Katya Abelsky

Immediately upon returning from a whirlwind summer backpacking trip to Europe, Lorelai (series star LAUREN GRAHAM) and Rory (series star ALEXIS BLEDEL) Gilmore embark on a heavily scheduled week of mother/daughter activities, in bittersweet anticipation of Rory going away to Yale University as a freshman. But a number of situations conspire to make things harder than expected for them. After an exhausting day of handing out gifts to everyone--except, to Lorelai's dismay, coffee shop owner Luke Danes (series star SCOTT PATTERSON), for whom they couldn't find anything good enough--Rory is horrified to discover that she wrote down the wrong day for her departure. Instead of having a week and a half, they must do everything they had planned within three days. Meanwhile, Taylor Doose opens a soda shop near Luke's diner and, unbeknownst to Rory, hires eccentric resident Kirk to advertise her as the "Ice Cream Queen."

Hal is inadvertently responsible for a toxic chemical spill that forces a neighborhood evacuation; Malcolm deals with being grounded even in the emergency shelter; Francis suffers through a date with a geeky 12-year-old.

J.D. (Zach Braff) begins to think Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) may have feet of clay when his mentor seems unable to deal with his friend Ben's (guest star Brendan Fraser, "The Mummy") potentially fatal illness. Meanwhile, Turk (Donald Faison) is upset at the news that he isn't the best surgical intern on the team, but he's even more frustrated when he finds out who is; Dr. Kelso (Ken Jenkins) asks Elliot (Sarah Chalke) to write a supposedly anonymous evaluation of him -- but the joke's on Carla (Judy Reyes) when she volunteers to ghost-write. Christa Miller ("The Drew Carey Show") play's Cox' ex-wife and Ben's sister.