Episode Report Card Sars: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dance
By Sars | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.26.1998
Cut (or rather "jolt," since the editor slams these two scenes together with no transition at all) to the Leery kitchen. Gail comes in with a doggie bag and asks Mitch if Dawson has come home yet; Mitch, working on his model, says he thinks Dawson "is busy kissing the girl next door for the first time tonight." Gail gives Mitch a shoulder massage and says, "Sounds romantic." Mitch asks Gail if she remembers their first kiss, and she says of course she does, and she reminisces about it, and long story short, she doesn't remember the same first kiss that Mitch recounted to Dawson earlier, and Mitch can't believe she doesn't remember it, and Gail says she doesn't think he remembers it, and she apologizes sultrily as Mitch keeps bitching about giving Dawson the wrong advice, and behind him, Gail whips out a tube of product-placed Chapstick, proving that she really does remember, back and forth, on and on. Gail sits on Mitch's lap and kisses him, and they stand up, still kissing, and they trade more cheesy lines about chapped lips, and they dance, and Mitch looks suffused with lust, and Gail looks regretful and nervous.
Pacey, walking on the dock, stops and says to himself, "This cannot be happening." Sure enough, TaMAHra and her Shoulderpads 'R' Us outfit await him on the dock. He folds his arms and greets her and says he "feels this strange familiarity creeping over" him, and she nervously says, "I thought it might be appropriate," which doesn't make any sense, but anyway, Pacey asks over the sound of a foghorn in the background, "Give us a chance to do it all over?" and TaMAHra says she would change the ending. Then she apologizes to Pacey for the way she's acted, calling the kiss "the most absurd thing" she's ever done, "not to mention punishable in a court of law." Pacey doesn't see the big deal: "It was just a kiss!" TaMAHra, suddenly on the verge of tears: "No, it was more than that."
TaMAHra goes on to call the kiss "very wrong," and she says she could try to explain it, because Pacey does deserve an explanation, but instead of dumping ten years' worth of therapy on him, she hopes she can just apologize and hope she hasn't "left any permanent scars." Pacey looks irritated and asks her where she gets off taking all the responsibility for what happened; he may be only 15, he says, but he's "well beyond the age of accountability," though perhaps not according to the judicial system, and, he adds, "My lips kissed back, right? I kissed you back." "Fair enough," TaMAHra smiles, and Pacey says he doesn't regret it at all and she shouldn't either. TaMAHra stresses that it can't happen again: "From now on, our relationship is strictly teacher-student -- I, I want that clear." Pacey: "And if I were to object?" TaMAHra: "It's not up for discussion, you know it has to be this way, Pacey, for all the obvious and not so obvious reasons." Pacey sighs, "This is so unfair," and says in a quavering voice that he isn't good with girls, and he finally meets someone and can't have her, and TaMAHra reaches out to comfort him but stops herself, and she tells him, "Don't worry, Pacey, that'll change. Trust me." They exchange a burning look. TaMAHra wishes him goodnight, but she has to walk past him to leave the dock, and he sort of grabs her arm and pulls her to him, and they kiss again to the accompaniment of the Minor-Key Piano Music Of Doomed Love, and I believe that Pacey Becomes A Man right about now.