Episode Report Card Sars: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Failing Down
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.10.2000
Pacey enters the guidance office to find Mitch "The Flash" Leery rummaging through a file cabinet, and asks what he's doing there. The Flash says he's filling in until the school finds a new guidance counselor. Right. Of course. The Flash is the utility infielder of Capeside High's teaching staff. Anyway, The Flash reads Pacey some of the lowlights from his file, which include such words and phrases as "galumph" and "aggressively mediocre." Pacey knows the tune and suggests that The Flash proceed to the chorus with all due speed. The Flash babbles something about "special cases" and Pacey lacking classification, then gets all intense: "What happened to you this summer?" "Nothing -- I went sailing," Pacey shrugs. The Flash says that Pacey should have spent the summer "here," in summer school, or doing tricep curls and squat thrusts with The Flash. Well, not that last part. Pacey glibs that that sounds like a waste of a summer (and I think I can get an amen), and The Flash sarcastically inquires as to whether Pacey looked at his report card before he left. Pacey, unconcerned, says that he didn't; The Flash snaps that, if he had, he'd have seen that he flunked "science, math, and English -- three biggies, Pacey." "Science"? Which science, exactly? We never called it "science," we called it "biology" or "physics" or "chemistry." And which "math"? Nobody called it "math" after sixth grade. "English," okay, but what particular classes did he fail? It would have taken the writers maybe five minutes to call a school, any school, and find out what courses a junior in high school takes, and then have The Flash tell him that he failed chemistry and advanced trig, or cell bio and pre-calculus, but apparently the writers don't have time in their busy schedules for a little thing called "research." Criminy.
Anyway, Pacey catches his snap and starts to look scared: "Well, that sucks." The Flash perches himself on the edge of the desk and babbles about not really knowing "how to do this," he isn't Pacey's teacher or guidance counselor but "just a friend," he's watched Pacey grow up, Pacey needs to "cut the glibness" (word) and listen to him, blah blah blah Flashcakes. Pacey asks what The Flash wants him to do about the failing grades, and The Flash tells him that he can take the classes he failed over again, every day after school. Pacey says he'd planned to get a job after school because he needs the money, but The Flash says that Pacey isn't understanding him -- he has to pass the courses. What if Pacey can't do it? The Flash says he can, he just has to focus. "But what if I actually…can't?" Pacey says quietly. The Flash sighs that in that case, come May, Pacey will watch his friends graduate and move on without him, "and you'll be gearing up for another year at Capeside High." Extremely long fadeout of Pacey chewing his lip grimly.