Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: I ordered food from Sandeep’s.
JESS: Really? Planning on burning down the house afterwards? … The only way to kill the smell.
Jess makes the exact same (racist) joke that Lorelai did earlier, to emphasise the similarity in their tastes and personalities.
EMILY: They certainly do like their tofu here, don’t they?
LORELAI: And the word steamed. Well, they have dessert at least. Cookies sweetened with sprouted mung bean.
Tofu ends up being the villain of the piece, once again. Vegan food nearly always seems to be treated as some sort of disgusting torture on Gilmore Girls! The cookies would be made from sprouted mung bean flour, and I have seen them spruiked as a healthy detox snack. The recipe said they taste like peanut butter cookies without the peanut butter. So um … like nothing???
I don’t actually think it’s very believable that a luxury East Coast spa would serve only this kind of food for dinner. They exist to pamper people, and the ones I saw were handing around cocktails and glasses of wine while people were having pedicures in their robes – exactly the sort of thing Emily and Lorelai would have enjoyed. It seems more like something a Californian health and wellness sort of spa would serve. However, we need an excuse for them to leave to get a steak dinner, so this is it.
EMILY: That’s a pretty colour. What is that?
LORELAI: It’s called Vicious Trollop.
A fictional shade of lipstick, a joke based on the sometimes bizarre names chosen for lipstick colours. It appears to be a MAC lipstick, Lorelai’s favourite make-up brand, and according to the Gilmore Girls Instagram page, it’s a dark red matte colour.
You can now buy “Vicious Trollop” lip balm on Etsy, but apart from not being actual lipstick, it’s nowhere near the right colour.
This is the song which is playing at the spa while Lorelai is having her facial alone, and when Emily goes to her room and begins chatting.
“Deora Ar Mo Croi” is a song by Irish singer Enya, from her 2000 album, A Day Without Rain. The lyrics were adapted by Enya into Irish Gaelic from a poem by Roma Ryan, written in English. Roma Ryan is Enya’s chief lyricist.
A Day Without Rain was hugely successful internationally, selling 7 times platinum in the US and reaching #2 in the charts. Its popularity surged after 9/11, when Enya’s soulful laments seemed to perfectly capture the nation’s mood. The album was #6 in the UK and #7 in Ireland, and was most successful in Germany and Australia, where it went to #1.
The song’s title can be understood as “Tears In My Heart”, and its lyrics can be roughly translated into English thus:
How wonderful, from morning to night
the sweet voices beside me
and happiness everywhere, without sorrow,
joy in my heart forever.
If I walk away from life,
the sun and the moon at my back
I lack nothing but memories of my own world
Tears in my heart, sadly.
Apart from being believable as the sort of relaxing music that might be played at a spa, the song touches on the emotion behind Emily and Lorelai’s relationship, and that it is hard for Lorelai to simply “walk away” from her life and her memories without losing an awful lot in the process.
PARIS: This was the big night you had planned – a rendezvous with Mr. Peanut?
Mr Peanut is the advertising mascot for Planters Peanut Company, depicted as a peanut in the shell dressed as a gentleman, in top hat and monocle. Planters was founded in 1906 in Pennsylvania; Mr Peanut was created in 1916 after a schoolboy named Antonio Gentile won a design contest, with alterations made by artist Andrew S. Wallach.
Rory opens the door to Paris dressed in pyjamas decorated with Mr Peanut-like figures. (Rory’s pyjamas often have food themes; Lorelai said her “cutest” pyjamas had cupcakes on them).
PARIS: I tried to stay home and study myself but I can’t. I don’t know what anything means anymore. I mean, I can’t even read my own handwriting. What does this say? The person who wrote this should be dressed in a clown suit, stuffing bodies under their porch.
Paris is referencing John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994), serial killer and sex offender who assaulted and murdered at least 33 boys and young men. Gacy regularly performed at children’s hospitals and charitable events as “Pogo the Clown” or “Patches the Clown”, personas he had devised. He became known as the “Killer Clown” due to his public services as a clown prior to the discovery of his crimes. He buried most of his victims beneath his house, usually in the crawl space.
His conviction for thirty-three murders (by one individual) then covered the most homicides in US legal history. Gacy was sentenced to death in 1980, and executed by lethal injection in 1994.
Paris talks about her work as if it looks as if it was done by a mental case, but although he pleaded insanity, John Wayne Gacy was deemed to be sane and in complete control of his faculties when he committed his crimes.
(This is yet another mention of clowns on Gilmore Girls).
[Picture shows John Wayne Gacy dressed as a clown].
Chicken vindaloo (a spicy dish, originally from Goa, and based on a Portuguese dish) [pictured]
3 Samosas (savoury pastry appetisers)
2 serves garlic naan bread (a flatbread)
Rice
Green sauce (actually green chutney, made with mint and cilantro, to use as a dipping sauce)
She orders from a business called Sandeep’s, so there’s an Indian restaurant in town which delivers. Stars Hollow has a lot of food options for a small place!
The delivery from Sandeep’s never actually arrives – Rory is seen ordering it on the phone, then Jess turns up with food, and they eat that instead. It’s possible that the delivery person from Sandeep’s did get there, but it was never shown on screen, or that Rory rang straight back and cancelled the order, also offscreen.
DEAN: I’m a saint, but I’m not mad.
RORY: Thank you.
While locking lips with Rory against a tree, Dean suggests that since Lorelai is away, he should come over. It’s possibly code for “let’s get sexy” (and Rory and Dean are more than a year over the age of consent in Connecticut), but to his surprise, Rory explains that she has plans to spend some time alone. She is afraid that Dean will be angry with her – she’s very scared of his temper.
Although disappointed and confused (the idea of a girl deciding to spend time alone for one night is beyond his ken), Dean kindly allows Rory the chance to do laundry in peace, as long as she “makes up for it” by spending all the next day with him. And then declares himself a saint for this outstanding act of munificence. Saint Dean, the patron saint of understanding boyfriends.
Note the touch of red Dean is wearing under his jacket, as if there is actually an underlying anger there.
One of Rory’s tee shirts she discusses with Dean has Kafka Was Here written on it, a nod to one of her favourite authors. Two of her other tee-shirts with writing on them are Rock Star and Evil.
RORY: Actually, I was thinking of pulling kind of a hermit thing tonight.
DEAN: Why?
RORY: I don’t know. J.D. Salinger seems to dig it.
Jerome David “J.D.” Salinger (1919-2010), author of Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey, both previously discussed. As his literary notability grew, Salinger gradually withdrew from public life.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 