RORY: Hey, I’m gonna go check on Dean. He’s been scraping that outline off the cement for two days now.
You might think that chalk would wash straight off pavement, but actually water only removes most of the chalk. Little particles get into all the tiny crevices and pores in the cement that require vigorous scrubbing. Yes, Taylor is that fussy! 99.5% clean is not good enough!
He also seems to be making Dean clean the pavement in the dark and after the store is closed, which surely can’t be legal, and certainly isn’t practical. I can’t help thinking this episode did not endear Jess to Dean even before jealousy entered the picture.
Taylor and the rest of the town don’t seem able to understand what Luke is saying (he is slightly incoherent with rage), so Lorelai “translates” for him, standing shoulder to shoulder with Luke to signify her support of him. She asks the town to let Luke handle any problems he might be having – if there is actually a problem, which Luke isn’t willing to acknowledge even exists.
She could have asked the town to be more understanding and accepting of Jess, and give him a chance, but I don’t think Luke would have appreciated that.
TAYLOR: The bottom line here is that there is a consensus among townspeople who are in agreement that Stars Hollow was a better place before Jess got here. LUKE: So this half of the room gets the tar, and the other half gets the feathers? TAYLOR: Well, there hasn’t been any talk of tar and feathers. Although …
Tarring and feathering is a form of public torture and punishment handed out as unofficial justice, used in feudal England and colonial America, as well as the early American frontier, as a form of mob or vigilante vengeance. The last known example was in 2007 in Northern Ireland, against someone accused of drug-dealing.
The victim would be stripped naked or stripped to the waist, painted with hot tar, and then rolled in feathers (there were usually other punishments thrown in, such as whipping or scalping). The skin would be burned by the tar, and scraping it off later led to the skin being torn off, so it was extremely painful as well as humiliating. “Tarring and feathering” is now used as a term to denote severe public criticism.
Luke is saying the town meeting is on a par with the brutal mob justice associated with the Wild West, in agreement with Lorelai’s earlier comment. It is actually quite horrifying, because they seem to be saying Jess should be run out of town, even though he’s a high school kid who’s only guilty of petty theft and a few mild pranks.
It’s also baffling, because Jess isn’t exactly a stranger – he’s Luke’s nephew, Liz’s son, and the grandson of the respected William Danes. The town should be prepared to take him in as one of their own, and the fact that they won’t is a deeply troubling sign. Maybe there’s a good reason why Liz took off.
BOOTSY: This goes way beyond the Jess matter, Taylor. Luke’s been on my case since the first grade when he wrongfully accused me of sabotaging a clay imprint that he made of his hand. LORELAI: Ooh! Think hard, was he dressed like Sulu?
Lieutenant Hikaro Sulu is a character in Star Trek, played by George Takei in the original series. He is the ship’s physicist, third officer, and senior helmsman. He wears the same uniform as everyone else, so I’m not sure what Lorelai means about “dressed like Sulu”, unless she means “dressed like a Star Trek crew member”.
We now learn that as well as having an antagonistic relationship with Taylor, Luke also has a long-standing problem with Bootsy, his former classmate, going back to first grade. How many enemies does Luke really need?
Andrew from Stars Hollow Books is at the meeting, and says that his son told him about Jess setting off the fire alarms at the high school. We now discover that Andrew is the father of a boy, presumably a teenager. (He makes it sound as if he only has one son, although there may be daughters as well). He’s sitting next to Bootsy, as if they might be friends (or both in the trade of selling reading materials, so have something in common).
Stole money from the bridge fundraising jar (money was returned)
Stole a gnome from Babette (gnome was returned)
Hooted one of Miss Patty’s dance classes (it’s not really clear if he hooted a horn or hooted in derision, either way, they’re just little girls, so kind of yuck)
Stole a hose from Fran’s front yard (was this payback for refusing to sell her inn to Rory’s mother?)
Set off all the fire alarms at the high school
Drew a chalk outline outside Doose’s Market so that Taylor lost business
The viewer might be getting the impression that Jess, although clearly a pest and a nuisance around town, is hardly committing any major acts of villainy. For some reason, the police don’t seem to be getting involved, even for petty theft, misuse of a fire alarm, or vandalism, and perhaps this lack of police action is one of the things fuelling the town’s frustration. It may also be spurring Jess on to further mischief, if he’s mostly doing this for attention or to prove he’s a “bad boy” so he’ll be sent back to his mother.
TAYLOR: When Mrs. Lanahan couldn’t buy her head of lettuce that morning for her lunch, she drove straight to Woodbury to buy lettuce from a competing market.
Woodbury is a small town in Litchfield County, Connecticut of about 9000 people, around ten miles from Waterbury, which is the nearest big town. In the Gilmore Girls universe, Woodbury is posited as the nearest town to Stars Hollow, and portrayed as something of a rival town (the Mount Pilot to Stars Hollow’s Mayberry).
In real life, Woodbury is about ten miles from Washington Depot, as if to underline that this is the inspiration for Stars Hollow, even though it contradicts other information, such as being half an hour’s drive from Hartford. However, if we placed Stars Hollow the same distance away in the other direction, roughly where Waterbury is, this would make it half an hour’s drive to Hartford, and also put it on the I-84and the bus route from New York to Hartford.
So this is a bit of geographic information that actually makes quite a bit of sense (of course often contradicted by various geographic impossibilities!).
EMILY: Lorelai, your daughter’s being impossible. She won’t pose in an appropriate manner. RORY: I’m trying to, Grandma. It’s just awkward.
Rory goes to her grandmother’s house after school to pose for her portrait, but it turns out this means sitting on a “throne” (a needlework armchair) in a red velvet dress with a hungry honking swan, and her arm raised in an odd pose. The living room portrait is quite normal, so it’s strange that Emily suddenly wants this bizarre “swan princess” picture of Rory. It might explain why Lorelai’s own portrait was never completed. Rory is already looking quite grumpy, just as Lorelai got fed up with being painted.
Lorelai is able to quickly convince Emily that a picture of Rory sitting and reading would be natural and appropriate, saving the day.
MIA: Not one thing to recommend hiring her. Just that … how do I put it and remain a lady? … that ‘who cares’ look in her eyes, so I gave her any job. The other maids hated you. LORELAI: Yeah, well they were all so slow. MIA: You were special.
This helps explain why Mia hired Lorelai, even though she had no experience or references. Not only a vulnerable figure, a teenaged mother with a baby, but one who didn’t want to be pitied or beg for help: only to be given the chance to earn enough for herself and her daughter.
Lorelai repaid Mia by being a hard-working and enthusiastic employee – so much so that the other maids were resentful of her. I suspect that years spent watching Emily’s maids get castigated and fired for minor errors gave Lorelai the motivation to pay attention to detail. This good attitude and work ethic no doubt soon led to promotions, raises, and bonuses at the Independence.
MIA: I miss you. Hey, do you realize it was fifteen years ago almost to the day? LORELAI: Yes it was. RORY: What was? MIA: To the day when this skinny little teenage girl showed up at the inn. She had this tiny little thing in her arms. LORELAI: A little thing named Rory.
The date appears to be 31st October 2001, although there is no mention of it being Halloween. Presumably the parties and celebrations will be in the evening, offscreen. If it is fifteen years, almost to the day, since Lorelai and Rory arrived in Stars Hollow, then it would have been in late October or early November 1986, when Rory was two, and Lorelai eighteen and a half.
In 1986, Halloween was a Friday. If Lorelai arrived in Stars Hollow that weekend, then she could have arrived on Saturday the 1st of November. The connection with Halloween gives Lorelai’s entrance into Stars Hollow a magical feel, as if forces beyond our ken were at work to bring the Gilmore girls to this starlit little town. That weekend would have also been the Autumn Festival, which remains a touchstone for the Gilmore girls throughout the original series and into the revival.
Perhaps more interestingly, they came to Stars Hollow just days after Rory’s second birthday. It makes you wonder what occurred to drive Lorelai to flee her parents’ home, because she doesn’t seem to have made a planned, measured, or calculated approach to running away. The show makes it sound as if she grabbed Rory and a few essentials, jumped in the car and drove at random until she found somewhere that would take her in.
Although I think it is safe to assume that things had always been fraught with her parents, there must have been a final straw around the time of Rory’s birthday which triggered her sudden flight. Did Richard and Emily shower Rory with luxurious gifts, so that Lorelai began to fear they might buy Rory’s love or make her spoiled?
Was there an extravagant party (shades of Rory’s sweet sixteen), where even a baby Rory was being pressured to perform to exacting Gilmore standards, did Emily become so demanding that every detail of the party be perfect until Rory was stressed and crying?
All just speculation, but fascinating to imagine. The seeds of Lorelai’s mistrust of allowing her parents near Rory must have sprouted somewhere, and we know it began early.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 