Lorelai Accuses Jess

After catching Jess coming out of Rory’s bedroom, and Rory’s bracelet coincidentally turning up under her bed when she’d already looked there numerous times, Lorelai puts one and one together and draws the obvious conclusion that Jess had Rory’s bracelet and had secretly returned it.

She immediately accuses Jess of stealing Rory’s bracelet and keeping it out of jealousy towards Dean, not caring that he was upsetting Rory in the process. Lorelai doesn’t bother trying to get all the facts, because Jess didn’t deliberately steal Rory’s bracelet, but held onto it after she lost it. He didn’t know it was from Dean, and was not trying to cause trouble between Rory and her boyfriend by keeping the bracelet.

She makes the mistake of attacking Jess as if she is a teenager herself, calling him a “little jerk”, rather than behaving like a concerned parent. This mother-daughter relationship where Lorelai tries to be both a mom and a best friend often goes wrong when she tries to be a friend when she should be a mother, and vice versa.

Lorelai has a temper and tends to go off halfcocked, especially when it comes to safeguarding Rory. Jess has no hesitation in talking back to her, and this episode will leave Lorelai with deep distrust and a simmering resentment against Jess which will explode later in the season.

Bye, Bye, Birdie

JESS: It’s really that big a deal?
RORY: What do you mean?
JESS: I mean, I know it’s got an ‘I’ve been pinned’ Bye Bye Birdie kind of implication to it, but it was just a bracelet.

Bye Bye Birdie, 1963 musical comedy film directed by George Sidney, based on the award winning 1960 Broadway musical of the same name, with music by Charles Crouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, and book by Michael Stewart.

Set in 1958, the story was inspired by Elvis Presley’s draft into the US army in 1957. Jesse Pearson plays Conrad Birdie, a teen idol based on Elvis, his name a play on Conway Twitty, Presley’s rival at the time.

Conrad Birdie is giving a farewell performance in Columbus, Ohio, to end with his song, “One Last Kiss”. It is arranged for him to kiss a randomly chosen high school girl at the end of the song before going into the army. The teenager chosen is Kim MacAfee (played by Ann-Margret) from the town of Sweet Apple, but Kim’s boyfriend Hugo Peabody (played by Bobby Rydell) isn’t thrilled, as he and Kim have got “pinned” – he’s given her his fraternity pin to wear, indicating a serious commitment between them. When Birdie kisses Kim in a rehearsal, she swoons.

Elvis Presley himself was the first choice for the role of Birdie, but his manager Colonel Tom Parker wouldn’t allow it. The film helped make Ann-Margret such a star that in 1964 she appeared with Elvis himself in Viva Las Vegas.

Jess is saying that Rory and Dean are the small-town teenage sweethearts, and he is the sexy outsider. It seems slightly egotistical, and a bit demeaning to Rory, as if he has randomly chosen her for a meaningless encounter; it strongly suggests Jess doesn’t intend to stick around.

The film ends with Hugo knocking Birdie out before he can kiss Kim on stage, which might be what Jess is expecting from Dean – that he’ll punch Jess before he gets a chance with Rory. In the stage musical, the story continues with Kim going off to hang out with Birdie, and he is arrested for attempted statutory rape. Kim claims to have been intimidated by Birdie, and gladly returns to Hugo.

Quite a few warnings for Rory in this apparently casual reference! Foreshadowing, on multiple levels.

The reference to Birdie being about to go into the army makes me wonder if this reference was originally meant for Tristan, who went off to military school. Jess is much more of a Birdie than Tristan, however.

Franny and Zooey

LORELAI: Did you get lost?
JESS: No, I was looking at Rory’s books … I wanted to see if she had Franny and Zooey. She does.

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, comprising his 1955 short story, “Franny”, and his 1957 novella, Zooey, both originally published in The New Yorker. The collection was published in 1961.

The book focuses on Frances (“Franny”) and her brother Zachary (“Zooey”), the youngest members of the Glass family, who frequently appeared in Salinger’s short stories. They were a large family of highly precocious children , the offspring of two vaudeville performers in New York City, the father an Australian Jew, the mother Irish. The Glass children all get college educations by winning a radio quiz show.

Both stories reflect Salinger’s interest in Eastern mysticism, particularly Zen Buddhism and Hindu Advaita Vedanta, as well as Eastern Orthodox Christian spirituality. Franny and Zooey was very popular, spending 26 weeks at the top of the New York Times Fiction Best-Seller’s List, but received mixed reviews from critics.

The book was a strong influence on the 2001 film, The Royal Tenebaums, which had only been out a few months before this episode aired.

Jess seems to have been careful to choose a non-romantic book, as Franny and Zooey are siblings who talk about philosophy together. Perhaps he is trying to tell Lorelai that he and Rory have an intellectual brother-sister relationship. (Later on, they do end up related to each other).

Franny does have a boyfriend in the book, but they don’t have much in common, and he doesn’t seem capable of understanding her (the boyfriend is named Lane!). When Franny is at a particularly low point, Zooey is able to get through to her by secretly talking to her on the telephone, and giving her some words of wisdom. When the phone call ends, Franny lies on the bed and smiles.

This might be a hint of what Rory and Jess’ nascent relationship is like. Unsatisfied with her boyfriend, Rory is enjoying her secret phone calls with Jess, which are on a different level to the conversations she has with Dean, and leave her smiling at the end. Although all this is offscreen and never directly referred to, we can see that their friendship has progressed and grown closer, and chances are they have continued talking on the phone in secret.

Timberland

LORELAI: Luke, Rachel’s not the only woman in the world for you. You’ll meet someone, someday – probably at a Timberland store – you’ll ask her out.

Timberland LLC, manufacturer and retailer of outdoors wear, especially boots, headquartered in Stratham, New Hampshire. Shoemaker Nathan Schwartz bought a 50% stake in The Abington Shoe Company in Massachuttests; this later became Timberland. The Schwartz family retained control of the company until 2012, when they sold it to the VF Corporation, which sells outdoor clothing and workwear.

Although marketed towards hikers, climbers etc, Timberland is very popular for urban attire. The nearest Timberland store to Stars Hollow would be in the town of Clinton, about an hour’s drive away.

“A big, pretty dish of lovin’ with a spoon”

LORELAI: A big, pretty dish of lovin’ with a spoon made especially for you.

This sounds like a reference to the rock band The Lovin’ Spoonful, founded in Greenwich Village in 1965 by singer John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky. Their hits include Do You Believe in Magic? (1965), Summer in the City (1966), and Daydream (1966). The band broke up in 1969, but have had a few revivals and reunions over the years. An influence on British bands such as The Beatles and The Kinks, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2006.

The band’s name is taken from a line in the song Coffee Blues, by blues singer Mississippi John Hurt, a tribute to Maxwell House Coffee. There is a link in blues songs between a “spoonful” of something and sex (sometimes drugs); it has been conjectured that the “lovin’ spoonful” in the song refers to the amount of ejaculate in a typical male orgasm.

This connection between coffee, sex, and love seems very apt for Lorelai! It’s as if the coffee Luke makes for her is a metaphor for something else that’s hot and wet.