JESS: If it’s the most precious thing she owns, why did it take her two weeks to figure out it was gone, huh? You might wanna re-evaluate how madly in love she is. I wouldn’t start calling him ‘son’ yet.
Jess makes a devastatingly accurate comeback to Lorelai. The fact that Rory didn’t notice the bracelet was missing for some time, even needing Dean to point it out for her, is a very clear indication that her interest in Dean has waned. Something that Jess can take cold comfort in.
It is actually three weeks since the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser, not two, even though it was two episodes ago.
MICHEL: And while I’m shaking it to the Miami Sound Machine, the phones here – they would ring and ring and ring, and no one to answer, no one to assist.
Miami Sound Machine was a band of Latin-influenced music, featuring the vocals of Cuban-born singer Gloria Estefan. Established in 1975 by her husband, Emilio Estefan Jr, the name was changed to Miami Sound Machine in 1977. They were popular during the 1980s, before Gloria Estefan continued as a solo performer.
In 1985 they brought out “Conga”, which became their first hit single. It was from their album Primitive Love, and was a world-wide success, becoming the band’s signature song. It went to #10 in the US and #1 on the Hot Dance Singles chart. It was most popular in Canada and Spain, where it went to #1. It was re-recorded as a remix in 2001, and released on Gloria Estefan’s fourth compilation album.
LORELAI: What did you say? RORY: That I had a rash and that I had to take it off until it healed. LORELAI: Nice save, Gretzky.
Wayne Gretzky (born 1961), Canadian former ice hockey player and coach. Nicknamed “The Great One”, he is regarded in many quarters as the greatest hockey player of all time. He is the leading goal scorer and point scorer in the US National Hockey League, and upon his retirement in 1999, was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
In ice hockey, a goaltender is credited with a “save” when they prevent the opposing team from scoring, so Lorelai is comparing Rory’s move to Gretzky’s ability to save goals. Gretzky was actually a centerman, not a goaltender. Lorelai frequently gets sports references a bit wrong.
DEAN: You go look at the astronomy section, we’ll go see Lord of the Rings, and on the way home we’ll rent Autumn in New York and mock it for the rest of the afternoon.
Autumn in New York is a 2000 romantic drama directed by Joan Chen, and starring Richard Gere as a middle-aged womaniser who falls in love with a sweet young woman who is terminally ill, played by Winona Ryder.
The film received negative reviews, being judged as sappy with no chemistry between the two romantic leads, although Chen’s direction did receive some praise. It was nonetheless a success at the box office. The film was released on DVD in January 2001.
Although I think Rory would mock the film roundly, it has enough parallels with her relationship with Jess to also be uncomfortable viewing for her. The main characters share a love of poetry, just as she and Jess share an interest in literature, and there are references to Rory’s favourite poets, Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
There is a major plot point in the film where the young woman takes her lover’s watch as a keepsake, telling him she will return it when he no longer notices it is gone. This is quite similar to Jess taking Rory’s bracelet, and returning it – except he will return it when Rory notices it is missing.
Dean has proposed what sounds like an exhaustingly lengthy afternoon: hours looking at books, a three hour movie at the cinema, and then a 90 minute video “for the rest of the afternoon”. Just how long is this afternoon? It’s early spring, it gets dark early!
Dean’s plan apparently comes to nothing when he notices that Rory isn’t wearing her bracelet. Instead of simply telling him the truth, that she didn’t notice it had fallen off, she tells him a silly lie about having a rash on her wrist, possibly caused by her Spanish mid-terms (!), and needing to temporarily remove the bracelet.
Even though this version of events wouldn’t stop Rory watching movies, she instead spends the afternoon searching the entire town for her bracelet. Again, it would have made more sense for her to have been honest, said that she lost the bracelet somewhere (for all she and Dean know, it fell off that very day), and needs to look for it.
It’s never said how she managed to cancel all her plans to spend the day with Dean to look for her bracelet without confessing it was lost, or raising his suspicions.
After the book fundraiser, which was something Rory was interested in, Dean suggests they go and watch The Lord of the Rings at the cinema, which is something he wants to do. They have already seen the film three times together in the past three months, and even though Rory enjoyed it, she isn’t enthusiastic about seeing it again.
They can only be talking about the first film in the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which was released in December 2001. Directed by New Zealander Peter Jackson, it’s based on the novel, The Fellowship of the Ring by British author J.R.R. Tolkien, the first volume in The Lord of the Rings.
An epic fantasy adventure film featuring an ensemble cast, filmed and edited entirely in New Zealand, the story is set in Middle-Earth and tells of the Dark Lord Sauron who seeks the One Ring, which contains part of his soul, in order to return to power. The fate of Middle-Earth hangs in the balance as a young hobbit named Frodo Baggins (played by Elijah Wood) must take the Ring to be destroyed in the land of Mordor, accompanied by a fellowship of eight other companions.
The film was acclaimed by critics and fans alike, considering it a landmark in filmmaking, and the fantasy genre in particular, and was praised for its fidelity to the source material. It was the #2 film of 2001, and the fifth-highest grossing film of all time upon its release. It won numerous awards, including four Oscars and three BAFTAs, which included Best Film and Best Direction.
JESS: Here. [tosses her a CD] RORY: The Shaggs? JESS: Trust me.
The Shaggs were an all-female rock and outsider music band formed in New Hampshire in 1968, composed of sisters Dot, Betty, and Helen Wiggin; Rachel Wiggin joined later. Their father, Austin Wiggin, insisted they form a band based on a prediction his mother had made during a palm reading that his daughters would form a musical group.
The Shaggs only released one studio album, in 1969, called Philosophy of the World. It gained very little attention, but the band continued to play locally, sometimes accompanied by their brother, Austin Jr, and their nephew Robert. The Shaggs disbanded in 1975, after the death of their father.
The Shaggs are notable for their perceived ineptitude at playing conventional rock music. Rolling Stone once described them as sounding like “lobotomised Trapp Family singers”. They were rediscovered in the 1970s, thanks to the Dr Demento radio show, which specialised in novelty songs. Frank Zappa appeared on the show, listened to the album, and professed a love for the band. The Shaggs themselves were bewildered by their popularity and cult status, which has never disappeared.
Jess gives (or loans) Rory a CD version of Philosophy of the World. Such CDs are now worth hundreds of dollars. (The original vinyl album, of which only 1000 copies were made, is now a collector’s item and extremely valuable). Interest in The Shaggs had recently been renewed by the 2001 release of Better Than The Beatles – A Tribute to The Shaggs, a collection of their songs covered by indie rock and punk musical artists such as Ida and Deerhoof.
[Jess walks out of the bathroom] LUKE: You’ve been in there for two hours. JESS: Yeah, well my hair just ain’t bouncin’ and behavin’ today.
“Bouncin’ & Behavin'” was the slogan for Pert shampoo advertisements in the early 1980s. It might seem hard to believe that Jess is referencing an advertisement from before he was born, but the phrase was so popular that it is still widely used when discussing hair care and products in general, even today.
RORY: Yeah. Oh, and later I pictured you marrying Matthew Broderick, and we lived in New York in this great apartment in the village and we would talk about his Ferris Bueller days. LORELAI: Just think how easy Producers tickets would be to get.
Matthew Broderick (born 1962), actor who began his career in theatre in the 1980s, winning a Tony Award for his role in Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs. His first starring role in a hit film came in the 1983 WarGames, where he had the lead role as a teenage hacker.
Broderick had the lead role as the charming school truant in the 1986 teen comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off [pictured]. Directed by John Hughes, the film is a joyful love letter to the city of Chicago, and about three teenagers seeking the best “day off” from school ever devised. It was the #10 film of 1986, and praised by critics. It is considered one of the greatest teen movies of all time.
The Producers is a musical with music and lyrics by Mel Brooks, adapted from Brooks’ 1967 film of the same name. It is about two theatrical producers who plan to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in a Broadway flop. Their scheme becomes complicated when their play is an unexpected success. The Producers opened on Broadway in 2001 and closed in 2007. Lorelai is apparently having trouble getting tickets for the musical. It went on tour in the US in September 2002, arriving at the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford in August 2004, but Matthew Broderick was not in the touring version.
Rory imagines living in New York in the village with her mother and Matthew Broderick. In 1997, Broderick married actress Sarah Jessica Parker. They live in the West Village in New York City, suggesting that it was after this date that Rory fantasised about Matthew Broderick as her stepfather, so around the age of 14-15. (Broderick and Parker actually spend more time at their second home in Ireland).
Rory’s imaginary stepfathers include a man-child who lives in a fantasy world, and an actor famous for playing both a slacker and a scammer. Not very different from her real father, then …
LORELAI: What’s her music taste? RORY: Big Bruce Springsteen fan. Seen him like twenty times. LORELAI: Blue collar roots or is she just slumming? RORY: Oh, her father owned a shoe store and her mom taught kindergarten.
Bruce Springsteen (born 1949), singer, songwriter, and musician. He has released twenty studio albums, many of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is one of the originators of the heartland rock style of music, combining mainstream rock musical style with narrative songs about working class American life.
During a career that has spanned five decades, Springsteen has become known for his poetic, socially conscious lyrics and energetic stage performances, sometimes lasting up to four hours in length. He is nicknamed “the Boss”.
Springsteen had a lengthy, top-grossing tour over 1999 and 2000, the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour. He played five concert dates in Boston in August 1999, giving Sherry several recent opportunities to see her favourite singer live. In 2002, Springsteen began his The Rising Tour, performing in Boston twice in October of that year. Sherry has probably already bought tickets.
EMILY: Christopher gets his life together with that woman. LORELAI: So, that’s good. EMILY: It should’ve been you!
Emily is extremely upset when Rory doesn’t come to Friday Night Dinner because she’s having a night out with Sherry. She immediately fears that Sherry will “take Rory away” from them, and is terrified that Christopher and Sherry will obtain weekend custody of Rory. She’s slightly on the old side to be a tug-of-love child at seventeen, and I’m pretty sure you have to pay child support to get even part-time custody of your child, which Christopher has never done.
Emily says she is heartbroken, because she always pictured Lorelai and Christopher being together, so that Rory could finally have two parents. Christopher was never ready to commit and was no kind of provider, but now it looks as if he was capable of settling down and working at a steady job, he just needed to find the right woman.
Completely and cruelly unfairly, Emily now blames Christopher’s general uselessness on Lorelai, saying that if she’d really tried, she could have influenced him to become a better man. Really? At the age of only sixteen, frightened, pregnant, and alone, she should have been responsible for Christopher’s life as well? Lorelai had a baby to care for and support, she didn’t need to take care of Christopher as well (and Rory would have suffered horribly if she did).
Emily is no better than Straub, laying all the responsibility for Christopher’s failure at Lorelai’s feet. It’s a horrible thing to say to her daughter.
Lorelai does admit that she has feelings for Christopher and isn’t happy about Sherry either, but she is trying to focus on doing what’s right, and being happy for Christopher. This unselfishness is roundly condemned by Emily, who goes upstairs to cry on her bed. (Later we find out she did eventually come down to dinner, but sulked all the way through it).
The episode’s title comes from Emily’s outburst to Lorelai, that, “It should’ve been you!”. Note that Emily’s outfit is mostly sad black, with touches of angry red. Lorelai is in grey, trying to remain neutral.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 