Episode Report Card Wing Chun: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Perfect Wedding
By Wing Chun | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.17.1999
I have no intention of Doing the Dew, thanks. But the Volkswagen mechanics make me giggle. I have to start working the phrase "Great day in the morning" into my regular vocabulary.
At the Athenaeum, Joey is dispatching the troops of cater waiters to various strategic locations. As she's finishing up, Bessie strides in looking, actually, quite smart in a black suit and crisp white blouse. Joey says, "The guests are already starting to arrive. We're going to survive this, right?" Bessie says, "Of course we will! Just relax and breathe." Joey growls, "I don't have time to breathe." As she's getting ready to woman her own station, Dawson ignores her instructions and sidles up to her and says, "Joey, I need to talk to you. About those women at the Icehouse --" Joey says, "What about them? They're just the [inaudible] Capeside ignoramuses. It's bound to happen when your father's an infamous philanderer and drug dealer." Dawson persists: "Are you okay, though? I'm worried about you." Joey answers not, "Now is not the time. Get to the champagne like I told you and don't make me bitch-slap you," but "I'm fine! Dawson, I'm fine. Honestly, I don't care about those idiotic women. There are a hundred people out there waiting to eat, and at this point, getting them fed is the only thing on my mind." She walks off, leaving Dawson sighing loudly at Joey's estrangement from her feelings.
Out on the floor, Mrs. Flash is arriving, looking quite lovely in a very flattering ice-blue dress, unfortunately accompanied by her usual nas-tay, over-processed straw hair, and some particularly ill-advised ice-blue eyeshadow. She tells Dawson she's decided to take her own advice, and that she's going to get his father back. She moves slightly past him as Dawson glances at the door in time to see Flash walk in with La Filmette -- and then the camera cuts to Mrs. Flash, who's also seen them come in, and has the stricken facial expression to prove it. That's gonna leave a mark!
As they bring out the cake, Pacey is pontificating to Andie about how romantic the environment is, and how excited he is, but Andie is having none of it and points out that she has a cake knife in her hand. Pacey says they can get the cake and the buffet ready, and then go out and watch the ceremony. You know, I don't think that cater waiters usually have the time to do things like watch wedding ceremonies, but whatever. I also would like to know what the writers are getting at by giving Pacey such a terminal case of wedding fever (catch it!) while Andie -- uncharacteristically for a girl with such a jones for the likes of Footloose -- isn't into any of the matrimonial shenanigans. Anyway, Pacey says he wishes he had this kind of money: "When somebody in my family gets married, you end up wearing polyester, they serve fish sticks for appetizers, and the whole thing winds up in a drunken brawl. You got money, you can afford to make moments like this perfect -- beautiful location, the best champagne, and every peony in place." Pacey can identify peonies? Andie says, "It may look perfect, but scratch beneath the surface and you will find estrangement, despair and dysfunction. I mean, at least your family's imperfection reflects reality. My family? We looked perfect. But on the inside we were falling apart." Pacey says, "You're just a regular Pollyanna today, aren'tcha? Go easy on the sunshine, sister." Andie's voice starts to get that strained note as she says, "All right, look, Pacey. I told you I didn't want to come to this wedding. I told you it would put me in a bad mood. And you forced me to come. And you know what? Now you are going to have to deal with the consequences." As she says this, she flails her arms about and knocks the top off the wedding cake. Joey appears just in time to see the accident, and lets out a tortured breath. Thus kicks off clichéd wedding-related plotline number one: Wacky mishap compromises important symbolic item.