Footnotes to the TV series
Even though Jackson wanted he and Sookie to have four children in four years, when Sookie gives him the news about being pregnant, he immediately has a meltdown, and starts worrying about money, and baby-proofing the house. It’s eye-rollingly annoying. He also doesn’t ask Sookie for any proof that she’s pregnant.
RORY: It’s amazing how you manage to hide those bolts on the side of your neck. What is that, just really good cover up?
A reference to Frankenstein’s Monster, from the film Frankenstein, previously discussed.
PARIS: Hey, I was trying to give the kid some human contact. He’s been talking to nothing but a cow for a year and a half.
BRAD: There was a person inside that cow, I’ve told you that!
The role of Milky White the cow in the 2002 Broadway production of Into the Woods was played by actor and singer Chad Kimball [pictured], who was also the understudy for Adam Wylie’s role of Jack. He has been in a few other Broadway shows, and several regional theatre productions.
Paris says Brad was in Into the Woods for a year and a half, but it was only about a year – perhaps she is counting rehearsal periods. However, Brad seems to have been missing from Chilton for around eleven months.
BRAD: Look, I’m proud of my part, okay? The New York Times called me winningly naïve.
This is apparently a real line from a review of Adam Wylie’s performance in The New York Times, although I have been unable to find the original article.
PARIS: [sits down next to Brad; sings] I’ve got my beans at Grandma’s house, my magic beans at Grandma’s house … I’ll take my beans, my magic beans, who’s got the beans, we need some beans, I love the beans … Into the woods at Grandma’s house.
Paris sings a slight parody version of the “Prologue” to Into the Woods, previously mentioned. Although there is a refrain line of Into the woods at Grandma’s house, it doesn’t mention magic beans quite so often as Paris makes out. Nor are any of those few mentions sung by Jack.
SOOKIE: Oh my God, I’m pregnant! …
RORY: That’s great!
[they all scream and hug]
Lorelai suggests to Sookie she may have some kind of minor illness affecting her taste buds, then she goes into the lobby to talk to Rory, before Sookie comes out of the kitchen and announces she’s pregnant.
Pregnancy can certainly affect the sense of taste of smell, explaining Sookie’s suddenly horrible food, so this makes sense – but how can Sookie be sure? Did she just throw up in the toilet (which could be something else), did she do the world’s quickest pregnancy test, and if she had one all along, why didn’t she use it before? Has she had some other little sign, like her periods stopping, breast tenderness, and weight gain, and she’s put all the clues together?
Who knows? She just apparently knows she’s pregnant, even though she’s seemingly never been pregnant before, and everyone gets super excited and jumps around hugging each other. Nobody asks Sookie how she knows, or suggests she might be mistaken, or that it might need to be verified by, oh I don’t know, science.
Rory tells her mother that she had no plan to enter the speech contest for the Chilton Bicentennial, but now Paris is being so annoying and competitive that she actually wants to win so she can rub it in her face.
Lorelai asks why she didn’t plan to enter it, even though Rory has successfully given speeches before, as Vice-President (and for the debating team). She is said by Paris herself to be the best public speaker at Chilton! (Ha).
Lorelai makes a very good point that if Rory is serious about being a journalist and a foreign correspondent (hm, okay), then she should be comfortable with speaking in public, and that this is her chance to step up. This argument persuades Rory to take part.
LORELAI: I don’t know. It’s weird, Sookie must be sick or something.
RORY: Sookie never gets sick.
In fact, Sookie said that she had a little bug the week before. Later events suggest this may have been morning sickness, since we never learn exactly what this “bug” entailed. Although only a scriptwriter who has never been pregnant would think of morning sickness as a “little bug”, so I don’t know.
LORELAI: Are you sure you didn’t just accidentally drop something in the food tonight, like, I don’t know, uh, strychnine or manure?
Strychnine, a highly toxic, colourless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the eyes or mouth, causes poisoning which results in muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 