Title: Cinnamon’s Wake

Not a stripper – it’s a cat. Spoiler alert but Morey and Babette’s cat dies in this one and the Girls help throw a wake. It’s pretty adorable but we do miss Cinnamon. It could be a reference to Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce or the Irish ballad the book is named after, one that has been covered by numerous bands since it arose in the 1850s.

Summary: Claudia dies. So does Cinnamon. The girls throw a wake for the cat and blow off the funeral for the cousin. Emily has an aneurysm. Sookie does her best Henry the Eighth impression. Mr. Medina and Dean both take a chance on a Gilmore girl.

EMILY: We went to her house in Groton to see the first moon landing. She’d just gotten a new Philco.

A Philco was a popular television set in the 50s and 60s. In 1969, the year of the first moon landing, Philco launched a new advertising campaign called The Face Test. They were trying to prove that their TVs were the best quality because they showed skin tones and faces the most clearly. How bizarre the early days of television must have been. But I guess you could have been less attractive on TV in those days without Hi-Def. Just ask porn stars…… too far?

Coincidentally, Philco was a prime contractor to NASA for the design and installation of the control center at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. They also sold vinyl recordings of the Apollo 11 astronauts speaking from the moon, called the “Voices from the Moon” to be played on their Philco record players.

RORY: By someone other than Dolly Madison.

The Dolly Madison bakery was started in 1937 and named after Dolley Madison, President James Madison’s wife. The snack cake maker of the famous Zingers is now owned by Hostess, so if you are a Zingers fan keep your fingers crossed that as they go through bankruptcy they keep the Dolly Madison products alive. Unfortunately, I’ve never had any pre-packaged snack cakes because my parents deprived me as a child so I have no point of reference.

LANE: Oh, on a park bench contemplating the reunification of the two Koreas.

This seemed like a pipe dream back in 2000 and maybe it still is, but it feels like we are closer to unifying the Koreas than ever before, right? North and South Korea separated after WWII into US and Soviet zones of occupation. The United Nations declared the Republic of Korea (the Southern, U.S. controlled area) the only recognized Korean government, really pissing off the folks in the North. So they invaded the South in 1950 and kicked off the Korean War. The countries are now bitter rivals and the North has been totally cut off from modern society. They kidnap tourists, shoot bombs in the air on a whim, and have deprived their people of food and freedom.

I’ve always assumed that the Kims are from the South but maybe they have family in the North who they haven’t seen since 1950? For their sake, I’ll also contemplate the reunification of the two Koreas.

LORELAI: Not here, skanking to Rancid?

Skanking is a type of dancing that exemplifies the ska, punk, and reggae music genres. It actually originated in Jamaican dance halls in the 1950s but British teenagers adopted it as part of their punk movement in the 60s, altering it slightly. Originally, it looked a little like the Running Man on the bottom with air punches on the top. But the punk kids added a more sharp punching out motion, though they want to be sure you know that it isn’t necessarily violent… except if you get trampled in the mosh pit.

Rancid is a punk band formed in 19991 in Berkeley, CA. They usually get credited for the resurgence of punk in the US, along with Green Day and The Offspring (a Christopher favorite, we learn in S1E15, while Lorelai prefers Metallica). One of their most popular tracks is “Time Bomb” which might sound familiar because Lane’s band, Hep Alien, plays a cover of it in Season 4 Episode 19. It is also playing in the background here as Lane is “skanking to Rancid”.

MR. MEDINA: Very Henry the Eighth.

Sookie never half-asses anything, does she? Well, she would have been in good company in Henry the Eighth’s kitchen. Henry VIII was King of England from 1509 to his death in 1547, he was the second Tudor ruler. He might be best known for his six (!!!) marriages, separating the Church of England from the monarchy so that he could divorce his first wife, and beheading two of his wives. Charming man, right?

But King Henry was also known for his lavish lifestyle and rather rotund shape. By the end of his life, his waist measured 54″ around and he had to be moved around by mechanical levers. His court members even dressed in padded clothing to flatter him, so he wouldn’t look so large in comparison. And this was largely due to his lavish lifestyle and huge appetite. On Church fasting days, they still ate like Kings, consuming soup, herring, cod, lampreys, pike, salmon, whiting, haddock, plaice, bream, porpoise, seal, carp, trout, crabs, lobsters, custard, tart, fritters and fruit’ – just as a first course.

RORY: Philadelphia? If you could live in any city in the world you’d pick Philadelphia? LANE: M. Night Shymalan lives there. RORY: Who? LANE: The guy who directed The Sixth Sense.

M. Night Shymalan is a director and producer known for films like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, and Split. If you’ve seen any of these movies, you know that Mr. Night LOVES his plot twists and spooky endings. His full name is the Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan. He was born in India but raised in Pennsylvania, which is why many of his movies are set in the Philadelphia area.

The Sixth Sense is Shymalan’s third film, about a boy who can see and speak to the dead. A troubled child psychologist tries to help him and well… if you haven’t seen it I won’t spoil the twist. It’s Bruce Willis in all his sexy glory, and Haley Joel Osment in all his creepy child actor-ness. It was the second highest grossing film of 1999 behind Star Wars Episode I. And it’s twist ending made it one of the most talked about thrillers for many years.

LORELAI: Well I want to be in The Bangles but that doesn’t mean I quit my job and get a guitar and ruin my life to be a Bangle, does it?

Lorelai really does love The Bangles, doesn’t she? It’s a frequent theme especially in Season 1, complete with a Bangles concert in Episode 13. And it’s easy to see why the Girls were obsessed. Badass girl band – check! Catchy, fun tunes – check! Super cool band name – check! You’ve probably sung along to their songs at some point. You can thank them for “Manic Monday”, “Walk Like an Egyptian”, and “Eternal Flame”. So maybe we should all quit our jobs to form the new Bangles, who’s in?

LORELAI: Life is a funny, funny thing, huh? SOOKIE: Yeah I love that Jim Carrey.

James Eugene Carrey, born January 17, 1962, is a Canadian actor, comedian, and impressionist known for his crazy slapstick style. You probably met him in Ace Ventura or The Mask or Dumb and Dumber. Or my personal favorite, Liar Liar. But he can be serious too, turning up the drama level for films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Majestic, and the creepy Number 23. But lately he has been drawing political cartoons of President Donald Trump and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders – and they are prettyyyyyy funny.

SOOKIE: Oh. Very serious face. Jean-Paul Sartre.

The Father of Nothingness (I just made that up but I think it’s accurate). Jean-Paul Sarte was a French philosopher, playwright, and proponent of Existentialism. He is considered one of the most influential 20th Century philosophers and even won a Nobel Prize in 1964 which he shockingly turned down, saying that writers shouldn’t accept official honors and should be cautious of turning into an institution. Sarte was known for his thoughts on the concept of being free, namely the conflict between the oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity and the authentic way of “being”.

LORELAI: It’s like a scene from a kitty version of ‘Valley of the Dolls.’

Valley of the Dolls, a novel by Jacqueline Susann and a 1967 film, is a story about three women who become friends in post-War Hollywood. It’s named the Valley of the Dolls because each woman tries to ascend to success throughout her life but always ends up back in the “Valley of the Dolls”. Dolls refers drugs, of course, mostly amphetamines and barbiturates. Some people say Susann’s book was actually a roman à clef based on actually Hollywood drug addicts, like Judy Garland and Dean Martin. But the author has never fessed up to that. 

LORELAI: Information that would have come out eventually. Like the Iran-Contra scandal. RORY: So you’re Oliver North. LORELAI: No, I’m Fawn Hall.

Iran-Contra had all the makings of a great political scandal – back-door deals, botched cover-ups,  arms deals, and hot secretaries. Basically, senior officials in the Reagan administration brokered a secret arms deal with Iran, even though Iran was subject to an arms embargo at that time. The weapons were to support the Contras in Nicaragua, whose rebel cause Reagan supported. It all started as a plan to free seven American hostages from Hezbollah. The plan was for Israel to ship weapons to Iran, and then the US would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. Sounds a little shady but it gets worse. Oliver North, the Lieutenant Colonel of the National Security Council, decided to try to get support to the Contras as part of the deal, by sending the arms payment to the Contras instead so that they could fight their socialist government. Fawn Hall was North’s secretary who helped facilitate a lot of the secret communication between the US and the Contras, and then shred the evidence. But she was part of the reason they got caught when she accidentally transposed the numbers of the Swiss bank account where the funds were being transferred – uh, oops! A Swiss businessman, suddenly $10 million richer, alerted the authorities of the mistake. 

In the end, Reagan apologized and North and Hall were granted immunity in exchange for their testimony. Anyone who was actually convicted was pardoned by George HW Bush, so justice wins again. Yay, America!

LORELAI: You can’t always control who you’re attracted to, you know. I think the whole Angelina Jolie/Billy Bob Thornton thing really proves that.

Anyone who lived through the late 90s remembers the blood vial necklaces, right? Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton met on the set of Pushing Tin in 1999 when he was engaged to Laura Dern and she was dating Timothy Hutton. But then after a two-month courtship, they married in Vegas in May of 2000. They became known for their public displays of affection, most famously wearing vials of each other’s blood around their necks in public. The relationship didn’t last and they were split less than three years later. But they still have each other’s blood vials, so now that she is split from Brad – maybe a rekindling is in their future?