Books, Periodicals, and Comics Referenced in Season Two

Novels

The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Summer of Fear by T. Jefferson Parker

Novels 1930-42 by Dawn Powell (collection)

The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia by R.E. Raspe

Contact by Carl Sagan

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

Candide by Voltaire

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Jeeves series by P.G. Wodehouse

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Stories

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (picture book)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Hansel and Gretel by The Brothers Grimm

Rapunzel by The Brothers Grimm

Snow-White and Rose-Red by The Brothers Grimm

The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent by Washington Irving (collection)

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger (collection)

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain

Collected Stories by Eudora Welty (collection)

Poetry

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron

The Inferno by Dante

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (collection)

The Iliad by Homer

Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Visit from St Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore

Drama

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The Mourning Bride by William Congreve

The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman

Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Othello by William Shakespeare

Richard III by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

The Glass Menagerie by Tenneessee Williams

Non-Fiction

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Alborn

The Final Days by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles

Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

The Apocalyptics by Edith Efron

The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway

Call Me Crazy by Anne Heche

Unfinished Business by John Houseman

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

A Mencken Chrestomathy by H.L. Mencken (collection)

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

Tough Love by Bill Milliken

The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Motley Crue

Writings and Discourses by Benito Mussolini (collection)

The Portable Nietzsche by Friedrich Nietzsche (collection)

Selected Letters of Dawn Powell edited by Tim Page

Etiquette by Emily Post

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Personal Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman by William T. Sherman

Essentials of Economics by Bradley R. Schiller

Working by Studs Terkel

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman

The Last Empire by Gore Vidal (collection)

Reference

The Bible

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary

Shrimad Bhagavad Gita

The Mojo Collection edited by Jim Irvin

Newspapers

The Daily Racing Form

The Hartford Courant

National Enquirer

The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal

The Washington Post

Magazines

InStyle Weddings

Jane

The New Yorker

Punk Planet

Rolling Stone

Seventeen

Spin

Teen

Vanity Fair

Your Magazine

Comics

Batman

Garfield

Superman

Authors

Jane Austen

W.E.B. Du Bois

Gustave Flaubert

Sigmund Freud

Ernest Hemingway

Henry James

Frank Kafka

M.G. Lewis

Dorothy Parker

Harold Pinter

Anne Sexton

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Seneca the Younger

I Can’t Get Started

At the end of the episode, Sookie and Jackson’s wedding is about to begin, as we hear the strains of their wedding song, “I Can’t Get Started”, previously discussed.

The episode nears it conclusion with a shot of Rory and Lorelai, locked in their own secret relationship difficulties, neither sharing them with the other, as they have to focus on the wedding. Rory has secretly kissed another boy while on a date with her boyfriend, and still looks shellshocked by her own action. Lorelai is heartbroken over being dumped by another woman’s boyfriend, who is going back to be a father to their unborn child – something he could never muster the energy for when it came to Lorelai’s daughter.

The song “I Can’t Get Started” is written from the perspective of someone who is successful in every possible outward way, yet they don’t have a hope of beginning the relationship that they want. In the same way, Lorelai is a successful mother, homeowner, community participant, and businesswoman; Rory is a successful student, journalist, debater, and now Vice-President elect at a prestigious private school. However, success in romance is eluding them. It’s the complete opposite to the end of Season 1, which concluded with both Lorelai and Rory infatuated with their respective partners, and bubbling over with happiness and excitement.

“Sherry’s pregnant”

CHRISTOPHER: Sherry’s pregnant … She just found out and she called me as soon as she found out, and that was her calling to tell me that she found out.

Christopher comes to see Lorelai who is standing on the bridge, waiting for him (another mention of bridges as significant emotional spaces). He tells her that Sherry has called him on his cell phone to tell him she has just discovered she is pregnant – I presume she used a home pregnancy testing kit, as it’s a Sunday.

Oddly enough, Lorelai says, “Women all over the world will line up to see that tiny little woman fat”. Sherry isn’t a tiny little woman, she’s only a few inches shorter than Lorelai, and Lorelai is slim as well. It makes Sherry sound like a stick-thin five foot tall waif, which she isn’t. Not to mention the bizarre thinking that equates being pregnant with being “fat”.

Apparently all the terrible problems Christopher and Sherry were having were not enough to stop them from having (unprotected?) sex. It does beg the question, did Sherry even know they were supposedly having problems and Christopher was thinking of moving out? Maybe all she did was go away on business for a month or so, and Christopher used that as an opportunity to weasel his way back in to Lorelai’s life, telling her some story about how he and Sherry were practically broken up.

As a huge slap in the face to Lorelai, Christopher is going back to Sherry because she’s having a baby. Christopher was never around while Rory was growing up, and he’s apparently never forgiven himself (zero evidence of that, but whatever). He can’t make that mistake again, so it’s back to his girlfriend that he doesn’t love, so he can be a father to their child. (This is actually a terrible basis for a relationship).

It doesn’t make any sense, because he could still be a good father to his second child without going back to Sherry (and I bet while telling her nothing of what he’s been up to with Lorelai in the interim). For that matter, he could have been a good father to Rory while not being with Lorelai all this time.

Notice that when Rory questions why her dad has a work phone call on a Sunday, he responds, “Hey, I have a lot of responsibility now”. Little did he know how true those words would turn out to be!

Rory Kisses Jess

After her father leaves to answer a phone call, Rory suddenly sees Jess, and discovers he has moved back to Stars Hollow. Only a complete idiot would fail to realise it was to see Rory again, and Rory isn’t an idiot. She kisses Jess, warning him not to tell anyone what happened, then runs back to her boyfriend Dean with a cheery, “Welcome home!”.

Yep, falling in love with a Gilmore girl isn’t any picnic. Just ask Dean.

The kiss with Jess in this season finale is a counterpart to the kiss Rory had with Dean in the finale of Season 1 as they reunited after breaking up. The first kiss had Dean looming over Rory and grabbing her almost roughly, as if taking possession of her (Jared Padalecki’s height partly explains this). The kiss with Jess, another reunion, is far more gentle and intimate, much more romantic. It feels more like Rory giving herself to Jess, rather than allowing herself to be taken.

Alexis Bledel and Milo Ventimiglia were a real life couple during the filming of the show, which is one reason why it appears far more convincing. They are almost too comfortable together for a first kiss.

Lorelai and Christopher Tell Family They are Back Together

At the wedding, Lorelai lets her parents know that she and Christopher are back together – even though Christopher still hasn’t broken up with his girlfriend, Sherry! A teensy detail that nobody even bothers asking about or suggests might need a little more thought (or at least waiting for Sherry to get back from her business trip).

While Emily and Richard are quietly pleased about the news, Rory is by no means automatically thrilled about getting Daddy Dearest back in her life. In fact, she is justifiably suspicious of his motives, saying that both she and Lorelai have been waiting for this for a long time, and they cannot take another disappointment from the ever-disappointing Christopher.

Amusingly, she warns Christopher, “We take disappointment extremely hard. I mean it. Property damage is often involved”. In the next season, Rory and Lorelai will resort to property damage due to their romantic disappointments. It’s also a foreshadowing of Rory’s even more spectacular disappointment and property issues later on in the story.

Prince William

RORY: Paris, how did you get this number?

PARIS: Oh, relax. I won’t call you on Prince William’s precious phone again.

Prince William (born 1982), member of the British royal family, and since birth, second in the line of succession to the British throne. In 2002, Prince William was enrolled at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and considered one of the most eligible young bachelors in the world. (By the next year, he was dating fellow student Catherine Middleton, who would eventually become his wife).

Paris never says how she got Dean’s cell phone number. Presumably she had a snoop at Rory’s pager some time.

Paris and Rory Win the Election

Paris rings Rory on Dean’s cell phone while they are at Sookie and Jackson’s wedding to tell her that they have won the election. It’s a rather strange scene, because it shows Paris at Chilton, with what looks like students and teachers busily counting the votes for the school President elections.

But the election was on Friday, and it’s now Sunday – have they been counting votes all weekend? Couldn’t this have waited until Monday? And why does it take all weekend – surely Chilton doesn’t have that many students?

Also, they clearly haven’t finished counting votes, they are still working at it. And this isn’t a recount either, because the scrutineers are taking the votes straight from the original boxes. How does Paris know she has won already? Is there a tally board up somewhere, so Paris can see that she already has an unbeatable lead?

And Paris says the real clincher was that they got the votes from the school band, which was always a wild card, as the academic clubs were something they could count on. Do all the clubs vote en bloc, or does each particular club get one collective vote (which is obviously very undemocratic?). And how does Paris know all this? Isn’t the voting a secret ballot?

Walkin’ After Midnight

The song sung by Kirk at the wedding. It’s a country pop song, written by Alan Block and Don Hecht in 1954, first recorded by Lynn Howard with The Accents in 1956.

It is best known for the version sung by country music artist Patsy Cline, first performed in 1957 on the television show, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Despite Cline not liking the song, she won first place in the TV contest, and there was such a strong audience response to the song that it was rushed out as a single within a month.

“Walkin’ After Midnight” became Patsy Cline’s first major hit, selling over a million copies, and reaching #12 on the charts, #2 on the country music charts.

The song is about someone so lonely after a breakup that they go for long walks in the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep for the misery. It’s a suitable choice for Kirk, who had earlier confessed his loneliness to Luke.

You’re Just in Love

The song Miss Patty and Babette together at the wedding, while Morey plays piano. It’s a popular 1950 song by Irving Berlin, first performed by Ethel Merman and Russell Nype in the Broadway musical Call Me Madam; Merman later reprised her role for the 1953 film version, featuring the song as a duet with Donald O’Connor [pictured]. The song has been recorded several times, most successfully by Perry Como and the Fontana Sisters, who reached #5 in the charts for 1950.

The lyrics of the song give the message, You’re not sick, you’re just in love – a callback to Rory crying that she must be “sick” to have cut school to see Jess in New York. Now Lorelai has done something even more questionable, and the song is telling the Gilmore girls (and Jess?) that they’re not sick in the head, they are simply in love.

The Wedding is About to Begin

We get to see guests gathering for Sookie and Jackson’s wedding, which is being held at the Independence Inn. Everything looks pretty and romantic, with lots of colourful spring flowers everywhere. However, there’s plenty of quirky little details to provide some fun, including a sing-along around the piano.

Note that Lorelai and Rory are wearing blue bridesmaid dresses – the colour Lorelai predicted she would wear to Sookie and Jackson’s wedding on their very first date. We also see Jackson and his groomsmen striding across the lawn in their kilts.

Sookie and Jackson are going to be married under the chuppah that Luke made for Lorelai and Max’s wedding. So if you’ve been unhappy about the chuppah being relegated to a piece of garden decoration, here you go – it’s finally fulfilling its purpose. Decorated with flowers, it really does look very nice. Hopefully someone shows Luke a photo.

You might also notice that the minister performing the wedding ceremony is wearing a tee-shirt with a photo of Sookie and Jackson on it. They clearly went a little nutso with the photocopying from Jackson’s cousin. The minister isn’t either of the two ministers we’ve already seen in Stars Hollow, and is possibly from Jackson’s home town, as his family seemed to be more concerned about the religious conventions being followed (such as getting the children christened).

Some fans are disappointed that we never get to see Sookie and Jackson get married, or even walk down the aisle. However, the show is about the Gilmore girls, and everything is focused on their dramas, not that of side characters.