RORY: [reads button] “Stars Hollow Hockey, 2003 semifinalists. Go Minutemen. The future is yours. Bring this button to Doose’s for fifty percent off your next purchase of Stove Top Stuffing.”
Stove Top is a brand of stuffing introduced by General Foods in 1972. It is a quick cooking (“instant”) stuffing that is available in supermarkets. Unlike traditional stuffing, Stove Top can be prepared on the stove, in a pot, and can also be prepared in a microwave oven. It is used as a side dish for meals as well as a medium in which some meats (pork, chicken) can be baked. It is sold in boxes and canisters.
There is a slight retcon or continuity error here, because in “Secrets and Loans”, the Minutemen were the school’s basketball team, not their hockey team. Unless all the sports teams have the same name???
Upon learning that Lorelai and Rory are planning to backpack around Europe and stay in hostels after graduation, Richard and Emily first of all think they are joking, then throw a fit about it as unsafe and reckless.
I guess you could justify this by saying that they were simply humouring Lorelai and Rory before, and now they are giving their real opinions, or that they didn’t understand before, but they behave as if this is entirely new information, not information they previously ignored or misinterpreted. It feels like a retcon.
RICHARD: I’d given her my pin, I’d introduced her to my parents … The date was set, invitations mailed out.
Although Emily denies that Richard was ever actually engaged to Linny Lott, he claims that a wedding date had been set and invitations mailed out, which sounds pretty solidly engaged to me.
In a former episode, Richard said he almost married a woman named Lucinda Lester, until Emily set her sights on him, due to his prowess at fencing reminding her of her celebrity crush, Errol Flynn.
Although it’s possible that Richard almost married two women with the initials LL he met in college, this does feel like a retcon, with Lucinda becoming Linny. Emily claimed Lucinda had a moustache, something she never says about Linny or Pennilynn.
When Jess comes out of the bathroom, we can see it is now in a different direction. After being located just beyond the kitchen area from the first season until now, the bathroom in Luke’s place has moved to the other side of the apartment near the bedroom area. It remains there for the remainder of the show’s run.
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.
RICHARD: So there we are, it’s a beautiful moonlit Prague night, and we’re strolling across the Charles Bridge when we come across this group of kids blasting this song …
Charles Bridge is a medieval stone arch bridge that crosses the Vltava river in Prague, Czech Republic. Its construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the early 15th century. Originally called Stone Bridge, it has been referred to as “Charles Bridge” since 1870. It’s been restricted to pedestrian traffic only since the late 1970s, hence Richard and Emily stroll across it while teenagers could congregate listening to music.
Emily earlier talked about Prague as if she had never been, saying it was “supposed to be lovely”. Now we discover she and Richard had already been there on one of their traditional December trips.
JESS: What’s the white stuff? LUKE: I think it’s cheese – or cream. JESS: And the green stuff? LUKE: I think it’s … best picked off.
This is another “mirroring” scene for Jess and Luke, showing them side by side, dressed alike, and gazing at their soup with the same expression of confusion and distrust. It doesn’t make a lot of sense though. Luke runs a successful diner – surely he can tell the difference between cream cheese and cream? And why is he so horrified by fresh herbs? (I think it’s sage, but I’m not sure).
Luke is always telling Lorelai and Rory off for eating meat and junk food, advocating a healthy plant-based diet. It’s nonsensical that he would be unable to identify a herb and unwilling to eat it, or look disgusted by a bowl of butternut squash soup. I mean, if he hates meat, and he hates vegetarian food, what exactly does Luke eat?
[The girls start dancing. Kirk watches them as Rory walks over to him.] RORY: How come you’re not up there Kirk? KIRK: Oh, I don’t tap anymore. Bum knees.
This is the first indication we have of Kirk’s artistic leanings and dance training, later retconned so that he is actually a past student of Miss Patty (even though he had never met her in their first encounter on the show, in Cinnamon’s Wake).
EMILY: I don’t have any baby pictures of your mother. RORY: How could you not have any baby pictures of Mom? EMILY: Because when your mother was seven, I came downstairs and found her burning all of her baby pictures.
Emily already showed Rory a baby picture of Lorelai in the family photo album when she was staying at her grandparents’ house in Love and War and Snow, so this is a retcon.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 