SUNNY: Another new [maid], Emily? EMILY: Yes. The last one only made it through one evening. Thoroughly nervous creature. NATALIE SWOPE: What do you do to them, Em? EMILY: Oh, the usual. Clean this, cook that, sacrifice a virgin on your way out. SUNNY: [laughs] The things you say.
Emily’s friends are teasing her about her inability to keep any maid longer than a week (where does this everlasting supply of new staff come from, I wonder?). She is apparently well known in her circle for this, and Liesl seems to have quit after just one night of having to witness Richard and Emily fighting on the stairs … no wonder she was “thoroughly nervous”!
Emily jokes that she makes her maids sacrifice a virgin, a stock trope in films about Satan worship. She’s well aware that she’s considered a bit of a “devil” as an employer. Note that Emily’s friends enjoy her rather wicked sense of humour, a trait which she and Lorelai share.
Emily is careful to hide the fact that her fight with Richard is what caused the maid to quit. She is both too proud and too loyal to let her friends know that she is currently quite unhappy.
(We only find out the name of Emily’s friends from the credits).
“Incoming” is a stock phrase often used in film or television that is called out by one character to alert others to danger, commonly in battle scenes to mean something is about to fall on them. It originates from military usage.
Lorelai is telling to Rory to be quiet and stay out of the way, since they are witnessing a “battle” between Richard and Emily, and risk getting the middle of it.
The episode begins with a quick flurry of theatrical references at a Friday Night Dinner, suitable for one with the dramatic title, “Presenting Lorelai Gilmore” (as if Rory is the star of the show). We can tell straight away that this episode will be all about presentation, staging, and image – the face shown to the public, and how that contradicts the private, backstage life.
The Sound of Music
The new maid introduces herself as Liesl, which is the name of one of the von Trapp children in The Sound of Music. Lorelai tells the maid that she is Brigitta, and Rory is Gretl, two of the other children (the others are Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, and Marta).
The Sound of Music is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein., book by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse. Based on the 1949 memoir by Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, it is set in Austria just before it was annexed by the Nazis in 1938. Many of the details of the von Trapps’ real life were altered to make the the story more dramatic, and the names of all the children were changed.
The original Broadway production opened in 1959 with Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel in the lead roles. It won five Tony Awards, including best musical, and the first London production opened in 1961. A film version was made in 1965, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Lorelai compares her arguing parents with George and Martha, from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, previously discussed. In the play, George and Martha invite a young couple to their home, and then use their dramatically cruel arguments as a display for them. Lorelai is suggesting that she and Rory are in the role of the other couple.
The Lion King
After suggesting that her parents are providing them with “dinner theatre”, and wishing she had popcorn to enjoy with the show, Lorelai then likens Richard and Emily’s fight to “The Lion King without the puppet heads”. The climax of The Lion King contains a dramatic fight to the death between two lions.
The Lion King is a musical based on the 1994 animated Disney film of the same name, with music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Rogers Allers and Irene Mecchi. The musical features actors in animal costumes, as well as giant hollow puppets.
The Lion King made its debut in 1997, first opening in Minneapolis before moving to Broadway. It is still running after more than 9000 performances, is the third longest running musical in history, and has grossed more than $1 billion, making it the highest-grossing Broadway production of all time. The show opened in the West End in 1999, and is still running after more than 7500 performances. The musical has made than $8.1 billion overall.
The Lion King musical and the film are the top-earning titles in box-office for both stage and screen.
Terrence McNally
After cheekily giving her mother a “Brava! Encore!”, Lorelai says, “Does Terrence McNally know about you two?”.
Terrence McNally (1938-2020) was a multi award-winning American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Known as “the bard of American theatre”, McNally won five Tony Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. Inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, he won Lifetime Achievement awards from the Dramatists Guild and the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers. In 2018 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the US. His career spanned six decades, and he was vice-president of the Council of the Dramatists Guild.
At one time, he was the partner of Edward Albee, who wrote Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
LORELAI: Rory, this was a bad one, okay? This was not Nick and Nora, this was Sid and Nancy, and I’m not going in there.
Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) are the protagonists of the 1934 comedy-mystery film, The Thin Man, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. They’re a wealthy married couple who enjoy drinking and flirtatious banter, with plenty of free time to solve mysteries. It was the first time in a Hollywood film a married couple were shown still able to enjoy sex, romance, and adventure together. The film was such a success, it spawned five sequels, and in the 1950s was made into a television series starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk.
Sid and Nancy is a 1986 British biographical film, starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb in the title roles. The film examines the destructive drug-fuelled relationship between Sid Vicious, the bassist for British punk band The Sex Pistols, and his American girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, which ended in tragedy when Sid stabbed Nancy, either accidentally or deliberately.
Lorelai is saying that she and Luke weren’t just having their usual comic flirting, but actually went for each other with a genuine intention to hurt each other emotionally. She clearly sees herself as the main victim in their interchange, and this is the origin of this episode’s title.
LUKE: Where’s Jess? LORELAI: Outside, working on his Breakfast Club audition.
The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American coming of age teen comedy, written and directed by John Hughes, in his directorial debut. The story involves five teenagers from different high school cliques who spend a Saturday together in all-day detention, writing on essay on “who you think you are”. In the process, the students share secrets, bond, and learn more about themselves and each other.
The Breakfast Club was a box-office success. It is considered to be a quintessential 80s film, one of Hughes’ most memorable works, and one of the best teen films of all time.
When Lorelai is talking about Jess, she is probably specifically thinking of the character John Bender (Judd Nelson), a rebellious punk known as “The Criminal”. He is the only one of the students to stand up to the harsh Vince-Principal. During the course of the film, John becomes close to a pretty, popular girl called Claire Standish known as “The Princess” (Molly Ringwald), and they share a kiss. Jess has only spoken to Rory for a few minutes, but already the genre-savvy Lorelai is worried they will have a natural good girl/bad boy attraction.
LORELAI: Yes, I have. I’ve also done the ‘chip on my shoulder’ bit. Ooh, and the surly, sarcastic, ‘the world can bite my ass’ bit, and let me tell you, I mastered them all, in heels yet.
Lorelai is referencing a famous saying about Ginger Rogers, who was Fred Astaire’s dancing partner in many musical films: “Sure [Fred Astaire] was great, but dont forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did … backwards and in high heels”. If it did not originate with him, it was at least popularised by Bob Thaves in a 1982 Frank & Ernest cartoon.
The quote is used to imply that women often have to work harder than men to gain a similar recognition, or have to do so while maintaining a “feminine” image which requires a lot of discipline and upkeep.
In this context, it doesn’t quite make sense, unless Lorelai thinks that being a snotty ungrateful teenager counts as some sort of “work” that gets you somewhere in life, and which is made harder for girls than boys.
LORELAI: Sookie will cook, Rory will be there. It’ll be a little ‘Hey, welcome to Stars Hollow and see, everyone here’s not straight out of a Fellini film’ kind of an evening.
Federico Fellini (1920-1993) was an Italian film director known for his distinctive style, blending fantasy, baroque, and earthy sexuality. Recognised as one of the greatest and most influential directors, his most famous film is La Dolce Vita (1960).
Lorelai is simply saying that Jess will be able to see not everyone in town is weird.
Riff (Russ Tamblyn) is the leader of the The Jets gang in West Side Story, previously discussed. The loyal muscle to former member Tony, he urges Tony to fight, so that Tony becomes a murderer.
Rory sees Louise as Paris’ henchman and attack dog, who eggs her on. In the film, Riff is killed in a gang fight he helped instigate – perhaps a bit of wishful thinking from Rory!
LUKE: There’s nothing to think about. He’s family. You take care of family, period. LORELAI: Yes, I respect that, but what if he turns out to be Fredo?
A reference to the film The Godfather Part II, the sequel to The Godfather, previously discussed.
In the films, Frederico “Fredo” Corleone (played by John Cazale) is the middle brother in his family. He is seen as a weak person, with little power or status in the crime family, and given relatively unimportant jobs to do. During the course of the film, his younger brother Michael, who has become the Mafia don, discovers that Fredo betrayed him. He has Fredo killed.
Before Lorelai even meets Luke’s nephew, she is prejudiced against him, and makes none-too-subtle hints that the boy is a petty criminal who may not be worth helping.
LORELAI: Well, you might want to find out. Ask a couple of subtle questions, you know, has he seen The Shawshank Redemption, did the setting seem homey to him? Stuff like that.
The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 prison drama based on a 1982 novella by Stephen King called Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The story opens in 1947, and stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in the lead roles as two prisoners with life sentences who become unlikely friends and allies.
The film received critical acclaim, particularly for the performances of Robbins and Freeman, but was a box office disappointment. However, it became one of the top rented films in video in 1995, and was shown regularly on television from 1997 onwards, becoming one of the world’s best-loved films. It is currently #1 at IMDb.
Although “Shawshank” has become cultural shorthand to mean “prison”, I think it is safe to assume Lorelai and Rory have seen the film on either video or television.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 