All-Boys Private School Uniform and a Yankees Cap

SOOKIE: I’m looking for a guy that looks like a guy that you could be with, only I’m deducting seventeen years off his age and I’m adding an all-boys private school uniform and a Yankees cap.

Sookie is looking around for Christopher, until Lorelai points out Sookie doesn’t know what he looks like. It seems hard to believe Lorelai has never shown Sookie a picture of Christopher, but from the way Rory treasures an old strip of photos of Christopher and Lorelai, it appears they possess no photo of him.

Sookie explains that she’s been looking for someone Lorelai would go out with, but imagining him seventeen years younger and in a private boy’s school uniform. This may suggest that Lorelai and Christopher went to separate single-sex private high schools. In real life, there are no single-sex private schools in Hartford itself, but a few in the nearby surrounding suburbs and towns that Lorelai and Christopher could have easily attended.

I’m not sure why Sookie is mentally making him a teenager in a school uniform when he’s an adult though. Maybe she’s going to then mentally add seventeen years to his age?

She gives him a Yankees cap because that’s what Luke wears!

New Belle and Sebastian Single

RORY: Lane, this is flat out stalking.
LANE: Look, I don’t have much time. I’ve already used up my five minutes of phone time so this is totally illicit, but I have to talk to you. There’s a new Belle and Sebastian single coming out today.

Belle and Sebastian, Scottish indie pop group formed in Glasgow in 1994 by Stuart Murdoch and Stuart David. After the limited release of their 1996 album Tigermilk , they recruited other musicians and singers. The band took their name from a short story Murdoch had written inspired by the television adaptation of the French novel Belle et Sébastien about a six-year-old boy and his dog.

Their 1996 album If You’re Feeling Sinister is widely considered the band’s masterpiece, while their 2000 album Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant brought mainstream success in the UK.

In fact, Belle and Sebastian didn’t release any new singles in 2002, although they brought out an album called Storytelling in June, the soundtrack to the 2001 film of the same name. Their most recent single was “I’m Waking Up to Us”, an EP put out on November 26 2001. It went to #39 in the UK and #22 in Scotland. It was #4 on the UK indie charts. I can only think this is the single Lane is referring to.

The song is about the break up of a relationship and the realisation that it would never have worked, which would fit in with Lane’s mood. Some of the lyrics include:

You know I love you here’s the irony
You’re going to walk away intact
I think you never liked me anyway …

I think I’m waking up to us
We’re a disaster
You don’t want to know me

Reader’s Digest World Famous Polka CD

LANE: Okay, I’m dying for news. Give me some headlines.
RORY: Oh, well, I’ve got a debate coming up. And, um, Dean’s been working extra hours lately saving up for a new motorcycle, so I hardly see him. Mom and I haven’t done laundry in three weeks, but I have taken to jumping into the gigantic pile of dirty clothes while we play our Reader’s Digest World Famous Polka CD that we got used for ninety-nine cents.

I wasn’t able to find a World Famous Polka CD released by Reader’s Digest, but I did find Polka Party with Myron Floren on his accordion, released on CD in 1991 by Reader’s Digest. It’s possible that “world famous polka” is simply the sarcastic way that that Rory refers to it – “our world famous polka CD”. Otherwise it’s simply fictional.

Among the snippets from her life that Rory tells Lane is that she has hardly seen Dean since the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser, almost a week ago. Conveniently, he has started working extra hours to save up for a new motorcycle, just after they got into a fight. I think we can assume they aren’t on the best of terms at the moment.

Rory Phones Jess

Rory got a pager message from Dean while she was at dinner, but instead of phoning him back right away, she called Lane’s house (Lane didn’t come to the phone). When she gets home, Lorelai goes for a shower, telling Rory to find a movie for them to watch. It was after 9 pm when they were at dinner, and they talked more and had a half hour drive home, so it must be around 10 pm by now, yet they’re planning to watch a movie as well!

Instead of getting a movie, or phoning Dean back, Rory calls Jess. When we see him, he is reading The Fountainhead, as instructed by Rory. He is also playing with Rory’s bracelet, gazing at it softly with a misty smile. The phone call, ostensibly about literature, is very playful, and this episode marks the beginning of Jess and Rory’s mutual flirtation.

And Rory is still clearly very annoyed by Dean going to Lorelai when they had an issue in their relationship, because she isn’t returning his calls.

Lorelai and Rory Make Up

LORELAI: I got spooked. I know it violates the fabulous cool mom clause we’re supposed to have going but I did and I’m sorry.

After talking to Emily, Lorelai goes straight to Rory to apologise for not being a “fabulous cool mom” about Jess. Even though she’s concerned about Jess, she is going to trust Rory’s judgement. She only asks that Rory be careful, and cut Dean some slack for getting freaked out.

Is Lorelai really neutral, when in her view, Jess needs care and good judgement to proceed, even if he is behaving well, while Dean needs understanding for any of his bad behaviour?

Emily Agrees With Lorelai

EMILY: Don’t back down Lorelai. You took a stand and you are completely in the right here. You absolutely must keep her from that boy. If you need to change her curfew, lock her up, throw away the key, whatever it takes to make sure she doesn’t go astray – you do it. Her judgment cannot be trusted here. She’s a young girl and knows nothing. You are her eyes and her ears and her brain for as long as it takes to make sure she doesn’t make any ridiculous choices in her life.

To Lorelai’s horror, when Emily learns about the problem between Lorelai and Rory, she completely takes her daughter’s side, saying that Rory is a young girl with no experience of the world, and it is Lorelai’s job to make all major decisions for her, until she is old and wise enough to choose for herself. Lorelai has to listen to Emily agree with her that Rory needs to be kept away from Jess, and to realise (again) that she isn’t as different from the controlling Emily as she thought.

Mrs Kim’s Rules

MRS. KIM: You see, this is exactly why I make these rules. You’re too young, too vulnerable. American boys have different values, they don’t understand respect, you get hurt. I do all of this so you don’t get hurt and now here you are hurt. I don’t like this, I don’t like this at all. Who is he, this boy who hurt you?

We can see that no matter how flawed Mrs Kim might be as a parent, and how wrong-headed her restrictions are of Lane, she does love Lane deeply and wants to protect her. She thinks that Lane is unhappy about Henry because she disobeyed Mrs Kim’s rules to keep her safe, while Lane knows she’s unhappy over Henry because her parents set so many rules that she was unable to form a real relationship, even with a boy they would have approved of.

Lorelai and Rory Fight About Jess

EMILY: It’s not nothing. You’ve both been sitting here all night, not saying a word and not even looking at each other. Are you in a fight?
LORELAI: I’m not.
RORY: Please.
LORELAI: Please what? You are the one who’s been freezing me out all week.
RORY: I just haven’t had anything to say.

At Friday Night Dinner, we learn that Lorelai and Rory haven’t been speaking since they argued about Rory’s relationship with Jess. It’s a pattern they tend to get into when they are angry with each other, freezing each other out and refusing to talk things over.

It’s notable that in the scenes we see of them arguing together, Rory never once says what you expect from a girl in her situation: that Jess is only a friend who shares one of her hobbies, and that him buying her basket was just one of his pranks. She reminds Lorelai that she didn’t like Dean at first either, as if she is already thinking of Jess as a replacement for Dean.

Note that Rory is in angry red, and Lorelai in sad black for this scene, a common costume choice for fight scenes on the show.

Rory’s Date with Jess

LORELAI: Oh, hey. Where’ve you been? I thought Taylor auctioned you off to the highest bidder.
RORY: No, I just went to get some pizza and I, uh, wandered around the bookstore for a little while. Here. [hands her a book]

After the fundraiser, Jess took Rory out for pizza, as her picnic was inedible – a clear parallel to Luke bringing Lorelai diner food to replace her inadequate basket. They then wandered around Stars Hollow Books together. No doubt tongues were wagging in town over that.

Rory said it’s “tradition” to eat a picnic with the person who buys your basket, but sitting together on a secluded bridge for an hour, going for pizza, and then book shopping seems to be going above and beyond tradition. As Dean finds shopping for books boring and only goes with Rory so he can watch her, Rory would have enjoyed doing it with someone who shares her passion for reading.

Note that Lorelai makes the same joke about Rory being “auctioned off” that she made to Emily in regard to school dances.

Rory Loses her Bracelet

Rory walks away, not realizing her bracelet had fallen off while she was on the bridge (the bracelet Dean gave her as a sixteenth birthday present). Jess picks it up and puts it in his pocket – just like the “little boy” who picked up the lost love letter in the nursery rhyme, A-Tisket, A-Tasket.

It is unclear why Jess keeps Rory’s bracelet, but most likely just the sentimental pleasure of having something of Rory’s he can hold and touch. He probably intended to give it back at some point, the same way he returned her book. He may have also thought the handing back ceremony would be a flirtatiously teasing one – “Oh, you were looking for this? Another one of my magic tricks“.