KIRK: Two hundred and fifty dollars … JACKSON: Will you take a check? KIRK: With two forms of ID.
Jackson eventually convinces Kirk to let him have Sookie’s basket, but it costs him $250 – much more than if he had bid on it originally. This makes Sookie’s the most expensive basket of the day, but the money doesn’t go to charity, but to Kirk!
However, Kirk refuses to take Jackson’s cheque because he doesn’t resemble his photo ID closely enough, so Jackson is paying him back in weekly instalments of crinkle cut carrot sticks. It is not known whether Jackson ever really did pay him back, and no cash seems to have changed hands. It’s possible that Kirk only wanted to mess with Jackson and never intended to make him pay for Sookie’s basket. I think he should have at least got his $35 back though.
LORELAI: Oh, please God. TAYLOR: Sold for fifty-two fifty.
Worried that she will end up sharing her crummy picnic basket with one of Miss Patty’s choices for her to date, Lorelai begs Luke to save her. After some obligatory grouching, he does the right thing and buys Lorelai’s basket – the Miss Patty Brigade apparently decided to set an upper limit of $50. By bidding $52.50, Luke wins.
This scene is closer to the ending of the box social auction in Oklahoma!, with Luke in the role of the chivalrous Curly who manages to stump up the cash to save his girl. Luke doesn’t have to sell everything he has to buy the basket, but he does find money that the others don’t have or aren’t willing to spend.
TAYLOR: Thirty-five going once, thirty-five going twice . . . sold to Kirk for thirty-five dollars. KIRK: Yes, finally! You know, if it hadn’t have been for me I could’ve had it for twenty-five.
After Andrew withdraws from the bidding, Kirk wins Sookie’s basket, spending ten dollars more because he bid against himself. It seems as if Kirk didn’t really want either the food or Sookie, but simply the joy of winning something.
Sookie is naturally devastated, because Jackson didn’t talk about how he felt, but sulked and took petty revenge against her in public.
Jackson is piqued because Sookie hasn’t picked up on his hints he wants to move in with her, and petulantly refuses to bid on her basket. With nobody else making a move, Andrew from Stars Hollow Books puts in a bid for it. At this point, Andrew appears to be single, but it’s unclear whether he wants the delicious basket, or Sookie herself. He certainly doesn’t seem worried about upsetting Jackson.
The point where Andrew and Jackson’s names are said together is almost certainly a joking reference to Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), lawyer, soldier, and statesmen who served as the 7th President of the United States, from 1829 to 1837.
DEAN: So buck tradition. RORY: Are you kidding? Do you remember how mad Taylor was when I was sick and I couldn’t go to the turkey-calling contest?
Turkey calling is a type of contest held in North America, where contestants must try to mimic the sound of a turkey so successfully that judges cannot tell the difference between the human and a real turkey. They may use their voice (“natural turkey calling”), or use instruments made of wood, glass, metal, etc, and must perform five different calls.
Turkey calling contests are usually held during the turkey hunting season, in the fall, with Thanksgiving providing a natural occasion to include one. The other season for turkey calling contests is the spring, during the turkey mating season.
If Stars Hollow holds theirs at Thanksgiving, it isn’t mentioned in the Thanksgiving episode we see (that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen offscreen, of course). Also, Rory wasn’t sick the previous Thanksgiving – she seemed fine at the Chilton play, which occurred around the same time. That means that if it’s held at Thanksgiving, Rory must have been sick at Thanksgiving 2000, which took place between “Love and War and Snow” and “Rory’s Dance”. She and Dean had just begun dating then, so he would be able to remember her being too sick to participate.
Another possibility is that it’s part of the Autumn Festival, in early November. Rory wasn’t sick for the 2000 one, but is just possible she was sick the previous year, in 2001. We see her just before and after the festival but not on the day itself, so if she was sick, it would have just been a 24-hour bug (food poisoning from leftovers???).
This is the first mention we get of Taylor apparently insisting that Rory participate in every Stars Hollow activity, even though she didn’t go on the teen hayride in the pilot episode. It puts a slightly sinister spin on the enforced fun that Rory seems to have been pressured into.
RORY: It’s tradition. DEAN: I don’t believe this. RORY: It’s true. My mother and I have been doing this every year since we moved here.
We now know that Lorelai has been taking part in the Bid-a-Basket Fundraiser since 1987, even though she was a maid at the inn at the time, and had only been in Stars Hollow for a few months. It seems she became heavily involved in the town almost immediately.
Rory says she has also been taking part since she arrived in town too, but she was only a toddler. Perhaps she means that she accompanied Lorelai on her picnic lunch dates, as a sort of chaperone to make sure things could never get too romantic, and because Lorelai either didn’t want to leave her with a babysitter, or had no babysitting options.
It’s unclear at what age Rory was deemed old enough to take part in the fundraiser with her own basket, but most likely not until she was sixteen and had a boyfriend to buy her basket. That would be since the previous year, 2001. So Rory’s grand “tradition” has probably been going for a whole twelve months.
It’s also “tradition” for the woman to bake a delicious picnic lunch, but Lorelai and Rory don’t bother sticking to that tradition. There’s so many places that Dean could poke holes in Rory’s narrative or call her out, but he never does.
DEAN: She’s not going with you. JESS: Really, is that true? DEAN: Yes, it’s true. JESS: Excuse me Edgar Bergen, I think I’d like Charlie McCarthy to answer now.
Edgar Bergen, born Edgar Berggren (1903-1978), actor, comedian, vaudeville star, and radio performer. He was best known as a highly skilled and successful ventriloquist, working with a dummy called Charlie McCarthy. Their routines were very witty, and rather cheeky, with Charlie getting away with saying things that a person never could. Incidentally, Edgar was the father of actress Candice Bergen.
Jess is obviously saying that Dean is speaking for Rory, as if she is his puppet.
Dean puts a $5 bid on Rory’s basket, even though Taylor set the bidding at $3. He is expecting that to be the end of the matter, but is shocked when Jess begins bidding against him. Eventually Jess gets Rory’s basket for $90 – Dean, who has only come prepared with a small amount of money, expecting to win the bid straight away, cannot compete.
Rory’s is actually the most expensive basket we see at the auction, even though it’s tiny with only a few leftovers in it. Even Taylor tries to dissuade the boys from bidding so much, despite the fact the money is being raised for charity.
This interaction is an homage to the box social auction scene from the 1955 musical film, Oklahoma!, based on the 1943 stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which was based on the 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs.
The film focuses on the love triangle between virginal farm girl Laurey (Shirley Jones), charming cowboy Curly (Gordon MacRae), and unchivalrous farm hand Jud (Rod Steiger). Laurey goes to the box social with Jud to teach Curly a lesson, and the two men end up in a bidding war for Laurey’s picnic hamper at the auction. It seems as if Jud has won, but then Curly sells everything he has in order to raise enough money to get the winning bid.
The clean cut Dean and outsider Jess are clear analogies to Curly and Jud, but unlike the film, Dean has no way of instantly raising the money to get the highest bid. It does suggest that Rory accepts the lunch date with Jess because she’s fed up with Dean, as Laurey accepts Jud’s invitation because she’s tired of the way she’s being match-made with Curly. It also hints at Jess’ obsession with Rory, as Jud becomes obsessed with Laurey.
However, in the film, Laurey and Curly end up married, and Jud is killed in a fight with Curly. Perhaps this is meant reflect a bit of wishful thinking from Dean!
LANE: Well, I invited my cousin David to come and bid on my basket, you know, to keep my mother happy … Then when he gets it, we tell my mom we’re gonna go eat over at the park, where Henry’s gonna call on the pay phone at exactly two o’clock for the ‘all is clear’ sign. Then David, with the twenty bucks I give him, will disappear, Henry will arrive, and we’ll finally have our first official date.
With a dating plan this complex and filled with shenanigans, what could possibly go wrong? Henry met Lane in March 2001, so he’s been waiting nearly a year for his first date! And it’s ridiculously complicated. You have to give him points for incredible patience and understanding with Lane’s situation.
SOOKIE: Because I’m baking for the picnic tomorrow and it’s supposed to be a surprise. JACKSON: Oh sure, never see a pie before an auction, it’s bad luck.
Jackson is making a joke based on the old superstition that it is unlucky for the groom to see the bride’s wedding dress before their wedding. Not only is it a sign that he is thinking about marriage, it’s a possible foreshadowing of a future episode when a wedding dress is unluckily seen.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 