Tag: Timeline

Weston Bakery

The episode opens with Rory and Lorelai sampling cakes in Weston Bakery, owned by the elderly Fran Weston (Linda Porter). Although this is the first time we’ve seen inside it, the bakery featured in the Pilot episode; it was the bakery that Rory recommended to Dean when they first met as making “really good cakes” that were “very round”.

Fran tells Rory and Lorelai that her family have been selling baked goods for 112 years, so since 1889.

“I built a house yesterday”

KIRK: I have to tell you, I’m a little worried about this gazebo holding up all those hoofers. They never did a trial run like I requested.
RORY: Oh, I think it’s okay. The studs are definitely sound, and the two by fours are a nice number two structural grade. Or better possibly. I built a house yesterday.

Again, for Rory to have built a house yesterday, on a Saturday, and it’s now Saturday night, shows that we have strangely had two Saturdays in a row.

“What time do you leave?”

LANE: What time is it?
RORY: It’s eight. What time do you leave?
LANE: I have a ten o’clock flight.

If it’s 8 pm and Lane’s flight is at 10 pm, shouldn’t she be at the airport already, or at least on her way there? Most airlines recommend you arrive 2-3 hours before an international flight. This was shortly before 9/11, when travel security was less of an issue, but even before then, 90 minutes prior to the flight was the minimum, and Hartford is half an hour’s drive away.

“I had a really lousy night”

LORELAI: Hey Sookie. Is there any coffee left? I had a really lousy night.
SOOKIE: Oh sorry. Ya know, I’ve been so busy I didn’t even think about it.

This scene takes place on the day following the night where Lorelai had a fight with Emily – oddly, they both take place on Saturdays. We know this because the fight took place the day after Friday Night Dinner, and the engagement party is also on a Saturday. But instead of those things being a week apart, they happen within 24 hours of each other.

“Thirty-two years”

EMILY: And what about me confuses you Lorelai?
LORELAI: Well, so many things. I mean, for example, why can’t you keep a maid in this house? I mean, there must’ve been a thousand women who’ve gone through here in the thirty-two years that I’ve been alive, and not one of them could stick it out.

In fact, Lorelai had her birthday about two months ago, and is now thirty-three. It’s possible that at this stage Lorelai’s birthday had not been settled on, and it might have been imagined as later in the year.

Poor Max is left to stand uncomfortably by the door, unwelcome and completely unacknowledged by Lorelai and Emily while they have their fight. It’s an inauspicious meeting with his prospective mother-in-law, and demonstrates he is little more than a sideshow in Lorelai’s life.

Lorelai Tells Emily About Her Engagement

LORELAI: Okay, well, um, the … Max and I have been serious for quite a while now, and he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I’m getting married.
EMILY: Well, I think that’s very nice. I certainly hope we’ll be in town for it, but if not I promise we’ll send a nice gift. Now excuse me, I’m going to check on the roast.

Emily is very hurt that Lorelai has waited this long to tell her that she is engaged, literally leaving her to last. Rather than tell Lorelai how she feels and have a discussion about it, Emily disguises her hurt by behaving as if Lorelai’s engagement means nothing to her, shocking and upsetting her daughter in the process.

Lorelai says that she and Max have been serious for “quite a while”, although in fact they only started dating after their January break up about six weeks ago, and their engagement only happened because the alternative was to break up – Lorelai’s original preferred option.

“Already called me about that”

RICHARD: I just thought we should touch base, you and I, after that unfortunate incident last week.
RORY: Grandpa, you already called me about that.

This confirms that Rory’s fight with her grandfather was the previous Friday, and that he did already phone her to apologise, most likely the same evening that it occured. We never get to see the apology so don’t know how it went. It’s not known whether Richard apologised for his treatment of Dean, or just for upsetting Rory, but whatever he said, Rory seems to have accepted it and forgiven him completely (Lorelai’s chat with her would have made that easier).

Richard talks to Rory to make sure everything is alright between them, which she quickly reassures him that it is, with a briskly British military, “Buck up, private” (meaning “Cheer up, soldier”).