The Gilmore girls get a new neighbour in this episode, named Dwight, who moves into the house opposite them, previously occupied by a man named Beenie Morrison. Dwight is played by Jason Kravits, who had been involved with the Washington DC theatre scene, and then in a writer’s collective in New York City. From 1999 to 2001, he played the role of A.D.A. Richard Bray on medical drama The Practice.
As with so many of these characters, don’t expect to ever see or hear of Dwight again – he will disappear as mysteriously as Beenie Morrison after this episode.
EMILY: I’m in charge of the Society Matron’s League’s annual antique auction next Tuesday and I thought maybe you’d like to come.
A reference to the sitcom I Love Lucy, frequently mentioned and one of the touchstones for Gilmore Girls.
In the episode “Pioneer Women”, Lucy and her friend Ethel hope for the chance to join the Society Matron’s League, a fictional snooty women’s club for the cream of Manhattan society. Representatives of the SML turn up for tea in order to scrutinise the prospective candidates while Lucy and Ethel are in the middle of one of their trademark madcap frolics.
Looking down their noses, the society matrons are condescendingly prepared to overlook Lucy’s eccentricities, and the fact that she and her Cuban-born husband are “show people”, but Lucy realises what awful snobs they are and is no longer interested.
LUKE: Uh, you and I have got to have a little talk.
JESS: Hey, if you’re gonna get all Ward Cleaver on me, I gotta go call Eddie and Lumpy and tell them I’m gonna be late.
Jess refers to the sitcom, Leave It to Beaver, previously discussed. Ward Cleaver was the father of Wally Cleaver and his little brother, Theodore “The Beaver” Cleaver. Ward’s role was to guide his sons with moral lectures. Eddie Haskell and “Lumpy” Rutherford were Wally’s friends. Eddie was sneaky and two-faced, and Lumpy was a bully. Even in a fictional scenario, Jess can seemingly only imagine himself with problematic friends.
LUKE: Not from your angle. From mine, it was An Evening at the Improv.
An Evening at the Improv, cable television series running from 1982 to 1996. It showcased live comedy from The L.A. Improv comedy club, which opened in 1974, the sister venue to The Improv in New York City, which opened in 1963. Originally for singers, then singers and comedians, it became a stand up comedy club in the 1970s.
Some of the comedians featured on An Evening at the Improv include Bill Maher, Gary Mule Deer, Jerry Seinfeld, Janeane Garofalo, Steven Wright, Rich Hall, Rosie O’Donnell, Adam Sandler, George Lopez, Sandra Bernhard, Tim Allen, Drew Carey, Dave Chapelle, and Jim Carrey.
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.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a 1994 comedy directed by Tom Shadyac and starring Jim Carrey in the title role. Ace Ventura is an eccentric animal detective who must find the abducted dolphin mascot of the Miami Dolphins football team.
In the opening scene, Ace Ventura is disguised as a mail delivery man, wearing the brown UPS uniform, but the logo actually says HDS. As the credits roll, he throws and kicks a box marked “FRAGILE” around until it is rattling with what sounds like broken glass. When the man opens his door, Ventura says cheerily, “Got a package for you”.
In fact, the whole set-up has been a ruse to gain access to a dog in the man’s apartment, which comes to the front door, allowing Ventura to nab it while the man is filling out some paperwork Ventura has provided. The man abducted the dog, and Ventura has rescued it on behalf of its owner.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was made on a shoestring budget and became an unexpected commercial success, proving a hit with males aged 10 to 20. It received mixed reviews, and has been criticised for being homophobic and transphobic (and that was when it first came out, so I can’t even say it didn’t age well or that times changed). It did well enough to have a 1995 sequel, an animated TV series from 1995 to 2000, and a made-for-TV reboot in 2018.
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.
LANE: Pink? Or is that too Pink the singer and Kelly Osbourne and Gwen Stefani . . . man, there’s a lot of cheese associated with the color pink. Okay, pink’s out.
Pink, stylised as P!nk, the professional name of Alecia Moore (born 1979), singer, songwriter, actor, and dancer [pictured]. Originally a member of the girl group Choice, she signed with record label LaFace in 1995. Her 2000 debut album Can’t Take Me Home went double platinum, and included the Top Ten hits “There You Go”, and “Most Girls”. Her 2001 album Mizzundaztood sold 13 million copies and yielded the international hits, “Get the Party Started”, “Don’t Let Me Get Me”, and “Just Like a Pill”.
Kelly Osbourne (born 1984), English singer, actress, fashion designer, model, and television personality, the daughter of Ozzy Osbourne, lead singer for heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and his wife Sharon Osbourne. Kelly, and the rest of her family, had recently come to prominence with their award-winning reality TV show The Osbournes, which first aired on MTV in March 2002, and lasted until 2005. The show covered the family’s domestic life in Beverley Hills.
Gwen Stefani (born 1969), singer, songwriter, rapper, fashion designer, and actress. She is a co-founder, lead vocalist, and the primary songwriter of the band No Doubt, previously discussed.
At various times, each of these celebrities have sported pink hair.
LORELAI: I’m a success, who’d have thought? … From rags to riches . . . I wonder why Larry King hasn’t called.
Larry King, born Lawrence Zeiger (1933-2021), award-winning television and radio host. A radio interviewer in the Miami area in the 1950s and ’60s, he gained prominence in 1978 as the host of The Larry King Show, an all-night nationwide call-in radio program. From 1985 to 2010 he hosted the nightly interview TV program, Larry King Live on CNN. He continued hosting TV interview shows until his death at the age of 87.
Lorelai hasn’t really gone from rags to riches … she’s gone from riches to rags to a moderately comfortable independent existence.
[Picture shows Larry King on CNN in 2002 with former president Bill Clinton]
ZACK: Dude, Lawrence Welk cranked louder than this.
Lawrence Welk (1903-1992), accordion player, bandleader, and host of The Lawrence Welk Show on TV from 1951 to 1982. His style of music became known as champagne music, that is, light and bubbly. He had numerous hits, the most popular being “Calcutta”, which went to #1. For many years, he was a byword for “lame old people music”.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 