FRANCIE: Paris is student body president – big fat deal. There are three other class presidents – the junior class president, the sophomore class president, and oh, yes, the senior class president – me.
RORY: I know all this.
FRANCIE: Well, then, it’s off the short bus for you, isn’t it?
The short bus refers to a shorter school bus used for transporting children who are physically disabled or who are being educated in special programs, often for learning disabilities.
It is a derogatory way to refer to the mentally challenged, and to call someone stupid, dumb, or slow. Francie is saying Rory is smart enough not to be considered intellectually disabled.
I would like to think that Francie using this offensive language is the writer’s way of letting us know she’s a bad person, except … what would this incident say about Rory?
FRANCIE: Because talking to Paris is like shopping for a bathing suit in December – frustrating, fruitless, and a complete waste of time. Now, you, you might be the wallflower, but you’re obviously the Meyer Lansky behind this organization.
Meyer Lansky, born Meier Suchowlański (1902-1983), a figure in organised crime instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate, and known as the “Mob’s Accountant”. A member of the Jewish mob, Lansky developed a gambling empire that stretched around the world, had a strong influence with the Italian-American Mafia, and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld.
Despite nearly 50 years participating in organised crime, Lansky was never found guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling. He has a legacy of being one of the most financially successful gangsters in American history.
Francie compares Rory to Meyer Lansky, as someone clever and evasive enough to keep her hands clean, and to be the real power behind Paris’ throne. I think the fact that Rory was able to talk her way out of the punishment meted out to the Puffs after the ill-fated initiation ceremony is enough to make Francie think that there is something pretty slippery about her.
Francie Jarvis, portrayed by Emily Bergl, turns up again early in Season 3. We first met Francie in the previous season, as the President of the Puffs, a supposedly powerful secret sorority at Chilton that Rory and Paris almost joined. It was a rather silly story line that went precisely nowhere, but we now discover it was just to set up this silly story line that goes nowhere in Season 3.
Francie is now the president of the senior class, and is using all her mighty influence … to get skirt hemlines raised an inch and a half. Apparently this requires all sorts of backdoor machinations, such as kidnapping Rory into a girl’s bathroom and making her fulfil Francie’s evil scheme! The evil scheme to get hemlines raised slightly.
Oddly, Francie never acknowledges that she knows Rory and Paris well enough to have begun the process of accepting them into the Puffs – something which went very, very wrong for everyone except Rory. Possibly this helps explain Francie’s antagonistic attitude towards Rory and Paris.
Note that Francie first speaks with Rory while looking in the mirror, to indicate duplicity and double dealings – not to mention that Rory is “through the looking glass”.
Lorelai has been through a lot of relationship angst lately, and the show now gives her a bit of comic relief in this area when Kirk asks her for a date while delivering a package to the inn. We know that Kirk is very lonely, and has been actively seeking a girlfriend at least since Sookie’s wedding (he is delivering her wedding photos, as a little reminder). It’s a chance for Lorelai and Rory to later joke about Kirk being Rory’s stepfather – this is the second time Rory jokes about Lorelai marrying Kirk.
However, despite plenty of humour at the expense of Kirk’s awkwardness, the situation is handled quite sensitively. Lorelai turns him down kindly, saying that she’s not ready to date anyone at the moment, and would prefer to keep Kirk as a friend. Kirk on his part takes the rejection gracefully, and without resentment. He tells Lorelai that she is the prettiest girl he has ever seen, except for models in pornographic magazines – and although this is a weird compliment from a rather strange person, I think at this point, Lorelai is quite flattered to receive it. She does seem willing to accept compliments from strange quarters when her ego has taken a bruising.
When Lorelai refers to Kirk as her friend, this seems to be the first time she has openly acknowledged him as such, and is a bit of a turning point in their relationship. From now on, Kirk feels less like the town weirdo, and more like Lorelai’s eccentric friend.
This is the book Jess is reading when his girlfriend arrives to meet him.
A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel by John Kennedy Toole, written in 1963 but published in 1980, eleven years after Toole’s death by suicide. It became a cult classic, then a mainstream success, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. The title refers to an epigram from Jonathan Swift’s essay, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
The protagonist of the novel is Ignatius J. Reilly, an educated but lazy thirty-year-old man living with his mother in the Uptown district of New Orleans in the early 1960s. He has been called a modern Don Quixote, an eccentric and idealistic slob who disdains pop culture, and believes that his numerous failings are the working of a higher power. Due to a car accident his mother gets in, Ignatius must work for the first time in many years to pay off her damages bill, moving from one low-paid job to another and having various adventures with colourful characters in the French Quarter of the city.
The novel is famous for its rich depiction of New Orleans and its dialects, many locals seeing it as the best and most accurate fictional depiction of the city. A bronze statue of Ignatius J. Reilly is on Canal Street in New Orleans. It has been adapted for the stage, including as a musical comedy, and has often been planned as a film. These various attempts to adapt it for the screen have come to nothing (often with the slated lead actor dying, and once with a studio head being murdered, not to mention Hurricane Katrina devastating New Orleans in 2005), leading to the belief there is a “curse” on it as a film project.
The novel’s title is a comment on how Rory and Lorelai see Jess and his girlfriend in this scene, as a pair of “dunces” who can barely hold a conversation together. However, it is also believable as a modern American classic that Jess might read, complete with a male protagonist who is an intelligent failure railing against the world, his fate, and modern life. This seems to be the sort of hero that Jess can relate to. Note that it’s also set in the American South – a literary setting which Rory is also drawn to, underlining how much they have in common.
RORY: Apparently, maturity is extremely overrated in your universe.
LORELAI: That’s right. The Empress Bobo Belle forbids it.
The Empress Bobo Belle is the fictional ruler of the universe, a character that Lorelai has invented and portrays as evidence of her immaturity.
Bobo is a common name for clowns, while Belle is the French word for “beauty”, possibly to suggest “clownish beauty” for the imaginary empress, and how Lorelai may see herself.
LORELAI: I mean, I’d like to have a good illness, something different, impressive. Just once I’d like to be able to say, “Yeah, I’m not feeling so good, my leg is haunted.”
RORY: See, there’s a reason why you only take one packet of TheraFlu at a time.
TheraFlu is a cold and flu treatment consisting of flavoured packets of powder that you make into a hot drink – it’s basically pain relief, decongestants, antihistamines and so on all at once. There are several different types, and the ones for night time make you sleepy. Rory is suggesting that Lorelai put more than one packet into her cup at once, giving her extra doses of everything. It’s believable based on Lorelai’s past behaviour taking over the counter medications.
Lorelai’s wish for a more exotic illness, such as a “haunted leg” is where the episode’s title comes from.
LORELAI: Well, apparently this lovely girl came home to find her husband giving the nanny a nice little bonus package … The man was shot thirty-five times. He looks like a sprinkler system.
EMILY: I can’t believe this. Shauna was always such a nice girl. She was bright, cultured, well-spoken.
RORY: Something smells good …. Oh, braised lamb shank! I love a lamb shank when it is braised.
Lamb shanks are the leg bone of the animal, between the knee and the shoulder, eaten whole. Braising means to brown the meat at a high temperature, then simmer it in a covered pot in liquid, such as tomatoes, stock, vinegar or wine, until the meat is tender and infused with flavour. Crock pots are a popular way to cook braised lamb shanks.
Apparently braised lamb shank is one of Rory’s favourite meals that she has at her grandparents’ place. Lamb seems to be one of their most commonly served dishes.
EMILY: Your father and I were shocked and upset … You didn’t give us five minutes to digest the news … You simply dumped it on us and walked out. I hardly think that’s fair.
In fact, Lorelai attempted to give them the news about Christopher briefly and undramatically. Emily insisted on dragging all the details out of Lorelai so that she and Richard could attack her, then Richard went off in a sulk. You can’t really blame Lorelai for not sticking around for any more.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 