EMILY: Oh, now you have a problem with swans and thrones. LORELAI: Because swans and thrones scream one thing, Mom. Siegfried and Roy.
Siegfried and Roy were a duo of German-American magicians and entertainers, famous for their appearances with white lions and white tigers. They were Siegfried Fischbacher (1939-2021) and Roy Horn (born Uwe Horn, 1944-2020). They had a very successful act at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas from the 1990s until 2003, known for their flamboyant style, sometimes compared to Liberace.
EMILY: Lorelai, your daughter’s being impossible. She won’t pose in an appropriate manner. RORY: I’m trying to, Grandma. It’s just awkward.
Rory goes to her grandmother’s house after school to pose for her portrait, but it turns out this means sitting on a “throne” (a needlework armchair) in a red velvet dress with a hungry honking swan, and her arm raised in an odd pose. The living room portrait is quite normal, so it’s strange that Emily suddenly wants this bizarre “swan princess” picture of Rory. It might explain why Lorelai’s own portrait was never completed. Rory is already looking quite grumpy, just as Lorelai got fed up with being painted.
Lorelai is able to quickly convince Emily that a picture of Rory sitting and reading would be natural and appropriate, saving the day.
RORY: Mia, why don’t you move back here? We miss you. LORELAI: Or at least visit more? You used to check in. You never come at all. MIA: I don’t have to. You’ve made me redundant. LORELAI: I have not. MIA: Don’t be humble. The inn is beyond covered. It’s never run this well or been this successful. That inn is like your place now. Without you I wouldn’t know what to do, I’d be lost.
An explanation for why we’ve never seen Mia before – she lives a long way away, and Lorelai is doing such a good job of running the Independence that Mia doesn’t need to check in with them any more. This unexpected visit from Mia seems to be almost purely nostalgic, and perhaps timed to coincide with the Autumn Festival.
Of course, it leaves Lorelai feeling very guilty. If the Independence can’t function without Lorelai, how can she and Sookie ever quit to start an inn of their own?
MIA: Not one thing to recommend hiring her. Just that … how do I put it and remain a lady? … that ‘who cares’ look in her eyes, so I gave her any job. The other maids hated you. LORELAI: Yeah, well they were all so slow. MIA: You were special.
This helps explain why Mia hired Lorelai, even though she had no experience or references. Not only a vulnerable figure, a teenaged mother with a baby, but one who didn’t want to be pitied or beg for help: only to be given the chance to earn enough for herself and her daughter.
Lorelai repaid Mia by being a hard-working and enthusiastic employee – so much so that the other maids were resentful of her. I suspect that years spent watching Emily’s maids get castigated and fired for minor errors gave Lorelai the motivation to pay attention to detail. This good attitude and work ethic no doubt soon led to promotions, raises, and bonuses at the Independence.
MIA: You marched up to me, looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I’m here for a job. Any job.’ LORELAI: Well, IBM had turned me down for the CEO slot, so I was desperate.
IBM is an acronym for the International Business Machines Corporation, a tech company headquartered in Armonk, New York, founded in 1911 by businessman Charles Ranlett Flint as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, receiving its current name in 1924. It is nicknamed Big Blue.
One of the largest companies in the world, IBM produces and sells computer hardware and software, and provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. It’s also a major research organisation, which has invented such things as the automatic teller machine, the floppy disc, the hard drive, magnetic stripe cards, and barcodes. IBM employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.
When Lorelai was job-hunting in 1986, the CEO of IBM was John Fellows Akers (1934-2014), a Yale alumnus who had only been in the role a year. In 2001, the CEO of IBM was businessman Lou Gertsner (born 1942), who took the role in 1993. He is largely credited with turning the company’s fortunes around, and was the first to be hired from outside the company.
MIA: I miss you. Hey, do you realize it was fifteen years ago almost to the day? LORELAI: Yes it was. RORY: What was? MIA: To the day when this skinny little teenage girl showed up at the inn. She had this tiny little thing in her arms. LORELAI: A little thing named Rory.
The date appears to be 31st October 2001, although there is no mention of it being Halloween. Presumably the parties and celebrations will be in the evening, offscreen. If it is fifteen years, almost to the day, since Lorelai and Rory arrived in Stars Hollow, then it would have been in late October or early November 1986, when Rory was two, and Lorelai eighteen and a half.
In 1986, Halloween was a Friday. If Lorelai arrived in Stars Hollow that weekend, then she could have arrived on Saturday the 1st of November. The connection with Halloween gives Lorelai’s entrance into Stars Hollow a magical feel, as if forces beyond our ken were at work to bring the Gilmore girls to this starlit little town. That weekend would have also been the Autumn Festival, which remains a touchstone for the Gilmore girls throughout the original series and into the revival.
Perhaps more interestingly, they came to Stars Hollow just days after Rory’s second birthday. It makes you wonder what occurred to drive Lorelai to flee her parents’ home, because she doesn’t seem to have made a planned, measured, or calculated approach to running away. The show makes it sound as if she grabbed Rory and a few essentials, jumped in the car and drove at random until she found somewhere that would take her in.
Although I think it is safe to assume that things had always been fraught with her parents, there must have been a final straw around the time of Rory’s birthday which triggered her sudden flight. Did Richard and Emily shower Rory with luxurious gifts, so that Lorelai began to fear they might buy Rory’s love or make her spoiled?
Was there an extravagant party (shades of Rory’s sweet sixteen), where even a baby Rory was being pressured to perform to exacting Gilmore standards, did Emily become so demanding that every detail of the party be perfect until Rory was stressed and crying?
All just speculation, but fascinating to imagine. The seeds of Lorelai’s mistrust of allowing her parents near Rory must have sprouted somewhere, and we know it began early.
TAYLOR: I speak for the Stars Hollow Business Association, the Stars Hollow Tourist Board, the Stars Hollow Neighborhood Watch Organization, and the Stars Hollow Citizens for a Clean Stars Hollow Council. LUKE: All of which are you.
Neighborhood Watch is an organisation for civilians devoted to preventing crime and making neighbourhoods safer. In the US, it developed in the late 1960s in response to the rape and murder of a female bartender in Queen’s, New York, who was stabbed outside her apartment building. According to media reports, thirty-eight people saw or heard the attack, and none came to her aid or called the police, so that law enforcement agencies encouraged communities to get more involved in reporting crimes (although in fact the media exaggerated the story – there weren’t so many witnesses, somebody did call police, and another held her while waiting for help to arrive). Neighborhood Watch was a new iteration of the town watch from colonial America.
Taylor’s comment provides a nice little roll call of the major community organisations in Stars Hollow – all apparently spearheaded by Taylor. Taylor can legitimate claim that Jess’ prank is pertinent to all these organisations. He committed a crime, which Neighbourhood Watch needs to keep an eye on, he defaced the pavement, in violation of keeping Stars Hollow clean, and as a result he has made Stars Hollow less desirable for business and tourism. Ingenious!
TAYLOR: Three people have reported seeing Jess in that area late last night, skulking, lurking. LUKE: There were a lot of people out late last night. I know because I fed some of them. I’ll give you their names so you can add them to your suspect list. TAYLOR: Another person witnessed Jess walking out of an arts and crafts store two days ago with what appeared to be chalk.
Since the police have refused to show any interest in the prankster who stole their police tape, Taylor has done his own investigating. I’m not sure why lurking around the site late the previous night is so suspicious, the prank was done in the late afternoon, unless we’re meant to think Jess was gloating over it hours later or something. But carrying chalk from the arts and crafts store looks like a clear piece of evidence. And one piece of circumstantial evidence is enough to convict Jess in the Taylor-led court of public opinion.
Still nobody has anything to say about the police tape being stolen, which actually would constitute a slightly more serious crime. Did Jess steal it, or did the police simply allow him to take it, so they would have something to do? It must get pretty boring being a cop in Stars Hollow, after all.
MIA: There was a phony murder? LORELAI: Yeah, the town’s too dull to work up a real murder. RORY: But you’re one ‘beam me up Scotty’ reference away from being the victim of one.
“Beam me up, Scotty” is a catchphrase associated with the original series of Star Trek, from the command Captain Kirk gives chief engineer Montgomery Scott (“Scotty”) when he needs to be transported back to the Enterprise.
In fact, the phrase was never actually used on the show, although similar lines were said, such as, “Scotty, beam us up”, and “Mr Scott, beam us up”.
RORY: You were a Trekkie? LUKE: I was not a Trekkie. LORELAI: Uh uh, I do believe that denying you were a Trekkie is a violation of the Prime Directive. RORY: Indubitably, captain.
Trekkie: a fan of the Star Trek franchise. Many serious fans dislike the term, preferring “Trekker”. Long stereotyped as hyper-obsessive supernerds, and even satirised by Star Trek itself.
Prime Directive: in Star Trek, the Prime Directive is a guiding principle that prohibits its members from interfering with the natural development of alien civilisations.
“Indubitably, captain”: Possibly the sort of thing Rory thinks that Mr Spock would say to Captain Kirk. The closest thing to it is a piece of dialogue from the 1987 series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, when Data says, “Indubitably, sir. Indubitably” to Captain Picard.
Lorelai is an arch-hypocrite to characterise Luke as a Star Trek nerd because he wore a Star Trek tee-shirt, and make fun of him: she is a huge fan of the show herself, and has made numerous references to it, including to Luke. In fact, she uses Star Trek lingo to make fun of Star Trek, something everyone, but most of all Luke, should have picked her up on.
Also note that Rory has done the same thing in regard to Lane’s erstwhile crush, Rich Bloomenfeld – she made a snarky comment about him wearing the same Star Trek tee shirt every day when he was younger. It’s essentially the same joke as this, with Luke wearing a Star Trek tee-shirt when he was younger. Like Lorelai, Rory is a hypocrite; she has made references to watching Star Trek herself.
Fun fact: the name Lorelei appears in the animated series of Star Trek (1971-present). In the 1973 episode, The Lorelei Signal, a compelling musical signal lures the Enterprise to a remote planet, where the female inhabitants drain the male crew of their life force. During the process, the men’s judgement is affected as they experience euphoric hallucinations – rather like the way men behave around the two Lorelais in Gilmore Girls! In the episode, it is up to the female crew members of the ship to take command and rescue the men, so it’s a real girl power instalment.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 