Footnotes to the TV series
KIRK: People of Stars Hollow, are you ready to rumble?
A variation of the catchphrase, “Let’s get ready to rumble” used at boxing matches and professional wrestling matches. It was created and trademarked by ring announcer Michael Buffer, who has made $400 million from licensing the phrase. The show perhaps uses a different form of it to avoid having to pay a fee.
As will become apparent, Kirk muddles up all his sports while working as the announcer at the hockey game.
RORY: But how are you gonna make Young Chui dump you? Just be a really bad date?
LANE: Oh, no, we’ve already talked to him. He’s totally on board … See, he’s in love with this Japanese girl named Karen who his parents don’t approve of, so he and Karen see each other secretly while his parents keep setting him up with nice Korean girls. He’s the male me.
Conveniently, the Korean boy Lane has been set up with already has a Japanese girlfriend named Karen, kept secret from his parents because they don’t approve of him dating non-Korean girls. Karen is a Japanese girl’s name meaning “lotus flower”.
RORY: Sure, when Dean said he’d call, he always called, but where’s the fun in that?
LORELAI: Oh, honey, don’t do that.
RORY: Do what?
LORELAI: Compare Dean and Jess, that’s not fair. They’re different people.
RORY: Clearly. One calls when he says he will and one doesn’t.
Dean phoned Rory obsessively – five times a night was considered normal in the early days of their relationship, when Dean presumably felt secure and happy. As he became less secure, he phoned Rory to the point that she began getting impatient, and at the height of his paranoia, rang 14 times while Rory was working on a school project, which alarmed her a little bit.
However, Rory is now seeing Dean with rose-tinted glasses, and now all she can remember is that Dean was reliable at phoning when he said he would. Lorelai tells her it isn’t fair to judge Jess against Dean – but then says that’s because Dean is so obviously superior! It would have been more helpful if she reminded Rory of all the times Rory got fed up with Dean’s obsessive phone calls.
LORELAI: One question. During this time that you watched TV, did homework, proofread articles for The Franklin, organized my sock drawer, returned emails and gave a much needed cleaning to your computer, did it ever occur to you to call him?
RORY: No.
LORELAI: Why?
RORY: Because he said he’d call me.
Before Rory was going out with Jess, she used to hang out at the diner all the time just to see him. Now he’s her boyfriend, she won’t even pick up the phone to talk to him when she’s all alone. Why do characters all turn into idiots when they begin a relationship on this show?
Watched TV
Did homework
Proofread articles for the school newspaper
Organised Lorelai’s sock drawer
Returned emails
Spent 40 minutes cleaning out her computer hard drive
Cleaned her keyboard
Light sleepers
Prone to night terrors
Allergic to bed clothing (they sleep nude)
This becomes worth remembering later on, when Kirk turns out to also have these traits, strongly suggesting that he is Taylor’s illegitimate son.
Earlier in the episode, Rory told her mother that despite all the hot and heavy make out sessions with her boyfriend, she is far too busy to be thinking about sex. It didn’t seem very believable at the time, and now she admits the truth – she is thinking about sex with Jess, or at least she is considering it as something that is likely to happen if they stay together. She promises to talk to Lorelai before anything happens.
RORY: Mom?
LORELAI: Hm? Is that you, Rhett?
Rhett Butler, the love interest of heroine Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, previously discussed as an important book for Lorelai. In the film version, he was played by Clark Gable. [pictured]
A faint from hunger Lorelai puts herself in the role of Scarlett, perhaps because Scarlett herself endures a period of grim starvation during the Civil War.
LANE: Yeah, yeah, Dave. Christians can still rock, don’t hide it.
ZACH: Marshall stacks don’t know Christians from atheists.
DAVE: Gosh, I just wasn’t sure if you guys would be accepting of my devoutness.
Marshall, British company that designs and manufactures music amplifiers, speakers, headphones and earphones, drums and bongos. The company also owns a record label called Marshall Records. It was founded in London in 1962 by drum shop owner and drummer, Jim Marshall, and is now based in Milton Keynes, England.
Their amplifiers are known as Marshall stacks, due to their size. Iconic in rock and roll, famous customers of Marshall include The Who, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and John Mayall.
When Zach and Brian realise that Dave has been moonlighting as a Christian guitarist for Lane’s mother, they comically miss the point, and decide that Dave has been hiding a secret from them – that he’s a devout Christian. They immediately assure Dave that his religion makes no difference to how they feel about him, and he had no reason to hide it from them.
LUKE: Being jealous of Dean is pointless. You’re just gonna drive Rory away. You wanna have a relationship with someone, you’re gonna have to learn to open up your mouth and say something.
JESS: Give it a rest, Dr. Phil.
Dr Phil, previously discussed.
Having a girlfriend for a few weeks has certainly given Luke a lot of authority on relationship matters. This scene between Luke and Jess reads like Luke urgently giving Jess the sort of relationship advice he himself has badly needed during the show.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 