The Gilmore girls get a new neighbour in this episode, named Dwight, who moves into the house opposite them, previously occupied by a man named Beenie Morrison. Dwight is played by Jason Kravits, who had been involved with the Washington DC theatre scene, and then in a writer’s collective in New York City. From 1999 to 2001, he played the role of A.D.A. Richard Bray on medical drama The Practice.
As with so many of these characters, don’t expect to ever see or hear of Dwight again – he will disappear as mysteriously as Beenie Morrison after this episode.
RORY: I can’t believe you got into a fight with Pete.
LORELAI: Hey, you do not suddenly decide that garlic is an extra topping, not after five years, not after all we’ve been through.
The first mention of Pete as the owner/manager of the pizza store which Lorelai and Rory frequent, they have apparently been customers there since 1997, ever since Lorelai bought her own house. We met Joe delivering their pizza in “Kiss and Tell”, and Lorelai ordered a pizza from Joe in “The Break Up Part 2” – perhaps Joe is Pete’s son, and it’s a family business?
The bag Rory is carrying seems to have Bell Pizza written on it, but later the pizza store is called Antonioli’s Restaurant and Pizzeria. There is a Bell Pizza in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, however.
EMILY: And what is wrong with that name [Society Matron’s League], Lorelai?
LORELAI: Nothing, it just sounds so serious. Brings to mind a room full of old ladies wearing black dresses and cameos and pushing spoonfuls of cod liver oil on the kids.
A cameo [pictured] refers to a piece of jewellery, usually a brooch, featuring a raised relief image, ususally of a face in classical style, against a contrasting background. They were very popular in the 19th century.
Cod liver oil is a dietary supplement made from the liver of cod fish. Like other fish oils, it contains omega-3 fatty acids, and the vitamins A and D. Historically, it was given to children because Vitamin D helps to prevent rickets.
Oddly, Lorelai does not say that she is smirking at the name of the Society Matron’s League because she knows of it from I Love Lucy, one of her favourite TV shows!
LUKE: Why, why do they do this? This is a public place, people are eating here … This cannot be sanitary … When did that become acceptable? In the old days, a woman would never consider doing that in public. They’d go find a barn or a cave or something. I mean, it’s indecent. This is a diner not a peep show!
Luke is horrified when a woman nurses her baby in the diner. I have trouble accepting this “caveman” version of Luke, when he was depicted as intelligent and progressive in Season 1 – sometimes it feels as if the show couldn’t decide whether Luke was smart or stupid, progressive or reactionary.
He did tell Lorelai that he didn’t like small children very much, especially their messy, sticky side, and perhaps this is why he is having problems with seeing a baby fed, but it ends up being a judgement on the mother for putting on a “peep show” – therefore sexualising her need to feed her child, which is pretty creepy of Luke.
In Connecticut, women have been legally entitled to breastfeed in public since 1997, and it is prohibited for anyone to restrict or limit their right to do so. This includes restaurants and diners, so Luke has had five years to adjust to the law. As a responsible business owner, Luke would know of his legal obligations, and I don’t think he would behave like this, even if he did secretly feel a little uncomfortable.
As another mirroring scene, Jess is also shown being unable to handle seeing a woman breastfeed her baby. It’s not like this entire scene didn’t age well – it was outdated and unfunny at the time of first broadcast.
The talk at the high school is on a Thursday at 4 pm, so it’s an after-school event (it’s amazing how many important events schools hold out of hours and on weekends in the Gilmore Girls universe). Luke tries to cancel over the phone, and Lorelai tells him that the careers talk is being held the next day, so we know that it’s Wednesday at this point.
We then cut to Rory and Lane walking down the street together, so school is over for the day. Rory is in her school uniform, and Lane is wearing tan trousers and a denim jacket over a striped red sweater. They go into Stars Hollow Beauty Supply to buy the bleach and purple dye for Lane’s hair, and are served by Shane, wearing a brown lace-up blouse with a pattern of roses on it.
We then cut to Lorelai and Luke; Lorelai is helping Luke get dressed up for the careers talk at the school, so we know it is now Thursday, and presumably some time around 3.30 pm. Jess is already home from school, and he has Shane stashed in the closet, so whatever time she starts work at the beauty store, it hasn’t begun yet.
We then cut to Rory preparing to bleach Lane’s hair (for some reason they are doing it at Lane’s house, where she fears her mother coming home and finding them, instead of doing it at Rory’s house). Rory has changed out of her uniform into jeans and an orange sweater, and Lane is now wearing blue jeans and a striped green sweater.
Rory and Lane must have bought the hair dye from Shane on Wednesday afternoon, because it’s now Thursday afternoon, they are wearing different clothes, and Shane isn’t at work yet.
When Lane panics about her purple hair, she sends Rory back to the beauty store to buy black dye. Rory is wearing a denim jacket over her orange sweater, and Shane is now at work, out of the closet, and wearing a different brown blouse – this one does up with a drawstring and has a wide scoop neckline.
Then we see Stars Hollow after the talk at the school, so it’s presumably some time after 5 pm. Rory and Lane are now wearing different outfits – Rory is in blue jeans and a denim jacket, with a turquoise tee shirt, and Lane is wearing a dark red V-neck sweater with blue jeans. But let us assume that they changed their clothes because they smelled of bleach and dye or something, and also assume that Rory keeps a change of clothing at Lane’s house or brought one with her, because there’s been no time for her to go home and get changed.
Then Jess and Shane walk past them – Shane is still wearing the brown blouse from work, now with a brown jacket over it. So Shane was at Jess’ place around 3.30 pm, where she hid in his closet. She then went to work at the beauty store, selling Rory the black hair dye. Then by around 5 pm, she’s finished at the store, having put in a full hour’s work for the day.
I guess this sort of makes sense – if it’s an after-school job, she might only work there from 4-5.30 pm, but who is working at the store the rest of the time, and why couldn’t they work that extra 90 minutes per day? Another possibility is that Shane has already left school, works full-time at the beauty store, and simply sneaked out of work to see Jess, closing the store for half an hour or so.
This timeline almost fits, except for the fact there’s simply not enough time for all these events to take place. Rory doesn’t get out of school until 4.05 pm, and has a 40 minute bus ride home, yet somehow she is bleaching Lane’s hair around 3.30 pm, and has already had time to change out of her uniform. And Lane gets her hair bleached, dyed, then dyed again, all in the space of, at most, two hours (rather than days). But these quibbles are pretty much par for the course on Gilmore Girls, and nothing out of the ordinary for its usual wacky timeline.
So there you have it, this is how Shane managed to be hidden in the closet, and at work to sell Rory the black hair dye. It requires an awful lot of suspension of belief, and the usual rubber-band timeline, but the viewer can just manage to comprehend it. Of course, it wouldn’t be possible in the real world, but by Gilmore Girls standards, it’s almost coherent. Almost.
Shane manages to give Rory the same insult Lorelai said about Shane, which is either quite a coincidence, or Shane heard Lorelai and has been waiting for a chance to get her own back.
Jess has presumably just met Shane as she got off work at the beauty store. They are both wearing matching outfits – brown jackets over brown shirts – as if to underline that they go together. However, note that Jess doesn’t walk alongside Shane, he walks ahead of her. He couldn’t be making it clearer that he doesn’t see Shane as his equal, but as someone who’s “tagging along” with him. He is the leader and the dominant person in the relationship.
Also note that Jess only has eyes for Rory, and although they are currently on bad terms, he cannot stop himself from giving a faint smile as he walks past. Shane turns around to look at Rory, and I think her intuition is telling her that she is someone that Jess likes, or someone that could be a threat.
The show, like Lorelai, Rory and Jess, is not very kind to Shane, a girl who actually doesn’t do anything wrong except be pretty, blonde, and go out with Jess. Although the title of this episode is ostensibly about the two different plots – Lorelai has to give a talk to a “class” while Lane “dyes” her hair – it can be read another way. Rory is the girl with “class”, while Shane is the one who dyes her hair platinum blonde, meaning that she can’t be “classy” like Rory.
JESS: Hey, the girls that I like don’t give a damn about me! And unlike some other people I know, I’m not gonna sit around hoping that they change their minds and suddenly notice me.
LUKE: What’s that supposed to mean?
JESS: You fixed any neighbor’s porches lately? Or you go on a picnic or you get rooked into giving a ridiculous speech at a high school?
Jess tells Luke that his cynical view of relationships has partly been formed by watching Luke pine for Lorelai. He seems to have become indignant at the way Lorelai talks Luke into things, and the way Luke offers her free handyman work around the house. Jess seems to have decided that whatever else he might be, he’s not some sap who’s going to make a fool of himself over a girl.
Jess mentions Luke fixing Lorelai’s porch, which happened before Jess moved to Stars Hollow. Either he’s fixed it again recently, or someone told Jess about Luke fixing the porch. I presume that it was Luke himself, because Rory didn’t seem to know about it – it was early in the morning, and she blamed Lorelai for the noise that Luke made, before going back to bed. I suppose Rory might have accepted Lorelai’s explanation afterwards, and later told Jess about Luke fixing the porch – she may have thought it was a funny story.
As Lorelai and Luke leave the school after their talks, Debbie Fincher leads a posse of concerned mothers, presumably other members of the PTA, who are appalled to hear what happened during Lorelai’s talk. Not appalled enough to put a stop to it or anything, but appalled nonetheless. It’s all to drive home the point, yet again, that Lorelai is a “cool mom” and not like any other mother around.
I am not sure how Debbie managed to get all these women together at once so quickly – were they all hiding around the corner, just waiting for Debbie to come fetch them? Did Debbie leave early in order to round the other mothers up? I suppose we are meant to presume that their lives are so empty that they have literally nothing better to do.
Note that the Stars Hollow moms all dress alike in the same kind of brown patterned cardigan, and all wear blonde bobbed wigs. It’s the episode for bad wigs, this one.
According to the credits, the other two mothers besides Debbie who speak to Lorelai are called Jan and Lois, played by Julie Wittner and Merry Simkins.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 