Tag: Oh Really?

Final Party Scene

As we leave Lorelai and Max’s engagement party, the camera pans around so we can see what everyone is doing.

Miss Patty is dancing with Kirk; it is unclear at this point if they have only known each other for a few months, or if the show has already retconned Kirk as Miss Patty’s former student. A strange little moment takes place when Miss Patty looks up at Kirk as if she is going to say something, then seemingly thinks better of it and looks away again with a mysterious expression. You would almost think that she was about to suggest that the two of them become closer – you might remember that when Miss Patty met Kirk in Cinnamon’s Wake, she said she would date him if he had a better haircut. (And in The Break Up Part 2, Kirk had apparently been told gossip by Miss Patty between 10 pm and 6 am, which is interesting).

Rory and Dean, sitting on a bench together having resolved their argument. Rory has her head sleepily on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean kisses the top of her head.

Lane leaving for the airport with her parents, and surely extremely late by now, with a comically huge suitcase she wouldn’t actually be allowed to take on the plane in real life.

Lorelai and Max dancing together. Max smiles lovingly down at his prospective bride, but Lorelai is looking over his shoulder at Luke, who is walking towards the party.

Luke and Lorelai wave and smile at each other; Max doesn’t see this as they are doing it behind his back. Luke sits down on a bench, next to three of the little girls dressed as brides who did the tap dance in the gazebo. Coincidentally or not, Luke will have important relationships with three women in the show before Lorelai (Anna, Rachel, and Nicole).

“Now I’m an expert at it”

RORY: And I could help you organize all of your extracurricular activities because I’m now an expert at it.
DEAN: I don’t …
RORY: How are your wilderness skills?

How did Rory become “an expert” at extracurricular activities in what is posited as a 24-hour period? All she can have done is read a few brochures and made a couple of phone calls, or sent a few emails – on a weekend.

Furthermore, what does being “an expert” mean? Has she got herself some volunteer work for the summer? Because she never mentions it again, and that part of the year isn’t depicted on the show.

“You could go to a fancy school if you wanted to”

DEAN: I mean, I’m not going to a fancy school. I don’t have that kind of pressure. I can’t even imagine what that must feel like.
RORY: You could go to a fancy school if you wanted to.
DEAN: I don’t think so.
RORY: Why not? You’re smart.

Rory continues trying to make Dean into something he’s not – he’s an average student who likes playing sport and home mechanics, but she persists in making him read classic literature, and telling him he could get into a private school if he wanted to. On some level, she cannot be satisfied with Dean as a boyfriend if she won’t accept him not being a bookworm and not going to private school.

Dean is too polite to make the obvious comeback: that he doesn’t have rich grandparents who can bankroll his academic dreams. Even Rory, a very good student, couldn’t get into Chilton on a scholarship, so what hope does Dean have of attending a similar school with average grades and no money for school fees?

“I built a house yesterday”

KIRK: I have to tell you, I’m a little worried about this gazebo holding up all those hoofers. They never did a trial run like I requested.
RORY: Oh, I think it’s okay. The studs are definitely sound, and the two by fours are a nice number two structural grade. Or better possibly. I built a house yesterday.

Again, for Rory to have built a house yesterday, on a Saturday, and it’s now Saturday night, shows that we have strangely had two Saturdays in a row.

University of Toronto

LANE: Just don’t let her [Lorelai] change the date [of her wedding].
RORY: Not going to happen. Max is teaching a summer course at the University of Toronto, so if you’re back by the end of the summer, it’ll be fine.

The University of Toronto is a public university in the city of Toronto, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada, and is the highest ranked university in the country, named among the best in the world. First founded by royal charter in 1827 and controlled by the Church of England, it changed its name in 1850 after becoming a secular instiution.

The university’s summer programs take place over 3-6 weeks, which fits in with Max being away until early August (so in fact the wedding could be moved up, causing Lane to miss it). Presumably Max is teaching classes in English Literature.

Gilmore Girls was first filmed in Unionville, on the outskirts of Toronto, so this seems like a gesture towards the show’s beginnings (at one time, they considered filming the show in Toronto permanently).

“What time do you leave?”

LANE: What time is it?
RORY: It’s eight. What time do you leave?
LANE: I have a ten o’clock flight.

If it’s 8 pm and Lane’s flight is at 10 pm, shouldn’t she be at the airport already, or at least on her way there? Most airlines recommend you arrive 2-3 hours before an international flight. This was shortly before 9/11, when travel security was less of an issue, but even before then, 90 minutes prior to the flight was the minimum, and Hartford is half an hour’s drive away.

“I had a really lousy night”

LORELAI: Hey Sookie. Is there any coffee left? I had a really lousy night.
SOOKIE: Oh sorry. Ya know, I’ve been so busy I didn’t even think about it.

This scene takes place on the day following the night where Lorelai had a fight with Emily – oddly, they both take place on Saturdays. We know this because the fight took place the day after Friday Night Dinner, and the engagement party is also on a Saturday. But instead of those things being a week apart, they happen within 24 hours of each other.

Boca Burger

MICHEL: Go back to the cooking room.
SOOKIE: Not until you eat these and tell me what you think!
MICHEL: Sookie! I only eat fifteen hundred calories a day. If I eat that, I cannot have my Boca Burger later.

Boca Burger is a vegetarian burger patty made from soy protein and wheat gluten, first manufactured in 1979. Boca Burger products have been owned by Kraft Foods since 2000.

We learn here that Michel eats only 1500 calories a day. One Boca Burger has around 70 calories, while macaroon has over 400 calories and a chocolate praline cookie over 300. Clearly if Michel eats both cookies, as Sookie wants him to, he’s going to have to give up more than a Boca Burger – he will have eaten around half of his daily calorie intake on just two cookies!

Maybe he’s including the bread and salad to accompany the patty, although even that would only be around 400 calories. Or maybe he is calculating the calories of just one bite from each cookie, since he would only need a taste of each to decide which one he prefers.

1500 calories a day is about the lowest amount of food recommended for a man, and it probably wouldn’t be recommended long term, especially for someone who’s already a healthy weight. Even men on calorie restriction diets usually eat around 1800 calories a day, and still lose weight doing so. We never actually see Michel lose much weight on his strict diet, so maybe he’s having a few cheat days.

Lorelai seems to eat as much as she wants while remaining slim, while poor old Michel apparently starves himself just to maintain a normal weight.

“Thirty-two years”

EMILY: And what about me confuses you Lorelai?
LORELAI: Well, so many things. I mean, for example, why can’t you keep a maid in this house? I mean, there must’ve been a thousand women who’ve gone through here in the thirty-two years that I’ve been alive, and not one of them could stick it out.

In fact, Lorelai had her birthday about two months ago, and is now thirty-three. It’s possible that at this stage Lorelai’s birthday had not been settled on, and it might have been imagined as later in the year.

Poor Max is left to stand uncomfortably by the door, unwelcome and completely unacknowledged by Lorelai and Emily while they have their fight. It’s an inauspicious meeting with his prospective mother-in-law, and demonstrates he is little more than a sideshow in Lorelai’s life.