Season 1, episode 5: “Cinnamon’s Wake”
Original air date: 2 November 2000
Directed by: Michael Katleman
Written by: Daniel Palladino

Summary: Max and Lorelai confront their mutual attraction despite her trepidation over dating a Chilton teacher. Meanwhile, Rory is overcome by nerves whenever Dean is around.

Note: My timestamps are based on the series DVDs, which include a “previously on Gilmore Girls” montage at the beginning of some episodes, including this one. Streaming services may cut the recap sequence, placing their timestamps a minute or so behind my own.

On this page: References in Chronological Order | References Sorted by Category | Credits

References in Chronological Order

00:00 – 📖 reference
Episode title: “Cinnamon’s Wake”

Finnegans Wake is an experimental novel by Irish author James Joyce. Written over a period of seventeen years, it was published in installments beginning in 1924 and in book form in 1939. It was Joyce’s final work before his death in 1941. The book is known for its idiosyncratic use of English, dreamlike structure, and lack of a conventional plot. It was received with bafflement and even hostility on its release and is regarded, to this day, as one of the most challenging works in the Western canon.

01:05 – 🗺️ mention + 🪶 reference
LORELAI: Location’s top secret?
EMILY: Oh. Germany.
LORELAI: Germany. Is Dad’s firm insuring Nazis now?

The Federal Republic of Germany is the second-most populous country in Europe, after Russia, and the most populous in the European Union. It has the largest economy in Europe and the third-largest in the world (after the United States and China) by nominal GDP, making it a logical business destination for Richard.

The National Socialist German Workers’ Party was the fascist political party, active in Germany from 1920 to 1945, that created the ideology of Nazism. Under party leader Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany instigated the Second World War and orchestrated the massacre of six million Jewish people and additional millions of Polish, Soviet, and Romani people, gay and disabled people, and political dissidents.

It’s worth noting that Richard’s firm would not need to go to Germany to find Nazis, as there are several neo-Nazi groups active in the United States. Furthermore, whereas Germany criminalizes Holocaust denial and the display of Nazi symbols, these activities are protected as free speech and expression under US law.

01:55 – 🗺️ mention + 🪶 mention + 🏷️ mention
EMILY: We went to her house in Groton to see the first moon landing. She had just gotten a new Philco.
LORELAI: I have no memory of this whatsoever.
EMILY: Rory, correct me if I’m wrong, but men have walked on the moon regardless of whether your mother remembers it or not.

Groton is a town located on the Thames River on the ancestral land of the Pequot people in southeastern Connecticut.

On 20 July 1969, US spaceflight Apollo 11 landed on the moon, making mission commander Neil Armstrong the first person to set foot on the lunar surface (on 21 July). The launch, landing, and safe return of the mission were much celebrated events. The launch was broadcast live in thirty-three countries, making it one of the most-watched television events in history. It was witnessed by an estimated twenty-five million viewers in the United States alone, and Armstrong’s moonwalk was viewed by an estimated six hundred million people, approximately one-fifth of the world’s population.

Philco is a US electronics company known, historically, for its batteries, radios, and televisions. The company created several iconic radio and television models, including the cathedral-style radios of the 1930s and the Predicta television sets of the 1950s. It was founded in 1892 as Helios Electronics Company before becoming the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company and eventually Philco.

02:25 – 🗺️ mention
EMILY: No, a Nazi that we knew. I’d forgotten. We stayed with him once in Munich. Nice old man. Interesting stories.

Munich (German: München, Bavarian: Minga) is the capital and most populous city of the state of Bavaria and the third-most populous city in Germany. The Nazi Party was headquartered in Munich, and the Nazis staged a failed coup, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich in 1923. Today, the city is known for its automotive, technology, and tourism industries.

03:40 – 💿 feature
“Time Bomb” by Rancid can be heard playing from Rory’s bedroom, where Lane is dancing to it.
04:25
LORELAI: Where does your mom think you are?
LANE: Oh, uh, on a park bench contemplating the reunification of the two Koreas.
LORELAI: Not here, skanking to Rancid?

This song comes from the 1995 album …And Out Come the Wolves by US punk rock band Rancid. The song is considered to be ska punk or reggae rock, specifically. Skanking is a style of dance, originating in 1950s and ’60s Jamaican dance halls, associated with these subgenres.

04:00 – 🏷️ reference
RORY: They expect the things to be homemade.
LORELAI: I know.
RORY: By someone other than Dolly Madison.

Dolly Madison is a US brand of prepackaged baked goods. It is named for Dolley Madison, wife of fourth US president James Madison, on the basis that its products are “fit for a socialite like Madison yet affordable for everyone” (White House History). The brand may have contributed to a false association between the former first lady and sweets, including a myth that she was the first person to serve ice cream at the White House; though she was a well known society hostess, there is nothing historically noteworthy about her selection of desserts.

The brand is also associated with Charles Schulz’s Peanuts due to a long-standing marketing relationship. Dolly Madison sponsored some Peanuts television specials, and Peanuts characters were featured in Dolly Madison advertisements and on product packaging from the 1960s to the 1980s.

04:25 – 🗺️ reference
LORELAI: Where does your mom think you are?
LANE: Oh, uh, on a park bench contemplating the reunification of the two Koreas.

Korean reunification refers to the potential unification of North Korea and South Korea into a single sovereign state. Korea existed as a single state for more than a thousand years prior to Japanese rule, which lasted from the annexation of Korea in 1910 until Japan’s defeat in World War II. The United Nations divided Korea into two military occupation zones in 1945, and two separate governments were ultimately established in 1948. The June 15th North-South Joint Declaration initiated a reunification process in 2000, but relations have deteriorated since. Recent polls have found declining favor for reunification among South Koreans, and, in 2024, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un declared it an impossibility.

05:55 – 📖 feature
Rory is reading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own on the bus when she is startled by a surprise appearance from Dean.

A Room of One’s Own is an extended essay by English author Virginia Woolf. It is based on two lectures she gave in 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, both women’s colleges at the University of Cambridge, and was published in 1929. The essay, which comments on social limitations placed on women’s freedom of expression, is considered a landmark feminist text.

07:20 – 🗺️ reference
MICHEL: Sir, I’m just a simple country boy from Texas. I do not understand this français business you are babbling about.

Texas is the second-largest US state, after Alaska, and the second-most populous after California. Located in the West South Central region, Texas is known for its cattle ranches, leading to the archetype of the Texas cowboy. There are many Texas accents, but a stereotypical one, associated with cowboys and other rural Texans, is obviously different Michel’s French one. With the exception of a brief period of French colonization, the chief colonial influence in Texas is Spanish (though it does retain some French influence through its proximity to Louisiana).

Prior to colonization, Texas was home to the Ancestral Puebloans, the Mound Builders of the Mississipian culture, and the Indigenous peoples of Aridoamerica, a region spanning northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Today, three federally recognized groups, the Alabama-Coushatta, Kickapoo, and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, reside there.

07:45 – 🗺️ mention + 📺 reference
MICHEL: That is why I left France.
LORELAI: Huh. I thought it had something to do with the torches and the villagers.

Michel has referred previously to a boyhood experience in Paris, the capital and largest city of the Republic of France, in Western Europe. Yanic Truesdale, the actor who plays Michel, was actually born and raised in Montreal, Canada. He speaks Quebec French, distinct from the Metropolitan French spoken in France, as his first language.

In James Whale’s 1931 US horror film, Frankenstein, a mob of angry, torch-wielding villagers seeks retribution against Frakenstein’s monster for the death of a child. It has become a trope for vigilante groups, intent on driving out some social other, to be depicted carrying torches, and sometimes pitchforks. The film is based on English author Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, though the scene described above does not appear in the book.

09:40 – 🪶 reference
MAX: Very Henry VIII.
LORELAI: Well, we’re not into subtle.

Tudor banquets were famously lavish affairs, with grand meals at court intended to showcase a monarch’s power and wealth. Feasts held by King Henry VIII of England were no exception. Tudor chronicler wrote of Henry’s 1509 coronation banquet, “How can I describe the abundance of fine and delicate fare prepared for this magnificent and lordly feast, produced both abroad and in the many and various parts of this realm to which God has granted his bounty” (English History).

Henry VIII is famous for the fact that he married six times, in pursuit of political alliances and a healthy male heir. Two of these marriages ended in annulment, and two ended in the execution of his wives. His daughter, Elizabeth I, ascended the throne in 1559 and reigned until her death in 1603.

12:10 – 🎓 mention
LORELAI: I’m gonna be in town tomorrow because I take a class at Hartford State.

Lorelai may be referring to Capital Community-Technical College, which formed in 1992 through a merger of Greater Hartford Community College and Hartford State Technical College. The college changed its name to Capital Community College in 2000 and, today, operates as the Hartford campus of Connecticut State Community College. If its course offerings were the same then as they are today, Lorelai might have enrolled in the degree program for Business Administration.

12:55 – 🗺️ mention + 📺 mention
RORY: Philadelphia? If you could live in any city in the world, you’d pick Philadelphia?
LANE: M. Night Shyamalan lives there.
RORY: Who?
LANE: The guy who directed The Sixth Sense?

Philadelphia is the most populous city in the US state of Pennsylvania and the sixth-most populous in the United States. Founded in 1682, the city is known for its role in US history, especially its colonial and Revolutionary War history. (Like Connecticut, Pennsylvania was one of the Thirteen Colonies.) Philadelphia served as the first US capital from 1774 to 1800 and was the site of many of the nation’s first institutions, including its first hospital, library, and central bank. Many prominent figures from US history – including the namesake of the Chilton school paper, Benjamin Franklin – resided or were born in Philadelphia.

The city is located on the ancestral land of the Lenape, also known as the Delaware Tribe. The Lenape were largely displaced by colonial expansion, and, in the 1860s, those who remained in the Northeast were forcibly removed to present-day Oklahoma as part of the US government’s “Indian removal” policy. Today, there are three federally recognized Lenape nations (the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, and Stockbridge-Munsee Community) in the United States and two (the Munsee-Delaware Nation and Delaware Nation at Moraviantown) in Canada.

The Sixth Sense is a 1999 US psychological thriller film written and directed by Indian-born US filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (born Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan, 1970). The film follows a child psychologist whose patient claims to be able to speak with the dead, hence the film’s famous line, “I see dead people.” It was the second-highest-grossing film of 1999 (after Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace) and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.

Shyamalan was raised in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, and owns the Ravenwood estate, near Philadelphia, and another estate in Chester County.

16:05 – 🏷️ feature
An Alien Pops display is visible in the checkout area when Rory takes her mousetrap and head of lettuce to the register.

This 1990s-era Alien Pops novelty candy container can be found in price guides for antiques and collectibles, as well as in listings on eBay.

16:30 – 🗺️ feature
A sign reading “No Fish Today” is visible in an establishing shot before Lorelai meets Max for coffee.

No Fish Today was a seafood restaurant located at 80 Pratt Street in Hartford, Connecticut. It closed in the years after this episode aired.

17:35 – 💿 mention
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?
MAX: The Bangles broke up.

The Bangles are an all-female pop-rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1981. Their 1986 album Different Light produced five charting singles, including “Manic Monday” and “Walk Like an Egyptian,” the latter of which Billboard ranked the United States’ top-charting single of 1987. Though their next album, Everything (1988), was also commercially successful, the band struggled internally. They broke up in 1989 before reuniting in 1998.

18:20 – 🪶 reference
MAX: Do you have any hemlock back there? Arsenic? Something quick.

Hemlock (conium maculatum) is a highly poisonous plant native to Europe and North Africa. In ancient Greece, it was used as a means of execution. Its most famous victim, the philosopher Socrates, was sentenced to death by hemlock in 399 BCE after being found guilty of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. His student, Plato, wrote of the trial in his dialogue Apology of Socrates.

19:40 – 🏷️ mention
LORELAI: This is gonna be sad, isn’t it?
MAX: No, let me finish.
LORELAI: Oh, it’s gonna be sad.
MAX: So, anyhow, my uncle watches this girl, waiting for the right moment to approach her. Next thing he knows, he gets drafted.
LORELAI: Ugh, I’m going for the Kleenex.

Kleenex is a brand of paper products, known primarily for its line of facial tissues. Originally developed by the US Cellucotton Company, the tissues have seen a variety of uses in their history. They first served as filters for gas masks in World War I, then as an absorbent material for the production of Kotex menstrual pads, then as facial tissues for removing cold cream, and finally as disposable handkerchiefs. Today, the brand is owned by US multinational consumer goods and personal care corporation Kimberly-Clark.

In US English, the term “Kleenex” has become a generic trademark, or proprietary eponym, a brand name that, due to its prevalence or significance, has become a generic term for an entire class of products. Any facial tissue, of any brand, may be casually referred to as a “Kleenex” despite the fact that the term is a registered trademark owned by Kimberly-Clark.

21:20 – ⭐ reference
LORELAI: Life is a funny, funny thing, huh?
SOOKIE: I love that Jim Carrey.

Jim Carrey (born James Carrey, 1962) is a US-Canadian actor and comedian. At the time of this episode, he was known for his roles on US sketch comedy series In Living Color (1990-1994) and in US comedy films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber (all released in 1994). He starred in more dramatic roles in US comedy-drama The Truman Show (1998) and US tragicomedy Man on the Moon (1999), but was still more closely associated with slapstick comedy at this time.

21:30 – ⭐ reference
LORELAI: I don’t mean funny-funny. I’m being philosophical.
SOOKIE: Oh. Very serious face. Jean-Paul Sartre.

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was a French philosopher and author “best known as the leading exponent of existentialism in the [twentieth] century” (Britannica). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, but declined, becoming the first Nobel laureate to do so.

Sartre and his wife, philosopher and author Simone de Beauvoir, attracted posthumous controversy for their sexual exploitation of Beauvoir’s philosophy students.

23:25 – 🕊️ reference
LUKE: The counter is a sacred space. My sacred space. You don’t do yoga on the Dalai Lama’s mat, and you don’t come behind my counter. Period!

Dalai Lama (Tibetan: ཏཱ་ལའི་བླ་མ) is the title given to the foremost spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. The fourteenth and current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was enthroned in 1940. Buddhist practice may involve physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines such as meditation and yoga.

26:10 – 📺 reference
MICHEL: Yoo-hoo, Hee Haw man. Where is Lorelai Gilmore?

Michel addresses a man wearing a flannel shirt and overalls as “Hee Haw man,” in reference to the country-themed US comedy variety television series Hee Haw (1969-1993). The show presented country music and comedy sketches set within the fictional, rural Kornfield Kounty. US country music stars Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Tammy Wynette all appeared on the show as guests at various points.

Hee Haw was parodied in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons, “Colonel Homer.”

32:00 – 📖/📺 reference
LORELAI: Wow. It’s like a scene from the kitty version of Valley of the Dolls.

The Valley of the Dolls is a 1966 novel by US author Jacqueline Susann. It follows three women as they struggle to forge careers in show business and ultimately succumb to alcohol and barbiturate addiction. Despite poor reviews, it was the best-selling novel of its year and one of the best-selling of all time. A film adaptation (directed by Mark Robson and starring Barbara Perkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate) was released in 1967. The film was likewise critically panned but commercially successful on its release, and has since gained a reputation as a camp classic.

The book and film have been widely referenced in popular culture, including in a 1968 episode of US sketch comedy series The Carol Burnett Show.

33:50 – 📺 reference
BABETTE: I saw an Oprah a few weeks ago. She had on couples who lost a child.

The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986-2011) is a US television talk show hosted by US media mogul Oprah Winfrey. Sometimes classified as “infotainment” (informational entertainment), the show featured “book clubs, interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events” (Wikipedia). In addition to celebrities and public figures, the show’s guests included everyday people whom Winfrey interviewed about the issues affecting their lives. The show received forty-seven Daytime Emmy Awards and remains the highest-rated daytime talk show in United States television history.

34:20 – 🏷️ mention
BABETTE: You’ll find him. It might even be that stud that drove out of here in that Mustang.

Ford Mustang is a series of automobiles produced by US manufacturer the Ford Motor Company since 1964. The Mustang is an example of a “pony car,” a US car classification referring to “affordable, compact, highly styled coupés or convertibles with a ‘sporty’ or performance-oriented image” (Wikipedia).

34:40 – 💿 feature
Morey performs “I Thought About You” by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Mercer on the piano while Miss Patty accompanies on a hand drum.

This song was written in 1939 by US composer Jimmy Van Heusen and features words by US lyricist Johnny Mercer. Van Heusen and Mercer were frequent songwriting partners, with three of their songs winning Academy Awards for Best Song. They also wrote for US singer Frank Sinatra, who recorded a version of “I Thought About You” in 1956. Other versions have been recorded by US singer Billie Holiday in 1954, US singer Dinah Washington in 1959, and US trumpeter Miles Davis in 1961.

36:10 – 💿 feature
“Truly, Truly” by Grant Lee Buffalo plays as Rory reassures Dean that, in spite of her awkward behavior, she is interested in him.

This song was released as the lead single from the 1998 album Jubilee by US rock band Grant Lee Buffalo. The band’s singer and guitarist, Grant-Lee Phillips, will appear later in the series as Stars Hollow’s town troubadour.

37:30 – 🗺️ reference
LORELAI: I kept information from you.
RORY: Information that I should have had!
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.
RORY: Mom.
LORELAI: Well, she was much prettier.

The Iran-Contra affair was a US political scandal that occurred during the second presidential term of Ronald Reagan. A congressional investigation found that, from 1981 to 1986, senior Reagan administration officials had trafficked arms to Iran, which was subject to an arms embargo at the time. The administration planned to funnel proceeds from the sale to the Contras, a group of anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua, despite the fact that such funding had been prohibited by Congress.

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North (born 1943), a military aide to the US National Security Council, was a participant in this plan. His secretary, Fawn Hall (born 1959), was also implicated when she assisted him in transferring funds and destroying confidential documents. Though North was initially convicted on three felony charges, he and Hall were both granted immunity in exchange for testifying before Congress. North went on to serve as president of the National Rifle Association, a US pro-gun lobbying group, from 2018 to 2019. He and Hall married in 2025.

38:15 – ⭐ reference
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.

US actors Angelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight, 1971) and Billy Bob Thornton (born 1955) had a highly publicized marriage, beginning with their elopement in 2000. They became known for their extravagant displays of affection, which included tattoos of each other’s names and lockets containing smears of each other’s blood. They divorced in 2003.

About three years after this episode aired, Lauren Graham starred opposite Thornton in the 2003 US Christmas comedy film Bad Santa.

39:20 – 🔬 mention
MOREY: Let’s stay outside a while, baby. Look for the Big Dipper?

The Big Dipper is a group of seven bright stars that, together, form a rectangular body with an extended handle. It is considered an asterism (a prominent group of stars, smaller than a constellation) and is part of the constellation Ursa Major. It is known as “the Big Dipper” in the United States and Canada, and “the Plough” in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

References Sorted by Category

🎓 Academia

12:10 – Connecticut State Community College (academic institution), Hartford State Technical College (formerly known as)

🏷️ Brand Names

01:55 – Philco (electronics)
04:00 – Dolly Madison (baked goods)
16:05 – Alien Pops (candy)
19:40 – Kleenex (facial tissue)
34:20 – Ford Mustang (automobile series)

⭐ Famous Figures

21:20 – Jim Carrey (actor and comedian)
21:30 – Jean-Paul Sartre (philosopher)
38:15 – Angelina Jolie (actor)
38:15 – Billy Bob Thornton (actor)

📺 Film, Television & Theater

07:45 – Frankenstein (1931 film)
12:55 – The Sixth Sense (1999 film), M. Night Shyamalan (director)
26:10 – Hee Haw (television show)
32:00 – The Valley of the Dolls (1967 film)
33:50 – The Oprah Winfrey Show (television talk show)

🗺️ Geography & Politics

01:05 – Germany (European country)
01:55 – Groton, Connecticut (US town)
02:25 – Munich, Germany (European city)
04:25 – Korean reunification (diplomatic objective)
07:20 – Texas (US state)
07:45 – France (European country)
12:55 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (US city)
16:30 – No Fish Today (restaurant)
37:30 – Iran-Contra affair (US political scandal), Oliver North (lieutenant colonel), Fawn Hall (civil servant)

🪶 History

01:05 – Nazism (fascist ideology)
01:55 – Apollo 11 (spaceflight mission)
09:40 – King Henry VIII (monarch)
18:20 – Socrates (philosopher), hemlock (means of execution)

📖 Literature

00:00 – Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (book)
05:55 – A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (book)
32:00 – The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (book)

💿 Music

03:40, 04:25 – “Time Bomb” by Rancid (song)
17:35 – the Bangles (band)
34:40 – “I Thought About You” by Jimmy van Heusen and Johnny Mercer (song)
36:10 – “Truly, Truly” by Grant Lee Buffalo (song)

🕊️ Religion

23:25 – Dalai Lama (spiritual leader)

🔬 Science

39:20 – the Big Dipper (asterism)

Credits

Episode citation: “Cinnamon’s Wake.” Gilmore Girls, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, cinematography by Teresa Medina, season 1, episode 5, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund/Polone, Warner Bros. Television, 2000.

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Season 1, Episode 5: “Cinnamon’s Wake”