“Lorelai had such a specific walk”

SUNNY: She looks just like Lorelai, doesn’t she?
NATALIE SWOPE: The eyes.
VIVIAN LEWIS: The nose.
SUNNY: Walk around sweetie … I just wanna see the walk. Lorelai had such a specific walk.

VIVIAN LEWIS: Fast.

Emily’s friends eagerly examine Rory, this seems to be first time they have seen Lorelai’s daughter, at least for many years. It’s also the first mention by another character of Lorelai’s fast paced walking, possibly one of the factors helping her stay slim. (I don’t think Rory has inherited it, to me her walking seems normal paced, or even slightly slow for a young healthy person).

“I wanted to be a clown”

RORY: Have you ever thought of doing something other than teaching?
MAX: Well, my father wanted me to be a doctor, and my mother wanted me to be President, and I wanted to be . . . a clown.

This backstory for Max Medina is based on actor Scott Cohen studying to be a professional clown at the State University of New York. After graduating, he worked briefly as a clown, but was fired from the circus for not being “happy” enough.

Liz

LUKE: Look, his problem is obvious, it’s his mother. You never could count on Liz for anything. Our mom died when we were kids, right? It was just my dad, me and Liz. And my dad worked all the time and I worked in the store with my dad, and Liz was off doing God knows what.
LORELAI: Well, I bet losing her mom so early was kind of hard on her.
LUKE: It was hard on all of us, but we did our part. And then the minute she graduates high school, she is outta here. Didn’t matter that my dad was sick, didn’t matter that the store was failing, she just took off. Married the hot dog king, had a kid, he left, now here we are.

Luke gives Lorelai a potted history of his sister Liz. After the death of their mother while they were young, Luke fell into the role of the “good child” who supported his father and worked alongside him in the hardware store when he wasn’t at school. Liz was the “bad child”who ran around town and did her own thing.

As soon as she finished school, she left town (and went to California?) despite her father being ill and the family business going downhill as a result. Luke now makes it sound as if Liz’s husband worked at (or owned?) the Wienerschnitzel restaurant, not merely another customer. In fact, he had a similar job to the one Luke now has!

Lorelai is immediately sympathetic to Liz, understanding the terrible loss of her mother at a young age, and having personal knowledge of being a wayward teenage girl, family black sheep, and young mother herself.

It possibly explains one of the reasons Luke is drawn to Lorelai. She was a rebellious teen like his sister and even had her child the same year as Liz, and yet while he can only see Liz as a screw-up and a flake, Lorelai is energetic, hard-working, ambitious, and a pillar of their community. Of course, Lorelai wasn’t orphaned in her teens, and her family didn’t go broke, so it’s hardly a fair comparison.

In fact, despite Luke’s disparaging summation of his sister’s character, her life story doesn’t sound particularly dire or even that unusual. She got out of a probably stifling small town to escape a miserable family situation, travelled across the country, met a small business owner (?) or at least someone in employment, got married and had a child. Although she married young, the marriage lasted fifteen years or more, leaving her as a single mother to a teenage boy who seemingly inherited her own rebellious streak.

Luke’s relationship with his sister opens up a number of questions. Does he see Lorelai as the girl who turned her life around with the support of Stars Hollow, the way he wishes Liz had? Does he sometimes cast Lorelai in the role of a ditzy younger sister? Does he give Lorelai and Rory the help and friendship he wishes he could have bestowed on Liz and her son?

And if he had directed his love and care towards his sister and nephew instead, would they be in the mess they are now? Because Lorelai has lived in Stars Hollow for more than ten years, and she didn’t even know Luke had a sibling.

(By the way, Liz is another name from General Hospital – Luke and Laura’s son Lucky married a girl named Liz, and they became a younger generation “supercouple”).

Der Wienerschnitzel

LORELAI: Where’s his dad?
LUKE: Oh well, the great prize that my sister picked up at a Der Wienerschnitzel left her about two years ago, whereabouts unknown.

Wienerschnitzel is an American fast food chain specialising in hot dogs (even though the name refers to crumbed veal, which the restaurant has only served a few times). It was founded in 1961 as Der Weinerschitzel (which is grammatically incorrect as a German phrase). Although the name was changed in 1977, many older customers still use the original name.

Wienerschnitzel is predominantly located in California, which suggests that Luke’s sister Liz met her son’s father there, and that she and her son have been on their own for two years. It is worth noting that this back story changed during the course of the show.

“Worthy” Men

CHRISTOPHER: So is he [Max] worthy?
LORELAI: Is anyone?
CHRISTOPHER: Bono, maybe? Bryan Ferry?
LORELAI: Get serious.
CHRISTOPHER: A young Tom Waits?
LORELAI: Now you’re talking.

Paul Hewson, known by his stage name Bono (born 1960) is the lead singer and main songwriter of Irish rock band U2, previously mentioned. His songs are often about political and social issues, and he is widely known for his activism on a range of social justice causes, especially campaigns on behalf of Africa. As a member of U2 Bono has won 22 Grammy Awards and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and been praised and rewarded for his humanitarian work, including being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2005. We later learn that Lorelai is a fan of U2, and has a celebrity crush on Bono.

Bryan Ferry (born 1945) was the lead vocalist and main songwriter of English glam art rock band Roxy Music, achieving three #1 albums between 1972 and 1982. He also has a career as a solo artist, and continued as a soloist after disbanding Roxy Music. Known for his sophisticated image and seductive singing style, Ferry has sold over 30 million records worldwide. He doesn’t get mentioned again during Gilmore Girls, but from Christopher’s comment, it seems Lorelai had a fancy for him at one time, possibly during their teenage years in the early 1980s.

Tom Waits, previously discussed. Waits was in his twenties during the 1970s, the decade when he released his early albums: Closing Time, The Heart of Saturday Night, Small Change, Foreign Affairs, and Blue Valentine. He had a very cool, hip image, and favoured the black shirt with black jacket look that Lorelai attempted to impose on Luke. This seems to be Lorelai’s favourite period of his, and she is most enthusiastic about the idea of being with a young Tom Waits.

“He was my Burton and I was his Taylor”

EMILY: I must say, I admire your composure. The week before my wedding, I was a wreck.
MISS PATTY: So was I, before all of mine.
SOOKIE: How many was that?
MISS PATTY: Well, uh, there was St John, John, Sergio, St John. Three men, four times.
SOOKIE: Do you regret any of them?
MISS PATTY: Well, St John was a let down the second time, but he was my Burton and I was his Taylor. Just wish I could’ve found a little Mike Todd there in the middle.

Miss Patty is referring to actress Elizabeth Taylor, previously discussed, and her multiple marriages. She married actor Richard Burton in 1964 [pictured], then for a second time in 1975.

Elizabeth Taylor married theatre and film producer Mike Todd in 1957, a third marriage for each of them. Famously, he was her only husband never to be divorced; he was killed in a plane crash in 1958 – Taylor had meant to fly with him, but he told her to stay home as she had a cold. Although they had a tempestuous relationshop, in later life Elizabeth Taylor always claimed that she was happiest with Mike Todd than any other of her husbands.

We learn a little of Miss Patty’s personal life here, that she has been married several times, including a remarriage to her first husband, St. John. She seems to be divorced, as the marriage was a “let down”, and probably for several years at least, from the tone of Sookie’s questions.

Duluth

MAX: Anyway, he didn’t make it [Max’s brother trying to jump over a parking meter].
LORELAI: Ugh. Ouch. How drunk was he?
MAX: He claims he wasn’t drunk. He’s saying that the parking meters in Hartford are taller than the parking meters in Duluth, so he just miscalculated.

Duluth is a major port city in Minnesota on the shores of Lake Superior, with a population of over 85 000. Once an industrial city, its economy is now geared towards finance, retail, medicine, and tourism. (There is a Duluth in Georgia too, a suburb of Atlanta, but that seems less likely, as people usually identify the city they live in rather than the suburb).

It is not known whether Duluth is where Max is from originally, or if his brother moved there. Because of the superior way Max says, “Middle child”, it sounds as if Max is the eldest of three siblings. As Max says, “My brother”, instead of, “One of my brothers”, it suggests the youngest sibling is Max’s sister.

Duluth receives a slight mention in A Year in the Life: on one of the many wedding cakes that Sookie makes for Lorelai and Luke, there is a bridge with DULUTH printed on it. That might be a little callback to the preparations for Lorelai’s first planned wedding.

Paris and Volunteering

PARIS: When you apply to an Ivy League school, you need more than good grades and test scores to get you in. Every person who applies to Harvard has a perfect GPA and great test scores. It’s the extras that put you over the top. The clubs, charities, volunteering. You know.
RORY: Oh yeah, I know.

Paris explains to Rory what she should already know – to get into a top university like Harvard, you need something to set you apart from all the other excellent candidates.

Paris has been volunteering since she was about nine, and began by handing out cookies at the local children’s hospital (possibly the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford). By the age of ten she was running a study group for teenagers, probably through Chilton. She has also been a counsellor for a children’s summer camp, organised a literacy program for seniors, worked at a suicide prevention hotline (a truly terrifying thought), and a residential centre for runaways and homeless youth.

She has also adopted dolphins (you just send money to an organisation like The Oceanic Society), taught American Sign Language (perhaps through the American School for the Deaf in Hartford), and trained guide dogs (volunteers raise puppies and give them socialisation and basic training before handing them back so they can be trained as guide dogs; Paris may have done this through Guiding Eyes in Hartford.) We know Paris likes dogs, because her dog Skippy is said to have had a litter of puppies on Lorelai’s mini-dress that she borrowed: weirdly (or perhaps lazily by the writers) her dog has the same name as Rory’s unfortunate hamster.

Paris has done an insane amount of volunteering for a 16-17 year old girl, but in fact choosing this as a good method of getting into Harvard is almost certainly wrong. Colleges don’t seem to be really be that impressed by you doing huge amounts of random volunteer work (probably because anyone with half a brain and no life can rack up hours of unpaid work fairly easily).

What they really want to see is how your extracurricular activities demonstrate the kind of person you are, and the unique skills and interests that you have. For example, Paris wants to work in medical research, so the children’s hospital was a great start, but she didn’t stick with it. It would have been better to continue volunteering with just one or two organisations, and demonstrate that she had gained a leadership role and given real help to the community – maybe even won an award of some kind. Paris’ volunteering CV looks as if she’s desperately taken any role offered (and sending money to dolphins doesn’t look impressive to anyone).

Furthermore, it depends on the university how highly they rank volunteer work when assessing applications. It doesn’t seem to be extremely important for Harvard, which makes Paris’ efforts even more pointless.

Bob Vila

RORY: Funny. I never pictured you as a Bob Vila kind of girl.
PARIS: Rebuilding Together is an extremely prestigious and respected organization. I’ve been volunteering for them for years.

Robert “Bob” Vila (born 1946) is an American home improvement television host. He was the host of This Old House, previously mentioned, from 1979 to 1989, and hosted Home Again With Bob Vila from 1990 to 2005.

Paris seems to have been volunteering for Rebuilding Together since she was at least 14, quite possibly younger.

“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).