Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: Have you guys heard from Paris? … She’s been gone for five days.
Paris had her very public meltdown on a Friday, so if she’s been missing for five days, it would be Wednesday. Or Friday, if Rory isn’t counting the weekend. However, it actually appears to be Thursday, which isn’t five days from Friday, no matter how you count it. Yes, Daniel Palladino is not so hot on timelines.
LORELAI: I’ve got the good kid.
Lorelai says this to herself, after accidentally overhearing Rory tell Paris she is still a virgin. It’s a line that infuriates many fans, and which Lauren Graham strenuously argued against. However, it doesn’t seem out of character for Lorelai, who has a lot of anxiety about Rory losing her virginity. The line comes to seem rather ironic in later seasons.
BRAD: Look, I’m proud of my part, okay? The New York Times called me winningly naïve.
This is apparently a real line from a review of Adam Wylie’s performance in The New York Times, although I have been unable to find the original article.
TEACHER: Oh, I almost forgot to welcome back Brad Langford. He returns to us fresh from Broadway where he’s just completed a successful run of Into the Woods. Welcome back, Brad.
Into the Woods, 1987 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical intertwines the plots of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales, exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests. It won three Tony Awards, and has been produced many times since.
There was a revival of the musical in Los Angeles in February and March 2002, with the same cast that later ran on Broadway. The 2002 Broadway revival began previews on April 13, 2002 and opened April 30, 2002 at the Broadhurst Theatre, closing on December 29 after a run of 18 previews and 279 regular performances.
Adam Wylie, who plays Brad Langford, really was in the cast of Into the Woods, performing the role of Jack. This doesn’t quite fit into the timeline of the show, because Brad last returned to Chilton after a school transfer in late April 2002 – when he would have already been in Los Angeles for two months, and the musical’s main run was just about to begin.
However, it does explain why we haven’t seen him since then. Apparently he wasn’t frightened off by Paris after all – he was having a successful acting career. He has really come along since his first appearance on Gilmore Girls, when he said he couldn’t act in a school play because he got so nervous he threw up. Quite a transformation.
I’m not sure how Brad can take a year off school to do Broadway, and then simply come back to his senior class like nothing happened. Perhaps there was a private tutor attached to the Broadway production??? Also, Into the Woods finished at the end of January and it’s now the end of March – what was he doing for the past two months?
KIRK: So it’s back to the desert for the Minutemen, perhaps for another forty years. Of course, by then, I’ll be seventy years old. A lot of the rest of you will probably be dead. Taylor, you’ll be dead. Babette, Miss Patty . . . that man there in the hat.
From this we learn that Kirk is thirty years old, and born in either 1972 or 1973, depending on whether he has already had his birthday for 2003, or will be turning 31 later in the year. Sean Gunn who plays Kirk was born in 1974.
Kirk’s prediction that many of the older people of Stars Hollow will probably by dead in forty years seems like a slight echo of the story of the Israelites, where an entire generation had to pass away before they could reach the Promised Land.
MAN 2: I was in France during the Big One.
MICHEL: Oh, that’s nice. So –
MAN 2: Nice? It was a war. What’s nice about that?
The Big One, an informal name for World War II.
This Doose relative is played by veteran actor Bob Larkin. He was born in 1929, so when World War II broke out, he was only ten years old. His character is apparently meant to be about ten years older than the actor’s real age.
TAYLOR: My dear, do you realize that this is the first time we’ve been in the regional semifinals in forty-three years?
The Stars Hollow High School hockey team were last in the semifinals in 1960, when Taylor was the goalkeeper for the team. Supposing that Taylor was about seventeen when he was on the high school team, he is now aged around sixty years old, and born in 1943. Michael Winters, who portrays Taylor, was born in 1945.
In this flashback, Lorelai’s pregnancy has become known to her parents, and Emily and Richard meet with Christopher’s parents, Straub and Francine to discuss it. Straub and Francine are both angry and upset – Francine cries and says she feels sick, while Straub says that everything has been ruined.
The Haydens can only see Lorelai and the baby as a problem to be got rid of. Straub suggests an abortion, and Francine that Lorelai be “sent away” – meaning to a home for unwed mothers, where her baby will taken away and adopted out. Francine’s ideas for handling teen pregnancy are very much outdated, as her plan sounds like something from the 1960s. By the early 1980s, such homes had been closed down and replaced with teen parenthood centres, for young parents to get help.
Richard then tells them his plan – Lorelai and Christopher will get married, they will live with he and Emily, and Christopher will be given a job at the same insurance company Richard works for.
Lorelai and Christopher are listening to the discussion from the stairs, like children – they aren’t invited to be part of it or make any contributions. Lorelai is angry at being left out of the decision-making process, but Christopher passively accepts Richard’s plan, saying that it doesn’t sound too bad, and they will need their parents’ help. Neither of them acknowledge the fact that Richard is essentially forcing them to get married.
While Lorelai still feels independent and rebellious, even though she is now pregnant with an unplanned baby, Christopher is ready to cave in to Richard. Lorelai demands to know what happened to their plan of backpacking around Europe after graduation, and she must already know that Christopher’s adventurous talk was just that – all talk. If Lorelai wants to forge an independent life for herself and her baby, she will have to do it alone.
A quick note that Christine Rose, who appears in this scene as Francine Hayden, went on to play Milo Ventigmiglia’s character’s mother in the TV show, Heroes.
LORELAI: Leilani, huh? Very exotic name.
EMILY: She’s from Honolulu.
Honolulu, the capital and largest city of the state of Hawaii. Honolulu’s tropical climate, natural scenery, and extensive beaches make it a popular destination for tourists.
Leilani is a popular Hawaiian name (technically unisex, but nearly always given to girls) which can be translated as either “heavenly flowers” or “royal child”.
Lauren Graham was born in Honolulu, and this is yet another reference to her home state on Gilmore Girls.
This episode, one of the more complex in structure, has a series of flashbacks within it. In the first flashback, we see a teenaged Lorelai and Christopher coming to the Gilmore home after school. They are wearing the same uniform, although I don’t think the show ever mentions them attending the same school. We know it is December, because they have finished their midterm exams, and are discussing the upcoming Christmas vacation.
With no adult supervision (Richard and Emily are out, and the maid has been fired, of course), Christopher – naturally – heads straight to the liquor cabinet and pours them drinks. Getting Lorelai drunk seems to be part of his technique.
Christopher reveals that his plan (more of a dream, actually), is to take a year off after graduation and go backpacking around Europe. He asks Lorelai to come with him, and she agrees – just as she and Rory are planning to go backpacking around Europe as soon as Rory graduates. During the conversation, it is clear that Christopher and Lorelai are close friends, not boyfriend and girlfriend, and that Christopher would like something more. By the end of the scene, they are kissing, although it is unclear whether this is the first time or not.
The young Lorelai and Christopher are played by Chelsea Brummet and Phillip Van Dyke. Brummet would later become a regular on kid’s sketch comedy show, All That, and Van Dyke had previously been on several TV shows, including Hey Arnold, and The Amanda Show. His acting career finished in 2003.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 