DOCTOR: She sustained a minor hairline fracture to her wrist.
LORELAI: So she broke her wrist? ….
DOCTOR: It’s a tiny fracture, absolutely nothing serious. I’m gonna put a cast on it. She’ll wear it for a couple weeks, that’s it.
There is essentially no difference between a fracture and a break – a hairline crack and having a bone shattered into pieces are both referred to as a fracture. The terms are interchangeable. Fractures usually take 6 to 8 weeks to heal, a hairline fracture may be on the shorter side of that, but only two weeks in a cast doesn’t seem plausible. However, it’s not long until the end of the season, which probably has a lot to do with the doctor’s treatment plan!
Lorelai insists that the doctor do some more X-rays, which he agrees to, but hairlines fractures don’t typically show up on X-rays, so it’s a waste of everybody’s time. It’s just to give Lorelai a chance to keep Rory busy while she goes off to do some yelling. Most parents wouldn’t leave their injured kid at a hospital in the middle of the night like that, but this is TV, not reality! Unfortunately for the plot, it makes Lorelai look incredibly selfish. I mean, more so than usual.
RORY: You’ve done card tricks, you’ve made coffee, you’ve tried to explain to me how on earth Coldplay could be considered an alternative band, but as of yet, no studying.
Coldplay, British rock band formed in 1996, with vocalist and pianist Christ Martin, guitarist Johnny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, and drummer Will Champion.
Their 2000 debut album Parachutes included their breakthrough hit “Yellow”, and it received a Brit Award for British Album of the Year and a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. This may be the source of Rory and Jess’ discussion as to how Coldplay can be considered an “alternative band”. In the US, their singles were played on college and alternative radio stations, and charted on the Alternative Music charts.
LORELAI: Suspense – ice skater falls in love with hired help. Well, at least now I know how Snow Dogs got made.
Snow Dogs, a 2002 adventure comedy film directed by Brian Levant, and inspired by the non-fiction book Winterdance by by Gary Paulsen. It stars Cuba Gooding Jr as an adopted dentist from Miami who travels through the Alaskan wilderness with a pack of sled dogs in search of his inheritance and the truth about his family origins. He finds love with a bar owner, played by Joanna Bacalso.
The film was panned by critics as mediocre, cliched, tiresome, and stale, but was a commercial success. Disney released the film in January that year, so Lorelai and Rory must have seen it within the last few months.
All the films that Lorelai mentions in Taylor’s catalogue are made by Monogram Pictures, a film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, after which they were known as Allied Artists Picture Corporation. Lacking the resources to deliver high production values and big stars, they instead offered plenty of action and adventure. They launched the careers of many actors who went on to become stars, and provided a haven for good actors whose careers had stalled.
Monogram/Allied Artists continued until 1979; their library is now owned by Warner Bros, MGM, and Paramount, while a few are in the public domain – although none of the films listed here.
Arctic Flight [pictured] A 1952 drama film directed by Lew Landers, about a bush pilot, played by Mike Wein, flying in the Arctic. There is a Soviet spy adventure involving a polar bear hunter, and romance with a schoolteacher, played by Lola Albright. It’s a B movie, considered unpretentious and well-made.
Killer Shark A 1950 B movie directed by Budd Boetticher, and starring actor Roddy McDowell, who had been a successful child actor in England before moving to America with his family. He went on to star in some major films during the 1960s and 1970s, and had a lengthy career.
Where Are Your Children? A 1943 teenage crime film directed by William Nigh and starring former child star Jackie Cooper. It was more successful than the studio had expected, and they made a sequel the following year called Are These Our Parents?
Sudden Danger A 1955 film noir crime drama directed by Hubert Cornfield and starring Bill Elliot as the police detective investigating a possible murder, and Tom Drake as the man who hopes to clear himself by looking for clues on his own. The movie was part of a five-film series, and is considered a solid effort with a good cast.
Suspense A 1946 film noir ice skating film directed by Frank Tuttle, and starring Barry Sullivan and British former Olympic skater Belita. It was the most expensive film Monogram ever made, costing $1.1 million. It was panned by critics, but a box office success.
Lorelai and Rory love watching “bad” movies, but suddenly they get awfully snobbish about putting a B movie on in the town square. Apparently it’s fun to watch a B movie, but embarrassing to publicly screen one.
None of these films were terrible failures, or considered unwatchable. I’m not sure why they don’t seem like a viable alternative to watching The Yearling for the third year running.
LUKE: Me? Oh, no, I’m not the one you want helping him. I went to this school – I’m sure there’s still a note stuffed in there about me with the words ‘trade school’ stamped in really big letters.
Trade school is a term in the US for a vocational college, technical school, or technical college, offering training in skills for specific job or career. In the US, they are government owned or supported, and require two years of study to fulfil requirements; they can sometimes replace the final two years of schooling. The number of such trade schools is declining significantly, but even so Luke would have had the choice of more than a dozen trade schools in Connecticut if he had wanted to attend one.
RORY: I’m hanging out with Lane tonight … Yeah, we have some serious CD listening to do. We’re way behind on all the Elvis Costello reissues coming out.
Elvis Costello, professional name of Declan MacManus (born 1954), Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter and record producer, previously mentioned.
Beginning his career in the pub rock scene of 1970s London, and later associated with punk and new wave, Costello’s critically-acclaimed debut album My Aim is True was released in 1977. His first three albums are listed on Rolling Stone’s Greatest of All Time; Armed Forces (1979) contains his highest-charting single, “Oliver’s Army”, which went to #2 in the UK. Elvis Costello is known for his clever lyrics, and music drawing on a diverse range of genres. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.
In real life, only Elvis Costello’s first album, My Aim is True, was re-released in 2001. The next big re-issue of his eleven albums to that point didn’t occur until 2006. Unless Rory is simply lying to Lorelai, she and Lane are listening to all Elvis Costello’s albums thus far in preparation for the major re-issue they assume, or have heard, is coming soon.
SOOKIE: Okay, new plan for the invites. We’re getting married May fifteenth, four o’clock, front lawn – pass it on.
There are very few exact dates given in the show, but there’s one for for Sookie and Jackson’s wedding – they’re getting married on May 15. That means that somehow the next four episodes are going to be squeezed into two and a half weeks! I don’t possess whatever time machine/portal to another dimension/magic powers that Lorelai and Rory have, so unfortunately the blog entries will not all be done for this season by May 15.
In real life, May 15 2002 was a Wednesday, but in the show, Sookie and Jackson’s wedding was on Sunday. Even when you get a firm date, it doesn’t make any sense and isn’t consistent with the timeline given.
PARIS: First, let me say that I’m glad to see you all here today, at the beginning of what I think is going to be a very exciting experiment.
BRAD: She doesn’t have a baseball bat in her hands, does she?
A reference to the 1987 crime film The Untouchables, directed by Brian De Palma, screenplay by David Mamet. It is based on the 1957 book of the same name, a memoir by Prohibition agent Eliot Ness. The film follows Eliot Ness, played by Kevin Costner, as he forms his Untouchables team to bring Al Capone, played by Robert De Niro, to justice during Prohibition.
The Untouchables was a commercial success, and received positive reviews from critics. While the film is based on historical events, it is a work of fiction.
Brad is referring to a scene in the film where Al Capone beats a henchman to death with a baseball bat while they are seated at a dinner table. In real life, Capone beat three associates with a baseball bat in 1928 before having them shot when he received word they were plotting to kill him. It did occur at the dinner table, after Capone made sure they were thoroughly drunk.
LORELAI: Uh, you’ve gotta read this Mötley Crüe book. I swear, you get to the point where Ozzy Osbourne snorts a row of ants and you think, it cannot get any grosser, and then you turn the page and oh, hello, yes it can! It’s excellent!
Lorelai is reading The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, a 2001 collaborative autobiography of Mötley Crüe by the band members – Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, and Nikki Sixx. The gritty tell-all book received rave reviews and was on the New York Times Bestseller List for four weeks. It was made into a film in 2019.
The next page, where it gets “grosser” than snorting ants involves Ozzy Osbourne, from Black Sabbath, licking urine (his own and someone else’s) from the pavement.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 