Rory’s Fight With Dean

DEAN: Wait a minute. I thought we were gonna spend some time together.
RORY: We are.
DEAN: When?
RORY: I don’t know. Tomorrow maybe?

Rory and Dean now enter their third serious fight together, in a relationship which has only lasted around six months.

You can definitely see Dean’s point of view. He wanted to spend the day with Rory, but she was busy (and didn’t tell him about that beforehand), so they agreed to spend the evening together instead. But when he turns up for that, Rory tells him that now she has to spend the evening alone, planning her future. When he asks when he can see her again, she’s not sure and says the next day – maybe.

Dean is right that Rory is dismissing him from her life as if he doesn’t matter, and he is also right that her behaviour is absurd. She can’t possibly catch up on all the volunteering she thinks she has to do in one night, and she can’t even organise volunteer work for herself on a Saturday night when everything is shut. She possibly has an hour or so to make calls, and then she could spend the evening with Dean.

On the other hand, Dean is clearly jealous of the time Rory spends away from him, and makes very little attempt to understand Rory or help her feel less stressed out. If Rory had perhaps been more honest with him from the start as to how much of her summer would be taken up with classes, homework, and volunteer work, rather than springing it on him as it happens, he might have taken the news better.

Amazon

DEAN: I just thought we could hang today. Maybe see a movie, get something to eat. We could go to a bookstore, I’ll watch you browse for six or seven hours.
RORY: I would love to, but I have to do this thing today.
DEAN: Blow it off.
RORY: I can’t.
DEAN: Did I mention the bookstore for six or seven hours?
RORY: How about tonight? We can get a pizza and go on Amazon. You’ll be just as bored watching me ordering books, I promise.

Amazon is an American e-commerce company that was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, and is now the largest Internet retailer in the world by revenue, and second-largest by total sales, and the most valuable retailer in America. They originally started as an online bookstore, and later diversified. When she’s not buying books from the bookstores in Stars Hollow, Rory apparently orders her reading material from Amazon.

It seems from their exchange that Rory did not bother telling her boyfriend about the volunteer work she signed up for the previous day. It also seems that their “dates” generally revolve around Rory and her interests, with Dean having nothing to do except watch Rory enjoy herself. And further, it seems Rory sees absolutely nothing wrong with this level of selfishness in a relationship, which means she really has learned everything she knows from Lorelai.

A Connecticut Yankee

RORY: Hey, Henry?
LANE: Called him.
RORY: And?
LANE: He likes me. He’s perfect. I’ll never see him again. You’ll read about it in my novel, A Connecticut Yankee in Busan.

Lane is parodying the title of the 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, by Mark Twain. The novel is a satirical fantasy about a 19^th century American engineer who is mysteriously transported to 6^th century Britain in the time of the legendary King Arthur. It may be a novel that Lane and Rory once read for English class at Stars Hollow High.

At least Lane and Henry have finally spoken to each other, and everything went well – just as Lane is about to be shipped off to Korea for several weeks.

“Maybe she’ll think about it and call you”

RORY: Maybe she’ll think about it and call you and say she’s sorry.

Rory is thinking of her grandfather, when Richard called her after their fight to apologise. She doesn’t know that Emily forced him to do that, and hasn’t figured out that Richard and Emily treat her and Lorelai quite differently.

Lorelai Tells Emily About Her Engagement

LORELAI: Okay, well, um, the … Max and I have been serious for quite a while now, and he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I’m getting married.
EMILY: Well, I think that’s very nice. I certainly hope we’ll be in town for it, but if not I promise we’ll send a nice gift. Now excuse me, I’m going to check on the roast.

Emily is very hurt that Lorelai has waited this long to tell her that she is engaged, literally leaving her to last. Rather than tell Lorelai how she feels and have a discussion about it, Emily disguises her hurt by behaving as if Lorelai’s engagement means nothing to her, shocking and upsetting her daughter in the process.

Lorelai says that she and Max have been serious for “quite a while”, although in fact they only started dating after their January break up about six weeks ago, and their engagement only happened because the alternative was to break up – Lorelai’s original preferred option.

“If you don’t tell them in two weeks”

LORELAI: I will tell them when I’m ready to tell them. You have to accept that because I’m the mother and you’re the daughter, and in some cultures, that means you have to do what I say.
RORY: If you don’t tell them in two weeks, I will.

For years, Lorelai has been running she and Rory’s lives by making all the decisions for both of them (in fact, she’s been shown to be quite controlling, like Emily). Now Rory is a few months off seventeen, she is starting to make her own opinions heard, especially when it comes to her grandparents. These are the first rumblings of what will eventually be a major rift between mother and daughter.

Rory says she will wait two weeks before telling Richard and Emily, meaning she’s quite happy for them to miss Max and Lorelai’s engagement party. Maybe she’s in no hurry for them to meet Dean again.

Henry and Lane

Henry tells Rory that he tried to call Lane once, and Mrs Kim answered, frightening him so much that he never phoned again. This doesn’t quite tally with what Lane told Rory: that Henry rang once and got the answering machine, leaving a message that she listened to again and again before eventually breaking the machine. Perhaps Henry only counts the call where someone answered the phone (which Lane doesn’t know about since her mother took the call).

It is now nearly three months since Henry and Lane first met at Madeline’s party. That’s a long time for Henry to remain interested without doing anything, and he’s taken ages to talk to Rory about the situation. Perhaps he is as unused to dealings with the opposite sex as Lane – certainly they both seem to have made a bit of a mess of this situation.

Rory hasn’t been a real help either; she lives in the same town as Lane and goes to school with Henry, so couldn’t she at least have passed notes and letters between the two of them, or driven Lane into Hartford to see Henry? (Maybe even organised a Trigonometry tutoring class that Lane and Henry could have both joined!)

To be fair, Rory didn’t rely on Lane to fix her relationship problems with Dean, but Rory has a bit more experience with boys, much more freedom, and a generally far easier life than Lane.

“You’re not talking to me”

RORY: Uh, you’re not talking to me.
MADELINE: I’m not?
LOUISE: Tristan.
PARIS: PJ Harvey.
MADELINE: Oh yeah.

This conversation is a nice reminder of the events of last season which caused Paris to (once again) hate Rory, and force Louise and Madeline to join her in solidarity. It is typical of Madeline that she can never remember why she is supposed to hate Rory – partly it’s ditziness, but also a genuine liking for Rory; Madeline is noticeably always pleased to see her. And Paris’ reasons for hating Rory are so silly that’s it’s no wonder Madeline can’t remember them.

Lorelai and Max

In the final scene, Lorelai receives her engagement ring from Max while sitting on the front porch. It is too big, a possible sign that marriage is too big a commitment for her. The episode ends with her saying, “I’m getting married”, rather than “We’re getting married” – once again, it’s all about Lorelai. She looks happier, but her final gaze is at her new diamond ring rather than her fiance.

Saturday 21st

SOOKIE (on phone to Emily): Listen, I’m sorry to call so late, but I need to ask you a question. I’m planning a surprise wedding shower for Lorelai and Max, and it’s gonna be more like a big party actually. But I’ve cleared the date with everybody around here, so we’re all set to go, but I wanted to make sure you guys were gonna be around before I finalised everything. It’s going to be Saturday the 21st.

The surprise wedding shower for Lorelai and Max is planned for June 21; this is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and traditionally the high point of summer. It is a symbolic day to celebrate an engagement, when the sun is at its zenith, and there is more light available than any other day. Traditionally, the time around the summer solstice is associated with love and fertility.

In real life, June 21 was a Thursday, not a Saturday, in 2001.

Because of Sookie’s phone call, where she discovered that Lorelai had got engaged without telling her parents, a distressed Emily orders Richard to apologise to Rory. She is afraid that if they push Rory away as they did with Lorelai, that they will lose her as well, and the thought is unbearable to her.

This will set up a pattern where Richard and Emily try to treat Rory as differently from Lorelai as possible. They were strict and even harsh with Lorelai, but Rory the angel child will receive little else but praise and indulgence, for fear that if she doesn’t get her way in all things, she will become another Lorelai and escape. Whether this plan is a good one for Rory’s character and independence is never questioned.