Category: S2Ep6: Presenting Lorelai Gilmore

“The drummer in Spinal Tap”

RORY: I went out onto the patio.
LORELAI: Ugh, Rory, that’s like accepting the position as the drummer in Spinal Tap.

Spinal Tap is a fictional English heavy metal band created by American comedians and musicians Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer. They first appeared on a 1979 sketch comedy pilot called The TV Show, but are best known from the critically-acclaimed 1984 mockumentary film, This is Spinal Tap, considered one of the best films of the 1980s. The heavy metal fan and comedic Lorelai must surely love it.

Spinal Tap’s fictional history includes a succession of drummers, all of which have died in strange circumstances, such as a “bizarre gardening accident”, “choking on someone else’s vomit”, two suffering spontaneous combustion on stage, and one death a mystery police thought better to leave unsolved.

Lorelai’s saying that Rory was doomed the minute she went out on the patio.

“Isn’t it a little late?”

VIVIAN LEWIS: Why don’t you present Rory there?
EMILY: Oh . .. uh . . . Well, I don’t know. Isn’t it a little late?
SUNNY: Oh please. For Emily Gilmore, I’m sure they’ll bend the rules.

Generally you’d need to apply for a debutante ball several months in advance, and commit to a ten to twelve week course of dancing and etiquette lessons in preparation. It’s more than a “little late”, and they won’t be “bending” the rules for Emily Gilmore, they’ll be smashing them to pieces!

Naturally rules are only for mere mortals, not for the glorious Gilmore girls. In this case, it’s practical for the show, because it cuts down months of ball preparation (snigger) into less than two weeks.

Daughters of the American Revolution

VIVIAN LEWIS: Well you know, the Daughters of the American Revolution Debutante Ball is next week.

The Daughters of the American Revolution, previously discussed.

The Daughters of the American Revolution really do hold debutante balls. They are often held on patriotic dates, and as this episode takes place in September, the ball might be held around the date of Constitution Day, which is September 17. In 2001, it was a Monday, but the ball could be held the following Saturday. This is also around the date of the Fall Equinox, giving the ball a Harvest Festival feel, as if the young girls are ready to be “gathered” or “picked”.

In real life, the DAR chapter for Hartford is called the Ruth Wylls Chapter. It was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest chapters. It has over 50 members.

We already know that Emily is a member of the DAR, which means that she is a direct descendant of someone involved in the American Revolution, meaning Lorelai and Rory are eligible to join too. In real life, the easiest way to join the DAR is to have a blood relative who’s already a member, as your ancestry is proven. This becomes a plot point later in the show.

“Lorelai had such a specific walk”

SUNNY: She looks just like Lorelai, doesn’t she?
NATALIE SWOPE: The eyes.
VIVIAN LEWIS: The nose.
SUNNY: Walk around sweetie … I just wanna see the walk. Lorelai had such a specific walk.

VIVIAN LEWIS: Fast.

Emily’s friends eagerly examine Rory, this seems to be first time they have seen Lorelai’s daughter, at least for many years. It’s also the first mention by another character of Lorelai’s fast paced walking, possibly one of the factors helping her stay slim. (I don’t think Rory has inherited it, to me her walking seems normal paced, or even slightly slow for a young healthy person).

Salisbury

VIVIAN LEWIS: Well, you know she and Eugene split up last month.
EMILY: What?
NATALIE SWOPE: Oh Em! You knew about that. They had this huge fight at the . . . oh that’s right, you missed the Schafer’s cocktail party.
EMILY: They broke up at the Schafer’s cocktail party?
NATALIE SWOPE: He has another family in Salisbury.

Salisbury is a small town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, about an hour and a half drive from Hartford.

This is an example of the kind of juicy gossip Emily is missing out on due to turning down so many major social events.

Emily and Her Maids

SUNNY: Another new [maid], Emily?
EMILY: Yes. The last one only made it through one evening. Thoroughly nervous creature.
NATALIE SWOPE: What do you do to them, Em?
EMILY: Oh, the usual. Clean this, cook that, sacrifice a virgin on your way out.
SUNNY: [laughs] The things you say.

Emily’s friends are teasing her about her inability to keep any maid longer than a week (where does this everlasting supply of new staff come from, I wonder?). She is apparently well known in her circle for this, and Liesl seems to have quit after just one night of having to witness Richard and Emily fighting on the stairs … no wonder she was “thoroughly nervous”!

Emily jokes that she makes her maids sacrifice a virgin, a stock trope in films about Satan worship. She’s well aware that she’s considered a bit of a “devil” as an employer. Note that Emily’s friends enjoy her rather wicked sense of humour, a trait which she and Lorelai share.

Emily is careful to hide the fact that her fight with Richard is what caused the maid to quit. She is both too proud and too loyal to let her friends know that she is currently quite unhappy.

(We only find out the name of Emily’s friends from the credits).

“Gross shirt”

LUKE: Hey, part of the deal of you staying here is that you work here, and when you work here you will wear proper work attire, and that is not proper work attire. Now go upstairs and change into something that won’t scare the hell out of my customers.
JESS: Whatever you say, Uncle Luke. [goes upstairs]
LORELAI: Gross shirt … good band.

Luke has made good on his promise of Jess having to work in the diner when not at school. Jess is obliging, but still teases Luke by wearing one of his heavy metal tee-shirts to work. This is the Metallica tee-shirt that Jess joked wouldn’t get along with his Tool tee-shirt.

Lorelai immediately makes a note of the fact that she and Jess share a favourite band, both being fans of heavy metal.

“I’d rather know right now”

LORELAI: A-plus.
RORY: You’re my mom.
LORELAI: Is anything higher than an A-plus?
RORY: You have to say that.
LORELAI: It’s an A-plus with a crown and a wand.
RORY: This is not how you raise a child. You don’t send them out there with a false sense of pride, because out there, in the real world, no one will coddle you. I’d rather know right now if I’m gonna be working at CNN, or carrying a basket around its offices with sandwiches in it.

Rory says she wants honest feedback on her work, but when she’s later given a critique of her abilities and an assessment of her career options, she has a complete breakdown and is unable to continue. In this case, she is happy to receive confirmation that she’s doing great, and to enjoy being coddled a while longer.

I don’t think it’s really Lorelai’s job to provide Rory with an assessment of her abilities and suggest a grade she deserves to receive. She’s not a teacher, a journalist, or a writer. She doesn’t have academic credentials or training. Surely as a mother, all she can do for Rory is support and encourage her, as she is trying to do.

At this point, Rory shouldn’t need any harsher criticism than she’s already receiving, because Chilton is supposedly a strict school with high academic standards. Is it possible she already feels that the teacher supervising The Franklin staff is too easy on her?