Category: S2Ep10: The Bracebridge Dinner

Def Jam Comedy

RORY: Grandma and Grandpa.
LORELAI: Ugh, you’ve got to be kidding.
RORY: But this could help to cheer him up.
LORELAI: I’ll send him a Def Jam Comedy tape. That’ll cheer him up.

Def Comedy Jam was a stand-up comedy television series which aired from 1992 to 1997. Inspired by the Uptown Comedy Club in Harlem, it helped to launch the careers of several African-American comedians.

Woody and Soon-Yi

RORY: I thought maybe a certain depressed man and his wife could stay there.
LORELAI: Woody and Soon-Yi?

Woody Allen (born Allan Konigsberg in 1935), multi award-winning actor and film director, famous for films such as Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Crimes and Misdemeanours (1989). When acting a role in a comedy film, he often played a depressed, anxious, or neurotic character.

Allen had been in a long-term relationship with Mia Farrow since 1979 when, in 1991 or 1992, he embarked on an affair with Farrow’s adopted daughter from a previous marriage, Soon-Yi Previn (born circa 1970), then a college student. There was an immediate scandal when the affair became public knowledge – not only because of the age gap, but due to the perceived familial relationship. Allen denied being Soon-Yi’s stepfather, or being a father figure to her, although he did describe his role in their romantic relationship as “paternal”.

Allen and Previn married in 1997, and have since adopted two children. Woody Allen has continued making films, although his career did founder in the early 2000s – when this episode aired, his most recent offering was the costly failure, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001). However, he went on to make successful films set in Europe later that decade. Recently he has gained acclaim for films such as Blue Jasmine (2013) and Cafe Society (2018), and is regarded as a cinematic genius.

Tammy Faye Bakker

RORY (looking at photo of Sherry): Nice looking lady.
LORELAI: Mm hmm. Like a young Tammy Faye Bakker.
RORY: But prettier than that.

Tammy Faye Bakker, born Tamara LaValley (1942-2007) was the ex-wife of television evangelist Jim Bakker (born 1940). She and her husband ran a televangelist program called the PTL Club, founded in 1974; it was dissolved in 1989 when Jim Bakker was convicted and imprisoned on indicted on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy. Tammy Faye divorced Jim in 1992, and married Roe Messner, a church building contractor (so by this stage she was actually Tammy Faye Messner).

Tammy Faye was known for her eccentric and glamorous image, and her views which often diverged from mainstream evangelical Christianity. For example, she supported the LGBT community, and reached out to HIV positive patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996, so was already terminally ill when this episode aired.

It is unclear what age “young” Tammy Faye Bakker was that Lorelai believes Sherry resembles. Knowing what Sherry actually looks like, perhaps when Tammy Faye’s hair was brown, before she dyed it blonde. That would have been in the 1960s, when Tammy Faye and her husband Jim had a puppet show on a Christian TV network.

The viewer may decide for themselves whether Sherry looks like Tammy Faye Bakker at any age, but I personally cannot see any strong resemblance (I can barely see a weak resemblance). I’m surprised that Rory doesn’t disagree any more strenuously than by saying Sherry is “prettier than that”, and can only think that she walks on eggshells when it comes to her mother’s jealousy over Sherry.

I’m not sure how Lorelai’s frame of reference for picturing a young Tammy Faye Bakker is in the 1960s, before Lorelai was born. I find this whole reference quite confusing.

Second Cousin Stan

RORY: This is one ugly looking baby. Whose baby is this?
LORELAI: That’s your second cousin’s Stan’s. Poor kid.
RORY: Ugh, he got Stan’s everything.

If Stan is Rory’s second cousin, then surely he is the son of Lorelai’s cousin? But where did Lorelai get a cousin from? We’re only told of one aunt, Hopie, who is Emily’s sister and lives in Paris (no husband or children were mentioned). It is implied that Richard is an only child, despite the proliferation of Gilmore aunts and uncles. And could Lorelai’s cousin already be old enough to be a grandfather?

It’s possible that Lorelai (or the writer?) means that Stan is Rory’s cousin twice removed, meaning that he is Richard’s cousin – if so, he’s presumably a lot younger than Richard since he’s just welcomed a new baby. Many people get second cousins and cousins twice removed mixed up.

The baby doesn’t actually seem particularly ugly, to me it just looks like a normal baby.

Jess Takes a Swing at Dean

DEAN: You saw it was me, Jess. Why’d you keep punching?
JESS: Had momentum.

Mm, good story. I think we can guess the real reason.

Note the snowman competition is still on display outside the high school. This seems naively trusting – even without deliberate sabotage, kids run around (or fight, like Jess is doing), and it seems as if they could easily become damaged. Perhaps a bit of foreshadowing?

Pixies Reunion

DEAN: Hey Lane. Are you going to this big shindig at the inn tonight?
LANE: Yeah, I’m just trying to trick my mom into not going with me.
DEAN: How’s that coming along?
LANE: How’s that Pixies reunion coming along?

The Pixies are an American alternative rock band founded in 1986, part of the alternative rock boom of the 1990s, with a distinctive sound drawing on punk and surf rock, with often surreal song lyrics. More successful in Europe than their home country, they influenced bands such as Nirvana, Radiohead, and Smashing Pumpkins. They broke up in 1993, but became so popular after disbanding that they reunited in 2004, going on to have sell-out world tours. Lane knows enough about the contemporary music scene that she understands fans are calling for a reunion, and her comment now looks quite prescient.

Shindig

DEAN: Hey Lane. Are you going to this big shindig at the inn tonight?
LANE: Yeah, I’m just trying to trick my mom into not going with me.

A shindig is an informal word for a small party, especially one that is lively, noisy, or out of control. Originally it was entirely rural, and seems to come from the American South, with the suggestion that the dancing was going to get so vigorous in such a small space that you’d literally be kicking people’s shins. It is not impossible that there is a connection with the Scottish Gaelic word sinteag, meaning “jump, leap”.

Slumber Party

LORELAI: Hey, you know what? Let’s invite everyone …
RORY: And they could even stay in the inn. All those empty rooms, all those uneaten pillow mints.
LORELAI: An out of control, over the top slumber party!

A slumber party, pyjama , or sleepover, is a party where everyone sleeps in the same house. Typically people play pranks and games, watch movies, or stay up all night talking and laughing. Usually for children and teenagers, if organised by adults, expect a lot of drinking, just like the Bracebridge Dinner!

Lorelai avoids Sookie’s plan of her having a cosy dinner with Luke by impulsively inviting everyone they know to the cancelled Bracebridge Dinner. It may not be entirely a coincidence that she also avoids Rory and Jess having a cosy dinner together. The idea of spending some quality time with Jess probably doesn’t appeal much to Lorelai.

This episode (like many of the “towny” instalments) is justifiably a fan favourite, and much of the appeal comes from the wish fulfilment of staying in a hotel with all your friends for free, eating a massive fantasy banquet, doing snow-related activities, and drinking until dawn. Who wouldn’t enjoy that?

Sookie Invites Luke and Jess

SOOKIE: Hey, what about Luke?
LUKE: What about him?
SOOKIE: He eats, and Jess eats. Doesn’t Jess eat?
LUKE: What’s she doing?
LORELAI: I think she’s inviting you for dinner.

The original plan after the people from Chicago cancel is for Sookie, Jackson, Lorelai and Rory to have the dinner by themselves. Sookie cleverly asks Luke and Jess, hoping to push Luke and Lorelai together (I think only by coincidence would her plan also push Rory and Jess together).