“What makes you think I care about you?”

JESS: What makes you think I care about you?
RORY: I don’t mean care care, like care. I mean if you like me at all . . . not like like. I just meant that if . . . if you think of me remotely as the sort of person that you could occasionally stand to talk to then you will try to get along with my mom, that’s all.

A very pertinent question from Jess. Rory acts as if they are already half-way to being in a relationship by telling Jess he has to be nicer and more polite to her mother. But as Jess notes, neither of them has said anything about having feelings for the other, even platonic feelings.

A flustered Rory quickly backpedals, but she has given Jess the opportunity to let Rory know how he feels. By agreeing to be nicer to Lorelai, he is tacitly saying he does care about Rory, at least as a friend. And by asking, Rory has let him know that she wants him to care for her.

“Fruit named streets”

LORELAI: Well, you know, there’s some really cool places over on Peach. Or on Plum. Hm, Orange. Basically, any of your fruit named streets are pretty nice.

This seems slightly naughty of Lorelai, since Dean lives on Peach Street. I’m sure Jess wouldn’t want Dean as a neighbour! It’s as if she’s telling Jess she’d prefer Rory to date someone who lives on Peach Street.

This might suggest that the streets named after fruit trees are in a particularly nice part of Stars Hollow.

Lemon Coke

LORELAI: Sorry, it’s just. . .so excited about the ducks that, uh . . . do you want something to drink? You have good timing ‘cause we shopped yesterday, and in addition to a case of Maybelline Fresh Lash Mascara, I also bought some of that new, uh, freaky Coke with the lemon in it. It’s very addictive.

Coca-Cola with Lemon is a brand owned by the Coca-Cola company, introduced in 2001.

Maybelline Fresh Lash Mascara

LORELAI: Sorry, it’s just . . . so excited about the ducks that, uh . . . do you want something to drink? You have good timing ‘cause we shopped yesterday, and in addition to a case of Maybelline Fresh Lash Mascara, I also bought some of that new, uh, freaky Coke with the lemon in it.

Maybelline is a multinational cosmetics company, founded in Chicago in 1914, and now based in New York. Since 1996, it has been a subsidiary of L’Oreal, previously discussed.

Maybelline’s Fresh Lash Mascara has now been replaced with Great Lash Mascara. In 1981, their Fresh Lash Mascara was advertised on television by Lynda Carter, who played superhero Wonder Woman, previously discussed as one of Lorelai’s favourites. I can imagine young Lorelai buying the mascara because of the face of the brand and remaining loyal to it.

The Shaggs

JESS: Here. [tosses her a CD]
RORY: The Shaggs?
JESS: Trust me.

The Shaggs were an all-female rock and outsider music band formed in New Hampshire in 1968, composed of sisters Dot, Betty, and Helen Wiggin; Rachel Wiggin joined later. Their father, Austin Wiggin, insisted they form a band based on a prediction his mother had made during a palm reading that his daughters would form a musical group.

The Shaggs only released one studio album, in 1969, called Philosophy of the World. It gained very little attention, but the band continued to play locally, sometimes accompanied by their brother, Austin Jr, and their nephew Robert. The Shaggs disbanded in 1975, after the death of their father.

The Shaggs are notable for their perceived ineptitude at playing conventional rock music. Rolling Stone once described them as sounding like “lobotomised Trapp Family singers”. They were rediscovered in the 1970s, thanks to the Dr Demento radio show, which specialised in novelty songs. Frank Zappa appeared on the show, listened to the album, and professed a love for the band. The Shaggs themselves were bewildered by their popularity and cult status, which has never disappeared.

Jess gives (or loans) Rory a CD version of Philosophy of the World. Such CDs are now worth hundreds of dollars. (The original vinyl album, of which only 1000 copies were made, is now a collector’s item and extremely valuable). Interest in The Shaggs had recently been renewed by the 2001 release of Better Than The Beatles – A Tribute to The Shaggs, a collection of their songs covered by indie rock and punk musical artists such as Ida and Deerhoof.

Punk Planet

When Jess arrives to clean the gutters, he is wearing a tee-shirt advertising this underground punk magazine on it. Punk Planet was a bi-monthly punk zine founded in Chicago in 1994 that examined punk subculture and a wide variety of progressive issues, such as feminism, media criticism, and labour issues. It tried to review all punk records it was sent, so that its review section was very long.

The final issue of Punk Planet was sent out in 2007, due to rising costs, and the website closed down two years later. However, its entire print run is still available to read online as an internet archive.

“Amen, sister friend”

RORY: That is the closest to a farm that I ever wanna get.
LORELAI: Amen, sister friend.

As far as I’m aware, “Amen, sister friend” is 1990s American slang to give encouragement or validation to a female friend, with “sister friend” implying a bond as close as sisters. Please correct me if I’m wrong!

It’s interesting that Amy Sherman-Palladino, the writer, uses this phrase, since she conceptualised the relationship between Lorelai and Rory as partially based on her imaginings of what a relationship would have been like with her dead sister, that she never knew.

“Patience, grasshopper”

RORY: What are we waiting for?
LORELAI: Patience, grasshopper.

Lorelai references the action-adventure Western martial arts television show Kung Fu, broadcast from 1972 to 1975. It follows the adventures of Shaolin monk named Kwai Chang Caine, played by David Carradine, as he travels through the American Old West, searching for his half-brother, Danny. Caine had an American father and a Chinese mother.

The show would often flashback to Caine’s training, where he was called “Grasshopper” by his master, a man named Po, in recall of this early scene:

Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Caine: No.
Po: Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?
Caine: Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?

This is where the name Grasshopper came from, and further flashbacks would see master Po giving the young Caine advice, such as “Patience, young Grasshopper”. Many of the aphorisms in the show are taken from the Tao Te Ching.

Kung Fu was very influential, and at the time highly acclaimed by critics, winning several major awards. These days it tends to be discussed for its representation of Asian character, and having a protagonist playing by an actor with no Chinese heritage. It has been adapted into film three times, and in 2021 was rebooted as a crime show television series with a female lead, played by Olivia Liang.

Some people incorrectly think “Patience, grasshopper” is a quote from the 1984 martial arts film, The Karate Kid.

“Nobody asked me if I wanted to move to Stars Hollow”

LUKE: Jess, come on.
JESS: Hey, nobody asked me if I wanted to move to Stars Hollow, but I’m here. Pick whatever place you want and I’ll be there too.

A reminder and confirmation that Jess had no say in the decision to send him to Luke, and that his mother didn’t even ask whether he wanted to go or not. Now Luke is telling him that they have to move, and he is going to be uprooted again, with no say in it. He seems prepared to submit to this change too, with the resignation of someone who has no choice in the matter.

Note that Jess is wearing the “emotional” red, covered up with the dark blue of sadness, as if his anger is hidden under a cloak of depression.

Tongue depressor

LUKE: I can’t relax. I can’t sleep. I’m having nightmares about being chased around by boxes with arms and they tackle me and pile clothing on top of my face and secure it around my head with packing tape and I’m just lying there choking while you’re sitting in the corner laughing, putting gel in your hair with a switchblade!
JESS: Should I be putting a tongue depressor in your mouth right about now?

A tongue depressor is the little spatula that a doctor will use to examine a patient’s mouth and throat. Jess is referring to the fact that they are also used when administering electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). A tongue depressor can be used to keep the mouth slightly open so that the patient doesn’t bite on their tongue during treatment – although mouth guards are more common.

None of the characters in Gilmore Girls seem to have much grasp of modern psychiatry. It’s as if everything they know comes from reading The Bell Jar and watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That could be where the writers are getting their (mis)information from!