Season One, Episode Sixteen: “Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers”

Season 1, episode 16: “Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers”
Original air date: 8 March 2001
Directed by: Lesli Linka Glatter
Written by: Linda Loiselle Guzik, John Stephens

Summary: After three months of dating, Dean stuns Rory by saying “I love you.” When Lorelai goes solo to Friday night dinner, Emily seizes the opportunity to fix her up with a man.

On this page: All References in Chronological Order | References Sorted by Category | Frequent References | Indigenous Land Acknowledgment

All References in Chronological Order

00:00 – 📖 reference
Episode title: “Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers”

The term “star-crossed lovers” refers to a romantic couple kept apart by forces outside their control. The phrase refers to the astrological belief that the position of stars determines people’s fates; star-crossed lovers are working against fate in trying to be together, and the relationship is doomed to fail. The phrase first appeared in a line from William Shakespeare’s tragic play Romeo and Juliet, believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595: “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, / A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.” Like the couple Miss Patty describes in her opening narration, Romeo and Juliet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families.
Romeo and Juliet was referenced previously in episode twelve. Other phrases coined by Shakespeare were used in episodes nine and twelve, and Shakespeare, himself, was mentioned in episodes two, four, and eleven.

01:35 – ⭐ mention
MISS PATTY: Who wants to hear about the time I danced in a cage for Tito Puente?
CHILDREN: Me!
MISS PATTY: It was the summer of ’66…

Tito Puente (born Ernest Puente, Jr., 1923-2000) was a US musician, composer, and bandleader known for his “dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz music” (Wikipedia). Born to Puerto Rican immigrants, he rose to fame in the 1950s and ’60s with compositions like “Oye Cómo Va.” He appeared in two 1993 episodes of Sesame Street and provided a voice on The Simpsons in the 1995 two-part episode “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” US Congress awarded him the National Medal of the Arts in 1997, and he received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

02:50 – 📖 reference
DEAN: She throws herself under a train. … I don’t know. I think maybe Tolstoy’s just a little over my head.
RORY: No, that’s not true. Tolstoy wrote for the masses, the common man. It’s completely untrue that you have to be some kind of genius to read his stuff. … Now, I know it’s big. … And long. … And many of the Russian names tend to be spelled very similar, making it confusing.
DEAN: Every single person’s name ends with “-sky.”

Anna Karenina (Russian: Анна Каренина) is a novel by Lev Tolstoy, also known in English as Leo Tolstoy. The novel was released in serial form from 1875 to 1877, and was published in book form in 1878. The story follows Anna, a Russian socialite who takes up an extramarital affair with a wealthy cavalry officer and faces social ostracism as a result. Eventually, the relationship sours, and, succumbing to despair, she throws herself in front of a train. “Trains are a motif throughout the novel, with several major plot points taking place either on passenger trains or at stations” (Wikipedia).
Anna Karenina is widely considered a masterpiece of realist fiction and “one of the greatest works of literature ever written.” Though it is a long book (the edition Dean reads has 864 pages), Tolstoy’s style is often praised for its naturalism and universality. According to Soviet writer Isaac Babel, “if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy” (Wikipedia). Tolstoy and Anna Karenina were mentioned previously in episode two.
Numerous characters appear in Anna Karenina, including Anna’s extensive family tree. Many of these characters’ surnames end in common Slavic suffixes, including “-sky/-skaya,” “-ev/-eva,” “-ich,” “-in/-ina,” and “-ov/-ovna.” Because surnames are not gendered in English, as they are in Russian, English-language editions of the novel are sometimes titled Anna Karenin, applying the masculine form to all characters.

04:15 – 🎥 reference
DEAN: What if it’s for a really special occasion?
RORY: Well, that special occasion better include my being relocated to a plastic bubble if my grandmother’s going to let me out of dinner.

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (dir. Randal Kleiser) is a made-for-television drama film that aired on ABC in 1976. It stars John Travolta as Tod Lubitch, a teenager whose immune system is so compromised, he must be isolated within sterilized plastic chambers in order to survive. The story is inspired by the lives of David Vetter (1971-1984), a US boy with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), and Ted DeVita (born Theodore DeVita, 1962-1980), a US boy with aplastic anemia. Both boys had extremely weak immune systems and had to be protected from pathogens by extensive containment systems. Both cases attracted media attention due to the severity of illness and the unusual living conditions necessitated by it. “Plastic bubble” became a shorthand for the sterilized environments in which the boys lived, and “Vetter was referred to as ‘David, the bubble boy’ by the media” (Wikipedia).
The 1986 song “The Boy in the Bubble” by US singer-songwriter Paul Simon is also named for these medical cases. Rory may be referencing one or both of the boys directly, but it seems more likely she is alluding to the TV movie.

05:05 – 🎧 feature
Rory and Dean pass the town troubadour (played by Grant-Lee Phillips) as he plays his song “Heavenly.”

This song comes from the 2000 album Ladies’ Love Oracle by US singer-songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips. Solo songs by Phillips and songs by his band, Grant Lee Buffalo, have been featured in episode five, and in episode fourteen at 09:45 and 40:25. Phillips performs another later in this episode.

05:25 – 🏷️ feature
Lorelai sits at the kitchen table looking at a box of Hamburger Helper.

Hamburger Helper is a boxed brand of dried pasta or rice, sold with a packet of powdered seasonings. It is meant to be combined with ground beef and water in order to form a complete meal. The product “was introduced by General Mills in 1971 in response to a meat shortage and rising meat prices” (Wikipedia). As of 2022, the brand is owned by Eagle Foods.

05:30 – 🎥 mention + ⭐ reference
LORELAI: I want to really cook like on the Food Channel. I want to sauté things and chop things and do the “Bam!” And I want to arrange things on a plate so they look like a pretty little hat. I want to be the Iron Chef!

Lorelai is most likely referring to Food Network, a US basic cable channel specializing in “instructional cooking programs” and “food-related entertainment programs, such as cooking competitions, food-related travel shows, and reality shows” (Wikipedia). The channel was established in 1993 as TV Food Network. A website called The Food Channel (the name Lorelai uses) was launched in 2008, about seven years after this episode aired; it is not affiliated with Food Network and has no television presence.
Emeril Lagasse (born Emeril Lagassé III, 1959) is a US chef and television personality. “He has appeared on a wide variety of cooking TV shows,” (Wikipedia) including Essence of Emeril (1994-1996, 2000-2007) and Emeril Live (1997-2007), both on Food Network. He is known for saying his catchphrase “Bam!” when adding ingredients to a dish. He discussed the origins of the phrase in a 2015 interview with Eater.
Iron Chef (Japanese: Ryōri no Tetsujin, 料理の鉄人) is a Japanese television cooking show that aired from 1993 to 1999. The concept revolves around “a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show’s resident ‘Iron Chefs’ in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient” (Wikipedia). German composer Hans Zimmer composed the show’s theme music.

06:15 – 🪶 mention + 🗺️ reference + ⭐ reference
RORY: Cleopatra, queen of denial.
LORELAI: The pan, Shecky. Please.

Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (Koinē Greek: Κλεοπάτρα Θεά Φιλοπάτωρ, born 70/69 BCE, died 30 BCE) “was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BCE, and its last active ruler. … After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the last Hellenistic-period state in the Mediterranean” (Wikipedia). Cleopatra has become an icon of ancient Egypt, depicted in “fine arts, burlesque satire, Hollywood films, and brand images for commercial products.”
“Denial is not a river in Egypt” is a US expression used to point out someone’s refusal to accept the truth about themselves or a given situation. Though there are variations on the phrase (e.g. “denial isn’t just a river in Egypt,” “denial ain’t just a river in Egypt”), it always conflates “denial” with “the Nile,” a reference to the longest river in Africa. It is considered a play on words, or a pun. Its exact origins are unclear.
Shecky Greene (born Fred Sheldon Greenfield, 1926-2023) was a US comedian and actor “known for his nightclub performances in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he became a headliner in the 1950s and 1960s” (Wikipedia). He later appeared in films like History of the World: Part I (1981) and Splash (1983) and guest starred on shows like Laverne & Shirley (1976-1983) and Mad About You (1992-1999). Lorelai probably feels that Rory is heckling her, hence the reference to a comedian.

06:45 – 🏷️ mention
LORELAI: If there was a runoff between what Emily Gilmore would care about less, a two-for-one toilet paper sale at Costco and your three-month anniversary, your anniversary would win.

Costco is a US multinational corporation that “operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world” (Wikipedia), after Walmart and Amazon. It opened its first location in Seattle, Washington in 1983 and is headquartered in Issaquah, an eastern suburb of Seattle.

09:15 – 🏷️ mention
LOUISE: Not unless you’ve got a boyfriend like Tristan. Then you do it anywhere you can.
MADELINE: Street corner.
LOUISE: Shopping mall.
MADELINE: Phone booth.
LOUISE: Starbucks.

Starbucks Corporation is a US multinational coffeehouse chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, where it was founded in 1971. It is currently the largest coffeehouse chain in the world. According to the Starbucks website (past and present), the company name is a nod to the chief mate, Starbuck, from Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. (The company’s mermaid logo continues this nautical theme.) One of the company’s founders, Gordon Bowker, has said the name was chosen for its sound and is only coincidentally related to the novel.

09:25 – 📖 reference
PARIS: Thank you for the “where to make out” list. I just need to get my books.
LOUISE: Hell hath no fury.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” is a phrase that means “nothing in the world – or even beyond the world, such as in the depths of hell – is as furious and capable of great anger as a woman who has been ‘scorned'” (Interesting Literature). In a 17th century context, “a scorned woman [is] one who [has] been betrayed in love, especially one who has been replaced by a rival” (Phrase Finder). The phrase is attributed to the English playwright William Congreve, whose 1697 tragedy The Mourning Bride contains the lines, “Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, / Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.” However, similar phrasing also appears in Love’s Last Shift: or, The Fool in Fashion, a 1696 comedy by English playwright Colley Cibber: “He shall find no Fiend in Hell can match the fury of a disappointed Woman! – Scorned! slighted! dismissed without a parting Pang!”
The phrase is commonly misattributed to William Shakespeare, and sometimes to Oscar Wilde.

09:35 – 📖/🎥 reference
RORY: I’m assuming your locker is in there somewhere also?
PARIS: Yep. Right behind Belle Watling.

Belle Watling is a character in Margaret Mitchell’s 1939 epic historical romance novel Gone with the Wind and its 1939 film adaptation, directed by Victor Fleming. Watling is a sex worker and owner of a brothel, and though she has a low social reputation, she is kindhearted and generous. (When it comes to Summer, Paris clearly alluding to some parts of Watling’s character description and not others.) She is played in the film by Ona Munson.
It is worth noting that, despite Watling’s positive characterization, she does, at one point in the story, provide the Ku Klux Klan with an alibi for murder. Due to plotlines like this one, “the novel has been criticized for promoting plantation values and romanticizing the white supremacy of the antebellum South” (Wikipedia). The film (referenced previously in episode nine) has been similarly criticized “as having perpetuated Civil War myths and black stereotypes” (Wikipedia).
Jacqui Maxwell, who plays Summer, appeared previously as a different character in the pilot episode.

10:35 – 📖 reference
TRISTAN: Ah, to be young and in love.
PARIS: What a shame Elizabeth Barrett Browning wasn’t here to witness this.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (born Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett, 1806-1861) was an English poet. Successful during her lifetime, she was a significant influence on other poets like Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. Her 1845 poem Sonnet 43, which opens with the line, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” is one of her most famous poems, and one of the most famous love poems in the English language.

14:40 – 🗺️ reference
LUKE: I thought you were in the Congo, or Philadelphia or something.
RACHEL: Actually, though very similar to both the Congo and Philadelphia, I was in the Mideast.

Luke is likely referring to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (also known as DRC, DR Congo, or simply Congo, among other names), which was in the midst of the Second Congo War (1998-2003) at the time of this episode. The DRC hosts a wealth of natural resources, but has suffered from centuries of colonial exploitation and a high degree of political instability since gaining independence in 1960. It is the second-largest country in Africa and, due to its history of colonization by Belgium, the most populous Francophone country in the world. Located in central sub-Saharan Africa, it is not to be confused with the smaller Republic of the Congo, its neighbor to the northwest.
Philadelphia is the most populous city in the US state of Pennsylvania. It was mentioned previously in episode five.
The Middle East (sometimes referred to as the Mideast) “is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. … Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world” (Wikipedia). The term is an exonym coined in English by Westerners to refer to the region; it assumes a European geographical perspective and, as such, has been criticized as Eurocentric and colonialist.

15:00 – 🗺️ mention
RACHEL: I flew back to Chicago, and I was walking through O’Hare, and I look up, and there’s a plane leaving for Hartford in, like, 20 minutes.

Chicago is the most populous city in the Midwestern state of Illinois, and the third-most populous in the US. It was mentioned previously in episodes one and seven.
Chicago O’Hare International Airport “is a major international airport serving Chicago, Illinois” (Wikipedia) since 1944. It was the world’s busiest airport from 1963 to 1998, and today “is considered the world’s most connected airport.” It is named for Edward “Butch” O’Hare, an aviator who became the US Navy’s first flying ace of the Second World War, “credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat” (Wikipedia).

15:55 – 🗺️ mention
LORELAI: Why were you in the Mideast?
RACHEL: I was doing a photo story on how Palestinian and Israeli families have been affected by the violence.

This episode aired during the Second Intifada (Arabic: الانتفاضة الثانية, Hebrew: האינתיפאדה השנייה), “a major uprising by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation, characterized by a period of heightened violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel between 2000 and 2005. … The violence is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis, as well as 64 foreign nationals” (Wikipedia).

16:30 – 🏷️ reference
RORY: Well, you spent a lot of time picking out those coffee makers.
LORELAI: Oh, yeah, I’m Mrs. Coffee.

Mr. Coffee is a US brand of drip-brew coffee machines founded in 1970.

16:55 – 📖 reference + ⭐ mention
LORELAI: And he’s looking at her like she’s Miss September, and she’s looking at him like he’s Johnny Depp, and I was just babbling like a moron.

Playboy is a US lifestyle and entertainment magazine founded in 1953. Originally, each issue featured a centerfold of a nude or semi-nude female model, called a Playmate of the Month; the model for the September issue, for example, would be called Miss September. In addition to its soft pornography, the magazine is known for its interviews and its short stories by prominent fiction writers (hence the old joke, “I read it for the articles”). It seems comical to categorize this reference under Literature, but that is where I put magazines generally.
Johnny Depp (born John Depp II, 1963) is a US actor. He made his film debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and his starring role in the television series 21 Jump Street (1987-1990) made him a teen idol. By the time of this episode, he had appeared in films like Cry-Baby (1990), Edward Scissorhands (1990), What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Dead Man (1995), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), among others. He was named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2003, about two years after this episode aired.

18:05 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: It’s gonna be just like Lady and the Tramp. You’ll share a plate of spaghetti, but it’ll just be one long strand, but you won’t realize it until you accidentally meet in the middle, and then he’ll push a meatball toward you with his nose, and you’ll push it back with your nose.

Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 animated musical romance film directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, and produced by Walt Disney. It follows a romance between two dogs, Lady, a pampered Cocker Spaniel, and Tramp, a stray terrier mix. In one famous scene, the pair eat a spaghetti dinner at an Italian restaurant. The film is based on the 1945 story, “Happy Dan, the Cynical Dog,” written by Ward Greene and published in Cosmopolitan magazine.

21:10 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: Mom has gone a little crazy with the figurines here, huh? A little Kathy Bates? Although you probably haven’t seen Misery, which is a good thing, ’cause Rory couldn’t sleep alone for a week after we watched it.

Misery is a 1990 psychological thriller film directed by Rob Reiner and based on Stephen King’s 1987 novel of the same name. The story follows Paul Sheldon (played in the film by James Caan), a successful novelist who is injured in a car accident and subsequently held captive by an obsessive and mentally unbalanced fan. His captor, Annie Wilkes (played by Kathy Bates), is “a cunning, brutal and devious woman who hides her malice behind a cheery façade. … She abhors profanity” (Wikipedia) and instead uses childlike expressions like “cockadoodie,” “dirty bird,” “mister man,” and “oogy.” Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the character.

21:55 – 📖 reference
RICHARD: I’m trying to read, so please, just be quiet and try not to break anything else.
EMILY: So, we having a nice chat?
LORELAI: Yeah, we’re having a great conversation, me and Morrie.

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson is a 1997 memoir by US author and journalist Mitch Albom. In the book, Albom recounts conversations he had during a series of visits with his former sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, who was then dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The book became a bestseller and was made into a television film, starring Hank Azaria as Albom and Jack Lemmon as Schwartz, in 1999.
Given that “Morrie” and “Maury” are similarly pronounced, I would allow the possibility that Lorelai is referring to US television personality Maury Povich (born Maurice Povich, 1939), who hosted the tabloid television talk show Maury from 1991 to 2022. However, I think it’s more likely she is alluding to the substantive and philosophical conversations of Tuesdays with Morrie.

22:45 – ⚖️ reference
CHASE: Stone house on the corner.
LORELAI: Ah, the one with the Dobermans.
CHASE: That’s right. Leopold and Loeb.

Nathan Leopold Jr. (1904-1971) and Richard Loeb (1905-1936) were two US criminals convicted in 1924 for the kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks (born Robert Franks, 1909-1924); they were 19 and 18 years old, respectively, at the time of the crime. In their confessions, both men stated they were motivated by “thrill-seeking, Übermenschen (supermen) delusions, and their aspiration to commit a ‘perfect crime'” (Wikipedia). The crime and the trial were among several, in the 20th century, to be termed “the crime of the century” or “the trial of the century.” Leopold and Loeb were sentenced to life imprisonment plus 99 years, though Leopold was released on parole in 1958. Loeb was murdered in prison by a fellow inmate in 1936.

23:05 – 🏷️ mention
LORELAI: Chase’s mother and I are in the DAR together.

The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) “is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in supporting the American Revolutionary War. … Applicants must be at least 18 years of age and have a birth certificate indicating” (Wikipedia) they were born female. The organization was founded in 1890 and is headquartered in Washington, DC. Its motto is “God, Home, and Country.”
The Revolutionary War has come up previously in episode one and in episode eight at 01:30 and 13:50.

23:15 – 🏷️ mention
CHASE: Scotch, neat.
RICHARD: Glenfiddich?

Glenfiddich is a brand of single malt Scotch whisky produced by William Grant & Sons since 1886. The name derives from the Gaelic for “valley of the deer,” as reflected by the stag that serves as the company’s logo (Glenfiddich).

23:40 – 🏷️ reference
LORELAI: Is this a setup?
EMILY: What?
LORELAI: Uh, Connecticut Ken in there – is he my invited escort for the evening?

Ken is a doll created by US toy company Mattel in 1961 as a male counterpart to Barbie. Like Barbie, Ken is considered a fashion doll, “designed to be dressed to reflect fashion trends” (Wikipedia), and the dolls often come with outfits and accessories corresponding to a particular activity, setting, or career. Ken may be referred to according to theme, for example, Astronaut Ken, Reporter Ken, or Sailor Ken.

23:55 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: This is why the Miss Congeniality act when Rory wanted to beg out of dinner!

A helpful or agreeable person may be described as Miss (or Mister) Congeniality, suggesting it is a title they could win in a beauty pageant like Miss America or Miss World; however, the phrase is perhaps more often used sarcastically to describe an unfriendly person. Today, it is probably best associated with the 2000 film Miss Congeniality, in which an FBI agent, who had previously eschewed all things stereotypically feminine, must go undercover as a beauty pageant contestant to investigate a terrorist threat. The film stars Sandra Bullock and is directed by Donald Petrie.

24:30 – 🏷️ reference
LORELAI: It’s that arcade game where the mole keeps sticking his head out, and you have to pound him as many times as you can with the mallet. You would be a master at that game.

Whac-A-Mole (Japanese: Mogura Taiji, モグラ退治 or Mogura Tataki, モグラたたき, English: “Mole Buster” or “Mole Smash”) is an arcade game created in 1975 by TOGO, a Japanese manufacturer of amusement rides. Cartoonish plastic moles (small subterranean mammals) pop up at random from eight holes in the body of the machine, and the player must “whack” them with a soft mallet to win points. The game was a major success in Japan, becoming the second-highest-grossing game of its type in 1976 and 1977. In 1976, it debuted in North America, where it became a popular carnival game.
“The term ‘whac-a-mole’ (or ‘whack-a-mole’) is often used colloquially to refer to a situation characterized by a series of futile, Sisyphean tasks, where the successful completion of one just yields another popping up elsewhere” (Wikipedia).

25:45 – 🏷️ mention
RORY: I don’t know how they do it, but the Coke here is definitely superior to the Coke anywhere else.

“Cola is a carbonated soft drink flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils, and other flavorings” (Wikipedia). Coca-Cola, or Coke, is the brand-name cola manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. It was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton as a temperance drink, an alternative to alcoholic beverages. Its name comes from two of its original ingredients: coca leaves (from which cocaine is derived) and kola nuts (the drink’s original source of caffeine). Coca-Cola was featured previously in episodes seven, nine, and thirteen.
Like McDonald’s (mentioned in episodes four and six), Coca-Cola is thought to symbolize the globalization of US culture. The term “cocacolonization” emerged in post-World War II Europe to critique such globalization.

27:05 – 🎥 reference
RORY: No one eats cute. Bambi maybe, but he’s a cartoon.

Bambi is a 1942 US animated drama film produced by Walt Disney and based loosely on the 1923 novel Bambi, a Life in the Woods by Austro-Hungarian writer Felix Salten. David D. Hand acted as supervising director for the film, overseeing a team of six sequence directors. The film follows the life of Bambi, a white-tailed deer, from his infancy to his adulthood, when he must take up the leadership role of Great Prince of the Forest. As a fawn, he befriends a young rabbit named Thumper, who teaches him about eating greens.

29:10 – 📖 mention
DEAN: What’s the three-month anniversary book?
RORY: Actually, I brought The New Yorker.
DEAN: A magazine. Really?
RORY: It’s the fiction issue.

The New Yorker is a US magazine founded in 1925. “Although its reviews and events listings often focused on the cultural life of New York City, The New Yorker has gained a reputation [throughout its history] for publishing serious fiction, essays, and journalism for a national and international audience” (Wikipedia).

30:00 – 🗺️ mention
MAYOR HARRY PORTER: She went to bingo in Bridgeport.

Bridgeport is the most populous city in the US state of Connecticut. It is located in the ancestral territory of the Paugussett people.

31:10 – ⭐ reference
CHASE: I’d have to feed the information into a computer to get the answer. I’m no Kreskin.

The Amazing Kreskin (born George Kresge, 1935) is a US mentalist, an entertainer who “appear[s] to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, mind control, memory feats, deduction, and rapid mathematics” (Wikipedia). In one of Kreskin’s best-known tricks, he must locate his performance check, hidden by the audience while he is off stage; if he does not find the check, he forfeits payment. Kreskin rose to fame hosting the Canadian television series The Amazing World of Kreskin from 1972 to 1975. He would later make appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and The Howard Stern Show.

33:00 – 🎥 reference
DEAN: Did you ever see Christine?
RORY: Yes.
DEAN: Well, it’s nothing like that.

Christine is a 1983 US supernatural horror film directed by John Carpenter and based on Stephen King’s 1983 novel of the same name. The film centers Arnold “Arnie” Cunningham, a teenager who, in 1978, buys a classic 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine. The car “seems to have a mind of its own and a jealous, possessive personality” (Wikipedia), and is associated with a series of mysterious deaths.
An adaptation of another Stephen King novel, Misery, was mentioned earlier in this episode at 21:10.

33:05 – 🎧 feature
“Oh My Love” by John Lennon plays as Rory and Dean enter the salvage yard and he shows her the car he is building for her. It continues during their conversation in the car and fades out as Dean tells Rory he loves her.

This song was written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono and released on Lennon’s 1971 album Imagine.
A song by the Plastic Ono Band, the musical group formed by Lennon and Ono, was featured previously in episode ten.

33:10 – 🗺️ reference
RORY: You brought me to Beirut?
DEAN: It’s a salvage yard.
RORY: Ah. And yet it looks so much like Beirut.

Beirut (Arabic: بيروت) is the capital city of Lebanon (officially the Republic of Lebanon), a country in the Levant region of West Asia; it is the most populous city in the country and the third-most populous in the region. “Beirut has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years, making it one of the oldest cities in the world. … Beirut was severely damaged” (Wikipedia) by the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) and underwent extensive reconstruction during the 1990s.

37:45 – 🎧 feature
The town troubadour (played by Grant-Lee Phillips) plays “Mockingbirds” by Grant Lee Buffalo at the Firelight Festival.

This song comes from the 1994 album Mighty Joe Moon by US rock band Grant Lee Buffalo. Songs by the band and by its singer and lead guitarist, Grant-Lee Phillips, have been featured in episode five, and in episode fourteen at 09:45 and 40:25. Phillips performed another earlier in this episode.

References Sorted by Category

🏷️ Brand Names

05:25 – Hamburger Helper (food)
06:45 – Costco (retail)
09:15 – Starbucks Corporation (coffeehouse chain)
16:30 – Mr. Coffee (coffee machine)
23:05 – Daughters of the American Revolution (member service organization)
23:15 – Glenfiddich (Scotch whisky)
23:40 – Ken (toy)
24:30 – Whac-A-Mole (arcade or carnival game)
25:45 – Coca-Cola (soft drink), Coke (also known as)

⭐ Famous Figures

01:35 – Tito Puente (musician, composer, and bandleader)
04:15 – David Vetter (boy with severe combined immunodeficiency)
04:15 – Ted DeVita (boy with aplastic anemia)
05:30 – Emeril Lagasse (chef and television host)
06:15 – Shecky Greene (comedian and actor)
16:55 – Johnny Depp (actor)
31:10 – The Amazing Kreskin (mentalist)

🎥 Film, Television & Theater

04:15 – The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976 film)
05:30 – Food Network (television channel)
05:30 – Iron Chef (television series)
09:35 – Gone with the Wind (1939 film), Belle Watling (character)
18:05 – Lady and the Tramp (1955 film)
21:10 – Misery (1990 film), Kathy Bates (actor)
23:55 – Miss Congeniality (2000 film)
27:05 – Bambi (1942 film)
33:00 – Christine (1983 film)

🗺️ Geography & Politics

06:15 – the Nile (river)
14:40 – Democratic Republic of the Congo (African country)
14:40 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (US city)
14:40 – Middle East (geopolitical region), Mideast (also known as)
15:00 – Chicago, Illinois (US city)
15:00 – Chicago O’Hare International Airport (airport)
15:55 – Israel-Palestine conflict (military and political conflict)
30:00 – Bridgeport, Connecticut (US city)
33:10 – Beirut, Lebanon (Asian city)

🪶 History

06:15 – Cleopatra (monarch)

📖 Literature

00:00 – Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (stage play)
02:50 – Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy (book), Leo Tolstoy (also known as)
09:25 – The Mourning Bride by William Congreve (stage play), “Hell hath no fury.” (misquotation)
09:35 – Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (book), Belle Watling (character)
10:35 – Elizabeth Barrett Browning (poet)
16:55 – Playboy (magazine), Playmate of the Month (model)
21:55 – Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom (book)
29:10 – The New Yorker (magazine)

🎧 Music

05:05 – “Heavenly” by Grant-Lee Phillips (song)
33:05 – “Oh My Love” by John Lennon (song)
37:45 – “Mockingbirds” by Grant Lee Buffalo (song)

⚖️ True Crime

22:45 – Bobby Franks murder (criminal case), Nathan Leopold Jr. (US criminal), Richard Loeb (US criminal)

Frequent References

A few things come up so routinely in the show, I am not going to include an entry for them every time they do. I wrote about the following people, places, and things when they first appeared or were mentioned.

Christmas, Easter, Halloween (holidays)
Hartford, Connecticut (US city)
Harvard University (academic institution)
Herman Beeftink (piano and string composer)
Independence Inn (named for the American War of Independence)
Jeep (automotive brand)
New York, New York (US city)
Sam Phillips (series composer)
“Travel to Historic Brazil” (poster in Rory’s bedroom)
“Where You Lead” by Carole King and Louise Goffin (series theme)

Indigenous Land Acknowledgment

In beginning my work on this guide, I’ve come to realize just how many references (however subtle) the show contains to the Revolutionary War and the colonial history of the United States. It is important and necessary to acknowledge the people whose lands were usurped when these events took place, though this is not a simple matter. Please visit my land acknowledgment page to view the results of my research.

Episode citation: “Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers.” Gilmore Girls, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, season 1, episode 16, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund/Polone, Warner Bros. Television, 2001.

Posted 29 July 2024