Rory is amazed that when she and the other students arrive at the Gilmore home in Hartford, Paris is already there, and greeting them as if it is her house. She and Richard clearly hit it off, and she seems to easily fit in with his plans and expectations, taking a prominent role as if she has indeed usurped Rory’s position as both group leader and granddaughter – although Richard is quick to remind everyone of Rory’s status.
This is an early hint that Paris has an affinity with older men – something which will become apparent later.
Rory says that the meeting takes place soon after 3.10 pm, but the school day doesn’t finish until 4.05 pm. This suggests that they are working during class time, even though they are meeting at Richard’s house. I’m not sure how they got permission for that, or if they even bothered to get permission. Maybe Emily fixed it up, since she is friends with Headmaster Charleston’s wife, Bitty.
An obvious play on epithets historically given to royalty – Ivan the Terrible, James the Just, Alfred the Great, Gerald the Fearless, Philip the Handsome, and so on.
There was a real royal with this epithet – Antonio the Determined [pictured], who managed to rule Portugal as Antony I for at least twenty days during a succession crisis. Although Philip II of Spain prevailed, Antonio did not gracefully admit defeat, but attempted to rule Portugal from the Azores, where he established an opposition government that clung on for three more years. He went into exile in France and England, taking the crown jewels with him.
In Antonio’s case, “determined” seems to be a polite word for “desperate”, or even “delusional”. Dean will likewise do his darnedest to grimly hang onto Rory, even when he knows he’s lost.
LANE: Lane Kim, you have shown a genuine aptitude for sales.
Lane is dismayed to be told, for the fourth time in a row, that her aptitude test says she has an aptitude for working in retail, like her parents. She is unhappy with the news, but in A Year in the Life, Lane is working in a store, so the test knew where her skills lay.
Candide is a 1759 satirical picaresque novella by the French philosopher Voltaire. It is about a young man named Candide, living a sheltered life in an Eden-like paradise, taught to live a life of optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss, who teaches that we live in “the best of all possible worlds”. This life abruptly ceases, and the story details the slow disillusionment of the simple Candide as he witnesses and experienced terrible hardships. By the end, if he has not exactly rejected optimism, he has cautiously adopted a more pragmatic approach to life.
Sharply witty, insightful, fantastical, bitter, and matter-of-fact, Candide parodies the adventure and romance genres, as well as the coming-of-age novel. It is considered Voltaire’s greatest work, and has been often mimicked and parodied. Considered part of the Western canon, it is often taught in high schools and colleges.
You can see Rory as a parallel to Candide – raised in the sheltered Eden-like paradise of Stars Hollow, with the vivacious Lorelai raising her to believe she can do anything with enough self-belief, hard work, and Gilmore ability to argue that the usual rules don’t apply to her. Will Rory become increasingly disillusioned with the difficulties of the outside world once she leaves Stars Hollow?
RORY: See you for some tree planting over at the Arbor Day Festival, buddy.
Arbor Day is an international secular day of observance in which groups and individuals are encouraged to plant trees. It is usually held in the spring. In the US, Arbor Day was founded in 1872 by J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska City. By the 1920s, every state in the US had laws stipulating that Arbor Day had to be observed.
In the US, National Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday in April, so it is two weeks away from this episode, and Rory is anticipating another event she might be able to get Jess to attend. We never see an Arbor Day celebration in Stars Hollow, but of course they hold one every year. By the time Arbor Day arrives, Jess has left town.
Lorelai arrives in a silver sleigh pulled by white horses
This actually doesn’t seem like a totally crazy idea for Lorelai’s wedding. Lorelai loves the snow, and she adores horses. She organised a horse-drawn sleigh ride for the Bracebridge Dinner, sharing a ride with Luke. It does sound very beautiful and romantic, and I think Emily has picked up on a least a couple of things her daughter would like.
Emily’s Russian-themed winter wedding may have been influenced by the 1965 historical romance film, Dr Zhivago, directed by David Lean, set in Russia during World War I and the Russian Civil War, and based on Boris Pasternak’s autobiographical novel of the same name. The film is beautifully shot and features a sleigh ride through the snow, as well as an “ice palace”.
Dr Zhivago was highly popular, especially with female audiences, the #2 film of the year, and a big influence on mid-1960s fashion. It may have even been Emily’s dream for her own wedding, which she hoped to one day create for her daughter.
In this episode, Emily becomes the first person to predict that Lorelai and Luke will be married one day, showing that she knows her daughter better than Lorelai believes.
EMILY: I wasn’t taught to be best friends with my daughter … I was taught to be a role model for my daughter … I did what I thought was right. I did what I thought I had to do to protect you, and because of this we have no relationship.
And “there’s the rub” – Emily wants to have a good relationship with Lorelai, the kind of friendship she thinks Lorelai has with Rory. And yet she was taught that mothers and daughters aren’t friends, and that she has to set an example for Lorelai, not relax and have fun with her. And even though Lorelai is in her thirties and a mother herself, Emily doesn’t know how to stop being a mother, and start being a friend to her daughter. Lorelai being stuck as a perpetual teenager means that Emily can’t grow and develop either.
It’s frustrating, because clearly they are capable of having a good time together. Chad said they were the two people having the most fun at the bar. However, Lorelai has a plan for them to do a bonding activity together – steal the bathrobes from the spa. That’s her idea of a mother-daughter bonding baby step. Hm, speaking of being a role model for your daughter …
After losing her temper with Jess and letting him know she doesn’t trust him one bit around her daughter, Lorelai tries to find out from Luke if there is anything going on between Jess and Rory. Luke says that Jess doesn’t confide in him, but he thinks it would be great if they got together, because Rory would be good for Jess.
Lorelai is much more concerned about whether Jess would be good for Rory, and she now knows that Luke may be her friend, but he is not her ally when it comes to keeping Jess and Rory apart. This is no doubt painful to learn, and it also means that her distrust and resentment towards Jess begins to spread to Luke. Again, this will lead to a major break between Lorelai and Luke later down the track.
Jess was brought in by the writers to drive a wedge between Lorelai and Luke and keep them apart, and their plan is working.
(Note that the canisters behind Luke read SUGAR CAFE!).
After catching Jess coming out of Rory’s bedroom, and Rory’s bracelet coincidentally turning up under her bed when she’d already looked there numerous times, Lorelai puts one and one together and draws the obvious conclusion that Jess had Rory’s bracelet and had secretly returned it.
She immediately accuses Jess of stealing Rory’s bracelet and keeping it out of jealousy towards Dean, not caring that he was upsetting Rory in the process. Lorelai doesn’t bother trying to get all the facts, because Jess didn’t deliberately steal Rory’s bracelet, but held onto it after she lost it. He didn’t know it was from Dean, and was not trying to cause trouble between Rory and her boyfriend by keeping the bracelet.
She makes the mistake of attacking Jess as if she is a teenager herself, calling him a “little jerk”, rather than behaving like a concerned parent. This mother-daughter relationship where Lorelai tries to be both a mom and a best friend often goes wrong when she tries to be a friend when she should be a mother, and vice versa.
Lorelai has a temper and tends to go off halfcocked, especially when it comes to safeguarding Rory. Jess has no hesitation in talking back to her, and this episode will leave Lorelai with deep distrust and a simmering resentment against Jess which will explode later in the season.
JESS: It’s really that big a deal? RORY: What do you mean? JESS: I mean, I know it’s got an ‘I’ve been pinned’ Bye Bye Birdie kind of implication to it, but it was just a bracelet.
Bye Bye Birdie, 1963 musical comedy film directed by George Sidney, based on the award winning 1960 Broadway musical of the same name, with music by Charles Crouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, and book by Michael Stewart.
Set in 1958, the story was inspired by Elvis Presley’s draft into the US army in 1957. Jesse Pearson plays Conrad Birdie, a teen idol based on Elvis, his name a play on Conway Twitty, Presley’s rival at the time.
Conrad Birdie is giving a farewell performance in Columbus, Ohio, to end with his song, “One Last Kiss”. It is arranged for him to kiss a randomly chosen high school girl at the end of the song before going into the army. The teenager chosen is Kim MacAfee (played by Ann-Margret) from the town of Sweet Apple, but Kim’s boyfriend Hugo Peabody (played by Bobby Rydell) isn’t thrilled, as he and Kim have got “pinned” – he’s given her his fraternity pin to wear, indicating a serious commitment between them. When Birdie kisses Kim in a rehearsal, she swoons.
Elvis Presley himself was the first choice for the role of Birdie, but his manager Colonel Tom Parker wouldn’t allow it. The film helped make Ann-Margret such a star that in 1964 she appeared with Elvis himself in Viva Las Vegas.
Jess is saying that Rory and Dean are the small-town teenage sweethearts, and he is the sexy outsider. It seems slightly egotistical, and a bit demeaning to Rory, as if he has randomly chosen her for a meaningless encounter; it strongly suggests Jess doesn’t intend to stick around.
The film ends with Hugo knocking Birdie out before he can kiss Kim on stage, which might be what Jess is expecting from Dean – that he’ll punch Jess before he gets a chance with Rory. In the stage musical, the story continues with Kim going off to hang out with Birdie, and he is arrested for attempted statutory rape. Kim claims to have been intimidated by Birdie, and gladly returns to Hugo.
Quite a few warnings for Rory in this apparently casual reference! Foreshadowing, on multiple levels.
The reference to Birdie being about to go into the army makes me wonder if this reference was originally meant for Tristan, who went off to military school. Jess is much more of a Birdie than Tristan, however.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 