Tag: Relationship Insight

Emily and Michel Meet

(They introduce themselves and shake hands)
EMILY: Enchantée. D’où venez vous?
MICHEL: Paris.
EMILY: J’adore Paris. Nous y allons chaque printemps.

Emily says, “Pleased to meet you. Where are you from?”, and Michel says he’s from Paris. Emily says, “I love Paris. We go there every spring”.

In fact, Richard and Emily go to Europe every second year in the fall, and specifically refused to go to Paris in the spring, questioning whether there was anything to see at that time of year.

Emily and Michel instantly hit it off, with Emily pronouncing him a “charming man”, and Michel telling Lorelai, “I just love your mother”. It makes sense that the two people who most enjoy  torturing Lorelai would like each other.

Boo Radley

LORELAI: You want him [Rune] to live here?
SOOKIE: No! Well, what about the old potting shed?
LORELAI: The old potting shed? That’s where Rory and I lived when she was a baby. It has memories and little rosebud wallpaper. I don’t want Boo Radley touching my rosebud wallpaper.

Arthur “Boo” Radley is a character in To Kill a Mockingbird, the 1960 novel by American author Harper Lee. He is a recluse who has been isolated from the townspeople since he was a teenager, and many rumours surround him. Boo Radley was apparently based on a real life neighbour of Harper Lee when she was a child. In the 1962 film version, he is portrayed by Robert Duvall [pictured].

Lorelai is saying that Rune is the town weirdo, like Boo Radley. The fact that she sees him this way shows that on some level, she is starting to accept him as a resident of Stars Hollow. (She can’t help it – she loves Stars Hollow, and on some level, everyone who lives there, even Rune).

It’s notable that after this Lorelai appears kind and friendly to Rune, a man she dislikes, who has been nothing but insulting to her, and is spreading rumours that imply she is his ex-girlfriend. Is she just being loyal to Sookie, or is there some fellow feeling with Rune, the black sheep of his family who has come to Stars Hollow with almost nothing? She gives Rune the same start she was given – an entry-level job at the inn, and some very basic free accommodation.

This is also the first we hear of Lorelai and Rory living in the potting shed at the Independence Inn, which will be important later in the episode.

The Fight Between Paris and Rory

Paris finds out that not only does Tristan not want to date her again, even though their evening together seemed to go fairly well, but that it was Rory’s idea that he ask her out. She immediately throws a fit, accusing Rory of giving Paris her “cast offs”, so she’s obviously been quite aware of Tristan’s attraction to Rory.

Whenever Paris and Rory seemed to be becoming friends, something would happen to ruin it. Of course Rory could never do anything to hurt Paris, and would instantly forgive her whenever she hurt Rory, so the only way it could happen was for Paris to behave in a completely insane way, where she got angry over almost nothing, and would hold a grudge about it for an inordinate time.

“Why didn’t you go to Madeline or Louise?”

RORY: Why didn’t you go to Madeline or Louise about this? [the date with Tristan] I mean, they seem to get that “fabulous little top” thing.
PARIS: Oh yeah, that they get. The whole supportive, “You’re going to be fine, and not throw up twelve times on the way to his car” thing – that they don’t get.

From this we can see that Madeline and Louise aren’t true friends to Paris, and that she has sought out Rory for advice and comfort over them, even though it means driving half an hour each way before her date. Paris clearly wants Rory to be her best friend, although the show will throw spanner after spanner in the works of that desire.

Trix

We finally meet Richard’s mother Lorelai Gilmore (Marion Ross), who he calls Trix as her special pet name. It seems to be a Gilmore tradition to have a nickname that’s unrelated to your real name, as neither Rory nor Trix are actually short for Lorelai. Trix is a stereotypical scary old lady who frightens even Lorelai into good behaviour, and turns Emily to jelly.

It is notable that Trix and Richard are very close, just like Lorelai and Rory, while Trix despises Emily. Trix treats Emily the same way Emily treats Lorelai, which doesn’t quite make sense unless Emily’s mother died when she was fairly young, and Trix is her main “mother type” relationship.

If the family pattern continues through to the next generation, it suggests that Lorelai will dislike the man that Rory marries and constantly give him a hard time for not being good enough for her daughter. This doesn’t seem unlikely, as Lorelai was never a huge fan of any of Rory’s boyfriends.

Furthermore, it suggests that Rory will have a distant relationship with her child, as Richard does with Lorelai. Again, this isn’t implausible, as Rory has a colder personality than her mother, and doesn’t seem to really like children. If Rory’s husband is as hard on the child as Emily is on Lorelai, then we can expect another rebellious teenager to emerge – that only Lorelai can control.

“The beginning of a wonderful friendship”

RORY: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship.
TRISTAN: Who’s Louis?

Rory is referencing the 1942 romantic drama film Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz and based on the unproduced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick’s by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison.

Set in Casablanca, Morocco during World War II, it is about an American nightclub owner named Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) who must choose between his lost love Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and helping her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a Czech Resistance fugitive, escape from Vichy-controlled Casablanca so he can fight against the Nazis.

When the corrupt prefect of police Louis Renault (Claude Rains) tries to arrest Victor, Rick forces Renault to instead assist Victor and Ilsa to escape by holding him at gunpoint. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa leave with her husband. Louis suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville, in the Congo, and in the final scene Rick says, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Rory seems to be suggesting that she and Tristan could form a friendship based on doing the right thing – that is, forgetting all about their kiss (which was apparently mutually enjoyable) and putting others’ needs before their own. Tristan doesn’t recognise the slight misquote, which dooms him as a potential love interest. Even Dean got Rory’s movie references.

Casablanca was the #9 film of 1942, received very good reviews, and won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Its reputation has only increased with time, and it continues to be well loved and popular with audiences. Casablanca is generally regarded as one of the best films ever made, and a shining example of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

This is another of Lorelai and Rory’s favourite films.

“So tell me more about her”

RORY: So tell me more about her [her great-grandmother] …
LORELAI: Well, let’s see. She moved to London when Grandpa died but she didn’t like to travel, so once a year Mom and Dad would go to visit her, usually leaving me behind, much to my relief by the way, and that’s it.

We don’t know when Richard’s father died, but it was clearly a long time ago, possibly before Lorelai was born. It seems strange that someone who doesn’t like to travel would move overseas to live.

Richard and Emily said they can only afford to go to Europe every two years, but Lorelai says they saw Richard’s mother in London every year. Maybe they used to have more money when Lorelai was a child, or prices were cheaper? Because Lorelai says they “usually” left her behind, it means that she must have been to London with her parents at least once.

As her grandmother is the only one who can seemingly control Lorelai and scare her into uncharacteristically meek behaviour, it makes the viewer wonder if Lorelai would have gone off the rails as a teenager if Richard’s mother hadn’t moved to London. I suspect not, and Gilmore Girls would never have happened.

“Peace out, Humphrey”

EMILY: Everyone’s awfully quiet tonight.
LORELAI: Sorry Mom, I’m just tired.
RORY: Me too – school.
LORELAI: Work.
RORY: Life.
LORELAI: Dig it, man.
RORY: Peace out, Humphrey.

The audience knows why Lorelai and Rory are so quiet. Rory is depressed about breaking up with her boyfriend Dean, and Lorelai’s relationship with Max has hit an impasse: they reunited and both love each other, but the problems that ended their relationship are still there with no solutions in sight.

Lorelai says, “Dig it, man”, which is hippie slang from the 1960s meaning, “Get it, understand it, know it”. The hippies might have added the “man”, but “dig it” goes back at least to the 1930s as African-American slang, and even in the 19th century Americans spoke about “digging” in the sense of knowing or studying something.

Rory responds in a similarly counter-culture way by saying “Peace out, Humphrey”. “Peace out” is hippie slang meaning “Goodbye, go in peace”, influenced by the radio sign-off, “Over and out”.

Rory is possibly referring to Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978) who was the Vice President under President Lyndon Johnson from 1965 to 1969. The main author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he introduced the initiative of the Peace Corps and the National Peace Agency. Sceptical of the war in Vietnam, he was forced to support it in loyalty to Johnson. He was the Democratic nominee in the 1968 presidential election but lost to Richard Nixon – you could say that he “peaced out”.

Divergent Dating Lives

When Lorelai gets back from Hartford and returning Sookie’s car, she finds Rory is already home from the party and is crying on the sofa while eating from two enormous tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Lorelai immediately phones the delivery service and orders a pizza – luckily the pizza place is still taking orders this late at night. (Stars Hollow – where businesses open at 6 am and are still running past midnight; it’s the small town that never sleeps).

It is now Lorelai’s turn to comfort Rory, just as her daughter comforted her when she broke up with Max a couple of months ago. Lorelai cannot tell Rory that she is back with Max, as her daughter is too distraught about her relationship ending.

Lorelai and Rory started out with their dating lives running in parallel, but they are now divergent (although they both got kissed in Hartford on the same night). Rory and Dean have broken up while Lorelai and Max got back together. Just as Lorelai began dating Max once she saw that Rory was happy with Dean, she got back with Max once she saw how miserable Rory was without Dean.