Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: She [Emily] bit me, incapacitated me with her poison, and devoured me whole.
A callback to Natalie telling Lorelai that Emily was known as “The Cobra”. While Natalie seemed to think cobras kill their prey by squeezing (that’s pythons), Lorelai seems to have a better understanding of how cobras actually kill. Maybe someone wrote in to the show.
LOUISE: I’m having [Thanksgiving] dinner with my dad.
MADELINE: Isn’t he still in jail?
LOUISE: Yes, but his company donated some treadmills for the inmates so he swung a special trailer for dinner that they’re gonna set up for us in the parking lot. We have it for about two hours and then one of the Manson girls gets us.
In the episode “Back in the Saddle”, Louise mentioned that her father was due in court, on mysterious charges (she didn’t bother finding out what he had been arrested for). Now it’s seven months later, and Louise’s father is undertaking his sentence – for whatever it was. Madeline refers to it as “jail”, rather than “prison”, possibly suggesting a shorter, lighter sentence (although sometimes people use the word jail for both jail and prison, so that’s not certain at all).
It does sound as if Louise’s father is in a low or medium security facility, since he is permitted to spend his Thanksgiving dinner in a trailer in the parking lot with his daughter (and possibly other family members, it seems unlikely only Louise would go and see him). These trailers are a reward for good behaviour given to model prisoners, so Louise’s father is clearly well-behaved – even the donation of treadmills to the prison would not be enough on its own. Connecticut is one of only four states that allow extended visits like this (the others are California, New York, and Washington).
Louise says the trailer then goes to “one of the Manson girls”, referring to the female members of the Manson family who were convicted for their crimes. In real life, they were incarcerated in California, and in high security prisons, so this could not have really happened. (Squeaky Fromme was in a high security mental treatment facility in Texas).
Interestingly, there is a state prison in Cheshire, Connecticut called the Manson Youth Institution, for men under the age of 21. Louise can’t be referring to that either, as they are young men, not women, and they are not permitted visits such as she describes.
It is just possible that Louise’s father is being held at the federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut [pictured], a medium and low security prison and satellite prison camp which has facilities for both male and female inmates – so if Louise’s dad’s trailer wasn’t going to a “Manson girl”, it could feasibly be going to a female prisoner, at least. The facility in Danbury has often featured in pop culture, including Orange is the New Black.
EMILY: Yes, it is Thanksgiving. And before you sift through the dozen or so excuses you always have on hand, let me have my say. You’ve missed two dinners and avoided my calls because you’re mad at us about what happened at Yale. But I want you and Rory at Thanksgiving this year.
We learn that this episode takes place more than two weeks after “Let the Games Begin”, and that Lorelai has been so angry with Richard over the Yale interview that she has refused to attend two Friday Night Dinners in a row.
Because Emily says, “I want you and Rory at Thanksgiving this year”, it implies that they don’t usually go to Thanksgiving dinner with Lorelai’s parents. The episode strongly implies that they usually spend Thanksgiving in Stars Hollow, dividing their time between Lane’s, Sookie’s, and Luke’s.
LORELAI: I’m still . . . uh, these allergies really just hit me like a ton of bricks.
EMILY: I’ve never heard you mention allergies before.
In a future season, Lorelai needs allergy medication, and has old packets stored at home, so it seems that she really does suffer from allergies (even if she’s making it up right now). Or they changed it so that Lorelai actually has allergies.
[Lorelai and Rory are on the couch watching television]
RORY: I like these women.
LORELAI: I love these women.
During the cold open, Lorelai and Rory watch Grey Gardens, a 1975 documentary by Albert and David Maysles. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive, upper-class women, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived in poverty at Grey Gardens, a derelict mansion in the wealthy Georgica Pond neighbourhood of East Hampton, New York.
Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (1895–1977), known as “Big Edie”, and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (1917–2002), known as “Little Edie”, were the aunt and the first cousin, respectively, of former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The two women lived together at the Grey Gardens estate for more than fifty years with limited funds in increasing squalor and isolation.
Throughout the fall of 1971 and into 1972, their living conditions—their house was infested by fleas, inhabited by numerous cats and raccoons, deprived of running water, and filled with garbage and decay—were exposed as the result of an article in the National Enquirer and a cover story in New York Magazine after a series of inspections by the Health Department.
With the Beale women facing eviction and the razing of their house, in the summer of 1972 Jacqueline Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill provided the necessary funds to stabilize and repair the dilapidated house so that it would meet village codes.
Albert and David Maysles became interested in their story and received permission to film a documentary about the women, which was released in 1976 to wide critical acclaim. Their direct cinema technique left the women to tell their own stories.
The film was controversial from the start, with some feeling that the Beales were being exploited, and that because they were paid for taking part, the documentary was ethically compromised.
“Big Edie” died in 1977 and “Little Edie” sold the house in 1979, dying in Florida in 2002. The fashion designer Liz Lange now owns the house, which has been extensively remodelled and landscaped.
Lorelai and Rory both enjoy eccentric biographies, and stories about mother-daughter relationships, so this film is a natural fit for them. It’s clear they can see a little of themselves in “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” – like the Beales, the Gilmores share the same name. Other similarities are that their home is similarly described as needing work (“The Crapshack”), and they live a life of of genteel squalor, doing exactly as they please. Most importantly, like the Beales, the Gilmore girls are intensely codependent.
It’s hard not to think that Gilmore Girls was influenced to some extent by Grey Gardens – their names even have the same initials!
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 is studying on the couch as Lorelai walks into the room with two mugs]
LORELAI: Coffee and Ovaltine.
Ovaltine (originally Ovomaltine), a chocolate milk powder which can either be made into a hot or cold drink. It was developed in Switzerland in 1904, and quickly gained international appeal. By 1915 it was being manufactured in the US, among other countries. The drink is particularly popular in Britain, and the British version is also imported in the US.
It seems that Rory doesn’t have coffee before bed, the way Lorelai does. She may have trouble getting to sleep if she drinks coffee late at night, or the Ovaltine is a comforting childhood ritual.
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.
RORY: I have to go.
JESS: What? Did I do something or –
RORY: No, no. This was . . . you were – are . . . it was wonderful, and I look forward to many similar occurrences in the future, but right now, I have to go. Understand?
JESS: Not at all.
RORY: It’s more fun that way, isn’t it?
Rory has to go straight after the kiss because she is going to see Dean. Jess may not have found that explanation quite so quirky and charming. It feels as if Rory is being emotionally dishonest with Jess right from their first kiss as a couple. Unfortunately, one of the things she may have learned from being with Dean is that it isn’t always safe to be honest with your boyfriend.
Although seriously, apart from plot drama, did Rory really have to see Dean right after her first kiss with her new boyfriend? This also feels like “the games beginning” between Rory and Jess.
JESS: Well, whatever else happens between us, at least we know that part works.
Rory and Jess leave the diner separately, Jess claiming that he has to pick up a part for his car, while Rory needs to get home and study. As Lorelai knew immediately, that meant they were planning to meet somewhere.
When Rory catches up with Jess, they kiss. It’s not their first kiss – that happened at Sookie’s wedding about six months previously. But it is their first kiss as a couple (closely followed by their second kiss as a couple).
It is two weeks since Rory and Dean broke up, so they haven’t rushed into kissing, probably because Luke walked in on them when they tried before. Jess’ comment makes it clear that the physical attraction between them is not going to be a problem, whatever else might be.
The viewer might note from Jess’ comment that he is expecting other types of problems to come between them, which is remarkably foresighted for a teenage boy, or unusually cynical.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 