Be careful what you wish for

By the end of the episode, Lorelai has received what she said she wanted – she and Max have taken a break from their relationship. Moreover, she doesn’t need to feel guilty as it was he who asked for some space to think things through. And she shouldn’t feel rejected either, as Max has indicated he really does like her, but that things have become too complicated for him.

Of course getting her wish does nothing to make her feel better, and leaves her heartbroken. To her credit, Rory comforts Lorelai in her misery, even though Lorelai has treated her really badly as well during this episode. Hopefully she apologised to Rory off-screen, as we never see her do so on the show.

“Ask Skippy”

LORELAI: I freaked out. I’m so sorry. I never meant to treat you like that; I’m not very good at this, ask Skippy.

When she apologises to Max for the awful way she treated him, she mentions Skippy the hamster, that she abandoned rather than care for. Skippy was also treated appallingly, and Lorelai recognises that the hamster is symbolic of the way that she tends to dump people rather than deal with any problems in the relationship.

“Would you like to go out to dinner some time – with me?”

Sookie and Jackson have been shown doing nothing but bicker over the quality of his produce since the start of the show. In the conventions of romantic comedy, when two people keep arguing “like an old married couple”, the audience knows they are destined to be together some day.

Sookie is genre-savvy enough to know that the person she has been bickering with must be her romantic destiny: Jackson even acted like a jealous lover when Sookie checked out somebody else’s fruit. She takes immediate action, showing that she really is quite the relationship expert.

Her choice of Jackson is a practical one for another reason: she said she didn’t have time to meet people as she was so busy at the inn, so it makes sense for her to ask out someone she knows through work.

It is notable that while Sookie is always interested in Lorelai’s potential relationships, and gently pushes her toward Luke (her obvious romantic destiny in the show), Lorelai doesn’t reciprocate. She’s never said anything to Sookie except to grumpily tell her that as a long-term single, her opinion on relationships is worthless, and has never given her the tiniest nudge towards Jackson, who they both see nearly every day.

“We could hurt Rory”

LORELAI: Look it is what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. This is a family. Rory and I, you walked into a family, but you weren’t listening and now she’s getting attached and I’m afraid she’s gonna get hurt.
MAX: So you solution to all of this is not to return my calls
LORELAI: It just took me a while to figure things out and it all came clear when I realized how much we could hurt Rory.
MAX: Don’t you mean how much we could hurt Lorelai?

After deciding that Rory is old enough for Lorelai to openly date men with her full knowledge, Lorelai suddenly panics when she worries how a break up with Max might affect Rory. It’s a little bit unbelievable, as Rory has hardly “got attached” to Max – apart from seeing him at school, they had one very brief conversation together when he came to pick Lorelai up for a date.

Max immediately calls her out on it, seeing that what Lorelai really fears is getting hurt herself. It’s Lorelai who is “getting attached” to Max, and fears the consequences to herself if they ever broke up. Once again, she is using Rory as an excuse to avoid a long-term committed relationship.

Rory later says she can’t believe Lorelai is “blaming her” for her relationship difficulties with Max, showing that she doesn’t appreciate being used an excuse.

When Lorelai meets Max at the cafe, she admits that worrying about Rory very soon jumped to worrying about herself.

Oscar and Felix

While arguing over whether to eat leftover pizza from the garbage bin – it was only just thrown out and is still in the box – Rory calls Lorelai “Oscar”, and she counters by calling Rory “Felix”.

This is in reference to Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar, the main characters from The Odd Couple, originally a 1965 Broadway play written by Neil Simon. In the story, the pair are friends sharing an apartment, with the slovenly Oscar and neat-freak Felix constantly clashing.

The Odd Couple was made into a comedy film in 1968, directed by Gene Saks, and with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon starring as Oscar and Felix respectively. Given rave reviews by critics, it was the #4 film of 1968.

It was then made into a television sitcom with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall as Oscar and Felix, originally airing from 1970 to 1975, but still on American television in reruns. This may be the version of The Odd Couple that Lorelai and Rory is most familiar with.

It seems to be an old joke between Lorelai and Rory to see themselves as “the odd couple” – mismatched housemates who nevertheless are very fond of each other.

(Note that Lorelai cleaning out the refrigerator is a call back to the contest she and Rory had at the start of the episode to see who had to clean out the fridge – apparently Lorelai lost).

“Two months”

When Lorelai suddenly seems far less interested in Max, Sookie points out that Lorelai and Max have been dating for two months now – which is the usual time that Lorelai begins backing out of a relationship. Lorelai and Max began dating in mid-November 2000, so it must now be the middle of January 2001.

Sookie’s comment incidentally confirms that none of Lorelai’s relationships have lasted very long, which we inferred from her statement to Max that none of her dates ever went to her house or met Rory before. Near the end of the episode we learn that Rory never even knew their names, but that Lorelai referred to them by a brief description.

Marilyn Monroe-Arthur Miller Syndrome

MADELINE: I bet his [Max’s] girlfriend’s pretty.
LOUISE: I bet she’s dumb.
MADELINE: Why?
LOUISE: Dumb girls crave smart men. It’s that whole Marilyn Monroe-Arthur Miller syndrome.

Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe and left-wing playwright Arthur Miller married in 1956, after meeting in the early 1950s and dating seriously since 1955. The media saw the marriage as a mismatch, because Monroe’s typecast screen persona was a “dumb blonde”: one headline read Egghead Marries Hourglass. The couple divorced in 1961.

Lorelai and Max do fit the Monroe-Miller stereotype, as Max is written as far more literary and intellectual than the vivacious Lorelai.

“There’s a certain slant of light”

MAX: “There’s a certain slant of light, winter afternoons, that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tunes.” That, my friends is the first verse of a poem by Emily Dickinson. Now read some of those tonight, and as you do, consider the fact that Emily Dickinson writes convincingly about passion and about the world in spite of the fact that she lived as a virtual recluse. It’ll help you appreciate her mind.

Max is reading from the Emily Dickinson poem identified by its first line, There’s a certain slant of light, numbered as 258 in her collected works. It was written around 1861, although not published until after her death.

The poem is about the oppression and even despair brought on by the bleak New England winter. Max and Lorelai began their relationship on the first snowfall of the year – something which for Lorelai is imbued with an almost magical sense of joy and expectation.

As Max reads from this poem which describes the sense of impending doom and death brought on by winter, we can feel that their relationship is about to become much colder. We might also remember that on the day Max first asked Lorelai on a date, he mentioned her icy attitude toward him. Now is the time for that frosty snow queen to reawaken.

This Old House

MAX: And yet, as soon as that dinner’s over and I start cleaning up, suddenly that’s when you’re starving.
LORELAI: What can I say – watching someone work makes me hungry. If I hadn’t stopped watching This Old House I’d be five hundred pounds right now.

This Old House is a highly popular home improvement television show which has aired since 1979, and is broadcast from Stamford, Connecticut. Presumably Lorelai started watching it after she bought a house of her own in Stars Hollow so she could learn how to do home repairs; she probably stopped watching it once she realised she could get Luke to do everything for her.

We last saw Max having his first date with Lorelai in Love and War and Snow. We only just now discover that they been dating happily ever since and are still together.

Skippy the Hamster

Lorelai’s mistreatment of Rory’s childhood pet hamster is Rory’s reason to not allow her to get a dog, a nice reversal of the usual parent-child relationship.

It’s interesting that Rory says that Lorelai doesn’t need a dog as she has her, suggesting that Rory sees herself as more of a pet than a daughter. It is only when Lorelai no longer has Rory that she gets a dog – although she treats it more like her child than her pet.

It is not known when Rory might have had a pet hamster. They didn’t get their own house until Rory was eleven, suggesting it might have been after that. However, by that stage Rory should have been old enough to care for her own hamster, so that Lorelai wouldn’t need to do anything. If Rory had a hamster during the mysterious “lost years” between perhaps four and ten, we don’t know what circumstances Lorelai and Rory lived in, but whatever it was, it apparently allowed pets.