LUKE: Jess, come on. JESS: Hey, nobody asked me if I wanted to move to Stars Hollow, but I’m here. Pick whatever place you want and I’ll be there too.
A reminder and confirmation that Jess had no say in the decision to send him to Luke, and that his mother didn’t even ask whether he wanted to go or not. Now Luke is telling him that they have to move, and he is going to be uprooted again, with no say in it. He seems prepared to submit to this change too, with the resignation of someone who has no choice in the matter.
Note that Jess is wearing the “emotional” red, covered up with the dark blue of sadness, as if his anger is hidden under a cloak of depression.
LUKE: I can’t relax. I can’t sleep. I’m having nightmares about being chased around by boxes with arms and they tackle me and pile clothing on top of my face and secure it around my head with packing tape and I’m just lying there choking while you’re sitting in the corner laughing, putting gel in your hair with a switchblade! JESS: Should I be putting a tongue depressor in your mouth right about now?
A tongue depressor is the little spatula that a doctor will use to examine a patient’s mouth and throat. Jess is referring to the fact that they are also used when administering electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). A tongue depressor can be used to keep the mouth slightly open so that the patient doesn’t bite on their tongue during treatment – although mouth guards are more common.
None of the characters in Gilmore Girls seem to have much grasp of modern psychiatry. It’s as if everything they know comes from reading The Bell Jar and watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That could be where the writers are getting their (mis)information from!
LUKE: Jess? [Luke turns the music off] How can anyone sleep through that? It’s like the Huns are attacking and you’re just – well, you’re oblivious and that’s why you can just lie there while the rest of the world is going – . [he knocks over his little television] Great! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries. Most likely originating from the Central Asian steppes, Europeans first reported Huns living east of the Volga River, in what was called Scythia at the time. By 430 they had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and other Germanic tribes, and driving them into Roman territory.
Under their formidable ruler Attila, they made frequent, devastating raids into the East Roman Empire, and invaded Gaul and Italy. After Attila’s death in 453, they ceased to be a major threat to Rome, and lost most of their empire. The Huns may have helped stimulate the massive tribal migrations which were a factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Memories of them were preserved in the lives of the saints and in Germanic legend, where they appear as the antagonist.
Modern culture popularly considers them as cruel and barbaric, partly because the Huns encouraged this thinking. They were probably no more so than other people of the time, although certainly fearsome in battle.
This is the music that Jess is sleeping to when Luke wakes him up. Price Yeah!, is by the American indie rock band Pavement, first released on their EP Slay Tracks: 1933-1969 in 1989. The EP was self-recorded, and is experimental hard-core punk.
The band were partly inspired by their home town of Stockton, California, a place they considered flat and boring that they wanted to escape from – something that Jess can probably relate to.
Being an extremely limited release, copies of this EP quickly became collector’s items selling for hundreds of dollars. Jess is most likely listening to Westing (By Mustang and Sextant), a compilation of Pavement’s early EP’s and singles which was released in 1993.
The song begins:
Just cause I’m fakin’ Doesn’t mean I’m wrong Cause I bought my price, yeah, No I got it at cost
And there’s the things I know Wrote them down on your nib Just remember turning It’s a rapid affair
Jess knows that he is faking it – but is he faking by hiding his true level of misery from Luke and the town, or is he faking by pretending to be less interested in Rory than he makes out? He’s aware of the price he is paying, but considers it worthwhile. The “rapid affair” may allude to how quickly he fell for Rory, and the things he wrote down to the annotations he made in Rory’s book.
Jess says he needs loud music on in order to sleep. Possibly he got into that habit needing to block out the sound of his mother partying or entertaining guests. Or even the sound of Liz having sex or fighting with her companion of the moment. Or they just lived in an apartment block where there was a lot of noise from other people, and little insulation against it.
Either way, it’s a sign that he didn’t have the best environment growing up. Unless he simply hasn’t adjusted to the quietness of the country after living in New York?
If Jess always needs loud music in order to sleep, how on earth has poor Luke been able to get any sleep? For that matter, why is he surprised to learn about it now? Has he just been gritting his teeth for six months and working long days on little sleep, and this is the final straw? And why haven’t any of their neighbours complained?
LORELAI: So you and Jess aren’t friends? RORY: Well, yeah, we’re friends … I mean, we’re not good friends but we’re friends. We’re friendly. But that doesn’t mean that we’re friends in the traditional Webster’s dictionary definition of friends … Friendish might be a better term.
Rory struggles to define her relationship with Jess. They get along well (they’ve obviously kept talking since their “friend date” after the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser), bur Rory knows they are not friends the way she is friends with Lane, or even with Paris.
Yes, what is the dictionary definition of a boy you are attracted to who’s also attracted to you and you share a common interest you can talk about and like spending time together, and you’re both flirting with each other behind your boyfriend’s back? The best she can come up with is “friendish” – someone you’re friendly with, without exactly having a friendship.
Someone else might say that Jess is actually Rory’s “crush”, but she is too far in denial to acknowledge that. Lorelai looks sceptical, as well she might.
RORY: People are different once you get to know them. If you’ll remember, you weren’t too fond of Luke when you first met him. LORELAI: That’s not true. RORY: You called him Duke for two years just to make him mad.
A meta-reference to the fact that in the original pilot of Gilmore Girls, the Luke character was named Duke. Amy Sherman-Palladino, the writer for this episode, jokes that must’ve been the teasing nickname Lorelai gave him at first. Luke’s character was originally meant to be a woman named Daisy, so the change from Daisy to Duke seems like a Dukes of Hazzard reference.
Apparently Luke and Lorelai didn’t get along when they first met, and it took two years for Lorelai to call him by his correct name. This sounds awfully similar to the plot line where Tristan keeps calling Rory “Mary” when he first meets her, as a flirtatious tease.
In the world of Gilmore Girls, someone getting your name wrong is a sure sign they secretly like you! As Tristan was originally slated to be Rory’s boyfriend (before the actor went to a different show), it also seemsto be a sign you are destined to end up together.
Lorelai needing her rain gutters cleaned was mentioned in “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” – she was hoping that the “Collins kid” might clean them for her. Luke remembers this, and suggests Jess could clean her gutters instead. Lorelai puts him off by saying she’s already got people lined up for the job.
Rory puts her head down sadly or sullenly when Lorelai balks at Jess coming to their house. Note that Rory is holding the ice creams hugged close to her chest, so her body heat will melt them even faster. I’m pretty sure that’s not ice cream in those cups marked “ice cream”.
LORELAI: So you came downstairs … to sit on an uncomfortable chair in an empty diner that smells like onion rings. LUKE: Yes. LORELAI: Calgon, take me away.
Calgon is a brand of bath and beauty products. In 1979, they came up with the slogan, “Calgon, take me away!”. Television commercials through the 1980s showed a woman escaping from her troubles in a relaxing bath filled with Calgon bubble bath.
LUKE: So when Jess is upstairs, that means the stereo’s blaring and the place is a mess. I just needed a little privacy. LORELAI: So you came downstairs … to sit on an uncomfortable chair in an empty diner that smells like onion rings.
Onion rings are an appetiser, snack, or side dish consisting of a “ring” of onion dipped in batter or breadcrumbs, and deep fried. A British recipe dates to 1802, while an American recipe from Middletown, New York can be found in 1910. Kirby’s Pig Stand Restaurant in Dallas, Texas claims to have invented the onion ring in the 1920s. Onion rings became popular fast food items in the 1960s when the A&W fast food restaurant chain added them to the menu.
LORELAI: Hey, will you go get the ice cream and make sure they give us a ton of maraschino cherries?
A maraschino cherry is one that has been sweetened and preserved, They are preserved in a brine solution containing sulphur dioxide and calcium chloride to bleach them, then soaked in a mixture of red food colouring and sugar syrup.
The name comes from the Marasca cherry from Croatia, a type of Morello cherry; cherries preserved in marasca liqueur were known as “maraschino cherries”. They became popular in Europe in the 19th century, but because the supply of cherries was limited, they were a delicacy reserved for royalty and the very wealthy.
Maraschino cherries were introduced to the US in the late 19th century, where they were served in fine bars and restaurants. Because they were scarce and expensive, by the turn of the century other cherries such as the Royal Anne were substituted, and flavours like almond extract added. Alcohol was already becoming rare as a preserving agent, and when Prohibition arrived, became illegal.
Maraschino cherries are used in certain cocktails, and are used to decorate foods such as cakes, pastries, fruit salad, and baked ham. In the US, they are an essential addition to ice cream sundaes, leading to the expression, “the cherry on top” to mean the finishing touch which makes a good thing perfect.
Another mention of Lorelai’s love of cherries, this is at least the third one. Note that Rory is going to get rocky road ice cream sundaes to take home and eat with the movie, and they are walking. Even on a chilly night, how are the sundaes not going to melt on the way home? Do they live only thirty seconds walk from the centre of town?
A possible slight contradiction – in Season 1, Lorelai says Rory doesn’t like rocky road cookies, but now she’s happily ordering rocky road sundaes. I suppose it’s plausible she doesn’t like rocky road in cookies, but enjoys it in ice cream, although it sounds unlikely to me. She might have changed her mind, also.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 