Lorelai Finds Madeline and Louise

LORELAI: Hey. I am not even going to begin to tell you how completely insane it is to take off with anyone you don’t know, or drink things that you don’t know what’s in them, or act like you have a clue when you don’t, but so help me God if you ever pull a stunt like this again, it will not be around my kid! Do you understand me?

Any illusions Madeline and Louise might have had that Lorelai was a “cool mom” who would buy them booze and let them mess around with older guys they just met is instantly dispelled in this scene. Lorelai is not naive about what young men might do in this situation, and basically tells them that they could have been date raped if she hadn’t come after them.

Most of all, Lorelai cannot tolerate Rory hanging out with girls who might lead her astray or get her into danger, so we know that Rory’s friendship potential with Madeline and Louise is now greatly reduced. It becomes obvious in this episode that Paris is Rory’s destined best school friend, as she isn’t boy-crazy, enjoyed staying at the concert with Rory, and clearly respects Lorelai.

“If I was missing”

PARIS: I wonder if I was missing if my mom would come looking for me like that.
RORY: Paris, you know she would.
PARIS: Yeah, or at least she’d send somebody.

Paris grows ever more impressed with Lorelai during this episode, admiring her tenacity in being prepared to knock on every apartment door until she finds the right one, and Lorelai’s obvious motherly concern for Madeline and Louise.

The Good Witch

LORELAI: Think fast [throws them a tee-shirt each]. Tee-shirts for all the girls because I’m the Good Witch of the – hey, aren’t you missing a couple of kids?

Another reference to The Wizard of Oz, earlier discussed. In the film, Glinda the Good Witch of the North (Billie Burke) welcomes Dorothy to Oz, gives her the ruby slippers, and sends her to the Emerald City to find the Wizard of Oz. It is also Glinda who helps Dorothy get home to Kansas. She is a rather glamorous and bountiful mother figure, which seems to be how Lorelai sees herself (and she does help/force Madeline and Louise to get home safely).

“You take them”

Seeing that Rory seems to be getting on fairly well with Paris, Madeline, and Louise, Lorelai offers to give the four girls her concert tickets, and she and Sookie will buy cheap tickets when they get there. It’s a generous offer from Lorelai, considering that she is a huge fan of The Bangles and Sookie has obtained excellent seats for them.

Some fans get upset that Lorelai gives away the concert tickets to virtual strangers without consulting Sookie (who earned them), but Sookie only got the tickets for Lorelai, and had given them to her – they were Lorelai’s tickets to do with as she wished. It would have been polite to ask Sookie first, but Lorelai is impulsive by nature, and Sookie never seems upset about the ticket situation.

It seems silly to give the tickets away because we know Madeline and Louise skip out on the concert, but Lorelai doesn’t know that’s what’s going to happen. In hindsight, it would have made more sense to just take Paris with them, but at the time, Rory thought that there was more friendship potential with Madeline and Louise.

“I can’t eat dairy”

PARIS: I can’t eat dairy.
LORELAI: Okay, one [pizza] with cheese, one without. Cokes?

Paris later becomes quite an admirer of Lorelai, and I think this might have been the very beginning of it: her breezy acceptance of Paris’ dietary needs, and immediate problem solving. Lorelai works in the hospitality industry and is used to difficult customers, so she can easily handle Paris. That in itself is probably a refreshing change for Paris, and gets their relationship off to a good start.

“How long has it been?”

LOUISE: How long has it been [that Rory and Dean have been together]?
RORY: … About a month.
LOUISE: Oh, lifers.

It’s quite clearly been more than “about a month” since Rory and Dean got together. It’s been more than two months since they went to the school dance together, so Madeline and Louise must know it’s more than a month.

By Louise describing a couple in a one-month relationship as “lifers”, we can tell she’s never been in a relationship for more than a few weeks at most, and that she views (or affects to view) a long-term relationship in terms of a prison sentence.

The Old Muddy River Bridge

RORY: Hey Luke, someone put a sign for the rummage sale up in your window over there …
LUKE: Your mom asked me to put it there, okay?
RORY: And you said yes?
LUKE: She’s not real good with “no”.

From the sign in the window of Luke’s Diner, we learn that the charity rummage sale is to raise funds to restore the Old Muddy River Bridge. There is an artist’s impression of the bridge, although it’s unclear whether this is what the bridge used to look like and needs to be restored to this condition, or this is what the new bridge will look like once it’s rebuilt. Either way, it looks as if the whole thing could be knocked up in a single afternoon with less than $100 worth of lumber and Luke donating his time to it.

However, for some reason this simple wooden footbridge is an ongoing project for the town, which spends much of its time raising money towards the bridge’s reconstruction and maintenance throughout the show’s original run. We can see that once again Luke is more civic-minded than he pretends to be, as he helps advertise the rummage sale, just as he brought hot drinks the Stars Hollow Battle re-enactors.

Also notice that Lorelai doesn’t even need to add her address: everyone in town knows where she lives, and she can just tell them to take contributions to her house. That’s some level of notoriety in a town of nearly 10 000 people.

In real life, the small town of Washington Depot, which Stars Hollow was originally inspired by, is surrounded by state parks and reservations. There are several wooden footbridges over rivers, creeks, and gorges; some quite elaborate, and others small and simple like the one in the drawing.

“I’m a babe”

LORELAI: Hey, you know the one good thing we all learned from this?
RORY: What?
LORELAI: [smiling] That I’m a babe.

After the constant flow of insults on her appearance from Rune that night, Lorelai is pleased to receive a hearty endorsement from Todd, a sixteen year old idiot. It’s a tiny bit sad, but shows how badly her vanity was wounded (and how fragile her ego must be).

Although Rory is clearly unimpressed with Todd anyway, his attraction to her mother and to her best friend Lane provides a convenient excuse as to why Dean’s best friend Todd is never shown hanging around with Dean and Rory again.

Red Vines

MRS. KIM: They [the girls] could be anywhere, they could be doing anything. Smoking, or drinking, or buying drugs!
LORELAI: They’re at the movies. There’s no drugs there. They don’t even have the real Red Vines.

Red Vines is a brand of red licorice candy made by the American Licorice Company. The current flavour has been used since 1952.

Lorelai and Rory seem to be very fond of them as Lorelai said Dean had saved their movie night when he gave Lorelai the Red Vines she had forgotten at the supermarket. Red Vines are also one of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s favourite candies. The Black-White-Read Bookstore apparently only sells generic red licorice.

Elijah

LORELAI: I’m not eating alone. You’re here.
LUKE: I’m working.
LORELAI: Yeah but after three cheeseburgers you’re done, unless you’re expecting Elijah to stop by.

A reference to the biblical prophet Elijah, who God ordered to flee into a safe hiding place near a brook where he was miraculously fed bread and meat by ravens. After the brook dried up, God sent a widow to feed him: even though she had only a little flour and oil, by a miracle this small supply of ingredients never ran out.

Lorelai’s reference suggests she must have received some religious education as a child – unlike her earlier reference to Noah’s Ark, this isn’t a story familiar to nearly everyone.