Tag: Episode Insight

Red Light

[Early the next morning, Lorelai and Rory are in Lorelai’s jeep driving through Stars Hollow.]
LORELAI: We’re almost there and nowhere near it. All that matters is we’re going.
RORY: We’re practically gone already.
LORELAI: Look out world.
[They stop at the red light and stare at it, waiting for it to change.]

There have been so many mentions of great American journeys in Gilmore Girls, from On the Road to Huckleberry Finn to Thelma and Louise, that it seems in tune with the show’s theme for Lorelai and Rory to hit the road at some point. Their conversation is even vaguely reminiscent of a famous exchange from On the Road:

““Sal, we gotta go and never stop going ’till we get there.’
‘Where we going, man?’
‘I don’t know but we gotta go.”

That urge towards the journey and not the destination is the same one that is driving Lorelai away from her home.

As luck would have it, before they even leave town, they get stuck at the new traffic light, which is timed to come on even if there is no other traffic on the road, and will stay on until the oldest and feeblest person in Stars Hollow can safely get across the road. It’s symbolic of the way that it will always be difficult for them to leave Stars Hollow, even temporarily. There is something in the town which holds them captive to some extent. Scott Patterson’s I’m All In podcast makes note of the fact that while they are trapped at the lights, the door to Luke’s Diner is already open … perhaps a hint of where Lorelai’s future lies.

This is the literal “red light on the wedding night” alluded to in the episode’s title, although strictly speaking it isn’t the wedding night, but several days before the wedding. Symbolically though, it means that Lorelai has put a stop to her wedding going ahead.

Lorelai Phones Christopher

While Sookie calls Jackson, and Rory sends Dean a message using her pager, Lorelai slips away to make a phone call as well. Everyone assumes that she is going to call Max, being as struck with the romance of her mother’s wedding as they are, but in fact she secretly phones Rory’s father, Christopher.

It’s interesting that Lorelai begins the conversation by pretending to be a girl named Trixie. Trix is her grandmother’s nickname, and as they are both named Lorelai, the made up nickname has a strange sort of sense.

This is the first time Christopher hears that Lorelai is about to get married, and the viewer can tell that this isn’t welcome news. Lorelai hadn’t even told him that she and Max were together, although he had heard of their relationship through Rory (Rory doesn’t seem to have updated her dad on the coming nuptials, perhaps thinking it wasn’t her place to do so).

Christopher ends by giving her very conditional congratulations, by saying he wishes her well if she has found the right guy, and that he can certainly picture her married – to the right guy. He expresses some doubts as to whether Max is the “right guy” for Lorelai.

Like Luke, he is intent on planting serious doubts in Lorelai’s mind about her decision to marry Max, but is far more successful, as he is naturally more wily and manipulative than Luke. Luke’s clumsy attempts pushed Lorelai into an engagement, while Christopher’s cleverly sown doubts will bear fruit quite soon. The tragedy for him is that he doesn’t know it until it is too late.

The Traffic Light

Taylor lets Luke know that he is getting a traffic light installed in Stars Hollow, even though there hasn’t been an accident in ten years (he apparently has powers to make decisions unilaterally in the town’s best interests when it comes to public safety).

As usual, Taylor is all about town progress, while Luke is all about keeping Stars Hollow exactly the way it has been – two different ways they show their love for the town. Their struggles and interactions end up giving Stars Hollow better outcomes; without Luke, the town would change too much and lose its character, while without Taylor it would stagnate and become a backwater.

This traffic light is the one alluded to in the episode’s title.

“Wedding dress place on Willow”

LORELAI: Hey Mom. I was in the neighbourhood, ’cause there’s that wedding dress place on Willow.

There are a few streets named Willow in the Hartford area, but none of them are in the sort of upmarket shopping district you’d expect a bridal store to be. I think for now we have to accept it as a fictional place – and it’s not impossible that Lorelai has invented it to explain her presence at her mother’s house.

At the beginning of the episode, Rory took Lorelai wedding dress shopping, but we never saw the results of that expedition. It’s still not clear if Lorelai’s bought her dress yet, or has bought the dress but is still to choose a wedding veil for it. It provides bookends for the episode, with Lorelai’s daughter helping her with her wedding outfit at the beginning, and her mother helping her at the end, so that all three generations of “Gilmore girls” take part in Lorelai’s planned wedding.

Final Party Scene

As we leave Lorelai and Max’s engagement party, the camera pans around so we can see what everyone is doing.

Miss Patty is dancing with Kirk; it is unclear at this point if they have only known each other for a few months, or if the show has already retconned Kirk as Miss Patty’s former student. A strange little moment takes place when Miss Patty looks up at Kirk as if she is going to say something, then seemingly thinks better of it and looks away again with a mysterious expression. You would almost think that she was about to suggest that the two of them become closer – you might remember that when Miss Patty met Kirk in Cinnamon’s Wake, she said she would date him if he had a better haircut. (And in The Break Up Part 2, Kirk had apparently been told gossip by Miss Patty between 10 pm and 6 am, which is interesting).

Rory and Dean, sitting on a bench together having resolved their argument. Rory has her head sleepily on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean kisses the top of her head.

Lane leaving for the airport with her parents, and surely extremely late by now, with a comically huge suitcase she wouldn’t actually be allowed to take on the plane in real life.

Lorelai and Max dancing together. Max smiles lovingly down at his prospective bride, but Lorelai is looking over his shoulder at Luke, who is walking towards the party.

Luke and Lorelai wave and smile at each other; Max doesn’t see this as they are doing it behind his back. Luke sits down on a bench, next to three of the little girls dressed as brides who did the tap dance in the gazebo. Coincidentally or not, Luke will have important relationships with three women in the show before Lorelai (Anna, Rachel, and Nicole).

Lane Gives Rory Her Contraband

Lane comes over to give Rory boxes of all her pop culture contraband for safekeeping while she is in Korea for the summer (she fears it might be forever).

Lane leaves her CDs, magazines, books, posters, three sweaters she borrowed from Rory, and one Diva Glam lipstick which is apparently all her make-up, and probably also from Rory. There also seems to be other clothes, and various cloth knick-knacks such as cushions. Rory says she will treat it like it’s her own, which makes sense, because some of it actually is hers.

Lane also gives Rory a “retrieval kit” in a heavy yellow envelope which might help rescue her from Korea. It has the phone number of where she is staying, a map showing her location, a photo of Lane, and a mock-up of what she will look like in six months time (thinner, so she seems to expect that she will lose weight on a traditional Korean diet). It also contains the phone number for the American consulate, and some Korean phrases written out phonetically, such as “Help”, and “Have you seen this girl?”.

“Already called me about that”

RICHARD: I just thought we should touch base, you and I, after that unfortunate incident last week.
RORY: Grandpa, you already called me about that.

This confirms that Rory’s fight with her grandfather was the previous Friday, and that he did already phone her to apologise, most likely the same evening that it occured. We never get to see the apology so don’t know how it went. It’s not known whether Richard apologised for his treatment of Dean, or just for upsetting Rory, but whatever he said, Rory seems to have accepted it and forgiven him completely (Lorelai’s chat with her would have made that easier).

Richard talks to Rory to make sure everything is alright between them, which she quickly reassures him that it is, with a briskly British military, “Buck up, private” (meaning “Cheer up, soldier”).

“Soon”

RORY: When are you going to tell them [Richard and Emily, about the engagement]?
LORELAI: Soon.
RORY: When’s “soon”?
LORELAI: When the big hand hits the “S” and the little hand hits the “OON.”

A play on helping small children tell the time by showing them where the hour hand and minute hand on a clock are.

“Keeps your halo shiny”

RORY: I will be assisting, I will be helping out those less fortunate than myself, I will be getting college credit and this is the end of this particular conversation.
LORELAI: You’re right. It’s a good thing. Nice, keeps your halo shiny.

As becomes increasingly clear during this episode, Rory is volunteering purely for college credit, and doesn’t really care about the less fortunate. She’s not quite as angelic as Lorelai thinks.