“You’re gonna be a Sadie”

SOOKIE: You’re gonna be a Sadie.
LORELAI: A what?
SOOKIE: A Sadie. [sings] “Sadie, Sadie, married lady. Meet a mortgagee.”
LORELAI: Funny Girl!
SOOKIE: Streisand!
LORELAI: Love it!

Sookie sings from Sadie, Sadie – the song which gives this episode its title. As Sookie and Lorelai’s dialogue makes clear, it’s from the musical film Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand, and previously discussed. Lorelai and Rory have both called each other “funny girl”, and here Lorelai confirms that she loves the film.

In the movie, this song is sung when Fanny Brice, the comedienne and Ziegfield Follies star who is the subject of the film, marries her husband Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif). What Sookie and Lorelai do not acknowledge is that the marriage was a mistake: Nick was a gambler and criminal, and he and Fanny separated after he was sent to prison.

Almost every reference to marriage in this episode, while Lorelai is deciding whether to marry Max, is negative in tone, with a focus on marriages that don’t last. Lorelai doesn’t seem to take notice of these many hints.

Luke Hears Lorelai’s News

With great trepidation because everyone has made it seem like such a big deal, Lorelai tells Luke that Max proposed to her. He has already guessed (or heard it on the Stars Hollow grapevine), and deliberately behaves in a nonchalant manner.

She is already taken aback, when he begins questioning her about what her plans for married life with Max are. Of course she doesn’t have any – she hasn’t even decided whether to marry Max or not, let alone thought about the reality of it.

Luke’s questions, which are quite rude and intrusive, have the effect of making Lorelai realise in a panic that she and Max haven’t had even one conversation about where they will live as a married couple, whether Max expects Lorelai to keep working, if they plan of having children together, or even how they will manage their joint finances.

Incidentally in this scene, you can get a good look at the coffee brand that Luke uses in the diner. It’s Hills Bros. Coffee, a brand from San Francisco sold since the early twentieth century. It was owned by Sara Lee in 2001, and is now owned by Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA.

Hills Bros claim their coffee has a bold, smooth flavour, but reviews for it tend to say it smells better than it tastes, and is generally pretty mediocre, although very strong and good value for money. Somehow Luke manages to make this average, budget-wise coffee taste amazing – which is quite a feat for someone who doesn’t drink coffee and doesn’t approve of it. Perhaps Lorelai and Rory aren’t as fussy about coffee as they think they are, or they are heavily biased by their love for Luke.

InStyle Weddings

RORY: What’cha reading?
LORELAI: Oh God, do not sneak up on a person like that.
RORY: InStyle Weddings. Very interesting.

InStyle Weddings is a quarterly periodical put out by InStyle magazine, previously mentioned as one of Lorelai’s favourite magazines. It features celebrity weddings, as well as wedding tips and ideas.

Lorelai is reading the Spring 2001 issue, which featured actress Courtney Thorne-Smith on the cover, who had married scientist Andrew Conrad in June 2000. Famously, by the time the magazine came out, Thorne-Smith had already filed for divorce. This is another sign to Lorelai that marriage doesn’t always last.

In real life, it wouldn’t have been possible for Lorelai to buy the magazine as late as May.

Ivana Trump

BOOTSY: So, apparently they shoot a gland from a pig’s head in Ivana Trump’s rear end twice a month to keep her looking young.
LORELAI: Wow, hope she’s not kosher.
BOOTSY: I don’t know, doesn’t say here.

Ivana Trump (born Ivana Zelníčková in 1949) is a Czech-born American businesswoman and former model who was the first wife of Donald Trump, now the US president. They were married in 1977 and divorced in 1992, and he was her second husband. She has married twice more.

After her divorce from Trump, Ivana began selling her own line of clothing, jewellery, and beauty products through home shopping channels, wrote several novels and a self-help book on surviving divorce, had her own advice column, and bought up interests in Croatian media.

The story about pig’s gland being injected into her butt every two weeks seems to be fictional, but in line with the ideas of what silly, vain, and very wealthy socialites might get up to. Ivana Trump is not Jewish, and therefore not kosher.

The reference to the much-married Ivana may be a hint to Lorelai that marriage does not always last.

This is our introduction to a new character, the news vendor Bootsy (Brian Tarantina). We never learn Bootsy’s real name, or why he was given the nickname Bootsy. The name might remind you of singer William “Bootsy” Collins from Bootsy’s Rubber Band; in his case, his mother nicknamed him Bootsy because “he looked like a Bootsy”.

“Sally Field movie”

LANE: It’s gonna be just like that Sally Field movie when her husband took them to Iran and wouldn’t let them come back, except that I won’t have to keep my head covered.
RORY: Okay, calm down.

Lane is referring to the 1991 drama film Not Without My Daughter, directed by Brian Gilbert, and based on the book of the same name by Betty Mahmoody. It stars Sally Field as an American woman whose Iranian husband took she and their young daughter to Iran for a short holiday, but refused to let them return. The movie was a box office bomb and poorly received, strongly criticised for its stereotyped portrayal of Iranian Muslims and their culture.

There are a number of hints and references to marriage going wrong in this episode, and this is one of them.

I Found Love

This 1968 love song by sunshine pop group The Free Design plays during the first scene. The centre of town is covered in yellow daisies, and Lorelai and Rory are crossing the street together, showing their transition from single status to coupledom.

I Found Love is the eighth track on the band’s album You Could Be Born Again. Although The Free Design did not gain much recognition during their career, they had something of a revival in the mid-1990s and were influential on later acts – including Beck, previously discussed as one of Lane’s favourite musical artists.

We know that Season Two opens on the day after Season One ended, because Lorelai later tells Miss Patty that the proposal was the night before. We also know it’s a Saturday, because Rory isn’t in school, which means Season One ended on a Friday.

My Little Corner of the World

This 1997 song by Yo La Tengo plays at the very end of the episode, as Lorelai and Rory run towards each other from opposite sides of the street. It creates a “bookends effect”, as this was the song that played at the end of the first episode of the season, and we are now watching the final moments of the last episode of the season.

It repeats the theme of safety and security, as Stars Hollow itself becomes a sanctuary. The final thing we see is the gazebo in the town square, the heart of the town and a sacred place dedicated to love. Its twinkle lights echo the stars above who gave their name to the town, and lead lovers back into each others’ arms.

Mother and Daughter’s Dating Lives Intersect

Lorelai and Rory run towards each other, like parallel lines which finally cross at some point due to the curvature of the earth. They excitedly jump up and down, both with wonderful news to share. Rory has got back with Dean! Lorelai has had a proposal from Max! Their dating lives converge while both are at their peak, and all is joy, all is light, all is love. The promise of Stars Hollow is fulfilled, and lovers are reunited at last.

This is an oddly complete resolution to a season, which ties everything up into a neat package and gives a fairy tale happy ending to both our protagonists. The reason is that they were not sure if Gilmore Girls would be renewed for another season, and if if this was to be last episode ever, they needed it to also be a possible finale of the show. Of course the show was renewed, and from then on season finales tended to end on cliffhangers, leaving many questions unanswered.

Everybody Needs a Little Sanctuary

After receiving her daisies, Lorelai walks past the Town Troubadour, who is singing this 1998 song by Grant Lee Buffalo. The rival Troubadour walks by, and the Town Troubadour gives a little nod, indicating that he can join in, which he does. Hence the two troubadours mend their quarrel – this episode is all about ending arguments and bringing people together.

Everybody Needs a Little Sanctuary is from the band’s album Jubilee, previously mentioned. The song uses the metaphor of bees in their hive to evoke the sweetness of love (a slight callback to Rory’s dream about swimming in honey), and mentions the queen, as if Lorelai is the “queen bee” of Stars Hollow. It is another song about love bringing safety and security: like Rory with her boyfriend Dean, Lorelai seems to be most attracted to Max as a safe place to be.

“Have a really good summer”

PARIS: Too bad I already filled the spot for music coverage. You know, record reviewing and such. You’d have been perfect for it. I gave the job to Louise.
RORY: Louise owns two CDs.
PARIS: Yeah. Well, gotta go. Have a really good summer.

Paris makes it sound as if it is now the last day of the school year, which I guess it could be if the episode covered more than a month, but that doesn’t explain how Rory is back at school again later in the episode (and doesn’t fit with how this episode is dated in a future season). More likely she means the summer vacation is very soon, or perhaps that regular classes are about to end to make way for the final exams schedule.

As Rory looks back at Paris, Madeline, Louise, who began the school year as her enemies, became her friends, and are now suddenly enemies again at the end of the school year, they stand on the steps in a manner reminiscent of an iconic scene in the film Heathers, previously discussed. It’s a clear sign that they are back to being a gang of “mean girls” again.