Teach Me Tonight

"Teach Me Tonight" is the 19th episode of season 2 of Gilmore Girls. First airing on April 30, 2002, the episode features Rory attempting to tutor Jess and ending up in a car accident as a result, while Lorelai chooses a movie for the town's local movie festival. "Teach Me Tonight" explores the character of Jess, his relationship with Rory and Lorelai's opinion of this. The episode has received positive reviews from critics, is ranked reasonably highly on several critics' lists of Gilmore Girls episodes, and originally aired to 5.1 million viewers. Plot Luke (Scott Patterson) is called in to Stars Hollow High to see the principal, who tells him that Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) is at risk of being held back a year if he does not improve his attendance and grades. As Luke is not an academic person, he decides that he needs to find Jess a tutor, and settles on Rory (Alexis Bledel) because he knows that Jess is fond of Rory. Lorelai (Lauren Graham) is not happy with this arrangement, distrusting Jess, but Rory agrees. However, she is unable to teach Jess effectively as he distracts himself with magic tricks, making book recommendations to her and convinces her to take a break and go get ice-cream. When he is driving back with Rory, having got ice-cream, he swerves to avoid an animal and crashes her car. Other than Rory's fractured wrist, the two are unharmed, but Lorelai is furious at Jess and gets into a vicious argument with Luke. Meanwhile, Lorelai had been organising the movie for the annual Stars Hollow Movie Festival after learning Taylor (Michael Winters) planned to show The Yearling for the fourth year in a row. Lorelai is disappointed to learn that she can only choose a movie from a particular store that will give discounts for the festival, and after reviewing each movie on the list, she reluctantly chooses to show The Yearling. Kirk (Sean Gunn) approaches her with a film by kirk, a short black and white movie which he has been working on for five years, which Lorelai plays at the beginning of the festival, to the amusement and delight of many townspeople.