Episode Report Card Wing Chun: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Northern Lights
By Wing Chun | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 01.25.2000
Backstage, a few minutes into the play, Andie frets but seems to have things pretty well under control. Pacey appears. Andie cusses him out a bit and says that she sent his understudy into make-up fifteen minutes ago. Pacey says that he thinks the understudy should stay there, since Pacey can't do the play. Andie tells him that she gave up on his knowing the play word for word a long time ago, and that now she'll be satisfied if he goes out and gives "the general gist." She straightens up his costume, hands him his prop suitcase, and sends him out on stage. It happens that his first cue is "Say something!" and, after a beat, he smoothly delivers his line. Backstage, Andie claps and looks relieved.
Moon. Water. Pier. A.J. College talk. Joey says that she doesn't know if she wants to go to an Ivy League school, but that if she doesn't try, she'll always wonder if she's good enough, blah di blah, wrong side of the Creek, whatever, no one cares anymore. A.J. says she sounds pretty driven. Joey scoffs that she's only driven "by fear of failure." A.J. apparently got the memo up at non-Harvard and manages to work Joey's dead mother into the conversation, by saying that ambition like Joey's is common in girls who lose their mothers when they're young. Joey looks grateful that, for once, she doesn't have to mention her mom herself, and offers Madonna as another example of a driven, motherless girl. A.J. says he was thinking more of the Brontë sisters (who, at the sound of their name being uttered on Dawson's Creek, pirouette in their graves). Joey says that for a while she thought she liked art, and she still does, but "it's like there's this person that you want to be for other people, you know -- to make them happy, and to make them proud of you -- and then there's yourself, and sometimes it's really hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Does that make sense?" No. Do you still draw, or what? Because I haven't seen you pick up a sketchpad in, like, a year. A.J. says it makes perfect sense, but he just wants to do her. Then he non sequiturs that in mediaeval Europe, they used to think the northern lights were the spirits of dead warriors. Damn, no wonder this guy's dating a high-school girl; no college-aged girl would put up with his boring, pretentious ass.
Anyway, Joey says, "And now?" A.J. says that now scientists know that the northern lights are "charged particles of the sun interacting with the earth's upper atmosphere." Joey says, "Charged particles. Not too romantic." A.J. says, "Think about it from the particles' point of view." Wing Chun says, "HA HA HA HA!" I would hate to have to choose the single most inane line of DC dialogue, but that would certainly be in the top ten. He goes on to think like a particle (which shouldn't be too hard for him) and point out that they're inexplicably drawn, blah blah blah, and somehow this causes Joey's panties to melt and they kiss. When they part, A.J. looks like he's trying for an expression that says he's "moved," but he looks more like he's going to throw up. Joey laughs nervously and says she just remembered that she "promised to meet someone somewhere." A.J. incredulously asks, "Now?" like "Now? After my Ivy Lips have deigned to brush against yours?" She nods with fake regret and they start back.