Footnotes to the TV series
LUKE: Taylor, we have been raising money to restore that stupid bridge for eight years.
Stars Hollow has been raising money to restore the bridge since 1994. What exactly is so badly wrong with this bridge that it took so long? Would it not have been easier to simply build a new bridge?
JESS: Walmart.
LUKE: Excuse me?
JESS: I’ve been working there twelve hours a week for the past few months to get extra money for the car.
Walmart, previously discussed. There is a large Walmart Supercenter in Hartford, which might be where Jess has been working [pictured]. How he’s been getting there without a car for months is a mystery – if he was taking the bus back and forth, you’d think his path would have crossed with Rory’s at some point, or someone would have noticed him at the bus stop. Perhaps he’s been getting a lift with someone.
Luke really isn’t taking enough notice of Jess as a guardian. Jess has been working out of town for months, either getting lifts or catching the bus, and done a course in order to get certification to drive a forklift. Jess’ dedication and work ethic is commendable – Luke’s lack of interest in his life isn’t. What if Jess had been doing something dangerous or illegal all these months?
When Luke asks Jess what his Walmart discount is, he responds with 15%. In real life it is 10%.
It’s been shown several times over that Jess is Lorelai in teenage boy form, and here is another parallel between them – like Lorelai, Jess is beginning his working life while still in his teens, and isn’t afraid to work hard in a blue collar job to pay the bills, just as she did.
SHERRY: Gigi, short for Georgia. The two Gs.
Another reference to the film Gigi, based on the novella by French author Colette, previously discussed. In the story, Gigi is short for Gilberte.
An ingenious fan has noted that if you change the Ls in Lorelai’s name to Gs, then it becomes an anagram of Georgia. Whether this is deliberate or a coincidence, I cannot say.
EDIT: Thanks to keen-eyed blog reader Melissa Adams-Cauble for noting that I’d gone G-crazy and changed name to game!
SHERRY: Well, it’s a work-in-progress. It was so bachelor pad before: rock posters, modular furniture, magazines everywhere.
When Sherry leads Lorelai and Rory into the apartment she shares with Christopher, we can see it is the same one they lived in at Christmas 2001, even though Christopher told Emily and Richard he and Sherry were looking to buy a new place of their own. The buying a new place story was another of Christopher’s untruths, because Sherry says nothing about them hoping to buy another home, and talks of this one as a work-in-progress, as if she hopes they will continue improving the one they already have.
The odd thing is that Sherry talks about the apartment as if it was one Christopher lived in alone before he got with Sherry, calling it his “bachelor pad”. That doesn’t fit in with the story we heard from Christopher, which is that he lived in Berkeley until he met Sherry, after which he relocated to Boston to be with her – and would have presumably moved in with her, or they would have moved into a place together.
From what Sherry says, Christopher was already living in Boston by himself, and Sherry moved into his apartment (where did she live before that he didn’t move in with her, when she apparently makes more money than he does? With her parents?). Did Christopher meet Sherry in California, and then move across the country and get an apartment in hopes of being with her? Which is weird and stalkerish, and seems like way more effort than Christopher would put in? Or did he move to Boston independently, and meet Sherry there?
It seems as if Christopher cannot tell people one simple thing which is verified by someone else. It’s as if everything about him is a lie. Christopher as a character barely exists.
RABBI BARANS: Reverend Skinner and I share the church for services, Taylor, so if there’s gonna be a protest, it’ll be a joint decision.
Reverend Skinner and Rabbi David Barans are introduced in this episode, and we also learn that the church is shared between the (vaguely unnamed) Protestant and Jewish congregations, while the reverend and the rabbi are firm friends.
The town has apparently gone through Reverend Nicholls, and the reverend who buried Louie Danes, and Reverend Melmin (who is Seventh Day Adventist), and now here’s Reverend Archie Skinner. I’m not sure if Stars Hollow has a lot of reverends, or a high turnover of them.
Reverend Skinner is played by Jim Jansen, who had roles on numerous TV shows. He has played a reverend several times, including on Nikki, Melrose Place, and Step by Step. He previously played someone named Skinner in Just the Ten of Us.
Rabbit Barans is played by Alan Blumenfeld, who has a similarly extensive CV. He played a rabbi again in the 2017 film Pinsky. Like Jim Jansen, he has appeared in Matlock, Hangin’ With Mr Cooper, Murphy Brown, Saved by the Bell: The New Class, Diagnosis Murder, and Felicity.
This is the book that Jess is reading when Rory runs into him while she’s panicking about the water issue.
Visions of Cody is an experimental novel by Jack Kerouac, previously discussed and frequently mentioned. It was written in 1951-52, with excerpts from it published in 1959, but not published in its entirety until 1972 – by then, it already had an underground reputation.
Visions of Cody is derived from experimental spontaneous prose inserts that Kerouac added to the original manuscript of On the Road in 1951–52. Although the narrative of the novel is meandering, consisting of short stream-of-conscious essays, transcriptions of taped conversations, and writing exercises, it focuses on the friendship between Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady (named Jack Duloz and Cody Pomeroy in the text). The book has been described as an early example of New Journalism.
Jess loves Kerouac, the Beat writers, and writing which contains journalism and fiction, so this book is a natural fit for him. Like Rory, he likes to delve deeper into novels he likes, and it makes sense that he would want to read this as a companion to On the Road.
Jess is able to read a book while walking. It’s interesting to speculate why he is wandering along Rory’s street, reading a Kerouac book. Is he mildly stalking Rory, or hoping he’ll run into her? How often does Jess do this “casual stroll near Rory’s house reading an underground classic” routine?
DORIS: I would’ve found you sooner if I had bothered to look, but now I have, I found you, and all I can say is this – I want my board games back! I want them back and I want them back now! And I will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth until I get them back – especially the Trivial Pursuit!
Trivial Pursuit, a board game in which winning is determined by a player’s ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions in different categories, collecting wedges for each category until the playing piece is full. It was created in 1979 by Chris Haney and Scott Abbott in Montreal, Canada, and released in 1981. It was one of the most popular games of the 1980s.
Incidentally, the fact that Doris has tracked Dwight down may explain why we never see him again. Doris may have forced him to return home, or demanded that he sell the house in Stars Hollow as it is a joint asset. Or maybe he just went on the run again to escape from her. Either way, there’s nothing to say that he remained living in Stars Hollow, although no real proof that he ever left.
DORIS: [on answering machine] Dwight, hi it’s Doris. Doris, your wife, remember me? The woman who was asleep in bed when you snuck out the window like a spineless little worm!
It turns out that Dwight isn’t in fact separated or divorced from his wife, but climbed out of the window while she was asleep. As he moved to Stars Hollow and bought a house, that’s a very serious escape attempt!
This does raise more questions, such as where did Dwight get the money to buy the house without Doris noticing, how did he manage to get to Stars Hollow to go house hunting without Doris noticing, where did he live during the settlement period (unless he just murdered Beenie Morrison, of course), how did he manage to take all the board games with him when he got out the window, and how has Doris managed to find his phone number? I guess his number is listed, for the last one, which seems stupid if he’s on the run from his wife.
The formidable Doris is voiced by Alex Borstein, who played Drella in Season 1.
Salsa [pictured] is an energetic Latin dance, associated with the music genre of the same name, which was first popularised in the United States in the 1960s in New York City. Salsa is an amalgamation of Cuban dances, such as mambo, pachanga and rumba, as well as American dances such as swing and tap. It was primarily developed by Puerto Ricans and Cubans living in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Cardio salsa is a high-impact fitness routine that uses salsa dancing to keep the heart rate elevated at the same level it would be during jogging.
Miami Sound Machine, previously discussed.
It is never said where Lorelai got the cardio salsa tape that she shows Rory, but it’s interesting that Rory bought Michel a cardio salsa tape for Christmas in 2000 (Season 1). Has he re-gifted it to Lorelai? Rory never says that she recognises it, but she certainly doesn’t seem impressed.
RORY: I like the brown.
LORELAI: Come here a sec, you’ve got some dirt on your forehead. I’m sorry, it’s just the sign of the devil, my mistake.
Lorelai refers to the Mark of the Beast which is mentioned in the Bible in Revelation 13:16-17.
He causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one may buy or sell, except he who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name.
The “beast” is also called “the false prophet” or Antichrist who “speaks like a dragon” – that is, speaks arrogantly, as if to place himself even above God. The meaning of the text has been hotly debated, but many biblical scholars think that “the beast” is the Roman Empire, the Emperor Nero, and the ruling elites. However, there is a popular view that “the beast” is the Devil himself. (See the entry for Antichrist for information on how the Antichrist and Devil have become conflated).
The Greek word translated as “mark”- charagma (χάραγμα) – can mean a mark that is engraved, imprinted, or branded. The word is the same one used to refer to stamped money, documents, or coins. As Roman coins carried the image of the emperor, it seems to fit in with the idea of “the beast” being the Roman Empire and emperor.
During the time when Nero was emperor, in 66 AD, the Jews revolted against the Romans and coined their own money so that they did not need to carry around this symbol of oppression to do business. This is about the same time that scholars believe Revelation was written, and some believe that these verses pertain to that, or are informed by it.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 