Tag: Character Insight

“Just go back to school tomorrow”

RORY: I can’t believe I was her best friend. I feel awful.
LORELAI: Look, I’ll tell you what. If you wanna make things right, just go back to school tomorrow and let her stab you.

It’s Friday Night Dinner, so why would Rory and Paris go to school the next day, Saturday?

Rory is surprised to discover that Paris considered her her best friend, which seems somewhat oblivious, considering that Paris already told Rory several times that she feels able to ask Rory for help in a way that she can’t with Louise and Madeline. Paris has made it fairly clear that she considers Rory her equal, and relies on her – Rory fulfils a role in her life that nobody else can.

I think Rory is meant to come across as sweet and humble here, but she actually seems too self-absorbed to understand how important she is to Paris.

Renaissance Woman

RORY: I was trying to help you.
PARIS: You were? You mean, in between betraying me and selling me out, you were trying to help me? Gee, you are quite the Renaissance woman, aren’t you?

Embodying a basic tenet of Renaissance humanism that humans are limitless in their capacity for development, the concept led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge and develop their capacities as fully as possible. This is expressed in the term Renaissance man, often applied to the gifted people of that age who sought to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment: intellectual, artistic, social, physical, and spiritual.

Rory is therefore a Renaissance woman.

The thing that Paris finds most unforgiveable is that Rory told Francie about Jamie, but in fact Francie had already noticed for herself that Paris had a boyfriend and brought it up with Rory (no matter how implausibly Paris is wandering around her school with her college-aged boyfriend! Anything to keep Rory innocent).

Fencing Class

In this episode, Rory, Paris, Louise, and Madeline have a fencing class. This may remind the viewer that Richard Gilmore was a keen fencing athlete when he was at Yale – something which Emily found very attractive about him.

It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the James Bond film Die Another Day had come out the previous year, in 2002, directed by Lee Tamahori, and starring Pierce Brosnan as the title character.

It has a notable fencing scene in it [pictured], where James Bond has an unexpectedly aggressive fencing bout with the villain, Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stephens. The fencing instructor in the film is played by Madonna, one of Lorelei’s favourite celebrities (she also sings the film’s theme song). Less than a month after this movie’s release, UK fencing clubs saw an increase in the number of people interested in taking up the activity.

Die Another Day was a box-office smash, and the #6 film of 2002. It received reasonable reviews at the time, but is now considered one of the worst of the films in the series. It was heavily criticised by Pierce Brosnan.

The fencing instructor at Chilton is played by Teigh McDonough, whose background was in the Chicago theatre scene.

“Talk to the hand”

FRANCIE: Rory came to me and said she wanted to talk about some things . . . you know, policy, the prom, the senior gift, et cetera. So of course I said, “why don’t we talk about them at the student council meeting with Paris?” And she said she wanted to do this without Paris. She said Paris is just too wrapped up in that boyfriend of hers to care about any of this. I didn’t know what to do, so I went, and then I found these, and I’m just so upset. I mean, I would never intentionally do anything behind your back, Paris. And I promise, the next time Rory tries to get me to, I’m just gonna say, ‘Talk to the hand’, you know what I mean?

Talk to the hand, slang from the 1990s, a sarcastic way of saying the person doesn’t want to listen. More or less telling them to shut up. Often accompanied by holding the hand out with the palm towards the speaker, as if physically stopping the person from continuing.

Francie’s story about Rory is fanciful and accompanied by the most flimsy of evidence. Even if it were true, all she is claiming is that Rory spoke about the prom without involving Paris, which already happened at the supplementary meeting, and Paris wasn’t that bothered.

The fact that Paris falls for this farrago of lies tells us that Rory is more important to her than she has let on, and that she is far more insecure than she likes people to know. Also, plot drama!

Hand washing

Francie comes to talk to Paris while she is washing her hands in the bathroom. Even though there are two containers of handwash at the basin, the viewer can see she is using her own handwash or hand sanitiser. This is meant to indicate how “crazy” and germphobic Paris is, but post-Covid, she now looks pretty sensible and well organised!

People Magazine

LORELAI: And dental floss. And paper towels. And People magazine. We’re really hungry.

People is an American weekly magazine headquartered in New York City that specialises in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It was the brainchild of Time magazine CEO Andrew Heiskell, and the core of the founding editorial team were from Life magazine, which had closed down a little more than a year earlier.

It is one of the most successful and popular magazines in the US, and is perhaps best-known for its annual special issues naming the “World’s Most Beautiful”, “Best and Worst Dressed”, “Sexiest Man Alive”, and “Most Intriguing People”. In 2003, it judged the most beautiful/sexy people that year to be Halle Berry and Johnny Depp.

Lorelai just starts ordering Luke to pick up things she needs from the store! Compare with Rory’s order when Lane agrees to pick her shopping – dental floss and magazines seem to be essentials for Gilmore girls.

Express Yourself

LORELAI: Okay. Well, do you remember the rowing scene in Ben-Hur? … I’m sorry, did that reference date me? Should I have gone with the “Express Yourself” video?

“Express Yourself” is a 1989 song by Madonna, a single released from her Like a Prayer album, witten and produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray. A tribute to funk band Sly and the Family Stone, it’s an upbeat dance-pop and deep-funk song about female empowerment. The song went to #2 in the US, and # 1 on the US dance charts, becoming the #55 song of 1989. It went to #1 in Canada, Italy, and Switzerland.

The music video, dircted by David Fincher, was inspired by the 1927 Fritz Langer film, Metropolis. With a budget of $5 million, it was the most expensive music video made until then, and remains the third-most expensive to this day.

The video portrayed a city full of tall skyscrapers and railway lines. Madonna played the part of a glamorous lady, with muscular men in chains acting as her workers (slaves?). Madonna is then shown as a masochist in chains. In the end, she picks one of the workers/slaves (played by Iranian-British model Cameron Alborzian) as her lover.

It’s interesting that Lorelai implies with both her references that Emily is gaining some sort of sado-masochistic sexual pleasure from her treatment of staff.

To me, Lorelai’s reference of “Express Yourself” dates her more than Ben-Hur. Ben-Hur is a classic that had been released on DVD only two years before this episode, while Madonna’s music video was 14 years old at the time – a hit song from Lorelai’s youth.

Michel’s Deposition

MICHEL: My neighbor had this dog, a frisky little scamp that used to love to yap to his friends all night long. It was so cute. Then one day he disappeared. I told the police what I knew, but sadly the adorable little chatterbox was never found. It was tragic.
LORELAI: You got rid of a dog? …
MICHEL: I will gladly show you the transcript from the lawyer and the results of the lie detector test.
LORELAI: You’re heinous.
MICHEL: And very well rested.

Compare with Richard’s retort that at least he and Emily will be well rested, after Lorelai says they are both going to hell for snapping up a dead man’s property so quickly.

Michel, the (unproven) dog killer! It is actually possible to beat a lie detector test, although quite difficult. Michel is obviously a very cool customer. It’s much easier to fail one while being innocent, due to anxiety. These false positives are why evidence from one is not admissible in a court of law in the US.

Joe Mastoni and Alex Lesman

Just as Lorelai and Sookie are leaving their night class and at the cookie table, they run into Joe, an old friend of Sookie’s, and his business partner Alex, who are there to learn about starting their own chain of coffee shops.

Joe is played by Joe Fria. He may be recalled by some viewers as the actor who played the waiter at the French restaurant on the double date Sookie and Lorelai had with Jackson and Rune. Joe Fria has more recently done voice work, including for the Goosebumps series, and for Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir.

Alex is played by Billy Burke. He had several small roles in film and television before this, and has become best known for playing Charlie Swan, the father of Bella Swan, in the Twilight film series.