Tag: Reality Check

All in the Family

LORELAI: You know how on All in the Family when Edith would be yapping about something and Archie would pretend to make a noose and hang himself or shoot himself in the head?
RORY: Yeah?
LORELAI: I don’t know. Something about this moment just made me think of that.

All in the Family, previously mentioned, is an American sit-com which aired 1971-1979, based on the British sit-com Till Death Us Do Part. It stars Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, a blue-collar worker from Queens who is prejudiced, but essentially decent. His wife was Edith Bunker, a sweet and rather naive woman played by Jean Stapleton. Among the most popular television programs of its era (at times the #1 show), it is regarded as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.

All in the Family is still on American television in reruns to this day, and this is another TV show that Lorelai and Rory may have seen on Nick at Nite.

Sally Struthers, who played Babette on Gilmore Girls, played the Bunkers’ married daughter Gloria Stivic, and went on to have her own spin-off show, Gloria, from 1982-1983. Liz Torres, who played Miss Patty on Gilmore Girls, had the role of Theresa Betancourt, a nursing student who rented Gloria’s old room from the Bunkers in Season 7.

 

A Thousand Yellow Daisies

MICHEL: Daisies no less. As if I would order these pitiful little things. Foul things, these daisies. And just a notch up from weeds. And look how many. I mean, there must be at least …
LORELAI: A thousand of them. A thousand yellow daisies.
(Pan around inn’s lobby, which is filled with daisies. Lorelai walks into the middle and them and looks around.)

There are clearly way more than a thousand yellow daisies in this scene, which sounds impressive but would really just be a few bunches of flowers. You can make it work by understanding it as one thousand pots of daisies, but in reality they probably just kept putting out daisies until it looked like a huge number of flowers.

Daisies can symbolise love, fertility, and the return of someone’s affections, while the yellow colour is cheerful, vibrant, and a sign of being quick-witted, rather like Lorelai herself. Daisies are sacred to the Virgin Mary, which is a callback to the Gilmore surname itself. More generally, daisies symbolise motherhood, so Lorelai’s choice of flower can be read, “Love me, but remember I am a mother first”.

The name daisy literally means “day’s eye”, and daisies can symbolise the marking of time, and the progress of the sun throughout the day and the year. This makes it the perfect flower for Gilmore Girls, a show which is all about time.

“The concert’s tonight”

TRISTAN: Are we meeting there, or what?
RORY: What are you talking about?
TRISTAN: The concert’s tonight.

In real life, U2 and PJ Harvey performed at the Civic Center in Hartford on Sunday June 3 2001, so it doesn’t match up with the timeline in Gilmore Girls, but is only two or three weeks out.

During their argument, Tristan makes it clear that he thought PJ Harvey was a man, which lets us know that he has no chance with Rory, either now or in the future.

Kinko’s in Groton

TAYLOR: Oh, this is absolutely ridiculous. Do you subscribe to this troubadour mystique?
RIVAL TROUBADOUR: I run a Kinko’s in Groton.

Kinko’s was an earlier trademarked name for FedEx Office Print & Ship Services, a retail chain providing an outlet for FedEx Express and FedEx Ground Shipping, as well as printing, copying, and binding services. It is the main competitor to UPS Stores. Founded in 1970, the name was changed in 2004, although the older name is still advertised.

The town of Groton in Connecticut was discussed earlier, as the former home of Lorelai’s deceased relative, Claudia. It is about an hour’s drive from the area where Stars Hollow appears to be located. In real life, it doesn’t have a FedEx Office today, and may not have had a Kinko’s in 2001. Does this cast doubt on the rival troubadour’s story? Perhaps he has mystique too, but just has a different way of going about it.

PJ Harvey

TRISTAN: You know what these are? (holds up two tickets)
RORY: They look like tickets.
TRISTAN: To PJ Harvey.
RORY: Wow, you have good taste. I’ll give you that.
TRISTAN: You’re into PJ Harvey, right?
RORY: Yeah, how’d you know?

Polly Jean Harvey, known as PJ Harvey (born 1969) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, writer, and poet, primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, although she can play a wide array of instruments. Beginning her career with band Automatic Diamini, she formed the PJ Harvey Trio, and released the critically-acclaimed debut album Dry.

After another album, the trio split up and Harvey embarked on a solo career, releasing To Bring You My Love in 1995 to universal acclaim and commercial success. PJ Harvey’s relationship with Nick Cave inspired his ballad Into My Arms, and she also has the dark and “gloomy” kind of lyrics which we know Rory loves.

In 2001, PJ Harvey was the support act for Irish rock band U2 on their Elevation tour through Europe and the United States; Hartford was one of the cities on their itinerary. This seems to be the “ticket to PJ Harvey” that Tristan has bought to entice Rory into a date.

“Mopy, Dopey, and about twelve other melancholy dwarves “

LANE: I love you, but you’ve been Mopey, Dopey, and about twelve other melancholy dwarves for the past five weeks, and I miss the old Rory.

Lane is referring to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a 1937 animated musical film made by Walt Disney, and based on the German fairy tale told by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length animated feature film, and the earliest feature film made by Walt Disney.

There is a dwarf named Dopey in the film, but the other dwarfs are named Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Doc.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the #1 film of 1937, and audiences loved it so much that many gave the film a standing ovation, while critics hailed it as a piece of art. It received an Honorary Academy Award as a “significant screen innovation”, with Disney receiving one normal-sized Oscar statuette and seven small ones. The film gave Disney the green light to produce further animated features, and inspired MGM to produce its own fantasy movie, The Wizard of Oz.

Snow White was re-released in cinemas in 1993, when Lane and Rory were nine, and came out on video the following year; either year may have been when they first saw it.

It is actually almost six weeks since Rory and Dean broke up, but at five weeks and six days, this is one of the more accurate pieces of timing given in the first season of Gilmore Girls.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

LORELAI: I had the weirdest dream last night. We were in our house, but it wasn’t our house, it was a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
RORY: I’m hooked.
LORELAI: I had to get dressed, but my clothes were in the back. And the guy manning the giant oil vat would not let me though.
RORY: Oh my God! That’s so weird. When you said oil vat, that just reminded me, I had this dream last night we were swimming in a pool, only it wasn’t water, it was like oil or honey or something.

Kentucky Fried Chicken (since 1991 branded as KFC) is a fast food restaurant chain specialising in fried chicken with a secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices. It is the world’s second-largest restaurant chain after McDonald’s. It was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1930, who sold his chicken from a roadside restaurant in the Great Depression, with the first franchise opening in 1952.

There are several KFC outlets in Hartford, and two in Wallingford, near where Stars Hollow seems to be located.

Dreams often link food and sex, so I wonder if Lorelai’s dream of a fast food outlet is trying to tell her that she is moving too fast with Max, and perhaps that the relationship is cheap and unsatisfying because it’s mostly based on sexual attraction?

The fact that Lorelai doesn’t seem to have any clothes on in the dream seems telling, and also that a man is stopping her from putting her clothes on (in the back of the store!) could signify that on some level she feels that the passion she has with Max is stopping her from finding a relationship that is deeper and more meaningful (with Luke).

The name of the man who is stopping Lorelai from getting her clothes turns out to be someone she once knew named Jim Dunning, which sounds rather like, “I’m done in”. In a way, her relationship with Max has already come as far as it can.

Both Lorelai and Rory dreamed of oil on the same night (Lorelai’s featured a man in charge of a vat of cooking oil, while Rory went swimming in what seemed to be oil, or perhaps honey). Both of them seem to want things to go smoothly in their lives: Lorelai dreaming of cooking oil may mean she wants a transformation in her life, while Rory is obviously exploring her emotions.

Taylor Hanson

LORELAI: I’m not even talking specifically about Dean. I mean just generally in life. For example, say you’re dating Taylor Hanson.
RORY: Why am I dating Taylor Hanson?
LORELAI: It’s a hypothetical scenario, go with it. So, uh, you and Taylor have been seeing each other pretty regularly …

(Jordan) Taylor Hanson (born 1983) is a member of the pop group Hanson. He sings lead and back-up vocals, and plays multiple instruments. In 2009 he became a member of the supergroup Tinted Windows.

Rory probably could not have dated Taylor Hanson in 2001, as he had already been dating his future wife for two years at this point. They were married the following year, in 2002, and currently have five children together.

Berringiny Pansy

RICHARD: Saving the Berringiny Pansy. Who ever heard of such a thing?
EMILY: It’s a very rare flower that is rapidly disappearing from the face of this earth.
RICHARD: Well, who cares?
EMILY: As president of the Horticultural Society, I have to care.

A fictional species of flower. There are a few species of pansy in Europe which are rare or even endangered though.

The name of the pansy flower comes from the French for “thought” (pensée), to symbolise remembrance, especially of a loved one. Another name for the pansy is love-in-idleness, meaning someone who has nothing to do but think of their beloved. This seems apt, as Rory has been trapped by her thoughts and memories of Dean, with not enough to occupy her lately. Yet another name for the flower is heartsease, telling us that Rory will soon unburden her heart, and have her feelings soothed.

The Connecticut Horticultural Society has existed since 1887, and in real life does have speakers on one Thursday a month, just like in this episode (it now seems to be Thursday 19 April). They take place at the Emanuel Auditorium in West Hartford, and start at 7.30 pm – although you’re encouraged to come early so you can socialise. This suggests the time when Rory comes to her grandparents’ house is somewhere 6.30 and 7 pm.