Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

This is the play that the Stars Hollow Elementary School is currently performing; Rory suggests that she and Lorelai might see it as a reward for getting all their Saturday morning chores done. It doesn’t seem as if they ever did, however.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a black comedy by American playwright Ed Albee, first staged in 1962. It is about a middle-aged couple named George and Martha who have a volatile relationship. A drunken night they spend with a young couple named Nick and Honey reveals a poignant secret in George and Martha’s marriage.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? won the Tony Award for Best Play, while its Broadway stars Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill won Best Actress and Best Actor. It was successfully adapted to film in 1966 with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the lead roles.

Needless to say, it is completely inappropriate as a play for elementary school children to even watch, let alone take part in. Not only is it unusually long with complex dialogue to memorise, but the characters are utterly vicious to one another. It heavily features alcohol use/abuse, and discusses death, murder (including murder of children by their parents and vice versa), and sexual themes, including infidelity.

It seems too much even for quirky Stars Hollow, so perhaps Rory used it jokingly as a hypothetical activity. It’s definitely a joke by the writer (Amy Sherman-Palladino).

Sour Patch Kids and Milk Duds

RORY: … We could stuff our purses full of Sour Patch Kids and Milk Duds …

Sour Patch Kids are soft candies covered in sugar syrup and sour sugar, which come in a range of flavours; they are made by Allen’s. They were first sold in the 1970s under the name Mars Men; the name was changed in the 1980s to cash in on the popularity of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls.

Milk Duds are caramel candies coated in cocoa manufactured by Hershey; they have been made since 1926. They are called “duds” because they are not perfectly round, but slightly misshapen.

Fondue

RORY: … We could go to the Swiss place for fondue for dinner …

Fondue is a Swiss dish of melted cheese served in a pot over a portable stove, from which two or more people eat by dipping bread using long forks. Variations of fondue have been known since the 17th century (originally it was more like scrambled eggs with cheese), but it only became the smooth modern creation in the early 20th century, once cornstarch was introduced to Switzerland. It began being heavily promoted as Switzerland’s national dish in the 1930s to encourage cheese consumption.

Fondue was introduced to the US in 1964 at the World’s Fair, and it became very fashionable in the 1970s. Since the 1950s, the word fondue has been applied to other communal dishes in North America, after Swiss chef Karl Egli introduced them at his Chalet Suisse Restaurant in New York, including the popular chocolate fondue.

We learn here that Stars Hollow has a Swiss restaurant – Stars Hollow seems to have several good restaurants, but everyone eats at Luke’s Diner and Al’s Pancake World.

“It sleeps with the fishes”

RORY: Far, far away from the house, okay? [referring to her box of items that remind her of Dean]
LORELAI: Hey, it sleeps with the fishes.

A reference to the 1972 crime film The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the best-selling 1969 novel of the same name by Mario Puzo. The story is about an Italian-American crime family in New York in the 1940s and ’50s, under their patriarch Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). It depicts the transformation of Vito’s son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) from an outsider in the family to mafia boss.

The Godfather was the #1 film of 1972, and is one of the highest-grossing films in cinema history. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Marlon Brando received Best Actor, and Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo won Best Adapted Screenplay. It is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and has been highly influential on gangster films.

In the film, Luca Brasi is the loyal enforcer to Don Vito Corleone. He is murdered by a rival mobster, who sends the Corleone family Brasi’s bulletproof vest with a fish in it, a message that “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes” (ie his corpse was thrown into a body of water).

It becomes apparent through the series that The Godfather is a favourite movie of Lorelai and Rory.

Lorelai does not make good on her word, hiding Rory’s “Dean memory box” in the hall cupboard. It doesn’t seem like a particularly sneaky hiding place, and Rory finds it later in the season. Rather confusingly, prior to this the doorway in the hall led into the downstairs bathroom. Where the bathroom went is a mystery, but it still exists, as it is referred to several times later.

“Then he’s gay”

(Rory is packing everything which reminds her of Dean into a cardboard box).
LORELAI: Sweater’s brand new.
RORY: Well, he [Dean] saw me in it yesterday and he liked it.
LORELAI: Well, then he’s got good taste.
RORY: He said it brought out the blue in my eyes.
LORELAI: Well, then he’s gay.

Gay jokes are always funny in Lorelai’s world. I think it’s all the 1970s films and television shows she watches, when you could pretty much just say someone was gay and everyone would crack up hysterically.

Nancy Drew

LORELAI: Honey, he did not plan an entire romantic evening complete with dinner and a junkyard, which we’ll get back to later, and then suddenly decide to dump you for no reason.
RORY: How do you know?
LORELAI: Because I have read every Nancy Drew mystery ever written. The one about the Amish country, twice. I know there’s more to the story than what you’re telling me.

Nancy Drew is a fictional girl detective who first appeared in the 1930 novel, The Secret of the Old Clock. She was created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer as a feminine version of the Hardy Boys mysteries he published, and the books are written by various ghostwriters under the name Carolyn Keene. For her independence and forthright nature, Nancy Drew is often seen as a positive role model for girls. Nancy Drew books are universally popular, and still being published.

The book that Lorelai refers to is The Witch Tree Symbol, first published in 1955, and the 33rd volume in the series. It is set in Pennsylvania Dutch country, and the Amish play an important part in the plot.

“One step away from stalker material”

LORELAI: Okay, forget about the meatball, okay? Just tell me what happened.
RORY: He just broke up with me, okay?
LORELAI: That doesn’t make sense. This is Dean we’re talking about. He’s crazy about you. He calls like twenty-five times a day. Have you seen the cover of his notebook? It’s one step away from stalker material.

Another hint from Lorelai about Dean’s obsessive (and perhaps possessive) nature when it comes to Rory.

“I left your meatball in the car”

RORY: We – we went to dinner and then we walked by the bonfire but it wasn’t lit so we went to this junkyard and we sat in this car and then – oh God!
LORELAI: What?
RORY: I forgot your meatball in the car.

This is the meatball that Lorelai said to save as a memento. It is typical of Rory to get hung up on this very minor detail of things going wrong. Notice that Rory says they just sat in “this car”, rather than letting Lorelai know it was a car that Dean was building for her.

Rory didn’t actually have the meatball in the car Dean is building for her, but possibly she means the car Dean drove her home in.

“We just broke up”

Lorelai returns home with her lovelorn depression all the deeper after the evening’s events. She was set up with a boring man by her mother, who, when challenged, pointed out that Lorelai has had never had a relationship last as long as three months. If she hoped to find comfort with Luke, even the comfort of friendship, she also witnessed him reuniting with his long-lost ex-girlfriend Rachel, leaving Lorelai on the outer.

Lorelai picks up the phone and calls Max, only to get through to his answering machine. Before she can leave a message, Rory comes home and says “We just broke up”, so that Lorelai must comfort her daughter, whose night was even worse than hers.

We never witness the break up between Rory and Dean, so we don’t know what happened after he said he would drive her home. We don’t know who broke up with whom, or if they really broke up at all. Perhaps Rory is so inexperienced at relationships that she automatically thinks a bad fight means you have broken up, even if nobody says anything. (Maybe Dean thinks that too).

At the very least, we know the relationship between Rory and Dean has gone sour, and that the two of them have missed all the clues that they aren’t really suited to each other that the audience has been picking up on for months.

We also see a different side to Dean that has been hinted at in the past but has now become obvious: when he feels that Rory is not giving him what he is due in the relationship, he becomes angry and sulky, and refuses to listen to her. Unfortunately, it sets up a dynamic where Rory pleads with Dean, and tries to placate him, in a way which suggests she is frightened of his temper.

We saw a little of it in the Donna Reed incident, and now we see it full-blown. Despite the break-up, we will see more of it throughout their relationship. More than anything else, it is probably this unhealthy pattern of behaviour which convinces most viewers that Dean is not right for Rory.