budget-wise coffee taste amazing – which is quite a feat for someone who doesn’t drink coffee and doesn’t approve of it. Perhaps Lorelai and Rory aren’t as fussy about coffee as they think they are, or they are heavily biased by their love for Luke.

Popsicles

LORELAI: Okay, I’m sharing something with you. Sharing is not making a big deal, sharing is a nice gesture. Like when you’re a kid and you have one of those Popsicles and you break it in two and offer half to another kid. That is sharing, that is what I’m doing.
LUKE: You offered me half a Popsicle?

Popsicle is an American brand name for those sweet frozen snacks on a stick that might otherwise be known as ice pops, ice lollies, ice blocks, or icy poles. Popsicles were invented at the turn of the 20^th century, and first manufactured in the 1920s. The brand is now owned by Unilever. Popsicles are easily fairly broken in half in order to share.

“Crazy people”

LUKE: [sees the people in the window] What the hell’s going on with them?
LORELAI: Oh, I don’t know.
LUKE: Crazy people. Whole town should be medicated and put in a rec room with ping pong tables and hand puppets.

Luke is describing what he thinks occurs in mental health institutions – psychotropic medication and mild social entertainment. The hand puppets may be (in his mind) to facilitate therapeutic dialogue.

“Roll up a dollar bill”

LUKE: Fresh coffee will be ready in a minute, unless you wanna just roll up a dollar bill and go nuts.
LORELAI: No thanks, I can wait.

Luke is saying sarcastically that if Lorelai can’t wait for a cup of coffee, maybe she could just snort up coffee grounds with a dollar bill, as if she is doing a line of cocaine. It’s a comment on how much of a coffee addict he thinks she is.