Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves

LORELAI: Rory, stop it! We are not gonna have this fight in a flowery bedroom with dentists singing Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves in the background.

Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves [sic] is a 1971 song written by Bob Stone, and performed by pop singer Cher, from her self-titled seventh album. It went to #1 in the US and Canada, becoming Cher’s first #1 single as a solo artist. It gave her a comeback after four years out of the Top Ten, and was her best-selling single to that point. So successful was the song that the album was renamed Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves [sic] after the song, and re-released.

The song is about a multi-generational family in a “travelling show” – the “gypsies, tramps and thieves” of the title, which are the insults hurled at them by the public. Like Highway to Hell, this is another song about life on the road, in line with the episode’s main event of a road trip.

“I was counting on this!”

RORY: We had plans! We made space in the closet!
LORELAI: Oh Rory, just because we moved a couple of boxes is not reason enough for me to get married!
RORY: Max was counting on this! I was counting on this!

After behaving with callous indifference towards Max and showing a deep cynicism towards his upcoming wedding with Lorelai, Rory is suddenly extremely upset that the whole thing is off. It turns out that she actually cares about Max, and was heavily invested in the relationship, despite zero evidence of that.

U2

LORELAI: I have earned the right not to be quizzed about my social life by my sixteen-year-old daughter.
RORY: I thought I was your best friend!
LORELAI: When we’re at a U2 concert, you are my best friend. But right now you are my sixteen-year-old daughter and I am telling you I do not want to have this conversation.

U2 are an Irish rock band, earlier mentioned. It was formed in 1976 and consists of Bono (Paul Hewson), The Edge (David Evans), Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. Their debut album was Boy (1980), and their first #1 album in the UK was War (1983), with singles such as Sunday, Bloody Sunday and Pride (In the Name of Love) establishing their reputation as politically conscious. By the mid-1980s they were globally renowned as a live act, and their 1987 album The Joshua Tree made them international superstars; it remains their greatest commercial and critical success. Their most recent album from Lorelai’s viewpoint is All That You Can’t Leave Behind, released in 2000. One of the world’s best-selling musical acts, U2 have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. They are famous for their campaigns for human rights and social justice.

This establishes Lorelai as a U2 fan. U2 gave a concert in Hartford as part of their Elevation tour on June 3 2001, although in the Gilmore Girls universe it seems to have taken place around mid-May – this was the concert that Tristan offered to take Rory to on a date (with PJ Harvey as the support act). It doesn’t seem plausible that Lorelai and Rory attended the concert, although it is just possible, particularly if they went to the real-life concert rather than the fictional one in the show.

U2’s previous concert in Hartford was as part of their Zoo TV tour, and it took place on March 12 1992 – this is the only other U2 concert that Lorelai could have taken Rory to. Unfortunately, the concert would have been when Rory was eight years old, and later Lorelai says that Rory thought she “discovered” U2 when she was ten; Rory could hardly believe that after attending an elaborately staged concert by the band two years before. It is possible that Lorelai is referring to a purely hypothetical U2 concert.

Lorelai lets Rory know that the idea of them being “best friends” is something of a fiction, being entirely at Lorelai’s convenience. As long as Rory is doing exactly as Lorelai wants, they are best friends; once she deviates from that, they are back to being mother and daughter.

“When have we ever talked about make-up?”

RORY: You said we could talk.
LORELAI: Yes, well I thought you meant about make-up or something.
RORY: When have we ever talked about make-up?
LORELAI: Never, that’s why I thought now would be a good time.

In fact the very first conversation Rory and Lorelai had on the show was about make-up, when Rory asked her mother for lip gloss and received more options than she wanted. They talked about it again when Rory was getting ready for her first date with Dean and Lorelai advised her on make-up, and briefly again when they were all getting ready for their double dates. I think it’s safe to presume that Lorelai and Rory talk about make-up a completely normal amount for a mother and teenage daughter.

Anarchy in the UK

LORELAI: We could sing.
RORY: Sing?
LORELAI: Yeah, we could sing Anarchy in the UK at the top of our lungs.

Anarchy in the UK is a 1976 song by British punk band The Sex Pistols. It was released as their debut single, and later featured on their 1977 debut album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Anarchy in the UK reached #38 in the UK. It is now regarded as a classic rock song, and highly influential in the development of modern rock.

Certs

[Lorelai sits on the bed looking through her purse while Rory is in the bathroom.]
LORELAI: Ohh, ahhh, I struck gold! [pulling something out of her purse]
RORY: What is it?
LORELAI: Certs.

Certs is a brand of breath mint and candy made by Mondelēz International since 1956. One of the first mints to be marketed in the US, they are a fixture at drug stores and convenience stores. Despite being mints, they don’t contain any actual mint, just artificial mint flavouring, with their green colour coming from copper.

Lorelai and Rory’s Inability to Leave Their Room

[Lorelai and Rory start to walk down the steps, but stop when they see a bunch of people downstairs.]
LORELAI: Dentists. Boston dentists. Cocktail hour at the Cheshire Cat.
RORY: So?
LORELAI: So our exit is blocked.
RORY: Let’s just rush pass them.
LORELAI: Too risky.
RORY: They’re not assassins.

Unbelievably, Lorelai and Rory find themselves unable to leave their room to get food because they can’t walk downstairs and past a group of strangers. Normally you can’t shut Lorelai up, now she’s incapable of exchanging a few words with a handful of people on her way out to buy dinner. As a plot device to trap Lorelai and Rory in a room together, it’s a pretty lame one.

By what psychic powers Lorelai knows the people downstairs are all dentists from Boston must remain a mystery, but presumably cocktail hour is marked on the activity sheet LaDawn gave them.