Jackson is dismayed when his father hands him a kilt to wear to his wedding on the weekend. It’s a family tradition, and both Jackson’s father and grandfather were married in kilts, suggesting that the Belleville family have Scottish heritage. (Which made more sense when Jackson’s surname was Melville, which is a Scottish surname, while Belleville is French – although there is a historical relationship between France and Scotland, so it’s not unrealistic either).
I am not able to identify Jackson’s tartan – it looks most like a Buchanan Clan tartan, but I suspect it’s fictional.
Note that Jackson’s father is played by the real life father of Jackson Douglas, the actor who plays Jackson Belleville.
When Rory got her cast put on, the doctor said she would need to keep it on for two weeks, but it’s actually been three weeks since the night of the car accident when she gets the cast removed.
Lorelai takes Rory to Dr Ronald Sue, a specialist in orthopaedic medicine – who has an office in Stars Hollow, quite unbelievably. It feels like in Season 1, the writers tried to create a small town in New England that might be a little quirky, or niche, or even slightly magical, but was still a place you could convince yourself might almost exist.
Now it’s only Season 2, but already they are throwing anything into Stars Hollow that suits the plot, so this little town of less than 10 000 people has multiple takeout options which all deliver, a 24-hour pharmacy, a hospital, and an orthopaedic specialist. It feels like very lazy world-building. In this case it seems especially pointless, because there’s no reason Lorelai couldn’t have picked Rory up from school and taken her to an appointment with Dr Sue in Hartford.
Christopher invites himself to the medical appointment, announcing to everyone with self-importance that he’s “the father”, as if Rory has just been born, or like anyone cares. He’s driven from Boston to watch a minor two-minute medical procedure, and now he … drives back again? That makes perfect sense. Is it a hint he isn’t actually in Boston at this point?
Rory wears a red and black tee shirt which says STRANGE 13 to her appointment, as a nice callback to her Emily the Strange sticker.
As with so many episodes written by Daniel Palladino, I cannot follow the timeline of this episode very easily. It opens early in the morning, and we know it’s a school day, because Rory is dressed in her Chilton uniform. Yes, she has to get a bus to school, and they can’t go to the diner, so it makes perfect sense for them to walk a long way for a friend to cook them breakfast! They really should have just made their own breakfast, for practical reasons.
However, the next few scenes have Rory dressed in her normal clothes and Lorelai isn’t at work, so that it seems to be the weekend. That implies they had breakfast at Sookie’s on a Friday morning, but the previous episode ended on Friday night. And they can’t have skipped a week, because Rory was meant to have her cast removed in two weeks, so it would have been gone by that time.
I think just as “PS I Lo … ” has two Thursdays in a row, there are two Fridays in a row as we transition from “Help Wanted” and “Lorelai’s Graduation Day”.
The timeline issue could have been fixed by simply making their breakfast on Saturday morning, which makes sense because they always eat out for breakfast on Saturday, and they would have plenty of time to walk to Sookie’s (and Lane would have the free time to practice drumming on pots and pans). It would even make it slightly more plausible that Jackson was sitting around in his PJs and not at work.
Possibly the problem isn’t the fault of the writer this time, but of the costume department, for putting Rory in a school uniform she shouldn’t have been wearing. The only way I can make sense of this is for Rory to have run out of clean clothes and forced to wear her uniform on a weekend – or she has some school activity that Saturday, like a debate, and is already dressed for it.
LORELAI: Hey, what’s with Narcoleptic Nate over there?
[Jackson, who is leaning against the counter with his eyes closed, moans]
SOOKIE: He’s not much of a morning person.
Slightly unbelievably, Jackson, a market gardener, isn’t much good in the mornings, and needs at least an hour of sitting around semi-comatose in his pyjamas before he wakes up. Shouldn’t he be getting up at dawn every day for work? I feel as if market gardeners are, by the nature of their profession, early risers, especially in spring. You can’t just wander in at 9.15 am with a cup of coffee, saying, “Wow traffic was really bad this morning, huh?” to the tomatoes.
LUKE: What Taylor said about me being like Louie, a loner, never being married and stuff. I mean, I am getting crankier as I get older, he’s not so far off.
LORELAI: You are not your uncle. I mean, would Louie ever build someone a chuppah, or help fix things around someone’s house without being asked, or make a special coffee cake with balloons for a girl’s sixteenth birthday?
The point of the episode is for Luke to begin questioning whether he is on the same path as Louie – a bit of a cranky loner, unmarried and childless, with only a lonely death ahead of him that will come as a welcome relief to those around him.
Lorelai, who has always been one of the first to criticise him for his loner tendencies, reassures Luke that he is not Louie. Unlike Louie, Luke has a kind heart, and has done many things to help Lorelai and Rory, as well as taking in Jess without asking for anything in return. I think it’s fair to say that Louie would never have bothered so much over an uncle’s funeral as Luke dutifully does for him, either.
Lorelai and Luke have this conversation in front of a wreath of spring flowers, Lorelai wearing a jacket with a pattern of deep red roses, symbolising love, and a pink tee-shirt under it. There’s something slightly romantic or even wedding-like about the look of the scene. It’s certainly not funereal.
PARIS: This was the big night you had planned – a rendezvous with Mr. Peanut?
Mr Peanut is the advertising mascot for Planters Peanut Company, depicted as a peanut in the shell dressed as a gentleman, in top hat and monocle. Planters was founded in 1906 in Pennsylvania; Mr Peanut was created in 1916 after a schoolboy named Antonio Gentile won a design contest, with alterations made by artist Andrew S. Wallach.
Rory opens the door to Paris dressed in pyjamas decorated with Mr Peanut-like figures. (Rory’s pyjamas often have food themes; Lorelai said her “cutest” pyjamas had cupcakes on them).
While locking lips with Rory against a tree, Dean suggests that since Lorelai is away, he should come over. It’s possibly code for “let’s get sexy” (and Rory and Dean are more than a year over the age of consent in Connecticut), but to his surprise, Rory explains that she has plans to spend some time alone. She is afraid that Dean will be angry with her – she’s very scared of his temper.
Although disappointed and confused (the idea of a girl deciding to spend time alone for one night is beyond his ken), Dean kindly allows Rory the chance to do laundry in peace, as long as she “makes up for it” by spending all the next day with him. And then declares himself a saint for this outstanding act of munificence. Saint Dean, the patron saint of understanding boyfriends.
Note the touch of red Dean is wearing under his jacket, as if there is actually an underlying anger there.
LORELAI: I mean, I could answer the door wrapped in cellophane but unless I was wearing a Yankees cap . . . ugh, he wouldn’t even notice. LUKE: Geez. LORELAI: Oh, don’t be embarrassed Snuffy, I’m just teasing. It’d be a Mets cap.
The New York Yankees and the New York Mets are the only two major league baseball teams in New York City – The Yankees are based in The Bronx, and the Mets in Queens.
Lorelai really is teasing – Luke always wears a Yankees cap, because Scott Patterson played for The New York Yankees. They are by far the more successful team as well, being quite possibly the most successful US professional sports team of all time.
[Picture shows a vintage navy blue Yankees cap, similar to Luke’s].
LUKE: Jess, come on. JESS: Hey, nobody asked me if I wanted to move to Stars Hollow, but I’m here. Pick whatever place you want and I’ll be there too.
A reminder and confirmation that Jess had no say in the decision to send him to Luke, and that his mother didn’t even ask whether he wanted to go or not. Now Luke is telling him that they have to move, and he is going to be uprooted again, with no say in it. He seems prepared to submit to this change too, with the resignation of someone who has no choice in the matter.
Note that Jess is wearing the “emotional” red, covered up with the dark blue of sadness, as if his anger is hidden under a cloak of depression.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 