Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: I’m still . . . uh, these allergies really just hit me like a ton of bricks.
EMILY: I’ve never heard you mention allergies before.
In a future season, Lorelai needs allergy medication, and has old packets stored at home, so it seems that she really does suffer from allergies (even if she’s making it up right now). Or they changed it so that Lorelai actually has allergies.
LORELAI: I can’t believe [the Beales] were related to Jackie.
RORY: Well, the Kennedys kind of hid them in the background for many years.
LORELAI: Well, when you’re a Kennedy, how do you even choose who in the family to hide?
I’m not sure that there’s much evidence that the Kennedy family “hid” Jackie’s relatives away. Jackie and her sister Lee Radziwill certainly didn’t seem to pay them much attention until they began to be featured in the tabloid press as eccentric upper-class hoarders.
However, it’s said Jackie and Lee paid for Grey Gardens to be cleaned up to some extent – the house in the documentary is actually much less of a hovel than it had been previously. And it was Jackie and Lee who approached the filmmakers about the documentary, hoping it could be a way for the Beales to make some money, so they actually helped give them publicity, rather than hid them away.
Lorelai’s snarky comment reflects the number of scandals the Kennedy family have had over the years. She may be specifically thinking of Rose Marie “Rosemary” Kennedy (1918-2005) [pictured], the sister of President John F. Kennedy. Due to a difficult birth, she was developmentally delayed, although it is unknown to what extent, as the Kennedy family kept her life private.
When Rosemary was in the early twenties, she became increasingly irritable, and went into convulsions, as well as attacks of rage in which she would hit other people. At the age of 23, her father, Joseph Kennedy, agreed to her being lobotomised to help control her violent mood swings – he did not tell his wife until the procedure had taken place.
The lobotomy had a devastating effect on Rosemary, whose mental capacity became that of a two year old. She couldn’t walk or speak intelligibly, and was incontinent. She was immediately institutionalised, and separated from her family for over 20 years – her siblings did not know where she was, and the press was told she was “reclusive”. After her father’s death in 1969, she gradually became part of the family again. By that time, she had learned to walk, although with a limp.
Some say that Rosemary was one of the inspirations for Eunice Kennedy Shriver to later found the Special Olympics, although Eunice said that the Games were never about one individual.
RORY: I have to go.
JESS: What? Did I do something or –
RORY: No, no. This was . . . you were – are . . . it was wonderful, and I look forward to many similar occurrences in the future, but right now, I have to go. Understand?
JESS: Not at all.
RORY: It’s more fun that way, isn’t it?
Rory has to go straight after the kiss because she is going to see Dean. Jess may not have found that explanation quite so quirky and charming. It feels as if Rory is being emotionally dishonest with Jess right from their first kiss as a couple. Unfortunately, one of the things she may have learned from being with Dean is that it isn’t always safe to be honest with your boyfriend.
Although seriously, apart from plot drama, did Rory really have to see Dean right after her first kiss with her new boyfriend? This also feels like “the games beginning” between Rory and Jess.
EMILY: But think about this – you’re fighting so hard to send Rory off to Harvard no matter what that you haven’t even stopped for one second to consider that if she went to Yale, she could live at home.
It doesn’t seem feasible for Rory to live full-time at home while attending Yale, and she’d miss out on the whole college experience. Emily might mean that Rory could live at home on the weekends. When Rory does go to Yale, she spends at least her first semester coming home every weekend, or nearly every weekend.
RICHARD: You never went to college, let alone an Ivy League college.
Lorelai did go to college. She studied Business part-time at the community college in Hartford as a mature student. Presumably Richard means that she never went to college straight from school. It does sound as though he is saying Lorelai’s education just doesn’t count, which is pretty hurtful, considering how much work it took for her to graduate while working full time.
RICHARD: Oh, that mouse and I were engaged.
EMILY: Oh, you were not.
RICHARD: I’d given her my pin, I’d introduced her to my parents … The date was set, invitations mailed out.
Although Emily denies that Richard was ever actually engaged to Linny Lott, he claims that a wedding date had been set and invitations mailed out, which sounds pretty solidly engaged to me.
In a former episode, Richard said he almost married a woman named Lucinda Lester, until Emily set her sights on him, due to his prowess at fencing reminding her of her celebrity crush, Errol Flynn.
Although it’s possible that Richard almost married two women with the initials LL he met in college, this does feel like a retcon, with Lucinda becoming Linny. Emily claimed Lucinda had a moustache, something she never says about Linny or Pennilynn.
RICHARD: Linny Lott.
EMILY: That mouse?
Richard’s ex is called “Linny Lott” in this episode. Later she is called Pennilynn Lott. Linny sounds like a reasonable nickname for Pennilynn, but mysteriously, she is never again referred to as “Linny”.
Emily criticises Linny as too meek and mousy, with a rambling, discursive style of speech. Later, Richard’s mother has a quite different assessment of her, and this does not seem like a very good description of the woman we later meet.
The scenes at Yale University in this episode were filmed at Pomona College, a private liberal arts college in Claremont, a suburb of Los Angeles.
You will notice in these outdoor scenes that it doesn’t look as if it’s -1 degree outside. They aren’t even wearing winter coats.
[Lorelai finds the bracelet that Dean made for Rory on the dresser]
LORELAI: Oh wow. I guess this means there really isn’t a Dean any more, huh?
RORY: Yeah, that and it broke in the shower this morning. Though I probably would’ve taken it off anyway.
When Lorelai finds Rory’s bracelet made for her by Dean on the dresser, she realises that Rory and Dean really have broken up and aren’t getting back together this time. Even though Rory says that it broke in the shower that morning, she says that she probably would have removed it herself anyway. In fact, she wasn’t wearing it at Friday night dinner the previous week, so it seems as if she had actually stopped wearing it almost immediately after breaking up with Dean.
This leads to a discussion between them about Jess, with Lorelai snarking about him, and Rory asking if Jess is always going to be demonised by Lorelai. Lorelai does not pretend to be thrilled about Jess, and admits she felt Rory was safer with Dean (I don’t think Rory always felt perfectly safe, but Lorelai never seems to think about that). However, she is willing to endure Jess for Rory’s sake, and says Rory and Jess won’t be forever, anyway.
LORELAI: Anyhow, I looked through it and it just so happens that one of the best taco places on the East Coast is ten minutes from campus … [reads] “You haven’t had a taco until you’ve spent some time at Hector’s, crisp and meaty … not greasy”.
There isn’t a taco place called Hector’s in New Haven, but there’s a popular Mexican restaurant called El Carpintero run by a guy named Hector in Burbank, Los Angeles – across the street from Warners Bros and much frequented by people who work there. This seems so suspiciously similar that I think it must be the inspiration for the fictional Hector’s in New Haven.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 