Directing and writing credits:
Directed by Joe Ann Fogle, written by Justin Tanner. Both of these people are new to the "GG" universe and only have single directing and writing credits, respectively. According to IMDB, Fogle has been out of the game since 2009. I find it interesting that she won an Emmy in 1991 for editing the pilot episode of "Cop Rock," a show that Lorelai and Rory intend to watch (marathon-style) until Emily Gilmore comes over and forces them to throw her an impromptu bachelorette party ("Wedding Bell Blues"). The connections are endless, people!
Tanner is better known these days for being a playwright and creating "AVE 43," a soapy webseries shot in Highland Park. I haven't watched it, so I can't tell you if it's good, but it sounds cool. The show's website describes it like this:
"Plotlines on AVE 43 frequently revolve around sex, drugs, witchcraft, Satanism, split personalities, blackmail, murder, ghosts, space aliens, telekinesis, time portals to other dimensions, half-naked men ... and one particularly naughty cat puppet. Yeah, it’s twisted."
Oh, and Todd Lowe, aka Zack, is in it.
Most batshit crazy outfit:
The dress Lorelai wears to the auction is unflattering, but only mildly. It has weird seaming on the torso that makes LG look wider than she is, and it's also super wrinkled. At least it doesn't have a plunging neckline that creates weird cleavage, though.
She wears red pants at the beginning of the episode that are kind of questionable, but unmemorable considering her track record.
Since nothing is hideous enough to snark on, I'd like to highlight Emily Gilmore's impeccable gardening ensemble:
Girlfriend takes a Luke Danes flannel, knots it at the middle, tosses on a pair of smart trousers, tops it the whole thing off with a straw hat, and looks like a million bucks.
Most irritating Rory or Lorelai moment:
Lorelai complains multiple times about Dwight and his lawn, but I have zero sympathy for her because she freely agreed to water it. She could have just told him no, that her busy schedule makes her too unreliable to make any commitments. Boom - problem solved.
I hate that she refers to Rory as a teen "with a halo and a book." I was a good kid in high school, but if I heard someone describe me this way I probably would have tried heroin just to fuck with their obnoxious, preconceived notions.
Number of times Rory or Lorelai treat their bff like shit:
Lane and Sookie aren't in this episode. I imagine that Lane was holed up in her closet, having a panic attack about whether or not Mrs. Kim had noticed her black dyed hair. Sookie was probably busy making Lorelai coffee and doing other thankless bff tasks.
Best literary or pop culture references:
Lorelai makes a "Psycho" reference, so she obviously recognizes that Dwight is fucking creepy, and yet ... she goes over to his house alone late at night and agrees to water his lawn after he weirdly sneaks up on her as she's getting the mail.
Dwight's shirt tells you everything you need to know.
Rory: Don’t you at least wanna see what his house looks like?
Lorelai: Absolutely not. Let me just say, if we walk in there and his dead mother is sitting in a rocking chair, not a bit surprised.
So then why did you agree to water his lawn, Lorelai?! We know you're not a nice person, so there's no need to bother with the charade.
Stars Hollow weirdness:
Luke and Jess are horrified that a woman has decided to breastfeed her baby in the diner. I hate frazzled, obnoxious parents as much as the next childless person, but Luke's attitude is straight-up offensive and antiquated. I can understand being annoyed that these people come in, take up a shit ton of space, and spend zero money, but to rag on them for feeding a child? Nope.
"When did that become acceptable? In the old days, a woman would never consider doing that in public. They’d go find a barn or a cave or something. I mean, it’s indecent. This is a diner not a peep show!"
The writers really need to stop giving Luke lines like this because they make liking him difficult. I guess Luke never learned that breasts serve many purposes and that not all of them are sexual.
Sharpest insult or one-liner:
I enjoy this exchange when Lorelai answers the phone at the inn:
Lorelai: Independence inn.
Emily: You really should identify yourself when you answer the phone at work.
Lorelai: Sorry. Independence Inn, major disappointment speaking. Better?
Emily: Yes, thank you.
It's not over-the-top, but a quick, well-timed retort, which I can appreciate. At this point, Emily is so used to Lorelai's barbs that she brushes right past them with zero acknowledgement.
Books mentioned/books Rory is reading:
Rory is reading something while Lorelai gets ready for her date with Peyton Sanders (Jon Hamm 💘), but I couldn't see the title and the Internet has failed me.
Jess is reading "Visions of Cody" by Jack Kerouac when Rory bumps into him during her ridiculous sprinkler debacle.
There are nods to "The Wizard of Oz" and "Marathon Man," but I imagine Lorelai is referencing the movies, not the books.
Best song of the episode:
Lorelai sings the opening line to "Space Oddity" after Emily cons her into going on a second date with Peyton. Tbh, I would go on a date with almost anyone if they were taking me to a David Bowie concert. Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Sure. Mike Pence? Maybe. Donald Trump? That's probably where I draw the line.
Thoughts:
The episode opens with Lorelai in the midst of what I assume is a stupid joke that she thinks is hilarious. At this point in the series, I'm starting to get really exhausted with Lorelai. Imagine if she was your mother and you could never escape her nonsense. Harvard isn't far away enough; I'd apply to colleges in Australia.
Rory's body language shows how "funny" she thinks this joke is.
After the Gilmores stop at the diner and Luke reveals his ignorance about women/the world in general, Lorelai heads to the inn where Michel says some mean things about fat people. Now all we need is an inappropriate gay joke to form the holy trinity of distasteful comedy that the Sherman-Palladinos can't seem to quit.
Emily calls Lorelai at the inn to invite her to the Society Matron’s League’s annual antique auction. This reminds me of the "Pioneer Women" episode of "I Love Lucy" where Lucy and Ethel want to join the league but then realize how snobby the women are and decide against it. I personally don't understand why anyone would want to be associated with an organization that uses the word "matron." They might as well call it 'the Society League for Old Women with Crusty Vaginas' because the name they've chosen is equally insulting.
Fun trivia: this is a real loaf of bread, baked by the Union Mode Bakery in LA.
Michel, who has a boner for antiques/auctions, overhears the conversation and begs Lorelai to take him with her. Lorelai agrees, but on the condition that Michel will oversee the hikers at the inn next week. In the Sherman-Palladino world, people who enjoy outdoor activities are weird as hell and do things like give each other nature names. They seem to forget that this is Connecticut in the early 2000s, not a California commune in the 70s where everyone is high on acid 24/7.
That night, after Lorelai treats the local pizza guy poorly and Rory goes inside to work on shortening her lifespan (by melting more cheese on their pizza), Dwight creeps out of the shadows. He's just moved in to "Beenie Morrion's old place" and needs someone to water his lawn while he's on a business trip. Lorelai is clearly annoyed, but I think she agrees to do it just so he'll get the fuck away from her. Had I been in her position, I would have pretended not to speak English.
At the auction, Lorelai meets and falls in lust with Jon Hamm after they have a flirty conversation about wine and bidding paddles. She fails to get his number, but later tries to creepily obtain it from the auction committee by making up a bunch of dumb excuses that don't even sound remotely plausible. After Rory blows her cover at Friday night dinner, Emily reaches out to her network of biddies and gets Lorelai his digits.
Later, when Rory and Lorelai are in Dwight's tiki hellscape nightmare (to water his African violets, natch), Jon Hamm calls. He invites Lorelai to a David Bowie concert (!!!) the following week but decides they should plan another date sooner so they don't have to wait so long to see each other. I guess some people might find this cute/endearing, but I think it's a red flag. I talked to you about nothing for less than five minutes and you want to make plans to see me two weeks in a row? Slow your roll, dude. I don't give a fuck if you are Jon Hamm! We'll go on one date and then I'll decide how I feel.
Of course, Jon Hamm ends up sucking because nothing gold can stay and in this universe, he's actually Peyton Sanders. He's part of Emily and Richard's world and doesn't find Lorelai and her Andre Cold Duck vomit stories amusing.
In a normal universe, Lorelai would shrug this off as a bad date and continue on with her life, but she made the dumb mistake of involving her mother. Unfortunately, Emily is friend's with Peyton's mom and if Lorelai doesn't give him another chance, she will no longer get the first cup of tea at the DAR meetings and blah blah blah rich people problems. Lorelai is a moron for not realizing this would happen and I hope she has a horrible time at the Bowie concert.
While Lorelai deals with her Jon Hamm dating woes, Rory has a "Blue Crush" moment with Jess when she can't figure out how to turn off Dwight's sprinklers. Watching Rory struggle with the sprinkler key is painful. She really needs to hit the gym and work on her upper body strength because she is embarrassingly weak. Jess comes to the rescue after she practically knocks him over, running down the street in a blind panic. He turns the sprinklers off, they flirt, and then Dean pages Rory and offers to help. Jess turns the sprinklers back on so Dean can feel like he actually has a purpose (which he doesn't). It's all very high school and dumb but holy fuck, does Jess look good in a soaking wet sweater.
Rory should have just had sex with him instead of trying to turn the whole thing into a relationship. If this show wasn't on the WB, maybe that would have happened and we could have avoided Rory and Dean round 2.
Random observations:
- I'm still upset over Luke's breastfeeding comments. Can you imagine trying to feed your kid while some dude shames you as if you're sucking dick in the middle of the street? And why didn't Rory and Lorelai stick up for her? They were just kind of bemused by Luke's idiocy and refused to get involved.
- "Dirty" is the Lorelai Gilmore equivalent of "That's what she said." I find them both equally grating.
- I don't understand the appeal of board games. People keep trying to get me to play Settlers of Catan but tbh, I'd rather set myself on fire.
- Jason Kravits (Dwight) and Jon Hamm (Peyton Sanders) are both in "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." Hamm plays Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne and Kravits is Gary Dubbin, Jacqueline's divorce lawyer.
- Do you recognize the voice of Dwight's wife, Doris? It's Alex Borstein! Little discoveries like this make me happy.
- Like Lorelai, I also once threw up after a night of drinking Andre Cold Duck. But instead of in the back of Peter Cutler's car, it was at a frat house with a bunch of dudes who kept extinguishing their cigarettes on the couch and doing boatloads of cocaine. Oh, college. My body does not miss you.
- When Richard calls Lorelai to discuss the Peyton issue, he's casually waving around a magnifying glass for no apparent reason.
- Dean is barely in the episodes leading up to his demise. I thought maybe he was busy with other projects at the time, but his IMDB page is pretty dead in the early 2000s. I think it's a weird choice to keep him absent before the inevitable break-up. I need more frequent reminders of how much I hate him.