Footnotes to the TV series
SHERRY: Gigi, short for Georgia. The two Gs.
Another reference to the film Gigi, based on the novella by French author Colette, previously discussed. In the story, Gigi is short for Gilberte.
An ingenious fan has noted that if you change the Ls in Lorelai’s name to Gs, then it becomes an anagram of Georgia. Whether this is deliberate or a coincidence, I cannot say.
EDIT: Thanks to keen-eyed blog reader Melissa Adams-Cauble for noting that I’d gone G-crazy and changed name to game!
MISS PATTY: [The Town Loner’s] a bit creepy …
LORELAI: But he’s our Boo Radley, and we don’t have a Boo Radley, unless you count the troubadour or Pete the pizza guy or the guy who talks to mailboxes.
Boo Radley, character from To Kill a Mockingbird, previously discussed.
We learn here that Lorelai sees Pete the pizza guy as one of the town “outsiders”, along with the town loner, the town troubadour, and the (unknown) guy who talks to mailboxes. This might come as a surprise, since running a pizza restaurant and delivery service does not seem like something that would isolate a person from their town or be a suitable job for a hermit. It does seem very typical of Lorelai to choose someone considered a bit eccentric to be their regular pizza provider though.
In an earlier season, Lorelai nominated Jackson’s cousin Rune as a “Boo Radley”. She doesn’t mention him in this context, and in fact Rune is never seen or mentioned again. He was only meant to be staying in town temporarily, so presumably he left sometime after Christmas of 2001.
Here we are at another town meeting, which used to be on Thursdays, and then mysteriously were held on a Saturday this season. I don’t know what day it is now, but it is neither Thursday nor Saturday. They’re just sticking a town meeting in whenever they feel like it.
LORELAI: I once told a store my name was Squeegy Beckinheim just to see how many catalogs they would sell my name to, and apparently my name is to catalog companies what Brooke Shields’ picture is to Chinese restaurants.
Brooke Shields (born 1965), actress and model. She began her career as a child model and gained critical acclaim at age 12 for her leading role as an underage prostitute in the film Pretty Baby (1978). She continued to model into her late teenage years and starred in several dramas in the 1980s, including The Blue Lagoon (1980), and Endless Love (1981).
She returned to acting in the 1990s and appeared in several films, as well as starring in the TV shows Suddenly Susan and Lipstick Jungle. She is currently a voice actor on animated TV show Mr Pickles, and its spinoff, Momma Named Me Sheriff.
Lorelai refers to the practice of restaurants putting up photos of their famous customers, and sometimes, famous people they wish were customers. Brooke Shields may have eaten at a lot of Chinese restaurants when she was young – she was brought up by a “bohemian” single mother, and like Lorelai and Rory, they often had Chinese food for dinner. Brooke Shields does have a regular Chinese restaurant – Mr Chow, which opened in Manhattan in 1979, and became an upscale hotspot in the 1980s. Her favourite Chinese food is chicken sticks and fried seaweed.
LORELAI: And, by the way, not just for me – it was pretty bad for him, too. It wasn’t like he was in love and I was miserable. We were both in pain – deep pain, Marathon Man kind of pain.
Marathon Man, a 1976 thriller directed by John Schlesigner, adapted by William Goldman from his own novel of the same name. It stars Dustin Hoffman as Thomas “Babe” Levy, a history student and avid runner who becomes embroiled in a plot by wanted Nazi war criminal Christian Szell, played by Laurence Olivier, known as “The White Angel” for his mane of white hair.
Marathon Man was a commercial and critical success, with Olivier’s performance being especially praised, and the character of Babe being someone audiences could relate to.
In the film, which is fairly violent overall, there are horrifyingly painful scenes of Szell torturing Babe by using dentistry tools to drill into his healthy teeth. Szell is considered one of the most memorable movie villains because of this, and the torture scenes among the scariest on film. Marathon Man is considered one of the greatest thrillers of all time.
Lorelai melodramatically compares her tedious date with Peyton as akin to the torture undergone by Babe in the film.
[Rory, soaked from the sprinklers, runs down the street and bumps into Jess]
RORY: Get out of my way.
JESS: I like the new look. It’s very Blue Crush.
Blue Crush, a 2002 sports film directed by John Stockwell, based on Susan Orlean’s 1998 article “Life’s Swell” in Outside magazine. It stars Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sanoe Lake as three friends in Hawaii who share a passion for surfing. The film was a commercial success, and received modestly positive reviews.
Blue Crush came out in August 2002, so Jess may have seen it over the summer (it feels like it could have been Shane’s choice of film?). Note this is another mention of Lauren Graham’s home state of Hawaii! The film’s soundtrack includes a song by Jamaican DJ Beenie Man (stage name of Anthony Davis) – a possible inspiration for the name Beenie Morrison?
Jess is saying that Rory is so wet she looks as if she has been surfing (and she’s wearing a blue uniform). The choice of the title is provocative – “blue” like erotica, a “blue movie”, plus the word “crush”. It sounds as if he is saying Rory looks like his “sexy crush”!
DORIS: How dare you sneak out like that, you sniveling little pond scum sample! I should call Erin Brockovich to bring a lawsuit against your parents, you steaming lump of toxic waste!
Erin Brockovich (born Erin Pattee in 1960), legal clerk, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who, despite her lack of education in the law, was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) involving groundwater contamination in a town in California with the help of attorney Ed Masry in 1993.
Their successful lawsuit was the subject of the Oscar-winning 2000 film, Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Robert and Albert Finney. Since then, Brockovich has become a media personality and legal consultant.
LORELAI: Salsa with me. Pretend I’m Antonio Banderas.
Antonio Banderas, previously discussed. As it happens, Antonio Banderas did end up doing a movie that revolved around Latin dance – Take the Lead, in 2006, where he plays a dance instructor [pictured].
LORELAI: Let me just say, if we walk in there and his dead mother is sitting in a rocking chair, not a bit surprised.
A reference to the 1960 film Psycho, previously discussed.
In the film, the deranged murderer kills his own mother, but keeps her in the basement sitting in a rocking chair, treating her as if she were still alive. This seems to be another clue that Lorelai suspects Dwight of murdering Beenie Morrison, or being a serial killer.
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.
DWIGHT: Welcome to The Oasis! That’s what I named this place, The Oasis, my oasis, a little slice of heaven right here on Earth.
An oasis is a piece of fertile land within a desert or semi-arid environment, often featuring a spring of fresh water surrounded by vegetation. Figuratively, it can refer to a quiet, peaceful place or situation separated from the noise and bustle that surrounds it. Dwight clearly sees his new home as a place of refuge from the stress of life.
Note that Dwight is wearing a shirt with cocktails on it, as if he is already relaxing into vacation mode in Stars Hollow.
Dwight’s house, The Oasis, is the Warner Bros Ranch at the studio lot. It was also the Griswold family home in the 1989 comedy film, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 