Sookie is Pregnant

SOOKIE: Oh my God, I’m pregnant! …
RORY: That’s great!
[they all scream and hug]

Lorelai suggests to Sookie she may have some kind of minor illness affecting her taste buds, then she goes into the lobby to talk to Rory, before Sookie comes out of the kitchen and announces she’s pregnant.

Pregnancy can certainly affect the sense of taste of smell, explaining Sookie’s suddenly horrible food, so this makes sense – but how can Sookie be sure? Did she just throw up in the toilet (which could be something else), did she do the world’s quickest pregnancy test, and if she had one all along, why didn’t she use it before? Has she had some other little sign, like her periods stopping, breast tenderness, and weight gain, and she’s put all the clues together?

Who knows? She just apparently knows she’s pregnant, even though she’s seemingly never been pregnant before, and everyone gets super excited and jumps around hugging each other. Nobody asks Sookie how she knows, or suggests she might be mistaken, or that it might need to be verified by, oh I don’t know, science.

“Sookie never gets sick”

LORELAI: I don’t know. It’s weird, Sookie must be sick or something.
RORY: Sookie never gets sick.

In fact, Sookie said that she had a little bug the week before. Later events suggest this may have been morning sickness, since we never learn exactly what this “bug” entailed. Although only a scriptwriter who has never been pregnant would think of morning sickness as a “little bug”, so I don’t know.

Nathan Lane

RORY: Hey Brad, good to have you back. How was Broadway?
BRAD: It was great, but Nathan Lane is a very bitter man.

Nathan Lane (born Joseph Lane in 1956), actor. In a career spanning over 40 years he has been seen on stage and screen in roles both comedic and dramatic. Lane has received numerous awards including three Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Lane received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2008.

I’m not sure how Brad would have met Nathan Lane in 2002, as he wasn’t doing Broadway that year – three of his films were released that year, and he was in an episode of Sex and the City. Maybe he heard a lot of theatre gossip.

Into the Woods

TEACHER: Oh, I almost forgot to welcome back Brad Langford. He returns to us fresh from Broadway where he’s just completed a successful run of Into the Woods. Welcome back, Brad.

Into the Woods, 1987 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical intertwines the plots of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales, exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests. It won three Tony Awards, and has been produced many times since.

There was a revival of the musical in Los Angeles in February and March 2002, with the same cast that later ran on Broadway. The 2002 Broadway revival began previews on April 13, 2002 and opened April 30, 2002 at the Broadhurst Theatre, closing on December 29 after a run of 18 previews and 279 regular performances.

Adam Wylie, who plays Brad Langford, really was in the cast of Into the Woods, performing the role of Jack. This doesn’t quite fit into the timeline of the show, because Brad last returned to Chilton after a school transfer in late April 2002 – when he would have already been in Los Angeles for two months, and the musical’s main run was just about to begin.

However, it does explain why we haven’t seen him since then. Apparently he wasn’t frightened off by Paris after all – he was having a successful acting career. He has really come along since his first appearance on Gilmore Girls, when he said he couldn’t act in a school play because he got so nervous he threw up. Quite a transformation.

I’m not sure how Brad can take a year off school to do Broadway, and then simply come back to his senior class like nothing happened. Perhaps there was a private tutor attached to the Broadway production??? Also, Into the Woods finished at the end of January and it’s now the end of March – what was he doing for the past two months?

Pringles

LUKE: There wasn’t really that much for her to eat on the menu, so I just . . .
LORELAI: Oh, you added three more salads just for Nicole. When I asked you to add chili-topped Pringles, you said no.

Pringles, brand of stackable potato-based chips made from fried dough invented by Procter & Gamble in 1968 and marketed as “Pringle’s Newfangled Potato Chips”. The brand was sold in 2012 to Kellogg’s.

I think Lorelai’s idea is meant to be a version of chili fries. Note how quickly Lorelai becomes jealous and possessive over Nicole’s influence upon Luke.

Hirschfeld

LORELAI: Why’d you get new menus?
LUKE: It was time.
LORELAI: But I had made little doodles with my name hidden in them on each one of the old ones just like Hirschfeld.

Albert “Al” Hirschfeld (1903-2003), caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars, in a career spanning nearly eight decades.

Hirschfeld had a daughter named Nina, born in 1945. Hirschfeld is known for hiding Nina’s name, written in capital letters (“NINA”), in most of the drawings he produced after her birth. The name would appear in a sleeve, in a hairdo, or somewhere in the background. The number of NINAs concealed is shown by the number written to the right of his signature. Generally, if no number is to be found, either NINA appears once, or the drawing was completed before she was born. Originally done to amuse his friends, the public quickly noticed and became obsessed with this little gimmick, sending angry letters when he tried stopping it.

Al Hirschfeld had died not long before this episode aired, so this mention feels like a little tribute to him.

“One was enough”

LORELAI: Three more salads – who needs three more salads?
RORY: One was enough.

Rory says that the one salad on Luke’s original menu was plenty. However, when Emily ordered lunch at Luke’s in “Haunted Leg”, she chose between the Cobb salad and the Caesar salad, so there were at least two salads on the menu only a few months ago. Perhaps Rory never noticed the second salad option.

Note that Nicole’s love of salad means that she’s one of those women who eat healthily, unlike Lorelai and Rory, making her really uncool and probably a terrible person. In the world of Gilmore Girls, at least.

I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie

In the first scene, Lorelai is reading this 1987 memoir by Pamela Des Barres. During the late 1960s and ’70s, Pamela found fame by leading a wild party life with some of the biggest rock stars of the day. It became a New York Times Best Seller.

The book was republished in 2003, but a little later than this episode aired, and Lorelai is reading the original edition, suggesting that she has owned it since the 1980s. Rory called Lorelai “Pamela Des Barres” a few episodes previously, as if the author and the book are well known subjects for both of them. This is another example of Lorelai reading a quirky memoir.

Moliere

RICHARD: Oh, if only I could’ve seen Emily hiding in the bushes. It’s like a play by Moliere.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622-1673), known by his stage name Molière, French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world literature. His works include comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright.

Richard may be thinking of his 1665 comedy Don Juan, where Don Juan’s servant hides in the bushes, claiming that he needed to relieve himself there.

Solarium

GRAN: I believe a woman marries for life. If, after your husband is gone, you desperately desire some sort of permanent attachment, add an addition onto the house – a library or a solarium. I have a library and a solarium … However, in spite of all this, I found myself getting lonely. And I don’t care for being lonely, it’s quite annoying. So many years ago, I met a man, and he became my companion. Tonight, both he and I were both publicly humiliated and our relationship altered forever.

A solarium is a sun room, conservatory, patio room, sun porch, or winter garden. The word is Latin for “place of sunlight”, and a solarium is a room which allows the sunshine to enter. A solarium typically offers scenic views as well as a sunny spot, and features glass walls and a glass ceiling.

Trix explains to Emily that although she doesn’t believe in remarriage after the death of a spouse, seeing it as “dishonouring” the late spouse’s memory, she has been in a long-term relationship with someone for affection and companionship.

Trix lived in London for years after her husband died, and has only just moved back to Hartford. So did she meet this man in London, or did they see each other only on brief, infrequent visits to each other’s countries? Or did he follow her back to Hartford so they could continue their relationship, or did she follow him – is he the real reason she moved back?

We never learn anything more about Trix’s boyfriend. Is he married, for example? Has he ever pushed for a more permanent arrangement?