Tag: Character Insight

Boy Scout Badge

LORELAI: Where’s the pen you take orders with?
LUKE: I wasn’t anticipating taking orders at the Poe reading.
LORELAI: Hm, there goes your Boy Scout badge.

Boy Scout, previously discussed. Boy Scouts receive merit badges for successfully learning and completing various tasks, such as first aid, cooking, swimming, citizenship, hiking, and so on. These badges are in the form of patches, which can be sewn onto a uniform or a sash.

Lorelai refers to the maxim, “A Boy Scout must always be prepared”. In fact, Luke dropped out of the Boy Scouts very early.

Jawboning

MANAGER: [to Luke]Hey. Saw you jawboning with our boy there.

Jawboning, informal American English meaning to influence or pressure by strong persuasion, usually used in a political context. Luke wasn’t really doing anything like that with Jess, so either the manager is being very protective of his star worker, or he is confusing the word with jawing, meaning “to talk, to scold”.

Mr Reliable

MANAGER: You know him as a trooper, our Mr. Reliable. The first time this young man sat down on that forklift, well, it was like an extension of himself. And yeah, he’s not one for small talk, but this boy’s production is out of sight. It’s Jess Mariano everybody.

We’ve only ever seen adults angry and disappointed with Jess, but here we discover that Jess is thriving in his job at Wal-Mart, the manager describing him as “Mr Reliable”. A hard worker and capable forklift operator, who is always ready to cover the shifts of other workers if they call in sick, he is a valauble member of the team. The manager is aware that Jess isn’t much of a talker, but his taciturn manner doesn’t offend anyone here – he more than makes up for it with his work ethic.

It’s another side to Jess that perhaps doesn’t come as much of a surprise, he’s never been afraid of hard work that comes with a pay packet, but is nice to see him being appreciated for once.

Subpoena

RORY: They’re not going to see our pro/con lists.
LORELAI: What if they subpoena them?

Subpoena, a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure.

Naturally Rory is busy making up pro-con lists to decide whether to accept Harvard or not.

Rory Gets Accepted to Everything

When they get home from the speech contest, they collect the mail and find that Rory has been accepted into Harvard. And Yale. And Princeton. And they all turned up on the same day – although as Kirk is in charge of the mail now, that may not be so surprising. I can only think that’s the reason why the writers made him the mailman for this week, although this job of his was mentioned the previous season. (Planning ahead?).

Fans sometimes think it is unrealistic for Rory to be accepted into three Ivy League universities, but Rory was an excellent student at a good school, a feeder school for Harvard. She was a legacy student at Yale and Princeton, and had assistance from an alumnus when applying to Harvard. She had several extracurricular activities at school, and was a valued contributor to her local community.

Furthermore, her background as the daughter of a single mother who had struggled for many years would have also helped boost her chances – Darren Springsteen said it would work to her advantage.

“I’ve been a teacher for ten years”

MAX: I must say, I’ve been a teacher for ten years now, and it wasn’t until today I realized, it must be really hard to be a girl.

Max became a teacher in 1993, and somehow the needs and challenges of female students were never discussed during his training. Max has a sister, has had several girlfriends, and almost became Rory’s stepfather – yet somehow he has never considered that some things might be harder for girls.

Paris Has a Public Meltdown

PARIS: Harvard. I thought of nothing else. Many of you out there can attest to that fact. I was on my way and nothing could stop me. And here’s the really funny thing – after four years of slaving away, I go home today and I found this. [holds up an envelope] I’m not going to Harvard. I got the tiny envelope, the one that reads, “Sorry, Paris. We’re not interested. Try again next year. Love, Harvard.” And the thing that’s really funny here is, who in the world deserves to go to Harvard more than me? Have you seen how hard I’ve worked over these past four years? I mean, can anyone here believe that I’m not going to Harvard? I can’t. I’m not going to Harvard. I am not going to Harvard. I had sex, but I’m not going to Harvard.

Paris has a very public meltdown, on C-SPAN and surrounded by distinguished guests no less, as she reveals that has been rejected by Harvard, her dream university. It’s as if it’s not enough that Rory succeed, Paris must fail – and fail spectacularly.

“I always meant to call you”

LORELAI: I always meant to call you, but I’m not good at calling when a call is really necessary. And then, you know, uh, if you don’t call for awhile, it gets harder to call, and then after awhile, it feels like it’s too late to call, and so you don’t, although you always know that you should’ve called, and I should’ve called … I never really explained what happened … I don’t think I didn’t love you. I think . . . I think I was not ready to get married.

It’s unclear from Lorelai’s explanation to Max whether she means that she never phoned after jilting him to apologise or check he was okay, or whether she simply took off on the road trip with Rory and never told him anything at all. Lorelai seems a little unsure as to whether she ever loved Max, but she is surely correct that she was not ready to get married.

“I’ve got the good kid”

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.