Liam Neeson

ANDREW: [in background] You went out with Liam Neeson! Are you kidding me?

William “Liam” Neeson (born 1952), actor from Northern Ireland. He began his career in the Belfast theatre scene, and his first film role was in Excalibur (1981). He rose to prominence playing the title role in Schindler’s List (1993), starred in dramas such as Nell (1994) and provided the narration for Everest (1998). In November 2002, his most recent films were Stars Wars: Attack of the Clones and K-19: The Widowmaker, although Gangs of New York was just about to come out. He has received numerous honours, including an OBE in 2000.

Liam Neeson was married to actress Natasha Richardson in 1994, a marriage which lasted until her death in 2009. Presumably, Andrew’s dance partner went out with Liam Neeson prior to his marriage (or prior to him meeting Richardson, which took place in 1993).

“Kirk has very little in his life”

RORY: Kirk has very little in his life … He has no career, no girlfriend, no pet, no car. He lives with his mother, she won’t even let him have his own key. The only thing he does have in his whole lonely pathetic existence is this marathon. If we win, if we take him down, if we take away that last little piece of dignity, then we leave him with nothing.

Kirk has dozens of jobs, and lots of personal projects, such as photography and film-making. He seems to actually lead a pretty full life.

The Rules

Taylor explains all the rules of the dance marathon just before it starts – important information for the episode ahead.

The marathon starts at 6 am on Saturday, and finishes 24 hours later at 6 am on Sunday.

Any couple without a number will be disqualified.

All couples must be touching at all times.

All couples must remain moving at all times.

The only time couples may stop touching or moving is when Taylor blows an air horn, which allows for a ten-minute rest, snack, drink, bathroom break etc period.

In case of emergency, a contestant may use their yellow card to leave the floor for ten minutes. Their partner must remain on the floor and keep moving throughout this emergency break.

First aid is available at Miss Patty’s.

If you feel unwell or dizzy etc, move to the side so that your medical episode does not impede other dancers.

You can see on the scoreboard behind Taylor that 156 couples signed up for the marathon. That sounds pretty successful!

Buck Teeth, Club Foot, Alopecia

NURSE: You’re also supposed to have buck teeth, a clubfoot, and alopecia.

Buck Teeth [pictured]

More correctly, malocclusion, misalignment or incorrect relation between the teeth of the upper and lower dental arches when they approach each other as the jaws close. It may be caused by a variety of factors, both genetic and environmental eg thumb sucking, nail biting. The treatment is usually orthodontic braces.

Clubfoot

A birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inward and downward. It is the most common congenital malformation of the foot. Without treatment it will lead to pain and an impaired ability to walk. It may be treated with surgery or physical therapies.

Alopecia

Hair loss or baldness. The causes in women remain obscure, and are probably multiple.

Stanley has told his jealous wife that even though Lorelai looked pretty in her photo, she has since had her face smashed to pieces in an accident and her hair has fallen out, and the photo apparently didn’t reveal that she has a clubfoot and buck teeth. It’s a small town, so how he thought his wife would never discover he was lying I don’t know. We never hear of this couple again, so maybe they had to move.

Eggless Egg Salad

LANE: Eggless egg salad. Though this year my mom added food coloring to make the egg-like product look more eggy.

Vegan egg salad is made from mashed tofu, yeast, and vegan mayonnaise with mustard and turmeric for colouring. Black salt (actually pink in colour) provides the egg flavouring. It doesn’t need food colouring, but maybe knowledge of vegan foods has increased since 2002.

I don’t know who wants vegan egg salad at 6 am, but this is the refreshment that Mrs Kim and Lane are providing!

“Stick four kids in the attic”

LORELAI: Sookie, this is not like the fruit bowl his mother gave you. You can’t stick four kids in the attic and just pull them out at Christmas.

This sounds suspiciously like a reference to the 1979 Gothic novel Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews, the pen name of Cleo Virginia Andrews. The story is about four children, siblings named Chris, Cathy, Carrie, and Cory Dollanger, who are locked in an attic by their grandmother for more than three years, with the consent or encouragement of the children’s widowed mother. The book is the first in a series about the Dollanger siblings.

The book features rape, incest, and murder, and was described as “deranged swill” by one critic, but it was a bestseller. Lorelai has almost certainly read it – she would have been eleven at the time it was published, and it was so popular and shocking at the time that almost every teenage and preteen girl read it as part of a worldwide phenomenon.

“Four in four”

SOOKIE: All of a sudden, completely out of the blue, Jackson announces he wants four in four … Four kids in four years.

Sookie and Jackson, an adorable couple while they were dating, became immediately annoying once they were married. Now Jackson, formerly rather sweet and snuggly, gets some pretty creepy ideas. This icky one is that Sookie should give birth to four of his children within four years, and he takes Sookie’s dubious, “Oohh .. kaay” as consent.

As tends to be the case, mostly for script reasons, Sookie tells Lorelai about her problems with Jackson rather than discussing them with him. Lorelai rightly tells Sookie that she won’t have a good marriage unless she learns to communicate with Jackson, however, Sookie and Jackson continue having major communication problems throughout their marriage.

Coq au vin

SOOKIE: Last night, I made coq au vin for dinner, so of course the subject of children came up.

Coq au vin (“cock/rooster with wine”) is a French dish of chicken braised in wine with bacon/ham, mushrooms, herbs, onion, and garlic. The wine is usually a red Burgundy. The recipe was not documented until the 20th century, but it is generally accepted that it was a rustic dish in existence long before that (according to legend as early as the days of the Roman Empire). The dish was popularised in the US in the early 1960s by Julia Child, and it was seen as one of her signature dishes.

Why serving coq au vin makes Sookie and Jackson discuss children is not as clear as Sookie seems to think. Something about cock and wine together, maybe?