Category: S3Ep5: Eight O’Clock at the Oasis

African Violets

RORY: ‘Second, since you are already coming over to take care of my lawn, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind stopping inside and watering my African violets.’

African violets, several species of perennial flowering plants in the family Gesneriaceae, native to Tanzania and south-eastern Kenya. They were introduced to Europe in the 19th century by a German district commissioner called Baron Walter von Saint Paul-Ilaire, and the flowers are given the scientific name saintpaulia in his honour. African violets are not closely related to true violets, although they have flowers which are often purple, and there is a superficial resemblance. They are a popular houseplant, as they flower for most of the year and are fairly hardy.

Oz

RORY [reading note]: ‘First of all, thank you for this very kind favor you’re doing me. I still can’t believe that any one person would be so kind to someone they just met.’

LORELAI: Yeah, apparently Dwight’s last home was Oz, and not as in ‘The Wizard of.’

Lorelai is referring to Oz, an award-winning prison drama television series set at the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility, which aired from 1997 to 2003. Much of the action takes place in “Emerald City”, an experimental wing of the prison which emphasises rehabilitation in a highly controlled environment. As another connection to The Wizard of Oz, the show’s tagline is, “It’s no place like home”, in contrast to the familiar line “There’s no place like home”.

As a program on HBO, previously discussed, Oz was able to show drug use, violence, nudity, rape, and ethnic and religious conflicts. It received mostly positive reviews, although critics warned viewers that the show could be brutal and gruesome.

A Slightly Confusing Timeline

Lorelai seemed to meet Dwight on a Monday night, just before the auction on Tuesday. He asked if she could water his lawn, as he was leaving for a few days on an urgent last-minute business trip. As Rory was waiting for her with the pizza, Lorelai tried to put him off, saying that Dwight could show her some other time before he left on his trip. Dwight said he was leaving for his business trip at 6 am the next morning, so Lorelai reluctantly accompanied him to be shown how to use the spigot.

Even though Dwight supposedly left for his business trip on the morning of the day of the auction, Lorelai and Rory are not shown watering his lawn until about a week later – even though the business trip was only meant to be a few days. They have had Friday night dinner, and Rory is now wearing her school uniform, so they are past the weekend, and it is another Monday at the absolute earliest.

Somehow they just skipped an entire week of lawn watering and Dwight is still on his short business trip. I know I usually blame Daniel Palladino for these timeline inconsistencies and non-linear plotting, but this episode was written by Justin Tanner, a successful playwright, and a story editor on Gilmore Girls. This is the only episode he ever wrote.

Steamer Trunk

RORY: You know, I believe there was something at the auction that Mom wanted but she didn’t get. Isn’t that right, Mom? …

LORELAI: I think it was a steamer trunk for Rory to take with her to military school, wasn’t it, honey?

Steamer trunks are a type of vintage luggage named for their location of storage in the cabin of a steam ship (“steamer”). Also called “flat tops”, they first appeared in the 1870s, but were most popular in the 1880s to the 1920s. They are distinguished by their flat or slightly curved tops, usually covered in canvas, leather or patterned paper, and are about 14 inches (36 cm) tall to accommodate steamship luggage regulations. The correct name for them is actually “packer trunks”, but they have been called steamer trunks so widely and for so long that this is now the usual term for them. No longer very handy for luggage, they are often bought in antique shops to be used as decorative items [see picture].

Shamu

LORELAI: Well, I don’t know his name because I only knew him by his nickname . . . Uh, Shamu. We called him Shamu. He was kind of, um, a big guy in high school, but he’s slimmed down quite a bit.

Lorelai tries to find out Peyton’s name by phoning the organisers and pretending he’s an old school friend that she only knows by his nickname, Shamu. Shamu is the name given to several performing orcas at Sea World, previously discussed. It is a cruel nickname sometimes given to people perceived as being overweight, because orcas are also called killer whales (with the implication the person is as as fat as a whale). Despite the name, orcas are actually members of the dolphin family.

“The Solomon of wine”

[Peyton pours some of the wine into the second glass]

LORELAI: Aw. You’re the Solomon of wine.

Lorelai refers to King Solomon, a monarch in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament renowned for his wisdom, to the point that calling someone “a Solomon” means that they are very wise.

The best known story about him is The Judgement of Solomon, in which two prostitutes who lived together gave birth the same day. Only one of the babies lived, and both women laid claim to being its mother. Solomon easily resolved the dispute by commanding the child to be cut in half and shared between the two. One woman promptly renounced her claim, proving that she would rather give the child up than see it killed. Solomon declared the woman who showed compassion to be the true mother, entitled to the whole child.

Lorelai means that Peyton is like Solomon because he resolves his playful “dispute” with Lorelai over the last glass of wine by pouring it into two glasses (cutting the wine in two).

[Painting is The Judgement of Solomon by Nicolas Poussin, 1649]

Peyton Sanders

While attending her mother’s charity auction, Lorelai runs into an attractive man at the bar, and takes an immediate shine to him. Although they don’t exchange names or details, Lorelai will later discover his name is Peyton Sanders. They go on a date together, but despite their initial attraction, Lorelai discovers that Peyton is a world-class bore and they have nothing in common except (apparently) both liking David Bowie.

Peyton is played by Jon Hamm. His first role was Gorgeous Man at the Bar (uncredited) on Ally McBeal, so this was a return to his origins – at least this time he got a named role, and was credited! In 2000-2001, he had a recurring role on Providence, a quirky feel-good romantic drama about a woman returning to her home town in Rhode Island and getting help from her mother’s ghost.

Jon Hamm went on to have a successful career in film and television, gaining household recognition as Don Draper, the anti-hero protagonist of Mad Men (2007-2015), a drama set in an advertising agency in the 1960s. Alexis Bledel would later have a short role on Mad Men in 2012, which is when she began dating her husband, Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell on the show, a man who has an affair with Alexis’ character, Beth Dawes.

Merlot

[Lorelai walks up to the bar as a man is ordering a drink]

PEYTON: Can I get a Merlot, please?

Merlot, a deep purple-red wine made from the dark blue Merlot grape variety. The name is thought to be a diminutive of merle, the French word for “blackbird”. Merlot is one of the primary grapes used in Bordeaux wine, and it is the most widely planted grape in the Bordeaux wine regions.

Merlot is also one of the most popular red wine varieties around the world, and is produced internationally – in the US, California produces the most Merlot, after the “Merlot craze” of the 1990s, sparked by a 60 Minutes report on the low incidence of heart disease in France, which drinks a lot of red wine.

Emily the Cobra

NATALIE: There she is, the Cobra … This woman gets her way or she squeezes ’til you comply.

Emily’s friend is Natalie Swope, played by Judy Geeson. You may remember her as one of the ladies from Emily’s tea party on the patio in “Presenting Lorelai Gilmore”. Emily introduces Natalie and Lorelai as if they are strangers, even though Natalie asked after Lorelai and seemed to remember her quite well in the previous season, despite not seeing Lorelai since she was a teenager (although, as Lorelai and Rory attended Emily’s Christmas party each year, this doesn’t seem plausible).

Natalie refers to Emily as “the Cobra”, because she squeezes people (puts pressure on them) until she gets what she wants from them. There are various snakes called cobra, but only those in the genus Naja from Asia are true cobras. They are notable for being able to rear up off the ground and flatten their necks to appear larger. They don’t attack prey by squeezing them, however – that’s pythons and boa constrictors. Cobras have highly venomous fangs instead, and all species are capable of delivering a fatal bite to a human.

Lorelai sometimes seems selfish and unreasonable in the way that she instinctively refuses her mother’s requests, but Emily’s reputation as domineering and manipulative, determined to get her own way at no matter what cost to the other party (the auctioneer is actually ill in this episode, but Emily has forced him to turn up and work) provides a good reason for that. She has no wish to be one of the Cobra’s many victims, and what seems like a reasonable request may well turn out to be something more sinister.