LUKE: So, back from the ball, huh? LORELAI: Yes, I left behind a glass slipper and a business card in case the prince is really dumb.
Yet another Cinderellareference. In the fairy tale, Cinderella loses the glass slipper at the ball by which the prince, through a laborious and long-winded process, eventually manages to track her down. Lorelai suggests leaving a business card might have led to quicker results.
Is Lorelai’s response supposed to be a hint to Luke, or just a comment on the stupidity of Christopher? Either way, it feels as if Luke’s opening gambit is his way of testing to see if Christopher is going to be sticking around or not.
CHRISTOPHER: That is a tempting offer, but I really have to get back. LORELAI: To work? CHRISTOPHER: To work … and to someone.
Lorelai suggests that now Christopher is living as close as Boston, he might like to stay with them on weekends sometimes (and to stay for the rest of this weekend specifically). Rory would love it, and … Lorelai says she wouldn’t mind either. This new, responsible Volvo-driving Christopher is obviously far more appealing.
Unfortunately for happy families, Christopher says that he has a girlfriend called Sherrie now. In fact, as a real slap in the face, he didn’t move to Boston to be closer to Rory, but because it’s where Sherrie lives. Not only has he not bothered to tell them about Sherrie before, not only has he led Lorelai on by not revealing his relationship status, but he ignores the fact that having a girlfriend shouldn’t stop him from visiting his daughter. (If it would be too weird to stay over, couldn’t he get a room at a hotel or something?). Once again, Christopher is only thinking of Lorelai.
When Lorelai joins Rory at the diner, it transpires that Christopher did tell his daughter about Sherrie, presumably at the ball, since there’s been no opportunity for Rory to tell Lorelai about it before this.
RORY: Thanks again for going with me. DEAN: Tomorrow you start paying. Bye. [leaves]
Dean makes it sound as if Rory will start watching BattleBots the next day, a Sunday, but in real life, the show was broadcast on Wednesdays at this time. Maybe he taped it to watch later – all that ball preparation (tee hee) must have really cut into his television-watching schedule.
It’s a chilly and rather threatening way to end a night out with his girlfriend, and fans could well feel that Dean is also in preparation for being “phased out”.
RORY: So did you know that you’re considered a hot dad? LORELAI: Hah! CHRISTOPHER: Really? RORY: Libby said that it’s too bad you’re my real dad because if you were my stepdad, I could steal you away from Mom.
An incest joke uncomfortably close to Rory’s actual daddy issues.
EMILY (to Lorelai): That should’ve been you up there. Nothing’s turning out the way it was supposed to.
From the very first episode, it’s been made clear that Richard and Emily are using Rory as a Lorelai substitute, filling up the big gaping hole of their hurt and disappointment with their daughter with hope and pride in their granddaughter.
It now becomes apparent that it hasn’t been possible to suppress and cover up their feelings so easily. Emily has participated in Rory’s coming out as a replacement for the debut Lorelai was supposed to make when she was sixteen – Rory even wears the same dress Lorelai was going to – and yet it hasn’t helped at all, merely brought into sharper focus all that Lorelai (and by extension, her parents) have missed out on in life.
We know that Emily doesn’t believe in arguing or having intense discussions at social events, so for her to fight with Richard in public and make this angry and emotional remark to Lorelai is very out of character. It’s a sign just how frustrated and miserable she’s been.
We discover during the course of the ball why Richard has been so stressed and irritable. He is being “phased out” of the insurance company he works for. The process is one whereby a senior employee, like Richard, begins losing responsibilities to begin his path to retirement. Richard is taken off an account he brought to the company, he is given a bigger office upstairs, a new title (we don’t discover what it is), and a better parking space.
Emily sees this as a “promotion”, but Richard knows the bitter truth: the company is softening the blow of his eventual retirement by smoothing his passage out of a useful role and into one of a mere figurehead. To add insult to injury, it’s the very “phasing out” process Richard himself invented to get rid of a man named Alan Parker. (A hint of how cold-blooded and ruthless Richard can be in career matters).
Once this is explained to her, Emily still doesn’t see it as such a big deal, saying that Richard has “other options” (retire or take up some other project). However, Richard has been dreaming of this life since he was ten years old, and doesn’t want other options, feeling that if Emily doesn’t understand, then she hasn’t been listening to him.
Richard throwing a petulant tantrum at a social function his granddaughter is participating in might remind the viewer of some of the meltdowns Rory and Lorelai have had during the course of the show. As Headmaster Charleston said, “You do like to throw fits in your family”. There is a strong emotional streak in the Gilmore clan – perhaps one reason why the more restrained Emily is always trying to rein it in.
The argument is left unresolved for this episode, as Rory tells them it is her turn next. I have no idea how Rory even knows they’re talking in a side room and not already watching her, nor how she managed to get down the staircase, tell everyone she’s on next, then shimmy right back up the stairs again, ready to walk down and be presented. I’m pretty sure in real life someone would have told her to stay exactly she was and not interrupt the proceedings.
There is a poignancy to the fact that just as Rory is being ushered into society and acknowledged as a young woman who is growing up, Richard is at a point in his life where he is being gently shuffled off, ready for retirement. This contrast between them must be at least one reason why Richard has no stomach for Rory’s debutante ball, and expresses such angry disdain for the proceedings.
LORELAI: She’s been acting so weird lately. They’re fighting. Openly fighting. I don’t think they’ve ever done that before. I’m not sure what to do about it. CHRISTOPHER: Move to California. That’s what I do when my parents fight.
This apparently explains why Christopher moved to California, to get away from his parents’ fighting. From what we saw of Francine, she was far too cowed to look as if she ever fought with her husband, but perhaps she’s been thoroughly brow-beaten into submission by now. Most likely, this is another of Christopher’s lies, used to justify his behaviour.
Lorelai has supposedly never seen her parents fight before – if so, they must have been very careful to keep serious conflict hidden from their daughter while she was growing up to give her a stable home environment. However, this is the same Lorelai who claimed she and Rory never had a fight until Rory was nearly sixteen. She’s possibly just forgetting all the previous fights her parents had.
CHRISTOPHER: Imagine what we could do if we freed up the brain space that holds onto the Viennese Waltz. LORELAI: Yeah, it’s right up there in between old Brady Bunch reruns and the lyrics to Rapture.
Christopher and Lorelai mention things they learned and experienced during their teenage years they can never forget. It’s a none-too-subtle reference to the fact that they can never really forget each other or let each other go.
Viennese Waltz
A type of ballroom dance, the original form of the waltz. It emerged in the second half of the 18th century from a German baroque dance and an Austrian folk dance. The American style of the waltz allows for much greater freedom of movement.
The Brady Bunch
An American sitcom about a large blended family which aired from 1969 to 1974, but is still popular today as re-runs. There are also numerous specials, spin-offs, and television movies based on the show. It later turns out that Lorelai and Rory often watched them.
Rapture
A 1981 Blondie song which combines new wave, disco, and rap. From the album Autoamerican, it went to #1 in the US, and was successful around the world. It was the first song with rapping in it to get to #1, and the first rap song to original music.
The lyrics are:
Toe to toe Dancing very close Barely breathing Almost comatose Wall to wall People hypnotised And they’re stepping lightly Hang each night in Rapture
Back to back Sacroiliac Spineless movement And a wild attack
Face to face Sadly solitude And it’s finger popping Twenty-four hour shopping in Rapture
Fab Five Freddy told me everybody’s fly Dj spinnin’ I said, “My, my” Flash is fast, Flash is cool François c’est pas, Flash ain’t no dude And you don’t stop, sure shot Go out to the parking lot And you get in your car and drive real far And you drive all night and then you see a light And it comes right down and it lands on the ground And out comes a man from Mars And you try to run but he’s got a gun And he shoots you dead and he eats your head And then you’re in the man from Mars You go out at night eatin’ cars You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too Mercurys and Subaru And you don’t stop, you keep on eatin’ cars Then, when there’s no more cars you go out at night And eat up bars where the people meet Face to face, dance cheek to cheek One to one, man to man Dance toe to toe, don’t move too slow ‘Cause the man from Mars is through with cars He’s eatin’ bars, yeah wall to wall Door to door, hall to hall He’s gonna eat ’em all Rapture, be pure Take a tour through the sewer Don’t strain your brain, paint a train You’ll be singin’ in the rain Said don’t stop to punk rock
Well now you see what you wanna be Just have your party on TV ‘Cause the man from Mars won’t eat up bars when the TV’s on And now he’s gone back up to space Where he won’t have a hassle with the human race And you hip-hop, and you don’t stop Just blast off, sure shot ‘Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin’ cars and eatin’ bars And now he only eats guitars, get up
Lorelai must have sung along to this a lot to have learned all the lyrics off by heart! Maybe this is the song Lorelai was thinking of when she told Max she is into rap music?
Lorelai and Chris dance together beautifully, symbolically showing that they have sexual compatibility. See how happy they look together, enjoying each other’s physicality and natural playfulness, while Miss Patty presides over them approvingly.
In contrast, Rory and Dean dance awkwardly together, looking nervous and unsure of themselves. It suggests that they are not sexually fluent, being inexperienced teenagers, and is perhaps a sign that there is something lacking in Rory and Dean’s relationship. Tellingly, Miss Patty worried that Rory might hurt Dean with her bad dancing – a foreshadowing of the pain she will cause him.
LORELAI: Hey Mom, I might be reading too much into this, but um, is something going on between you and Dad? EMILY: What are you talking about? LORELAI: I don’t know, he just seems a little less jolly than usual.
Even the self-centred Lorelai has picked up that her parents are not getting along, and that her father isn’t happy. While Emily is seemingly obsessed with Rory’s debutante ball, Richard appears quite uninterested, even refusing to pick up his own tuxedo from the dry cleaners as he has too much work to do. Yet he is home early, not in work clothes, and drinking alcohol … hmm.
Emily declares that everything is fine, and Lorelai uncharacteristically backs down, saying that she must have been mistaken.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 