Footnotes to the TV series
The Big One, an informal way of referring to World War II, previously discussed.
In this episode, the title refers to the big envelope that Rory is hoping to receive from Harvard, accepting her as a student. This episode is all about waiting for college acceptances, and the drama associated with that.
Acceptances from Harvard arrive in late March, so we know when this episode takes place.
EMILY: Of course, I haven’t the faintest idea of where to find a slide projector. I feel like I’m going insane.
Emily must have forgotten that Lorelai showed her photos of their trip to Harvard using a slide projector. Lorelai reminds her that she owns one, and will bring it with her.
EMILY: A mutual friend or something.
LORELAI: You and Dean have mutual friends in common that Rory and I don’t? Who would that be, the Talbotts or that senior partner at Deloitte & Touche?
Talbotts
Possibly referencing Nelson “Strobe” Talbott III (born 1946) [pictured], foreign policy analyst and diplomat from a distinguished family who served as the Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 to 2001, during the Clinton Administration. A Yale alumnus, after leaving government he was briefly the Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Notice that his nickname is said the same way as the name of Rory’s paternal grandfather, Straub Hayden.
Deloitte & Touche
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professionals in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms.
This episode, one of the more complex in structure, has a series of flashbacks within it. In the first flashback, we see a teenaged Lorelai and Christopher coming to the Gilmore home after school. They are wearing the same uniform, although I don’t think the show ever mentions them attending the same school. We know it is December, because they have finished their midterm exams, and are discussing the upcoming Christmas vacation.
With no adult supervision (Richard and Emily are out, and the maid has been fired, of course), Christopher – naturally – heads straight to the liquor cabinet and pours them drinks. Getting Lorelai drunk seems to be part of his technique.
Christopher reveals that his plan (more of a dream, actually), is to take a year off after graduation and go backpacking around Europe. He asks Lorelai to come with him, and she agrees – just as she and Rory are planning to go backpacking around Europe as soon as Rory graduates. During the conversation, it is clear that Christopher and Lorelai are close friends, not boyfriend and girlfriend, and that Christopher would like something more. By the end of the scene, they are kissing, although it is unclear whether this is the first time or not.
The young Lorelai and Christopher are played by Chelsea Brummet and Phillip Van Dyke. Brummet would later become a regular on kid’s sketch comedy show, All That, and Van Dyke had previously been on several TV shows, including Hey Arnold, and The Amanda Show. His acting career finished in 2003.
MRS. KIM: Young Chui works for his father who builds Adventist hospitals. Young Chui will go to college at Loma Linda University. Then he will return to work for his father building Adventist hospitals.
Loma Linda University, private Seventh-day Adventist health sciences university in Loma Linda, California, near San Bernardino. It was founded in 1906, gained university status in 1961, and has about 7000 students.
LORELAI: Hi Gomer.
Gomer Pyle, previously discussed.
Lorelai appears to call the other trout after her former high school classmates – Pinky, Pete, and Cheryl are three other fish.
Dodgeball mentioned in this scene, previously discussed.
PARIS: I move to put to a vote the impeachment of Rory Gilmore.
Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. In the US, impeachment at the federal level is limited to those who may have committed “Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”—the latter phrase referring to offenses against the government or the constitution, grave abuses of power, violations of the public trust, or other political crimes, even if not indictable criminal offenses.
The US House of Representatives has impeached an official 21 times since 1789: four times for presidents, 15 times for federal judges, once for a Cabinet secretary, and once for a senator. Of the 21, the Senate voted to remove 8 (all federal judges) from office.
The four impeachments of presidents were: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, Donald Trump in 2019 and again in 2021. All four impeachments were followed by acquittal in the Senate. An impeachment process was also commenced against Richard Nixon, but he resigned in 1974 to avoid likely removal from office.
As the student advisor says, school councils don’t have the authority to impeach anyone.
LANE: Rory! Rory! The numbers are all adding up, the planets are aligning, and I am going to my senior prom!
In American English, a prom is a ball or formal dance held by a school or college, especially at the end of the academic year for final year students – that is, the senior class. It is is considered one of the essential milestones in a young person’s life, given great weight and significance in US culture. Prom is short for promenade, and the word has been in use since since the late 19th century.
PARIS: Watch Choate get Joan Didion …
Joan Didion (1934-2021), journalist and author, considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with such figures as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. Didion’s career began in the 1950s when she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue.
Her writing in the 1960s and ’70s focused on the counterculture, Hollywood lifestyle, and Californian culture and history. In the 1980s and ’90s, her writing concentrated on the subtext of political and social rhetoric. In1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five, previously discussed, were innocent.
She won the 2005 National Book Award for her memoir about the year following the death of her husband, The Year of Magical Thinking. In premiered as a Broadway play in 2007. In 2013, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.
At this time, Didion had just won the St Louis Literary Prize in 2002, and had recently released her 2001 book of essays, Political Fictions. Her essays on the history and culture of California, Where I Was From, was due to be published in September 2003.
Joan Didion was the first woman to give the commencement address at the University of California in 1975, which is presumably why Paris thinks of her. Her address began with a few charming anecdotes about her own youth, before she launched into a blistering attack on her generation in the 1960s, and its refusal to face up to reality.
A quote from the speech that I think Paris would have warmed to:
“Planting a tree can be a useful and pleasant thing to do. Planting a tree is not a way of life. Planting a tree as a philosophical mode is just not good enough.”
There is no record of her giving a speech at Choate at any time, so it seems as if they didn’t get her after all.
PARIS: I knew that suggestion box was a bad idea. Watch Choate get Joan Didion …
Choate Rosemary Hall, often known as Choate, a private, co-educational, preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut. Choate is currently ranked as the second best boarding school and third best private high school in America.
Founded in 1890, it took its present name and began a co-educational system with the 1971 merger of The Choate School for boys and Rosemary Hall for girls. Its alumni include many members of the American political elite, including John F. Kennedy.
Choate was the inspiration for Chilton, Rory’s school in Gilmore Girls, even though it is in Wallingford, not Hartford. Just to confuse things further, the show gave Stars Hollow the same zip code as Wallingford. In this episode, Paris makes it seem as if Chilton and Choate are rival schools.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 