A bookends-style joke for the episode. At the beginning, Jess was in trouble for wearing his “inappropriate” Metallica tee-shirt to work at the diner. Now he comes out dressed as a Luke clone, in his own checked flannel shirt and backwards baseball cap, claiming he assumed that it was the uniform for the job.
While Luke berates him, Rory and Lorelai look on in amusement. Jess can feel gratified that once again he has managed to get Rory’s attention through his clothing choices.
It is also another “mirroring” scene, where Luke and Jess are presented as mirror images of each other, just as when Jess first stepped off the bus into Stars Hollow.
CHRISTOPHER: That is a tempting offer, but I really have to get back. LORELAI: To work? CHRISTOPHER: To work … and to someone.
Lorelai suggests that now Christopher is living as close as Boston, he might like to stay with them on weekends sometimes (and to stay for the rest of this weekend specifically). Rory would love it, and … Lorelai says she wouldn’t mind either. This new, responsible Volvo-driving Christopher is obviously far more appealing.
Unfortunately for happy families, Christopher says that he has a girlfriend called Sherrie now. In fact, as a real slap in the face, he didn’t move to Boston to be closer to Rory, but because it’s where Sherrie lives. Not only has he not bothered to tell them about Sherrie before, not only has he led Lorelai on by not revealing his relationship status, but he ignores the fact that having a girlfriend shouldn’t stop him from visiting his daughter. (If it would be too weird to stay over, couldn’t he get a room at a hotel or something?). Once again, Christopher is only thinking of Lorelai.
When Lorelai joins Rory at the diner, it transpires that Christopher did tell his daughter about Sherrie, presumably at the ball, since there’s been no opportunity for Rory to tell Lorelai about it before this.
EMILY (to Lorelai): That should’ve been you up there. Nothing’s turning out the way it was supposed to.
From the very first episode, it’s been made clear that Richard and Emily are using Rory as a Lorelai substitute, filling up the big gaping hole of their hurt and disappointment with their daughter with hope and pride in their granddaughter.
It now becomes apparent that it hasn’t been possible to suppress and cover up their feelings so easily. Emily has participated in Rory’s coming out as a replacement for the debut Lorelai was supposed to make when she was sixteen – Rory even wears the same dress Lorelai was going to – and yet it hasn’t helped at all, merely brought into sharper focus all that Lorelai (and by extension, her parents) have missed out on in life.
We know that Emily doesn’t believe in arguing or having intense discussions at social events, so for her to fight with Richard in public and make this angry and emotional remark to Lorelai is very out of character. It’s a sign just how frustrated and miserable she’s been.
Rory’s debutante ball is presented as a counterpart to the school dance she attended with Dean in the previous season. Nine months have gone by, and Rory’s world has widened. Last year, she took hesitant steps towards taking part in Chilton’s social life, this time she is given an entree into Hartford society. In both cases, it was Emily who persuaded her to make an effort and attend – Lorelai may have seen Emily as a stifling influence, but she’s only too keen for Rory to broaden her horizons.
As a key part of making her debut, Rory walks down the stairs with Christopher while Dean waits at the bottom. Christopher kisses his daughter’s hand as Rory curtsies, then leaves her to Dean, who walks her down the aisle. This is a ceremony which some debutante balls still follow, particularly in the American South. It’s overtly nuptial, with the father symbolically “giving away” his daughter to her escort before they walk down the aisle together. (There’s even a white wedding cake!). After all his moaning, Dean looks absolutely overjoyed to be presented with a bridal Rory in a white dress being handed to him.
Lorelai thought debutante balls were creepy and sexist, because they involve displaying yourself to men with the hope they’ll marry you, even though that isn’t what actually happens, and hasn’t happened for about seventy years. Yet here Rory is, getting symbolically married while her father gives her away like she’s his property, and Lorelai’s just happy Christopher is involved, and she doesn’t even bother to mock it, let alone point out how deeply patriarchal it is.
We discover during the course of the ball why Richard has been so stressed and irritable. He is being “phased out” of the insurance company he works for. The process is one whereby a senior employee, like Richard, begins losing responsibilities to begin his path to retirement. Richard is taken off an account he brought to the company, he is given a bigger office upstairs, a new title (we don’t discover what it is), and a better parking space.
Emily sees this as a “promotion”, but Richard knows the bitter truth: the company is softening the blow of his eventual retirement by smoothing his passage out of a useful role and into one of a mere figurehead. To add insult to injury, it’s the very “phasing out” process Richard himself invented to get rid of a man named Alan Parker. (A hint of how cold-blooded and ruthless Richard can be in career matters).
Once this is explained to her, Emily still doesn’t see it as such a big deal, saying that Richard has “other options” (retire or take up some other project). However, Richard has been dreaming of this life since he was ten years old, and doesn’t want other options, feeling that if Emily doesn’t understand, then she hasn’t been listening to him.
Richard throwing a petulant tantrum at a social function his granddaughter is participating in might remind the viewer of some of the meltdowns Rory and Lorelai have had during the course of the show. As Headmaster Charleston said, “You do like to throw fits in your family”. There is a strong emotional streak in the Gilmore clan – perhaps one reason why the more restrained Emily is always trying to rein it in.
The argument is left unresolved for this episode, as Rory tells them it is her turn next. I have no idea how Rory even knows they’re talking in a side room and not already watching her, nor how she managed to get down the staircase, tell everyone she’s on next, then shimmy right back up the stairs again, ready to walk down and be presented. I’m pretty sure in real life someone would have told her to stay exactly she was and not interrupt the proceedings.
There is a poignancy to the fact that just as Rory is being ushered into society and acknowledged as a young woman who is growing up, Richard is at a point in his life where he is being gently shuffled off, ready for retirement. This contrast between them must be at least one reason why Richard has no stomach for Rory’s debutante ball, and expresses such angry disdain for the proceedings.
LIBBY: Oh my God, is this [Dean] your escort? RORY: Yeah, it is. LIBBY: You are totally getting married.
Obviously, idiot characters like Libby cannot be trusted to give accurate predictions. Although Rory and Dean do get symbolically married at the ball itself.
Note that Emily told Lorelai the girls needed elbow-length white kid gloves for the ball, but they are clearly wearing elbow length white satin gloves instead. Honestly, without Emily supervising everything personally, this ball is going to pot. Also, Emily obviously managed to get Rory to put her hair up.
CHRISTOPHER: I saw the look. Same one you had that time you ended up on homecoming court.
LORELAI: Ugh, someone’s idea of a sick, sick joke.
Homecoming is an annual tradition in US towns, high schools, and colleges, to welcome back former members of the community. It’s usually held in late September or early October, and revolves around a central event, such as a banquet or dance, following a major sporting event, often American football.
The homecoming court is a group of students chosen to represent the school, consisting of a homecoming king and queen who are senior students, and sometimes a court of royalty, escorts, princes and princesses, or dukes and duchesses, from lower grades. Lorelai didn’t do her senior year at school, so she must have been one of the younger students in the homecoming court – an experience she obviously didn’t enjoy, although it shows she was a popular student.
LADY 2: Janet just got out of Rainbow Hills two days ago. LORELAI: Rehab? LADY 1: Fat farm.
Even though a “fat farm” sounds like a place you go to in order to gain weight, it’s actually an old fashioned word for a residential weight loss program. It seems like a word they would use on a sit-com from the 1970s – Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple went to a fat farm in one episode. Why is everything so dated in the world of Gilmore Girls?
The Hartford debutantes seem to be going to extremes for their debut, enrolling in weight loss programs, like Janet, and getting nose jobs, like Libby. Lucky Rory already looks perfect, so she doesn’t need to do anything except show up.
Libby offers Rory a Midori sour, which she politely refuses. Rory is reading instead of boozing, no surprises there.
Midori is a bright green extremely sweet melon-flavoured liqueur made by the Japanese brewing company, Suntory, but manufactured in several countries. Made since 1964, since 1978 it has borne the name Midori, which is the Japanese word for “green”. A Midori sour is a cocktail which combines Midori, grenadine, and lemon juice.
EMILY: Look at these flowers. Baby’s breath. What is this, County General?
Baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata) is a popular ornamental flower native to Central and Eastern Europe with clouds of tiny white blooms in the summer. It’s often used in floristry to provide a backdrop for larger flowers.
“County General” is a common name for hospitals in the US eg Roebuck County General Hospital. In real life, there isn’t a hospital with this name in Connecticut.
Emily seems to think baby’s breath is only suitable as part of a flower arrangement you’d give to someone in hospital, lacking the elegance required in a formal setting. You can see how standards have dropped in Hartford society without Emily’s capable hand on the tiller.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 