The Zagat Survey, commonly known as Zagat, an organisation which collects and correlates the ratings of restaurants by diners, established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979. Their first guide was only for New York City, with reviews written by their friends; at its height in 2005, it covered 70 cities, based on the input of more than 250 000 people, rating not only restaurants, but also hotels, shopping, nightlife, zoos, museums, music, movies, theatres, golf courses, and airlines.
Zagat was published in a number of books and guides, and had a website you could subscribe to. Zagat was bought by Google in 2011 and is fully integrated into Google services such as Google Maps and Google + Local. Most of the staff were laid off, and production of Zagat in book form is looking “bleak”. They sold it to The Infatuation in 2019, with promises of a comeback, new website, and apps.
RORY: You’re the graduate. You get to be pampered.
LORELAI: Okay, then I would like to go to Chateau Jean Georges la Jean Georges in Paris.
Lorelai refers to French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten (born 1957), who arrived in the US in 1985, and moved to New York the following year, earning immediate plaudits for his innovative approach to classic French cuisine. Having already opened ten restaurants around the world, his first American venture was the bistro JoJo in New York, opened in 1991. He has since gone on to command numerous other restaurants in the US and internationally.
His restaurant Jean-Georges opened in the Trump Tower, Manhattan in 1997 to critical acclaim, and his Paris restaurant opened in 2001, the year before this episode broadcast. It is actually called Market, and it serves French-Asian fusion food.
I don’t think it’s quite as fancy as Lorelai imagines – it is decorated simply, and the dishes are fairly reasonably priced (considering it’s a tourist trap in Paris). I think she is imagining it to be like the Jean-Georges in Manhattan, which is haute cuisine, very sophisticated, and costs hundreds of dollars per meal.
After awkwardly running into each other at Doose’s Market, Lorelai attempts a reconciliation, but Luke evades her overture by saying he has to get back to work. He is not ready to forgive her yet, and it’s another sign to Lorelai that Jess being gone has not really solved any of her problems.
I’m not sure what Luke came into the market for, but he’s just left without buying anything, so whatever it was, he didn’t get it!
Note that Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal is shown in the background, which was so prominent in the scene where Lorelai discovers Jess will be moving to Stars Hollow.
As with so many episodes written by Daniel Palladino, I cannot follow the timeline of this episode very easily. It opens early in the morning, and we know it’s a school day, because Rory is dressed in her Chilton uniform. Yes, she has to get a bus to school, and they can’t go to the diner, so it makes perfect sense for them to walk a long way for a friend to cook them breakfast! They really should have just made their own breakfast, for practical reasons.
However, the next few scenes have Rory dressed in her normal clothes and Lorelai isn’t at work, so that it seems to be the weekend. That implies they had breakfast at Sookie’s on a Friday morning, but the previous episode ended on Friday night. And they can’t have skipped a week, because Rory was meant to have her cast removed in two weeks, so it would have been gone by that time.
I think just as “PS I Lo … ” has two Thursdays in a row, there are two Fridays in a row as we transition from “Help Wanted” and “Lorelai’s Graduation Day”.
The timeline issue could have been fixed by simply making their breakfast on Saturday morning, which makes sense because they always eat out for breakfast on Saturday, and they would have plenty of time to walk to Sookie’s (and Lane would have the free time to practice drumming on pots and pans). It would even make it slightly more plausible that Jackson was sitting around in his PJs and not at work.
Possibly the problem isn’t the fault of the writer this time, but of the costume department, for putting Rory in a school uniform she shouldn’t have been wearing. The only way I can make sense of this is for Rory to have run out of clean clothes and forced to wear her uniform on a weekend – or she has some school activity that Saturday, like a debate, and is already dressed for it.
LORELAI: Hey, what’s with Narcoleptic Nate over there?
[Jackson, who is leaning against the counter with his eyes closed, moans]
SOOKIE: He’s not much of a morning person.
Slightly unbelievably, Jackson, a market gardener, isn’t much good in the mornings, and needs at least an hour of sitting around semi-comatose in his pyjamas before he wakes up. Shouldn’t he be getting up at dawn every day for work? I feel as if market gardeners are, by the nature of their profession, early risers, especially in spring. You can’t just wander in at 9.15 am with a cup of coffee, saying, “Wow traffic was really bad this morning, huh?” to the tomatoes.
RORY: Arrived where? [looks up] Aw, you are without shame.
Somehow Lorelai has led Rory all the way to Sookie’s house without Rory having the slightest idea where they are going. This is even less believable than the time Lorelai took her right to the very gates of Harvard before Rory suspected where they were. How can Rory not remember where Sookie lives?
Once again, we see that Sookie seems to live a long walk from Lorelai’s house, yet somehow it is too close to get in the car and drive to it. Rory says they are in the opposite direction to the business district, and even wonders if they are walking to the next town, suggesting that Sookie lives on the outskirts of Stars Hollow. Yet the area doesn’t look any more rural than Lorelai and Rory’s street – which makes sense, because in real life, Sookie’s house was right next to Lorelai’s!
Lorelai cannot go to the diner for breakfast, because she and Luke are still in a fight over Jess. The show doesn’t make it clear whether Lorelai arranged in advance to have breakfast at Sookie’s, or if they have turned up unannounced first thing in the morning expecting to be fed (which would not be out of character). Either way, Sookie is delighted to have extra people to cook for.
Rory returns home from Stars Hollow alone, and is outside the diner when Luke returns from his fishing trip. He offers her a coffee and a doughnut, but he’s been away for a week and only just got home – those surprisingly fresh-looking doughnuts must have been sitting on the counter for a week! There’s so much eating of old and expired food on this show.
Before leaving for Hartford, Lorelai grabs a burger from a take-out place that is just a window in a wall, called KC’s Annex. It’s next to an art gallery that I don’t think we ever hear about. The burger is disgusting, according to Lorelai, and she is going to starve to death if Luke doesn’t get back soon (even though Stars Hollow has more food options than is economically plausible!).
This looks like the same take-out window where Lorelai bought fiesta burgers for herself and Max when they were on a date in Stars Hollow. (The menu is identical, and they both have a green window frame in a red brick wall). It might be where Lorelai and Rory buy their hotdogs, fries, and thickshakes that they bring to town meetings, as they aren’t from Luke’s.
It seems the food from KC’s is fine, as long as you know Luke’s is available as a regular option. The idea of being stuck eating nothing but KC’s is a horrible one. Lorelai drives past Luke’s, which is still closed, just as a reminder of what she is missing.
LORELAI: So you’ve been just Nanooking it this whole time, just sending out for whale blubber and mukluks? [adjusts thermostat]
Nanook of the North [pictured], a 1922 silent film documentary/docudrama written, produced, and directed by Robert J. Flaherty. The film follows the struggles of an Inuk man named Nanook, his wife Nyla, and their family as they travel, trade and search for food in the Canadian Arctic. They are shown hunting a walrus, building an igloo, and going about their everyday tasks. Nanook and his family are portrayed as fearless heroes, enduring rigours beyond the comprehension of most Westerners.
The film has been criticised for fictionalising events and presenting them as reality. For example, “Nanook” was really named Allakariallak, and Nyla (aka Alice) was not his wife, but one of Flaherty’s common-law wives. The cast were scripted to behave in a more “authentic” Inuit way, such as using traditional hunting weapons rather than guns, and acting as if they had little knowledge of Western culture. Many things had to be staged, because of the difficulties of filming with one fixed camera in a harsh environment.
Nanook of the North was ground-breaking cinema, capturing authentic details of a culture that was then little known to outsiders, and filmed in a remote location. Hailed unanimously by critics, it was also a box-office success, and is still viewed as an enthralling documentary. As the first full-length feature documentary to achieve financial success, it paved the way for the entire genre. Nanook of the North was remastered and released on DVD in 1999, so Lorelai and Rory could have actually seen it.
Whale blubber is an important part of the traditional diet of Inuit people, valued for its high energy value, nutritional content, and availability. Mukluks are soft boots, traditionally made from caribou hide or sealskin, worn by the Indigenous people of the Arctic.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 