Lorelai Comforts Rory

[Lorelai sees Rory across the gym, and she walks over to her]

LORELAI: Rory, what happened? Where did you go? [sees that Rory is crying] Oh, Rory, honey! Oh.

[Lorelai and Rory hug while Kirk runs around the gym with the trophy]

Despite ruining Lorelai’s chances of winning, Lorelai only thinks of comforting her daughter when she sees how upset Rory is. Nothing stops Kirk’s victory lap – he has no problems celebrating as a teenage girl sobs in her mother’s arms!

Kirk’s dance partner is Donna Delain, who he has danced with for the past five years. She is presumably a good friend, or possibly a relative, but we never hear of her again. Kirk does not include Donna in the celebrations, and he keeps the trophy, even though her dancing has helped him to win! Also note that Kirk is wearing a Doose’s Market logo on his back – perhaps Taylor is sponsoring him?

“Where’s Rory?”

KIRK: I win, I win! I win, I win, I win, I win!

LORELAI: You didn’t win! I’m still here! Patty, where’s Rory?

MISS PATTY: Oh, she ran off the floor a little while ago, honey.

LORELAI: What? No!

How did Lorelai not see what happened? She was just sitting in the bleachers with Luke. And she was only supposed to have a ten minute break, but it seems as if she was gone much longer than that. I’m not convinced that Lorelai wasn’t disqualified anyway.

“I have to go take care of something”

JESS: You’re definitely broken up with Dean?

RORY: Yeah, I’m definitely broken up with Dean.

JESS: Okay. I have to go take care of something then.

Before anything happens between Rory and Jess, he leaves to break up with Shane. It’s six in the morning and she’s been stuck watching a dance marathon for eighteen hours – let the poor girl get some sleep, Jess! However, it does show that Jess has a responsible side, and is not going to cheat on Shane, no matter how badly he treated her otherwise.

Rory and Jess At the Bridge

JESS: Dean’s a jerk. Yelling at you like that, breaking up in front of everybody. . .the guy’s a total jerk.

RORY: No, he’s not. He’s right. Everything he said. All those things about you and me, all those things about me lying to him, and messing with his head. He was right. Well, wasn’t he? Fine, he was right about me, then. Now go away.

Jess and Rory meet at the bridge again, which is starting to seem like their special spot for emotional connection. It’s also a nod to They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, which ends with the main couple sitting on a pier together.

“You don’t wanna be with me, Rory”

DEAN: You don’t wanna be with me, Rory … You’ve been into him since he got to town, and I have spent weeks – months, actually – trying to convince myself that it wasn’t true, that everything was fine between us. But now I know that I was an idiot. You’re into him and he’s into you, and Shane, who by the way, should be listening to this ’cause it’s so damn obvious … Everyone can see, Rory! Everyone. And I’m tired, but I’m over it, so go ahead, go. Be together. There’s nothing standing in your way now, ’cause I’m out.

[Dean grabs his jacket from the bleachers and leaves]

Dean finally gets to say everything that’s been on his mind since at least February, so a whole nine months coming. Even fans who don’t care for Dean can at least feel glad that he is allowed to speak his mind, because Rory really has treated him pretty badly.

Note that Dean ignores his own advice not to get into anything with a Gilmore girl late at night, because they get cranky when they’re tired. And boy was he right about that!

“I’m not her boyfriend any more”

JESS: I’m gonna sit here as long as I like, and I’m gonna do whatever I like, and if you don’t like it, then just ignore me and pay attention to your boyfriend.

DEAN: Sorry, she can’t. I’m not her boyfriend anymore.

This is the second time that Rory and Dean break up. We never got to see the first time, but this one is very public. Most fans feel Rory had this public humiliation coming to her, since Dean has been publicly humiliated a few times in their relationship because of Jess.

“Girls like Shane”

RORY: There they go again! God, I swear, why can’t they just get a room? Or forget a room – get a park bench, or a doorway, or even a strategically placed telephone pole would probably suffice. I mean, girls like Shane – what is it with them? Don’t they see what they look like? I know they have mirrors.

Jess ups the ante by making out with Shane in the bleachers. This sends Rory into a veritable tailspin of bitchiness, with her line of “girls like Shane”. Girls like what? Girls who kiss their boyfriends in public, like Rory does? Girls who like Jess, like Rory does? And if Rory doesn’t approve of Shane, what’s her opinion of her own mother when she was a teenager?

You know what’s wrong with Shane? Absolutely nothing, except for getting involved with a boy who doesn’t treat her well.

After Jess and Shane start kissing, Rory pulls in closer to Dean, so both Jess and Rory are using their partners to make their crush jealous.

“You’re not supposed to sit and watch”

RORY: You know, this is a dance marathon. You’re not supposed to come and sit and watch, you’re supposed to dance. He’s just trying to bug me, sitting there right in front of me, staring. Jerk.

People are supposed to watch the dance marathon – Rory was even saying that she couldn’t dance with Lorelai because she had to watch with Dean. Until recently, Dean was also watching. Rory is sick with jealousy and hasn’t slept for more than a day, so she’s not exactly being rational here.

The Magic Mountain

This is the book Jess reads at the dance marathon while sitting in the bleachers with Shane. (Yes, Jess isn’t a great boyfriend to Shane – forcing her to go to a dance marathon for seventeen hours so he can gaze at his crush and read a book!).

The Magic Mountain is a 1924 novel by German author Thomas Mann. Set in the decade before World War I, it is about a young man who spends seven years in a sanatorium for tuberculosis in the Swiss Alps. Vast, symbolic, and ambiguous, it is widely considered one of the most influential works of 20^th century German literature.

Thomas Mann was one Jack Kerouac’s favourite authors, and an influence on Visions of Cody, so it makes sense that Jess would choose to read it.

Dave and Mrs Kim

DAVE: You know, my parents would love these sandwiches. I wish I could bring them by but unfortunately they’re in private Bible study right now.

Dave shows Lane how interested he is in her, and how keen he is to impress her rather scary mother, by coming over to eat her fake egg sandwiches. Just in case you’ve forgotten, it is now past five in the morning! Who even wants sandwiches at this hour? Why is Mrs Kim still serving them? The filling would have gone off by now, and she freely admits herself the bread is stale.

He also pretends that he is a Christian, as a way to inveigle himself into Mrs Kim’s good books. He claims that his parents would be joining in the stale fake egg sandwich celebration, except that they are in a private Bible study session. At five in the morning??? It would be far more believable to say they were asleep!

Later he says his parents are at church (at five in the morning!), which means the fictional Bible study session wasn’t private at all. Dave’s story has more holes than Swiss cheese, but Mrs Kim, always shown to be pretty switched-on previously, is swallowing this farrago of lies like a gullible fool. She must be very, very tired. Or she really likes Dave.