Tag: Oh Really?

“So tell me more about her”

RORY: So tell me more about her [her great-grandmother] …
LORELAI: Well, let’s see. She moved to London when Grandpa died but she didn’t like to travel, so once a year Mom and Dad would go to visit her, usually leaving me behind, much to my relief by the way, and that’s it.

We don’t know when Richard’s father died, but it was clearly a long time ago, possibly before Lorelai was born. It seems strange that someone who doesn’t like to travel would move overseas to live.

Richard and Emily said they can only afford to go to Europe every two years, but Lorelai says they saw Richard’s mother in London every year. Maybe they used to have more money when Lorelai was a child, or prices were cheaper? Because Lorelai says they “usually” left her behind, it means that she must have been to London with her parents at least once.

As her grandmother is the only one who can seemingly control Lorelai and scare her into uncharacteristically meek behaviour, it makes the viewer wonder if Lorelai would have gone off the rails as a teenager if Richard’s mother hadn’t moved to London. I suspect not, and Gilmore Girls would never have happened.

“Fifteen years”

HENRY: Sorry I’ve been monopolising Lane all night.
RORY: Oh no, that’s okay. I’ve had her for fifteen years. I’m actually a little sick of her.

That would mean that Rory and Lane have known each other since they were one year old, but Rory didn’t move to Stars Hollow until she was nearly two. This might show again that the original intention was for Lorelai and Rory to move to Stars Hollow in 1985, when Rory was only a few months old.

“Why don’t you see if Lane can come with you?”

LORELAI: Why don’t you see if Lane can come with you [to the party]? You know that way if the socialising doesn’t turn out how you planned, you got a friendly face around.
RORY: Okay, good idea. Thank you.

How Mrs Kim ever allowed Lane to go out to a co-ed teenage party in Hartford on the Sabbath when they would be getting home fairly late is a real mystery. Especially if it was in order to comfort Rory over a break up with a boyfriend that Mrs Kim thought she never should have had. I can’t imagine how Lane ever pulled this one off.

“So where’s that list?”

LORELAI: So where’s that list?
RORY: What?
LORELAI: The list, we’ve got a lot to do Missy, otherwise I’m gonna be dragging your butt outta bed at 6 again tomorrow morning. So, where do we start?

I’m not sure how they can start at all yet. Rory woke Lorelai up at 6 am, and they would have been at the diner by around 6.30 am (Lorelei got dressed, they talked, and they walked there by a slightly longer route than usual). It can’t be any later than 7 am by now, and the shops and recycling centre surely won’t be open for another hour at least.

When Rory asks Dean if he is okay after his fight with Luke, the clock shows that it is still only 6.25 am, so somehow the speedy Rory and Lorelai were able to get ready, walk to the diner, and eat breakfast all within less than half an hour.

I’m not sure when Luke had a chance to cook their breakfast while he was fighting Dean, but perhaps someone else did it, or the Gilmores just decided to leave without eating breakfast – yet another case of them storming out of a meal without eating anything. If so, it makes the visit to the diner seem pretty pointless: they could have not eaten at home.

Even if they skipped breakfast it barely seems possible they could do everything in 25 minutes, but if that’s what happened then they still have around two hours before the shops open.

“If you tell Miss Patty …”

RORY: If you tell Miss Patty, everybody in town is gonna know.
LORELAI: Honey, people have their own lives and their own problems. I hardly think you and Dean breaking up is the main thing on their minds.

What Rory is worried about Lorelai telling Miss Patty is unclear. It has already been established that Miss Patty knew about Rory and Dean breaking up without being told, from the “numerous sources” to which Lorelai vaguely attributes her knowledge. Lorelai’s reasonable response has already been proven dead wrong, so I don’t know why she is persisting with it. It looks as if this is a scripting error which made it through rewrites and editing, as it seems to belong to their much earlier conversation.

Getting Over Max

RORY: I am fine.
LORELAI: But if you could see the look on your face.
RORY: It’s the same look you had on your face when you broke up with Max. Did wallowing help you get over him?
LORELAI: I’m not saying wallowing will help you get over Dean. It’s part of the process. It’s the mourning period. It’s a step, an important step. The only thing that will get you over somebody is time.
RORY: How much time did it take you to get over Max?

It was just yesterday afternoon from their perspective that Lorelai told Rory that she still missed Max, so Rory should already know that she isn’t over him. Maybe she is being disingenuous, although it’s strange that Lorelai doesn’t recall their conversation either.

“It’s probably all around town by now”

RORY: They know.
LORELAI: They don’t know.
RORY: It’s probably all around town by now.
LORELAI: Honey it just happened last night, it’s like six in the morning.

Rory sounds completely paranoid – she and Dean broke up the night before in a private place, and it’s now early the next morning. Lorelai is being quite reasonable to say it’s not possible for everyone to know yet.

Yet Rory is correct. Miss Patty already knows – but how? Literally, how is it even possible? Is Miss Patty psychic, or so intuitive that Rory’s sad face suggests just one possibility to her? Kirk also knows somehow, although we never see the beginning of his conversation with Rory, and it’s possible she told him herself, if Miss Patty hasn’t already. (If so, when did Miss Patty tell him?)

Stars Hollow is a very gossipy place where everyone knows your business, but the method by which they do so is really most mysterious.

Exedrin PM

LORELAI: Sleep in? Luke?
RACHEL: Oh believe me, it wasn’t easy to get him to agree to it, but in the end, a little sweet talk, a couple of Excedrin PM he finally caved.

Excedrin is a brand of painkillers suitable for headaches, sold over the counter; it contains a mixture of paracetamol, aspirin, and caffeine. It is one of the most popular OTC pain medications in the US. Excedrin PM is paracetamol combined with an antihistamine that makes you drowsy. It’s been produced since 1969.

The fact that the diner opens for business at 6 am, that Luke lives over the diner, and for Luke, sleeping in means he stays in bed until past 6 (only possible because Rachel is there), means that it would never have been possible for him to stay up all night painting with Lorelai as they planned in That Damned Donna Reed, nor would it have been possible for Lorelai to paint the diner alone in the early hours of the morning without waking him.