Tag: Character Insight

Stars Hollow Beauty Supply Store

Rory and Lane go to buy cosmetics at the beauty store. Kirk is now working there instead of Shane, making this another of Kirk’s jobs (it raises the question, does Taylor own this business as well?). Kirk does have an interest in beauty products, having created his own line of skin treatments, which was shut down by the EPA.

I don’t know whether Shane has left the job at the store, or if she works there on a different shift. If the latter, her shift has changed, as she previously served the counter at the same time Rory was home from school.

Toms and Moon

DAVE: I mean, you’ve got the potential, but you’re sloppy. I need a clean roll on the toms but powerful, like Moon.

The toms refer to tom drums a cylindrical drum with no snares, named from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala language of Sri Lanka, derived from thammattama, from the Tamil word thappu, a type of drum.

Referring to Keith Moon, previously discussed, drummer for The Who, and one of Lane’s drum heroes.

Dave and Lane have come up with a plan to keep their relationship a secret from their bandmates – Dave will put Lane down in public, patronise her, and insult her. Lane is totally into it, as she loves zany schemes and keeping secrets.

Pamela Des Barres

LORELAI: Do you need any help, please?
RORY: I’m good, Pamela Des Barres.

Pamela Des Barres (born Pamela Miller in 1948), rock and roll groupie, writer, musician, and actress. She is also a former member of the experimental Frank Zappa-produced music group, the GTOs.

Des Barres is best known for her 1987 memoir, I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, which details her experiences in the Los Angeles rock music scene of the 1960s and 1970s, and she was the model for the Penny Lane character, played by Kate Hudson, in Almost Famous.

Pamela was married to English actor and singer Michael Des Barres from 1977 to 1991. You may recall that Michael Des Barres played the role of Claude in “A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving”.

Rory calls Lorelai this as a tease because Zack is flirting with her. Lorelai does everything she can to deflect this unwanted attention, even though she was flattered when Dean’s dimwitted friend Todd fancied her, and he was a few years younger than Zack is now. She must be feeling a lot more confident about herself now.

“Good lawyers make for good neighbors”

TAYLOR: All the more reason to have a professional take a little looksee, huh? I mean, there’s a reason they say good lawyers make for good neighbors.
LUKE: Who the hell said that?

Taylor (deliberately?) misquotes the famous 1914 Robert Frost poem “Mending Wall”, which says, “Good fences make good neighbours”. Although widely quoted as a pithy piece of commonsense wisdom, the person who actually says this line in the poem is not viewed sympathetically by the poem’s narrator. (Just as Taylor is not viewed very sympathetically by the writers of the show).

Originally published in Frost’s second collection, North of Boston, it is one of the most commonly analysed and anthologised poems in modern literature.

“Four years”

LORELAI: What? It has not been four years since we’ve stepped foot inside our own garage.
RORY: It was when we got the Jeep.
LORELAI: That wasn’t . . . yes, it was.

This is the first scene we’ve ever had of Lorelai’s garage, which has never been mentioned before. The show explains that’s because Lorelai and Rory haven’t been near it since 1999 – and even then they only got in the door, then ran away when a bat flew out. These two really don’t handle nature very well.

Later in this very scene this version of events is contradicted when Rory says that two years ago, in 2001, she boxed up items from the attic and put them in the garage. They were meant to be collected by a charity, but Lorelai couldn’t be bothered waiting for them, so the boxes remain there.

According to their recollection, Lorelai bought the Jeep in 1999. It’s actually a 2000 model.

“You cheated on me!”

JACKSON: You cheated on me!
SOOKIE: No.
JACKSON: Oh my God.
SOOKIE: I just flirted accidentally!

Sookie makes Jackson’s favourite meal and puts his favourite album on, so of course he reaches the obvious conclusion – she’s been unfaithful to him. Sookie doesn’t help matters by acting as guilty as if she had been, and says that she “flirted accidentally”, even though Lorelai told her she didn’t. The episode ends miserably for the temporarily feuding couple.

Bad Moon Rising

This is the song that Sookie puts on for Jackson, because it’s one of his favourites, although she is not a fan.

“Bad Moon Rising” is a 1969 song written by John Fogerty, and performed by his band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, often known as CCR. Fogerty was inspired by scenes of a hurricane in the 1941 fantasy film, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and the apocalypse that Fogery claimed was going to be visited upon us.

It was the lead single from their Green River album, received glowing reviews, and went to #2 in the US and #1 in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa. It is considered one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

The Diary of Virginia Woolf

This is the book that Rory is reading at lunchtime in the cafeteria.

It is the diary of Virginia Woolf, edited by the art scholar Anne Olivier Bell, married to Woolf’s nephew, Quentin Bell. It is in five volumes, with the first volume published in 1977, and the last in 1984 (the year Rory was born). Rory is reading the fourth volume (covering 1931-1935), suggesting she has already read the first three, and has almost finished the entire set. Virginia Woolf has been established as one of Rory’s favourite authors. It has also been shown again and again that Rory (and Lorelai) have a great interest in diaries and biography.

Rory Eats Lunch Alone

[Rory sits alone in the cafeteria. A paper airplane that says “Leper” lands on her table. She tosses it aside and puts on her headphones.]

Once again, Rory is left to have lunch by herself, listening to music, because of her fight with Paris. Although she tells Lorelai that she doesn’t mind eating by herself, she goes to bed extremely early, because she says that having nobody to talk to all day is “tiring”. I think that Rory really means is that it is “depressing”, and she ends this episode feeling lonely and unhappy.

Notice that the Blood Drive is taking place in the cafeteria behind her – the one which Rory tried to have held elsewhere to get back at Francie. Just another little slap in the face for her, as she has truly given “’til it hurts”.