Emma

RORY: Aha! You liked it, you liked Jane Austen. I knew you would. Lane, Dean likes Jane Austen.

Emma is a 1815 novel by English author Jane Austen. Unlike other of her books, the heroine Emma Woodhouse, blessed with youth, beauty, and intelligence, is independently wealthy and has no need to marry a rich man. In fact, rather than being under any pressure to marry, her elderly father would much prefer she remain as his companion. This is quite similar to Rory’s situation with Lorelai, who certainly isn’t pressuring her into a relationship, and that she has freely chosen Dean.

Emma, who believes she always knows what’s best, has a habit of meddling in her friends’ love lives, and is much more interested in doing so than thinking about romance for herself. Ironically, Rory can’t be bothered listening to her best friend’s love problems, as she is so wrapped up in her new relationship with Dean.

Rory’s choice of book might also remind us of Emma Bovary from Madame Bovary, which Rory was reading when Dean first noticed her: both Emma Woodhouse and Emma Bovary are great readers. It’s a reminder of the two “Emmas” in Rory’s character – the detached, intelligent Emma Woodhouse, and the romantic Emma Bovary who makes foolish choices.

NB: I have more often seen this book identified as Northanger Abbey, but I cannot locate an edition of that novel which resembles the book Dean hands over to Rory. To me it looks as if it might be the 1996 Signet edition of Emma, with an introduction by British author and critic, Margaret Drabble. However, I welcome input on this question, and will edit this entry if the correct edition of Northanger Abbey is shown to me.

Stamford

We learn from his phone message that as well as teaching at Chilton, Max teaches a night class twice a week in Stamford, a city in Connecticut about an hour and a half drive south from Hartford, on the coast.

The fact that Max sees the sign to Stars Hollow on the way suggests again that it around the Wallingford area, as you would drive past Wallingford going from Hartford to Stamford using Interstate 91. It isn’t actually a turnpike though as it is toll-free at that point: the Connecticut Turnpike (I-95) goes further on from Stamford toward New Haven.

Max possibly teaches in the English department at the Stamford campus of the University of Connecticut, a public university. We learn a bit later that one of the nights he teaches class is on Fridays, so with Lorelai attending classes twice a week and Max teaching classes twice a week, it’s going to be hard for them to find a free day in the week to date.

Mayor Harry Porter (David Huddleston)

During the town meeting we encounter the mayor of Stars Hollow, Harry Porter, who has been mayor for many years He was gradually phased out leaving Taylor Doose in sole charge of the town. Perhaps Harry entered a sort of semi-retirement or became a figurehead: he didn’t retire as nobody else was elected mayor and in fact the role of mayor apparently became more or less redundant.

Mother and daughter, or best friends?

Lorelai has to re-negotiate her status as “cool mom” during this episode, as she wonders whether Rory having a boyfriend will make a difference to their relationship. After suffering jealousy of Dean, inviting Dean on a date with she and Rory, letting Dean and Rory spend time alone, and then coming down as the heavy parent on Dean, by the end of the episode Rory is her best friend again who tells her everything – including describing kissing with her boyfriend.

We may well be wondering if there’s anything at all that Rory can handle on her own without her mother’s help, as school, homework, and even dating require Lorelai’s presence.

Dean’s Sisters

Dean indicates in this episode that he has more than one sister. We meet his younger sister later this season, but never see another sister or hear her mentioned. However, much later we find out that he has a young nephew, and it seems plausible that the nephew’s mother is Dean’s older sister. This older sister quite possibly remained in the Chicago area with her own family when the Foresters moved to Stars Hollow.

Prince Charming

LORELAI: Don’t even get me started on your Prince Charming crush, OK? At least my obsessions are alive. You have a thing for a cartoon.
DEAN: Ooh, Prince Charming, huh?
RORY: It was a long time ago. And not the Cinderella one, the Sleeping Beauty one.

Prince Charming is the generic name for the royal male love interest in a fairy tale. Rory tells Dean that her crush was on the prince in the 1959 animated Walt Disney film Sleeping Beauty, whose name is Prince Phillip (it’s the one in Cinderella whose name actually is Prince Charming). Sleeping Beauty was the #2 movie of 1959 and is today considered one of the best animated films ever made, although it was so expensive to make that the Disney studio posted a financial loss that year.

Sleeping Beauty has had several re-releases. It was re-released in theatres in March 1986, when Rory was 17 months old. Although Rory could have been taken to the cinema to see it, it was also released on video that year, and Lorelai (or the grandparents) could have bought it for her. Her crush on the prince could go right back to babyhood, and if they owned the video she might have watched it for years as a toddler and little girl.

Sleeping Beauty was next re-released in 1995, when Rory was aged ten or eleven. It is also possible that this was when she developed her crush on the prince. To me this makes more sense, as she was on the cusp of puberty and more likely to be thinking about boys in a romantic way.

Prince Phillip does very vaguely resemble Dean – or at least a cartoon version of Dean wouldn’t look completely unlike Prince Phillip. The fact that Rory liked the prince because he could dance is a foreshadowing of what is soon to come between her and Dean.

Oompa-Loompas

LORELAI: Oooh – Oompa-Loompas!
RORY: My mom has a thing for the Oompa-Loompas.
LORELAI: I don’t think finding them amusing constitutes a thing.
RORY: No, but having a recurring dream about marrying one does.

In Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas are small humans who work in Willy Wonka’s factory. Played by actors with dwarfism, they have orange skin and green hair, and wear baggy white overall shorts.

Lorelai’s rich dream life was an ongoing feature throughout the run of Gilmore Girls. Perhaps in this case the dreams were brought on by the feeling that she was “married” to Rory, by choosing her over a man (as the Oompa-Loompas are child-sized).

James Dean

Rory warns her mother she doesn’t want her to make any jokes about James Dean when she meets Rory’s boyfriend Dean.

James Dean (1931-1955) was an American actor, an icon of teenage disillusonment and 1950s cool, best known for his 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. His early death in a car accident meant that his youth and beauty remained intact forever, and he is regarded as one the great stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

James Dean may have been one of the influences on the choice of Dean’s name in Gilmore Girls, especially since James Dean was from the Midwest and loved cars and motorcycles, just like Dean Forester. Along with Dean Moriarty from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the name suggests coolness and rebellion – nothing at all like Dean Forester really, but more what Lorelai feared Dean could be, as her comments about tattoos and motorcycles in the Pilot demonstrated.

Brandeis

PARIS: You can go somewhere else. Go to Brandeis. Brandeis is nice.

Brandeis University is a private university in the city of Waltham, Massachussetts, just outside Boston. It was founded in 1948 as a secular, non-sectarian, co-educational university, sponsored by the Jewish community.

It has a strong focus on the liberal arts, and promotes tolerance on its campus. About half the student population is Jewish, and Jewish culture is strongly in evidence. It has a reputation (I don’t know how earned or how accurate) for being slightly quirky and accepting of social misfits.

It is amusing that Paris suggests Rory attend a Jewish-sponsored university near Boston while she strives to get into a Christian-sponsored university near Boston. Perhaps Brandeis is a “nice” (i.e. liberal, tolerant, accepting) school that others (staff at Chilton?) have suggested Paris might like to attend if she doesn’t get into Harvard, or even prefer to Harvard, (since she’s a Jewish social misfit), so she turns it back on someone else.

Clorox

LORELAI: And I said something at the table about the pâté smelling like Clorox and one thing led to another and I wound up here. I hadn’t told anybody yet about me. And you.

Clorox is an American brand of household cleaning bleach, made by the Clorox Company, founded in 1913.

The pate would have smelled unpalatably bleach-y to Lorelai because she was pregnant; pregnancy can change the way you perceive odours and flavours. As Emily and Richard didn’t know she was pregnant, they probably thought Lorelai was being a rude brat, and sent her upstairs. Could this help explain Lorelai’s disdain for pâté?