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By Sars | Season 2 | Episode 21 | Aired on 05.18.1999
Bring me the head of Adam Sandler.
Over at Bessie's Penal Colony, Ally McBeal -- nope, sorry, it's Joey. The cloud pajamas threw me off for a second. She bends over to get the paper and Dawson appears on the porch and tells her to close her eyes, and she splutters what-are-you-doing-here and he tells her just to close her eyes. Once they negotiate the stairs, he lets her open her eyes. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Dawson -- who has evinced no skill in the carpenterial arts, who must have had a mute attached to his hammer, and who ostensibly has finals to work on and study for -- has built Joey a white picket fence during the night. Well, an eight-foot-long segment of a white picket fence, anyway. Joey asks why he did this. Dawson, not answering the question, says that it took him all night and that it's "a little crooked down at the end there," but before he can go on, Joey shuts him up (thank god) by kissing him (blech). Then she thanks him. Dawson predicts that it will take him "the rest of the summer to finish the thing," and Joey asks if he plans to hang out in her front yard all summer, and Dawson suggests climbing into her window for change, and Joey puts her arms up over her shoulders and nuzzles him and says, "Change can be good." Speaking of change, um, waiter? I could use a fresh airsick bag over here when you get a moment.
Jack, running up to the bus station. Jen, standing sulkily in line with her ticket and her nappy hair. Jack, out of breath, asking if Jen thought she'd escape without a send-off. Jen, telling him he "missed the parade, it just left." Jack thinks Jen's parents said yes to her coming home; Jen says not exactly, that her parents told her that her return would be "inconvenient" and that they're "still recovering from [her] last stay with them," and that they chalked her request up to "a ploy to get more money every month." Jeez -- what is wrong with these people? Jen says she decided "screw it, right? Look, I don't need them as my destination. If I'm gonna leave Capeside, then what's holding me back?" Jack points out, "You don't have any other place to go?" Jen corrects him, "I've got every place to go, there's just nobody there." As Jen hands her ticket to the bus agent, Jack takes the ticket from her and gives her a philosophical speech on the nature of parental love, observing that "my mom loves me for the best reason possible -- no reason at all" and saying that "as much as it hurts, it's worse for them [Jen's parents] -- it is worse to be incapable of loving than to not be loved." Jack crumples her ticket, takes her bag, and suggests that she come live with him at McPhee Manor because he "could use a roommate." She says okay. They hug as the product-placed Piedmont Coach Lines bus starts up its engine and pulls out. I don't know when these two became good enough friends to make this scene realistic, and I suspect that Jack should have stayed home and dealt with Andie instead, but I like the way he handled that and I subscribe to his philosophy myself. So, in short, go Jack.