Heinz

LUKE: Ah, well, I just got kinda busy here.
LORELAI: Oh, yes, I can see that. Boy, they keep making that ketchup slower and slower, huh?
LUKE: It’s the Heinz family’s little joke.

The H.J. Heinz company, usually just known as Heinz, is an American food processing company founded by Henry John Heinz in 1869. They merged with Kraft Foods in 2015. The company makes thousands of products and sells them in over 200 countries around the world. Heinz makes the most popular ketchup (tomato sauce) in the US, with more than half the market share.

One Fine Day

This 1963 pop song plays just before Rory and Dean kiss and make up, and follows Lorelai as she goes to see Luke in the diner. One Fine Day was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and recorded by the girl group The Chiffons. It was a hit around the world, going to #5 in the US.

The song seems to be a comment on Lorelai’s feelings for Luke – that “one fine day” he will want her for his girl.

“Now I’m an expert at it”

RORY: And I could help you organize all of your extracurricular activities because I’m now an expert at it.
DEAN: I don’t …
RORY: How are your wilderness skills?

How did Rory become “an expert” at extracurricular activities in what is posited as a 24-hour period? All she can have done is read a few brochures and made a couple of phone calls, or sent a few emails – on a weekend.

Furthermore, what does being “an expert” mean? Has she got herself some volunteer work for the summer? Because she never mentions it again, and that part of the year isn’t depicted on the show.

“You could go to a fancy school if you wanted to”

DEAN: I mean, I’m not going to a fancy school. I don’t have that kind of pressure. I can’t even imagine what that must feel like.
RORY: You could go to a fancy school if you wanted to.
DEAN: I don’t think so.
RORY: Why not? You’re smart.

Rory continues trying to make Dean into something he’s not – he’s an average student who likes playing sport and home mechanics, but she persists in making him read classic literature, and telling him he could get into a private school if he wanted to. On some level, she cannot be satisfied with Dean as a boyfriend if she won’t accept him not being a bookworm and not going to private school.

Dean is too polite to make the obvious comeback: that he doesn’t have rich grandparents who can bankroll his academic dreams. Even Rory, a very good student, couldn’t get into Chilton on a scholarship, so what hope does Dean have of attending a similar school with average grades and no money for school fees?

Kit Kat Bar

RORY: But I don’t want you to feel unimportant, because believe me, you’re not.
DEAN: I’m glad.
RORY: I mean it. The only way you could be more important to me is if you had a Kit Kat bar growing out of your head.

Kit Kat is a chocolate covered wafer bar that comes in several “fingers” of wafer that you break off. It was created by Rowntree’s, a UK comapny, who had several chocolate products called Kit Cat or Kit Kat, until a worker suggested making a snack that a man could take to work in his lunch box.

The Kit Kat as we know it was first made in 1935, and it has been produced by Nestlé since 1988. In the US, Kit Kat is made by the H.B. Reese Candy Company, a division of The Hershey Company.

Rory and Dean Make Up

DEAN: I’m so sorry, Rory.
RORY: I’m sorry too.
DEAN: I don’t even know what happened.
RORY: We had a fight, that’s all.
DEAN: I mean, I’ve just missed you and …
RORY: I’ve missed you too.

You can see that Rory is now far more assured and secure in her relationship after her third fight with Dean. Compare her calm attitude after this one, where she actually did behave rather badly, to the huge effort she made to “win Dean back” after a minor disagreement about an old television show. She knows now that Dean loves her and won’t leave her, and just a simple apology will get things back on track so they can kiss and make up.

“I built a house yesterday”

KIRK: I have to tell you, I’m a little worried about this gazebo holding up all those hoofers. They never did a trial run like I requested.
RORY: Oh, I think it’s okay. The studs are definitely sound, and the two by fours are a nice number two structural grade. Or better possibly. I built a house yesterday.

Again, for Rory to have built a house yesterday, on a Saturday, and it’s now Saturday night, shows that we have strangely had two Saturdays in a row.

“I don’t tap any more”

[The girls start dancing. Kirk watches them as Rory walks over to him.]
RORY: How come you’re not up there Kirk?
KIRK: Oh, I don’t tap anymore. Bum knees.

This is the first indication we have of Kirk’s artistic leanings and dance training, later retconned so that he is actually a past student of Miss Patty (even though he had never met her in their first encounter on the show, in Cinnamon’s Wake).

Love Will Keep Us Together

This 1973 pop song is the one chosen for Miss Patty’s dancers to tap dance to in the gazebo. It was written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, and first recorded by Neil Sedaka.

The version used in this scene is the 1975 cover version by the duo Captain & Tennille, from their album Love Will Keep Us Together. The single became a world-wide hit, and went to #1 in the US, Canada, and Australia. Captain & Tennille did a Spanish-language version of the song called Por Amor Viviremos which went to #49 in the US the same year; a rare example of the same song hitting the charts in different versions.

“Just as infatuated”

MAX: Will you still want me when I get back?
LORELAI: I think there’s a very good possibility that I will be just as infatuated with you then as I am now.

Max’s asking if Lorelai will still want when he returns from Toronto is a reminder of the song Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree, earlier discussed. It’s noteworthy that Lorelai still hasn’t told Max that she loves him, just as she admitted to Rory that she couldn’t say “I love you”, even as she urged Rory to say it to Dean. Here she only says she is “infatuated” with him, suggesting an intense but short-lived passion. Again, Max fails to pick up on this red flag.