Footnotes to the TV series
Andrew from Stars Hollow Books is at the meeting, and says that his son told him about Jess setting off the fire alarms at the high school. We now discover that Andrew is the father of a boy, presumably a teenager. (He makes it sound as if he only has one son, although there may be daughters as well). He’s sitting next to Bootsy, as if they might be friends (or both in the trade of selling reading materials, so have something in common).
LORELAI: I heard [Jess] controls the weather and wrote the screenplay to Glitter.
Glitter is a 2001 romantic drama musical film directed by Vondie Curtis Hall, and starring Mariah Carey, previously discussed. The screenplay was written by Kate Lanier. The film is about a club dancer who aspires to be a professional singer, and falls in love with a nightclub DJ who helps her in her career.
The film came out on September 21, so Lorelai would have seen it in the cinema only recently. It was heavily panned by critics, with Mariah Carey’s acting efforts considered amateurish, and it failed at the box office. It has been called the worst film ever made. Even before the film was released, Mariah Carey was hospitalised with a breakdown, much later revealed to be bipolar disorder. Carey herself expressed a lot of regret over, and disappointment in, the film.
Amy Sherman-Palladino was one of the many people who hated Glitter, which is probably why it gets mentioned here as Lorelai’s joke about the “evil crimes” of Jess. Lorelai doesn’t like Jess, but even she thinks the town is going too far in their treatment of him. She has the good sense not to offer her own issues with Jess (stole beer, talked back to her, prowled around her daughter), as grist for the mill at the meeting.
Stole money from the bridge fundraising jar (money was returned)
Stole a gnome from Babette (gnome was returned)
Hooted one of Miss Patty’s dance classes (it’s not really clear if he hooted a horn or hooted in derision, either way, they’re just little girls, so kind of yuck)
Stole a hose from Fran’s front yard (was this payback for refusing to sell her inn to Rory’s mother?)
Set off all the fire alarms at the high school
Drew a chalk outline outside Doose’s Market so that Taylor lost business
The viewer might be getting the impression that Jess, although clearly a pest and a nuisance around town, is hardly committing any major acts of villainy. For some reason, the police don’t seem to be getting involved, even for petty theft, misuse of a fire alarm, or vandalism, and perhaps this lack of police action is one of the things fuelling the town’s frustration. It may also be spurring Jess on to further mischief, if he’s mostly doing this for attention or to prove he’s a “bad boy” so he’ll be sent back to his mother.
TAYLOR: When Mrs. Lanahan couldn’t buy her head of lettuce that morning for her lunch, she drove straight to Woodbury to buy lettuce from a competing market.
Woodbury is a small town in Litchfield County, Connecticut of about 9000 people, around ten miles from Waterbury, which is the nearest big town. In the Gilmore Girls universe, Woodbury is posited as the nearest town to Stars Hollow, and portrayed as something of a rival town (the Mount Pilot to Stars Hollow’s Mayberry).
In real life, Woodbury is about ten miles from Washington Depot, as if to underline that this is the inspiration for Stars Hollow, even though it contradicts other information, such as being half an hour’s drive from Hartford. However, if we placed Stars Hollow the same distance away in the other direction, roughly where Waterbury is, this would make it half an hour’s drive to Hartford, and also put it on the I-84 and the bus route from New York to Hartford.
So this is a bit of geographic information that actually makes quite a bit of sense (of course often contradicted by various geographic impossibilities!).
TAYLOR: You weren’t invited because we are dealing with the Jess situation.
LUKE: The Jess situation?
LORELAI: Uh oh. If this was the Wild West, we’d be pushing the horse aside and diving into the water trough right about now.
A trope in Western films, especially in comedy or parody versions – during a gun battle, those who are unarmed or incapable of fighting will dive into a nearby water trough to escape injury or death. Lorelai sees Taylor and Luke as the gunslingers, while they are the innocent bystanders.
LORELAI: Aha!
LUKE: Geez! Don’t sneak up on me like that.
LORELAI: Yeah boy, I was lucky you had your phasers on stun, huh?
Phasers are the standard weapon (and tool) of choice in the Star Trek universe, apparently giving off some kind of “beam” of pulsed energy. They can be set to stun, rather than kill, so that an opponent or threat is simply shocked, rather than vaporised.
EMILY: Oh, now you have a problem with swans and thrones.
LORELAI: Because swans and thrones scream one thing, Mom. Siegfried and Roy.
Siegfried and Roy were a duo of German-American magicians and entertainers, famous for their appearances with white lions and white tigers. They were Siegfried Fischbacher (1939-2021) and Roy Horn (born Uwe Horn, 1944-2020). They had a very successful act at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas from the 1990s until 2003, known for their flamboyant style, sometimes compared to Liberace.
EMILY: Lorelai, your daughter’s being impossible. She won’t pose in an appropriate manner.
RORY: I’m trying to, Grandma. It’s just awkward.
Rory goes to her grandmother’s house after school to pose for her portrait, but it turns out this means sitting on a “throne” (a needlework armchair) in a red velvet dress with a hungry honking swan, and her arm raised in an odd pose. The living room portrait is quite normal, so it’s strange that Emily suddenly wants this bizarre “swan princess” picture of Rory. It might explain why Lorelai’s own portrait was never completed. Rory is already looking quite grumpy, just as Lorelai got fed up with being painted.
Lorelai is able to quickly convince Emily that a picture of Rory sitting and reading would be natural and appropriate, saving the day.
RORY: Mia, why don’t you move back here? We miss you.
LORELAI: Or at least visit more? You used to check in. You never come at all.
MIA: I don’t have to. You’ve made me redundant.
LORELAI: I have not.
MIA: Don’t be humble. The inn is beyond covered. It’s never run this well or been this successful. That inn is like your place now. Without you I wouldn’t know what to do, I’d be lost.
An explanation for why we’ve never seen Mia before – she lives a long way away, and Lorelai is doing such a good job of running the Independence that Mia doesn’t need to check in with them any more. This unexpected visit from Mia seems to be almost purely nostalgic, and perhaps timed to coincide with the Autumn Festival.
Of course, it leaves Lorelai feeling very guilty. If the Independence can’t function without Lorelai, how can she and Sookie ever quit to start an inn of their own?
MIA: Not one thing to recommend hiring her. Just that … how do I put it and remain a lady? … that ‘who cares’ look in her eyes, so I gave her any job. The other maids hated you.
LORELAI: Yeah, well they were all so slow.
MIA: You were special.
This helps explain why Mia hired Lorelai, even though she had no experience or references. Not only a vulnerable figure, a teenaged mother with a baby, but one who didn’t want to be pitied or beg for help: only to be given the chance to earn enough for herself and her daughter.
Lorelai repaid Mia by being a hard-working and enthusiastic employee – so much so that the other maids were resentful of her. I suspect that years spent watching Emily’s maids get castigated and fired for minor errors gave Lorelai the motivation to pay attention to detail. This good attitude and work ethic no doubt soon led to promotions, raises, and bonuses at the Independence.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 