Episode Report Card Wing Chun: D | 3 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Like A Virgin
By Wing Chun | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.28.1999
After the commercial, they stare some more. Joey drops her shirt on the floor and leans in to kiss Dawson. At the last second, he tells her to stop. She asks what's wrong. He says this isn't her. She whispers, "I can be sexual, Dawson." Residents of Toronto are startled by the sound of thousands of car alarms going off, triggered by the sound of a loud, anguished scream in Little Italy. Also, while Joey says she can be sexual, the closed caption reads, "I can't be sexual, Dawson." The hearing-impaired just got a whole different spin! Dawson says he knows Joey can be sexual, but that this isn't right, and he actually hands her her shirt to hurry her out of there. She turns her back (which evinces really appalling posture, it must be said) on him and mutters, "Go to hell." He pipes up with, "I'm sorry if you're hurt." Uh, Dawson? Considering that the last guy who rebuffed her sexual advances told her he was gay about two weeks later, you might be a little sensitive to the fact that she would have some issues about her sexual appeal. Joey spits, "'Hurt'? Why would I be hurt, Dawson? I mean, I hope you're not delusional enough to think this is some embarassing attempt at getting you back. Besides, sex is all you're about these days." Dawson decides to take the stern-dad response and tell her he's not all about sex and she should know that better than anyone else. She says he shouldn't blame her for his lack of sexual experience: "I never stopped you from being with anybody else." He says, "That was particularly clear when you dumped me twice." Joey says he's had plenty of opportunities to have sex (of the solo variety, maybe), and that it's not her fault he's still a virgin. Dawson says that whatever happened or didn't happen between them did or didn't because they both wanted it that way. This stops Joey cold, and she crumbles, asking, "What's so wrong with me?" He says, "It's not you. It's us. I can't go through it all again." Word. "And you're saying it'll be different, but it won't be." Joey tremulously says, "You don't know that." He says he does know it, and so does she: "One more year like last year, and I can promise you there will be no love left between us." Promise me, too! She asks, "Is there any left now?" He says there is. She says, "So you love me. You just don't want me." She sobs once, and walks out the window. Dawson, for once, doesn't run his hands through his hair.
Dawson goes out in the hall and watches the party for a minute. Pacey stops the music to announce that they've raised over $3000, so it's time to open the party to the public. For some reason, Jen and Jack are there, but are only in the crowd scene. Anyway, people flood in. Eve takes Dawson by the hand and walks him outside. He tells her he should probably stay to make sure nobody burns the house down. She asks him why he'd do that. He says, "Pretty much to avoid wondering if I'm going to sleep with you." Yeah, I've been trying to avoid wondering if he's going to sleep with her too. But the question haunts me. She smirks, and tell him that soon all will be revealed. He tells her to go ahead and goes back in the house to grab Pacey. He tells Pacey Joey wants him back, and that Eve's waiting in the wings. Pacey says that it always comes down to this: "The Madonna, or the Jezebel?" Dawson now does run both hands through his hair, and tells Pacey he should have seen Joey's face: "She was standing before me as innocent and as beautiful as she's ever been, and I wanted her just as much as I ever have, but I don't know -- as large a part of me wanted her, there's a part of me just as large that knows that now is not the right time for us." I think we all know which large part wanted her (below the neck, for those a little slow on the draw), and which equally large -- or even several hundred times larger -- part knew it wasn't right. Anyway. Dawson concludes by asking Pacey to watch out for Joey for the next couple of days. Pacey whines a little. Dawson says that she's too proud to admit that she needs someone, but she does, and Pacey would be looking out for her as a favour to Dawson. Okay, seriously -- is Dawson Joey's dad? That's a bit creepy. Pacey finally agrees, even though there are strippers all over Dawson's house.