Tag: Timeline

“We’re getting married May fifteenth”

SOOKIE: Okay, new plan for the invites. We’re getting married May fifteenth, four o’clock, front lawn – pass it on.

There are very few exact dates given in the show, but there’s one for for Sookie and Jackson’s wedding – they’re getting married on May 15. That means that somehow the next four episodes are going to be squeezed into two and a half weeks! I don’t possess whatever time machine/portal to another dimension/magic powers that Lorelai and Rory have, so unfortunately the blog entries will not all be done for this season by May 15.

In real life, May 15 2002 was a Wednesday, but in the show, Sookie and Jackson’s wedding was on Sunday. Even when you get a firm date, it doesn’t make any sense and isn’t consistent with the timeline given.

Intra-school Business Fair

RORY: There’s going to be an intra-school business fair in three weeks. Each group has to come up with a consumer product that’s geared toward high school kids … So we pick our product and we make a prototype of it, then we use our imaginary million dollar budget to mass produce, market, and distribute it, and we’ll present all of this at the fair.

Rory quickly tells their group, and the viewer, what’s happening in this episode. Their Economics class has put them into groups to compete against the other Economics classes at Chilton at a business fair. They have to think of a product that high school students will buy, make a prototype that can be displayed, then use a fictional million dollar budget to manufacture, market, and distribute it, presenting it at the fair to be judged.

And the business fair is only three weeks away, so they need to get started immediately, yet somehow, they don’t seem to do that. A lot must happen behind the scenes.

Antique Car

RORY: When did he get that antique car anyhow?

EMILY: A couple of horrible weeks ago.

It’s now around the middle of April, so Richard bought his antique car at the beginning of the month. It seems that Richard has gone through several hobbies since he retired earlier in the year – even though Emily urged him to try new things, she doesn’t seem that thrilled with any of his choices.

In real life, Edward Hermann, who played Richard, was a car enthusiast and did restore antique cars as a hobby.

(Technically it’s possible that this is the same Friday the previous episode ended on, but it doesn’t seem likely, because that finished with a big community feast at the diner. Lorelai and Rory shouldn’t be so hungry if they’d eaten only an hour earlier).

Town Meeting

A town meeting takes place in this episode, with the order of business being the retirement of Harry from Harry’s House of Twinkle Lights, and the issue of whether the Second Troubadour has the correct permit to run a farmer’s market in the park across the road from Doose’s Market.

Town meetings are held on the second Thursday of the month, so it must be 11th April.

Crinite

TAYLOR: But I’ve got turnips – good ones, too. They’re not as big as that crinite freak’s turnips, but who needs bloated turnips?

Crinite is a technical term meaning “covered in tufts of hair”!

(Rory is out of her school uniform, so it seems to be the weekend now, unless she’s just given up going to school? I guess the previous day was Friday then, unless Lorelai and Rory have now been working multiple days at the diner. Ugh, I have no idea how time works in this episode!).

Lorelai and Rory Help Out at the Diner

LUKE: You don’t have to do this.

LORELAI: We don’t mind. Go.

How are Lorelai and Rory helping out at the diner on a day when Luke is busy and his assistant Caesar has a day off? Don’t they have a job and school to go to? And Rory went and got Jess to help as well, are we meant to assume that Jess is just skipping school for the rest of the day? (I’m also interested as to who did the cooking on that first day – the Gilmore girls famously refuse to cook, and with Caesar off work and Luke busy, was Jess the chef for the day?).

I can see maybe Lorelai could have the freedom to work at the diner during the rush hours, but Rory needs to catch a bus, and she’ll be in Hartford all day. Plus she has homework to do after school, and didn’t they come to the diner to have breakfast? When are they going to get to eat? Also, what day of the week is this? It seems to be Friday, so do they have a Friday night dinner to get to in the evening, or will Luke be back at the diner by then?

Are we meant to assume that Lorelai and Rory just helped out in the diner before work/school for twenty minutes or so? Because that’s not very much help at all. Time just sort of stops existing for the first half of this episode – a hallmark of those written by Daniel Palladino.

By the end of the episode, it seems as if Lorelai and Rory are virtually running the diner for Luke, with the reluctant help of Jess, and I suppose Caesar, once he returns from his day off. Although they can barely navigate their own kitchen, this does make some sense, because Lorelai manages an inn, and Rory helps out there part-time, so they do understand customer service. Lorelai in particular is apparently so good at it that she becomes something of a drawcard at the diner, her natural talent and people skills shining forth once again.

Luke’s Apartment Renovations

We open with the diner in disarray, because Luke’s apartment that he bought in the previous episode is still under construction. In real life, it usually takes months for the sale of a property to go through so you can begin work on it, but this is television, and Luke is already in the middle of renovations.

Jess, wearing a construction helmet, chivalrously brings Rory an umbrella to shield her from the mess. Although Luke gets cranky about Jess making fun of the situation, the umbrella saves Rory from being hit by debris just a minute or so later.

This is the first official sighting of Tom the Contractor, although it is the same actor (Biff Yeager) who played Tom who was the foreman at Rebuilding Together in Hartford where Rory did volunteer work. They have the same name and personality, and obviously look the same, so it seems perfectly possible that they are actually the same character. This is never confirmed, however.

It’s not clear how much time has passed since the previous episode, but Luke complains to Tom about the renovation taking another week, and in 2002 Easter was at the end of March, so perhaps three weeks have gone by and it’s now early April (Thursday 4th April). I won’t be able to keep blog entries in step with events in the show, or I will run out of time. Time gets very stretchy in the last few episodes of the season!

“Two weeks”

JESS: If it’s the most precious thing she owns, why did it take her two weeks to figure out it was gone, huh? You might wanna re-evaluate how madly in love she is. I wouldn’t start calling him ‘son’ yet.

Jess makes a devastatingly accurate comeback to Lorelai. The fact that Rory didn’t notice the bracelet was missing for some time, even needing Dean to point it out for her, is a very clear indication that her interest in Dean has waned. Something that Jess can take cold comfort in.

It is actually three weeks since the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser, not two, even though it was two episodes ago.