Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: She [Lorelai] didn’t have lunch.
There seems to be a bit of a pattern of Lorelai skipping lunch on Fridays, perhaps because she knows she’ll be getting a good dinner at her parents’ that evening. As a result, she turns up to dinner hungry and cranky, and ready for a dramatic fight every week! Of course, it’s possible Lorelai often skips lunch on weekdays, due to her busy schedule at the inn.
RORY: I feel jet-lagged.
LORELAI: You’ve been up twenty-four hours straight.
Um, no. The dance marathon began at 6 am on Saturday and finished at 6 am Sunday (earlier actually, as Kirk won some time before 6). It’s now Monday morning, so where did Sunday go? Everyone acts as if the marathon just finished an hour or so ago, but an entire day is missing from the timeline here. Maybe the whole town went into a collective coma after the marathon and they all lost a day.
[Lorelai sees Rory across the gym, and she walks over to her]
LORELAI: Rory, what happened? Where did you go? [sees that Rory is crying] Oh, Rory, honey! Oh.
[Lorelai and Rory hug while Kirk runs around the gym with the trophy]
Despite ruining Lorelai’s chances of winning, Lorelai only thinks of comforting her daughter when she sees how upset Rory is. Nothing stops Kirk’s victory lap – he has no problems celebrating as a teenage girl sobs in her mother’s arms!
Kirk’s dance partner is Donna Delain, who he has danced with for the past five years. She is presumably a good friend, or possibly a relative, but we never hear of her again. Kirk does not include Donna in the celebrations, and he keeps the trophy, even though her dancing has helped him to win! Also note that Kirk is wearing a Doose’s Market logo on his back – perhaps Taylor is sponsoring him?
KIRK: I win, I win! I win, I win, I win, I win!
LORELAI: You didn’t win! I’m still here! Patty, where’s Rory?
MISS PATTY: Oh, she ran off the floor a little while ago, honey.
LORELAI: What? No!
How did Lorelai not see what happened? She was just sitting in the bleachers with Luke. And she was only supposed to have a ten minute break, but it seems as if she was gone much longer than that. I’m not convinced that Lorelai wasn’t disqualified anyway.
SHANE: Where did you go? I’ve been sitting out there for twenty minutes.
JESS: The break’s only for ten.
SHANE: It’s just a saying.
I think we’re meant to look down on Shane for thinking that “I’ve been waiting twenty minutes” is a “saying” (rather than a hyperbole or an exaggeration). But Rory and Lorelai seemed to think fifteen minutes was “just a saying” for six hours, so I’m not sure they are any better.
MRS. KIM: Who are you?
JESS: Jess . . . ma’am.
Jess is the town bad boy with a smart mouth for everyone. Only Mrs Kim can bring him instantly into line and force him to speak respectfully, and she does it with three words and a stern look. You can’t help thinking that if Jess had had a grandmother or aunt like Mrs Kim, he would be a very different kid.
It seems as if the fake egg sandwiches are the only food provided at the 24 hour dance marathon, which is pretty terrible. And there’s no refrigeration, so this seems like another salmonella outbreak waiting to happen on the show.
LANE: Go away, Jess. No one asked for a Tony Manero wannabe to drop by.
Tony Manero, the lead character in the film Saturday Night Fever, previously discussed.
Lane really doesn’t like Jess at all, which may be another reason why it’s been hard for Rory to admit her feelings for him. It’s a shame, because Lane and Jess both love music and punk rock in particular, so you’d think they’d have at least one thing in common as a basis for friendship.
Apart from not being impressed by Jess’ behaviour in school, I think Lane has always romanticised Rory’s relationship with Dean, and she can’t imagine Rory with anyone else.
NURSE: You’re also supposed to have buck teeth, a clubfoot, and alopecia.
Buck Teeth [pictured]
More correctly, malocclusion, misalignment or incorrect relation between the teeth of the upper and lower dental arches when they approach each other as the jaws close. It may be caused by a variety of factors, both genetic and environmental eg thumb sucking, nail biting. The treatment is usually orthodontic braces.
Clubfoot
A birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inward and downward. It is the most common congenital malformation of the foot. Without treatment it will lead to pain and an impaired ability to walk. It may be treated with surgery or physical therapies.
Alopecia
Hair loss or baldness. The causes in women remain obscure, and are probably multiple.
Stanley has told his jealous wife that even though Lorelai looked pretty in her photo, she has since had her face smashed to pieces in an accident and her hair has fallen out, and the photo apparently didn’t reveal that she has a clubfoot and buck teeth. It’s a small town, so how he thought his wife would never discover he was lying I don’t know. We never hear of this couple again, so maybe they had to move.
LANE: Eggless egg salad. Though this year my mom added food coloring to make the egg-like product look more eggy.
Vegan egg salad is made from mashed tofu, yeast, and vegan mayonnaise with mustard and turmeric for colouring. Black salt (actually pink in colour) provides the egg flavouring. It doesn’t need food colouring, but maybe knowledge of vegan foods has increased since 2002.
I don’t know who wants vegan egg salad at 6 am, but this is the refreshment that Mrs Kim and Lane are providing!
LORELAI: Sookie, this is not like the fruit bowl his mother gave you. You can’t stick four kids in the attic and just pull them out at Christmas.
This sounds suspiciously like a reference to the 1979 Gothic novel Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews, the pen name of Cleo Virginia Andrews. The story is about four children, siblings named Chris, Cathy, Carrie, and Cory Dollanger, who are locked in an attic by their grandmother for more than three years, with the consent or encouragement of the children’s widowed mother. The book is the first in a series about the Dollanger siblings.
The book features rape, incest, and murder, and was described as “deranged swill” by one critic, but it was a bestseller. Lorelai has almost certainly read it – she would have been eleven at the time it was published, and it was so popular and shocking at the time that almost every teenage and preteen girl read it as part of a worldwide phenomenon.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 