Quarter Sessions Court

PARIS: We are talking about Government class, not the movies. God, why can’t I get one person to care about this as much as I do?!
LOUISE: Okay, fine. I’ll be the head of the Quarter Sessions court, but I’m still wearing the dress.

The Quarter Sessions courts were local courts held in each county – named such because they were held four times a year. Their reputation was very poor, and the chairmen did not not need legal qualifications. Even in imaginary situations, Louise doesn’t seem to aim very high.

Madonna

LORELAI: I still can’t get over that I’m related to God. It’s gonna make getting Madonna tickets so much easier.

Madonna (born Madonna Ciccone in 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. Regarded as the first multi-media pop icon, she is is known as the Queen of Pop. Her debut album was released in 1983 to immediate success, and was followed by several best-selling albums; her 1998 album Ray of Light won Best Pop Album at the Grammys. Many of her songs have gone to #1 in the charts, including Like a Virgin, Papa Don’t Preach, Like a Prayer, and Vogue. She is the best-selling female recording artist of all time, and in the US is second only to Barbra Streisand. She is the most successful solo act of all time, and the highest-grossing solo touring artist of all time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

This is the third time that Lorelai has mentioned Madonna, and I think it is safe to assume that she is one of her favourite singers, especially as Madonna first became a star when Lorelai was a teenager.

Madonna had her Drowned World Tour tour in 2001; she was due to appear in New York at Madison Square Garden during July 25-31 that year. Lorelai’s comment suggests that she may have been trying to obtain tickets to the event. Gilmore Girls episodes didn’t cover this period of the year, so it’s possible that Lorelai and Rory did make it to the concert.

The Art of Eating

This is the book that Rory reads at Madeline’s party; she mentions to Tristan that the party gave her a chance to catch up on her reading.

The Art of Eating is a book of essays by M.F.K. Fisher, first published in 1954. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was one of America’s greatest food writers, and wrote 37 books on food in her lifetime, which combine food literature, travel, and memoir.

The Art of Eating collects five of her most famous books into one volume: How to Cook a Wolf (1942), Consider the Oyster (1941), Serve it Forth (1937), The Gastronomical Me (1943), and Alphabet for Gourmets (1949). The books includes portraits of quirky family and friends, travel notes from Fisher’s time in France, and tips on surviving World War II, interspersed with recipes.

Although it might seem strange that the junk food loving Rory would read a book on gourmet food, M.F.K. Fisher has a wonderful and witty prose style that any aspiring writer could admire. Her life of travel and adventure is something Rory would love to have, and throughout the series both Rory and Lorelai showed a great interest in biography and memoir of all kinds. It is also reminiscent of Lorelai’s fascination with the Food Network after breaking up with Max.

(Another odd link between Rory and the author is that Fisher and her first husband celebrated their three-month wedding anniversary by going out to a good restaurant. It strangely seems to fit with Rory’s situation, as she and Dean just celebrated their three-month anniversary at a bistro. Perhaps the fact that it was Fisher’s first husband is also relevant – Dean is just her first boyfriend).

Henry

LANE: I have a major problem … Henry, the guy I’ve been dancing with? … Okay so he’s really good in school, he’s going to be a doctor – pediatrician to be exact – his parents are extremely involved in their local church. He himself helps out with Sunday school. He speaks Korean fluently, he respects his parents, and he’s also really cute, very funny, and surprisingly interesting.
RORY: Lane I’m sorry, but I’m totally failing to see the problem here.
LANE: I’m falling for a guy my parents would approve of! They’d love him, they’d go crazy! There’d be dancing in the Kim house! Dancing!

When Lane meets Henry Cho (Eddie Shin) and is genuinely attracted to him, she is horrified to discover that a smart Korean-American future doctor really isn’t such a bad proposition after all. We see now that Lane would never have been happy with any boy her parents set her up with, as what she really wants is someone her parents wouldn’t approve of. Who knows how many nice boys Lane has rejected simply because they were foisted on her by her parents?

By the way, this exchange shows that the Kims are not complete religious bigots: Henry isn’t a Seventh Day Adventist as he assists at Sunday school, but Lane’s parents would still approve of him. They obviously don’t insist that their daughter marry someone of the same religion, and just being a Christian is enough.

Henry has, for some reason, the same name as the actor Henry Cho, who had been in films such as McHale’s Navy, and Say It Isn’t So, later alluded to as one of the possible “disgusting cow” movies of 2001. He was also a guest on An Evening at the Improv, later discussed.

Madeline’s stepfather

RORY: Madeline, your house is beautiful.
MADELINE: Thanks, it’s my stepfather’s.

We learned in Paris is Burning that Madeline’s parents are divorced (she says her father gave her mother everything she asked for in the divorce settlement), which might explain why she was sent to a therapist. Now we know that her mother has remarried to a wealthy man. The fact that Madeline sees the house as her stepfather’s property rather than her home suggests that she hasn’t fully adjusted to the situation.

“Who’s watching the farm?”

MADELINE: You came!
RORY: Yeah.
LOUISE: Who’s watching the farm?

Louise continues to treat Rory as if she is some backwoods hick, even though she’s actually visited her and seen she lives in a normal house in a town – and was taken to a concert in New York by Rory’s mother. She really is quite a pain, and a bit of a ninny. (One of the reasons for her hostility may be that she and Rory appear to be wearing the same necklace, and have very similar red floral patterns on their dresses).

Garden weasel

LANE: Because you just broke up. I mean I’d be perfectly fine to just hang out here and listen to music and talk, not talk, whatever.
RORY: No, I am not hanging out. We are going to this party. It’s gonna be great. I don’t want to dwell on this. That’s final.
LORELAI: [entering room] Don’t argue with her or you’ll find yourself the proud owner of three garden weasels.

A garden weasel is a multi-purpose gardening tool which allows you to cultivate, loosen, and aerate the soil, while also being used as a weeder. It was invented in 1974 in Germany.

Just as being sad over a breakup made Lorelai uncharacteristically interested in cooking, it seems to have made Rory very interested in gardening, which is out of character for her.

Rory’s List

Throughout the series, it was often said that Rory had a strong need to make lists and organise her thoughts. In this case, her list is an obvious coping tool to get some structure in her life and handle her anxiety about breaking up with Dean.

What we know was on the list:

Garden hose
Three garden weasels (remember Rory’s system for buying three highlighters at once?)
Soap dish for the kitchen sink
Brown extension cord
Plug in air-freshener for Rory’s bedroom
Food shopping (unless the pizza was their reward that Rory promised for doing all their chores)
Take recyclables to the recycling centre

“One step away from stalker material”

LORELAI: Okay, forget about the meatball, okay? Just tell me what happened.
RORY: He just broke up with me, okay?
LORELAI: That doesn’t make sense. This is Dean we’re talking about. He’s crazy about you. He calls like twenty-five times a day. Have you seen the cover of his notebook? It’s one step away from stalker material.

Another hint from Lorelai about Dean’s obsessive (and perhaps possessive) nature when it comes to Rory.

“I left your meatball in the car”

RORY: We – we went to dinner and then we walked by the bonfire but it wasn’t lit so we went to this junkyard and we sat in this car and then – oh God!
LORELAI: What?
RORY: I forgot your meatball in the car.

This is the meatball that Lorelai said to save as a memento. It is typical of Rory to get hung up on this very minor detail of things going wrong. Notice that Rory says they just sat in “this car”, rather than letting Lorelai know it was a car that Dean was building for her.

Rory didn’t actually have the meatball in the car Dean is building for her, but possibly she means the car Dean drove her home in.