Friday night dinners

After Rory is accepted at Chilton, an extremely prestigious and expensive prep school, Lorelai's difficulty in raising the tuition money forces her to ask her wealthy parents, from whom she is estranged, for a loan. The elder Gilmores happily loan their daughter the money in exchange for an end to the estrangement and a family dinner every Friday night. In her last week at Stars Hollow High School, Rory meets a very cute new transfer student named Dean, which gives her second thoughts about attending Chilton. When Lorelai discovers that her ambivalence about Chilton centers on a boy, they argue about her future, but after the first Friday night family dinner at her grandparents' house, Rory makes up with her mother and decides to go to Chilton after all when she realizes the sacrifice her mother has made in agreeing to end the estrangement with her grandparents.

Lorelai oversleeps on Rory's first day at Chilton, and discovers that all her good clothes are at the cleaners. She throws on a tiny tie-dyed top, Daisy Mae shorts, and cowboy boots to the dismay of Rory, the Chilton headmaster, and Emily, who has shown up for Rory's first day. Lorelai and Emily leave after some awkward moments in the headmaster's office, bickering the entire way out. Rory's day goes downhill from there. She's handed a three inch binder containing one week's worth of notes from one class and meets some insufferable classmates who are determined to make her life at Chilton miserable.

When Rory announces at Friday night dinner that she has to pick a team sport to play at Chilton, Emily insists that Richard take Rory to the club and teach her golf. Although Rory tees off to a rocky start, she soon gets into the swing of things and has a great time walking and talking with Richard. Later, Lorelai's mixed feelings as Rory tells her how much she enjoyed being with Richard at the club provokes her into an intensely stupid argument with Rory, which is soon patched up when Lorelai realizes that she's not losing Rory to her parents. At the Inn, Lorelai has her hands full overseeing all the preparations for an ornate double wedding ceremony and contending with a pair of spoiled and quarrelsome twin brides, their exhausted mother, their twin grooms, Michel, and the rest of her staff.

It's Rory's birthday, and her grandmother and mother each plan a party representative of their respective styles. Emily's elegant party so discomfits Rory that they argue. To make peace, Emily and Richard attend Lorelai's informal bash the next evening.

The first snowfall prompts Lorelai and Max's first date. Lane is upset with Rory for being distracted with Chilton, and Dean. Rory spends time with her grandparents, and introduces them to frozen pizza. Meanwhile, Luke mocks and refuses to take part in the annual re-enactment of the Battle of Stars Hollow.

Chilton hosts a dance which Rory and Dean attend, confirming that they are "boyfriend-girlfriend". Emily sleeps over at Lorelai's the night of the dance to take care of Lorelai's injured back and to see Rory off. Rory and Dean fall asleep accidentally, causing Rory to arrive home at 5 a.m., which pushes Emily to think they had sex. Thus erupts another blow-up between Lorelai and her mother.

Things are still chilly between Rory and Lorelai; Lane gives Rory advice about the right Christmas gift for Dean; Emily and Lorelai have a tiff about Christmas dinner, leaving Rory to go by herself; Dean and Lorelai patch things up; Luke makes a lonely Lorelai a Santa burger; Richard collapses and is rushed to the hospital; Luke gives a car-less Lorelai a ride to the hospital; relieved that Richard's collapse was only a bout of angina, the Gilmores settle their differences.

Wanting to play a greater role in Rory's life, Christopher settles in for his visit and lets Rory give him the grand tour of Stars Hollow. When his parents arrive in Hartford for a visit, Emily invites everyone to Friday night dinner, which turns out to be an unqualified disaster after Richard nearly comes to blows with Christopher's father over critical comments about Lorelai. In the aftermath of the ruined dinner party, Richard retreats to his study to calm down, Emily makes a plate for Rory in the kitchen and reassures her how much she is loved and regarded, and Christopher finds Lorelai on the balcony of her old bedroom and comforts her by repeating a little romantic history. The next morning, Lorelai awakens with a start, horrified that she forgot to help Luke paint the diner after dinner on Friday night. Grabbing a jacket, she races to the diner still clad in her pajamas, and begs Luke's forgiveness. He shrugs it off at first, but appears somewhat wounded when he realizes that Lorelai was with Christopher the night before. When Lorelai returns to the house, Christopher asks her to marry him and she regretfully turns him down, claiming he's not ready for the responsibility of a family quite yet. Christopher returns to California with the promise of doing a better job of staying in touch. The next morning, Lorelai surprises Luke by having the diner completely repainted when he arrives to open up for the day.

Luke's ex-girlfriend Rachel arrives in Stars Hollow unexpectedly, and immediately picks up on the attraction between Luke and Lorelai, which they deny. Rachel decides to stay for awhile, which leaves Luke and Lorelai with mixed feelings. Lorelai and Rory are amazed when Emily agrees to excuse Rory from Friday night dinner so that Rory and Dean can celebrate their three month anniversary. When Lorelai arrives for dinner, she discovers the source of Emily's largesse -- her mother has invited another guest -- a man with whom she secretly hopes to fix Lorelai up. After a painful dinner with one of the world's most boring men, Lorelai attempts to escape through the window of her old bedroom, but is caught in the act by Richard. When he is forced to admit that even he is bored by the man, he uncharacteristically covers for her and lets her make her getaway. Back in Stars Hollow, Dean treats Rory to a wonderfully romantic dinner, and then gives her a present: a car that he's restoring for her. As they sit in the car, Dean professes his love, but Rory is unsure how to respond.

Emily becomes unhinged at the prospect of a visit from Richard's mother Trix; Paris is outraged when she discovers that Tristan asked her for a date at Rory's urging; fearing that she'll never see Lorelai again, Emily opposes Trix's offer to set up a trust fund for Rory.

Rachel finds an abandoned inn that Lorelai and Sookie fall in love with; Lorelai and Rachel spend the afternoon getting to know each other and Rachel asks Lorelai to put in a good word for her with Luke; as Rory takes Emily on a tour of Stars Hollow, Emily hits it off with Mrs. Kim and Michel, but becomes distraught when she sees Lorelai and Rory's first home; at Sookie's urging, Lorelai gives Jackson's cousin, Rune, a job at the Inn.

Lorelai helps Luke shop for a birthday present for Rachel and goes wild outfitting him with a new wardrobe; overwhelmed by sadness at her breakup with Dean, Rory is distressed to discover that Lane and Dean have become science project partners, and incensed to find out from Max that Lorelai has neglected to mention that they are dating again, so she argues with Lorelai and then takes off for Hartford to spend the night at her grandparents' house without telling her mother; when an angry Lorelai confronts Dean and discovers the truth about his breakup with Rory, she fears that she has taught Rory not to commit to a relationship.

Lane freaks out when her parents buy her a one-way ticket to Korea for the summer; Luke gives Lorelai a lot to think about when she tells him about Max's proposal; Lorelai finally says "yes" to Max and tells everyone except her parents; when Rory brings Dean to a special dinner at her grandparents' house to celebrate making it into the top 3% at Chilton and Richard attacks Dean for not meeting Gilmore standards of excellence, Rory springs to Dean's defense and creates a rift between Richard and his granddaughter; Emily is heartbroken when she finds out about the wedding from Sookie instead of Lorelai.

Lorelai, Sookie, Emily, Michel, and Rory go to a drag club for Lorelai's bachelorette party; Emily regales the group with stories about the week before her wedding, some of which give Lorelai pause about her own feelings about marriage; when everyone else leaves to call their sweeties, Lorelai calls Christopher instead of Max; later that evening at home, Lorelai announces to Rory that she's calling the wedding off because she's realized that Max isn't the one for her; mother and daughter decide to take a road trip to avoid the sympathies of all of Stars Hollow.

At the urging of her friends, Emily decides that Rory's making her debut at a society ball will be just the thing to get Richard back into the social swing. To Lorelai's amazement, Rory willingly agrees and Emily goes into high gear shopping in preparation. Christopher agrees to escort Rory and Lorelai becomes entranced by his new responsible side, but gets a shock when she learns about his new relationship.

Headmaster Charleston decrees that both Gilmore girls need to improve their socialization skills at Chilton if they want him to write a glowing recommendation for Rory's Harvard application. Rory's first attempt to socialize leads her to ask a group of girls at lunch if she could join them. They agree and hit it off famously. After lunch, an insanely jealous Paris accosts Rory and tells her the group that she innocently stumbled into is "The Puffs", Chilton's famed secret sorority. Paris would do anything to join, and she begs Rory not to bad-mouth her to the group. At the next opportunity, Rory talks Paris up to the group and they are both accepted as pledges. The Puffs "kidnap" Rory, Paris and the other pledges very early one morning under the guise of taking them to breakfast, but instead take them to Headmaster Charleston's office to be initiated into the group. In the middle of the ceremony, they are discovered by Charleston and the security guards. He calls their parents and threatens their college careers, until Rory stands up to him and says that if he hadn't forced her to socialize, she wouldn't be there at all. He agrees and reconsiders, saying that she is a good student who deserves to go to Harvard. After being chided by Emily for her lack of participation, Lorelai joins the Booster Club and offers to host a fundraising fashion show at the Inn. To her dismay, she discovers that the Booster Club mothers are the models; not wanting to be mortified by herself, and to exact a little payback for being chided, she signs Emily up to model as well. On the day of the show, Lorelai calls Luke to fix the runway, and he catches the eye of Eva, the Booster Club president, who's quite taken with him. Lorelai becomes uncomfortable when she sees them huddled together talking. The day goes even further downhill when Lorelai discovers that she and Emily will be modeling matching mother-daughter outfits. They end up looking terrific and having a ball struting their stuff on the runway, and the show is a tremendous success. Back in Stars Hollow, Lorelai visits Luke at the diner and asks him not to go out with Eva. She offers the pathetic reason that she wants to keep her Stars Hollow life and her Chilton life separate, and that Luke's dating Eva will combine the two. Luke sees right through her, and after letting her know that he'll date whoever he pleases, tells her that he's not interested in Eva and was only giving her directions back to Hartford. Lorelai, secretly happy but realizing she's made a fool of herself, hurries out of the diner, to Luke's amusement.

Lorelai and Sookie gear up their plans to open an inn, but encounter a roadblock when the owner of their dream location refuses to sell the property. The unexpected arrival of Mia, the absentee owner of the Independence Inn, complicates matters even further when Lorelai begins to experience pangs of guilt at leaving Mia with the responsibility of running the Inn again. When Lorelai finally summons up the courage to tell her about their plans, Mia is supportive and enthusiastic, and announces that this was just the opportunity she was waiting for to sell the Inn. Lorelai is saddened at this news and tells Emily how much the Inn means to her as the place where she and Rory grew up together, oblivious to the pain she is causing her mother. Lorelai's emotional turmoil culminates with having her first ever argument with Sookie. After a pep talk from Luke, Lorelai apologizes to Sookie and recommits to their friendship and partnership. Stung by the loss of years and memories while Lorelai and Rory lived at the Inn, Emily decides to meet Mia, the woman who was such an important part of their lives then. Mia explains that she took them in to give them a place to feel safe, while Emily explains that she wanted Mia to send them home. Emily asks Mia if she has any pictures of the girls from those days, and Mia eagerly agrees to send them to her right away. Someone has planted a fake murder scene at the front of Doose's market, complete with police tape and the chalk outline of a body. Naturally, this gets Taylor in a dither; after scouring Stars Hollow looking for the culprit, he confronts Luke at the diner and accuses Jess. Luke jumps to Jess's defense and throws Taylor out. Later that evening, Luke, Lorelai, Rory and Mia stumble upon a secret town meeting where Jess is accused once more and Luke is vilified for bringing him into town. Luke stands behind his nephew again, supported by Lorelai. The next day, Rory tells Jess that she knows he's really the culprit, and that he's being a jerk for letting Luke take all the heat from everyone in Stars Hollow. After Jess gets her to admit that it was a pretty funny prank after all, he agrees to lighten up and be more considerate of Luke's feelings.

A blizzard prevents a group from attending the historical dinner that Sookie has painstakingly prepared at their request, so she and Lorelai decide to invite all their friends in Stars Hollow to enjoy the feast at the Inn. At Rory's urging, Lorelai also invites Richard and Emily, in an attempt to boost Richard's spirits. During dinner, Emily is hurt and angered when Richard reveals that he has quit his job without consulting her. Jess tries to get between Rory and Dean when Dean is distracted by his little sister.

Lorelai and Rory have a major falling out after Rory goes against her mother's wishes and asks her grandparents to lend Lorelai the money she needs to repair termite damage to their house; Lane's desire to become a cheerleader causes a strain in her relationship with Rory; after an exhaustive and unproductive attempt to raise the funds she needs based on her own credit rating, Lorelai is forced to ask Emily to cosign a loan; Rory drives Paris crazy when she refuses to reveal her PSAT scores.

Richard visits Stars Hollow, and drives Lorelai and Rory crazy by passing judgment on every aspect of their lives. Paris visits Stars Hallow searching for a "seedy underbelly" for the front story of the Franklin. Rory gains unexpected praise when she accidentally encourages censorship in the Stars Hollow Video store, which Paris uses as their basis for their assignment.

The annual Stars Hollow charity picnic basket lunch auction sparks controversies among couples throughout town; Jess outbids Dean for Rory's basket, causing Dean and Rory to quarrel when Rory abides by tradition and shares the lunch with Jess; Jackson refuses to bid on Sookie's basket after she leads him to believe that she doesn't want to move in together; Luke comes to Lorelai's rescue, bids on her basket, and feeds them both at the diner after Miss Patty sets Lorelai up with a trio of unsuitable bidders; Henry tires of the end runs around Mrs. Kim, and calls it quits with Lane; Rory and Jess hit it off at lunch and Jess leaves with a secret souvenir -- the bracelet that Dean gave Rory, which he picks it up and holds on to after Rory drops it; Sookie and Jackson work things out so well that he proposes and she accepts; Lorelai and Rory quarrel when Rory finds out that her mother lent a sympathetic ear to Dean's concerns about Jess; after Emily agrees with her daughter's distrust of Jess, Lorelai realizes that they're both wrong, and apologizes to her daughter.

Christopher comes to town on a business trip with his girlfriend Sherry in tow. Since Sherry and Christopher's relationship is getting serious, Sherry wants to begin bonding with Rory -- on Friday night. Without consulting Emily, Lorelai excuses Rory from the Gilmore Friday night dinner, and takes Christopher with her instead. When Emily finds out about Sherry over cocktails, she has a meltdown and rushes off to the kitchen. Lorelai follows her there and finds out that Emily has always envisioned that Lorelai and Christopher would end up together. Now that she sees that this isn't going to happen, Emily blames Lorelai for always keeping him, and everyone else, at arms length. After mulling over her mother's words, the next morning Lorelai tells Christopher that she's always thought that they would get back together, too, and that's why she's never had a relationship that lasted, including the one with Max. Christopher gets very angry, refusing to accept the responsibility for the way Lorelai's romantic life has turned out.

When Emily and Lorelai go to a spa for a weekend of relaxation, Emily lets her hair down, kicks up her heels and ends up bonding with Lorelai in a way that only her daughter could inspire. Thrilled that she has the house all to herself, Rory hopes to spend a quiet night at home doing laundry and eating Indian food. Her plans are foiled -- first by Paris, then by Jess, and finally by Dean. In the process, she discovers that she has a surprising savior, a secret suitor, and a skeptical sweetheart.

Lorelai and Rory pitch in at the diner while Luke plans his Uncle Louie's funeral; Taylor is unhinged when a farmer's market opens in the town square and puts a damper on his business; Emily goes completely overboard in helping Sookie plan her wedding; Rory prods Jess into being more of a help; Luke is upset when family and friends cite Louie's unpleasant personality as a reason for not attending his funeral, but is comforted when Stars Hollow comes through for both him and his uncle in the end.

Rory asks Richard for help in creating and marketing a first-aid kit for Chilton's annual Business Fair, which leads him to realize that he is unhappy in retirement and wants to start a second career; fresh from having underbid on Rory's lunch basket and the loss of the bracelet he made for her, Dean goes overboard in trying to be close to Rory, afraid that she is losing interest in him, and finally becomes resigned to her affection for Jess; at first, Michel is ecstatic when his flamboyant mother Giselle visits, but after Lorelai causes problems for him when she reveals to Giselle that Michel has been holding back from his mother, Michel quickly is driven crazy by his mother's incessant questioning.

Richard opens a new office and hires a secretary with Lorelai's help; Dean comes home; Lane falls in love with a drum set at Stars Hollow's new music shop and discovers that becoming a rock drummer is her new dream in life; Rory is dismayed to discover that everyone blames Jess for the accident despite her protestations; to the consternation of all in Stars Hollow, Luke closes the diner and goes fishing.

Lorelai and Rory have breakfast at Sookie's in an effort to avoid Luke's, but Lorelai can't avoid an awkward encounter with him at Doose's Market, where he fails to pick up on her hints to patch things up; in an effort to help Lorelai through final exam stress, Rory gets her excited about attending her college graduation ceremony and secretly invites Richard and Emily, despite Lorelai's assertion that they'd never agree to attend; after a late night phone call from Jess, Rory impulsively cuts school the next day and visits him in Manhattan; Christopher sends Lorelai a graduation gift basket filled with fun goodies and an expensive necklace; Lorelai is shocked to see Emily, Richard and the film crew accompanying them to her graduation, and must contend with an obnoxious classmate with an attitude about the rich; Rory is furious with herself when she takes the wrong bus home and misses her mother's graduation; when Rory finally arrives home, Lorelai forgives her when she realizes that the trip to New York may indicate that her daughter has fallen in love with Jess, despite her protests to the contrary.

Amidst her sadness about Christopher, Lorelai has an intriguing dream about Luke; Rory returns from Washington to realize that she still may have feelings for Jess, but a chance encounter at the First Annual Stars Hollow End of Summer Madness Festival makes her realize that he may have moved on to someone else; relationship quarrels abound -- Sookie and Jackson over decorating their house, Lorelai and Rory over Jess versus Dean, Emily and Richard over Lorelai and Christopher -- but are on the path to resolution; and Rory once again guides Paris through the rocky shoals of preparing for a date.

To Lorelai's horror, Kirk asks her out on a date after being encouraged by Luke; Emily's lunch with Lorelai at Luke's ends badly; Christopher shows up uninvited at Friday night dinner and quarrels with both Lorelai and Rory before Emily asks him to leave; Rory runs into Jess and they each betray their hurt feelings -- Rory about Shane and Jess about not hearing from Rory all summer; and Francie targets Paris and Rory for a world of trouble if Rory doesn't stop Paris from running the student council like a dictatorship.

Rory's application for Harvard arrives, plunging Rory, Lorelai and Emily into a frenzy; a Chilton seminar on college applications only adds to Rory's anxiety and sends Paris into a tizzy; Taylor steamrollers Luke into opening a soda shop next to the diner; Lane places an ad in the paper for a band and finds a musical soulmate; Lorelai and Rory have dinner with a Harvard alumni and his family which may assure her chances of acceptance; Dean has a talk with Rory about their future after she goes to Harvard.

Lorelai attends Emily's society auction where she meets a very handsome man but neglects to get his number, forcing her to ask her mother for it; after a disastrous first date, Lorelai turns down an invitation to another, not realizing that Emily and Richard have a lot invested in her dating this son of their friends; after Lorelai and Rory agree to water their new neighbor's lawn while he's out of town, Jess comes to Rory's rescue when the lawn's sprinker system malfunctions.

In the aftermath of the Dance Marathon, Kirk parades around Stars Hollow with the trophy until someone steals it, while Lorelai and Rory painfully inch their way towards Luke's; after Lorelai tells Luke about Rory and Jess, he breaks up their first kiss as a couple and then lays down some ground rules with Jess about dating Rory; Lorelai and Rory reluctantly agree to accept Richard's invitation to accompany him and Emily to his Whiffenpoof reunion at Yale, where he springs quite an unwelcome surprise on all three women; back from New Haven, Lorelai and Rory head for Luke's, and Jess and Rory finally get to have those first kisses; Rory visits Dean to apologize and tell him that she misses his friendship; late at night, Lorelai and Rory each curl up with some bedtime reading -- the Yale brochure.

It's Thanksgiving, and Lorelai and Rory have dinner at four different places: the Kim's, where Lane has managed to get Dave invited and Lorelai is forced to eat tofurkey; Luke's, where Luke and Jess make it a foursome with Lorelai and Rory; Sookie's, where Jackson and his family have deep-fried the turkey, the lawn and just about everything else; and Emily and Richard's, where, to Lorelai's horror, Rory reveals that she has applied to Yale. Kirk gets a cat, with disastrous results; Dave asks Lane out, and then kisses her; Paris is afraid her difficulty getting into a shelter will impact her acceptance to Harvard; and Dean faces off with Jess and lets him know that it's no more "Mr. Nice Guy" for Mr. Forester.

Lorelai's grandmother arrives in Hartford unexpectedly on Richard's birthday and announces that she's moving back, throwing Emily into a tizzy until she follows Lorelai's advice on how to manage her mother-in-law; Rory declares war on Francie after she pulls a runaround on Paris with the Student Council; Paris finds herself in love after spending Christmas vacation with Jamie's family; after Rory and Dean bump into each other a few times, they decide to be friends again; Jess initially declines Rory's offer to attend the Stars Hollow High Winter Carnival, but changes his mind after they run into Dean and his sister Clara, who invites Rory to join them; Jess gets Dean alone at the carnival and lets him know that he's wise to his plans to get Rory back.

Luke and Nicole have a successful first date; Jess and Dean trade verbal blows; Sherry goes into labor with only Lorelai and Rory for company until Chris shows up at last minute; Lorelai has flash backs about her pregnancy and Rory's birth; Lorelai introduces Emily to modern entertainment technologyby getting her a DVD player and a couple movies; Richard and Emily decry Lorelai's and Rory's plans to backpack through Europe; the war between Paris and Rory continues when Paris picks a photo of the "Franklin" staff for the yearbook that has the worst possible shot of Rory.

Emily guilts Rory into bringing Jess to a Friday night dinner which turns out to be an unqualified disaster; Lorelai, Alex, Sookie and Jackson go to New York for the weekend; Jess gets a black eye in an altercation with an opponent he is too embarassed to reveal to anyone but Luke; Zack and Brian realize that Lane and Dave are hiding something from them, but miss the mark on the true nature of the secret; Rory and Jess have their first argument, and Luke helps patch things up.

Emily and Richard rejoice when Rory announces her decision to attend Yale; Kirk sustains baking-related injuries when Rory secretly enlists the help of her fellow Stars Hollows citizens to bake the world's largest pizza for her mother's birthday party; Michel and Tobin compete over giving Lorelai the best present, but Richard wins the contest hands-down with a check for $75,000 that's actually the proceeds from an investment he made in Lorelai's name at her birth; Luke confronts Jess about skipping school to work at Wal-Mart, but is blown off as usual; when Lorelai decides to use the money to pay back her parents for Rory's Chilton tuition, Emily becomes furious with Richard for giving Lorelai the money, fearing that the repayment of their loan is a sign that she'll never see either Lorelai or Rory again; Luke makes a bad impression on Nicole's parents, scaring them off with a rant on the horrors of parenting Jess.

On their first free Friday night, Lorelai and Rory are at a loss over how to spend the evening, while Emily and Richard cavort at the party they're hosting; Lorelai is appointed Grad Night Treasurer and runs into a playing-it-cool Max at her first Chilton Booster Club meeting; Lane's band gets their first gig at a party and rocks the house, but Dave rocks Lane's world when he flips out after discovering that Young Chui is in love with her; a despondent Lane indulges in a little too much beer, and then drunkenly calls her mother and confesses all; when staff cutbacks at the Inn force Lorelai to do turn-down service, she becomes very unsettled at seeing a cozy Luke and Nicole in the room she's offered as thanks for Luke's help with repairs after the fire; Jess's inability to tell Rory that his frequent absences have caused him to flunk out of school and miss graduation and the prom prompts an argument between Jess and Rory, and then a full-blown brawl with Dean after Dean comes upon a tearful and distraught Rory.

Jess heads out to Venice, California only to learn that his father's community is just as quirky as Stars Hollow; the rift widens between Lorelai and Emily; Luke tells Lorelai that Jess took off for good; Lorelai waits for the right moment to break the news to Rory, who is stressing over finals and graduation.

Rory finally learns her mother can't afford to buy the Dragonfly Inn since financial aid for Yale didn't come through. She decides to take matters into her own hands with a quick visit to her grandparents right before graduation. Luke has second thoughts about a trip with Nicole after something Lorelai tells him. Jess makes silent contact with Rory after her graduation ceremony from Chilton.

Lorelai and Rory return from their whirlwind tour of Europe; Taylor and Luke have it out over the new soda shop; a very pregnant Sookie updates Lorelai on the latest baby news; Taylor doesn't take it well when Rory declines the privilege of being the Stars Hollow Ice Cream Queen; mother and daughter get caught up in a flurry of activity after Rory realizes that she wrote down the wrong date for freshman orientation, and she only has two days to get ready for Yale, instead of the week she was planning on; Emily is upset when Lorelai misses Friday night dinner and retaliates by turning it into a four hour extravaganza, complete with ballroom dancing videos before the soufflé course; Lorelai is shocked when Luke finally tells her what happened on his cruise with Nicole.

To help meet the expenses of opening the inn, Lorelai and Sookie decide to become caterers on the side, with their first assignment being a "Lord of the Rings" theme party. At Yale, Rory returns from class to find that Emily has redecorated their common room. Meanwhile, Richard ponders a proposal to take on a new business partner.

Rory accepts a classmate's invitation to go out on her first date since breaking up with Jess, while her roommates engage in a war of wills. Meanwhile, Lorelai invites Luke over to share the traditional Gilmore movie night she used to have with Rory, although she is somewhat disturbed after discovering that the designer she just hired to decorate the inn used to work for Emily.

Emily offers Lorelai and Sookie the job of catering the party to launch Richard's new business venture, then runs them ragged with demands. Meanwhile, at school, Rory finds that her roommates' activities are preventing her from studying.

Rory and Paris have lunch at Yale with Richard, who introduces them to his friend, Professor Asher Fleming; during Friday night dinner at the Gilmore residence, Lorelai asks for an invitation to the Yale-Harvard game even though Rory clearly gives her an out; Emily is irritated when Lorelai shows up for the game wearing Harvard colors; the Gilmores tailgate in style with flasks, an RV, a BBQ, and servants to wait on their guests; Emily is upset when Pennilyn Lott, Richard's first girlfriend, shows up and asks about the Inn, and Richard is forced to confess that he has continued to have an annual dinner with Pennilyn the entire time that he and Emily have been married; Lorelai takes Jason up on his earlier offer of a dinner date, but they end up leaving the stuffy restaurant and having a great time dining al fresco at a local grocery store; Rory walks back to the dorm after the game and discovers Paris kissing Asher Fleming.

Luke becomes overwhelmed by Lane's work ethic when he hires her to work at the diner; Michel exhibits a profound jealousy of Tobin; Emily and Richard find the treats they brought home from Switzerland are widely panned; Rory is less than thrilled with the new man in Paris' life, especially when she learns that he's teaching her contemporary political fiction class; as Lorelai and Jason grow closer, she begs him to keep their relationship a secret from her parents; Rory's talent for millinery combines with her talent for writing to win her a position on the "Daily Yale"; inexplicably, Sookie and Jackson allow Michel to babysit for Davey, forcing Lorelai to come to the rescue when Michel, not being one to fail to disappoint, needs to get himself and Davey out from under a problem; Richard becomes intensely irritated when the Chez Gilmore walking tour benefiting the Historical Society overstays its welcome.

When Trix returns to town and berates Lorelai and Richard for being financial failures, Richard angrily sets his mother straight, to Emily's delight; Lorelai and Sookie explore ways to ease their financial crunch and raise money to pay their construction crew, one of whom is now Dean; Janet and Paris go head-to-head over the constant presence of Janet's boyfriend in the suite; Lorelai and Rory play an increasingly frustrating game of telephone tag; after Paris, Tanna, and Janet complain about close quarters in the suite, Lane moves out of the dorm and in with Lorelai, and gets her job back at Luke's; Lorelai and Sookie have a heated discussion about sharing the responsibilities of opening their inn; Rory is distraught when one of her professors tells her to drop a class because she can't handle her course load; Lane runs into her mother and receives a frosty reception; at the end of a very long, hard day, Lorelai and Rory still can't manage to connect, and end up taking solace in the arms of the married men in their lives, Luke for Lorelai, and Dean for Rory.

Kirk branches out from dog sitting for Lulu into a new canine-centered career; Paris goes into germ-phobic overdrive when Rory gets a cold; Lane gets an apartment with Zach and Brian and faces a frigid reception from her aunt and mother, and an overly-eager, non-stop-talking cousin when she packs up her things and moves out; when they realize that their relationship is increasingly being conducted over email and the phone, Lorelai and Rory decide to play hooky and go window shopping in the mall, where they run into Emily in the middle of a shopping binge meltdown; Luke lends Lorelai the thirty thousand dollars she needs to finish construction on the Inn; after Emily confesses that the shopping binge and bickering with Richard stems from her anger at being ignored, neglected, and made to feel useless by her husband, Lorelai reassures her of how much she's accomplished and urges her to talk to Richard, but Emily can't seem to make the connection with her husband she so desperately desires; Rory and Luke get a peek into Dean's life as a married man, and Luke gets an inkling that something is amiss when he catches Dean's wistful looks towards Rory as Dean unsuccessfully tries to paint a happy picture of life with Lindsay and her parents.

The rift between Emily and Richard widens when he goes on a golf date with clients instead of accompanying his wife to the funeral of her best friend. Doyle goes on a theft and plagiarism rant; Trix dies suddenly and stricken with grief and guilt, Richard is inconsolable; Emily calls it quits on arranging Trix's funeral and drops everything in her daughter's lap after finding a letter in which her mother-in-law pleads with her son on the eve of his wedding to Emily to marry Pennilyn instead; Luke and Nicole have all of Stars Hollow listening in and reading lips as they quarrel; worried about her parents and frantic over fulfilling Trix's exacting requirements for her funeral, Lorelai has a meltdown while shopping for Trix's funeral undies; after the service, cousin Marilyn regales family and friends with tales of Lorelai the First; Emily and Richard finally reach out to each other as he defies one of his mother's last wishes for the sake of his wife.

Luke makes a bigger fuss than Davey when Sookie and Jackson bring their son into the diner; all of Stars Hollow is amused when Taylor returns from his Caribbean cruise with a drastic change in his appearance; Richard and Emily are stunned when Floyd informs them that Lorelai and Jason have been dating for months; Luke comes to the rescue when Kirk's failure to make a map of the Easter eggs he hid in the town square gets Taylor's nose out of joint; Richard and Jason discover that Floyd's peacemaking overtures are a disguise for his plan to ruin Richard financially by suing them for stealing his clients; while shopping with Lane in Doose's, Rory has harsh words about Lindsay as she relates her quarrel with Dean over his plans to drop out of college to earn more money to buy a house, unaware that his wife is listening in the next aisle; Richard resolves his problems with Floyd at Jason's expense; Dean and Rory agree to continue their friendship despite Lindsay's demand that they stop speaking to each other.

Luke finalizes his divorce; the band's latest gig is a big hit, but leaves Lane feeling lonely; as the Dragonfly Inn nears its opening date, Michel gives travel agents the grand tour and Sookie is back in the kitchen, if not on her feet; Doyle clues Rory in on Asher's reputation as a serial student dater; Lorelai and Richard have it out over his treatment of Jason; Lane is upset to discover that her mother has taken in a Korean exchange student who could be her double, and confronts the girl when she sees her wearing her old clothes; when Jason decides to sue Richard after discovering his treachery, Lorelai breaks up with him; afraid that Richard's actions will put a rift in their relationship with Lorelai and Rory, Emily asks her husband to reconsider, but he brushes her off; Asher is displeased when Rory questions whether the "A" he gave her for a paper she thought she did poorly on has any connection to her friendship with Paris; after Richard and Emily act very strangely during Friday night dinner, Lorelai does a little investigating and discovers that her mother has moved out of the house and into a hotel; Lane begins to realize how much she misses her mother.

As Stars Hollow prepares for the Renaissance-themed wedding of Liz and T.J., Kirk feels slighted when Miss Patty chooses someone else as the maypole dance captain; Lorelai discovers an equine visitor in the Dragonfly Inn's lobby; Rory's suite mates depart for summer vacation; Lorelai urges Mrs. Kim to call Lane; Lorelai unsuccessfully attempts to get Emily to admit to the separation during Friday night dinner; T.J. revels in the wonders of tights, but discovers their main drawback during the ceremony; Mrs. Kim gets some good advice from Lorelai after initially fleeing in horror at the sight of Zach and Brian and Lane's shabby apartment, and eventually returns for tea armed with a game plan; Rory calls Dean to rescue her from the disastrous date Emily has arranged for her with the son of a friend; Luke and Lorelai share significant glances during a slow dance at the wedding, which prompts Luke to ask Lorelai out on a date; Jess expresses his gratitude to Luke before saying goodbye; Rory tells Jess it's over between them when he asks her to go away with him.

Momentous changes are in the air as: the Dragonfly Inn approaches opening day by having a shakedown weekend; Rory and Dean take a major step forward in their relationship, to Lorelai's dismay; Emily and Richard admit that they're separated; Kirk decides to let Lulu in on the deep, dark secret of his night terrors; Jason appears at the Inn to plead his case with Lorelai, to no avail; Luke answers Lorelai's question about the status of their relationship when he makes it passionately clear to Lorelai that they're dating, to which she enthusiastically agrees.

Things are still testy between Lorelai and Rory, and Rory's refusal to discuss the Dean situation causes Lorelai anguish; Emily announces that she and Richard have separated; Sookie is ecstatic when Kirk tells her that Luke and Lorelai kissed; Rory's attempt to meet Dean and discuss what happened leads to a lot of action, but no talk; Dean provokes an argument with Lindsay after leaving Rory's house; Emily decides to go to Europe and invites Rory to accompany her; Lorelai and Luke are very tentative with each other the day after until they are able to reassure each other that they're on the right path; Luke heads off to Maine for a week to help Liz and T.J. with their Ren Faire booth; Rory decides that she needs a break from both Dean and her mother, and decides to take her grandmother up on her invitation to go to Europe.

T.J. is milking his injuries for all he's worth, but Luke decides that it's time to go home after seven weeks on the Ren Faire circuit; Rory calls to apologize and to ask her mother to deliver a letter to Dean; Sookie accurately diagnoses Lorelai with a bad case of management burnout, and the two friends decide to decompress with a girls-day-out; Emily and Rory come home exhausted from fending off the attentions of randy European men; Michel is wildly unenthusiastic when he's pressed into babysitting for guests whose children take an inexplicable shine to him; after Lindsay finds Rory's letter, she throws Dean and all his possessions out of the house, and her mother has an angry confrontation with Lorelai in the town square; Lane realizes that she's falling for Zack; Rory is saddened when Dean expresses regret for the shift in their relationship and the harm it caused to his wife and their families.

Luke and Lorelai go on their official first date at a restaurant owned by old friends of Luke's parents. Luke reminds Lorelai of how they met, shows her a horoscope she gave him for good luck that he's kept in his wallet, and assures her that he intends to go the distance with her. Lorelai spends the night at Luke's place; in the morning, she goes down to the diner to get coffee, and the breakfast crowd sees her wearing only Luke's shirt. There's surprisingly little gossip about Luke and Lorelai until the next town meeting, where Taylor uses charts to show how disastrous a breakup between them would be for Stars Hollow. Meanwhile: Rory meets a rich Yale student named Logan and chews him out for being rude to her friend Marty; Paris holds a wake for Asher that all the guests assume is a keg party with a weird theme; and Emily freaks out when she discovers that Richard has a social life she doesn't know about, so she invades Rory's dorm during the wake.

The demands of the electorate are beginning to get to Jackson; Lorelai and Rory delicately nudge Richard and Emily closer together; Lorelai decides that a double date with Rory and Dean is the way to smooth over the bumps in her relationship with Dean, but the evening goes awry when Luke can't get over feeling that Dean isn't good enough for Rory; Richard takes up a new hobby, and Emily buys a panic room; failing to get a response from Zack about the declaration of her feelings, Lane rescinds them, which finally gets Zack talking; Lorelai introduces Luke to "Pippi Longstocking" as Kirk gets much better acquainted with Lulu during movie night at the Black & White & Read Bookstore.

Doyle is jealous when Glenn's article gets picked up by the New York Times; Rory discovers that Logan, the son of a newspaper magnate, is also on the staff of the paper; Paris wages a fierce campaign to get the religion beat, and takes an ecumenical approach to alienating the local clergy; desperate for a story idea for her features assignment after several concepts fail to pan out, Rory uncovers a secret Yale society which counts Logan as a member, and enlists his cooperation in getting a story on the group; Sookie becomes upset when the Inn's accountant suggests dropping lunch temporarily to save money and Norman Mailer stakes out a table in the dining room to work and give interviews, and refuses to order anything from the menu except iced tea; Lorelai and Rory show up for Friday night dinner, and when they discover that neither Emily nor Richard are home, decide to order pizza and eat on the living room floor; Christopher calls Lorelai in a panic when Sherry suddenly decides to move to Paris, leaving him unprepared to care for a colicky Gigi; and after freaking out completely over Norman Mailers constant presence Sookie realizes that her extreme emotions and sensitivity in the past days are the result of her being pregnant again. Rory asks Christopher to stay away from Lorelai.

After Kirk spills the beans that her daughter is dating Luke, Emily demands that Lorelai bring him to dinner so that they can get reacquainted; although Lorelai tries to warn him away, Luke goes anyway and is subjected to an evening of oblique insults from a passive-aggressive Emily; after Zach announces that he's ready to start going out with Lane, they spend a cozy first date at home after banishing Brian to Lane's bedroom; having not learned his lesson with Emily, Luke agrees to accept Richard's invitation to go golfing, and both men turn a deaf ear to Lorelai's pleas to cancel; Rory gets her story on the "Life and Death Brigade" by being blindfolded and whisked away by Logan and his friends to observe the elaborately staged weekend in the woods, and finally, after Logan encourages her to take a risk, to participate in the event's breathtaking finale.

After Emily discovers that Rory is seeing Dean again, she calls a temporary truce with Richard so that they can jointly host a Yale alumni party whose express purpose is to find a suitable match for their unsuspecting granddaughter; Liz and T.J. buy a house in Stars Hollow; Mrs. Kim flips out after Kyon tells her that Lane and Zach hugged in Luke's Diner; when the pressures of being new homeowners lead Liz and T.J. to quarrel, T.J. seeks refuge with his brother-in-law, and ruins the romantic dinner and evening Luke prepared for Lorelai; Logan appears at the party just in time to rescue Rory from yet another prospective bridegroom, and Rory learns that he's very well acquainted with her grandparents; Lane leads Kyon over to the culinary dark side and reveals the secrets to living a happy teenage life at the Kim house; Dean realizes that he no longer fits into Rory's life, and Logan gallantly steps in to dry her tears.

Jackson is the soul of patience as Sookie suffers from mood swings and pregnancy food cravings; Paris' decision to fast for Ramadan to bring authenticity to her writing takes its toll on Rory and Marty; against Lorelai's advice, Michel persists with his plan to foil the bathrobe bandits and nearly gets arrested; Emily decides to start dating again, and calls on a reluctant Lorelai for advice; Jackson is so overwhelmed by his duties as Selectman that Miss Patty is forced to resort to a ruse to get him to preside over the town meeting; Lorelai invites Christopher to lunch at the Inn and decides to surprise Rory by inviting her as well, but it's Lorelai who's surprised by the tension between father and daughter, which erupts into a heated argument out of Lorelai's earshot; Lorelai feels guilty for lying to Rory when her daughter asks about Luke's reaction to the lunch date with Christopher; Luke helps T.J. with some plumbing problems at the new house; Emily appears to have a wonderful time on her date, but bursts into tears when she looks around her empty home at the end of the date; Luke feigns indifference when Lorelai finally tells him about lunch with Christopher, but hints at some ambivalence during a later conversation with T.J.; Marty's timing is off by mere seconds when he attempts to ask Rory out on a date.

Miss Patty celebrates forty years in show business on the same day that Luke mourns his father's death; Terrence's urging Paris to get on with her life prompts her to try speed dating, where she hooks up with Doyle; Marty finally clues Rory in that both he and Logan are interested in her; Lorelai's attempt to do something nice for Luke backfires; Rory enlists Richard in turning the practical joke table back on Logan; at Headmaster Charleston's request, Rory happily gives Anna, a Chilton student and prospective Eli, the Yale grand tour, but the immature Anna manages to get both herself and her host in trouble with her party-crazed ways.

Wanting to make peace with Rory, Christopher shows up at Yale, but she brushes off his attempt at compromise. When Lorelai learns that Christopher's father just died, she spends the evening at his place trying to comfort him, then disdains to tell Luke the truth about where she was. Also, Emily & Richard are briefly reconciled when they find and take in a lost dog.

Rory offers to help Logan write an article for the Yale Daily, but she is disappointed when he doesn't invite her to be his date at a book signing party thrown by his father. When Richard sees Emily talking to a man she dated, he rear-ends her car, forcing her to ride home with him. The Gilmores reconcile and decide to renew their wedding vows. Emily warns Christopher that Lorelai and Luke are getting serious and he had better do something quickly if he hopes to end up with Lorelai.

Emily and Richard renew their vows in front of their closest friends with Lorelai as Emily's Maid of Honor, and Rory as Richard's Best Man. Luke gets in a fight with Christopher over Lorelai. Logan comes to the ceremony with a girl that looks like his girlfriend, and Rory gets jealous. Rory confronts Logan and Logan and Rory go a level up from flirting.

Big snits. Lane's peeved at Mrs. Kim. Lorelai won't speak to Emily. Rory will - very loudly. And Luke, miserable without Lorelai, burns the burgers and snarls at customers.

A Quentin Tarantino-themed party initiates a new phase in Logan and Rory's relationship. Emily and Lorelai stop not speaking and start yelling. Michel wins a very un-Michel prize: a motor home.

24/7 Huntzbergers. Rory starts work as Mitchum Huntzberger's intern. And Emily and Richard vie for Most Obsequious honors when they host a dinner for Logan. Lorelai receives a tempting job offer.

Sookie is surprised when her baby arrives early, Emily is surprised by an article about the Dragonfly, Luke is surprised when he's outbid on the Twickham house and Rory is surprised by her performance review.

Rory's World War II-themed DAR bash is pipperoo (even when suddenly impoverished Paris joins the proletariat as a server). But the bash goes smash when Richard confronts Mitchum Huntzberger.

Since Rory was a tyke, the Gilmore girls have planned her 21st birthday: in Atlantic City, sipping martinis, playing 21. But with the estrangement, Emily plans the birthday party - and it's soooo not Atlantic City.

With the news staff in revolt, Rory races to meet the paper's deadline. Logan pitches in, saving the day...and his relationship with Rory. For more rioting and insurrection, join the Gilmores for Friday night dinner.

Lorelai chauffeurs Emily, who's recovering from eye surgery. Paris and Doyle take care of Logan, home from the hospital. And Sookie and Jackson try to play it cool as they dispose of bags and bags of pot someone grew on their property.

Togetherness: Lorelai and Christopher start dating. Rory meets some artistic new friends. April moves in with Luke short-term and Emily gets up close and personal with the local constabulary.

A perfect autumn weekend finds Lorelai and Christopher attending Parents' Weekend at Yale - with Richard and Emily. Meanwhile, Luke has a date with a vegan. Yeah, that's going to work out.

After Richard's heart attack, Lorelai, Rory and Emily anxiously await news in the hospital waiting room. Then Logan arrives. Then Luke. But - despite frantic repeated phone calls from Lorelai - not Christopher.

Lorelai finally gets up the nerve to tell Emily that she and Christopher are phfffft. And Logan thought he bought an internet company. Instead his dreams of entrepreneurial glory bought the farm.

Pomp and circumstances. Rory's graduation brings the expected: tears, hugs, a Richard-and-Emily party, a communal bottle of champagne and a diploma. And it brings the unexpected - a heartfelt suggestion from Logan.