Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: When are you going to tell them [Richard and Emily, about the engagement]?
LORELAI: Soon.
RORY: When’s “soon”?
LORELAI: When the big hand hits the “S” and the little hand hits the “OON.”
A play on helping small children tell the time by showing them where the hour hand and minute hand on a clock are.
RORY: I will be assisting, I will be helping out those less fortunate than myself, I will be getting college credit and this is the end of this particular conversation.
LORELAI: You’re right. It’s a good thing. Nice, keeps your halo shiny.
As becomes increasingly clear during this episode, Rory is volunteering purely for college credit, and doesn’t really care about the less fortunate. She’s not quite as angelic as Lorelai thinks.
LORELAI: “Mom, tomorrow I’m going to build a house.”
RORY: Help build a house.
LORELAI: Did you tell them that there’s a light bulb in your closet that burned out in ’97 that you still haven’t changed?
The light bulb in Rory’s closet burned out when she was twelve or thirteen, possibly of an age where Lorelai could have changed the light bulb for her (mind you, that was the year Lorelai broke her leg, so she may not have been too mobile when it happened). Or what about Luke – he did tons of work on Lorelai’s house a few episodes ago while he was avoiding Rachel, couldn’t he at least have replaced a light bulb?
Henry tells Rory that he tried to call Lane once, and Mrs Kim answered, frightening him so much that he never phoned again. This doesn’t quite tally with what Lane told Rory: that Henry rang once and got the answering machine, leaving a message that she listened to again and again before eventually breaking the machine. Perhaps Henry only counts the call where someone answered the phone (which Lane doesn’t know about since her mother took the call).
It is now nearly three months since Henry and Lane first met at Madeline’s party. That’s a long time for Henry to remain interested without doing anything, and he’s taken ages to talk to Rory about the situation. Perhaps he is as unused to dealings with the opposite sex as Lane – certainly they both seem to have made a bit of a mess of this situation.
Rory hasn’t been a real help either; she lives in the same town as Lane and goes to school with Henry, so couldn’t she at least have passed notes and letters between the two of them, or driven Lane into Hartford to see Henry? (Maybe even organised a Trigonometry tutoring class that Lane and Henry could have both joined!)
To be fair, Rory didn’t rely on Lane to fix her relationship problems with Dean, but Rory has a bit more experience with boys, much more freedom, and a generally far easier life than Lane.
RORY: Oh, Henry, hi. Nice to see you.
HENRY: You too. What classes are you taking?
RORY: Shakespeare, physics, obscure Russian poetry.
Rory got a D for her first English Literature assignment, so it makes sense for her to enrol in two Literature classes to improve her grades further. One is the ubiquitous William Shakespeare, while the other is “obscure Russian poetry”, which doesn’t sound like a real subject. Possibly Rory is being facetious, and the subject is actually Nineteenth Century Russian Poets, or Modern Russian Poetry, or something like that. It may seem obscure to Rory, but probably isn’t – Chilton seems to cover the classics rather than anything left-of-field.
Rory has also enrolled in Physics, quite possibly towards credit in the next academic year, as she didn’t study Physics at Chilton in her sophomore year (Biology and Chemistry were her science subjects).
Henry is taking Trigonometry at summer school – just like Lane, this is his worst subject (an aversion of the stereotype that people of Asian heritage are gifted in mathematical subjects). Rory offers to help Henry with Trig, but we never see if she actually does so. It seems plausible enough since they’re both at summer school and Rory has experience in helping Lane with the subject.
RORY: Are you seriously going to be mad about the fact that you thought I was going out with Tristan, even though I wasn’t, for the rest of your life?
PARIS: I have great commitment.
RORY: And you don’t see how stupid that is?
PARIS: I’m sorry if you thought we had some kind of deep Thelma and Louise thing going here, but we didn’t.
Thelma and Louise is a 1991 road film directed by Ridley Scott, written by Callie Khouri, and starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon in the title roles. The story is about two best friends who embark on a road trip and end up running from the law, with every disaster they face bringing them closer together until the bitter end.
Thelma and Louise was a commercial success and gained overwhelming praise from critics; Callie Khouri won the Academy Award for Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. Influential on other films and artistic works, the film is now regarded as a classic and a high point of woman-centred films.
MADELINE: There’s a Rebuilding Together thing going on tomorrow. You know, they fix up homes for the needy. It’s a total easy outdoor denim gig that looks really great on your college transcript.
In real life, Rebuilding Together is a non-profit organisation founded in 1988 which provides free home repairs and renovations for low-income homeowners. However, in the Gilmore Girls universe it seems to operate more like Habitat for Humanity, a Christian-based organisation founded in 1976 which builds simple, affordable housing with volunteer labour for people in need. In real life, both Rebuilding Together and Habitat for Humanity have branches in Hartford, and ongoing volunteering projects.
Madeline here makes a little bid for independence – even after being reminded that she is not meant to be talking to Rory, she invites her to join them on a volunteer project. It’s the closest she gets to protesting Rory’s treatment.
RORY: Uh, you’re not talking to me.
MADELINE: I’m not?
LOUISE: Tristan.
PARIS: PJ Harvey.
MADELINE: Oh yeah.
This conversation is a nice reminder of the events of last season which caused Paris to (once again) hate Rory, and force Louise and Madeline to join her in solidarity. It is typical of Madeline that she can never remember why she is supposed to hate Rory – partly it’s ditziness, but also a genuine liking for Rory; Madeline is noticeably always pleased to see her. And Paris’ reasons for hating Rory are so silly that’s it’s no wonder Madeline can’t remember them.
MADELINE: You doing the summer school thing too?
RORY: Uh, yeah.
In North America, schools and universities can offer academic programs which take place during the summer vacation. In high school, students may enrol in classes for credit which can improve their grade point average or be included on their academic record. Summer school can either make up for credits lost through absence or failure, accelerate progress, or lighten the course load for the year.
Summer school usually lasts for 3-5 weeks, although Louise complains about spending “the summer” at Chilton; she’s probably exaggerating. You don’t normally have to wear a school uniform to summer school, so Chilton is very unusual in expecting this. In fact, most schools make money by attracting students from outside their school, especially international students, so a uniform would actually by impractical.
Rory missed the first few weeks of the academic year at Chilton, and at first struggled to keep up, so it makes sense for her to enrol in summer school.
LOUISE: Princess Grace didn’t go to college.
PARIS: Thank you for the history lesson, A.J. Benza.
Alfred Joseph “A.J.” Benza (born 1962) is an American gossip columnist and television host. He began as a gossip columnist on the New York Daily News, and in the mid-1990s began appearing on The Gossip Show on E! Entertainment Television, leading to appearances on several chat shows. From 1998 to 2001 he was the host of Mysteries and Scandals on the E! Network.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 