“You don’t get pregnant saying I love you”

RORY: Dean. Please, it’s just not that easy for me. I mean, saying “I love you” means a lot. Think about it from my point of view. I mean, my mom and our life. I mean, my mom said that she loved my dad and then . . .
DEAN: You don’t get pregnant saying “I love you”.

Dean is being almost stubbornly dim-witted here, and refusing to consider how Rory’s family circumstances might have coloured her feelings about love, because her parents were teenagers who loved each other, but didn’t stay together. Lorelai told Rory that she would always love Christopher, but she still refused his marriage proposal, and he went away. In other words, Rory knows that love is not enough, it isn’t any guarantee that your relationship will last. Saying “I love you” is filled with anxiety for Rory, because in her limited experience, the next thing that happens is “Goodbye”.

The fact that Dean’s mind jumped straight to pregnancy might suggest that he was hoping a shared “I love you” might be the first step toward having sex with Rory.

“Go home and discuss it with your mother”

RORY: Please, don’t be mad.
DEAN: Why? Because I say I love you and you wanna think about it? I mean, go home and discuss it with your mother? Make one of your pro/con lists?

Dean’s angry comment suggests that there’s some real jealousy of Rory’s closeness with her mother at work, and perhaps the knowledge that everything in their relationship will be talked over with Lorelai rankles. He may feel that things would have progressed faster with Rory if her mother wasn’t always around.

This is the first explicit mention of Rory’s pro-con lists, which are apparently essential to her decision-making process. They will continue to feature in Gilmore Girls.

“I love you”

DEAN: Rory?
RORY: Yeah?
DEAN: I love you. (pause) Rory?
RORY: Yeah?
DEAN: Did you hear me?
RORY: Uh huh.
DEAN: Well, say something.

For Dean, announcing that he loved Rory was the obvious climax to his anniversary campaign of dinner out and promise of a car, perhaps even the icing on the cake of everything else he had given her. The inexperienced Rory did not see it coming, and is taken aback, unable to say “I love you” in return because she is unsure of how she feels.

Rory is ruled by her head rather than her heart, and tends to over-think everything anyway, so it’s not surprising that she cannot immediately know how she feels, let alone say how she feels. Unlike Dean, she has never been in a relationship before, and her very existence is a warning to her that jumping into things without careful thought is a bad idea.

If Dean was more mature or experienced, he would have backed off and given Rory the space to feel love in her own time. But he isn’t, so he sulks and acts as if she’s refusing to give him what’s he’s due – what he’s paid for, with dinner and a car! He’s too young and foolish to know that any love worth having cannot be bought that way.

Rory’s Car

After the anniversary dinner, Dean tells Rory that he is building her a car from a wreck; the seats and windshield were put in the day before. Rory is almost overwhelmed by this gesture, and it’s hard not to think that Dean has gone overboard on this three-month (yeah, right) anniversary.

At this point, the viewer has to feel that Dean is way more heavily invested in the relationship than Rory. Not only has has he kept track (no matter how wrongly) on how long they’ve been dating, he’s booked a fancy restaurant, and ordered pretty much everything on the menu so that Rory doesn’t need to choose, and now he announces he’s building her a car. He’s into hand-made gifts, but this isn’t a leather bracelet we’re talking about – it’s an actual car! (And there is a symmetry that their relationship both begins and ends with a gift from Dean).

Rory doesn’t seem to realise that this is a really huge present, which means that the other person clearly has major expectations of you and the relationship. The only big presents she’s ever got are from her mother and grandparents, and she accepted them as signs of their unconditional love. This is her first experience in a romantic relationship, and she’s about to learn that big gifts come with big strings attached.

Oblivious to what’s ahead, she looks up at the stars in wonder, as if, on this night dedicated to love and destiny, they have blessed her union with Dean the way they bless all young lovers in Stars Hollow. She feels that it’s a moment all too perfect to last, and she’s right, of course. Those distant stars are perhaps more ambivalent about love than she knows.

Beirut

RORY: You brought me to Beirut?
DEAN: It’s a salvage yard.
RORY: Ah. And yet it looks so much like Beirut.

Beirut is is the capital of Lebanon, a seaport of more than a million people located on a peninsula. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been inhabited for more than five thousand years, and was voted as one of the New7Wonders Cities of the world.

Rory thinks the salvage yard looks like Beirut because of the Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, and was partly caused by changing demographics due to the conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories leading to further instability in the Middle East region. Since the war, Beirut has undergone reconstruction and, despite further conflicts, is now a major centre for commerce and tourism.

Christine

RORY: Dean, what is this [the junk yard filled with car wrecks]?
DEAN: Okay. Uh, did you ever see Christine?
RORY: Yes.
DEAN: Well, it’s nothing like that.

Christine is a 1983 film directed by John Carpenter, and based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Stephen King. The story is about a a red and white vintage car named Christine which is both sentient and violent, and how it affected its teenage owner. Although it received tepid reviews, it has since become a cult classic.

Lorelai’s Escape

Pretending that she has to go to the toilet, Lorelai sneaks upstairs and begins making her escape through the window when Richard comes in, looking for her on Emily’s instructions. Poor Lorelai can’t even go to the toilet without her mother sending a search party to find her, although in this case Emily’s instincts were actually correct.

It looks bad, because to Richard and Emily, teenage Lorelai sneaking out the window was Lorelai going to meet boys, get drunk, get into trouble, and basically ruin her life. There’s an acknowledgement, even from Lorelai herself, that on some level she hasn’t really grown up. She can’t have an adult conversation with her parents, or make up a believable excuse to leave early – her immediate response is to revert to her teenage self, and sneak out without thinking about it too much.

To his credit, Richard listens to everything Lorelai has to say, and simply calls out to Emily that he couldn’t find Lorelai. They don’t have a close relationship, and have recently argued, but they do share one thing: a great dislike of the odious Chase Bradford. Richard cannot escape himself, but he at least allows Lorelai to, and for that she must feel a genuine gratitude.

Kreskin

CHASE: No no, Lorelai! I’d have to feed the information into a computer to get the answer. I’m no Kreskin!

The Amazing Kreskin (born George Kresge in 1935) is a mentalist who became popular on American television in the 1970s, and is still performing. Kreskin’s main act is to make correct predictions, although he bills himself an an entertainer working with suggestions, not a psychic.

Bridgeport

Dora, the wife of the mayor Harry Porter, is said to be attending bingo in Bridgeport on the night of the Founder’s Firelight Festival.

Bridgeport is a city in Connecticut with its own seaport, and historically a manufacturing city. Its claims to fame are having showman P.T. Barnum as their mayor in the late 19th century, being the place where the first Subway restaurant opened, and being the birthplace of the Frisbee.

The city is about 40 minutes drive from Wallingford, where Stars Hollow appears to be located, and there are two bingo halls in Bridgeport where Dora could have been playing.