Lorelai avoids telling her parents about her engagement to Max, while Rory urges her to spill. But due to a call from Sookie asking them to come to a surprise wedding shower for the happy couple, they already know, and are appalled that Lorelai didn't tell them and so they give her the cold shoulder. Meanwhile, Rory and Dean are having trouble in paradise due to the fact that Rory suddenly becomes obsessed with finding enough extracurricular activities that will set her apart from the hundreds of other Harvard applicants.

To escape everyone's reaction to the news of the broken engagement, Lorelai and Rory hit the road, and stumble upon the bed and breakfast from hell before eventually arriving at Harvard, where Rory gets a taste of college life and Lorelai muses over what might have been; Lane comes home loaded with bootlegs from Seoul; Lorelai breaks into tears when she sees the chuppah that Luke made for her; Luke commiserates with Lorelai even though he's secretly overjoyed to hear that the wedding's off; Lorelai decides to get serious about making her dream of opening an inn a reality.