Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: Mom?
LORELAI: [turns around] Yeah?
RORY: Details tomorrow.
LORELAI: Ah, thank God. ‘Cause you know what not knowing these things does to me.
The first time Rory kissed Dean, she told Lorelai all about it shortly afterwards. Now, two years later, she says she will tell Lorelai all about her first kiss with Jess, as if Lorelai is a best friend, not her mother. The lack of boundaries here is getting a bit worrying.
RORY: I wanna say that I’m sorry … For treating you the way I did. For doing all the things you said I did. I am so, so sorry. It’s all my fault. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You were the most amazing boyfriend in the world. You made me so happy. You made me laugh, you made my mother like you, you were nice to my friends, you protected me, you even came with me to that stupid debutante ball … I really did love you. Please believe that … I don’t wanna talk about him. I just came to tell you that I’m truly sorry that I hurt you, and that I’m going to miss you so much, and I just hope that someday you won’t hate me anymore.
DEAN: I hope so, too.
Rory apologises to Dean, taking complete responsibility for the relationship failing. Dean, of course, lets her, as a sign he really wasn’t the amazing boyfriend she says he was. The rose-coloured glasses seem to have started almost the moment Rory and Dean broke up for the second time, and it is troubling that the first thing she does after kissing her new boyfriend Jess is to tell her old boyfriend how much she misses him.
In an earlier season, Rory’s kiss with Tristan helped show her how deep her feelings were for Dean, and how unhappy she was that they broke up. Her kiss with Jess seems to have triggered something similar – perhaps a realisation that she has never had a chance to grieve for the loss of Dean before moving on with Jess. There’s a part of Rory that cannot let go of Dean, and this will lead to unfortunate consequences.
DEAN: What do you want?
RORY: Do you remember that girl Butterfly who lived in a tree for a year? I can officially attest that she was nuts.
Rory refers to Julia “Butterfly” Hill (born 1974), environmental activist. She is best known for having lived in a 180 foot tall, roughly 1500-year-old California redwood tree for slightly more than two years between 1997 and 1999. Hill lived in the tree, affectionately known as Luna, to prevent loggers from cutting it down. She is the author of the 2000 book The Legacy of Luna and co-author of One Makes the Difference. Her story has often been alluded to in popular music and culture.
Rory climbs a tree in order to reach Dean while he’s in his bedroom, in the same way she climbed a tree to talk to Lane when she was grounded. There is a slight feeling of Romeo and Juliet, with Rory taking Romeo’s role in talking to Juliet while she’s on her bedroom balcony.
RICHARD: Oh, I told him all about you and your grades and how well you were doing at Chilton. Well, of course, he insisted on seeing you. He wouldn’t let me off the hook.
RORY: But I haven’t applied to Yale.
RICHARD: Oh, I told him that you weren’t finished deciding, that you were being very picky. I think that made him want you even more. They can be very competitive, these Ivy League schools. He’s expecting you at three. Oh, look, it’s three now. Well, we timed this perfectly now, didn’t we?
While showing them the Administration Building, it transpires that Richard’s real reason for bringing Rory to Yale is to get her an interview with the Dean of Admissions, who turns out to be a good friend of Richard’s (shades of Chilton, where Headmaster Charleston was a good friend of Richard and Emily’s).
Lorelai is outraged by Richard’s manipulation, but he has a point. Lorelai has got a bee in her bonnet about Rory going to Harvard and nowhere else, and this was the only way that Richard believed he could give his granddaughter a chance to go to Yale if she wanted to. As he points out, Ivy League colleges are very competitive, and it would be easier for Rory to get into Yale as a legacy, because her grandfather went to Yale.
Although Emily didn’t know what Richard planned to do, she does try to defend him from Lorelai. She points out that if Rory got accepted by Yale, it might make her more attractive to Harvard, which I don’t think Lorelai would have thought of by herself.
RORY: Yup, here we are. Wow, I haven’t seen it since you guys redid it … It’s bigger.
JESS: Ripping a wall down can have that effect on a room.
As you may recall, Luke renovated the apartment back in March, after buying the flower shop next door. They knocked down the wall between the apartment and the upper floor of the flower shop. It feels as if that should have made the apartment twice as big, but it only looks slightly more roomy than before. For some reason, Jess still doesn’t have his own room, which was supposed to be the initial reason for the renovation. The whole renovation (which is of course quite fictional, they didn’t renovate the set) thus seems like a lot of wasted opportunity and money on Luke’s part.
This seems to be Rory and Jess’ first opportunity to be alone together since the dance, more than a week ago. They haven’t rushed into this, and are naturally extremely nervous with one another.
LUKE: What the hell was that?
LORELAI: That was episode one of Rory and Jess: The Early Years.
Compare to Lorelai saying a potential situation with her father was like Who’s The Boss, the later years.
This is Rory and Jess’ first encounter since Dean dumped Rory at the dance marathon. They are both too shy to say more than a few words to each other in front of Lorelai and Luke, which feels true to life.
JESS: Dean’s a jerk. Yelling at you like that, breaking up in front of everybody. . .the guy’s a total jerk.
RORY: No, he’s not. He’s right. Everything he said. All those things about you and me, all those things about me lying to him, and messing with his head. He was right. Well, wasn’t he? Fine, he was right about me, then. Now go away.
Jess and Rory meet at the bridge again, which is starting to seem like their special spot for emotional connection. It’s also a nod to They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, which ends with the main couple sitting on a pier together.
LORELAI: My heel just broke off. Damn, these are brand new shoes, too.
RORY: They were made in 1943.
In the final hour of the marathon, the heel breaks off one of Lorelai’s vintage shoes. The rules of the contest didn’t require participants to wear shoes, and as they have less than an hour to go, Lorelai and Rory could have kicked their shoes off and finished the marathon in bare feet.
Instead Lorelai uses her yellow emergency card, which allows her a ten minute break to get her shoe repaired. During this time, her partner must stay on the floor and keep moving. However, Rory has been dancing for twenty-three hours, and is far too exhausted to stand upright and keep moving on her own.
Lorelai gets Dean to hold onto Rory and keep her moving until Lorelai returns. We know that Dean doesn’t care for dancing, but this is the third time in three seasons he dances with Rory – the other two times were at her school dance, and for her debutante ball (including the dance practice before the ball). There isn’t much involved this time, all he has to do is keep her upright, and he soon says he’s quite enjoying the experience.
When Taylor announced the rules, he never said it was possible to get someone else to dance with your partner during their break if they were physically incapable of standing without assistance. However, he never says it is actually forbidden, either. As usual, Lorelai is very ready to exploit a loophole in the rules if it is to her advantage. (And Kirk has been shown to be playing dirty as it is).
TAYLOR: Have you ever levitated a rottweiler? … Not easy. But in a cape with a wand and a shiny black top hat . . .
Rottweiler, a large powerful breed of dog which is one of the oldest surviving dog breeds in the world, going back to ancient Roman times. The name comes from the German city of Rottweil, where the original breed interbred with native dogs to produce the modern breed we know today.
Rottweilers are highly territorial and protective, meaning that they can sometimes be aggressive towards strangers if they are not properly trained and socialised.
As Rory predicted, Taylor begins talking about his dream of becoming a stage magician in the final hour of the marathon.
DEAN: Rory, get your stuff and let’s go.
JESS: Ooh, that was good. Now say ‘then get in there and make me my supper.’
Jess is doing his absolute best to needle Rory and Dean at the dance marathon, and with this comment, he gets in a very sharp criticism about the behaviour he’s seen from Dean in his treatment of Rory. This harks back to Dean’s praise for 1950s housewives, which brought about the first fight Rory and Dean ever had.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 