EMILY: You spend five seconds with a person and if they say one wrong thing, you turn on them and never give them a second chance … You are extremely judgmental, Lorelai.
Hmm … I wonder where Lorelai gets that from, Emily?
Emily is incensed that Lorelai cancelled her date to the concert with Peyton, since she had a terrible time on their dinner date, and they were obviously unsuited to each other. However, Emily doesn’t care about any of this, she cares that Lorelai rejected her friend’s son, therefore making Emily look bad by association (somehow). I feel as if Lorelai should have seen this coming … has she never met her mother before?
This is the song which plays when Rory looks at the clock at Dwight’s house, while putting the African violets back. It’s a woven basketwork clock that a china figurine pops out of when the hour strikes.
“Midnight at the Oasis” is a 1973 song written by David Nichtern. It was recorded by Maria Muldaur for her self-titled debut album, and released as a single in 1974. It peaked at #6 in the US, and was the #13 song of the year, becoming one of Muldaur’s most popular concert songs.
“Midnight at the Oasis” is about an offer of a love affair in a fantasy desert location, and is considered to be one of the most sensual songs of the 1970s, apparently inspiring numerous sexual encounters. It seems as if Dwight has more than just board games in mind now he’s moved to Stars Hollow! Perhaps he’s even set his sights on Lorelai – the gossipy Babette would have told him Lorelai was single.
The clock reads eight o’clock at this point, providing the name of the episode, “Eight O’clock at the Oasis”. I can’t see how it can be 8 am – Rory is meant to be at school in five minutes! And although they were running slightly late, Lorelai still thought they could have breakfast at Luke’s, as long as she drove Rory to school. Why do the Gilmore girls seem to have all the time in the world sometimes, and at others, time just suddenly disappears? They weren’t at Dwight’s for that long.
Lorelai begins giving her careers talk at Stars Hollow High, but it is almost immediately hijacked by students who are more interested in hearing about when she got pregnant with Rory, and whether she regrets it. You get the distinct impression that for these teens, Lorelai has long been a source of fascination (and probably of gossip), and they have been waiting for an opportunity to ask questions about her decision to keep Rory and commit to being a single mother.
Lorelai looks to Debbie Fincher for help, but receives absolutely none – it’s a supervised event organised by the PTA, and yet nobody steps in to ask the students to keep their questions only on the subject of Lorelai’s career, not her personal life. Lorelai could have said something along these lines herself, but she makes an attempt to answer their questions honestly, to show that she’s not ashamed. Unfortunately, she makes a bit of a mess of it – by the end she is very unwisely offering to take them all out for coffee to discuss her life in more depth. Boundaries, Lorelai!
One of the girls asking questions is Riki Lindhome (she’s the one with blonde pigtails), who would play the role of Juliet in later seasons of Gilmore Girls. At that time she had had a small role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She later got her big break in Tim Robbins’ hit play, Embedded, and was then cast in her first film role by Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby (2004). She’s gone on to have a successful career in film and television, and performs in a comedy duo called Garfunkel and Oates with Kate Micucci.
This is the song playing at Lane’s house when Rory is bleaching her hair, so that it can later be dyed purple.
“Cities in Dust” is a 1985 song by English rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees, released as the lead single from their 1986 album Tinderbox. It’s a goth rock and dance-pop song describing the 79 AD destruction of the city of Pompeii by the the volcano Vesuvius. It went to #21 in the UK, and #17 on the Dance Club charts in the US, the band’s first significant success.
The song has quite often been chosen for soundtracks, including by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, another Amy Sherman-Palladino TV show.
The lyrics about the burning down of the city seem to mirror Lane’s feelings that she is burning all her bridges by dyeing her hair. This is reinforced by the fact that the bleach soon starts burning her scalp.
LORELAI: Oh my God … You like Jimmy Buffett? He’s so mellow.
LUKE: I’ve just been to a few shows, that’s all.
LORELAI: A few shows? Oh my God, you’re a Buffett Head.
James “Jimmy” Buffett (1946), singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He began his musical career as a country singer in Nashville in the late 1960s, bringing out his first album, Down to Earth, in 1970.
After busking for tourists in New Orleans, Louisiana, he went on a busking expedition to Key West, Florida, in 1971, he moved there permanently, and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona for which he is known. His style of music is called “tropical rock”.
During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his extensive touring than from albums, and became known as a popular concert draw. He is one of the world’s richest musicians, with a net worth of over $900 million. Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band gave concerts at the Meadows Music Theater in Hartford almost every year in the late 1990s, giving Luke ample opportunities to see him live.
Jimmy Buffett fans are actually called “Parrot Heads”, not “Buffett Heads” – it’s after the parrot hats all his fans seem to wear. Lorelai appears to recall that the the word head is in there, but not the details. She may have misheard or misremembered the term.
At this point, the viewer, like Luke, thinks that Lorelai says, “Oh my God” because of the Jimmy Buffett shirt. In fact, we later learn she says it because she’s seen Jess’ girlfriend Shane in the closet, and quickly covers for it by immediately gabbling about Jimmy Buffett as a distraction. She certainly gives Jess some hard looks, though, as he continues to confirm, or appear to confirm, all her worst fears about him.
RORY: Blonde hair, medium height, drove a Range Rover.
A Range Rover is a 4×4 (sports utility or SUV) car produced by Land Rover. It was first launched in 1970 by British Leyland, and is now owned by Jaguar. Range Rovers only began to be officially imported there in 1987. Since 1993, US sales are under the name Land Rover North America.
In the US, there is a stereotype that Range Rovers tend to be driven by well-off suburban mothers driving them for their status value. This episode contrasts the boring PTA mothers with “cool mom” Lorelai Gilmore.
Lorelai gets a phone call from Debbie Fincher, one of the mothers from Stars Hollow High School Parents and Teachers Association. We learn here that when Rory was a student at the school, Lorelai was actively involved in the PTA and got along well with the other parents, even being considered “a kick” because of her wicked sense of humour (very much like Emily, as it happens).
Rory was even friends (or at least friendly) with Debbie’s daughter Kathy Fincher, and used to go to her house to swim in their pool. Perhaps Kathy was one of the mysterious Stars Hollow girls who appeared at Rory’s sixteenth birthday party, and was never seen again? It does seem a little odd that Rory lives in a small town with teenagers that she went to school with and was apparently even friends with, yet has only kept in contact with Lane. Perhaps she runs into them offscreen.
The reason for Debbie’s call is to ask Lorelai to give a talk at the high school about her success in business, and to think of someone else they might ask. Lorelai agrees, and promptly suggests Luke as the second person.
Debbie Fincher is played by Heidi Swedberg, who had been in TV series such as Northern Exposure (1991), Murder She Wrote (1994), and Touched by an Angel (1996). She was best known for playing George Costanza’s fiancée Susan Ross in Seinfeld (1992-1997).
DARREN: [on answering machine] I just wanted to let you know that I just finished going over Rory’s records here, and no shock, they’re perfect. Rory, you are tailor-made for Harvard. They’re lucky to have you. As far as I’m concerned, you should pack your bags. I’m gonna tell all this to the people in admissions and I’ll give your headmaster a call as well, so take care and we’ll talk again.
There is no way that the alumnus who interviewed a prospective student would tell them to “pack their bags” – there are many, many excellent students who aren’t accepted into Harvard, nobody can guarantee anyone a spot, unless something very corrupt is going on. This goes right up there with Headmaster Charleston telling Rory she deserves to go to Harvard, just after she’s discovered breaking into his office, no less.
However, this is a way to neatly tie up the episode and let the viewers know that Rory will almost certainly be accepted into Harvard, and all her application anxieties are at an end. Although Rory has work for the newspaper to complete, and Lorelai needs to do tasks for the inn, they elect to spend their Sunday hanging out together instead, as if aware that their time together is running short, and therefore more precious.
While Luke is serving customers at the diner, Kirk and two young boys come in, ordering old fashioned soda shop drinks. It soon transpires they were sent by Taylor, making a point how necessary such a soda shop is, which Taylor wants to install in the space next to the diner, owned by Luke. Kirk already works for Taylor, and the two boys are presumably in his Boy Scout troop.
Black Cow: Traditional name for a root beer float, which is root beer with vanilla ice cream. In some areas, the ice cream has to be chocolate in order to be called a black cow, and others say brown cow instead. (Root beer is a North American soft drink made using the root bark of the sassafras tree, or the sarsaparilla vine, Smilas ornata). Frank J. Wisner, owner of Colorado’s Cripple Creek Brewing, is credited with creating the first root beer float in 1893. The North American fast food chain A&W Restaurants are well known for their root beer floats.
Chocolate Phosphate: Traditional soda fountain drink, which is chocolate syrup and acid phosphate added to club soda. Acid phosphate is a mixture added to drinks which gives it a slightly tart flavour, and aids carbonation – a partially neutralised solution of diluted phosphoric acid made with salts of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. It’s recently come back into fashion as a mixer for soft drinks and cocktails.
LANE: [on phone] No, wait, wait, wait, progressive rock is a really passé style now but I listed it as an influence because it was a progenitor of great things that came afterwards.
Progressive rock, usually shortened to prog rock or just prog, a broad genre of rock music developed during the mid-to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Initially termed “progressive pop”, the style grew out of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and composition more often associated with jazz, folk, or classical music.
Additionally, lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of “art”, and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing. Examples of prog rock bands include Emerson Lake & Palmer, Genesis, King Crimson, The Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd.
Lane says that progressive rock is passé, in that its heyday was in the 1970s, but in fact there were a wave of bands in the 2000s who revived the genre, such as System of a Down and Thirty Seconds to Mars. Perhaps that’s what she means by it being a progenitor of great things?
Lane is receiving responses to the advertisement she posted looking for a band that needed a drummer. Naturally she is deluged with enquiries, beginning early in the morning! Yes, the local area is filled with bands looking for a drummer, scanning the advertisements for one, and eagerly calling before breakfast to find them! We are in complete fantasy land here. Instead of being stunned that she gets any answers at all, Lane is irritated that they aren’t all on her musical wavelength.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 