Category: S3Ep9: A Deepfried Korean Thanksgiving

The Banger Sisters

MADELINE: I mean, reticulum? Come on.

LOUISE: Plus, the Golgi body. I mean, is it me or is that majorly pornographic?

PARIS: My life with the Banger sisters.

The Banger Sisters, a 2002 comedy film directed by Bob Dolman , starring Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon as two middle-aged women who used to be friends and groupies when they were young. During the film, they have one night together of remembering their youthful hijinks. The film was commercially successful and received average reviews. The performance of the two leads was praised, but the plot was judged to be thin and predictable. The film came out in September.

Paris seems to be already imagining Madeline and Louise in their middle age. Compare with Paris calling Madeline and Louise the Pigeon Sisters.

Ryan Phillipe

MADELINE: That was really distracting.

PARIS: Oh. Well, by all means, Madeline, you should point out to the faculty that their annoying custom of teaching is distracting you from more important things like nail filing and daydreaming about marrying Ryan Phillippe.

Matthew Ryan Phillippe (1974), actor. After appearing in the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s with starring roles in films including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54. In the 2000s, he appeared in several films, including Gosford Park (2001), Crash (2004), and Flags of Our Fathers (2006). In 2002, his latest film was Igby Goes Down, which came out in September.

Madeline points out that Ryan Phillipe is already married – he married actress Reese Witherspoon in 1999 [pictured together]. They separated in 2006 and divorced in 2008.

Biology Terms

TEACHER: The multi-layered membrane systems of the cytoplasm are the smooth endoplasmic reticulum, the rough endoplasmic reticulum, and the Golgi body. Now, the smooth endoplasmic reticulum is concerned with the manufacture of lipid molecules.

Cytoplasm: all of the material within a cell, enclosed by the cell membrane, except for the cell nucleus.

Endoplasmic reticulum: the transportation system of the cell, and has many other important functions. It is made up of the rough endoplasmic reticulum and smooth endoplasmic reticulum.

Golgi body (or Golgi apparatus): a sub-unit of most cells, particularly important in processing proteins.

Lipid: a broad group of molecules which includes fats, fatty acids, cholesterol, and fat-soluble vitamins (such as A, D, E, and K).

“We’ll be gone all of December, including Christmas”

EMILY: Your father and I are going out of town the next day and we’ll be gone all of December, including Christmas, so it’s the last chance for the family to be together for the rest of the year.

Emily and Richard supposedly throw a dinner party two weeks before Christmas every year, before they leave for their winter vacation. They seem to have cancelled it this year, leaving for their vacation straight after Thanksgiving, so perhaps they are in bad moods over the Yale incident as well.

It seemed as this annual never-to-be-changed tradition was cancelled the year before as well, because Richard was in a mood over his forced retirement, so perhaps this tradition isn’t a tradition any more? Richard had to be rushed to hospital during the Christmas party of 2000, and it’s possible that put them off holding another one.

“You’ve missed two dinners”

EMILY: Yes, it is Thanksgiving. And before you sift through the dozen or so excuses you always have on hand, let me have my say. You’ve missed two dinners and avoided my calls because you’re mad at us about what happened at Yale. But I want you and Rory at Thanksgiving this year.

We learn that this episode takes place more than two weeks after “Let the Games Begin”, and that Lorelai has been so angry with Richard over the Yale interview that she has refused to attend two Friday Night Dinners in a row.

Because Emily says, “I want you and Rory at Thanksgiving this year”, it implies that they don’t usually go to Thanksgiving dinner with Lorelai’s parents. The episode strongly implies that they usually spend Thanksgiving in Stars Hollow, dividing their time between Lane’s, Sookie’s, and Luke’s.

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving”

EMILY: Well, I certainly hope you’re feeling better now because I want you to come to dinner tomorrow night.

LORELAI: Tomorrow? Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.

In 2002, Thanksgiving Day was on Thursday 28 November – very close to the original episode broadcast date of 26 November.

There has actually been far too many events for them to have all occurred before the end of November, and by my reckoning it’s almost Christmas. But we’re in TV Land here, where the timeline can be stretched a long way.

“I’ve never heard you mention allergies before”

LORELAI: I’m still . . . uh, these allergies really just hit me like a ton of bricks.

EMILY: I’ve never heard you mention allergies before.

In a future season, Lorelai needs allergy medication, and has old packets stored at home, so it seems that she really does suffer from allergies (even if she’s making it up right now). Or they changed it so that Lorelai actually has allergies.

Dan Rather

SOOKIE: They still say, ‘And now the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.’ You see? Dan is still associated with it even though he’s off snorkeling or something, just like I’m gonna be associated with the dinner because Bob is substituting for Sookie.

Daniel “Dan” Rather (born 1931), journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. Rather became a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurricane Carla in 1961, creating the first radar weather report, and helping to initiate the successful evacuation of 350,000 people.

Rather reported on some of the most significant events of the modern age, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf war, 9/11, the second Iraq war, and the war on terror. He famously reported from Dallas at the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He was promoted at CBS News, where he served as White House correspondent beginning in 1964. He covered the presidency of Richard Nixon, including the Watergate scandal, and the president’s resignation.

In 1981, Rather was promoted to news anchor for the CBS Evening News, a role he occupied for 24 years. Along with Peter Jennings at ABC News and Tom Brokaw at NBC News, he was one of the “Big Three” nightly news anchors from the 1980s through the early 2000s. He frequently contributed to CBS’s weekly news magazine, 60 Minutes.

After a 2005 controversy over fabricated documents, he was fired in 2006. He now has a news program on cable television, a Youtube channel, and a Substack newsletter.