“Move to California”

LORELAI: She’s been acting so weird lately. They’re fighting. Openly fighting. I don’t think they’ve ever done that before. I’m not sure what to do about it.
CHRISTOPHER: Move to California. That’s what I do when my parents fight.

This apparently explains why Christopher moved to California, to get away from his parents’ fighting. From what we saw of Francine, she was far too cowed to look as if she ever fought with her husband, but perhaps she’s been thoroughly brow-beaten into submission by now. Most likely, this is another of Christopher’s lies, used to justify his behaviour.

Lorelai has supposedly never seen her parents fight before – if so, they must have been very careful to keep serious conflict hidden from their daughter while she was growing up to give her a stable home environment. However, this is the same Lorelai who claimed she and Rory never had a fight until Rory was nearly sixteen. She’s possibly just forgetting all the previous fights her parents had.

“I don’t know about that girl”

LORELAI: I don’t know about that girl. I don’t know how she’s ever gonna make it in society. At this rate, she’s gonna actually get a job and only marry once.

Don’t worry, Lorelai. Fast forward to A Year in the Life, and Rory can’t find or hold down a job, and becomes an unwed mother, probably to a man engaged to someone else, although there are a number of candidates. Her life wasn’t as boring and stable as you feared after all.

Dancing Lessons

Rory and Dean are given a quick dancing lesson by Miss Patty at her dancing school – the Miss Patty’s Place that’s been such a feature of Rory and Dean’s relationship. Could their nerves over being in a place that got them into trouble be one reason their dancing is so poor? (Mind you, Rory is said to be physically uncoordinated which makes her bad at sport, and Dean hates dancing).

The other debutantes will have had weeks of dancing classes. Rory apparently just had this one lesson. It seems unbelievable that Emily would send her granddaughter to make her debut while so ill-prepared.

Presentation, Circle, Curtsy, Fan Dance

EMILY: There’s the presentation, the circle, the curtsy, the fan dance.

Presentation

Debutantes are presented to a guest of honour during their debut, as a sign that they are being welcomed into good society. Originally, debutantes were presented to a reigning monarch at the English court. These days, it’s usually to someone prominent in the community.

Circle

All the debutantes and their escorts form a large circle, and take a slow, leisurely walk around it together. It’s designed to show off the girls, much like models on a catwalk, and is probably the part Lorelai was thinking of when she said it was like a “county fair”. Once upon a time, the idea was to let eligible bachelors get a good long look at some marital prospects, but these days it’s mostly so parents can see their little girl all dressed up and take pictures for Facebook etc.

Curtsy

The debutantes receive many lessons on how to perform the perfect deep curtsy at the ball. Sometimes the curtsy is during the presentation, while at other balls, the curtsy will be part of a complicated dance or performance. Rory seems to be missing out on all those weeks of curtsy practice, but presumably is getting intensive training from her parents and grandmother that we don’t see onscreen.

Fan Dance

Often at debutante balls, the debutantes perform some kind of highly choreographed dance routine. Amusingly, at Rory’s ball, the debutantes are preparing a “fan dance”, which is literally an erotic dance, usually performed in the nude or a skimpy costume as part of a burlesque show. Of course this would never happen at a real debutante ball, and the girls will all be wearing formal dresses anyway. (Picture shows burlesque dancer Michelle L’Amour performing).

Neil Young and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

DEAN: It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
RORY: And doesn’t Neil Young look cool? … If you’ll notice, he’s wearing a tux.
DEAN: Neil Young looks cool because he’s Neil Young, not because he’s wearing a tux.

Neil Young (born 1945) is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, musician, and activist. His career started in the 1960s, and includes membership of critically-acclaimed rock band Buffalo Springfield, folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and solo work backed by his band Crazy Horse. His distorted electric guitar playing has earned him the nickname “Grandfather of Grunge”. He has won several Grammy and Juno Awards, and been named one of the great musical artists in history, defined by his guitar work, deeply personal lyrics, and signature high tenor vocals.

Neil Young has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – in 1995 as a solo artist, and in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield. He has served to induct others into the Hall of Fame six times: The Everly Brothers (1986), Woody Guthrie (1988), Jimi Hendrix (1992), Paul McCartney (1999), The Pretenders (2005), and Tom Waits (2011).

However, Neil Young doesn’t seem to have worn a tuxedo for any of his appearances at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, preferring a more casual (and occasionally more cowboy) look. When he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1982, he did dress in evening wear: not a tuxedo, but tailcoat, ruffled shirt, waistcoat and bow-tie [pictured].

It seems awfully unlikely, but just possibly they are watching an old video of this somehow (or it appears in a documentary or clip show???), and Dean mistakes it for the Rock and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. It feels as if Rory and Lane might have put it on expressly to persuade Dean that men can still look cool in formal wear.

Dean as Rory’s Escort for the Debutante Ball

We never see Rory ask Dean to be her escort for the ball, but we can safely assume he agreed with the greatest reluctance, because the first time we see him in this episode, he seems bewildered, dismayed and rather sulky as he discovers just what escorting Rory to her debut entails.

In real life, it is not recommended debutantes ask their boyfriends to be their escorts. Not only would a break-up put everything in jeopardy, but relationship dramas can create an unwelcome distraction. Some debutante committees even ban them outright, and it’s common for the committee to pair girls up with a suitable escort of their choosing – usually a boy or young man who has experience of cotillions and debutante balls. The DAR would have probably chosen someone rather like Tristan to be Rory’s escort (which could have been an interesting take on the episode).

As Rory is a very late entry, perhaps she has organised her own escort, along with her own dancing lessons and so on.

“Isn’t it a little late?”

VIVIAN LEWIS: Why don’t you present Rory there?
EMILY: Oh . .. uh . . . Well, I don’t know. Isn’t it a little late?
SUNNY: Oh please. For Emily Gilmore, I’m sure they’ll bend the rules.

Generally you’d need to apply for a debutante ball several months in advance, and commit to a ten to twelve week course of dancing and etiquette lessons in preparation. It’s more than a “little late”, and they won’t be “bending” the rules for Emily Gilmore, they’ll be smashing them to pieces!

Naturally rules are only for mere mortals, not for the glorious Gilmore girls. In this case, it’s practical for the show, because it cuts down months of ball preparation (snigger) into less than two weeks.

Emily and Her Maids

SUNNY: Another new [maid], Emily?
EMILY: Yes. The last one only made it through one evening. Thoroughly nervous creature.
NATALIE SWOPE: What do you do to them, Em?
EMILY: Oh, the usual. Clean this, cook that, sacrifice a virgin on your way out.
SUNNY: [laughs] The things you say.

Emily’s friends are teasing her about her inability to keep any maid longer than a week (where does this everlasting supply of new staff come from, I wonder?). She is apparently well known in her circle for this, and Liesl seems to have quit after just one night of having to witness Richard and Emily fighting on the stairs … no wonder she was “thoroughly nervous”!

Emily jokes that she makes her maids sacrifice a virgin, a stock trope in films about Satan worship. She’s well aware that she’s considered a bit of a “devil” as an employer. Note that Emily’s friends enjoy her rather wicked sense of humour, a trait which she and Lorelai share.

Emily is careful to hide the fact that her fight with Richard is what caused the maid to quit. She is both too proud and too loyal to let her friends know that she is currently quite unhappy.

(We only find out the name of Emily’s friends from the credits).

“I’d rather know right now”

LORELAI: A-plus.
RORY: You’re my mom.
LORELAI: Is anything higher than an A-plus?
RORY: You have to say that.
LORELAI: It’s an A-plus with a crown and a wand.
RORY: This is not how you raise a child. You don’t send them out there with a false sense of pride, because out there, in the real world, no one will coddle you. I’d rather know right now if I’m gonna be working at CNN, or carrying a basket around its offices with sandwiches in it.

Rory says she wants honest feedback on her work, but when she’s later given a critique of her abilities and an assessment of her career options, she has a complete breakdown and is unable to continue. In this case, she is happy to receive confirmation that she’s doing great, and to enjoy being coddled a while longer.

I don’t think it’s really Lorelai’s job to provide Rory with an assessment of her abilities and suggest a grade she deserves to receive. She’s not a teacher, a journalist, or a writer. She doesn’t have academic credentials or training. Surely as a mother, all she can do for Rory is support and encourage her, as she is trying to do.

At this point, Rory shouldn’t need any harsher criticism than she’s already receiving, because Chilton is supposedly a strict school with high academic standards. Is it possible she already feels that the teacher supervising The Franklin staff is too easy on her?

Richard and Emily’s Argument

The episode open with Lorelai and Rory stumbling into Richard and Emily having a disagreement with raised voices. This is the first time we have seen Richard and Emily together since the night that Lorelai announced her engagement, back in June. Apparently things haven’t been going well since then.

Richard has always been shown to be very preoccupied with his job, and even had an angina attack from the stress. Since then, he hasn’t slowed down, and has spent a lot of time travelling for work. Now it’s seemingly taking up so much of his time, he is unable to escort to Emily to her many charity events. I’m not sure why Emily is unable to go alone, or with a friend. Perhaps it would excite gossip that her marriage was on the rocks or something.

This has left Emily not only out of the loop socially, and no doubt lonely and bored, but feeling deeply unappreciated. Richard refers to her charity work as “social engagements” – which they are – but to Emily they are so much more. They are her life’s work, and her power base, which she has worked on achieving just as hard as Richard does at his job. For Emily to keep skipping events would be like Richard missing work, and you can feel her fear of her life slipping away from her.

It turns out in this episode that Emily sits on the boards of so many organisations that it seems unbelievable it has never caused any conflicts until now. In fact, it’s quite an unbelievable amount of boards in itself, to drive home the point that Emily Gilmore is one of the people who “run” Hartford.