CLAUDE: I have a grandson who lives with his mother in Orlando, you know, he’s going through a very similar thing, poor boy.
EMILY: How do they like Orlando, Claude?
CLAUDE: Well, it’s all Mickey Mouse this and Mickey Mouse that, you know. They want to die.
Orlando, Florida, previously discussed. Claude refers to the fact that Walt Disney World is in the city, which apparently ruins it for Claude’s family (surely they knew this before they moved there?).
Because Claude says my grandson, rather than ours, I assume Monique is his second wife. I’m also assuming that his grandson’s mother is Claude’s daughter-in-law or former daughter-in-law, rather than his daughter, because otherwise he would say so. And I’m further assuming that Claude’s son is separated or divorced, because he doesn’t mention him as also living in Florida.
Lots of assumptions! But it’s letting us fill in quite a bit of back story for ourselves. We might also note that Claude is not spending Thanksgiving with his grandson, and never has – he says he has only seen Thanksgiving in American movies.
DOUGLAS: We have a grandson your age, he’s going through hell.
NATALIE: He’s already been turned down for early admission to Stanford, his dream.
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, in the San Francisco Bay area, ranked among the top universities in the world. It was founded in 1885 by US Senator and former governor of California Leland Stanford and his wife Jane, in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr, and opened in 1891 as a coeducational institution.
After World War II, the university’s provost, Frederick Terman, supported faculty and graduates to build a self-sufficient local industry that would later become known as Silicon Valley. It also houses the conservative public policy think tank, the Hoover Institution, one of the most influential of its kind in the world.
85 Nobel laureates, 29 Turing Award laureates, and eight Fields Medallists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, faculty, or staff. Stanford alumni have founded numerous companies, which combined produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue and have created 5.4 million jobs as of 2011, roughly equivalent to the seventh largest economy in the world.
Stanford has won more College Athletics team championships than any other university, and Stanford students and alumni have won almost 300 Olympic medals.
Stanford is the alma mater of US President Herbert Hoover, 74 living billionaires, and 17 astronauts. Its alumni include the current presidents of Yale and MIT and the provosts of Harvard and Princeton. It is also one of the leading producers of Fulbright Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, and members of the United States Congress.
Stanford is one of the hardest universities to get into, with an acceptance rate of less than 5% – that’s tougher than both Harvard and Yale, and indeed, all the Ivy League universities. It’s perfectly believable that Douglas and Natalie’s grandson didn’t get accepted.
In real life, the deadline for early admission to Stanford is November 1, and notifications aren’t sent out until mid-December, so Douglas and Natalie’s grandson couldn’t really know he’d been turned down by Thanksgiving. (Although, if it is just before Christmas, according to the show’s actual timeline, this would make sense!).
LORELAI: Is there anything ceremonial about the salads? Do we carve a crouton, then have them taken away?
A crouton is a piece of rebaked bread, often cubed and seasoned. They are often used to add texture and flavor to salads. The word crouton is derived from the French croûton, meaning “little crust”. Croutons are often seen in the shape of small cubes, but they can be of any size and shape, up to a very large slice.
CLAUDE: And you, my dear? [how much French do you speak?]
LORELAI: Even less. Uh, voulez vous couchez avec moi ce soir? That’s about it …
CLAUDE: It’s a pop song, ah, Monique . . . I did not know that.
MONIQUE: “Lady Marmalade”.
“Lady Marmalade”, a 1974 pop song written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan, performed by R&B group Labelle, it went to #1 in the US and Canada. The song has been covered several times, including the 2001 version from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack by Christina Aguilera, Mya, Pink, and Li’l Kim, which also went to #1.
The song is famous for the repeated refrain of Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?, which translates to: “Do you want to sleep with me?”.
Monique gets Lorelai’s joke and is familiar with the song – the 2001 version went to #12 in France, although earlier cover versions had charted there as well, if not so high.
RICHARD: And this is our international contingent, Claude and Monique Clemenceau. They’re just in from France.
The Clemenceaus have been given the same surname as Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), Prime Minister of France from 1906-1909, and again from 1917-1920, leading France through the end of World War I.
It is surely not a coincidence that Georges Clemenceau has a Connecticut connection. He fled France in 1865 due to involvement in radical politics during the regime of Napoleon III. He ended up teaching at a girl’s school in Stamford, Connecticut, where he fell in love with one of his students, Mary Plummer (1849-1922). They married in 1869 and moved to France a year later. They separated in 1876 and divorced in 1891, after which Clemenceau had Mary sent back to the US. From his time in the US, Clemenceau developed a strong faith in American democratic ideals.
Georges Clemenceau was a friend, biographer, and supporter of the famous French artist Claude Monet. Given Claude’s first name, this also does not seem like a coincidence. Notice that the name Monique sounds similar to Monet, as if both French guests have been named after the painter.
Claude is played by Michael des Barres, an English marquis, actor and rock singer. He played Murdoc in the original Macgyver and had a lead role in the show’s reboot, and replaced Robert Palmer in the band The Power Station, fronting the band at the 1985 Live Aid concert. He has had roles in numerous TV series and some films, including To Sir With Love, Pink Cadillac, and Mulholland Drive. A long-term campaigner against drug abuse, he is currently a radio host for Sirius XM.
Monique is played by Lydie Denier, a French-American model, singer, and actress. She has appeared in a few films and a number of TV programs, including General Hospital, Melrose Place, and Spin City.
RICHARD: These are our guests, Natalie and Douglas Swope.
EMILY: You two have met.
LORELAI: Yes, at the auction.
NATALIE: Good to see you again.
The show seems to have committed to the new timeline where Lorelai and Natalie Swope first met at the auction in “Eight O’clock at the Oasis”, supposedly about six weeks previously. However, when Natalie was visiting Emily in “Presenting Lorelai Gilmore”, she asked after Lorelai, who she remembered very well even though she hadn’t seen her since before she had Rory (as Lorelai is said to have attended the Christmas party at Richard and Emily’s every year, this in itself doesn’t seem very likely – did Natalie never attend one of the parties?).
We meet Natalie’s husband, Douglas, in this episode. Again, surely he and Lorelai would have met in the original timeline, but obviously not in this one, as he wasn’t at the auction. Douglas is played by John Aniston, the father of Jennifer Aniston. He had roles on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, and The West Wing, as well as a long-term connection with Days of Our Lives.
EMILY: I thought a little background music would add a nice touch. He knows every song ever written.
LORELAI: “Free Bird”! Hi Brad.
“Free Bird” or “Freebird” is a song by rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zan. The song featured on the band’s 1973 debut album. Released as a single in 1974, “Free Bird” got to #19 in the US. A live version of the song got to #38 in 1977. It is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s signature song, the finale during live performances, and their longest song, often going well over 14 minutes when played live.
The lyrics sound like something Lorelai would relate to in regard to her parents:
But if I stay here with you … Things just couldn’t be the same ‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now And this bird you cannot change Oh, oh, oh, oh … And this bird, you cannot change Lord knows, I can’t change
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 