Episode Report Card Sars: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Breaking the waves
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 20 | Aired on 05.01.2001
On an upper deck, Pacey threads his glowering way through a crowd of kids to find his sister sipping a hard lemonade and staring out to sea. She offers him some; again, he passes, and asks what's wrong: "I know it has to be big if you're drinking that." Gretchen, glycerin staining her face, snarks that she's "at the prom, Pacey" -- she graduated four years ago, and she's "still here." She adds that that night, for the first time, she didn't just feel older than Dawson; she felt old, "too old to be here." Pacey clears his throat and grumbles, "You want pathetic?" Well, technically, he's still a junior: "I'm not even supposed to be here." Gretchen chuckles sadly at that and makes a limp crack about a sister too old and a brother too young, and Pacey remarks on the worst part of Das Promboot experience: "You're trapped." "Yup," Gretchen agrees grimly, swigging her drink. Then Pacey confesses that, since the trip with Doug, he's felt really angry, but not angry at himself -- "it's actually worse than that." Gretchen regards him with concern as he says that he's angry at Joey, but he doesn't know why, which makes him feel guilty, and the guiltier he feels, the angrier he gets, and he doesn't know where to go with it. Gretchen suggests that if he talked to Joey, he might start to "figure out a reason," but Pacey sighs that he doesn't know how to start talking. Gretchen muses that "that's the great thing about being trapped. You gotta try."
Inside, Jack laughs that he never knew "[Tobey was] so funny." Tobey laughs back that there's a lot about him Jack doesn't know. Jack, still laughing, nods that that's true. Tobey asks casually, "So, you wanna dance?" Naturally, Jack gets all huffy: "I thought we were having a good time." Tobey uh-duhs, "Right." Jack prisses something about ruining the fun, and Tobey snarks that he just asked Jack to dance, not to "have sex with [him] on the table" -- more's the pity -- but Jack says it doesn't matter, "strictly platonic," blah blah blah wimpcakes. Tobey gets his bitch on and says he doesn't "buy that," because nothing about tonight "has been platonic" -- not the laughing together, or the flirting, or the way Jack looked at Tobey when he came to pick him up. Jack tells him he's wrong, but Tobey says flatly, "No. I'm not. Look, I don't know what you're afraid of, but it's not me, and I suggest you figure it out, or risk losing a chance at something really good someday." Tobey storms off. Jack watches him go and makes an about-to-cry face.