Rory goes to Lane’s and they play video games for a minute to see what all the fuss is about. Rory tells Lane all about Jess and his proposal to take her away. The conversation turns to Dean, and Rory says she always knew she could count on him and she regrets screwing things up with him so badly.

Lorelai tells Rory she thinks she’s dating Luke and asks what Rory thinks about that. Rory says they should go inside the diner and see what happens. That’s what they do, and when Luke says hi to her, Lorelai falls into a table and knocks things over.

Lorelai, Sookie and Michel have invited all their friends to the Dragonfly for a trial run before the official opening. As part of a ploy to get her parents to either make up or admit they’re having problems, Lorelai invites them, too.

Rory sees Dean walking down the street. She smiles and waves at him, but he frowns and walks away. She runs into him later at the Dragonfly and asks him what his problem is. He says he was worried that Rory and Jess were back together. She asks him why that would bother him so much and he says it’s because Jess doesn’t treat her right. He leans in for a kiss, but right then Tom the contractor walks in and interrupts. DEAN, YOU ARE MARRIED. STEP AWAY FROM RORY.

Kirk comes to Luke and says he’s worried about spending the night with Lulu at the Dragonfly. He has night terrors and usually ends up running around naked and he doesn’t want Lulu to see him like that. He says he requested the room next to Luke’s so Luke can keep an eye on him.

Guests start arriving at the Dragonfly for the trial run. Kirk asks Michel to take all the bookends and light bulbs out of his room. Emily and Richard show up and Lorelai puts them in the private bungalow. Luke brings Lorelai flowers and she runs into a door. Then Jason shows up. She tells him she can’t talk to him now, but he says he’s not leaving until she agrees to hear him out. He sits in the lobby all night. Luke asks Babette who Jason is, and she says he was Lorelai’s boyfriend for the last six months.

Emily comes in and yells at Lorelai for putting her and Richard in the bungalow when she knows they’re fighting. Then Richard comes in to do some yelling as well. They see Jason in the lobby and decide it’s time to leave. Later, Luke introduces himself to Jason and asks him who he is. Jason says he and Lorelai are dating because I guess he’s in denial or something. Luke goes to Lorelai and says she had to have known what he was doing with the movie invites and stuff and now he finds out she has a boyfriend. She tells him Jason is not her boyfriend. He yells for a minute and then they kiss. FINALLY! Then Kirk comes running down the stairs screaming.

Rory goes home to get some CDs to bring back to the Dragonfly. Dean follows her and they start talking about how they almost kissed earlier. Dean tells Rory that things aren’t working with Lindsay and they’re not happy. He and Rory start making out and then Rory loses her virginity. Lorelai comes home to tell Rory what happened at the inn and she sees Rory and Dean come out of Rory’s room with their clothes all rumpled. Dean leaves and Rory acts like the whole thing is no big deal. Lorelai tries to get her to see that this isn’t good and she can’t be sleeping with a married man, but Rory doesn’t really get it until she goes outside to call Dean and Lindsay answers the phone.

Luke: I’m not a mysterious man, am I?

Asher holds a book signing for his new novel and Paris is annoyed about all the other girls who hover around him and try to flirt. Doyle shows up at the reading and mentions to Rory that Asher dates a new freshman every year. Rory wrote a paper for Asher’s class, but she doesn’t feel like it was very good. When she gets an A, she tells Asher she wants to earn her grades and not get good grades because of her friendship with Paris. Asher is offended and tells her that her paper was great and she shouldn’t question his grading tactics.

Lane sees some other Korean girl walk out of her old house with Mrs. Kim. She’s a little jealous that Mrs. Kim has a new daughter. Lane attacks the girl on the sidewalk one day and finds out she’s a foreign exchange student.

Jason goes to the country club to work on his golf game and none of the other businessmen will talk to him. He can’t get a hold of his father or Richard. He finally gets a call from Richard’s lawyer, who informs him that Richard has gone back to Floyd’s company and taken all the clients. Now Jason has no clients and no prospects and is totally ruined. Lorelai goes to Richard to yell at him for treating Jason so badly. Richard tells her there was nothing else he could do and he’s a little upset that Lorelai doesn’t care what happens to him or Emily, only what happens to Jason. Emily overhears, and she tells Richard she’s worried that if he goes after Jason like this, Lorelai will stop talking to them. Richard is unsympathetic.

Lorelai tells Rory she doesn’t plan to go to Friday night dinner because of all the mess going on, but Rory is selfish and says it’s really important to her because sometimes it’s the only time she gets to see her mom. When they get to the house early, Richard answers the door himself and is surprisingly friendly and a little scatterbrained. Emily comes in the front door and won’t tell the Girls where she was. Lorelai and Rory hide in the bushes after dinner and see Emily get in her car and drive away. Lorelai calls hotels in town until she finds the one where Emily is staying. She tells Jason all about it, and then Jason says he’s suing Richard because it’s the only thing he can do. Lorelai breaks up with him because she can’t be with someone who is suing her family.

Lane’s band has a gig and it goes great. Lane tells Zack she wants to celebrate, but he goes to the bar to flirt with some groupies (one of whom is named Shannon – ew). Lane feels sad and lonely, so she goes to her old house late that night and kisses Mrs. Kim on the forehead while she’s sleeping.

Lorelai, to the maid: I’m looking for my father. Big guy, bowtie.

Also in this episode: Luke signs his divorce papers and mails them off.

Stars Hollow smells and nobody knows why. Kirk tells Taylor (who has a horrible new toupee) that the smell is coming from eggs hidden in the town square for Easter, which was a week ago. He was supposed to have made a map pointing out the locations of all the eggs, but he didn’t and now there are fifty-nine rotting eggs somewhere in the square. Kirk goes insane trying to find the eggs and make Taylor happy, but there are still twelve left. He doesn’t sleep for days. Luke finds the eggs for him and gives them to Kirk so he can tell Taylor he was the one who found them.

Jason and Richard acquire another company and go golfing to seal the deal. Jason’s father, Floyd, shows up on the golf course. He tells Richard he’d like to have dinner on Friday night. This is some big deal and Emily starts making preparations. Since it’s going to be on Friday, Lorelai and Rory will be there, too.

Lorelai sends Dean to Rory’s dorm with a bookshelf that doesn’t fit in at the Dragonfly. Dean says he’s taking time off from school so he can make money because Lindsay wants a townhouse. Rory can’t help but tell him what a bad idea she thinks it is and they have a big fight. Rory goes to the market with Lane and starts talking about how selfish Lindsay is for not working and making Dean drop out of college. Then she turns a corner and Lindsay is in the next aisle. She heard everything.

Lorelai is nervous about meeting Jason’s parents even though they don’t know she and Jason are dating. Things seem pleasant enough at first, and Rory leaves early because she has a paper to study for. After dinner, the girls go to the living room for drinks while the men go to the study for cigars. Floyd tells Richard he’s suing his company because Jason signed a no-compete clause. The men start yelling at each other and they take the argument into the living room, and that’s where Floyd announces that his private investigator told him Jason and Lorelai are dating. He and Jason’s mother leave, and Jason and Richard go back into study. Jason says he’ll fix things with his father.

Rory is driving home from dinner when Dean runs in front of her car and says he wants to talk to her. He drags her into an alley and tells her he’s sorry about their fight. He says Lindsay doesn’t want him to talk to Rory anymore, but he doesn’t want that to happen.

Richard’s business can’t afford a legal battle with Floyd, so the two of them go golfing together to make a deal. They decide Richard will come back to Floyd’s firm and have his own company under Floyd’s company’s banner. Jason is out.

Michel: I am not standing funny. This is how you stand in these pants.

Jason, about Emily and Richard: They keep moving everything back and forth. The cart, the heater, me. I used to be over there.

Janet is going to Florida for spring break. She invites Paris and Rory, but they’re going to stay on campus and stage a protest, something about Burmese prisoners. They set up their table in the courtyard, but it’s freezing and nobody is signing their petition anyway because everyone is on spring break. When it starts raining, Paris and Rory run inside and get under their covers. They decide to go to Florida after all.

Luke is crabby. He tells Lorelai it’s because he’s not wearing his own socks. He spent the night at Nicole’s, and when he got up in the morning and got some socks out of the drawer, he realized the socks were someone else’s. He calls Lorelai one night and asks her to come pick him up because he’s in jail. He waited outside his and Nicole’s place until she rolled up in some guy’s car. After she and the guy went inside, Luke kicked the guy’s car over and over again until a cop showed up and hauled him away.

Jason gives Lorelai a key to his apartment and she makes sure the conversation is as awkward as possible because I guess she doesn’t understand the significance of the key. He later tells her that they’re at a point in their relationship where he usually breaks it off, but he doesn’t want to break up with her and in fact he wants to see more of her.

Paris throws a lot of money around in Florida and manages to get a tent on the beach with chairs and refreshments. Madeline and Louise (who, let’s face it, always belonged in Florida on a perpetual spring break) show up. They’ve been on spring break for a month and they’ve realized they can get all kinds of free stuff from guys if they make out with each other. They take Paris and Rory to a club, and Paris wants to know why everyone else is having more fun than they are. Paris wants to have a real spring break, so she kisses Rory and then asks how good a kisser she is.

The girls get drunk together later, and Madeline goes through Rory’s phone and calls Dean. So Rory leaves him a drunken message and then hangs up. Later that night, Paris and Rory sit on the beach and realize they’ve had about as much fun as they can stand. They decide to use some of Paris’ frequent flyer miles to go home early.

Some girl: Is it raining?

Paris: No, it’s National Baptism Day. Tie your tubes, idiot.

Jess holds up traffic when he pushes his car to Gypsy’s. Rory goes to Weston’s for some coffee and Jess is there. He runs out when Rory walks in. She sees him later in the bookstore and he runs out the door again.

Emily is losing her mind because she hasn’t found enough people to fill her table at some charity function. Lorelai already said she’d go, and now Emily is saying she has to bring someone. Lorelai brings Rory, which isn’t what Emily wanted. She makes Lorelai sit next to Jason and pretend to be his date. Jason’s father comes by the table to say hello, and Richard thinks the man is planning something.

Lorelai runs into Liz and they have a talk about how awesome Luke is. Luke comes back to the diner and finds Liz and her boyfriend, TJ, cooking dinner in the apartment. Luke doesn’t want to hang out with him, but Liz drags him to the table to sit down. Jess walks in because he forgot something, and Liz makes him stick around for a minute, too. Jess leaves and Luke steps into the hallway to talk about what they’re going to do about TJ. Jess says he doesn’t care and Luke tries to convince him he should. Jess tells him to stop trying to fix everyone’s problems all the time.

Lorelai has broken a window in the living room and the whole house is freezing. She puts up some plastic wrap with Barbie Band-Aids. Luke, upset about what Jess said, gets drunk and comes over to fix it. Lorelai isn’t home and the door is locked, so he climbs a tree and comes in through her bedroom window. Luke cuts his hand and Lorelai comes home in time to put a Barbie Band-Aid on his hand. He tells her what Jess said, so Lorelai finds Jess at Gypsy’s and starts yelling at him for being mean to Luke.

Stars Hollow is having their Founders Firelight Festival. Luke goes and overhears TJ talking about how great Liz’s earrings are and how much people love them. Luke goes to TJ and tells him he approves of him. TJ says Luke is a dick. Liz gives Luke some earrings to give to his wife – or Lorelai. Luke gives the earrings to Lorelai.

Rory and Jess see each other and Rory says it’s her turn to run away. Jess chases her around town for a minute. She finally stops and says she wants to know what he has to say to her. He says he loves her and then gets in his car and drives away.

Emily: It’s a complete disaster!

Lorelai: My existence?

Luke: Got a handful of Barbie.

Luke’s sister, Liz, comes to town for her twenty year high school reunion. She tells Luke that she has a new boyfriend who’s great. Luke is wary because her boyfriends usually screw her over somehow. Liz says she’s really gotten her life together these days. She makes jewelry and sells it at renaissance fairs.

Jamie is in town and Paris is acting like she doesn’t have time for him. He comes to Rory and asks her what’s going on, so Rory tells Paris she needs to do something about her boyfriend situation because it’s not fair to string Jamie along while she’s sleeping with Asher. Paris calls Jamie and breaks up with him.

Jason comes to Stars Hollow for the day and the first thing he does is throw some road rage at Luke. Jason wants to get coffee at Luke’s because Lorelai goes there all the time and he wants to see it. Lorelai is reluctant, but agrees anyway. When they get to the diner, Jason recognizes Luke’s truck and doesn’t want to go in because he was tailgating him earlier.

Jason and Lorelai have a discussion and Lorelai agrees to tell her mother about their relationship, but as soon as she gets to Friday night dinner Emily starts talking about how much she hates Jason. She says Jason and Lorelai would be perfect together and then starts laughing hysterically at the absurdity of the idea of such a match. Lorelai decides now isn’t the best time to tell her.

Luke tells Liz he stole Jess’ car. He later goes to the garage where he’s been storing it, but the car is gone. Luke reports it stolen and the cops find it broken down on the highway with Jess inside it. The cops bring both Jess and the car to Luke. Jess is pissed that Luke stole his car. He’s going to be staying in town while the car gets fixed, but Luke says he can’t stay with him so he sleeps in his backseat. Rory and Lorelai see the car on their way home. Rory is weirded out and goes home, and Lorelai goes into the diner to tell Luke that it’s way too cold for Jess to be sleeping outside. Luke tells Jess he’s going to spend the night at Nicole’s so Jess can go sleep in the apartment.

Lorelai: Luke is the most complicated guy I know who also owns a Doobie Brothers record.

Other notes:

• Rory comes home and notices that the kitchen is full of real food instead of takeout and the movie channels are gone. She’s worried Lorelai is having money problems and she’s skimping.
• Lane is staying in Rory’s dorm. She’s cleaning up and getting coffee for everyone.

Rory and Paris participate in a Yale Daily News tradition: while the current newspaper staff works on getting the paper out, the potential staffers wait on them while wearing silly newspaper hats. Paris takes off after she gets a phone call and never comes back. She comes back to the dorm really late and makes a lot of noise to make sure she wakes up Rory. She tries to get Rory to ask her what she was doing, but Rory yells at her and says she doesn’t want to know. She’s been ignoring the thing going on with Asher and Paris because it grosses her out. She’s really uncomfortable when she finds out Asher is teaching one of her courses this semester.

Lorelai and Michel go to Sookie’s to talk about inn stuff, and Tobin is there. He’s Davie’s nanny. Michel, who hates Tobin and always feels jealous of him, offers to babysit one night. He calls Lorelai in a panic because Davie rolled under the bed and Michel can’t get him out. After Lorelai helps him, he says he hates Tobin. Lorelai tells him he doesn’t have to be jealous of Tobin.

Lorelai spends the night at Jason’s for the first time, and he asks her to sleep in the guest bedroom. He says it’s because he’s a really light sleeper and can’t sleep with someone else in the bed, but Lorelai thinks it’s an excuse to get her to leave. He manages to convince her when he shows her the coolest freaking bedroom I have ever seen. They talk the next morning and Lorelai says she doesn’t want to tell her parents about their relationship. Jason is reluctant and wants to tell them, but Lorelai is adamant.

Lorelai shows up for Friday night dinner and finds the historical society giving a walking tour of the house. During dinner, Emily talks about a function they went to the night before and she mentions Jason’s date. Lorelai is a little upset. Jason says he would rather have taken Lorelai and he wants to take her to future functions, but Lorelai says no way, she’d rather be jealous than tell her parents she’s dating him.

Paris: I smell like pipe tobacco.

Rory: Ah, jeez.

Other notes: Luke has hired Lane to work at the diner and he’s worried because she’s so good. He thinks she’ll get bored and want to quit.

Luke is surprisingly chipper one morning. It’s because he finally hired some help, a kid named Brendon. Brendon is awful and gross and stupid. Lorelai tries to tell Luke that he’s no good, but he doesn’t listen until he sees a line of people trying to get into Weston’s Bakery. They tell him they’re not eating at the diner anymore because of Brendon.

Jason is still sending Lorelai flowers and candy and trying to get her to go out with him. Rory says she should just go and see what happens, but Lorelai isn’t sure.

Richard comes to Yale and has lunch with Rory and Paris. Professor Asher Fleming comes by to say hello. He’s kind of a big deal and Paris is really excited to meet him. Richard and Emily are going to the Harvard-Yale football game and they invite Rory. Lorelai wants to go so she can hang out with Rory, so Emily and Richard have to disinvite someone. Lorelai shows up wearing red and her parents are horrified. Emily makes her put on her jacket and scarf. They all go and salute Dan, the original Yale mascot. Richard says it’s time to move on because they’re tailgating, which to the Gilmores consists of an RV with servants and bloody Marys.

Pennilyn Lott, the woman Richard was engaged to when Emily stole him away, comes by and says hello. Lorelai is retarded and calls her “my almost mommy.” She sees her again later outside the ladies room, and Pennilyn says she heard Lorelai was opening an inn. Emily overhears and then goes back to the RV and asks Richard how Pennilyn would know about the inn. Richard says he’s been having lunch with Pennilyn once a year for the last thirty-nine years. Emily yells and blames Lorelai because she spoke to Pennilyn. And instead of understanding that Emily is upset and maybe needs a minute to come to grips with the situation, she decides to get revenge: she calls Jason and says she’ll go out with him.

Jason takes Lorelai to a super fancy place where famous people go, and Lorelai is disappointed that Jason requested a private room where they can’t see all the famous people. He doesn’t know how to handle the situation, so he says they should just go. In the car, they realize they’re starving. Lorelai directs Jason to a drive-thru, but he says he doesn’t like Mexican food. They end up at a supermarket and eat at a table outside the store.

That night, Rory sees Paris making out with Asher Fleming.

Paris, to Richard: You are a honey-tongued devil, aren’t you, Dick?

Emily is crabby when she tells the Girls about the Atlantic City trip. Jason gets Richard set up with a wireless internet network, and Richard walks around the house with his laptop, totally amazed that he’s on the internet everywhere he goes. Jason is still trying to get Lorelai to go to dinner with him.

Rory is trying for a spot with the Yale Daily News. A review she writes of a chamber music recital doesn’t get printed and she freaks out. Doyle, the editor, tells her it’s because she’s trying too hard to be nice and what she really thinks is coming through. So she goes to a ballet recital and writes a scathing review. It gets published, but the ballerina hates her and writes “DIE JERK” on Rory’s suite’s door. She screams at Rory in front of everyone in the dining hall. Lorelai thinks it was too harsh, but Emily and Richard love it.

Lorelai and Michel go to Sookie’s to have a meeting about the Dragonfly, but Michel isn’t allowed to come inside because he sneezed five days ago and Sookie is afraid he’ll get Davie sick. Bruce the midwife is still there and she yells at Lorelai for babytalking Davie.

Mrs. Kim gives Lane a jug to send to Dave. Lane gets panicky because her mother once told her that jug is the “marriage jug” that she’s going to give to Lane’s husband one day. She tells her she can’t send it, and Mrs. Kim tells her it’s just a jug and she lied to Lane about it when she was a kid so she would stop crying or something.

Lorelai goes to the diner and acts all awkward and weird when she sees Nicole there. Why the hell can’t the Gilmore Girls just act like regular people? Why are they so awkward? Lorelai pretty much runs away from the diner, but goes back later and asks Luke what’s going on. She says she thinks it’s weird that he and Nicole are dating. They have a fight and Lorelai storms off in a huff.

Janet, to Rory: Made anyone mad lately?

Paris: Oh, please. That would be like Dorothy pissing off the Tin Man.

Richard: Emily, I’m going to Google you.

Emily: You most certainly are not going to Google me!

Richard and Jason sign the documents that make their partnership official and Emily starts planning a launch party for the company. She calls Sookie and asks her to cater the party, and of course Sookie mentions the catering company she and Lorelai started. Kirk is looking for a caterer as well. His brother’s ex-wife, Lulu, is coming to town for a visit and he wants Lorelai’s help getting ready for his date. She gives him some advice about what to wear and tells him to take Lulu somewhere comfortable. Kirk chooses Luke’s. He sets up a video camera and does a taped rehearsal the day before the date. He’s surprised when the date goes well.

Paris is fighting with Jamie, Janet has a squeaky trampoline and Tana watches television too loud, so Rory is having trouble studying. She goes outside and finds a super special tree with that “studying vibe” and calls her mom to tell her all about it. A few days later, there’s a guy sitting under it and Rory demands her tree back. She goes back a few days later and gives the guy twenty dollars for the tree. Now just think about that. You’re sitting outside and some strange girl in a horrible green suede skirt comes up to you and tells you you’re sitting under her tree. How would you even respond to such a thing?

Emily is mad that Lorelai never told her about the catering company. After Emily lays on the guilt for a while, Lorelai insists that she and Sookie be treated like any other company she would hire. Emily makes them do a trial run and use the servants’ entrance. She gets really far into the planning, but then Jason says he’s planned a trip to Atlantic City. Emily has to cancel the party, and she goes to Lorelai and says she’ll reimburse her and Sookie because they won’t be able to use them. Lorelai starts yelling because she thinks Emily just put her through a bunch of crap for no reason, but Emily kind of starts tearing up. She tells Lorelai that Jason changed the plans and now she feels old and obsolete.

Lorelai goes to Richard’s office and yells at Jason for making Emily feel like crap. They argue for a while, and then Jason asks her to have dinner with him. She manages to forget how mad she is when he says Emily would hate it if they dated. She doesn’t say yes, but you know she’s going to. A cute boy can make you forget all about your mother’s hurt feelings.

Kirk: Say I was Tom Cruise. Where would you seat me?

Luke: In an acting class.