Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Neverland
By Sars | Season 3 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.04.2000
Campfire. Dawson asks Pacey if he's awake. "Wide awake," Pacey reports. Dawson announces, as if anyone gives a fiddler's fart, that it's just occurred to him "what in [his] life hasn't lost its luster with time." "Luster"? And for the last time, knock it off with the Methusaleery routine. YOU'RE SIXTEEN! "It's my friendships," Dawson says, adding that he might feel unsure of a lot of things, but he'll always feel sure of Pacey, "and Joey." "Me and Joey, huh?" Pacey asks flatly. The skillet blizzard begins again as Dawson calls Pacey "pure loyalty" and "still the guy who'd do anything for a friend," blah dee blah. Pacey looks disgusted with himself and asks, "And Joey?" "Joey?" Dawson repeats, and everyone in North America steels themselves for the utterance of The "S" Word: "She's my conscience. My soulmate. My inspiration." Pacey closes his eyes, possibly because the sound of millions of people barfing is giving him a headache, and Dawson says, "The point is, I'm really glad to have you guys in my life. I'd be lost without you." Pacey appears to consider copping to the kiss again, but thinks better of it and tells Dawson pointedly that if Pacey personifies loyalty, "it's only 'cause you cast me in the role. You're the storyteller, you know? You see everything and figure out what it means. Did you see the look on those kids' faces when you were telling them that story tonight -- how caught up they were? You're the guy who builds this fantastic world. You just let the rest of us live in it." Yeah -- too bad his head hogs all the sunlight in said world. Dawson adopts his usual smug I-richly-deserve-all-these-ridiculous-compliments-and-many-more face, then comments that it doesn't feel all that fantastic these days. "It will, bro," Pacey says, closing his eyes again.
Wing Chun: "Not! Line."
Sars: " . . . 'soulmates'?"
Wing Chun: "Oh god, I know."
Sars: "I hate this crappy show."
Wing Chun: "Me too."
Sars: "Are you a jean or a khaki?"
Wing Chun: "Huh?"
Sars: "You know the -- oh, no. It's back on."
McPhee Manor. Jack and Ethan get ready for bed. No, not that kind of "ready," or that kind of "bed," unfortunately. Anyway, Jack sulks out of the bathroom in his sleeveless t-shirt and shorts and wishes Ethan a brusque good night. I know Jack is miffed at Angry, and I can sympathize, but he's acting kind of rude to Ethan, his guest, and where I come from, you suck it up until the guest goes home. Anyway, Ethan thinks they should "talk about what happened," but Jack would prefer to "pretend it's all a bad dream." Ethan says sadly that he knows Jack's mad at him, but he only wanted to help; Jack says he isn't mad at Ethan, he's "just mad." Jack goes on to say that that night, Angry had made it look "like [Angry] was the victim in this whole thing" and like Jack is "some kind of malicious ogre, but it's not like that." Ethan shakes his head and tells Jack that "you're both victims here. And it's not gonna get any better unless you start letting go of some of that anger." That sounds like typical patronizing Gayoda-speak from Ethan, but he actually toned down the condescension for this scene. Still, Jack rounds on Ethan and spits that his father's to blame for making him so angry: "I mean, a year, Ethan, a whole year he spends walking around like I'm the worst thing that ever happened to him, and he cancels one trip so he can, he can passive-aggressively throw it back into my face, and now everything's supposed to magically fall back into place?" Jack chucks something across the room, snarling, "It doesn't work like that!" Ethan sadly tells Jack "how it does work," that if Jack stays angry, he and his father will lose another year, and another one, "and before long one morning you're gonna wake up one morning and realize that you need him, or he needs you, and it's gonna be too late." Jack, properly chastised, thinks this over. Ethan adds that "letting go of your anger" has another nice benefit, namely that Jack won't have to carry it around anymore. Jack looks down. "Just think about it," Ethan tells him, and gets into bed. As Demian pointed out, Ethan, it's called "a haircut." Look into it. Jack and Ethan wish each other good night, and Jack crawls into bed, looking pensive.
Ryan Home. Joey finishes brushing her hair and leaves Andie and her WaterPik in the bathroom to join Jen on the bed. "Weird night, huh?" she says to Jen awkwardly, then checks to see if Andie's still flossing before launching into a Byzantine lead-up to the kiss story, which she "can't believe [she's] telling" Jen about. Jen puts her copy of Bright Lights, Big City down -- yeah, yeah, jaded New Yorkers, we get it, cancel the anvil -- and waits patiently for Joey to get to the point. When Joey finally does, Jen says she figured that "this thing would come to a head sooner or later." Heh -- she said "head." Joey says, a little too quickly, that "nothing came to a head, there is no 'thing,'" she's just tweaked out and angry and doesn't understand why Pacey would "do something like this," it came out of nowhere. "If it came out of nowhere, then how come I'm not surprised?" Jen asks mildly, and when Joey shoots her a dismayed "huh?" look, Jen tells her, "You should ask yourself, Joey, if this is really 'nothing,' then why are you so upset and so confused?" Joey continues to stare at Jen before breaking into an embarrassed half-smile. She starts to answer, then settles for slumping back on a bolster pillow. Jen picks up her book again.