“It’s probably all around town by now”

RORY: They know.
LORELAI: They don’t know.
RORY: It’s probably all around town by now.
LORELAI: Honey it just happened last night, it’s like six in the morning.

Rory sounds completely paranoid – she and Dean broke up the night before in a private place, and it’s now early the next morning. Lorelai is being quite reasonable to say it’s not possible for everyone to know yet.

Yet Rory is correct. Miss Patty already knows – but how? Literally, how is it even possible? Is Miss Patty psychic, or so intuitive that Rory’s sad face suggests just one possibility to her? Kirk also knows somehow, although we never see the beginning of his conversation with Rory, and it’s possible she told him herself, if Miss Patty hasn’t already. (If so, when did Miss Patty tell him?)

Stars Hollow is a very gossipy place where everyone knows your business, but the method by which they do so is really most mysterious.

“It sleeps with the fishes”

RORY: Far, far away from the house, okay? [referring to her box of items that remind her of Dean]
LORELAI: Hey, it sleeps with the fishes.

A reference to the 1972 crime film The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the best-selling 1969 novel of the same name by Mario Puzo. The story is about an Italian-American crime family in New York in the 1940s and ’50s, under their patriarch Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). It depicts the transformation of Vito’s son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) from an outsider in the family to mafia boss.

The Godfather was the #1 film of 1972, and is one of the highest-grossing films in cinema history. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Marlon Brando received Best Actor, and Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo won Best Adapted Screenplay. It is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and has been highly influential on gangster films.

In the film, Luca Brasi is the loyal enforcer to Don Vito Corleone. He is murdered by a rival mobster, who sends the Corleone family Brasi’s bulletproof vest with a fish in it, a message that “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes” (ie his corpse was thrown into a body of water).

It becomes apparent through the series that The Godfather is a favourite movie of Lorelai and Rory.

Lorelai does not make good on her word, hiding Rory’s “Dean memory box” in the hall cupboard. It doesn’t seem like a particularly sneaky hiding place, and Rory finds it later in the season. Rather confusingly, prior to this the doorway in the hall led into the downstairs bathroom. Where the bathroom went is a mystery, but it still exists, as it is referred to several times later.

“We just broke up”

Lorelai returns home with her lovelorn depression all the deeper after the evening’s events. She was set up with a boring man by her mother, who, when challenged, pointed out that Lorelai has had never had a relationship last as long as three months. If she hoped to find comfort with Luke, even the comfort of friendship, she also witnessed him reuniting with his long-lost ex-girlfriend Rachel, leaving Lorelai on the outer.

Lorelai picks up the phone and calls Max, only to get through to his answering machine. Before she can leave a message, Rory comes home and says “We just broke up”, so that Lorelai must comfort her daughter, whose night was even worse than hers.

We never witness the break up between Rory and Dean, so we don’t know what happened after he said he would drive her home. We don’t know who broke up with whom, or if they really broke up at all. Perhaps Rory is so inexperienced at relationships that she automatically thinks a bad fight means you have broken up, even if nobody says anything. (Maybe Dean thinks that too).

At the very least, we know the relationship between Rory and Dean has gone sour, and that the two of them have missed all the clues that they aren’t really suited to each other that the audience has been picking up on for months.

We also see a different side to Dean that has been hinted at in the past but has now become obvious: when he feels that Rory is not giving him what he is due in the relationship, he becomes angry and sulky, and refuses to listen to her. Unfortunately, it sets up a dynamic where Rory pleads with Dean, and tries to placate him, in a way which suggests she is frightened of his temper.

We saw a little of it in the Donna Reed incident, and now we see it full-blown. Despite the break-up, we will see more of it throughout their relationship. More than anything else, it is probably this unhealthy pattern of behaviour which convinces most viewers that Dean is not right for Rory.

Andoloro’s

LORELAI: Uh, where is he taking you? …
RORY: Well, if you must know, he’s taking me to Andoloro’s.

Andoloro’s is an Italian bistro in Stars Hollow that we never hear about again. Maybe it closed down, or subsequent events rendered it so painful in Rory’s memory that it was a forbidden topic forevermore.

Mind you, whatever happened to Chez Fleur, the French restaurant that Sookie, Jackson, Lorelai and Rune went to for their double date?

“Crazy festival”

LUKE: It’s a crazy festival based on a nutty myth about two lunatics, who in all probability did not even exist. And even if they did, probably dropped dead of diphtheria before age 24. The town of Stars Hollow probably got its name from the local dance hall prostitute. Two rich drunk guys made up the story to make it look good on a poster.

This is Luke’s cynical theory about the Founders Firelight Festival. It actually doesn’t seem too implausible, and gives us another possibility: was Stars Hollow founded on a lie? Or has Luke been so hurt by love that he believes it is always a con?

(Diphtheria is an infection caused by air-borne transmission of bacteria, with the main symptoms being a fever, sore, throat, and a cough. It is fatal in 5-10% of cases, and was much more common before vaccines were available).

Bonfire

TAYLOR: No, no, Patty, you’re wrong. They built the fire to throw themselves on it when their families found them.
MISS PATTY: Taylor, you’re crazy! They built the fire so that they could stay warm their first night here.
TAYLOR: Patty, I am the recording secretary for the Stars Hollow City Council. I think I know how my town was founded!

Lighting a bonfire in the town square is the central focus of the Founders Firelight Festival. It seems to stem from a large fire made by the star-lit young lovers whom the town views as the founders – an earthly star to mimic the ones in the night sky.

However, the reason for the fire doesn’t seem to be known for sure. Miss Patty says they lit the fire to stay warm on a cold night, which sounds perfectly reasonable. However, Taylor believes that they lit the fire so that if their families tracked them down, they could throw themselves on it and burn themselves to death rather than be separated again.

The death-by-fire theory doesn’t seem very sensible (there are quicker and less painful ways to kill yourself, for a start), but it is a reminder of the mutual death met by those star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet. It also shows the darker side of love, a fire that can burn and destroy as well as fill you with a warm glow.

It begs the question: does Stars Hollow commemorate a pair of lovers who found each other, and stayed happily together all their lives, or a pair of lovers who found each other, only to kill themselves to make sure they could never be parted again? Miss Patty’s story doesn’t tell us, as it ends with the boy and girl finding each other – what happened after that is never explained.

We probably presume they stayed together, and they and their descendants founded the town (hopefully joined by other like-minded folks at some point, or else the whole town came from the loins of two people, Adam and Eve style).

The alternative is that the town was founded by the grieving friends and family of the lovers, who regretted that they had driven them to suicide, and honoured their memory by founding Stars Hollow (like the Montagues and Capulets coming together after the death of Romeo and Juliet).

Is Stars Hollow a town built on romance and reunion, or grief and guilt? On life and love, or death and darkness? Whether Stars Hollow is magic or tragic seems to be a matter for debate, adding a gloomy lining to the silvery fairy tale of the star-blessed lovers.

Tito Puente

MISS PATTY: Who wants to hear about the time I danced in a cage for Tito Puente?
KIDS: [raising hands] Me!
MISS PATTY: It was the summer of ’66 …

Ernesto “Tito” Puente (1923-2000) was an American singer, songwriter, big band leader, percussionist, and music producer. He is best known for his mambo, cha-cha-cha, and Latin jazz compositions, produced over a fifty year career, several of which were used in films. He was sometimes known as “The Musical Pope” and “The King of Latin Music”, and was at the peak of his popularity in the 1950s. He was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

It is unclear where Miss Patty may have danced for Tito Puente. He was a fixture at the Palladium Ballroom in New York, a centre for Afro-Caribbean dance music, but that had just closed down, in May 1966. Maybe she means the spring of 1966?

Last Christmas

LORELAI: Yeah. I mean, I have not seen this man since last Christmas, right. We hear from him maybe once a week – maybe.

Lorelai confirms that she and Rory saw Christopher last Christmas, raising the question of where they met. Christopher has never been to Stars Hollow before, and Richard and Emily usually spend Christmas out of town.

Lorelai also confirms our suspicions that Christopher’s “weekly phone call” isn’t very regular and it’s now “maybe once a week”.

Pop-Tarts

SOOKIE: You – get in here and tell me the happenings at home.
LORELAI: I’m assuming you mean “did we get our toaster fixed” and no, it’s been cold Pop-Tarts for a week, it’s like a damn Dickens novel.

Pop-Tarts are convenience food pastries, introduced by the Kellogg Company in 1964. Pop-Tarts are thin, retangular pieces of pastry sealed with a sugary, flavoured filling, often with frosting (icing) on the outside.

They are already cooked, so you can eat them cold, as Lorelai and Rory have been doing, without ill-effect, but are designed to be warmed in a toaster or a microwave. Why the Gilmores haven’t been heating theirs in the microwave is a mystery. Presumably they prefer to eat them cold rather than microwaved.

Pop-Tarts are Lorelai and Rory’s go-to breakfast when they eat at home, so of course they are a nutritional nightmare – high in calories (at least 200 per Pop-Tart), low in nutrients, and loaded with sugar. Just two Pop-Tarts (a standard serve) contain all of the recommended daily sugar allowance.

Lorelai and Rory are hardly unusual though: Pop-Tarts are Kellogg’s most popular brand in the United States, and sales have continued to rise every year for more than thirty years.

“Kind of a big success”

CHRISTOPHER: I don’t know how much your dad has told you but I’m on the verge of kind of a big success; it’s for real this time. I’ve got a company with an actual cash flow, I’ve got employees, I’ve got an accountant, for God’s sake. He wears a tie and says words like “fiduciary” and “ironically”. I mean it’s for real this time, Lor.

This is the Internet start-up business in California that Richard told Lorelai and Rory about in the Pilot episode, approximately six months ago. We now hear more about it from Christopher without ever finding out what exactly the company does, or was supposed to do.

(A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal position of trust in business, typically being in charge of financial assets to either have them in their safe-keeping or to invest them wisely on another’s behalf. Although this would cover many different types of jobs, it is typically used to refer to a trustee who is responsible for the money in a trust fund – it may suggest that Christopher’s accountant is helping him use his trust fund money to pay for his business venture).

Christopher’s reassurance that “it’s for real this time” suggests that he has attempted, and failed, at several businesses previously – or has even flat-out lied about trying to start a business. Little wonder that Lorelai is rather sceptical about it.