Miss Honesty

LORELAI: Listen to me. I know you are Miss Honesty. I have seen the banner in the closet. But this is the kind of honesty that will only make you feel less guilty, and it’s going to hurt Dean very much. It’s possibly going to screw up the really good thing you guys have going now. Do you want that?

Mm, is this the same Miss Honesty who’s been concealing multiple things from Mrs Kim for years, or the Miss Honesty who fraudulently ate Fran’s wedding cake samples? Let’s see how long it is before Miss Honesty steals a boat …

Lorelai is correct that telling Dean about Tristan would be an essentially selfish thing to do, designed to assuage Rory’s guilt while hurting Dean for no good reason (as she mentions multiple times, she and Dean were broken up when she and Tristan kissed, it’s not really any of his business).

The fact that Rory is seriously considering doing it might be blind panic, but almost sounds as if she could be subconsciously using this as a way to instigate another break-up, to get away from Dean and his controlling jealousy. (Based on later events, it probably wouldn’t have worked).

James Lipton and the Actors Studio

RORY: Of course, right, I have to [tell Dean I kissed Tristan].
LORELAI: Yeah. Then at the play, right as Tristan enters to find you dead and pulls out the vial of poison to kill himself, Dean can leap from the audience and rip his head off, adding a level of reality few productions have ever seen before. You’ll get an A. The Actors Studio will go nuts. You’ll have James Lipton asking you what your favorite swear word is. It’s a great plan.

Louis James Lipton (1926-2020), actor, lyricist, and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York. He was the creator, executive producer, writer, and host of the talk show, Inside the Actors Studio, which began broadcasting in 1994.

The show interviews famous actors and directors in a far more in-depth manner than the usual celebrity piece, sometimes taking hours, and set up as a masterclass for students of drama. Since its inception, it has interviewed over 300 guests, with Paul Newman as the first.

The interview always includes a questionnaire submitted to the guest, with ten questions. Question 7 is, “What is your favourite curse word”?

Vanna

RORY: Right, so Tristan, he’s in our group, so that means he’s in …well, and Dean lives here, so this sucks.
LORELAI: Okay, you know what Vanna? I’m gonna need a few more vowels here.

Vanna White (born Vanna Rosich, born 1957), famous since 1982 for being the hostess of Wheel of Fortune, previously mentioned.

When solving the word puzzles, contestants can ask Vanna for the chance to “buy a vowel” to give them extra help. Lorelai feels that she also needs some assistance to decipher Rory’s barely comprehensible statement.

Stalin

LORELAI: Have you seen my bag with the beads and the fur, kind of looks like Stalin’s head?

Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), Georgian revolutionary and Soviet leader who governed the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death. He is occasionally depicted wearing a round furry hat, which might be what Lorelai is thinking of. Of course Lorelai has a Communist bag!

MissPatty.net

PARIS: I went on the web and I found a site called MissPatty.net. It’s in your town … Is it big enough? The site says it’s 720 square feet.

Do not try to go to MissPatty.net – I did, and my anti-virus had to send me about a million warnings in big red letters that it was a hijacked infected site.

We here learn the exact size of Patty’s Place, which is 720 square feet, or around 66 square metres. That’s about the size of a roomy three-car garage, or a small one bedroom apartment.

“I’ve grown fond of my cage”

RORY: So I’m guessing that you’re not any closer to telling your parents about Henry.
LANE: I mean, what are the options if I tell them? They hate him, and it’s over. They love him, and he therefore becomes odious to me and it’s over. Things are working out fine the way they are.
RORY: You mean calling him Rory on the phone in case your mom’s listening?
LANE: I’ve grown fond of my cage, Rory.

Caught in between the choice to either be forced to break up with Henry, or have her parents approve him so that she loses all interest, Lane has made the choice to maintain a tenuous connection with Henry based on phone calls. The little that Rory has been asked to do to help Lane and Henry is already irritating her, most likely because she can’t see any end in sight.

Lane is aware that she has created the situation out of fear – not so much that she’s fond of her cage, as that she’s scared of going outside it. Rory knows Lane’s background and situation, and could be a bit more understanding, but her patience has clearly run out.

Romeo and Juliet Movie

RORY: She’s letting you go? That’s amazing. What changed her mind?
LANE: I let her watch the Romeo and Juliet movie with Leo and Claire Danes.

Lane is talking about William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (often shortened to Romeo + Juliet), a 1996 film directed by Baz Luhrman and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles. It is a modernised adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, with the Montagues and Capulets two rival (mafia) business empires in the fictional American city of Verona Beach (inspired by Venice Beach in L.A., but filmed in Mexico).

The film was a commercial success and gained mostly positive reviews, as well as winning several awards internationally. At the BAFTA Film Awards, it won Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Music, and Best Production Design. It continues to be a popular choice for high school English teachers to show their students as an introduction to the play.

It wasn’t released on DVD until 2002, so I’m not sure how Lane showed her mother the movie. Perhaps it was conveniently on at the local cinema.

Fernando

SOOKIE: But we have an ice cream maker, a professional one. See, that means we can make enough ice cream for everyone in the inn, whereas this little guy…
LORELAI: Fernando.

Lorelai may have named her ice cream maker after Fernando, the 1976 song by Swedish pop group ABBA, included on their album Arrival the same year. One of the best-selling singles of all time, it went to #13 in the US, and is still a staple on some American radio stations.

I’m mostly suggesting this because I can’t imagine a woman of Lorelai’s age and background choosing the name Fernando without thinking of the song. The lyrics do fit the circumstances though, because the song is about two old Mexican freedom fighters from a nameless conflict, reminiscing about the battles of their youth.

The stars were bright, Fernando
They were shining there for you and me
For liberty, Fernando
Though I never thought that we could lose
There’s no regret
If I had to do the same again
I would, my friend, Fernando

Lorelai chose liberty over marriage to Max, and in the end she has no regrets about doing so. However, she doesn’t want to keep the ice cream maker, as it’s a constant reminder of a failed relationship.

Destiny’s Child

SOOKIE: Swear. Raise your right hand and say, ‘May Destiny’s Child break up if I count these blueberries.’
MICHEL: Pick another group.

Destiny’s Child, a girl group founded in Texas in 1990 under the name Girl’s Tyme, with a final and best-known line-up of Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. They signed to Columbia in 1997 under the name Destiny’s Child, and gained mainstream recognition with the release of their hit song, No, No, No, and their 1999 best-selling album, The Writing’s On the Wall. Their most recent album at this stage was Survivor, which came out in April 2001, apart from their Christmas album in October of that year.

The reason Michel might be particularly concerned that Destiny’s Child could break up is because the band announced they were going on hiatus to pursue solo careers in 2001. They reunited in 2004 for their fourth and final album, Destiny Fulfilled. After their 2005 tour, the group did indeed break up.

Somehow Michel is more worried about eating one or two extra blueberries on his pancakes because of the calories than he is with eating actual pancakes! Michel’s relationship with food is even unhealthier that Lorelai and Rory’s, and is certainly weirder.

“You’re Juliet”

PARIS: You’re Juliet. You’re the best public speaker here, you’ve definitely got that waif thing down, and you’ll look great dead.

Paris chooses Rory because of her “waif-like” appearance, and because she’s supposedly the best public speaker out of all of them – which is good, if she’s hoping to be a reporter like Christiane Amanpour. Unfortunately, when we subsequently see Rory speaking in public, she doesn’t quite live up to the hype. As Juliet is lying down and either dead or looking dead in this scene, public speaking ability doesn’t seem greatly needed anyway.