The title for this episode comes from the phrase, “there’s the rub”, to mean that there is a problem or contradiction which is difficult or impossible to resolve. It’s also a pun, because Lorelai and Emily are going to a spa to receive massages, or to be “rubbed”.
The phrase is believed to have originated from the sport of lawn bowls, played since ancient times, and known in England since at least the 13th century. A ball (known as a bowl) is rolled toward a smaller stationary ball, called a jack. The object is to roll one’s bowls so that they come to rest nearer to the jack than those of an opponent. A rub is a flaw in the playing surface that interferes with the ball’s trajectory.
The saying was popularised by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the soliloquy scene, as Hamlet is contemplating suicide, he says, “To sleep; perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub: for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?”.
LORELAI: Where’d all this come from? LUKE: Jess. Liz shipped the rest of his stuff last week. He finally unpacked.
Jess moved to Stars Hollow six months ago, and his mother Liz has only just now boxed up all his possessions and had them shipped to Luke. If Jess had any hopes that living with Luke was just an extended vacation, they have now been thoroughly dashed. The knowledge that his mother has truly kicked him out of home and he is stuck in Stars Hollow must come as devastating news. I think we can assume that the Jess we see in this episode is a deeply unhappy boy.
In US parlance, a lost and found is a lost property office, where people who find lost items can hand them in, in the hopes that the owner may look for it there. Usually found at airports, train stations, amusement parks etc. The lost and found system dates back to medieval Japan, but the first modern lost and found office was organised in Paris in 1805, under Napoleon.
This episode revolves around some lost property which has been found, and will be handed in for the owner to retrieve it.
LORELAI: I was just thinking, you know, all these years, no matter what my relationship status has been, whether I’ve been dating or hibernating or whatever, I think I’ve always had you in the back of my mind – you know, the prospect of us being together. But this prospect was sort of indefinitely on hold while you, you know, found yourself and, uh, got your personal life together so that you could really be there for me and especially for Rory. But you and I have been so linked in my mind that I think I have unconsciously sabotaged every decent relationship I’ve had, including the one with Max, because I was waiting for you, and I shouldn’t have been. And now that I see that, and I see you settling down with Sherry, I think I can move beyond it. CHRISTOPHER: Good, I’m really glad this is good for you Lorelai. LORELAI: It is. Chris? CHRISTOPHER: How dare you put that on me?
After seeing Christopher again, and being confronted by Emily’s beliefs that Lorelai belongs with him, Lorelai has a realisation that she has been waiting for Christopher to get his life together so that he can be with her, and with Rory. She believes that she has unconsciously sabotaged any relationship she’s ever had, because she was waiting for Christopher. Now that Christopher is with Sherry, she thinks she can get over Christopher and move past it.
When she shares this self-insight with Christopher, he is furious, saying that Lorelai is blaming every failed relationship on him (she wasn’t, but you can’t help thinking that Christopher has a lot to do with the fact Lorelai is incapable of holding down a relationship for more than a few months).
Of course, what really upsets Christopher is the realisation that he could have been with Lorelai all this time, if he’d only made more effort. Now he’s made the effort to show her he’s capable of being responsible, and instead of making Lorelai want him more, she’s ready to give him her blessing and move on. His badly-thought out plan is coming unravelled!
Lorelai really puts up with a lot of crap in this episode. She has Sherry show up unannounced and then rather creepily try to bond with Rory while telling Lorelai she won’t be involved in their lives. Then she’s unfairly abused by Emily, and by Christopher, who also embarrasses her in public in the process. She tries so hard to rise above it and do the right thing, and doesn’t get any understanding or compassion for it.
This is the song which plays during the secret CD drop-off into Lane’s bag. It is Belle and Sebastian’s 2000 debut single, and was later included on their 2005 compilation album, Push Barman to Open Old Wounds. The song went to #15 in the UK, #4 on the UK Indie charts, and #9 in Scotland. It was most popular in Canada, where it went to #4.
The lyrics of the song humorously chime in with Rory’s plan to make it all happen, and even the time of year.
Refer to our discussions, confirm the terms of our love affair I exercise all options, and I know I’ll see you there …
Not withstanding provisions of clauses 1, 2, 3 and 4 Extend contractual period, me and you for evermore
You’re the legal man, you’ve got to prove that you’re no liar I’ll render services that you may reasonably require
L-o-v-e love, it’s coming back, it’s coming back L-o-v-e love, it’s coming back, it’s coming back
Get out of the city and into the sunshine Get out of the office and into the springtime
Rory has co-opted Kirk and Michel to help her with the CD drop off to Lane. While Kirk distracts Mrs Kim with idle chit-chat, it is Michel’s task to jog past, secretly slipping the CD into Lane’s bag. Unfortunately, Rory forgot to tell Michel about the revised time, so the poor man was left to jog around the square for an hour waiting for Lane to show up. He is understandably miffed.
Roping Kirk into a zany scheme is a natural choice, but it’s a surprise that Michel, who can barely be bothered doing his actual job some days, is apparently willing to help Rory and Lane out like this in his free time. Perhaps he always goes jogging on Saturday morning anyway, but even so he stuck it out for over an hour until everyone else arrived. Lord knows how Rory managed to persuade him.
I feel as if the writer, Daniel Palladino, was almost forced to choose Michel as the only person in Stars Hollow who is young and fit enough to be credibly kept jogging for an hour. It’s interesting that Rory never considers asking her boyfriend Dean to be involved. Maybe he works on Saturday morning.
If this scene does connect with the Elton John song “Rocket Man“, then Michel is in the role of the “rocket man” who is “lonely out in space on such a timeless flight”, and “burning up his fuse out here alone”. And as he feared, “I think it’s gonna be a long, long time”!!!!!
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.
RORY: Lane. How did you know I was here? LANE: Telescope. I got a clean shot at Luke’s. I saw you and your mom go in.
Lane is now having “the mother of all groundings” since Mrs Kim found out that she had secretly been talking to Henry, and had attempted to have a date with him. She is confined to the house, not even being permitted to attend school (Mrs Kim has told Stars Hollow High that Lane has a highly contagious illness, and gained permission to home school her daughter for two weeks).
Lane using a telescope to spy on Rory so she can feel connected to the outside world may be an allusion to the 1954 mystery thriller film Rear Window. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, it stars James Stewart as a photographer recuperating from a broken leg. Confined to a wheelchair in his Greenwich Village apartment, he uses binoculars, and the telescopic lens of his camera, to spy on his neighbours, solving a murder mystery in the process.
Rear Window was the #8 film of 1954 at the box office. It received critical acclaim, and is considered one of the greatest films of all time.
Rory got a pager message from Dean while she was at dinner, but instead of phoning him back right away, she called Lane’s house (Lane didn’t come to the phone). When she gets home, Lorelai goes for a shower, telling Rory to find a movie for them to watch. It was after 9 pm when they were at dinner, and they talked more and had a half hour drive home, so it must be around 10 pm by now, yet they’re planning to watch a movie as well!
Instead of getting a movie, or phoning Dean back, Rory calls Jess. When we see him, he is readingThe Fountainhead, as instructed by Rory. He is also playing with Rory’s bracelet, gazing at it softly with a misty smile. The phone call, ostensibly about literature, is very playful, and this episode marks the beginning of Jess and Rory’s mutual flirtation.
And Rory is still clearly very annoyed by Dean going to Lorelai when they had an issue in their relationship, because she isn’t returning his calls.
It is unclear why Jess keeps Rory’s bracelet, but most likely just the sentimental pleasure of having something of Rory’s he can hold and touch. He probably intended to give it back at some point, the same way he returned her book. He may have also thought the handing back ceremony would be a flirtatiously teasing one – “Oh, you were looking for this? Another one of my magic tricks“.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 