On the Road

Jess is carrying this 1957 book by American Beat writer Jack Kerouac, previously discussed, when he leaves the diner. It looks as if Jess might be looking for a quiet spot to read, just as Rory likes to do.

It immediately establishes Jess as a reader, something which will surely pique Rory’s interest, as she was always trying to get Dean to enjoy great literature (with unsatisfying results). It is also an obvious symbol of Jess’ journey to small town America, and possibly a foreshadowing that Jess does not intend to stick around.

This is Hell

Jess leaves Luke, after the briefest tour of their living quarters, refusing to say where he is going. For Luke, this must remind him of Liz, who was always “off doing God knows what”. Slightly worryingly, Jess claims he doesn’t need keys to get in, suggesting Lorelai’s idea of him as a petty criminal may not be so wrong.

He steps outside the diner to be confronted with a typically charming Stars Hollow street scene. Townsfolk carry sheaves of wheat to the harvest festival in the park, while volunteers decorate lamp posts with garlands of autumn leaves. In the bright sunshine, happy couples stroll together, families walk in harmony, children skip merrily.

Yet this song by Elvis Costello plays, with the lyrics, This is hell, this is hell/I am sorry to tell you/It never gets better or worse/But you get used to it after a spell/For heaven is hell in reverse. Stars Hollow in early autumn looks like heaven, but to Jess, it is a season in hell.

The song is from Costello’s critically acclaimed 1994 album, Brutal Youth.

Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia)

Jess Mariano is Luke’s seventeen-year-old nephew, the son of his sister Liz. He was introduced in Season Two as a romantic interest for Rory, and as a contrast with her boyfriend Dean. Jess is the “bad boy” that Lorelai feared Rory would be attracted to, in the same way she was when she was a teenager.

Jess is introduced when he steps off the bus, the modern teenage equivalent of the mysterious stranger riding into town. The bus says it is going to Hartford, and Jess boarded it in New York, so Stars Hollow must be on the bus route between these points. In real life, the bus route from New York to Hartford goes through Danbury and Waterbury, which doesn’t seem that implausible as far as Stars Hollow’s possible location goes. The bus trip takes about two and a half hours, and we later learn the bus got in at 10 am.

Jess and Luke greet each monosyllabically by simply saying each other’s names. The mirroring is a sign that Jess and his uncle share at least one characteristic – neither of them are particularly talkative.

There has already been a character named Jess in Gilmore Girls – the college boys that Madeline and Louise got with at The Bangles concert in Season 1 were named Jess and Sean. Maybe Jess seemed like a very “New York bad boy” sort of name? Or the writers really like the name Jess?

Both Rory and Jess have unisex names, or names more common on the opposite sex. It’s interesting that the name Jess Mariano has the same rhythm as Dan Palladino, and they’re obviously both of Italian heritage.

Riff

LOUISE: Everything okay?
RORY: Yeah, Riff, everything’s fine.

Riff (Russ Tamblyn) is the leader of the The Jets gang in West Side Story, previously discussed. The loyal muscle to former member Tony, he urges Tony to fight, so that Tony becomes a murderer.

Rory sees Louise as Paris’ henchman and attack dog, who eggs her on. In the film, Riff is killed in a gang fight he helped instigate – perhaps a bit of wishful thinking from Rory!

Fredo

LUKE: There’s nothing to think about. He’s family. You take care of family, period.
LORELAI: Yes, I respect that, but what if he turns out to be Fredo?

A reference to the film The Godfather Part II, the sequel to The Godfather, previously discussed.

In the films, Frederico “Fredo” Corleone (played by John Cazale) is the middle brother in his family. He is seen as a weak person, with little power or status in the crime family, and given relatively unimportant jobs to do. During the course of the film, his younger brother Michael, who has become the Mafia don, discovers that Fredo betrayed him. He has Fredo killed.

Before Lorelai even meets Luke’s nephew, she is prejudiced against him, and makes none-too-subtle hints that the boy is a petty criminal who may not be worth helping.

“He’s been getting into some trouble”

LUKE: Well, ’cause apparently he’s been getting into some trouble and Liz is afraid he’s heading for something bad, and rather than handle it herself, she’s just giving up. She’s sending him here so I can straighten him out.

LORELAI: Right. So what kind of trouble has he gotten into?
LUKE: Ah, just kid stuff, you know, staying out late, getting rowdy. I don’t know exactly.

The exact nature of the “trouble” Luke’s teenaged nephew was getting into was never made explicit in the show, so that the characters were free to imagine it for themselves.

Luke optimistically guesses that his nephew has been getting up to trouble in an almost boyishly wholesome way that could have come straight from the pages of Tom Sawyer. Lorelai immediately assumes that the kid is fresh out of juvenile detention and most likely has a criminal record.

Whether either are right, or whether the nephew’s misdemeanours are somewhere between these marks, is something the viewer is free to decide for themselves.

Der Wienerschnitzel

LORELAI: Where’s his dad?
LUKE: Oh well, the great prize that my sister picked up at a Der Wienerschnitzel left her about two years ago, whereabouts unknown.

Wienerschnitzel is an American fast food chain specialising in hot dogs (even though the name refers to crumbed veal, which the restaurant has only served a few times). It was founded in 1961 as Der Weinerschitzel (which is grammatically incorrect as a German phrase). Although the name was changed in 1977, many older customers still use the original name.

Wienerschnitzel is predominantly located in California, which suggests that Luke’s sister Liz met her son’s father there, and that she and her son have been on their own for two years. It is worth noting that this back story changed during the course of the show.

“Burning a little Huck Finn”

TAYLOR: That’s right. She’s breaking the rules, and people who break the rules end up very lonely with no friends because they have become society’s outcasts.
LORELAI: Planning on burning a little Huck Finn after lunch, Taylor?

Lorelai refers to the Mark Twain novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, previously discussed. The novel has been banned and even burned in the US at various times during its history; in the past it was considered vulgar in tone, and today it draws ire for the use of the n-word.

Lorelai is probably equating book burning with Nazi Germany, and is more or less calling Taylor a Nazi, just as she called Headmaster Charleston a Fascist. Anyone who has the audacity to suggest a Gilmore follow the rules is immediately a Nazi and a Fascist, according to Lorelai.

Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts are an international organisation for young people with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, founded in the UK in 1907 by Sir Robert Baden-Powell. The Boy Scouts of America were founded in 1910, after Chicago publisher W.D. Boyce encountered a helpful Boy Scout while visiting England. It currently has over a million members.

We discover in this episode that Taylor Doose is the scout leader in Stars Hollow. It’s another perplexing incident in regard to time of day – it can’t be any later than about 7:20 am when Lorelai finishes breakfast and goes to the counter, because she still has to drive Rory to school in Hartford, which starts at 8.05 am, and Rory is getting very agitated about being late, because it’s the first day of the school year.

Yet Taylor has just finished a two hour outdoor survival training session with the Boy Scouts. It seems bizarre to organise this before the school day begins, on the first day of the school year, no less. He also takes the boys to breakfast at Luke’s Diner (which doesn’t seem like a very outdoorsy thing to do), and they choose food such as burgers and fries, grilled cheese, and doughnuts. I guess learning about healthy breakfasts comes later in the boys’ training. You just have to put all this down to the charming eccentricity of Stars Hollow.

Mojo

LANE: Well, Mojo says.
RORY: So it must be true.

Lane is shown clutching a copy of The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time, edited by Jim Irvin. It contains a detailed list of six hundred albums.

The book was published in August 2001 – just a month previously, as an indication of how eagerly Lane rushed out to buy it. She is using it as a guide as to what records to buy next. You can see that Lane is doing her best to give herself a solid grounding in the history of popular music.

Mojo is a British music magazine, first published in 1993. It focuses on classic rock and is aimed at a mostly boomer readership, but has covered new and alternative acts as well. It was the first mainstream magazine in the UK to feature The White Stripes.