Footnotes to the TV series
SOOKIE: Just try to look older [to get into the nightclub].
RORY: How?
SOOKIE: Look like you’re thinking about retirements or 401(k)s and stuff.
In the United States, a 410(k) is a pension account where retirement savings receive contributions from the employer, and is tax-deferred until retirement. In other countries, it might be called a personal pension scheme or superannuation fund.
MICHEL: This is a felony, you know, corrupting a minor. We’ll all end up in the pokey [for trying to get Rory into a nightclub].
RORY (imitating Michel’s pronunciation): He’s right. We’re all going to the pooky.
LORELAI: Sweetie, don’t say “pooky”. It’s creepy.
Pokey is American slang for “gaol”, dating to the early 20th century. It’s a variant of pogey, 19th century British slang for a poorhouse.
LUKE: It’s not biologically natural for people to mate for life. Animals don’t mate for life. Well, ducks do, but who the hell cares what ducks do?
In fact ducks don’t mate for life – most duck species, such as mallards, are monogamous, but for only for a single breeding season (a possible foreshadowing of the length of Max and Lorelai’s bond).
Some sea ducks are thought to return to the same partner when they make their way to the breeding grounds, but this is hardly the same as what a human marriage is generally like. In a few species of stiff-tailed duck, polygamy is the norm, with one male mating with several females.
Furthermore, even within pair-bonded duck couples, promiscuity is reasonably common – they are socially monogamous, not necessarily sexually monogamous.
LORELAI: I’m not wearing a veil at the wedding.
SOOKIE: You’re not? I love veils!
LORELAI: Nah, we’re going cas, Sook.
Lorelai seems to have taken her mother’s advice not to wear a veil at the wedding, although as she says it’s going to be more casual, it suggests that she hasn’t gone with the tiara either.
Max tries to do what Dean never bothered to do with Rory – demand to know exactly what role Lorelai sees him having in her life when they are married. He was all prepared to be a good stepfather to Rory (and probably a stricter parent than Lorelai), but is now told that it won’t be necessary – Rory is almost grown, and already “brought up”.
Upon asking what exactly his role in Lorelai’s life will be, it turns out that pretty much all Lorelai sees him doing is the cooking, answering the phone, and servicing her sexually. For some reason, he isn’t satisfied with being her personal chef-secretary-gigolo, and is horrified to discover that Lorelai has given precisely zero thought to how their lives will work as a married couple, even though it’s just two weeks until their wedding.
Anyone can see there are rocks ahead in this union. The fight ends when Max realises he broke Dean’s rule not to discuss anything serious late at night, during the “cranky hour”. Is he already being trained into the sort of dumb obedience that Gilmore girls demand?
At the end of the fight, Lorelai looks miserable and thoughtful. She must surely be realising she is not ready for marriage, and wondering what to do.
MAX: Say you’re not here, I come home, there’s Rory and Dean in the dark all alone after eleven. I mean, how do I handle stuff like that?
LORELAI: Oh, Max, Rory is very low maintenance. Kind of like that robot kid in A.I., only way less mother-obsessed. Oh my God, that kid was so annoying. I would’ve pushed him out of the car while it was still moving.
Lorelai is referring to the 2001 science-fiction film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, directed by Steven Spielberg and partly based on the 1969 short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long by British sci-fi author Brian Aldiss. Development on the film was first started by Stanley Kubrick in the 1970s, but the film was not completed until after his death; the film is dedicated to Kubrick.
Set in the late 22nd century, the film is about an artificial boy named David (Haley Joel Osment), who is programmed to have an enduring love for his human mother, Monica Swinton (Frances O’Connor). The film is primarily about David’s search for reassurance that Monica returned his love.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence was a commercial success, and the 4th highest-selling film world-wide, although it did less well in the US. It received mixed reviews, with most critics seeing it as brilliant, if flawed.
This is the second time Lorelai has called Rory “low maintenance”. The first time was in regard to school, where her “low maintenance” included enormously high school fees that required wealthy family members to chip in. Now she is calling Rory emotionally low maintenance, even though Rory in fact needs her mother to face most challenges. “Low maintenance” can join “sweetest kid in the world” as one of Lorelai’s least convincing descriptions of Rory.
MAX: How ya doing?
LORELAI: Mm, I’m stable.
MAX: You’re a lovely shade of puce.
LORELAI: Don’t say puce. It sounds too much like another word I don’t wanna hear right now.
Puce is a dark red or purple-ish brown colour. The word comes from the French word for “flea”, and is supposedly named for the colour of bloodstains on bed sheets after a flea has been crushed.
Lorelai moans that the colour reminds her of the word “puke”.
During the double date of Lorelai and Max, and Rory and Dean, Max complains about all the food he has eaten – Lorelai and Rory’s response is to rush off and buy ice creams. Dean takes this opportunity to rather patronisingly fill Max in on life with a Gilmore girl. (Dean and Max wear matching stripy shirts to show they are fulfilling the same character functions).
In the nine months since he began dating Rory, Dean has already discovered:
The interesting part about this is that it shows (apart from Dean lacking respect for Lorelai’s husband-to-be) is that Dean is not a patsy or an idiot: he knows what being with Rory entails, and apparently accepts what he has signed up for, including the knowledge that Rory’s thinking is quicker than his.
Dean isn’t a victim, although it’s still hard to see what he’s getting out of his relationship with Rory – seemingly just the thrill of being permitted to love a Gilmore girl on her own terms. It’s almost like those medieval tales of courtly love, where the man worships his lady and devotedly performs acts of service for her, while her main role is simply to allow him to love her.
Max is perfectly clueless about all this, and somewhat dismayed to hear about it. Unlike Dean, he hasn’t spent a lot of time with Lorelai and Rory together, and isn’t aware of their relationship dynamics. As a grown man, he’s far less likely to passively accept whatever treatment Lorelai and Rory feel like dishing out to him.
Taylor lets Luke know that he is getting a traffic light installed in Stars Hollow, even though there hasn’t been an accident in ten years (he apparently has powers to make decisions unilaterally in the town’s best interests when it comes to public safety).
As usual, Taylor is all about town progress, while Luke is all about keeping Stars Hollow exactly the way it has been – two different ways they show their love for the town. Their struggles and interactions end up giving Stars Hollow better outcomes; without Luke, the town would change too much and lose its character, while without Taylor it would stagnate and become a backwater.
This traffic light is the one alluded to in the episode’s title.
When Max joins Lorelai and Rory in the diner for breakfast, they immediately demand blueberry pancakes, while Max needs more time to think. The Gilmore girls delay their orders as well, and Luke takes this opportunity to unnecessarily make the whole exercise as stressful as possible, by threatening to “run out of pancakes”, and be “unable to make any more”, even though there is still an hour before breakfast is no longer served.
When Max orders poached eggs, Lorelai and Rory quickly ask if they can still have pancakes, to which Luke smugly says he already put their orders aside – something he earlier claimed was impossible as it was first come, first served.
It’s clear that Luke is going to act like a massive jerk if Lorelai remains with Max, and as this jeopardises her access to food and coffee (since obviously she can’t make her own food and drinks like any ordinary person), this will be a major problem if they get married, and live in Stars Hollow.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 