Emily Lets Loose

Rory was so upset over her fight with Jess that she stayed with Emily overnight. When Lorelai asks to speak to Emily, Emily tells her what she really thought of Jess – she was horrified and disgusted by his behaviour, and thought he was abominably rude. She is also still angry about the car accident, which she completely blames Jess for.

Just as Richard saw Dean as not good enough for his precious granddaughter, Emily sees Jess as not good enough for Rory. But she is taking her own advice to be polite and welcoming to Jess, because she doesn’t want to alienate her granddaughter. And of course, it is all Lorelai’s fault for allowing Rory to date Jess!

Dean Martin, New York Mining Disaster

LORELAI: Then we picked the same Dean Martin song on the jukebox twenty-five times and people started complaining, so we picked the Bee Gees’ “New York Mining Disaster” and they begged for Dean Martin back.

Dean Martin, previously discussed. It would be interesting to speculate which Dean Martin song they kept playing – my guess would be his signature song “That’s Amore”, which begins, When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie. It makes sense that a pizza place would have that song on the jukebox. Unfortunately, it looks as if John’s of Bleeker Street doesn’t actually have a jukebox. Possibly the jukebox was somewhere else.

“New York Mining Disaster 1941”, the 1967 international debut single by the Bee Gees, written by Barry and Robin Gibb, and their first song to hit the charts in both the UK and US. It received a lot of attention, because rumours had been circulated that the Bee Gees were actually The Beatles, playing under assumed names. It went to #12 in the UK and #14 in the US, and was most popular in the Netherlands and New Zealand, at #3.

Barry and Robin wrote the song sitting in darkness during a power cut. The song recounts the story of a miner trapped in a cave-in. According to the Gibb brothers, the song was inspired by the 1966 Aberfan disaster in Wales. According to Robin, there actually had also been a mining disaster in New York in 1939, but not in 1941, and he thought “New York” sounded more “glamorous”.

Pizza at John’s in the Village

RORY: How’s it going?
LORELAI: Good. A lot of walking. We all had pizza at John’s in the village and wrote a musical.

John’s of Bleecker Street, simply known as John’s Pizzeria, is a historic pizzeria in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Founded in 1929, John’s is known for its graffiti-carved wooden booths where any patron can carve their name. It has been ranked as one of the best pizzerias in the US.

Moose Murders

ALEX: This is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen … I saw Moose Murders. This stinks worse.

Moose Murders, a play by Arthur Bicknell, self-described as a mystery farce. A notorious flop, it is now widely considered the standard of awfulness against which all Broadway failures are judged, and its name has become synonymous with those distinctively bad Broadway plays that open and close on the same night. It had its single performance (excluding 13 previews) at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on February 22, 1983.

Despite the scathing reviews and its bad reputation, it has been staged by community theatre groups a number of times – it’s possible Alex saw one of these, rather than the original Broadway show in the early 1980s, which seems a bit unlikely.

Big White Stetson

JESS: What if Dean had sucker-punched me and I had to defend myself? You’re not even considering the possibility that that’s what happened?
RORY: Dean wouldn’t do that.
JESS: Oh, no, he might get his big white Stetson dirty.

Stetson, a brand of hat symbolic of the pioneering West, made by the John B. Stetson Company, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1865. They quickly became associated with legends of the old West who wore Stetsons, such as Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane, Will Rogers, and Annie Oakley.

Later, cowboys in Western movies were invariably shown wearing Stetson hats – in film symbology, the “good guys” are often thought of as wearing white Stetsons, and the “bad guys” black ones. In actual fact, it isn’t as clear cut as people seem to remember this trope, but film and TV cowboys such as Tom Mix and the Lone Ranger must have helped cement the idea of the good guy wearing a white hat.

Wal-Mart

EMILY: So, Rory tells me you’re part of the Wal-Mart corporation .. They sound like wonderful stores … We’ve never actually been inside one, but we own the stock.
JESS: Thanks for the paycheck.

Wal-Mart, previously discussed.

A very Emily thing to say here – she’s never been in a Wal-Mart, but she owns stock in the business, she tells Jess, who works for Wal-Mart. Quite a way to put him in his place. We Gilmores own you, Mariano!

Big Rig, Bennies and Goofballs

EMILY: There was something with a big rig. Oh, those things, they scare the life out of me. And apparently, all the men who drive them are hopped up on bennies and goofballs.

Big rig, informal English for a large truck, an 18-wheeler – otherwise known as a semi-trailer truck, a semi-trailer, a semi-truck, or just a semi.

Bennies, slang for the drug Benzedrine, an amphetamine used recreationally since the 1920s.

Goofballs, slang for tranquilisers or sleeping pills, used as a recreational drug. Note that you can’t really get “hopped up” on sleeping pills, and taking them alongside amphetamines seems counterproductive, suggesting that Emily’s knowledge of the drug scene is limited. I think this is her attempt to seem cool and hip in front of Jess.

Jess Has a Black Eye

When Jess finally gets there (he really did get stuck in traffic) he has a black eye, and refuses to say how it happened. Emily only expresses polite concern, and is otherwise perfectly charming to him.

Rory however, absolutely flips. She is convinced that Jess has got into a fight with Dean, because the two of them talked together at Miss Patty’s. This is very unfair of Rory to make such an assumption, when Jess already told her he wasn’t upset about her talking to Dean – only bothered that he had to find it out from town gossip. But she is so angry with Jess for turning up to Emily’s dinner, late and with a black eye, that she is is no mood to be fair.

Jess is Late

Rory arrives at her grandmother’s house after school – she seems to have brought a change of clothes with her, as she is not in her uniform. Jess is late to get there, but Emily, ever the gracious hostess, says that Jess probably got into bad traffic on Interstate 84, and professes to find it refreshing that Jess doesn’t have a cell phone, and thus can’t be contacted or call them.

It is Rory who is upset and embarrassed over Jess’ tardiness. You can tell she was hoping Jess would make a good impression on her rather snooty grandmother, which seems extremely unlikely.

On Ramp

RORY: And what are you worried about happening?
LORELAI: Well, what you guys were on the on-ramp for up at Luke’s the other day. Your basic boy/girl stuff. Especially with this new boy, you girl stuff.
RORY: Well, the boy is different, but I’m still me. That hasn’t changed.

On ramp, the short section of road which allows a driver to enter the highway. Lorelai has taken one look at Jess and Rory making out, and seen that as a short step to the highway of sexual intercourse.

She tries to give Rory the “cool mom” version of the sex talk, but Rory says she is too busy to be even thinking about sex, and says that if she were thinking about it, she would talk about it with Lorelai first.

Lorelai has to be content with that, even though she’s clearly not happy at the idea of leaving Rory alone in the house overnight. She never worried about it when Rory was with Dean, even though Dean made some overtures, and did come over even after being explicitly told not to by Rory.

Rory claims she tells her mother “everything”, but in fact she keeps an awful lot of her personal life close to her chest. As a result, Lorelai never realises that Dean was not the knight in shining armour she seems to think he is.