LANE: I finally have a first love, like what you and Dean have.
RORY: Right . . . exactly.
As Lane compares her feelings for Dave for how Rory feels about Dean, it couldn’t be made clearer that not only does Rory not love Dean, but that perhaps she never loved him – not in the all-consuming way that most young girls feel about their first love (and not in the all-consuming, obsessive way that Dean and Jess feel about Rory). Love is much more complicated for Rory, because the message she received from her parents’ situation is that first love doesn’t last, it doesn’t work out, and it may in fact be a mistake with far-reaching consequences.
No wonder Rory quickly backs out of the conversation.
LANE: I’ve never really felt this way before. I mean, Henry – yes, but we never spent any real time together. It’s not just puppy love, you know, it’s different.
Puppy love is an informal term for feelings of romantic love experienced by a child or someone in early adolescence. Often these crushes are on someone that the young person doesn’t know, such as an actor or pop star. Lane seems to be saying that her attraction to Henry was not only immature, but barely based on reality, as she didn’t really know him.
Lane admits to Rory that she’s in love with Dave almost straight away. I wonder if this contrast with how Rory feels about Dean is giving Rory any second thoughts about her decision to remain with her boyfriend?
RORY: [starts applying the purple dye] So have you mentioned dyeing your hair to the band yet? LANE: No, but they’ll be cool with it. They’ve all got tattoos. Dave and Zach have musical themes and Brian’s got Snoopy.
RORY: Poor guy.
LANE: Yeah, but he’s a slamming bass player.
Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s dog in the Peanuts comic strip, previously discussed and frequently mentioned. He is a black and white beagle. Comic strip creator Charles M. Schulz based him on his childhood dog Spike, who was a pointer crossed with an unknown hound – presumed to be a beagle, as Spike looked very beagle-like. The name came from Schulz’s mother, who had said if they ever got another dog, she would have named him Snoopy. In the comic strip, Snoopy has an older brother named Spike who lives in the Californian desert. Snoopy has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and is a mascot of the NASA space program.
Note how quick Lane is to defend Brian when Rory says something pitying about him. Lane may have only been in the band for a week or so, but she already feels protective of her band mates.
The song that is playing while Rory dyes Lane’s hair purple.
“I Don’t Mind” is a 2000 song by all-girl dream-pop band Slumber Party, from their self-titled debut album. The band received rave reviews from critics, but never made much of an impression on the public. The general consensus is that they just sounded too different from other bands in the early 2000s, and the word “underrated” for once doesn’t seem out of place here. Another shout-out to a girl band!
The opening stanzas say:
I don’t mind if you find someone’s God, if he were different than mine every time, by design He’s hearin’ you and you
I just wanna be true Live my life in the summer night with you Whenever I go, remind me I’ve been gone for so long
The lyrics suggest that Lane is open to a relationship with Dave even if he doesn’t’ share her religion or worship God the same way. It ends on a worrying note:
I don’t mind if you find The girl of your dreams and leave me behind
It’s as if Lane is already fearing for the future and preparing to let Dave go, when she’s only just fallen for him. Fortunately, this level of pessimism is unnecessary right now.
Lorelai teasingly suggests a girlfriend whose name is the opposite of “butch” – a “sissy”, slang for an effeminate man. There’s probably a bit of homophobic humour to Lorelai’s joke.
Lorelai had a friend in high school of this name – “Crazy Sissy”, who talked to her stuffed animals. Sissy has already been on the show as a high school girlfriend – she’s the girl Tristan took to the winter dance at Chilton, because Rory turned him down.
Note that Luke lets Lorelai know that he did have a girlfriend in high school, but he’s not saying her name. As they both went to Stars Hollow High, there’s a good chance she still lives in town.
LORELAI: Oh my God … You like Jimmy Buffett? He’s so mellow.
LUKE: I’ve just been to a few shows, that’s all.
LORELAI: A few shows? Oh my God, you’re a Buffett Head.
James “Jimmy” Buffett (1946), singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He began his musical career as a country singer in Nashville in the late 1960s, bringing out his first album, Down to Earth, in 1970.
After busking for tourists in New Orleans, Louisiana, he went on a busking expedition to Key West, Florida, in 1971, he moved there permanently, and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. His style of music is called “tropical rock”.
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his extensive touring than from albums, and became known as a popular concert draw. He is one of the world’s richest musicians, with a net worth of over $900 million. Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band gave concerts at the Meadows Music Theater in Hartford almost every year in the late 1990s, giving Luke ample opportunities to see him live.
Jimmy Buffett fans are actually called “Parrot Heads”, not “Buffett Heads” – it’s after the parrot hats all his fans seem to wear. Lorelai appears to recall that the the word head is in there, but not the details. She may have misheard or misremembered the term.
At this point, the viewer, like Luke, thinks that Lorelai says, “Oh my God” because of the Jimmy Buffett shirt. In fact, we later learn she says it because she’s seen Jess’ girlfriend Shane in the closet, and quickly covers for it by immediately gabbling about Jimmy Buffett as a distraction. She certainly gives Jess some hard looks, though, as he continues to confirm, or appear to confirm, all her worst fears about him.
The song Jess has playing when Lorelai is at Luke’s apartment.
“Love Burns” is the opening track of rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s 2001 debut album, B.M.R.C. Released as a single, it went to #37 in the UK the following year. The band were heavily influenced by classic English rock, and tended to do better in the UK than in their home country of the US.
The song’s lyrics speak passionately of Jess’ feelings for Rory, and the depth of his pain and anger caused by her neglect and rejection:
She cuts my skin and bruise my lips She’s everything to me She tears my clothes and burns my eyes She’s all I want to see She brings the cold and scars my soul She’s heaven sent to me
Now she’s gone love burns inside me Now she’s gone love burns inside me Now she’s gone love burns inside me
Never thought I’d leave you like the way I do, yeah Kiss my love and I wish you’re gone You can kiss my love and I wish you’re gone Never thought I’d leave you like the way that I do
Lorelai said in the pilot episode that bad boys have motorcycles. Even though it’s actually “good boy” Dean who has the motorcycle, Jess is still linked with them through the band. The band takes their name from Marlon Brando’s character’s biker gang in the 1953 film, The Wild One.
If Lorelai is listening to the song, it can’t make her feel any more comfortable about Jess. They would tell her he is still obsessed with Rory, and is furious about her. Lorelai has always said that Jess is a messed up, angry kid, and the lyrics are actually a little scary, as a reflection of Jess’ feelings.
This is the beauty store in town where Rory and Lane buy Lane’s hair dye. Amusingly, it has a typically practical, generic name, like Stars Hollow Agricultural Supply. You don’t get lured into shopping for beauty products in Stars Hollow by something called Charmaine’s House of Glamour, or The Beauty Spot – you buy beauty products in the same pragmatic manner you pick up animal feed or a box of nails.
I take it Lane and Rory don’t usually shop here, as Rory is surprised to find that Shane works at the store – possibly as as an after-school job, I’m not sure if the show ever confirms whether Shane is still in high school.
I’m also not sure if Rory ever knew Shane before – they’re about the same age and live in a small town, so it seems likely, but she never says anything like, “Ugh, that awful Shane, I’ve hated her ever since she stole Jimmy Dandridge’s lunch in Fourth Grade”. Perhaps their paths didn’t cross, but they are not strangers either, so that she was vaguely aware of Shane’s existence, but never gave her a thought. Stars Hollow is just big enough that this is possible, especially if Shane’s family moved to town only in the last few years.
LUKE: Three years of going there, I have no good memories.
Luke attended Stars Hollow High School for three years, meaning he didn’t complete the full four years of high school available in the US. He may have dropped out of school (sixteen was the legal age for this in Connecticut at the time), or done his last year of education at a trade school. From a conversation Luke had with the school principal, the second one seems the more likely.
If Luke regrets not doing four years of high school, then it might explain why he is so insistent that Jess remains at school. There is some irony in the thought he is forcing Jess to attend the school that he himself supposedly hated, when Jess is miserable there.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 