Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Ep 2.6)

Phew, finally - the book took a good 3 weeks to arrive and about 3 hrs to read up.

The episode Presenting Lorelai Gilmore starts off with Lorelai and Rory arriving at Richard and Emily's house for Friday dinner and hearing (quite nasty) arguing sounds from upstairs. And Lorelai comments that she didn't realise George and Martha were coming for dinner.

Which is an interesting reference to Edward Albee's three-act play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with George and Martha as the protagonists. The entire play is about the mind games both of them play with each other, obviously with constant arguments.

This is probably the ugliest comparison Lorelai can make - George and Martha are probably Richard and Emily's age (or thereabouts) and they live on the east coast of the US - but they are devoid of hope, ethics, scruples or love for each other (Martha even sleeps with a younger man during the course of the play, with George in the next room). Their lives seem to be mired with arguments and one-upmanships, with no room for sensitivity. It is also interesting that a "child" forms the centre point for most of their arguments - although in this case, Richard and Emily are fighting over Richard's lack of time for Emily's social engagements. And in the rest of the episode, funnily enough, it does not even look like Lorelai is dragged into the aftermath of the arguments.