Tag: Oh Really?

Dinner with Emily

The episode opens with Lorelai and Rory having Friday Night Dinner with Emily; Richard is on a business trip to Germany. It is actually the evening of the same Friday that Rory missed the Shakespeare test in the previous episode, The Deer Hunters.

Later episodes will show Emily having a direct hotline to Chilton gossip through her friendship with Bitty Charleston, the headmaster’s wife. Yet Emily never brings up the fact that both Rory and Lorelai have thrown massive fits in the headmaster’s office that very day, and Rory was even sent home from school because of her behaviour.

Maybe her friendship with Bitty is not yet as close as it will be later, or Headmaster Charleston was unusually discreet about being yelled at by two Gilmores. For whatever reason, Lorelai seems to get away with it completely, and she has a rare escape from being chastised severely by her mother.

“Was it my dream?”

LORELAI: I’m talking about – did it start with me? Or did it start with you? Was it my dream that you go to Harvard? … Because I never got to do the big fancy college thing? Maybe all this time I’m thinking it’s all for Rory, when really it wasn’t.

Lorelai is being disingenuous – she knew perfectly well that Harvard was her dream for Rory when she discussed this with Mr. Medina. However, she does tell Rory that she doesn’t want her to go to Chilton and Harvard if it makes her unhappy. Rory says that however it started, Harvard is her dream now, and she won’t give up on it.

Jeep

LORELAI: So what does the deer look like? Huh? Does it have any distinguishing marks – besides the word Jeep imprinted on it’s forehead?

Jeep is a brand of American automobile, made by Chrysler; their range is in sport utility vehicles and off-road vehicles. The original Jeep was made in 1941 for the military, and was the primary four-wheel drive vehicle used by the Allies; after the war they were produced for civilian use. Lorelai’s car is a 2000 Jeep Wrangler (although in the show it is said to be a 1999 model).

A couple of episodes ago, a connection was made between Lorelai and Daisy Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard when Lorelai chose to wear denim shorts to Chilton. Another thing they have in common is that they both drive Jeeps – but Daisy’s was white, while Lorelai’s is tan. Gilmore Girls was filmed on several of the same sets at Warner Brothers as The Dukes of Hazzard – Stars Hollow High School was previously the Hazzard County Courthouse, for example.

After Gilmore Girls run ended, Lorelai’s Jeep was auctioned off in 2011, and sold to the highest bidder. It was bought by someone from Deep River, Connecticut – a small town with a selectman, a strong sense of community, a day devoted to colonial history, a quaint main street, and a town square with a gazebo. In fact, it’s gone to somewhere rather like Stars Hollow!

Secret handshake

MICHEL: There is a man with a funny accent on the phone asking for you.
LORELAI: Really? Did you guys exchange the secret handshake?

A secret handshake is any non-standard handshake used to signify fellowship within a certain group. The most famous organisation with a secret handshake is The Freemasons.

It is not clear who the man with the funny accent is: it is presumably either Mr. Medina or Headmaster Charleston, neither of whom has an especially hilarious accent. Maybe all Americans sound funny to Michel.

“I know his birthday”

RORY: I know everything there is to know about Shakespeare … I know his birthday and his mother’s name and that kind of –

In fact William Shakespeare’s birthday is not known, just that he was baptised on April 26. His birthday is traditionally commemorated on April 23 – this is because it is both the day he died, and St. George’s Day, the national saint of England.

William Shakespeare’s mother was Mary Arden.

Rory’s Study for the Shakespeare Test

The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s early plays, and a farce involving two pairs of twins and mistaken identity. It was written around 1594, so Rory’s statement that it was written in 1590 is just an estimate – the exact date isn’t known. It was published in 1623 though, as that was the first collection made of Shakespeare’s plays.

Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s historical plays. It was written around 1592, so Rory’s guess of 1591 is within the acceptable time-frame and not actually wrong. In real life, it would be very unusual for students to be tested on their knowledge of the dates of Shakespeare’s plays, as they are usually not known for sure. As we never see the actual test, Rory could be studying all the wrong things anyway.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets are a 1609 collection of love sonnets, most of which are addressed to either a Dark Lady or a Fair Youth. It is not known whether these figures are fictional or based on real people. It is not even known for certain whether the sonnets were written by William Shakespeare.

During the study session, Lorelai makes a buzzer noise when Rory gets a question wrong, as if she is on a game show.

B-52s

Lorelai wears a B-52’s (now known as the B-52s) tee-shirt to the parent-teacher night. It’s apparently one she keeps in the car in case of accidents to clothing, and in this case she spilled coffee on herself while driving. The vision of Lorelai sitting half-naked in the car while she changes shirts is a strange one, and we might wonder where and how she managed to do this in a way that nobody noticed.

Perhaps she was able to pull over in the woods on the road to Hartford, or she’s one of those people who think nobody can see them while they’re in a car, despite the windows being made of glass, and happily pick their nose or get undressed in front of others.

The B-52s are an American new wave band formed in 1976, with an original line-up of Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson, Ricky Wilson, and Keith Strickland. They are best known for their 1978 debut single Rock Lobster, and their 1989 hit single Love Shack.

Advanced Placement

The Chilton parents are very concerned about whether the texts Mr. Medina has chosen will be covered in the Advanced Placement tests.

In the US and Canada, Advanced Placement (AP) is a program which offers college-level curricula and exmainations to high school students. American colleges and universities may grant placement and course credit to those students who get high scores in the AP exams.

Mr. Medina says that the next AP test will be held in the following month (November), but in real life AP Tests are always held in May.

We learn from this that Rory is in the AP English Literature class to improve her chances of attending university. We don’t know what other AP classes she might be doing at Chilton, but any class that she has with Paris seems like a pretty safe bet.

Mr. Medina

When the scene changes to Rory’s English Literature class, the teacher is now Mr. Max Medina (Scott Cohen). However, when Rory first started at Chilton two episodes ago, her English Literature teacher was Mr. Remmy (John Billingsley).

There is no attempt made to explain this away, such as Mr. Remmy suddenly leaving and Mr. Medina taking his place, or Mr. Remmy having filled in temporarily while Mr. Medina is sick (Mr. Medina says they’ve been studying Shakespeare for the past three weeks). It is just retconned as Mr. Medina having always been the English Literature teacher and Mr. Remmy never existing.

You can try to explain it as Mr. Remmy being the English teacher and Mr. Medina taking the English Literature class, except that if you add up all Rory’s subjects that she takes in her first semester, that would give her too many classes to attend. It also doesn’t quite gel with Rory being behind in her reading for Mr. Remmy’s class, and then getting a D in Mr. Medina’s class because she was behind in her reading.

The decision seems to have been made to match Lorelai up with Rory’s teacher, and Mr. Remmy wasn’t going to cut it as a love interest, thus entering Mr. Max Medina. The best-selling novel The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot had just been released in October 2000, which featured a teenage girl living with her single mother, and the mother began a relationship with the heroine’s Algebra teacher. Either this was an influence on Gilmore Girls, or it’s an example of zeitgeist.

Actor Scott Cohen does have some experience at the front of a school classroom: in his twenties he spent some time as a substitute teacher, teaching music to kindergarten children at an elementary school in Queens, New York. He was offered a permanent position, but had to turn them down so he could concentrate on his acting career. He and Lauren Graham, who plays Lorelai, were already friends before they starred in Gilmore Girls as a couple.