It’s been more than 20 years since Gilmore Girls first introduced the world to Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, but Amy Sherman-Palladino’s dramedy masterpiece seems to have only grown more beloved since it first brought us to Stars Hollow. The series centers on a fast-talking mother-daughter duo, played so memorably by Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, and has captivated audiences over the years. With the series streaming on Netflix (along with the four-episode continuation Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life), longtime fans can watch it again and again while new viewers can discover its charms for the very first time.

Gilmore Girls is the ultimate comfort show, a warm blanket of family, friendship, and romance, stuffed with snappy dialogue and taking place in the eternal autumn of small-town Connecticut. No matter the season, we could all use some of that comfort. Here’s a list of some of the most essential episodes of the series, guaranteed to make you want to return to Stars Hollow for more.

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Season 1, Episode 9: “Rory’s Dance”

This episode centers around a school dance where Rory’s high school suitors, Dean (Jared Padalecki) and Tristan (Chad Michael Murray), nearly come to blows over the youngest Gilmore. After Rory and Dean split from the event and spend the whole evening together, Emily (Kelly Bishop), Lorelai’s mother and Rory’s grandmother, assumes the worst, lashing out at Lorelai for making the same mistakes she regrets — which results in Lorelai lashing out at Rory when she finally comes home. While other high school shows might contain themselves to the realm of teenage angst, this episode zooms out to show the consequences of generational wounds passed down. It underlines that, at its heart, Gilmore Girls is a show about broken-family dynamics and how they may or may not heal over time.

Gilmore Girls

7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 2, Episode 5: “Nick & Nora/Sid & Nancy”

This episode marks the introduction of a young Milo Ventimiglia, an event akin to an atomic bomb going off in the show. As Luke’s (Scott Patterson) troubled nephew with a checkered past, Ventimiglia shines in his breakout role as Jess Mariano, a fireball of bottled angst and charisma that captures Rory’s heart as much as the audience’s. Luke’s fever pitch frustration with his nephew reaches a perfect climax as he pushes Jess into the lake, a cathartic scene for viewers who may have wanted to do the same themselves. From here on out, the audience for Gilmore was a house divided — some rooting for original boyfriend Dean, some for bad-boy Jess, and in the future, some even for Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry). Stars Hollow would never be the same.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 2, Episode 6: “Presenting Lorelai Gilmore”

Upon rewatch, one of the most compelling aspects of Gilmore Girls is how it approaches a social status divide through the premise of Lorelai needing money from her parents, Richard (Edward Herrmann) and Emily, to pay for Rory’s private school tuition. It examines the ways they would and wouldn’t fit into each other’s worlds. In “Presenting Lorelai Gilmore,” Rory is sucked into Emily’s life of high society functions by agreeing to be presented at a debutante ball, which of course the self-made Lorelai has some thoughts about. This episode is also a window into the tensions between Emily and Richard, sketching an even fuller picture of a relationship that would animate drama in seasons to come.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 2, Episode 10: “The Bracebridge Dinner”

Gilmore Girls often represents a kind of episodic storytelling that doesn’t exist as much in modern television, including episodes revolving around one location. Event-based episodes like “The Bracebridge Dinner” are perfect examples of that style of storytelling, as each plot development and character arc orbits around a larger gathering. Writers Daniel Palladino and Sheila Lawrence mix the high culture and low culture of the show together by putting Emily and Richard at the same dinner table as Lorelai, Rory, Paris (the showstopping Liza Weil), and all the wacky townies of Stars Hollow for an unforgettable night of food and frivolity at the holidays.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 3, Episode 7: “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?”

As an homage to the 1969 film that inspired the title, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, this episode would be a standout just for the lavish set piece of a 24-hour dance-a-thon. But once again, Sherman-Palladino expertly balances events both silly and heart-wrenching in a perfectly crafted episode that many fans remember at the high point of the series. After tensions with Jess become insurmountable, Dean breaks up with Rory, leaving her sobbing with her mom on the dance floor. Who among us couldn’t relate to crying with your bestie after experiencing heartbreaking rejection? Better yet, who couldn’t relate to doing that while Kirk Gleason (the ineffable Sean Gunn) runs around you in triumph to the theme song from Rocky?

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 3, Episode 9: “A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving”

Rory and Lorelai commit to a total of four Thanksgiving gatherings, and each brings out a different side of their mother-daughter dynamic. Whether it’s hanging out with a drunk Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) or enduring the uptight formality of Richard and Emily’s dinner, the true pleasure of this episode is witnessing the subtle ways in which the Gilmores handle each social circumstance a little bit differently from the last. Gilmore Girls never indulged in a Christmas episode because, at its heart, it’s a Thanksgiving show (don’t ask for explanation, just trust the autumnal vibes), and this episode is the closest thing fans got to a very Gilmore holiday special.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 3, Episode 22: “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio”

The Season 3 finale is a fond farewell to Rory’s Chilton days, as both the character and the show say farewell to the doe-eyed adolescence of high school and dive headfirst into the young adulthood of campus life at Yale. If you want to get a little dust in your eye, look no further than Rory’s valedictorian speech at her graduation ceremony. It’s perhaps the most earnest act of public affection Rory ever gives to Lorelai in the form of a tribute to her, expressing sincere gratitude for her mom making her the woman she is and returning the show to its roots of an unbreakable bond between mother and daughter. The finale also functions as Jess’ departure from the series … for now.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 4, Episode 16: “The Reigning Lorelai”

Some of the best episodes of the series reminded the audience that there aren’t just the two Gilmore girls — there are three, including Emily Gilmore. Played to pitch-perfection by Bishop, Emily is the intimidating matriarch whose harsh love and exacting judgment loom over the psyche of every character she crosses paths with. This episode reveals the depths to which Trix (Marion Ross), Richard’s mother, looms over Emily’s psyche. After Trix’s passing, Emily discovers a letter from her encouraging Richard to dump her and marry his former fiancée, Pennilyn Lott. This undoes Emily as she spends the rest of the episode in boozy broad mode, inebriated and unhinged in grief. “The Reigning Lorelai” is first and foremost a showcase for Bishop, and, if you couldn’t tell yet, this is a pro-Emily Gilmore list. All hail Queen Emily!

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 4, Episode 22: “Raincoats & Recipes”

In the Season 4 finale, Sherman-Palladino makes the bold choice to entwine Lorelai and Rory’s romance plots in stark contrast to one another. A will-they-or-won’t-they romance four seasons in the making reaches a climax and culmination as it’s revealed that … they will! Luke and Lorelai consummate their romance with a passionate first kiss for the ages. (“Will you just stand still?”) Meanwhile, Rory has sex for the first time with Dean, her ex-boyfriend and first love, who’s now married. The highs and lows of these moments are wrapped up by a tearful encounter between Lorelai and Rory at the end: Lorelai heartbroken for her daughter and Rory ultimately shattered by the consequences of her actions.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 5, Episode 3: “Written in the Stars”

In this episode we meet the third (and final?) boyfriend in Rory’s ever-tumultuous love life, Logan Huntzberger. The addition of Logan, played slyly by the charming Czuchry, brings a new energy to the series and will ultimately unlock a whole new world for Rory. Meanwhile, back in Stars Hollow, Luke takes Lorelai out on their first proper dinner date as a couple. At the table, he reveals a horoscope he saved the day they met and kept in his wallet ever since, declaring that he’s all in on their relationship. Gilmore Girls is often a terrific madcap comedy, but in these quieter moments, the show excels at sincere romance that’s guaranteed to pull your heartstrings.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 5, Episode 7: “You Jump, I Jump, Jack”

When the series began, Rory was firmly entrenched in Lorelai’s world. Stars Hollow was a place of comfort and found-family, the antithesis of the upper-class values in which Lorelai was raised. As the series went on, one of the primary themes was the temptations of class as manifest in the appeal of a character like Logan. In “You Jump, I Jump, Jack,” Rory’s new romantic interest is a manic-pixie rich boy, nudging Rory out of her ordinary life and into a world she’s never known via the elaborate shenanigans of the Life and Death Brigade. Logan also represents the temptation of a different life, the divergent path her mother never took but that Rory could still choose if she wants. This episode is exciting to watch for the same reasons it’s exciting for Rory to experience: The departure from the ordinary will never not feel like freedom.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 5, Episode 13: “Wedding Bell Blues”

What’s better than a wedding episode? A vow renewal episode, of course! In the series’ 100th episode, Emily and Richard hold a ceremony to commemorate their reconciliation and dedication to one another. The scene in which Richard, as played by the incomparable Herrmann, gives a speech to Emily before their first dance is among the most tender moments the show produced. But it wouldn’t be a Gilmore gathering without some unnecessary drama. Emily invites Rory’s father, Christopher (David Sutcliffe), to the ceremony in hopes of breaking up Luke and Lorelai, and chaos ensues from there.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 5, Episode 22: “A House Is Not a Home”

For those who started watching the series from day one, it would be absolutely unfathomable to imagine the golden kid of Stars Hollow would one day steal a boat and drop out of college. And yet Rory’s epic fall from grace is one of the most inevitable storylines the show ever told. After being told of Rory’s plan to drop out of Yale, Luke’s knee-jerk reaction is that of utmost care, compelling Lorelai to propose marriage on the spot in one of the most surprising moments of the entire series.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Season 6, Episode 13: “Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting”

While there are other plotlines worth paying attention to (tension between Luke and Lorelai and his newly discovered daughter, April; Logan saves the school paper; Paris continues to unravel, blah blah blah), this episode is most remembered for its final nine-minute sequence. The four Gilmores gather for the Friday night dinner to end all Friday night dinners, erupting in an explosive confrontation in a hilarious montage of laughing, crying, screaming and the mania that could only come from fighting with your family. With her expert staging and precise editing, Sherman-Palladino shows how, after six seasons, her directing chops are right on par with her writing chops.

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7 Seasons   TV-14   2000

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Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

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BONUS | Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life: “Fall”

After the show concluded in Season 7 without the Palladinos at the helm, fans wondered if they’d ever get the ending they deserved. Nine years after the series finale, viewers received closure in the form of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. “Fall” stands out in the mini-series as a warm farewell, including a much-delayed wedding, a reunion between Lorelai and Sookie, Jess getting one last look at Rory, an emotional mending between Emily and Lorelai, and, yes, even those much anticipated final four words. In “Fall,” Sherman-Palladino gets to end her magnum opus on her own terms in a final moment that’s as fitting as it is shocking.

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

Limited Series   TV-14   2016

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