Rory has a dream that she’s back at Chilton. Headmaster Charleston comes to the classroom and says there’s been a mistake and she has to leave. Then she gets home and Lorelai says she’s going to Hawaii. Paris and Doyle are in the kitchen having dinner with their kids. Doyle gives her money and then Paris sends her off to her job picking up trash. I guess this is a stress dream brought on by her rejection from the New York Times.

At Friday night dinner, Emily and Richard announce they’ve bought a place in New York and Rory can stay there when she goes to work for the Times. Rory has to tell everyone she didn’t get the fellowship. She gets a letter the next day from the Chicago Sun Times. They’re not hiring. She calls the Providence newspaper she turned down, but they’ve filled the position. Rory goes home to Stars Hollow and cries to Lorelai that she’s never going to get a job. Ugh. She calls Logan, and he tells her things will be looking up in the next few days.

Lorelai goes to the diner and Luke is wearing his blue baseball cap, the one Lorelai gave him. Lorelai gives him some advice about his boat trip with April, which he takes. He’s really excited about the trip, but then April calls and says she’s gotten into a prestigious science camp and won’t be able to go with him. She’s really upset, but Luke tells her he’s proud of her and they can take the trip next year.

Zack gets a call from a great band. Their lead guitarist has broken his hand and they want Zack to take his place on their two month summer tour. Lane is ecstatic until she realizes taking a couple of babies on tour would be really difficult. Lane says she can’t go, but she still wants Zack to take the opportunity.

The whole town goes to see Patty and Babette do a weird cabaret act, and everyone does karaoke afterward. Rory says the only thing that will cheer her up about her job woes is if Lorelai gets up and sings. Lane and Zack convince Luke to come, and he gets there just in time to see Lorelai drunkenly singing “I Will Always Love You.” She catches his eye and everyone notices that she seems to be singing to Luke.

I always feel awkward when people sing on the shows I watch.

Logan shows up at Lorelai’s house and tells her he’s been offered a job in California and he wants Rory to come with him. He’s asking Lorelai for Rory’s hand in marriage. Lorelai, as you can expect, doesn’t take this very well.

Lorelai and Rory are both busy and they keep missing each other. Lorelai spends the night at Jason’s and they both end up making business calls in the bedroom. Then Emily calls and Lorelai gets out of bed and puts on clothes because she doesn’t want to be half naked while talking to her mother. Emily says Gran is coming to town and Lorelai has to have lunch with them. She also insists Lorelai get her hair cut before lunch, so Lorelai goes crazy trying to get the salon to work her in.

Paris is annoyed that Janet’s boyfriend is getting too comfortable around the suite. Lane overhears them arguing and Janet makes fun of Paris for being a lonely spinster. She tells Paris she should just tell Janet about Asher. Paris, who thought Rory was the only one who knew about Asher, goes to Rory and says Lane needs to get the hell out. Rory asks Janet and Tana what they think, and they say it’s weird that Lane is staying there. Lane knows what’s coming and she says it’s time to move on. Rory leaves a message for Lorelai asking if Lane can stay with her. Lane goes to the diner and asks for her job back. Then she runs into her mom. She tells her she’s staying with Lorelai, but Mrs. Kim doesn’t seem to want to talk to her.

While Lorelai is in the middle of getting her hair shampooed, a delivery guy calls and says there’s nobody at the inn to sign for the sink. Sookie is supposed to be there, but she’s not answering her phone. Lorelai rushes over there with wet hair, but the sink guy is gone. Then she goes to Sookie’s and yells at her. Sookie doesn’t really seem to grasp the severity of the situation and they have a fight.

Dean calls Rory and says he’s been offered a job with the contractor on the Dragonfly and he wants to know if that’s going to be awkward for her. She says it’s fine with her. Tom the contractor comes to Lorelai and Sookie and asks if the checks are getting lost in the mail. Lorelai has apparently not been paying him. They’re having money issues and Lorelai asks Luke to dinner so she can ask him for a loan.

Of course Gran notices that Lorelai hasn’t had her hair cut. Richard introduces Jason to Gran and she makes him feel awkward when he gives her a present. Gran makes Lorelai admit that she’s in financial trouble. She yells at Emily and Richard for not helping their daughter. Richard starts yelling at his mother and Emily looks smug.

Rory talks to a professor about a paper she wrote. He tells her it seems like she’s overloaded her schedule and should maybe drop a class or two. He’s very nice about it and tries to tell her it’s not a big deal, but she of course takes it badly. She goes to the Dragonfly to find Lorelai, but Lorelai isn’t there so she ends up talking to Dean and crying on his shoulder about how she needs to talk to her mommy.

While that’s going on, Lorelai goes to Luke and says she needs to postpone their dinner because she’s just so stressed out. She ends up crying to him about all her troubles.

Lane: I’m staying at Lorelai’s.

Mrs. Kim: Wear socks.

Gran: Shall we all take turns guessing how long it will be before lunch is served?

Other notes:

• Richard is growing a mustache and Emily hates it.
• The Dragonfly gets its first reservation.
• This episode is like two days long, but that’s all the time it takes for the Gilmore Girls to have withdrawals from each other.

Paris and Janet hate each other because Janet gets up early and wakes up Paris. This for some reason makes Paris turn off Rory’s alarm so Rory almost misses breakfast. She runs to the dining hall in her robe and slippers and Marty comes up to her and asks her to come meet his friends. He tells her he’s been too embarrassed to talk to her until now, but the pajamas made her approachable.

A guy named Trevor asks Rory to dinner, but she’s not really interested because he’s going to move to Barcelona next year so there can’t be a relationship. Lorelai convinces her to just date a little and have fun, so Rory awkwardly gets Trevor to ask her out again so she can accept.

Lorelai has found an interior designer, Natalie, for the Dragonfly, but she kind of freaks out when she finds out Natalie worked for Emily a while back. She tells Sookie she wants to find another designer, but Sookie tells her to deal with it because Natalie is the best.

Luke is all snippy about giving away some baseball tickets to some guy named Ed. Lorelai asks him what his problem is, and he says he bought the tickets for him and Nicole a long time ago and he’s kind of bummed. Lorelai feels bad for him and invites him to come over and watch a movie.

Lorelai goes to Friday night dinner and Emily yells at her for not telling her Sookie was pregnant. She won’t tell Lorelai who told her, so Lorelai assumes it was Natalie. Natalie says she hasn’t spoken to Emily in a year, so Lorelai feels better.

Rory goes on her date wearing the first of her ridiculous and horrible college outfits. Hot pink shirt with pale pink ugly skirt. Ugh. I think all the learning going on at Yale has made her forget how to dress herself. Rory has a terrible time on her date because she’s so freaking weird and the only thing she can think to talk about is the fact that people have found traces of urine in the mints restaurants keep out for patrons. She calls Lorelai while Trevor is in the bathroom because she can’t even get through a date without her mommy. She’s feeling awkward because Trevor is sitting on the same side of the table as her, so Luke, who is at Lorelai’s for movie night, suggests she say there’s a draft and switch sides.

The phone rings while Lorelai is in the kitchen so Luke answers it. It’s Emily. She’s pissed because she called Natalie to do some work, but Natalie blew her off. She says that after some pushing, Natalie said Lorelai didn’t want her to work for Emily.

Rory goes to do some laundry at Yale and meets a cool guy. They talk about music and stuff for a minute, but he totally rejects her when she asks him if he wants to go out sometime.

Emily: Rory, you’re in Yale, not Amsterdam.

Luke, about the FBI warning before the movie: What’s that?

Lorelai borrows Luke’s truck to take Rory’s stuff to Yale, but she doesn’t know how to drive a stick. She ends up backing up all the way to the diner to tell him his truck is broken because she can’t get it out of reverse. He draws her a diagram for the gearshift instead of taking away the keys like any sane person would do.

Rory takes notes during her tour of the campus and a couple of snotty bitches make fun of her. One of her suitemates, Tana, is super awkward and weird. She doesn’t know how to make small talk, so the first thing she says to Rory is that she’s adopted. Lorelai goes to leave, but then she sees some of the stuff other kids are bringing into their dorm rooms. She decides Rory needs more cool dorm things so she goes shopping.

Paris shows up at the dorm. She’s decided to go to Yale. Terrence, her life coach, felt that Rory and Paris still had a ways to go on their life journey together, so Paris had her father arrange for them to be roommates. Paris now has a craft table and she can’t stand Tana.

Luke gets his divorce papers and Nicole’s lawyers don’t believe he doesn’t want anything from her. After arguing with them for a while, he gets Lorelai to tell them he doesn’t want anything. It doesn’t help. Luke and Lorelai go back to Yale with more stuff, and there’s a whole bit with the Yale mattress that is kind of exhausting. They get Rory all set up and then leave. They get all the way back to Stars Hollow, and then Lorelai gets a text from Rory that says, “Come back.” So Lorelai takes the truck again so she doesn’t have to go home for the Jeep. She hangs out in the dorm all night, orders a ton of food to find out which places are the best and invites all the other girls from the dorm to hang out in Rory’s suite. Everyone has a blast and the snotty bitches who made fun of Rory earlier tell her they’re having a great time.

Lorelai spends the night at the dorm, and finally goes home the next morning to her sad and empty house. Meanwhile, the snotty bitches come by the suite to tell Rory they “Lorelaied” some places and found some really good coffee.

I’m not even going to tell you how sickened I am about Lorelai spending the night at the dorm.

Paris: My glue gun leaked on my macaroni!

Rory gets her application to Harvard and can’t wait to get started. She plans to write her essay about Hilary Clinton (ugh). Chilton hosts a seminar about what colleges are looking for on applications. One of the panelists says applicants really need to be original, especially in the essay section. Way too many kids are sending in essays about Hilary Clinton. This gets Rory all freaked out. Then Emily scares Lorelai when she starts talking about “that insipid Kate Hudson” and how movie stars going to Ivy League schools are taking up spots so regular people can’t get in. She also says she heard admissions offices don’t even look at applications and they just randomly place them in “yes” and “no” piles.

Lorelai talks to Headmaster Charleston, who says a good way to allay some fears is to set up an alumnus dinner. He gives them the number of a Harvard graduate, Darren Springsteen, and the girls go to his house for dinner to talk about the application process. The Springsteen family is totally bizarre. They fancy themselves Kennedy-esque and have quizzes at the dinner table. Poor Lorelai keeps getting stumped. The two teenage kids are dressed pretty much the same and seem vaguely incestuous. Rory goes upstairs to use the bathroom and runs into the mysterious third child that nobody talks about. She’s decided to work instead of go to college, so she’s totally ostracized by the rest of her family. After the dinner, Lorelai and Rory both feel much better about the whole college thing.

Taylor wants to open a soda shop next to the diner. At a town meeting, he presents a diorama illustrating his idea. Everyone makes fun of his model, but they all think a soda shop would be fun so they vote to allow it. Luke is not happy. After the meeting, Jackson asks Lorelai what she’s going to do with Rory’s room when she goes to college, and Dean comes out of nowhere and asks if Rory’s going to break up with him when she goes to Harvard. Now the girls are freaking out about college again.

Lane has been banging away on the drums and now she wants to find a band to play in. She writes an ad and meets Dave Rygalski. He’s totally hot in a nerdy way and Lane likes him instantly.

Luke: I don’t like the extra P and E at the end of “shoppe.”