Luke Hears Lorelai’s News

With great trepidation because everyone has made it seem like such a big deal, Lorelai tells Luke that Max proposed to her. He has already guessed (or heard it on the Stars Hollow grapevine), and deliberately behaves in a nonchalant manner.

She is already taken aback, when he begins questioning her about what her plans for married life with Max are. Of course she doesn’t have any – she hasn’t even decided whether to marry Max or not, let alone thought about the reality of it.

Luke’s questions, which are quite rude and intrusive, have the effect of making Lorelai realise in a panic that she and Max haven’t had even one conversation about where they will live as a married couple, whether Max expects Lorelai to keep working, if they plan of having children together, or even how they will manage their joint finances.

Incidentally in this scene, you can get a good look at the coffee brand that Luke uses in the diner. It’s Hills Bros. Coffee, a brand from San Francisco sold since the early twentieth century. It was owned by Sara Lee in 2001, and is now owned by Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA.

Hills Bros claim their coffee has a bold, smooth flavour, but reviews for it tend to say it smells better than it tastes, and is generally pretty mediocre, although very strong and good value for money. Somehow Luke manages to make this average, budget-wise coffee taste amazing – which is quite a feat for someone who doesn’t drink coffee and doesn’t approve of it. Perhaps Lorelai and Rory aren’t as fussy about coffee as they think they are, or they are heavily biased by their love for Luke.

Everyone is Interested in Lorelai and Luke

Once word (instantly) gets around town that Lorelai has had a marriage proposal, all the townspeople are inordinately interested in seeing how Luke takes the news.

This is taken to exaggerated levels when a line of people, most of whom we have never seen before, form a line and begin following Lorelai to the diner. They then proceed to press their faces against the diner’s windows so they can watch Luke hear the news. They won’t be able to hear anything from the street, but apparently they don’t care.

For normal people, only friends and family (maybe) are interested in your wedding news; for Lorelai and Luke, they are the celebrities of Stars Hollow that even strangers find completely fascinating.

Rory tells Lorelai that “everyone knows” that Luke “has a thing for Lorelai”, which means that Rory knows too, and still discouraged Lorelai from seeking out a relationship with him.

A Thousand Yellow Daisies

MICHEL: Daisies no less. As if I would order these pitiful little things. Foul things, these daisies. And just a notch up from weeds. And look how many. I mean, there must be at least …
LORELAI: A thousand of them. A thousand yellow daisies.
(Pan around inn’s lobby, which is filled with daisies. Lorelai walks into the middle and them and looks around.)

There are clearly way more than a thousand yellow daisies in this scene, which sounds impressive but would really just be a few bunches of flowers. You can make it work by understanding it as one thousand pots of daisies, but in reality they probably just kept putting out daisies until it looked like a huge number of flowers.

Daisies can symbolise love, fertility, and the return of someone’s affections, while the yellow colour is cheerful, vibrant, and a sign of being quick-witted, rather like Lorelai herself. Daisies are sacred to the Virgin Mary, which is a callback to the Gilmore surname itself. More generally, daisies symbolise motherhood, so Lorelai’s choice of flower can be read, “Love me, but remember I am a mother first”.

The name daisy literally means “day’s eye”, and daisies can symbolise the marking of time, and the progress of the sun throughout the day and the year. This makes it the perfect flower for Gilmore Girls, a show which is all about time.

Rory and Dean Reunite

While Rory is arguing with Tristan, Dean appears. He has slowly put together the pieces of the puzzle: Rory came to his house, and made a speech in public about how hard it is express your feelings. From this he correctly deduces that Rory wants to see him, and really does have feelings for him, so he drives to her school to confront her.

Why he didn’t just go to her house is not clear – maybe he was scared to see Lorelai, or word had got around that Luke was spending all his free time, and some time that wasn’t free, hanging around Lorelai’s house. It also seems to have taken him a long time to ponder the two bits of information and arrive at the correct result, as it’s more than a week since the town meeting now.

Luckily security at Chilton is really lax, and nobody tells Dean to get off school property or go find somewhere else to park rather than the main courtyard in front of the building. And luckily Rory happened to come right to where he was waiting, and he even got to rescue her from creepy Tristan.

Rory is glad to see him, and touched to discover that he has a Rory box of memories, the counterpart to her Dean box of memories. She is finally able to say, “I love you“, although she can’t help adding, “… you idiot”, and she kisses Dean.

“I just got the job”

PARIS: I just got the job [of school newspaper editor].
RORY: Oh. Congratulations.
PARIS: Thank you. And don’t worry, you’ll have some role. How’s covering the new parking lot landscaping sound?

Paris is not kidding – writing up the new parking lot is the first assignment that she sets Rory when school resumes the next semester.

To me it seems unbelievable that a junior would be given the job of editor over seniors, who would already have a year of experience under their belt. However, it’s not impossible The Franklin is a school newspaper specifically for juniors to work on, and Paris can be very forceful when she wants something. Rory certainly didn’t seem to make much effort to get chosen as editor, which she should have done as an aspiring journalist.

Clara

RORY: What’s your name?
CLARA: Clara.

Clara (Scout Taylor-Compton) is Dean’s younger sister. Dean earlier alluded to having “sisters”, and Clara is one of them, although we never directly hear of any other. She seems to be around eight or nine years old, since she is still in the Brownies.

It is very strange that Rory has apparently never been to Dean’s house before, or met his family, even though they live in a small town and dated for several months. It’s even odder because Dean knows her mother very well, and visits her house often.

It makes her look like a detached and rather selfish girlfriend, that she expects Dean to always come to her, and to fit in with her life, rather than both of them making an effort. Or perhaps Dean has rather weirdly kept her away from his family, in which case she seems to have passively accepted it rather than argued against it.

Notice that the Forester’s front door has a friendly “Welcome” sign on the front door decorated with a red rose – a sure sign that Dean would welcome Rory’s visit, and her love, if only she knew.

Milk and Cookies

LUKE: It’s just a little weird having her [Rachel] in my place.
LORELAI: I thought that’s what you wanted.
LUKE: It was. Is. I’m just … I’ve just been living alone since forever. And I just got used to putting the milk someplace in the fridge and finding it in the exact same spot. You know what I mean?
LORELAI: Oh, we don’t even keep milk in the house.
LUKE: Well, then cookies.
LORELAI: Cookies almost never make it out of the car.

Luke admits that having Rachel back in his life isn’t what he thought he wanted – even he notices that he puts wanting her in the past tense before quickly correcting himself.

It is absolute nonsense that Lorelai and Rory don’t keep milk and cookies in the house. We have often seen both in their kitchen, and the milk is especially needed because they drink so much coffee.

Honey, Don’t Think

After Rory has tried to find Dean in Doose’s Market, and failed, she and Lane walk away while the town Troubadour sings this song. It’s from Grant Lee Buffalo’s 1994 album Mighty Joe Moon, earlier mentioned. The song seems to be advising Rory not to think about it too long before talking to Dean.

On Rory and Lane’s walk away from the market, we learn that it is around 4.30 pm by the town clock, which seems too early for Rory to already be back from school (she gets out at 4.05 pm, and has a 40 minute bus ride home). Viewers will also notice that Rory’s little box of French fries is empty, so Lane must have eaten them all while she was waiting for Rory, in line with her lust for junk food that her mother won’t allow.

“Six-thirty in the morning!”

LORELAI: What are you doing?
LUKE: Fixing your porch rail.
LORELAI: That’s right. You are. You’re fixing my porch rail … at six-thirty in the morning!
LUKE: It was the only time I could do it.

The diner opens at 6 am, so what is Luke doing at Lorelai’s at 6.30? Has he just left Rachel and the rest of the staff to cook and run the diner while he wanders off to do handyman work for Lorelai? Or does the diner open later on Sundays?

Lorelai Tells Everyone About Max

After watching Rory and Lane make up their fight with hugs, Lorelai lets Max know that she is going to tell everyone they are back together. It’s pretty stupid as they haven’t even been on a date yet, but it’s happening anyway.

Lorelai begins with A in her address book, and calls Richie Andrews. Richie might be Lorelai’s second cousin on her mother’s side, which would be rather interesting. Frustratingly, he might also be the man who regrouted the bathroom, and if so, must have done a pretty amazing job to be in her personal address book.

Why you would even feel the need to tell the man who regrouted your bathroom about your love life I don’t know, nor do I understand how you might mix him up with your second cousin.