‘Gilmore Girls,’ Season Three: 4 Must See, Absolutely Essential Episodes

After many years of losing at the dance marathon to Kirk — truly one of the only things he’s consistently successful at — Lorelai low-key forces Rory to be her partner. The two are doing well until Jess and his girlfriend Shane show up to do nothing but sit on the bleachers and make Rory (and Dean!) uncomfortable. Whilst in the 23rd hour of the dance marathon an exhausted and fed up Rory goes off on Jess. Dean has enough, breaks up with Rory on the dance floor in front of the whole town, and storms out. Rory runs off to the spot where Luke pushed Jess in a lake and when Jess realizes that Rory is really broken up with Dean, he rushes off to break up with Shane so that he and Rory can be official.

This is the quintessential Gilmore episode — there’s a crazy town event, even crazier townies, boy drama, and mother/daughter bonding. What everyone with a pulse was expecting — read: hoping for — finally came true when Dean woke up from his dopey slumber and realized that Rory was not into him, but rather Jess. And thus the shortest, but best, of Rory’s relationships’ begins. Though the relationship is tumultuous, it is an important one for Rory’s character. The relationship pushes her out of her comfort zone, forces her to look at the world through a different lens, and gives her a guy that will always tell her the hard truth whether or not they’re together (like the season six “Why did you drop out of Yale” speech).

Meanwhile, Sookie and Jackson are fighting about the number of kids’ they want to have — four in four is a little ambitious — and it prompts Luke and Lorelai to discuss if they want kids’ in the future. I think we all collectively swooned when they both realized that kids’ were a mutual want. As if this episode wasn’t delightful enough we’re also treated to Dave Rygalski’s adorable flirtation with Lane.

[Watch “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?” on Netflix]

When Sherry goes into labor with Chris’s baby — the baby that essentially ruined any possibility for Lorelai and Chris to be together — Rory rushes to the hospital to welcome little Gigi into the world. When Chris is running late and no one is at the hospital with Rory, Lorelai rushes there and flashbacks to her own pregnancy, delivery, and the immediate aftermath of both.

With glimpses into Lorelai’s past the audience is allowed further understanding into the family dynamics that make up the Gilmores. We see Lor and Chris as ambitious, adventurous kids who are planning to say a collective “screw you” to their parents and take off for Europe following their high school graduation. All of that is thrown by the wayside when Lorelai gets pregnant with Rory. Chris’s father suggests terminating the pregnancy, while Richard offers marriage and a spot for Chris at his company. Chris agrees with the terms, but Lorelai is too independent to follow what her parents’ want for her so she leaves the house with Rory and no word other than a note for Richard and Emily.

In the present, Lorelai can’t help but feel jealous that Christopher is experiencing all of the things with Sherry that he didn’t with her. That coupled with a semi-disastrous one-on-one dinner with Emily is enough to fully understand both women’s emotions surrounding Rory’s conception and birth and Lorelai’s departure from home at such a young age. The episode gives great insight and offers much understanding regarding how and why both women have acted in the defensive and oftentimes hurtful ways they have thus far in the series.

[Watch “Dear Emily and Richard” on Netflix]

With Rory itching to go to prom at Stars Hollow High, Jess agrees to take her, but when he goes to get the tickets he learns that he isn’t allowed to attend because he won’t be graduating. This puts Jess in a bad mood and when he and Rory attend the party that Lane’s band is playing, he takes out his frustrations on Rory leading to both the thing in Kyle’s bedroom and an epic fight between Jess and Dean. Also at the party, Lane gets frustrated with her fake boyfriend situation and decides to get drunk, call her mom, and confess to being in love with Dave. Meanwhile, Lorelai is forced by Headmaster Charleston to participate in the planning of Grad Night, which causes her to run into (and kiss!) none other than Max Medina.

This is the episode where a lot of people jumped off of the Team Jess train. Pushing Rory to have sex at a party — though he did stop when she said no — is inexcusable not matter his stress or annoyance level. It also shows, as if we didn’t know already, that Dean still loves Rory when he fights with Jess to protect her honor. The events in the episode prompt Jess to leave town without a word (the words are really Windward Circle) and thus crumbles Jess and Rory’s relationship.

The Lane storyline feels earned — everyone reaches the end of their rope eventually — and this is the first episode where both Lane and Rory act their age by going to a keg party, asking questions about sex and love, and expressing a feeling of not being understood. The Lorelai and Max situation is believable thanks to their fiery chemistry and Lorelai’s inability to make up her mind. Overall it’s an episode where mother and daughter are reeling for surprisingly similar reasons — they both want to be with a guy whom they really shouldn’t be with.

[Watch “Keg! Max!” on Netflix]

Rory’s graduation from Chilton has finally arrived and she’s the valedictorian, no less! If Rory’s speech — in which she praises her grandparents’, mother, and her love of books — doesn’t make you cry you honestly must be a robot because my goodness it’s a doozy. Meanwhile, Rory gets a call from Jess in which he stays silent and she proclaims, “I think I may have loved you.” Lorelai and Sookie secure The Dragonfly Inn, Luke and Nicole head off for their cruise — after Luke has a dream that Lorelai asked him not to go, Rory is gifted a car from her grandparents, and Lorelai and Rory are all set to head out on their European adventure.

The season ends on a fairly positive note — Lorelai is on the way to achieving her inn owning dreams, Rory finished school and is off to Europe and then Yale in the fall, and Richard and Emily are thrilled that Friday Night Dinners have been reinstated following their promise to pay for Yale. The two bummers of the episode — that Luke is with Nicole and not Lorelai and that Jess abandoned Rory in favor of living that beach life in Cali — pale in comparison to all of the joy.

This episode is the last of the Gilmore Girls viewers had grown accustomed to thus far. Of course the characters’ and the mother/daughter bond remains in future episodes (though the latter has a hiccup in season six), but once Rory heads off to Yale things do change a bit. There’s a whole new location, brand new characters’, and a lot more independence for Rory — which has, shall we say, some mixed results. New romances, revelations, and Gilmore family drama make up season four.

[Watch “Those Are the Strings, Pinocchio” on Netflix]