Episode Report Card Sars: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sex and Death
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.06.2001
The bus. Mr. Kasdan calls the roll. Jen remarks that not only does she not want to ski, she doesn't even know how, which could make the weekend a "dangerous" one for her. Jack offers to show her "a few things" (bamp chicka bamp bamp), and adds that whether or not she skis is irrelevant, that the ski trips "aren't about what goes on during the day." "Oh, you don't say!" Jen snarks.
Farther back, Joey says "here" when Kasdan reads her name. Then Mr. Kasdan reads out a "Penelope Price," and behind Joey and Pacey, Anna "Robert" Evans calls out, "Here!" They turn around to see her snuggled in her seat with Drue "Silla" Valentine, who greets them, "Lucy, Ricky -- we've gotta stop meeting like this." Anna says hi. Joey and Pacey blink, stunned.
"If sexual misadventures were an option for me," Jack is saying, "I'd be all over it. So to speak." Yeah, right -- if "all over it" means "running in the opposite direction from it," maybe. Jen mentions Tobey "Goes To Hollywood." Jack snaps that she's "like a broken record" with that. Jen doesn't get why Jack isn't into Tobey, asking if he's too cute or too intelligent for Jack. Jack stutters no, but Tobey's very -- he's very -- "blond?" Jen guesses. Jack admits that Tobey's too gay, and "when it's that obvious," it's kind of a turn-off. I see where the writers wanted to go with that, i.e. Jack's in denial, but I have it on good authority that it isn't uncommon for gay men to feel that way. Still, it's pretty obvious that 1) the writers don't have a sincere understanding of that, and 2) Tobey is about as "too gay" as Harrison Ford, so whatever. Jen seconds my emotion by rolling her eyes, and asks if "too straight" is also a problem for Jack. Heh.
Pacey asks Drue if he thinks he can "get away with this." Drue says that by the time Kasdan notices, "[they'll] be halfway up the mountain." Joey smirks and turns back around, and Drue says conspiratorially to Pacey that it would really suck "being the only guy not chalking one up this weekend. Right?" Pacey stares at him for a long moment, considering it.
Dawson "Jack Kedorkian" Leery looks through the window of a hospital room, then slips in and walks over to the bed, beside which Grams "A Widow For One Year, Twice" Ryan sits, knitting. "Glad you came," she tells him. "Good to have some company." Um, only if it's a choice between "company, meaning 'Dawson'" and "a night alone in the morgue, naked." And I'd still take the morgue, and I'd like it, too. There's a shot of "Our" Mr. Brooks attached to a ventilator before Dawson asks what the doctors say. "What can they say?" Grams says acidly. "More bad news delivered in even tones." She gets to her feet to do the funky exposition, saying that Mr. Brooks "remains in a coma, brought on by pills," and the machines keep him alive, but "it's still cancer." Dawson, who has neglected to shave, mutters that it doesn't make sense, that Mr. Brooks is "stuck between dying and dead." Uh duh. Shut up, Dawson. Grams says that, before Dawson came in, she sat there and tried to picture the situation through Mr. Brooks's eyes, and she watched the nurses and doctors coming and going and blah blah blah it's in God's hands. Dawson smiles slightly. In the oh-so-apt words of Parker Posey's character in Dazed & Confused, "Wipe that face off your head, biiiiitch."
Ski lodge. The Guitar Chords Of Fratty Fun Times crank away on the soundtrack as the seniors file off of the bus. Pacey tells Joey, "Okay, Missy Self-Reliance, please let me give you a hand." Joey, hauling a duffel the size of Gary, Indiana, retorts that she carried it to the bus, so she can carry it to their room. Pacey takes it from her anyway and slings it over himself; Joey smiles tightly in response. On the steps of the lodge, Mr. Kasdan makes an announcement about the room keys and says, to groans from the kids, that it's same-sex sleeping arrangements and the keys to the mini-bars in the rooms "have been duly confiscated." Whatever, Mr. K -- like the kids don't all have bottles wrapped in t-shirts in their bags. Somehow Drue puts himself in charge of key duty, making sure that Joey and Pacey and Jack and Jen (and himself and Anna) get to room together. Jack asks Jen when obnoxiousness "became an adequate substitute for wit," making it two meta-statements for this episode. "Ignore him, we're making an effort," Jen grumbles. It's not that easy, sister. Trust me. Still blathering on in the "we're just gonna have fun" vein, Jen goes down like a ton of bricks in the snow.