Footnotes to the TV series
MRS. KIM: You break, you buy!
This is of dubious legality. In the US, sometimes a customer would have to pay at least partially for an item they broke negligently or on purpose, but US law is so complex that it is hard to say what would actually occur if it went to court. In this case, Kim’s Antiques is so cluttered that the customer could easily have argued that the Kims themselves were responsible for the breakage.
RORY: Your mom’s really mad huh?
LANE: The words “convent” and “Siberia” were both used several times and at least once as a combo.
It’s not clear why Mrs. Kim, a practicing and devout Seventh Day Adventist, would send her daughter to a convent, which are generally Catholic, Anglican, or Orthodox. I’m guessing either Lane is exaggerating, or Mrs. Kim was babbling threatening nonsense in a terrified (and terrifying) rage.
However, if Mrs. Kim was determined to send Lane to a convent in Siberia, there is a small one in the city of Omsk, Siberia – the Beatas Olimpia y Laurencia. It is highly unlikely that they would accept Lane though.
Sookie says this phrase to one of her kitchen assistants; it means “I need the large sheets of paper” in Spanish. She is making meringue, and needs the sheets of baking paper to line the baking tray.
The Spanish-speaking kitchen staff at the inn isn’t very realistic, as the Hispanic population in rural Connecticut isn’t that big, and the majority of Hispanics in Connecticut are American-born and would already speak English. It’s more in keeping with California, where Gilmore Girls was made, which has a Hispanic population of around 39% with a high rate of immigration from Latin America.
RORY: You made up these stupid rules years ago about the way the Gilmore women would run their lives and now you’re sticking to them even though they’re crazy!
LORELAI: Oh hey, my crazy, stupid rules are the reason we’re doing so good in our lives. They’re the reason you grew up the way you did, the reason you’re even in this school, and the reason you’re going to go to Harvard, so don’t you dismiss my rules.
The reason Rory is at Chilton is because her grandparents are paying for it, not because of Lorelai. In fact Lorelai broke her usual rules by asking her parents for money, so it’s by not sticking to the “crazy, stupid rules” that Rory is at Chilton.
LORELAI: Look it is what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. This is a family. Rory and I, you walked into a family, but you weren’t listening and now she’s getting attached and I’m afraid she’s gonna get hurt.
MAX: So you solution to all of this is not to return my calls
LORELAI: It just took me a while to figure things out and it all came clear when I realized how much we could hurt Rory.
MAX: Don’t you mean how much we could hurt Lorelai?
After deciding that Rory is old enough for Lorelai to openly date men with her full knowledge, Lorelai suddenly panics when she worries how a break up with Max might affect Rory. It’s a little bit unbelievable, as Rory has hardly “got attached” to Max – apart from seeing him at school, they had one very brief conversation together when he came to pick Lorelai up for a date.
Max immediately calls her out on it, seeing that what Lorelai really fears is getting hurt herself. It’s Lorelai who is “getting attached” to Max, and fears the consequences to herself if they ever broke up. Once again, she is using Rory as an excuse to avoid a long-term committed relationship.
Rory later says she can’t believe Lorelai is “blaming her” for her relationship difficulties with Max, showing that she doesn’t appreciate being used an excuse.
When Lorelai meets Max at the cafe, she admits that worrying about Rory very soon jumped to worrying about herself.
This is the meal that Max makes for Lorelai when she spends the evening at his apartment. It is a traditional Italian dish, originating from Milan, and consists of veal shanks braised with vegetables, white wine, and broth. Its name translates as “bone with a hole”, referring to the marrow hole in the centre of the shank.
Max learned the recipe from a former girlfriend, possibly one of Italian heritage. For some reason he is shy about telling Lorelai this, even though he already told her about a serious relationship he had two episodes back.
The dog Buttercup is an interesting mixture of Cocker Spaniel, Golden Retriever, Rottweiler, and Bouvier des Flandres. (The actual dog does not resemble this description very closely).
Bouvier des Flandres is a large woolly herding dog breed from Belgium; its name means “cowherd of Flanders” in French. President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy owned a dog of this breed named Lucky.
Because the pizza doesn’t arrive, a desperately hungry Lorelai fills a bag of salad leaves with ranch dressing and eats it from the bag – another sign that the Gilmore girls do in fact have vegetables in their fridge and will eat them.
RORY: Fine, I’m going.
LORELAI: Drive carefully. Watch out for ice.
As earlier discussed, Rory wouldn’t be able to drive anywhere alone without a driver’s licence. By now she would be able to drive on a learner’s permit with supervision, but she wouldn’t be able to go for her driving test until late February 2001.
LORELAI: I had the German measles in the fifth grade, I still had to show up to the Christmas party … My polka dot dress matched my face and still I had to sit through twelve courses.
German measles, also known as rubella, is an infection caused by the Rubella virus. It is often mild in children, and symptoms include low-grade fever, sore throat, fatigue, and a rash. The disease can be considerably more severe if an adult catches it, and worst of all for women in the early stages of pregnancy – it increases the chance of miscarriage, and there is a high chance of the baby being born with disabilities such as blindness, deafness, mental retardation, and heart defects.
A vaccine against the virus was developed in 1969 and it was added to the MMR vaccine in 1971, so it was possible for Lorelai to be vaccinated against German measles. In 1977 (when Lorelai was 8-9) the US developed a nationwide childhood immunisation initiative – children are usually 10-11 in fifth grade, so Lorelai should theoretically have been vaccinated by then. This does fit in with Amy Sherman-Palladino’s age though, as she is two years older than Lorelai and would have been in 5th grade around 1977 – maybe just too late to avoid getting the disease.
In any case, Emily was irresponsible and selfish to force Lorelai to attend a party with German measles. The disease is highly infectious, and any female of child-bearing age would be at risk, as you don’t usually know you are pregnant in the early stages.
There is no excuse for ignorance either, as there was a rubella epidemic in the US in 1964-65, not that long before Lorelai’s birth, leading to about 16 000 children being born disabled, as well as 2000 neonatal deaths, and 11 000 abortions and miscarriages due to the disease.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 