Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: Rules can change, you can change them.
Time and again on the show, Lorelai demonstrated that she believed that rules were for other people, not for Gilmores. She was usually successful in her attempts to get special treatment – just as she is here: Rory isn’t given a zero on the Shakespeare test, but is allowed to make it up with other work.
PARIS: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alterations finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken”.
Paris is quoting from William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, first published in 1609, and one of his most famous love sonnets. She is demonstrating how well she has studied for the test, although only Paris could recite a love poem to someone as a threat.
LORELAI: You couldn’t tell me [about getting a D]? You tell me everything.
RORY: It was too humiliating.
LORELAI: Oh, honey, you once told me that you loved Saved by the Bell. What could be more humiliating than that?
Saved by the Bell was a popular teen sitcom which aired on NBC from 1989 to 1993. The story follows a group of friends at high school, and their relationship with their school principal.
Rory would have loved watching Saved by the Bell when she between five and ten – a possible hint of her precocity. It seems typical of Rory that her favourite childhood TV show revolved around school.
LORELAI: I mean it’s an adjustment of course, but she’s always wanted to go to Harvard and this is how she’ll get there.
MAX: Harvard?
LORELAI: Yeah. Ever since she could crawl, I’ve really wanted her to go there.
As we have suspected ever since the Pilot, it was Lorelai’s idea for Rory to attend Harvard. Here she admits that she has been longing for Rory to go to Harvard since she was a baby.
EMILY: You brought us used dessert?
LORELAI: It’s not used. It’s left over.
EMILY: How nice. I’ll just put it in the kitchen next to my half-empty box of Cheer.
Cheer is a brand of laundry detergent sold in the US and Canada, and made by Procter & Gamble. It has been sold since 1950.
It’s very unlikely that Emily really keeps laundry powder in the kitchen, or that she would store cake next to it. She’s just being nasty. Most people are prepared to be magnanimous and conciliatory when they get everything their own way, and are proven right in a disagreement. Not Emily.
RORY: I couldn’t possibly stretch them out. Your boobs are way bigger than mine.
LORELAI: That is not true. Your boobs are totally bigger than mine!
RORY: You’re crazy!
According to websites which give celebrity bra sizes, Lauren Graham is a 34B and Alexis Bledel is a 32B. If so, they have the same cup size, so Lorelai is not “way bigger” than Rory. Likewise, Rory cannot possibly be stretching out Lorelai’s clothing when she borrows it as she is slightly smaller across the back.
Of course Rory’s real crime isn’t that she stole Lorelai’s sweater – it’s that she has “stolen” her parents. It’s telling that Lorelai claims it’s her favourite sweater, which is news to Rory. In the same way, the parents she didn’t value somehow become far more attractive when Rory has them.
The book which Richard calls Rory to talk about is A Mencken Chrestomathy by American author and journalist H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), first published in 1948. A chrestomathy is a selection of literary passages, usually by a single author; in this case it is a selection of Mencken’s own out-of-print writings chosen by himself.
With the phone call from Richard, the audience (and Lorelai) can see that Rory and her grandfather are bonding over books and reading. Rory must have told Richard about her journalistic ambitions when she told him she was looking for the book, and he almost immediately found a copy for her.
It can’t help but put Lorelai’s nose out of joint. In all her years at the inn, her father has never once phoned her at work. Yet after just one morning with Rory, Richard calls his granddaughter to talk about a book while she is working at the Independence.
RORY: Mr. Neville likes all things frilly.
RICHARD: Good God. He’s my broker.
Rory means that Mr. Neville likes wearing women’s underwear – although the mention of little girls wearing frilly underwear later in the episode gives this unfortunate implications.
It’s interesting that growing up in gossipy Stars Hollow has prepared Rory well for the intrigues of the country club world.
We get to see Rory bond with her grandfather in this episode, as they discover that they share an interest in reading and travel, and find it easy to talk to each other. More than that, Rory seems to respect Richard’s successful career in insurance, which Lorelai has always rather looked down on.
Richard likewise feels proud of Rory when he realises that his peers admire Rory for being pretty and polite, and attending a prestigious school. He does end up “showing her off at the club”, just as Emily instructed.
When Rory says she has to learn a sport for school, with golf as one of the options available, Emily suggests that Richard teach her golf that weekend. Lorelai begs her mother privately not to manipulate Richard and Rory to go golfing together, as she believes Richard doesn’t want to teach her, and Rory doesn’t want to go.
At this point neither Richard nor Rory have displayed any enthusiasm for Emily’s plan, but neither have shown any real distaste for it either, so Lorelai’s views aren’t backed up by anything concrete. No wonder Emily calls her out on it, saying that Lorelai is frightened that Rory might enjoy herself with her grandfather.
Once again, we get the picture that Lorelai often doesn’t seek out Rory’s opinions because she believes she already knows how she will feel – she will feel just as Lorelai does. Emily’s pointed suggestion that Lorelai might actually try letting Rory decide for herself is a real slap in the face for Lorelai. She has always depicted her mother as controlling, but in this case it is she who is having trouble relinquishing control over her daughter.
Lorelai stops the conversation, unable to face the fact that she might be more like her mother than she realises.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 