Episode Report Card Jessica: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Appetite For Destruction
By Jessica | Season 5 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.18.2001
Dawson joins Joey in the kitchen. They look at each other.
Back at the dining room table, Jack and Pacey exchange glances. "He did," Jack says. "You think?" Pacey asks. Jack nods. "Yeah, definitely did. You feel different?" Pacey makes a faux-thoughtful face. "I do. I do. I feel different. I mean, here was Dawson Leery, walking amongst us, and I gotta tell you, I'm a little worried he wasn't prepared. I mean, we didn't even get to have the talk!" Jack chuckles. "How do you know?" Pacey asks him. It's not so much Dawson as it is Jen, Jack explains. "I know the look," he says. "Oh, man," Pacey says, leaning back in his chair. "You know, we almost did, too," he offers. "I know, I know," Jack says. "Come to think of it, we almost did, too." They look at each other. "What do you think it takes?" Pacey asks. "A virgin and a straight guy," Jack answers. "Damn!" Pacey mutters. Heh.
In the kitchen. Joey's all smiley-faced, telling Dawson that seeing him kiss someone else is always going to be "a little weird," but that it makes sense for Dawson and Jen to get back together. He flares the nostrils and says that he hadn't thought about it that way. "We're such different people now." Joey nods. "I guess we all are, I hope," she says, and asks Dawson how, you know, it went down last weekend. Dawson muses that he doesn't quite know, that it all took them both by surprise, but they were out of town and in the honeymoon suite, and…his voice trails off. "There's no handbook for this, is there?" he asks. Joey smiles. "No," she says. "Maybe we should think of co-authoring one." Dawson forces a grin and admits that there's just not "any graceful way" of having this conversation. "What conversation?" Joey asks. "We're talking about a kiss." Dawson gives her a look. Joey makes an "ooooh" face. The Piano Of My Soulmate Had Sex With Someone Else tinkles mournfully in the background. Joey begins to babble that she ought to have known blah blah she's not naïve blee blee blee. "I get it," she says. "We don't have to make this into a thing. In fact, let's not make it a thing, okay?" she asks. I can vote for not making it a thing. Here's one big fat vote for No Thing. She smiles, and walks out of the kitchen. Dawson looks sad that Joey isn't trying to kill herself with the cheese grater because she didn't get to deflower him.
Dining room. "I hate to break this to you guys, given the obvious level of enthusiasm, but it's time for the second course," Pacey announces. Joey smiles brightly and offers that if they're all tired "from whatever," they can call it off. But Pacey won't hear of that. "There are many more courses to come," he says. I paused the tape here, and it stops by chance at a hilarious shot of Jack, hunched over his plate as if in fear. Pacey says that he "put a lot of time and energy into this, so it has to be worth something, right?" He gets up to serve up the next course. After an awkward moment of staring at Jen and Dawson, Audrey, Joey, and Jack all push away from the table and race after him, ostensibly to help. "So, they know," Dawson tells Jen, who puts her head in her hands. "And Joey knows," he says. "Oh boy," Jen sighs. "How did she react?" Dawson shrugs. "Like Joey," he says. "Is she upset?" Jen asks. "She is and she isn't," Dawson non-answers. Jen mentions that, last week, Joey sort of passed the torch to her, with the whole taking-care-of-Dawson thing, but that she doesn't think "this was what [Joey] had in mind." Dawson picks up her hand and kisses it. "As much as I love and care about the people in the next room," he says, "I'm happy with you." Jen makes a schmoopy face. Dawson says something unintelligible. They kiss.