Christmas in the Bahamas

LORELAI (to Richard): You and Mom, you always go out of town this time of year.
RORY: Last year it was the Bahamas.

Last year we discovered it was Richard and Emily’s annual tradition to hold a Christmas party in mid-December. This year we discover another tradition: they go out of town around Christmas time (presumably after the party, but possibly before).

I’m not sure whether they actually go away for Christmas, or if they travel in the week or so before Christmas, and get back in time for the 25^th. Richard and Emily spoke about only seeing Lorelai and Rory at Christmas and Easter, so did that just mean attending the Christmas party each year? As that was attended by their friends, it doesn’t seem as if they spent much time together as a family at all, even in the holidays. Perhaps they meant the entire Christmas season – the party, and then Christmas itself.

Richard and Emily went to the Bahamas in December 2000, after Richard had been hospitalised for an angina attack. As Christopher’s parents, Straub and Francine Hayden, live in the Bahamas, it seems very likely the Gilmores either stayed with them, or visited them, during their vacation. It was only a couple of months later that Christopher’s parents come to Hartford just as Christopher arrives for a visit to Stars Hollow, suggesting it was a plan that the elder Gilmores cooked up to bring Lorelai and Christopher together – with devastating results.

Meryl Streep Movie

LORELAI: Remember that Meryl Streep movie where she and her family take a rafting trip and then psycho Kevin Bacon forces them to take ’em down the river?

Lorelai references The River Wild, a 1994 thriller directed by Curtis Hanson. It stars Meryl Streep as a woman on a whitewater rafting trip with her family, and Kevin Bacon as one of a group of men who join them, before it becomes apparent his character is a violent criminal who forces them at gunpoint into a terrifying trip down the river.

The film received lukewarm reviews, mostly for not being scary enough, but was praised for its cinematography and Streep’s performance. It’s one of the rare films which has a woman, in a cast of males, as the action hero protector.

It is confirmed here that Lorelai is a Kevin Bacon fan (presumably the reason she watched the film, although she’s a Meryl Streep fan as well), and that he is one of her celebrity crushes.

MissPatty.net

PARIS: I went on the web and I found a site called MissPatty.net. It’s in your town … Is it big enough? The site says it’s 720 square feet.

Do not try to go to MissPatty.net – I did, and my anti-virus had to send me about a million warnings in big red letters that it was a hijacked infected site.

We here learn the exact size of Patty’s Place, which is 720 square feet, or around 66 square metres. That’s about the size of a roomy three-car garage, or a small one bedroom apartment.

California Gold Country

FRAN: Oh, I don’t enjoy vacations. I toured the California Gold Country ten years ago. It was hot and the bus smelled.

The Gold Country (also known as Mother Lode Country) is a historic region in northern California, mostly around the Sierra Nevada and into the Sacramento Valley. It’s famous for the gold mines which attracted immigrants, known as the ’49ers, during the 1849 California Gold Rush. Most of the mines were shut down in 1942 because of World War II, but several gold rush towns are still popular tourist attractions.

Fran would have taken her bus tour around the Gold Country in 1991, presumably in summer since she says it was hot. Summers are hot and dry in this region.

Fran and the Dragonfly

FRAN: But I can’t sell you the property … I just couldn’t. You know, I have no siblings and no children and in a way, that place is really the only family I have. I’m the last Weston left, so I plan to own it forever.

It turns out that the old Dragonfly Bed and Breakfast, which Lorelai and Sookie wish to buy, is owned by Fran Weston, who runs Weston’s Bakery (the bakery with the round cakes that Rory pointed out to Dean when they met, and the same Fran that Lorelai and Rory defrauded of free cake wedding cake samples).

Lorelai and Sookie are sure that sweet old Fran will be happy to sell them The Dragonfly without driving a hard bargain, but although Fran is thrilled at the idea of them starting their own inn, she refuses to sell. She is the last of the Westons, having no siblings or children, and the Dragonfly is the closest thing she has to a family. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, because she has left the property derelict, which isn’t a great way to treat your family. Surely giving it a new lease of life would be better for the Dragonfly? Maybe Lorelai should have just paid for all that cake she ate.

Lorelai and Sookie try to tactfully ask what happens to the property when Fran dies, but she doesn’t take any of their hints, and acts as if she is immortal, so that they reach a frustrating impasse. I feel as if Lorelai and Sookie should have at least made an offer and put it in writing – the temptation of cash might have eventually changed Fran’s mind.

“Who taught you about all this business stuff?”

LORELAI: So, who taught you about all this business stuff? Your dad?
LUKE: Please. My dad didn’t even have a checking account until I finally got taller then he was. He bought this land with cash from working construction, built this place himself. Didn’t have a bookkeeper, an accountant, or anything.
LORELAI: Wow, so you had no one showing you the ropes.
LUKE: Nope, I figured I had to just dive in on my own, fail if that’s my destiny, and forget what the experts say.

Note that this back story changes slightly later on.

Is it really possible that Luke learned nothing at all from his father before he died? William Danes ran a hardware store, he must have known something about business, and Luke worked alongside him when he wasn’t at school. Surely he picked up a few hints at the very least, especially as William would have been expecting him to take over the store one day (which, in a sense, he did).

Monticello

LORELAI: Mmm, I’m terrible at coming up with names. When we first bought out house, Rory and I wanted to name it, you know, like Jefferson named his place Monticello, but all we could come up with is The Crap Shack.

Former US President Thomas Jefferson, previously discussed, called his main plantation Monticello, from the Italian for “little mountain”, as it’s situated on a peak of the Southwest Mountains, near Charlottesville, Virginia. The plantation house was first begun in 1768 in a neoclassical style, but extensively remodelled in the 1790s with elements from Parisian homes Jefferson had seen in France and ideas of his own devising, and work continued into the 1820s. Monticello is now a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and features on the US five cent coin.

Notice that Lorelai wears a black blouse with a red cherry print design on it – Monticello is famous for its orchard, including its cherry trees. You can still buy cherry preserves from the Monticello gift shop. I cannot say if the colour of the blouse is significant in light of the slave labour that was used at Monticello, and even to some extent, in the building of the plantation house itself.

This is the first time we learn that Lorelai and Rory supposedly called their house The Crap Shack when they moved in, when Rory was eleven. Presumably the house was in poor condition, and has needed a lot of work to get it to the standard we see. It can’t be a name they use very often – they’ve always just referred to as “home” or “the house” so far. Perhaps that’s because the house is now far less crappy than when Lorelai bought it and the name doesn’t really apply any more.