Category: S3Ep1: Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days

Rory and Jess at the Festival

The viewer is quickly made aware that although Rory hasn’t felt able to write to Jess over the summer, she is hoping to see him at the End of Summer Madness Festival. It is three hours before Dean is due home, and she is apparently planning to make the most of them. She insists on going to the festival in town, even though she’s only just got home from the airport, and changes into a nice dress. Lorelai insists on calling this “changing for Dean”. The Dean who isn’t there.

However, her plans are scuppered when she finally catches a glimpse of Jess – and it turns out that instead of spending the summer pining over her, he’s got a girlfriend (a blonde one, so you just know she’s stupid and awful!). Did he hope that Rory would see them and get the message that Jess Mariano is not some sap you can toy with, then toss aside while you waltz off to Washington for the summer? If so, message received.

Jess is kissing his girlfriend up against a tree, in flagrant view of the whole town. It’s very similar to the way Dean and Rory used to kiss against trees and shelves in the market, which must have been difficult for Jess to witness, so he seems to be getting his own back. Rory is getting a tiny taste of what Jess has been through for the past few months.

Rory and Lorelai almost immediately get into a fight at the festival when Lorelai says it’s lucky she didn’t throw “everything” (ie Dean, he’s everything now) away for Jess. She brushes Rory’s feelings for Jess away as a “little crush”, until Rory tells her mother that she kissed Jess at Sookie’s wedding while there with Dean. Lorelai is indignant on Dean’s behalf, conveniently forgetting that she herself slept with a pregnant woman’s boyfriend at the wedding, and doesn’t really have much high moral ground to stand on.

It is set up in the story, and repeated several times, that Rory went away for the summer, and therefore has had no contact with Jess since the wedding. The trouble is, the wedding wasn’t at the start of summer vacation, Rory still had two or three more weeks of school left. And she didn’t go to Washington for the summer vacation, only for the last six weeks of it. That makes at least eight weeks that she and Jess were in Stars Hollow together and somehow managed not to talk to or even see each other.

It doesn’t seem plausible – Stars Hollow is a small place. Presumably Rory was avoiding Luke’s diner in support of Lorelai, and busy with school, and getting prepared for Washington, but I can’t see how she avoided Jess for six weeks straight unless he was also determinedly avoiding her. If so, suggesting that he was very hurt and confused about being unexpectedly kissed, told to keep quiet about it, and then seeing that Rory and Dean were still together as if nothing had happened.

EPA

KIRK: Well, get rid of it … Uh, but don’t throw it in the trash. Apparently, that would be an EPA violation.

The EPA, Environmental Protection Agency. Independent agency of the US federal government tasked with matters of environmental protection. It began operation in 1970, under orders from President Richard Nixon, and is headquartered in Washington DC.

The fact that Kirk’s beauty products cannot be thrown out without violating orders from the EPA suggests that they are made from potentially hazardous chemicals. Probably a good thing that nobody at the inn used them!

Cheese stick

LORELAI: Okay, so, do we do cheese stick, hot dog, cotton candy, or do we mix it up a little – start with the cotton candy and end with the cheese stick?

Cheese-on-a-stick, a carnival food item in the US, consisting of deep fried cheese coated with cornmeal batter, on a stick to hold it with. Dipping sauces may also be provided. Mozzarella is a popular cheese to use, and they seem to date to the 1970s.

Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer

A popular song written by German composer Hans Carste with lyrics by Hans Bradkte, first recorded as “Du spielst ‘ne tolle Rolle” by Austrian singer Willy Hagara in 1962. It was recorded in 1963 by Nat King Cole, with English lyrics by Charles Tobias, who gave it a nostalgic theme. Cole’s version went to #6 in the US, and #3 on the Middle-Road Singles Chart. It is the opening track on his album of the same name.

It is from the song that the episode gets its title, and serves as the inspiration for and soundtrack to Taylor’s First Annual Stars Hollow End of Summer Madness Festival. In keeping with the theme of madness, a barbershop quartet sings this song on a sanity-eroding permanent loop at the festival. It is performed by Mick Foster and Tony Allen in the show.

Sookie’s House

[Lorelai and Rory walk out of some bushes near Sookie and Jackson’s house]

LORELAI: See, three minutes faster. I also found a way to get to Al’s Pancake World that shaves a good forty seconds off our normal route.

Another inside joke about the difficulties of getting to Sookie’s house – even though the set used for Sookie’s is right next to the set for Lorelai’s home.

Lorelai and Rory are going to pick up Sookie and Jackson to go to the festival, which makes no sense. Sookie and Jackson live in the opposite direction to the town square, which Lorelai and Rory live close to. It would make more sense for Sookie and Jackson to walk to Lorelai and Rory’s house, and then onto the festival together. As it is, they would all have a long walk together from Sookie’s house to the town square – but Lorelai and Rory have to do it twice.

As it turns out, Lorelai and Rory have wasted their time, because when they get to Sookie’s, she and Jackson are having a fight, so they quietly walk back into town without them. Sookie has filled the house with tons of “manly” objects from Kim’s Antiques, including a stuffed grizzly bear (this must have all cost a fortune!).

Jackson demands that she get rid of it all and put the house back the way it was. Easier said than done – I can’t imagine Mrs Kim tamely taking everything back and refunding the money! Anyway, however implausibly, we can assume their ridiculous fight is over for this episode.

Bauhaus

RORY: What else did you take?

LORELAI: Nothing. Your comforter came into my room by itself . . . and brought your Bauhaus T-shirt with it.

Bauhaus, English rock band, formed in 1978. The group consists of Daniel Ash (guitar, saxophone), Peter Murphy (vocals), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass). The band is named after the German art school, Bauhaus. One of the pioneers of gothic rock, Bauhaus were known for their dark image and gloomy sound, although they mixed many genres, including dub, glam rock, psychedelia, and funk.

Their 1979 debut single, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is considered one of the harbingers of gothic rock music and has been influential on contemporary goth culture. Their debut album, In the Flat Field, is regarded as one of the first gothic rock records. Bauhaus went on to achieve mainstream success in the UK with their third album, The Sky’s Gone Out, which peaked at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart in 1982. That same year, they also reached No. 15 on the Singles Chart with a standalone cover of David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”, earning them an appearance on Top of the Pops. They broke up in 1983.

This is another indication that Rory likes gothic rock, and dark, gloomy music in general.

“Solidarity, sister” “Ya ya!”

RORY: Eventually, maybe, but for now – solidarity, sister.

LORELAI: Ya ya!

RORY: You’ve been waiting for six weeks to do that, haven’t you?

A reference to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The 1996 novel by Rebecca Wells has already been discussed as one that Rory (probably) read, but the comedy-drama film came out in June 2002, and it is undoubtedly this version which Lorelai has recently seen and refers to.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is directed by Callie Khouri, and stars Sandra Bullock and Ellen Burstyn as the daughter and mother in conflict. The film was a commercial success, but received mixed reviews, with critics feeling it was overly melodramatic and unoriginal.

Rory indicates that she hasn’t spoken to her father all summer, and for a while at least, she is going to continue ignoring Christopher to support Lorelai.

Ottoman and Napoleon Complex

RORY: Hello living room.

LORELAI: Hello Rory, we missed you. Not the ottoman, of course, but everyone knows he’s a snob. Napoleon complex, he only really likes the magazine rack.

An ottoman is a small padded seat without a back or arms that can be used as a table, stool, or footstool. They are also known as tuffets, hassocks, or pouffes. The name comes from the Ottoman Empire from where it originated, the seat introduced to Europe in the 18th century.

A Napoleon complex is an imaginary syndrome attributed to people of short stature, where the short person (usually a man), overcompensates for their size by being too aggressive or domineering. In psychology, it is regarded as a derogatory social stereotype and a piece of mysandry. It comes from the idea put about by the British in the 19th century that Napoleon Bonaparte’s short temper was caused by him being of short size. In fact, Napoleon was 5 foot 7, average height for his era.

Presumably the ottoman only likes the magazine rack because it’s the one thing smaller than it is!

Peaches and Herb

LORELAI: And, by the way, I got you out of dinner with the Gilmores tonight. I thought you and Dean might enjoy a little Peaches and Herb time together.

Peaches and Herb, vocal duo created in 1966. Herb Fame (born Herbert Feemster in 1942) is the “Herb”, and seven different women have filled the role of “Peaches”. The most famous ones are the first Peaches, Francina “Peaches” Barker (1947-2005), and the third one, Linda Greene, who appeared on their biggest hits, “Shake Your Groove Thing” (1978) and “Reunited” (1979).

It is the song “Reunited” that Lorelai is referring to, with its line Reunited, and it feels so good. The song went to #1 in the US, and was popular around the world. It is unlikely that Rory is quite as excited about her reunion with Dean as Lorelai seems to want her to be.