Tag: Oh Really?

The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits

LORELAI: This whole morning has been a little Twilight Zone-y.
LUKE: Or Outer Limits-y … Great show, just as eerie, same era, but no one ever references it.
LORELAI: Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t speak geek.

The Twilight Zone, previously discussed.

The Outer Limits, an anthology television series originally broadcast from 1963 to 1965. It is often compared to The Twilight Zone, but stories were more science-fiction based than fantasy or supernatural, and were more straight action and suspense, often showing the human spirit spirit confronting dark existential forces, either from within or without.

The Outer Limits was very influential on the development of Star Trek – one reason why Luke might be a fan of the show. The Outer Limits was revived in 1995, and its last episode shown in January 2002, so Luke may very well have only recently finished watching the new series (and could be missing the show now it’s gone).

Lorelai is completely full of it for saying she doesn’t “speak geek”. She is a huge fan of Star Trek herself.

Klump Street

LORELAI: I don’t know. Um, how ‘bout this table with it’s unobstructed westward view of the wide cosmopolitan expansive Klump Street?

Lorelai seems to be saying that Luke’s is on Klump Street. I presumed that the street that Luke’s is on is Main Street – Luke mentioned Main Street, and it looks like the main street of town, as it’s where major businesses are, like the market. If there is a bigger, more important Main Street somewhere, we never see it, which seems odd.

It’s just possible she means that you can see the street which crosses it, as Luke’s is on a corner, and that this is Klump Street. If so, that’s the street Weston Bakery is on. Klump Street is the location of the giant slinky.

In fact, due to the frosted glass, curtains and blinds on the diner windows, customers don’t actually seem to have a great view of anything much from the tables at Luke’s.

Rory Phones Jess

Rory got a pager message from Dean while she was at dinner, but instead of phoning him back right away, she called Lane’s house (Lane didn’t come to the phone). When she gets home, Lorelai goes for a shower, telling Rory to find a movie for them to watch. It was after 9 pm when they were at dinner, and they talked more and had a half hour drive home, so it must be around 10 pm by now, yet they’re planning to watch a movie as well!

Instead of getting a movie, or phoning Dean back, Rory calls Jess. When we see him, he is reading The Fountainhead, as instructed by Rory. He is also playing with Rory’s bracelet, gazing at it softly with a misty smile. The phone call, ostensibly about literature, is very playful, and this episode marks the beginning of Jess and Rory’s mutual flirtation.

And Rory is still clearly very annoyed by Dean going to Lorelai when they had an issue in their relationship, because she isn’t returning his calls.

Cigar Club, Flophouse

EMILY: A cigar club. Can you imagine a more disgusting organization to join? Your grandfather now pays money to sit in an enclosed room with a bunch of other men and blow smoke in each other’s faces. Twice a week he comes home smelling like a flophouse.

This is Richard’s first attempt to reinvent himself after retirement by joining a cigar club, where men gather to buy and smoke cigars together.

In real life, there are many places in Hartford which have cigar bars and lounges. The upmarket Hartford Club [pictured] has a cigar room for guests, and this seems like the sort of place Richard would feel comfortable.

This explains Richard’s absence for Friday Night Dinner, now the writers can’t use his job as an excuse. It does seem a little strange that Lorelai and Rory can never miss Friday Night Dinner except for emergencies or extraordinary circumstances, but Richard can miss it just to smoke a cigar!

A flophouse is American English for a dosshouse: a cheap hotel, hostel, or boarding house designed to house poverty-stricken homeless people. It seems unlikely they would actually smell of expensive cigars.

Lorelai’s Bid-on-a-Basket History

LORELAI: Well, last year Roy Wilkins bought it and I got my sprinklers fixed for half price … And this year my rain gutters are completely clogged, and I thought if I could get the Collins kid to bite, I’d get that taken care of.

We learn that the previous year, in 2001, a man named Roy Wilkins bought Lorelai’s basket at the fundraiser, and she was charming enough to him that he fixed her sprinklers and only charged half price for it. This year, she was hoping that “the Collins kid” might buy her and be inveigled into cleaning her gutters for cheap or free.

“The Collins kid” could be in his early twenties, I don’t suppose Lorelai would picnic with a literal child? Although considering how the town laughed at her for going on one date with someone in his early-to-mid twenties, you’d think she’d be wary of that now.

It sounds as if since becoming a homeowner, Lorelai has been using the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser as a way to get free or cheap home repairs or home maintenance done. Hmm, you know who is really good at handyman stuff? Luke! And now she’s having a picnic with him.

Miss Flexibility

LUKE: You’re Miss Flexibility over here?
LORELAI: Hey, I can be flexible.
LUKE: Please.
LORELAI: I can. As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I’m totally flexible.

A keen piece of self-insight from Lorelai.

Lorelai and Luke eat their picnic in the gazebo, because Luke can’t stand sitting on the ground to eat (he enjoys hiking and camping – does he sit around the campfire on a deck chair???). He seems to have picked the most romantic spot possible, because it is still decorated with wreaths of flowers.

“I didn’t intend to do it”

RORY: It wasn’t funny.
JESS: Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t intend to do it. Does that make you feel any better?

Oh right. You just coincidentally brought lots of money to a town event you had no interest in and that nobody made you go to, and then you accidentally bid it all on Rory’s basket against her boyfriend?

Nobody is buying this, Jess. You’re full of it.

“Twelve brothers and sisters”

KIRK: My mother didn’t even make one for me … She made one for all my brothers and sisters but not for me … Twelve brothers and sisters, the only one without a basket – me.

Kirk’s statement could mean either that he has twelve siblings, or that he is one of twelve brothers and sisters. Either way, that’s a very large family. It doesn’t make a huge amount of sense for Kirk’s mother to make baskets for her children – I guess maybe for the girls, so they’ve got something to take to the auction, but shouldn’t the boys be buying other people’s baskets for charity, not getting a free one from their mother???

We never find out if Kirk’s claim is true or not, or if he’s making it up to sound more pathetic. He did talk of going on vacation with his parents, as if he was their only child, and if they chose to only take him over eleven or twelve other siblings, he doesn’t sound neglected by them.

Some fans have wondered if the “swan guy” and “Mick the DSL installer” from the early episodes were actually two of Kirk’s look-alike brothers. However, all the siblings may be entirely imaginary.

Sookie’s Basket

pasta with four kinds of pesto

salad

pineapple-cranberry chutney

3 different types of cookies, including heart-shaped ones covered in pink icing

a tart topped with fresh fruit

a lemon meringue pie surrounded by ladies fingers

miniature wedding cake

bottle of champagne

candles

flowers

probably a lot more we don’t see

the basket itself is an edible pretzel with a goat cheese filling!!!!

How did this go for only $35??? Incidentally, this helps to partially justify Lorelai and Rory’s complete lack of effort. If Sookie can work for hours to make a beautiful picnic basket and it only earns $35, what exactly is the point of slaving in the kitchen for the Bid-on-a-Basket Festival?