Tag: Speculation

“I always meant to call you”

LORELAI: I always meant to call you, but I’m not good at calling when a call is really necessary. And then, you know, uh, if you don’t call for awhile, it gets harder to call, and then after awhile, it feels like it’s too late to call, and so you don’t, although you always know that you should’ve called, and I should’ve called … I never really explained what happened … I don’t think I didn’t love you. I think . . . I think I was not ready to get married.

It’s unclear from Lorelai’s explanation to Max whether she means that she never phoned after jilting him to apologise or check he was okay, or whether she simply took off on the road trip with Rory and never told him anything at all. Lorelai seems a little unsure as to whether she ever loved Max, but she is surely correct that she was not ready to get married.

“I brought pizza”

LORELAI: Oh, well, I brought pizza if you guys are hungry.

In previous seasons, Paris is said to be lactose intolerant, and cannot eat cheese. When she had pizza before at the Gilmores’, Lorelai got her a pizza without cheese on it. This can’t be the case now, as Lorelai didn’t know Paris was coming over. Maybe the big blow out of mac and cheese Paris had when Jess brought dinner over taught her that she wasn’t as lactose intolerant as she thought?

Afterschool Special

RORY: Okay, so, were you safe?
PARIS: Yes, it was a regular afterschool special.

ABC Afterschool Special, television anthology series that aired on ABC from 1972 to 1997, usually in the late afternoon on weekdays. Most episodes were dramatically presented situations, often controversial, of interest to children and teenagers. Several episodes were either in animated form or presented as documentaries. Topics included illiteracy, substance abuse and teenage pregnancy. The series won 51 Daytime Emmy Awards.

None of the episodes depicted a young couple having a sexual relationship, but “A Question About Sex” (1990), did advocate for teens to be informed about sex education.

Rory listens to Paris’ concerns about losing her virginity with a fair amount of sensitivity, and checks that she and Jamie practised safe sex, that it was fully consensual, and that Jamie treated Paris with respect. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that this reflects the sex education training that Rory has received from Lorelai.

Town Crier

PARIS: Fine, I’ll go to a payphone. Do you have payphones in this town or are you still using a town crier?

A town crier is a public official who makes pronouncements as required. Prior to widespread literacy, town criers were the means of communication with the people of the town since many people could not read or write. Proclamations, local bylaws, market days, and advertisements were all proclaimed by a crier.

There have been town criers in North America ever since Europeans came to the continent, and they were used in Connecticut in the 17th century. In some places, town criers persisted into the 20th century, and Provincetown in Massachusetts still has one. I’m almost surprised Taylor hasn’t organised a town crier for Stars Hollow, to give it an olde worlde feel. (It would presumably be Kirk).

Tasmanian Devil

SOOKIE: And did you see [Jackson’s] eyes?
LORELAI: Tasmanian Devil.

Lorelai refers to the character, the Tasmanian Devil, or Taz, featured in Warner Bros cartoons, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Taz is generally portrayed as a ferocious, albeit dim-witted, carnivore with a notoriously short temper and little patience. Although based on the Australian mammal, the Tasmanian devil, it doesn’t resemble the real animal very strongly (Americans often have an exaggerated idea of the Tasmanian devil’s size and ferocity, possibly because of the cartoon). He made only a few appearances in the short films of the 1950s and 1960s, but enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1990s.

“The second maid called in sick”

RICHARD: It’s chaos here. The second maid called in sick, the first is busy with dinner, and your poor mother is at the hospital. Her DAR group suffered a surfeit of strokes this week.

Richard and Emily started out with a cook and a maid, then the maid seemed to do the cooking as well … now they have two maids. Perhaps one of the maids does all the cooking, and nothing has changed.

Encyclopædia Britannica

MAX: Well, I’m glad to hear it. And Rory’s good?
LORELAI: Oh, yeah, she’s the Encyclopædia Britannica definition of good.

Encyclopædia Britannica, (Latin for “British Encyclopædia”) is a general knowledge English-language encyclopædia, first published in the 18th century in Edinburgh, Scotland. Though published in the US since 1901, the Britannica has for the most part maintained British English spelling. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia.

If you look up “Good” in the Encyclopædia Britannica, you will find an article on Gnostic philosophy and spirituality, where the Good is a transcendent deity. Probably not what Lorelai was thinking of!

Cowabunga

MAX: I’ve been in California.
LORELAI: Well, cowabunga dude.

Cowabunga, a phrase of unknown origin which was popularised (as Kowa-Bunga) on the children’s TV show Howdy Doody in the late 1940s and early 1950s, where it was used by a character named Chief Thunderthud as a fake Native American greeting [picture shows it as Cowabonga, just to confuse things]. It became associated with the surfing subculture, who spelt it cowabunga, and used it to express delight or satisfaction.

By the early 1980s it was used as a catchphrase by Cookie Monster on Sesame Street, and became more widely known in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to its use by the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Bart Simpson from animated series The Simpson gave it even broader recognition in the 1990s.

Lorelai presumably thinks of it as a particularly Californian phrase because of its use by surfers. It seems as if almost everyone who leaves Connecticut goes to California! Max is Lorelai’s second ex to move to San Francisco.