Even though Lorelai only asked her mother to join her as revenge for nagging her to get more involved at Chilton (and perhaps even as a callback to the imaginary mother-daughter talent show at Chilton Emily teased Lorelai with in Paris is Burning), Emily actually ends up having a good time (and dare I say it, so does Lorelai? Notice how she begins smiling and having fun once she sees Luke enjoying her performance).
Lorelai and Rory so seldom allow Emily to join them in social activities, but when they do, she often enjoys being part of the fun. There’s a playful side to Emily that is rarely given the chance to come out, and that Lorelai and Rory could have really helped with if they had bothered.
AVA: Oh, he’s adorable. And he [Luke] looks strong, is he strong? LORELAI: Oh I don’t know. I don’t think he’s gonna be in a sideshow anytime soon, but he can get the lid off a pickle jar.
The Strongman, a man performing amazing feats of strength, was a circus sideshow attraction in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Yep, another circus reference! These days, Strongman events have become athletic competitions.
Ava’s later comment about hoping Luke is unattached is a sign that she is a single mother, like Lorelai. It seems as if Lorelai might have more in common with some of the Chilton moms than she thought. However, Ava’s interest in Luke has doomed her chances of becoming Lorelai’s friend, which is a shame as they seemed like they could have got on well together, and been allies in the Chilton world. Romantic and sexual attraction pretty much ruins everything in Gilmore Girls.
LORELAI: I want Luke to look at it. MAN: Hey, I put this thing together. LORELAI: Yes, and I loved your work in Pisa. Now get out of the way, please.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa, a freestanding bell tower of the cathedral in the Italian city of Pisa. It began leaning during its construction in the 12th century, due to unstable foundations, and is famous worldwide. Numerous efforts have been made to restore it to its vertical position: most failed, several have made it worse. It has been straightened slightly and stabilised since the 1990s, but it’s such a tourist attraction as a tilting tower that nobody really wants it corrected.
IVY: She’s [Paris] funny? RORY: Oh yeah. Hilarious. I mean, the times that we have spent laughing together. I tell ya, she’s a regular Gary Mule Deer.
Gary Mule Deer (born Gary Miller, 1939), American comedian and country music singer. In a career spanning over six decades, he has performed major concert stages in the US, including Carnegie Hall and Grand Ole Opry, and made more than 350 television appearances, including on Hee Haw, previously discussed. He entertains regularly at casinos, including in Las Vegas, and for many years has toured in concert as a special guest to Johnny Mathis.
RORY: You know, Paris, while yes, a little intense, is also very smart. FRANCIE: So I drop a box of matches on the floor, she can tell me how many there are?
Francie refers to the 1988 drama film Rain Man, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. It’s about a selfish, unscrupulous dealer named Charlie who discovers he has a brother Raymond who is an autistic savant. Charlie removes Raymond from the institution where he has lived most of his life, and they travel across country together.
In one scene of the film, a waitress accidentally spills a packet of toothpicks on the floor, and Raymond instantly calculates that there are 246 toothpicks.
The character of Raymond was partially based on Kim Peek, a real life savant, and partly on Bill Sackter, a man with intellectual disabilities who was a friend of one of the screenwriters. In real life, neither of them were able to perform this feat, although some savants can.
Rain Man was a critical and commercial success, becoming the #1 film of 1988, and won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Hoffman), and Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. As of this moment, it was the last drama that both topped the box office and won the Oscar for Best Picture.
FRANCIE: Mariah Carey’s crackup. LEM: Have you heard her fan message recently? She’s fine and is currently staring at a really beautiful rainbow. IVY: Survivor, hello.
Mariah Carey (born 1969), American singer, songwriter, and actress. She rose to fame in 1990 with her self-titled debut album, and was the first artist to have her first five singles reach #1. She initially signed with Columbia, and married one of their executives in 1993 (they separated in 1997 and divorced in 1998).
In July 2001, after parting with Columbia and breaking up with her boyfriend of three years, Carey suffered a physical and mental breakdown. She began posting a series of disturbing messages on her official website, and displayed erratic behaviour on several promotional appearances, such as doing an unscripted striptease on MTV. The messages on her website spoke of being drained and burnt out by the music industry, and needing a break.
Carey was admitted to a hospital in Connecticut for treatment for two weeks, then remained absent from the public for some time. In late August (perhaps 4-6 weeks before the events of this episode), Carey posted an audio message on her website thanking fans for their support during her recovery.
In the message she told her fans, I just want to say thank you so much for all the letters and everything … as I speak to you, I’m looking at the most beautiful rainbow that is going across the entire sky, and I love you much! Thanks. Bye. She took the rainbow as a positive omen, especially as her 1999 album was called Rainbow.
Recently, Mariah Carey has revealed that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the time of hospitalisation, but it took her some time to accept it. It must be said that Gilmore Girls was never particularly sensitive on the subject of mental health issues.
FRANCIE: Well, no one has proof [the Puffs exist]. It’s just folklore. IVY: Like Snow-White and Rose-Red.
Snow-White and Rose-Red is a German fairy tale, best known from the version in the collection of the Brothers Grimm. In the story, Snow-White and Rose-Red are two sisters, one blonde and quiet, and the other dark-haired and lively, who live with their widowed mother in a cottage in the woods. The girls love each other and share everything equally.
They make friends with an unusually polite bear, giving him a warm place to spend the winter, and playfully rolling around with him before the fire. Later on, their bear friend saves them from a wicked dwarf, and is revealed to be a prince, put under a curse by the dwarf. It turns out they were rolling around and cuddling a prince in a fur suit the whole time! He marries Snow-White, and just as it looks like the girls really are going to share everything, the prince turns out to have a convenient brother for Rose-Red, and they all live happily ever after (their mother fades out of the story).
It’s one of the more frankly erotic fairy tales, a story of innocence reaching sexual maturity. It’s somehow fitting that a Chilton girl knows of this lesser-known fairy tale, and the name might remind us of Francie’s red hair! (Modern versions of the story often give Rose-Red literal red hair to match Snow-White’s literal fair hair).
FRANCIE: We talked. We find you fascinating. IVY: Like the monkey habitat. FRANCIE: So we’ve decided to extend an invite to you. You can eat here any time you like.
The invitation to Rory from the Puffs comes with a major put-down which likens her to a monkey at a zoo. Clever and amusing, but not quite human, not fully one of them. Even when the Puffs accept you, they don’t really accept you …
RORY: Lorelai Gilmore. Nope, doesn’t sound model-y enough. You need something that stands out more. How about Waffle? We could call you Waffle and say you’re from Belgium?
Rory is referring to the way many models have unusual or exotic-sounding names, sometimes the one they were given at birth, and sometimes self-chosen. (Alexis Bledel began her career as a model, so presumably would know of many examples).
Waffle is from Belgium because they are famous for this foodstuff. American love “Belgian waffles”, which were introduced to North America in 1962, and popularised in 1964 at the New York World’s Fair – a variant of the Brussels waffle, served with strawberries and whipped cream (the Belgian cook who brought them over didn’t think North Americans would recognise Brussels as the name of a Belgian city).
There are several different types of waffle in Belgium, and none of them are called Belgian waffle. They tend to be larger and lighter than Belgian waffles in North America, with larger squares and a deeper grid pattern. Unlike in North America, they are not served as a breakfast food, but more often as a dessert or afternoon snack with coffee. [picture is the American version of Belgian waffles].
LORELAI: Ugh, they totally just snuck that modelling thing in. RORY: Hmm, my mom’s a model. Maybe you’ll get to date Leonardo DiCaprio now.
Leonardo DiCaprio (born 1974), award-winning actor, producer, and environmentalist, known for taking unusual roles, especially in biopics and period pieces. At this stage, DiCaprio had won critical acclaim for his role in the 1993 quirky coming of age film, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and become an international star after playing the male lead in the 1997 epic romance, Titanic, which became the highest-grossing film to that point.
In 1999, he began dating Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen (born 1980), a relationship which lasted until 2005; this is what Rory is thinking of [pictured]. It’s another of those celebrity references which have had real staying power, because DiCaprio went on to date a number of other models, and since 2017 has been in a relationship with Argentine-American model Camila Morrone (born 1997).
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 