“I mean it Timmy, no falling down the well”

LORELAI: Call me when you get home, and please be careful.
RORY: I will.
LORELAI: I mean it Timmy, no falling down the well.

Lorelai is referencing an old joke relating to the television show Lassie, earlier discussed.

In the show, Lassie would bark to give warning of danger, with her human friends apparently understanding exactly what she was saying. Thus it was parodied as, “Woof, woof!”, “What’s that, Lassie? Timmy’s fallen down the well?”. The joke relates to the 1957-1964 period, when the little boy on the show was Timmy Martin, played by Jon Provost (who called his memoirs Timmy’s in the Well: The Jon Provost Story).

In actuality, Timmy never fell down a well, although he suffered a number of similar situations, such as falling in a lake and getting trapped in an old mine, a pipe, and down a badger hole. The list of Timmy’s perils is very long, and includes wandering onto a minefield and being exposed to radiation, not to mention more mundane concerns like tigers and bears. Lassie did once get stuck down a well herself, though.

Lorelai Gives Rory a Hammer

RORY: What is that?
LORELAI: A hammer.
RORY: It has feathers on it.
LORELAI: Yes.
RORY: Why?
LORELAI: So the rhinestones and bows won’t feel lonely.

This is the hammer referred to in the title, Hammers and Veils. Of course Rory can’t go off to help the needy like anyone else – she has to do it in an especially quirky, girly manner that immediately marks her as special and the centre of attention. It’s the Gilmore way.

Rory wouldn’t even buy purple legal pads for school because they’d make her look unprofessional at Chilton, but somehow she’s happy to take a gold-painted, pink feathered hammer to volunteer work which she is doing through Chilton, and for which the hammer would surely be useless. Maybe she’s more relaxed now that she’s one of the top students in her class.

Typically for the show, Rory is running ten minutes late for her volunteer job in this scene.

Gettysburg Address

LORELAI: You know, the Gettysburg Address was only one page long, and that was about a war.
LUKE: I just call them like I see them.

The Gettysburg Address is a speech given by US President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War in 1863. It was delivered at a dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and is one of the best-known speeches in American history. Famous for its pithiness, in just two minutes Lincoln invoked the founding principles of freedom as set out in the Declaration of Independence, and proclaimed the Civil War to be a struggle for the Union that would bring true equality to all American citizens.

Bette Midler and Chicken Kiev

LUKE: And then after all that planning, the [wedding] reception will still be a disaster because no matter what you do or how carefully you plan, halfway through one of those nauseating Bette Midler ballads, someone’s getting drunk, someone’s sleeping with someone else’s wife, and someone’s Chicken Kiev is landing on the cake.

Bette Midler (born 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and film producer. She began her career on the stage, and was in Broadway shows such as Fiddler on the Roof in the late 1960s. In 1970 she began singing in a gay bath house, and built up a core following as a solo artist; she has released 14 albums and many of her songs have become hits, including ballads such as The Rose, and Wind Beneath My Wings (possibly the sort of songs Luke is thinking of). She made her film debut in 1979 in The Rose, and has starred in a number of films, such as Ruthless People (1986), Beaches (1988), and The First Wives Club (1996). In her career spanning more than half a century she has won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and two Tony Awards, as well as selling over 30 million records worldwide.

Chicken Kiev is a Russian dish of chicken fillet stuffed with butter, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and either fried or baked. It may date to the early 19th century, and is claimed to have been the invention of French chef Marie-Antoine Carême, who spent several months at the court of Tsar Alexander I. However, it only became commonly known in the mid-twentieth century. It is popular in the US, and often included on wedding menus.

Speed Racer

RORY: You’re hungry.
LORELAI: No, I’m not.
RORY: Well, you didn’t eat any of your dinner.
LORELAI: Yeah, well, by the time I could get my jaw off the ground, Speed Racer had taken my plate.

Speed Racer (in Japanese, Mach Go Go Go!) is a Japanese animated media franchise based on a manga about car racing, which began showing on TV in 1967, and was one of the first Japanese cartoons to be localised in English for US television.

The eponymous Speed Racer is a young racing car driver with a deep love of family, and a dizzying array of gadgets to help him defeat the bad guys. It has a goofy over-the-top style and cornball dubbing which almost defined Japanese anime for an entire generation.

The original series was shown in reruns on MTV in 1993, when Rory was nine, and she and Lorelai may have watched it together. There was an American-made The New Adventures of Speed Racer the same year, but it was short-lived, and I feel Rory and Lorelai would have considered it greatly inferior to the 1960s original.

“Two worst moves I ever made”

LORELAI: Telling her I was getting married to a wonderful guy who will love me and make me happy. That, and giving her my address when I finally moved out, two worst moves I ever made.

This statement from Lorelai shows that she never completely abandoned her parents: she gave them her address when she moved out so that they could find her if they wanted to (they must have done – they came to see she and Rory when they were living at the inn).

Victoria’s Secret

RORY: Are you okay?
LORELAI: I’m perfect.
RORY: Really?
LORELAI: I have hit a level of perfection that has rarely been seen outside the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

Victoria’s Secret is an American company which designs and makes women’s lingerie, swimwear, sleepwear, and beauty products. Founded by Roy Raymond in 1977, it is now the largest American retailer of women’s lingerie. Their iconic mail-order catalogues were famous for being sexy yet tasteful, showing beautiful models in elegant poses; the catalogues were discontinued in 2016.

Lorelai Tells Emily About Her Engagement

LORELAI: Okay, well, um, the … Max and I have been serious for quite a while now, and he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I’m getting married.
EMILY: Well, I think that’s very nice. I certainly hope we’ll be in town for it, but if not I promise we’ll send a nice gift. Now excuse me, I’m going to check on the roast.

Emily is very hurt that Lorelai has waited this long to tell her that she is engaged, literally leaving her to last. Rather than tell Lorelai how she feels and have a discussion about it, Emily disguises her hurt by behaving as if Lorelai’s engagement means nothing to her, shocking and upsetting her daughter in the process.

Lorelai says that she and Max have been serious for “quite a while”, although in fact they only started dating after their January break up about six weeks ago, and their engagement only happened because the alternative was to break up – Lorelai’s original preferred option.

“Already called me about that”

RICHARD: I just thought we should touch base, you and I, after that unfortunate incident last week.
RORY: Grandpa, you already called me about that.

This confirms that Rory’s fight with her grandfather was the previous Friday, and that he did already phone her to apologise, most likely the same evening that it occured. We never get to see the apology so don’t know how it went. It’s not known whether Richard apologised for his treatment of Dean, or just for upsetting Rory, but whatever he said, Rory seems to have accepted it and forgiven him completely (Lorelai’s chat with her would have made that easier).

Richard talks to Rory to make sure everything is alright between them, which she quickly reassures him that it is, with a briskly British military, “Buck up, private” (meaning “Cheer up, soldier”).