Episode Report Card Wing Chun: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Decisions
By Wing Chun | Season 1 | Episode 13 | Aired on 05.18.1998
Back at the prison, Joey leans against a table, apparently waiting for Mr. Pothead. Dawson tells her he'll be right outside, and she warns him not to go anywhere. Dawson reminds her that she hasn't seen her dad in a long time, and should spend some time with him alone. Joey scoffs, "Yeah, right. Like I'd want to spend time with the man who's responsible for the destruction of my family." Dawson stares blankly, and then a buzzer sounds, and Mr. Pothead walks in. Joey takes a few slow steps away from the table, and then turns back and sits in a chair opposite Mr. Pothead. He jokes, "If I knew you were coming, I'd have sent for cigars and champagne, or a couple of donuts, anyway." He sits down. Dawson sits beside Joey, staring at Mr. Pothead, and, no doubt, trying to impress each detail of the meeting in his memory so that he can use it later for a scene in one of his crappy-ass "films." Joey faces Mr. Pothead, but keeps her eyes on the table. Mr. Pothead marvels, "Joey, you're beautiful." She looks up long enough to murmur, through gritted teeth, "No. I'm not." Mr. Pothead greets Dawson, who chirps, "Hello, Mr. Potter!" Suck-up. Mr. Pothead carefully says, "I thought, the other night, you might come. Then I thought I'd better not get my hopes up. Birthdays in prison are depressing enough." Joey tightly replies, "Well, I'm here, aren't I." Mr. Pothead effusively tells her, "And I'm so glad. You have no idea." Joey sets her jaw and look away. Mr. Pothead says, "You're all grown up! It's amazing!" Joey scowls, "Well, that's what people do. They grow up." Dawson looks uncomfortable. Mr. Pothead asks how school is. Joey snorts, "That's what you want to talk about?" Agreeably, Mr. Pothead asks what she wants to talk about. She glares, and then shakes her head a little and says, "Nothing." Mr. Pothead starts to break down, and says that he gets lonely in prison, and that he misses Joey, and Bessie: "I miss my family." Joey snaps, "Your family? Tell me this: Do you miss Mom?" Now, Joey. You know you have the exclusive rights to mourn your mother, and that you have restraining orders on each member of your family preventing them from coming within fifty feet of your own grief.
Mr. Pothead looks down and says, "Yes. Very much." Joey makes a mental note to call her lawyer and bust him on copyright infringement as Mr. Pothead presses, "Joey, talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking." Joey bitterly chuckles, to cover her tears, and tells him, "You don't want to know what I'm thinking. Believe me. You know, this was a mistake. And I guess I should tell you that I'm probably going to be leaving in a few weeks. I'm going to France." Dawson gives himself whiplash turning to look at her, like, yeah, Dawson, this scene is all. About. YOU. Joey continues: "So I won't be around anymore. And that family that you miss doesn't exist anymore. It's over." She gets up and backs away from the table, and Mr. Pothead moans, "It's not over, Joey! It's still a family!" Joey's shooting not daggers but full-sized battle-axes from her eyes at Mr. Pothead as she says, "Well, it's over for me. Have a happy birthday, Dad!" She walks out. Dawson gets up and, before following her, unnecessarily tells Mr. Pothead that he "should go after her," like, what else should you do -- stay here and shoot the shit with Mr. Pothead? Maybe learn how to turn a spoon into a shiv? He also wishes Mr. Pothead "good luck," which must have really brightened that convicted felon's day, but for some reason Mr. Pothead implores Dawson to stay and tell him about Joey. The buzzer sounds to let Joey out, and Dawson looks in that direction, but then turns back to Mr. Pothead and asks, "What do you want to know?" Mr. Pothead says he wants to know "anything. Everything." Dawson pauses a moment and then sits back down to say, "She's great. She's smart, she's beautiful, she's funny. She's a big ol' scaredy-cat; if you creep up from behind her, she'll jump out of her skin. It's pretty amusing." Yeah, relay this information to a room full of convicted criminals. Good one! Dawson goes on: "She's honest. She always calls 'em just like she sees 'em. You can always count on getting the truth from Joey, even if the truth hurts. She's stubborn. We fight a lot. She can be so frustrating sometimes. But she's a really, really good friend -- loyal to a fault. She believes in me. I'm a dreamer, so it's so good to have someone like that in my life. God, if she goes away, I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, she's my best friend. She's...more than that. She's everything." Notice the moment where that stopped being about Joey and started being about Dawson? Yeah, me too. And I'm sure Mr. Pothead was glad he could be there when Dawson had the epiphany that he really wanted to nail Mr. Pothead's daughter.