Lorelai has a crazy dream about the real Paul Anka and the dog Paul Anka and she calls Rory to tell her all about it.

Rory is still freezing out Logan. She takes a piece away from him for the paper and uses his research to write it herself. When she gets home from the paper, Colin and Finn are there. They’re all planning a Life and Death Brigade stunt that involves jumping out of a plane and white water rafting. Rory has to spoil their fun by talking about how dangerous it’s going to be. The other guys leave and Logan says he’s pissed that Rory hasn’t forgiven him yet. He packs his bag and leaves the next day.

Luke leaves for his trip with April’s math class. He has a good time on the bus and talks to a kid named Freddy. April later tells him she has a crush on Freddy and Luke should go sit with the other parents. The trip takes them to Philadelphia, so Luke takes April to the bookstore Jess runs. It’s some kind open house and Rory shows up, too. She and Jess kiss, and then Rory kind of freaks out. She can’t bring herself to cheat on Logan because she’s in love with him. Jess is upset.

Mrs. Kim brings her wedding dress to Lorelai and asks her to alter it for Lane to wear. It’s huge and horrible and there are pants. Lane asks Lorelai to do something drastic to it. Lorelai makes no promises, but when she gets it on the mannequin, she purposely pours coffee all over it so she has an excuse to really change it.

Lorelai sees her parents walking around Stars Hollow looking at houses. She says hello to them and they act very mysterious. She walks around with them and talks about how horrible Stars Hollow is. Emily runs off, and Lorelai and Richard find her later at the diner playing Go Fish with some strange kid. She thinks the kid is April. Lorelai tells her she and Luke have agreed that Lorelai won’t be involved in April’s life. Emily assumes it’s all Lorelai’s fault.

Emily: This isn’t Luke’s daughter? Here I was bonding with it!

A couple of little girls come up to Luke at the diner and ask him to sponsor their soccer team. He says he’s not interested, but Lorelai convinces him to do it. Luke goes nuts to make sure they get the very best uniforms. He and Lorelai go to a game and are appalled at how competitive the girls are and how crazy the other parents are.

Emily is driving Rory crazy. She’s always trying to find out what she’s doing and where she’s going, and Rory can’t stand it. Logan has to go to Omaha with his father for some kind of thing at a paper, and he wants to go out the night before. They go to a pub where the guys get really drunk and mock the poor folk singer. Rory has to take Logan, Finn and Colin home, but Logan doesn’t go quietly. He does not want to go to stupid Omaha with his father. When Rory gets home that night, she finds Jess waiting for her.

Jess and Rory go upstairs to Rory’s room, and Rory shoves a pillow under the door so they can talk. Rory kind of tells Jess everything that’s been going on with Yale and Lorelai. He tells her he’s been living in Philadelphia and he’s published a small novel with a small printing company. Rory is really happy for him, and he says he never would have been able to do it without her. They agree to meet the next night for dinner.

Jess meets Rory at the Gilmore house the next night just as Logan pulls up. He’s come home early and is there to surprise Rory. Things are incredibly awkward because Logan has a touch of the jealous. Logan says he’d like to join them for dinner. Logan acts like kind of an ass all night. Jess decides he’s had enough abuse, so he walks out. Rory follows him and Jess says he wants to know what the hell is going on with her. She should be at Yale, living on campus and not dating some asshole. He says this isn’t her. She says she doesn’t know what her problem is.

Rory goes back inside and yells at Logan for being such a jackass. She suddenly starts yapping about how she hates living with her grandparents and being in the DAR. When she says all she and Logan do is drink and party, Logan gets pissed and says it’s his choice if he wants to party, because he’s going to have to start working for his father in June and then his life will be over. Logan leaves Rory to get a cab. She decides not to go home, but goes to Lane’s instead. The next day, she runs into Emily at a DAR function she’s planned. Emily is pissed and says Rory should have come home the night before. They get into an argument and Emily says Rory is grounded and can’t spend the night at Paris’ anymore. Rory says she’s been sleeping at Logan’s. Emily says she has to abide by the rules, but Rory says she’s moving out.

Paul Anka the dog has been taking Lorelai’s shoes from the bedroom and lining them up pair by pair at the bottom of the steps. He’s also been scratching at the door to Rory’s room and Lorelai doesn’t know why. She takes him to the vet, but he just says it’s a bug and she should let him be. Luke wakes up one morning and finds Lorelai in Rory’s room. Paul Anka is on the bed and Lorelai is nervous about him being sick. She slept in the chair in the bedroom. She says she feels like she’s a bad mother.

Logan: I hurt her feelings.

Rory: She’s a folk singer. She’s used to it.

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?

Lorelai sees Jess reading a magazine in the town square and averts her eyes. Then the camera swings around and we see he’s really reading one of Luke’s self help books.

Tana introduces Rory to her boyfriend, Chester. He lost a bet and can only speak in clichés for the whole day. Tana shows Rory a collage she made of all the pictures she’s taken this year. Everyone else in the collage is couples, so Rory feels insecure about the fact that she hasn’t had a boyfriend all year.

Lorelai goes to Mrs. Kim’s to get a door knocker for the inn, and Mrs. Kim gives her some mail to give to Lane. Lorelai says she thinks Mrs. Kim should talk to Lane herself and resigns as her mail carrier. Lane’s Aunt June comes to Lane’s apartment and says Mrs. Kim would like to visit. When Mrs. Kim comes for dinner, Zack and Brian are wearing ties and they try to serve her tea. Mrs. Kim didn’t know Lane was living with boys and it’s a little too much. She runs away and tells Lorelai there were boys at Lane’s house. Lorelai tells her to think of them as girls because they’re harmless.

At Friday night dinner, Lorelai interrogates Emily all night about where Richard is. Emily evades her questions and then she interrogates Rory to make sure she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Rory is packing up her room after her final the next day when Emily comes by to set her up with the son of one of her friends. The guy says a group is going out later to celebrate the end of the year and Rory is welcome to come along.

Lorelai meets Luke at the diner to go to the wedding. He tells her she looks beautiful. Liz’s friend, Crazy Carrie, flirts with Luke at the wedding until Lorelai makes her presence known. Carrie says Liz ripped her dress, so Lorelai goes to Miss Patty’s, where she’s getting ready, to help out. Liz tells Lorelai she’s going to make a great sister-in-law for someone one day. Before she leaves Miss Patty’s, Lorelai notices some self help books in Jess’ bag.

The wedding is really kind of cool, if strange. Everyone is wearing costumes and the second troubadour is the minister. TJ walks up the aisle talking about how much he likes wearing tights. Luke, Lorelai and Jess spend the whole time trying not to laugh. Lorelai tells Luke about the books in Jess’ bag and mocks him a little. Luke gets defensive and tells her Jess is trying to be a better person and she shouldn’t be so judgmental. They both apologize later and then dance together. Luke walks Lorelai home, and before she goes inside he says they should have dinner together next week.

Rory decides to go out with Emily’s friend’s son and she has a terrible time. It’s like eight guys all getting drunk, so she sits at a table by herself. The guys decide to leave, but the guy driving is totally smashed so Rory decides to stay at the bar and take a cab. Then she realizes she doesn’t have any cash so she calls her married ex-boyfriend to come pick her up. She and Dean end up having dinner together.

Jess is very calm and very polite in this episode. He waits around after the wedding until Luke comes home, and then tells him he appreciates everything Luke did for him. Then he leaves and goes to Yale to try to get Rory back. Dean is just walking Rory to her door when Jess show up. Dean gets snippy, but Rory tells him to go. Jess tells Rory he wants her to come to New York and be with him. He tells her she can count on him now. She tells him no, and he leaves, dejected.

Rory: Oh, no. Not Jesus. I’m sick of him and Mel Gibson.

Liz: I don’t want to screw up this marriage even more than I want some pot.

Lorelai can’t sleep because she can’t stop thinking about Dragonfly stuff. The opening is coming up and she’s really stressed. She goes to the diner before it’s even open. Luke lets her in and gives her some coffee and tells her everything will be fine. He comes by the inn later for a tour and they go to the kitchen, where Sookie introduces Lorelai to their new poultry supplier. It’s clear she’s trying to set them up, so Lorelai makes Luke pretend to be her fella. After the guy leaves, Luke and Lorelai have a chat about how much relationships suck. Later that day, Luke goes to the bookstore and gets some self help audio books on the subject. After listening to the tapes for a while, he realizes he’s in love with Lorelai.

Dean is working late at the Dragonfly to help get it ready for the opening, and Sookie and Lorelai overhear Lindsay and Dean arguing. She’s bored and annoyed that he’s always working.

Liz and TJ come to Stars Hollow and tell Luke they’re getting married. It’s going to be a renaissance wedding in the town square. Luke asks if Jess is coming and Liz says he can’t make it. Luke finds out where Jess is living in New York, and he goes to his apartment to tell him to come to the wedding. Jess says no, but then he shows up at the diner and says he’s not paying for a hotel room so he’s staying at Luke’s.

Paris calls Rory because Asher is in the hospital. It’s angina. Paris finally realizes Asher is old and she thinks maybe it’s time to break up with him. When she goes into his hospital room to tell him, they end up talking and making plans for Paris to accompany Asher to Oxford for the summer.

Lorelai and Michel go to Sookie’s for a Dragonfly meeting. Jackson is sleeping in the garden to keep the zucchini warm so it’s good for the soup Sookie is going to make on opening night. Everyone goes outside to sit with him, and they all fall asleep in the zucchini patch and don’t wake up until morning.

TJ’s bachelor party is at some ridiculous place where the girls mud wrestle. Jess goes, but ends up reading the whole time. TJ says Liz wants Jess to walk her down the aisle at the wedding, but Jess says he’s not interested. TJ gets mad and knocks the book out of his hand. It turns into a brawl and everyone gets kicked out.

Jess and Luke go back to the diner and Luke calmly says he’s done trying to change Jess. He tells him he should just go home if he hates him and Liz so much. Jess says he doesn’t hate anyone and he didn’t want to come to Stars Hollow because of Rory. He tells Luke he saw Rory at the Firelight Festival and told her he loved her. Luke starts spouting some self help stuff from his tapes, and somewhere during his recitation he decides it’s time to move forward with his life. The next day, Luke asks Lorelai to be his date to the wedding. Then he goes home and gives his self help books to Jess.

Doctor at the hospital: The procedures are the procedures.

Paris: Oh, really? I thought the procedures were a hat.

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.

This is the Jess in California episode, which I’m really not a fan of so I’m going to be a terrible blogger and skip the California stuff. Basically, he finds Jimmy, meets Jimmy’s really annoying girlfriend and her kid, and then gets Jimmy to let him stick around for while.

Back in Stars Hollow:

Luke comes over one morning to tell Lorelai that Jess has left town. Rory has been stressing really bad over graduation stuff, so Lorelai decides not to tell her right away.

Lorelai finds out Rory didn’t qualify for financial aid for Yale. She’s kind of freaking out.

Miss Celine, the Gilmores’ fashion consultant, helps Emily and Richard pick out their outfits for graduation. They make Rory come over after school to help them. Lorelai goes to pick her up later, and Emily pretends dinner isn’t ready yet because she doesn’t want to invite Lorelai to stay. Then she says they have plans and Lorelai makes a big deal about the whole thing and asks if Rory would be allowed to stay for dinner if she wanted to. Emily says yes, but they’re going out. Then Richard comes down and says of course they don’t have any plans and he’s delighted that Rory’s staying. Rory, who has too much shit to do before she graduates, apologizes and says she has to go. Then she tells Emily her fight with Lorelai is stupid.

On the way home, the girls get stopped at the stoplight in front of the diner. Luke is sweeping the sidewalk, but when he sees Rory, he drops his broom and runs inside. Lorelai finally tells Rory that Jess is gone.

When they get home, Lorelai looks through Rory’s yearbook and sees that a lot of the kids who signed it are congratulating her for being named valedictorian. Instead of being weirded out and hurt by the fact that Rory didn’t think this was important news that she should share, Lorelai smiles and tells Rory she can freak out about graduation as much as she wants.

Fran from Weston’s Bakery has died. Sookie and Lorelai go to the funeral and act in a totally inappropriate manner. Fran had no children, so they have no idea who owns the Dragonfly now. They talk to the lawyer in charge of the estate and he tells them that as long as their check clears, the place is theirs.

After the funeral, Dean takes Rory aside and says he asked Lindsay to marry him. Then he gets pissed when she doesn’t immediately jump up and down for joy. He says Jess treats her like dirt and it’s too bad she can’t be happy for him. Oh, shut up, Dean.

Dave shows up at Lane’s in a suit. He tells Mrs. Kim he wants to take Lane to the prom and lists the reasons why he would be an okay person for Lane to hang around with (my favorite is that he doesn’t like soda because the carbonation freaks him out). Mrs. Kim cryptically quotes something and won’t tell him what it means. Dave comes back the next morning, still in his (now rumpled) suit. He tells Mrs. Kim he stayed up all night reading the Bible trying to find the quote but he couldn’t find it and he really just wants to take Lane to prom. Mrs. Kim says it was Shakespeare, but she’s really impressed that he read the entire Bible in one sitting. She herself has only done it three times. She says Dave can take Lane to the prom.

Jess’ father comes to town. Jess has never met him, but Luke has. He goes to Jimmy’s hotel and tells him to leave. Jimmy goes back to the diner after close one night and tells Jess he’s his father. He says he thought Luke would have told him he was in town. Jess is angry because Luke didn’t tell him anything. They sit down for a minute, and then Jimmy runs out. Jess yells at Luke for not telling him about Jimmy. Then he says he’s not graduating. When he refuses to agree to repeat the year, Luke tells him he has to go.

Lorelai starts asking Rory about prom dresses, and Rory freaks out and tells Lorelai everything that’s been going on with Jess and she doesn’t even know if she’s going to the prom. The next morning, Jess is on Rory’s bus to school. They chat for a minute and Jess says he couldn’t get tickets to the prom. After Rory gets off the bus, we see Jess’ big duffle bag.

Also in this episode:

• Taylor’s finally opening his soda shoppe.
• Lorelai calls Emily and tries to be nice, but Emily is still angry.

Jess: More coffee coming up. Glad to make your dining dreams come true.

The Gilmore girls sit around trying to remember what they used to do on Friday nights. Rory decides to call her grandparents because she feels weird not talking to them at all. The Gilmores are having a party.

The Booster club wants Lorelai to help out with something, so she goes to the meeting and is surprised when Max is the faculty adviser. He acts polite and distant, which freaks Lorelai out. After the next meeting, Lorelai corners Max in his office and tries to claim she was totally in love with him and she doesn’t know why she called off the wedding. Max really doesn’t want anything to do with her and says he doesn’t want to see her again. Surprisingly, Lorelai backs off and says she’ll respect Max’s wishes.

Lorelai offers Luke and Nicole a room at the inn for some reason. Because of the fire, most of the staff has been let go so Lorelai ends up doing turndown service. She makes it as totally awkward as possible. Seriously, it’s like she’s trying to make it an uncomfortable experience.

Jess gets called to the principal’s office. He’s told he won’t be graduating and therefore isn’t allowed to go to prom. This sucks because Rory was really looking forward to going to the Stars Hollow High prom and hanging out with Lane and stuff.

Lane’s band has their first gig: a party at a guy named Kyle’s house. Dave is annoyed with Young Chui because he won’t stop hanging around Lane. But without Young Chui, Lane wouldn’t be allowed to go to the party at all. Dave has finally had enough and he breaks up with Lane. After Jess shows the guys how to work the keg, Lane gets some beer. She drunk-dials her mom and tells her she’s in a rock band and is in love with Dave.

Jess has been crabby all night, and Rory finds him sulking in Kyle’s bedroom upstairs. They make out for a minute, but when Jess starts going for her belt, she tells him to stop. He’s frustrated and yells at her, and Rory leaves the room in tears. The first person she sees is Dean. When he sees Jess come out of the room after her, he figures he must have made her cry so he punches Jess. A big fight ensues and they end up on the front lawn. The cops come and tell everyone to go home.