Episode Report Card Sars: C- | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Future Shock
By Sars | Season 6 | Episode 23 | Aired on 05.13.2003
Awwwww yeah. Cut to a road in Capeside, where Jack "The Ballad Of Reading I'm-Not-Gay-ol" McPhee is zipping along in a red convertible with the music blasting. Sirens sound behind him, and who should pull him over but Sheriff "You Dirty" Doug Witter. Kerr Smith pulls over niiiiice and slow to produce-place the car, and you'd better believe he parks it straight. Doug swaggers up to Jack's car, and we get some porn-esque banter about issuing citations and attempting to bribe a public official before Doug lays a smooch on Jack. While that development did earn a small "ha!" from me, a couple of thoughts. First of all, it annoys me that, after all of Pacey's homosexist "neat = gay" haranguing of Doug over the years, Doug did in fact wind up gay; that stereotype is just so tired and lame. Second of all, if you freeze-frame Kerr Smith just the right way after the kiss, he's got a serious grossed-out face going. Tool. Anyway, then Jack's all, "Thanks, honey," and Doug gets all miffy, and Jack tells him, "Dude, it's a deserted road -- chill," so apparently Doug is Having Some Issues about taking their relationship public. "Don't call me 'dude,' either," Doug sniffs. Dinner later blah, Jack will bring the handcuffs blah, and Doug double-meanings, "Jack. Slow down." As he walks back to the cruiser, Jack leans around to check out his ass. Heh.
After that no-tongue shui moment, we head to the Icehouse, now under the ownership of Pacey "For The Love Of Beer And Skittles" Witter, who is wiping down a table. Exposition about how the restaurant is doing well. The staff, by the way, all have Hawaiian shirts on. Snick. Then we have a useless and annoying bit of tedium in which a slumming and mis-Botoxed Virginia Madsen needs to consult with Pacey about menu designs. Said "consultation" involves boinking him in his office while pantily expositioning that she's married.
Cut to a classroom at Capeside High. On the blackboard is written, "BATTLE OF DA BARDS." Oh, dear. At the front of the room, a jockstrap is awkwardly reading a selection from Whitman that involves hot boy-on-boy action. Ghost of Mr. Peterson, I implore ye -- RISE! No such luck. The kids in the class smirk at one another, because apparently homosexuality is still embarrassing and squirmy. In…2008. The jockstrap trails off, and Jack, seated at a desk, asks if there's a problem. Jockstrap doesn't want to keep reading. Jack points out acerbically that the poem isn't finished. "No offense, Mr. McPhee, but this is a poem by a guy, about another guy. It's, like, a gay poem." Jack plays that off with a bad pun about the poem not having a sexual orientation, and I cherish a tiny hope that he's going to ream the kid but good and assign him the more prurient works of Catullus as homework, but instead he talks about how that poem and others like it got Whitman fired in spite of the poet's deep patriotism, like, what does that have to do with the price of fish? Typical of self-hating Kevin Williamson to change the subject instead of calling bullshit on a character's homophobia. God. The bell rings, and Jack tells the class to find a way to say in poetry what they're afraid to say -- they'll have to read them out loud, so they should show each other the same courtesy they didn't show Whitman today. RISE, PETERSON! RISE! Nope.