“It should’ve been you!”

EMILY: Christopher gets his life together with that woman.
LORELAI: So, that’s good.
EMILY: It should’ve been you!

Emily is extremely upset when Rory doesn’t come to Friday Night Dinner because she’s having a night out with Sherry. She immediately fears that Sherry will “take Rory away” from them, and is terrified that Christopher and Sherry will obtain weekend custody of Rory. She’s slightly on the old side to be a tug-of-love child at seventeen, and I’m pretty sure you have to pay child support to get even part-time custody of your child, which Christopher has never done.

Emily says she is heartbroken, because she always pictured Lorelai and Christopher being together, so that Rory could finally have two parents. Christopher was never ready to commit and was no kind of provider, but now it looks as if he was capable of settling down and working at a steady job, he just needed to find the right woman.

Completely and cruelly unfairly, Emily now blames Christopher’s general uselessness on Lorelai, saying that if she’d really tried, she could have influenced him to become a better man. Really? At the age of only sixteen, frightened, pregnant, and alone, she should have been responsible for Christopher’s life as well? Lorelai had a baby to care for and support, she didn’t need to take care of Christopher as well (and Rory would have suffered horribly if she did).

Emily is no better than Straub, laying all the responsibility for Christopher’s failure at Lorelai’s feet. It’s a horrible thing to say to her daughter.

Lorelai does admit that she has feelings for Christopher and isn’t happy about Sherry either, but she is trying to focus on doing what’s right, and being happy for Christopher. This unselfishness is roundly condemned by Emily, who goes upstairs to cry on her bed. (Later we find out she did eventually come down to dinner, but sulked all the way through it).

The episode’s title comes from Emily’s outburst to Lorelai, that, “It should’ve been you!”. Note that Emily’s outfit is mostly sad black, with touches of angry red. Lorelai is in grey, trying to remain neutral.

Lorelai and Rory Fight About Jess

EMILY: It’s not nothing. You’ve both been sitting here all night, not saying a word and not even looking at each other. Are you in a fight?
LORELAI: I’m not.
RORY: Please.
LORELAI: Please what? You are the one who’s been freezing me out all week.
RORY: I just haven’t had anything to say.

At Friday Night Dinner, we learn that Lorelai and Rory haven’t been speaking since they argued about Rory’s relationship with Jess. It’s a pattern they tend to get into when they are angry with each other, freezing each other out and refusing to talk things over.

It’s notable that in the scenes we see of them arguing together, Rory never once says what you expect from a girl in her situation: that Jess is only a friend who shares one of her hobbies, and that him buying her basket was just one of his pranks. She reminds Lorelai that she didn’t like Dean at first either, as if she is already thinking of Jess as a replacement for Dean.

Note that Rory is in angry red, and Lorelai in sad black for this scene, a common costume choice for fight scenes on the show.

Emily Confronts Mia

MIA: When Lorelai showed up on my porch that day with a tiny baby in her arms, I thought to myself, what if this were my daughter, and she was cold and scared and needed a place to live? What would I want for her? And then I thought, I’d want her to find somebody to take her in and make her safe and help her find her way.
EMILY: That’s funny. I would’ve wanted her to find someone who would send her home.

Clearly shaken by the news that Mia is visiting Stars Hollow, Emily goes to see her at the Independence. Somehow, in all the years Lorelai and Rory lived at the inn, Emily and Richard never crossed paths with Mia. Perhaps they didn’t visit very often, or perhaps Mia tactfully made herself scarce whenever they came to see their daughter.

To Emily, Mia is the woman who stole her family and stuck them in a potting shed. It’s hard not to have some sympathy for her feelings, but by the time Lorelai left, she was eighteen and a half, and an adult. A young adult, for sure, but still legally capable of making her own decisions and living where she pleased.

Mia would have had no authority to send her back to Emily, and if she had refused to take Lorelai in, she would have gone somewhere else – perhaps somewhere far more hazardous. The truth is, Emily owes Mia for keeping her daughter and granddaughter safe, but she is too angry and proud to ever thank her.

Mia promises to send Emily a box of photos from when Rory was young, but never asks for her address (nor does Emily offer it). Perhaps Lorelai already gave Mia her parents’ address at some time?

Note that Emily wears deep red, with an artificial black rose on her lapel, as a symbol of her rage and mourning. Mia wears funereal black with a circle of pearls in the same position, as if in sympathy with Emily’s feelings (pearls are often a symbol of tears). Mia wears the colours of bereavement that Emily is not quite ready to admit to; she understands the depth of her loss.

Jess the Prankster

POLICEWOMAN: Everyone’s accounted for Taylor. It looks like this is just an elaborate prank.
TAYLOR: But it looks so real. Where’d they get the police tape?
POLICEWOMAN: Kids have their ways.

TAYLOR: Who’d be depraved enough to pull a stupid prank like this?
POLICEWOMAN: Hard to say.
[Rory sees Jess standing across the street smirking as he watches the crowd]

The police officer reassures Taylor that the chalk outline and police tape is just a prank. Somehow, she knows that a child or teenager is responsible. To be fair, Rory also knows – Jess isn’t exactly being subtle here. The police officer seems to be remarkably blasé about someone stealing police tape from the police station. The bizarre way the police behave makes me think that they were in on the prank with Jess, either overtly or tacitly. It’s actually the only way this scene makes any sense.

Once again, one of Jess’ pranks is connected with Rory – it takes place outside the grocery store where her boyfriend works, at a time when he’s doing a shift, so that there’s a good chance of her seeing it. It seems to be a calculated move to get her attention and show off to her, as well as encroaching on her boyfriend’s territory.

In line with the autumnal colours of this episode, Jess wears a dark red tee shirt – Dean is also wearing a red sweater in a bright tone, as if Dean and Jess are the light and dark attractants for Rory (or the public and the private). Red is love and passion, but also aggression and danger, like a red rag to a bull. Both Jess and Dean wear grey sleeveless jackets over their red tops, as if in partial concealment of their feelings. There is nothing on their sleeves – yet.

Jess’s top is a vintage 1980s tee shirt with a Tasman Empire Airways Ltd logo on it – the former name of New Zealand’s flag carrier airline (since 1965, Air New Zealand Ltd). The show keeps connecting Jess with travel, journeys, and flight.

The fire truck going past is also bright red; in fact notice how many things in this scene bear the colour red. It’s a callback to when Rachel was telling Lorelai about her distress in discovering Luke’s romantic preference for Lorelai with the fire department in the background. It’s another painful love triangle situation marked with sinful scarlet, bloody red.

The poster in the background announces another Autumn Festival, nearing the anniversary of Rory and Dean’s first kiss. This suggests that the date is Tuesday 30^th October, the day before Halloween. Yes, I know it looks bright and sunny, but that’s because we’re in TV Land, not the real Connecticut!

Does the big number 7 on the fire truck mean that Jess is blessed with luck in his endeavour? Or does it represent the seven days of the week, and the great wheel of time?. It might be a sign that Jess’ time has come. So much can change in just one year.

NOTE: Thank you to reader M for pointing out that the red vehicle is a fire truck or fire engine, not a bus as I incorrectly stated!

Monticello

LORELAI: Mmm, I’m terrible at coming up with names. When we first bought out house, Rory and I wanted to name it, you know, like Jefferson named his place Monticello, but all we could come up with is The Crap Shack.

Former US President Thomas Jefferson, previously discussed, called his main plantation Monticello, from the Italian for “little mountain”, as it’s situated on a peak of the Southwest Mountains, near Charlottesville, Virginia. The plantation house was first begun in 1768 in a neoclassical style, but extensively remodelled in the 1790s with elements from Parisian homes Jefferson had seen in France and ideas of his own devising, and work continued into the 1820s. Monticello is now a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and features on the US five cent coin.

Notice that Lorelai wears a black blouse with a red cherry print design on it – Monticello is famous for its orchard, including its cherry trees. You can still buy cherry preserves from the Monticello gift shop. I cannot say if the colour of the blouse is significant in light of the slave labour that was used at Monticello, and even to some extent, in the building of the plantation house itself.

This is the first time we learn that Lorelai and Rory supposedly called their house The Crap Shack when they moved in, when Rory was eleven. Presumably the house was in poor condition, and has needed a lot of work to get it to the standard we see. It can’t be a name they use very often – they’ve always just referred to as “home” or “the house” so far. Perhaps that’s because the house is now far less crappy than when Lorelai bought it and the name doesn’t really apply any more.

Jess Wears a New Work Uniform

A bookends-style joke for the episode. At the beginning, Jess was in trouble for wearing his “inappropriate” Metallica tee-shirt to work at the diner. Now he comes out dressed as a Luke clone, in his own checked flannel shirt and backwards baseball cap, claiming he assumed that it was the uniform for the job.

While Luke berates him, Rory and Lorelai look on in amusement. Jess can feel gratified that once again he has managed to get Rory’s attention through his clothing choices.

It is also another “mirroring” scene, where Luke and Jess are presented as mirror images of each other, just as when Jess first stepped off the bus into Stars Hollow.

“You are totally getting married”

LIBBY: Oh my God, is this [Dean] your escort?
RORY: Yeah, it is.
LIBBY: You are totally getting married.

Obviously, idiot characters like Libby cannot be trusted to give accurate predictions. Although Rory and Dean do get symbolically married at the ball itself.

Note that Emily told Lorelai the girls needed elbow-length white kid gloves for the ball, but they are clearly wearing elbow length white satin gloves instead. Honestly, without Emily supervising everything personally, this ball is going to pot. Also, Emily obviously managed to get Rory to put her hair up.

“Gross shirt”

LUKE: Hey, part of the deal of you staying here is that you work here, and when you work here you will wear proper work attire, and that is not proper work attire. Now go upstairs and change into something that won’t scare the hell out of my customers.
JESS: Whatever you say, Uncle Luke. [goes upstairs]
LORELAI: Gross shirt … good band.

Luke has made good on his promise of Jess having to work in the diner when not at school. Jess is obliging, but still teases Luke by wearing one of his heavy metal tee-shirts to work. This is the Metallica tee-shirt that Jess joked wouldn’t get along with his Tool tee-shirt.

Lorelai immediately makes a note of the fact that she and Jess share a favourite band, both being fans of heavy metal.

Rory Meets Jess

While Jess is in the kitchen being introduced (he never bothers to greet Sookie and Jackson), he notices that Rory’s bedroom door is open, and just as he quietly slipped into the living room without being invited, he now wanders into Rory’s room. She is sitting with her back to the door, so she doesn’t immediately know he is there. As with the photos, he gets a chance to check Rory out without her knowing, and before she can look at him.

There is a parallel with Rory’s boyfriend Dean at this point. Both Dean and Jess were invited to the Gilmore home for dinner by Lorelai, and both of them went into Rory’s bedroom without asking, as a sign of their interest in her. Dean had been asked as a date for Rory, and they had previously kissed, but Jess has never even met Rory before. It’s a bold and presumptuous move to explore her personal space.

In case there is any doubt what’s going on here, Rory is wearing a cardigan decorated with pinkish-red love hearts, made to look as if they are the fluttering petals of flowers (fluttering heart, hearts and flowers!). The cardigan is buttoned up though, to show that this flower has not yet opened to Jess. Meanwhile, Jess has a large number 2 on the back of his (bad boy) hoodie. The show uses costume a lot to make a point, and in this instance, it seems impossible not to mention it.

Once again, Lorelai follows Jess to see what he’s up to, and this time she isn’t quite so smiling when she asks both of them to come to dinner. I think Jess can now count himself as being on Lorelai’s radar.