Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: Too cool for school, huh?
A phrase that seems to have arisen in 1950s hipster culture, to mean that someone has submerged themselves in the counterculture to the point that they no longer fit in with conformist society. Once used as praise, today it’s usually used sarcastically, as Rory does, to mean the person is too pretentious or above themselves to lower themselves to normal standards of behaviour.
JESS: Potlucks and Tupperware parties aren’t really my thing.
A potluck is American English for a communal meal where everyone brings a dish of food to share. Commonly organised by churches and community groups, the food is rarely of gourmet quality (hence, you’re taking “pot luck” in what you’ll get to eat).
A Tupperware party is one organised to sell Tupperware, a line of plastic storage containers first developed by Earl Silas Tupper in 1946, and sold via multilevel marketing in the home. After being very popular in the 1970s, Tupperware suffered a slump in the mid-1990s, when it began to seem dated, so at this period was considered a rather middle-aged activity.
Quite rudely, Jess equates the lavish dinner Sookie carefully prepared to welcome him to Stars Hollow with community meals suitable for the dull and old-fashioned. This yet another meal prepared by Sookie which gets ruined, as Jess and Luke leave without eating, when the dinner was meant to be for them.
Kabbalah Studies
Kabbalah is an esoteric discipline in Jewish mysticism, containing a set of teachings explaining the relationship between God and the universe. It dates to around the 12th century and originated in Spain and southern France. There are different traditions and streams of thought within it, that might focus on theosophy, meditative practices, or (more controversially) white magic. It has been a strong influence on Jewish philosophy and mysticism.
Since the 1960s, universalist schools have opened up which teach Kabbalah to people of all faiths and ways of life, one of the contributors to New Age spirituality. You can also sign up for six week courses in introductory Kabbalah, making it very accessible. Possibly such courses are held in Stars Hollow, although it is slightly surprising Luke knows about them and approves, as he doesn’t seem the most mystical person. The show did seem to just give random Jewishness to characters whenever it felt like it.
Freeway (a mistake for highway????) beautification projects
Community groups often sponsor a section of highway in the US in order to maintain it, and provide volunteers to work on it. Such projects might include planting trees, shrubs and ground cover plants, mowing grass, weeding, mulching, and removing roadside litter. It seems like something Taylor would almost certainly organise for a highway near Stars Hollow.
Color Me Mine pottery painting
A chain of studios, founded in 1996, where people can paint their own pottery and ceramics. In real life, there aren’t any Color Me Mine studios in Connecticut (but plenty in California, where the writers live).
Humorously, Luke’s suggestions of social activities he might approve don’t sound like anything most teenage boys would be interested in.
Give up smoking
No stealing
Pay people back for what has been taken
Attend school and graduate high school
Work in the diner after school until the diner closes
Homework will be done between the diner closing and bedtime
Weekends are for chores and pre-approved social outings
I wonder whether Luke’s plan of only allowing Jess to attend school, work at the diner, do homework at night, and chores on weekends, is an indication of how his father brought him up. It certainly gave Luke a strong work ethic, although it also drove Liz away. It might explain why Luke seems to lead a rather joyless existence, with a distrust or even dislike of having any fun.
Jess’ response is to immediately make like his mother and leave, and when Luke asks where he is going, he says, “Out”. Yes, he’s done a Liz and gone off to do “God knows what”.
Luke mutters, “Well, at least I asked”, showing that he’s not expecting to become the world’s best parental substitute overnight.
(Note that Jess is wearing a completely different outfit in this scene – because his other clothes got wet when Luke pushed him into a lake).
After pushing Jess into a lake, Luke goes straight to Lorelai and admits she was right – he is completely out of his depth, and has no idea has to raise a troubled teenage boy. Lorelai immediately assures Luke that he can do it, but it’s going to take more than buying some new sheets to make it work. Luke did act as though just providing Jess with a safe and stable home environment was going to be enough to change his attitude.
Lorelai doesn’t tell Luke what to do, so she has learned one valuable lesson from their fight. Instead she asks Luke what he is going to do about Jess. It is his choice how he raises Jess. Their fight is made up when they both acknowledge they were wrong, and the end is signalled when Luke tells Lorelai she is allowed back at the diner.
Luke waits for Jess after school, then as they walk home, confronts Jess about taking money from the donation cup for the bridge repair fund at Doose’s Market. Jess tells Luke to leave him alone, and in frustration, Luke pushes Jess off a low bridge (more of a walkway) into a lake. It’s the #1 fan favourite scene in this episode, with good reason.
It feels as if this should be the bridge that Jess stole money from, as a sort of karmic punishment. However, if the bridge needed to be repaired (an ongoing community project, it seems), then why is it still safe to walk on? Or is the money for future repairs?
Also, in an earlier episode, a poster is shown for the bridge fundraiser the previous year, and it says it is an old bridge over Muddy River. This bridge doesn’t look old, and it’s said to be over a lake, not over a river, let alone a muddy one. It doesn’t look like the arched bridge with a handrail in the picture. Then again, props people don’t have access to canon – they got Rory’s birthday wrong on her invitation, after all.
Luke tells Lorelai that he pushed Jess into “a lake”, rather than “the lake”, suggesting that Stars Hollow has several lakes (there is one behind The Independence Inn). In real life, the area around New Milford and Washington Depot has several small lakes and ponds surrounding it.
This scene was filmed at the Jungle Pond on the Warner Bros lot in Burbank, California, used in numerous Warner Bros films and TV series. It is the same set used for all lakes and ponds in the show.
In this episode, Luke is dismayed to learn Jess has been indulging in petty theft. Is this the “trouble” he was headed for in New York, or is this something Jess is doing for attention, in defiance of being sent to Stars Hollow, or out of boredom?
Or is it a sort of one-sided joke or prank, where he fulfils the image the town has of him as a criminal by performing mildly illegal acts that do little harm, just to see how upset the townsfolk will become?
Another possibility: Jess only seems to start stealing after he meets Rory. Is he trying to make himself a notorious figure, spoken of everywhere, so she cannot ignore or forget him? After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity …
It’s also interesting to see where Jess steals from in this episode. He is first caught stealing beer from Lorelai’s fridge. Next he steals a few coins from the bridge repair fund – the same community project that Lorelai and Rory worked on (in a town as gossipy as Stars Hollow, it wouldn’t be hard for the quiet, watchful Jess to learn of that). Then he steals a garden gnome from Babette, Lorelai and Rory’s next door neighbour. Later it transpires that the first thing he took without asking was one of Rory’s books.
The thefts don’t seem to have random victims – they are all connected with Lorelai and Rory. Are they a bit of payback for Lorelai, for trying to give him advice, or are they are an attempt to keep himself within Rory’s orbit, by fair means or foul?
JESS: You bring me here to this place, you put me in a school that says the Pledge of Allegiance in six different languages, two of which I’ve never heard of before.
The Pledge of Allegiance expresses loyalty to the United States flag and the nation that it represents. A pledge was first composed in 1887 by Captain George Thatcher Balch, a former Union Army Officer during the Civil War who later taught patriotism in schools. The current pledge was mostly composed by a Christian socialist minister and author Francis Bellamy in 1892, based on the one by Balch. It was formally adopted by Congress in 1942.
The Pledge of Allegiance is recited at the start of Congressional sessions, many local government meetings, and often even in private organisations. Most states, including Connecticut, require the pledge to be recited regularly, usually every day, at public schools. However, a student legally cannot be compelled to recite the pledge, or punished for failing to do so.
The Pledge of Allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
It is recited while standing to attention, facing the flag with the right hand over the heart (non-religious headgear is removed for the pledge by males). Those in uniform remain silent for the pledge, but give a military salute to the flag.
Sometimes schools in the US have recited the pledge in different languages, but it tends to not go down well, and be considered unpatriotic. Stars Hollow High School is apparently not afraid to celebrate its diversity, even though its student population isn’t very diverse. Six languages seems extremely unusual though.
What the six languages were, two of which Jess had never heard of before, is open to speculation. I am going to guess, based on languages spoken in Connecticut, according to the census:
English
Spanish (the most common non-English language in the US)
French (we know this language is taught at Stars Hollow High)
Korean (Mrs Kim can be very persuasive?)
Tagalog (the language of the Philippines, which Jess might not have heard of?)
Urdu (the national language of Pakistan, which Jess might not have heard of?)
Other possibilities I considered: German (Stars Hollow once had an ill-fated German Club), Portuguese (second most common non-English language in Connecticut), Polish (very commonly spoken in the nearby Hartford area), Hebrew or Yiddish (we later learn Stars Hollow has a vibrant Jewish community), Algonquin (the Native American language spoken by Connecticut tribes), Esperanto (a created universal language), American Sign Language for the deaf.
Feel free to add your own thoughts!
LUKE: You learn anything good [at school]?
JESS: Oh yeah, tons of things. I’ve got gold stars plastered all over my forehead.
Gold stick-on stars are often given to young schoolchildren, usually at the elementary school level, as a reward for good work or good behaviour.
RORY: Do you ever regret the fact that you didn’t become a clown?
MAX: I don’t really believe in regrets. All my experiences, even the ones that didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to, I firmly believe they were all worth it.
[Rory turns off the tape recorder]
RORY: I just want you to know, I really wanted you to be my stepfather.
MAX: I just want you to know, I really wanted to be your stepfather.
[They’re silent for a few seconds, then Rory turns the tape recorder back on]
This scene allows Rory and Max to get the closure they need, because Lorelai’s method of dumping her groom by running away days before the wedding didn’t allow for any. With typical self-centredness, Lorelai never seemed to have considered how awkward she would make that for Max and Rory, who have to continue seeing each other and working together at Chilton. Perhaps Headmaster Charleston isn’t so unreasonable for frowning on teacher-parent relationships.
It’s believable that Max wanted to be Rory’s stepfather – he had a big fight with Lorelai when he thought she was shutting him out of Rory’s life, and was quick to offer Rory comfort and advice when he knew she was going through a breakup with her boyfriend. It’s less convincing that Rory particularly wanted Max as her stepfather though, as she showed little sign of that when he was spending the weekend with she and Lorelai. It was only after Lorelai dumped Max that she was suddenly upset about it. Perhaps she came to realise what she was missing out on.
Max’s statement that he doesn’t regret any life experience, even those which didn’t work out, is a very graceful way to let Rory (and the viewer) know that he bears no ill will towards Lorelai, and that he will essentially be alright.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 