Tag: Character Insight

“Michel ate pasta?”

GISELLE: I am. I will miss him so much when I go home, but thank goodness, he will have an extra five pounds to remember me by after eating all my pasta today, that dirty thieving boy.

LORELAI: Michel ate pasta?

GISELLE: Well, yes. Michel loves pasta, he eats it all the time.

LORELAI: Not around us. Here it’s all no-carb, low-cal, let me see if I can eat less than the lab rats do.

Michel and his mother Giselle are having a wonderful time together treating themselves to luxurious meals, and there must surely be some malice involved when Lorelai decides to “out” Michel as a fad dieter to his mother (it feels like a subtitute for a different kind of “outing”, and just as much of a betrayal).

When Michel and his mother leave together laughing and joking over coffee, Lorelai looks utterly disgusted by them, and mutters, “That is so wrong”. It seems that it’s wrong for any other mother to befriend her child and joke with them while pigging out and drinking coffee!

David Letterman’s House

LORELAI: Honey, you gotta ease up on that love potion you’ve been giving him or he’s gonna start showing up at David Letterman’s house soon.

In May 1988, David Letterman was stalked by a mentally ill woman named Margaret “Peggy” Ray, who stole his car, camped on his tennis court, and repeatedly broke into his house. Her exploits gained national attention, and Letterman joked about her on his show sometimes, but without ever naming her. Ray served 34 months in prison and psychiatric hospitals for stalking Letterman, but refused to continue her medication upon her release, and went on to stalk astronaut Story Musgrove. She killed herself in 1998. Both Letterman and Musgrove expressed sympathy for her – “A sad ending to a confused life”, said a spokesman for Letterman.

Another rather distasteful joke about mental illness and suicide, and the implication that it is somehow Rory’s “fault” that Dean is behaving so obsessively. There does seem to be a slight acknowledgement here from Lorelai that Dean’s behaviour is abnormal and unhealthy.

Dean Obsessively Calls the House

DEAN [on answering machine]: Hey, it’s me. Uh, it’s four o’clock, call me when you get home. [beep] Hey, uh, it’s four thirty. I’m home, call me. [beep] It’s quarter to five – where are you? I’ll try paging you. [beep] It’s five-thirty. Did you get my page? Call with the answer … Hey, I totally forgot you were getting home at six …Hey, it’s five forty-five and I just thought I’d see if you got home early.

Dean has always had an obsessive streak and a trigger-finger when using the phone – something which Rory originally found endearing, and accepted with complacence. But now that four calls during a study session while she’s home alone has ballooned into fourteen calls while she’s staying late at school to work on a group project, she’s starting to see that Dean is not so much clingy as stifling. Even after he remembers Rory is staying back until 6 pm, he still calls her, on the off-chance she got home early!

Dean the Determined

LORELAI: Dean the determined.

An obvious play on epithets historically given to royalty – Ivan the Terrible, James the Just, Alfred the Great, Gerald the Fearless, Philip the Handsome, and so on.

There was a real royal with this epithet – Antonio the Determined [pictured], who managed to rule Portugal as Antony I for at least twenty days during a succession crisis. Although Philip II of Spain prevailed, Antonio did not gracefully admit defeat, but attempted to rule Portugal from the Azores, where he established an opposition government that clung on for three more years. He went into exile in France and England, taking the crown jewels with him.

In Antonio’s case, “determined” seems to be a polite word for “desperate”, or even “delusional”. Dean will likewise do his darnedest to grimly hang onto Rory, even when he knows he’s lost.

Business Fair Pitches

Louise – a lipstick tracking device (rejected as not unisex enough)

Madeline – locker robot to help with homework and carry stuff (rejected as too complex)

Paris – flashy locker first aid kits

Richard says that he loves Paris’ idea, and Rory, as group leader, immediately accepts it as the product they are running with. We never get to hear Brad and Chip’s ideas, which seems rather unfair. Neither of them protest though. Probably because they’re too frightened of Paris.

The Pigeon Sisters and Opus

PARIS: I’m sorry, group leader, could you ask the Pigeon sisters if there is a point to this opus?

The Pigeon sisters are characters from the film The Odd Couple, previously mentioned. They are English sisters named Cecily and Gwendolyn Pigeon who live in the same building as Felix and Oscar. They were played by cousins Monica Evans and Carole Shelley in the original Broadway play, the film, and the 1970 sit-com, although their roles were gradually phased out in the television show.

The Pigeon sisters are friendly, flirtatious, ditzy, and as their name suggests, slightly bird-brained, rather like Louise and Madeline. Paris has no problem tearing down her friends in public; no wonder that Rory isn’t sure whether Paris is her friend or not.

An opus is an artistic work, especially one on a grand scale.

Giselle Gerard (Janet Hubert)

In this episode we meet Michel’s mother, Giselle, who is visiting from Paris. She and Michel adore each other, and are “best friends” mother and son, who love to tease and joke with each other, using a banter that sounds like something out of a Noel Coward play.

This makes them seem quite similar to Lorelai and Rory, who are also self-proclaimed “best friends” with a comic patter between them. Janet Hubert is only fourteen years older than Yanic Truesale, suggesting she is supposed to be a very young glamorous mother like Lorelai.

Michel addresses his mother by her first name at one point, and you can hear the French pronunciation of it – ZEE-ZEHL. Giselle may have possibly been named with the French ballet Giselle in mind, one of the world’s most popular classical ballets.

Nihilistic Theories

RORY: But if I’m doing my [Philosophy] homework, doesn’t that defeat the point of going to see you play?

DEAN: You can’t glance up in between nihilistic theories?

Nihilism is a philosophy that rejects fundamental aspects of human existence, such as truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, and that knowledge is impossible. It often takes on a despairing tone.

Another reminder that Dean isn’t as stupid as the writers often make him look, he at least knows the word nihilism. It does seem a little disparaging towards Rory’s studies though, with the subtle implication that her homework is meaningless. He may be feeling a little despairing himself by this stage.

Dean’s Softball Game

Dean plays softball on Saturday mornings during the spring, and this time last year, Rory would attend his games to support him. But it seems that it has been a long time since Rory bothered coming to a game – which is interesting, because the start of softball season just so happens to be around the time of the Bid-on-a-Basket Festival, and Rory’s “friend date” with Jess.

Instead of going to watch Dean’s game, Rory is shoe shopping with Lane. And afterwards, she has Philosophy homework to do (a new subject for Rory). Dean pleads with her to at least bring her homework to the game, which sounds like a terrible idea, and is. Rory reminds him they’re seeing each other that evening, and that’s all the Dean she feels like seeing that day.

It actually seems more healthy that Rory is making time for friends, and school, and Dean in her life, but both Dean and the viewer can feel that Rory is losing interest in him.