Episode Report Card Wing Chun: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Escape From Witch Island
By Wing Chun | Season 3 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.16.1999
Oh God. Okay, let me just sum up the storyline for Andie "Did Somebody Say McCheater?" McPhee for the entire episode, so that I don't have to return to it every time she appears on-screen. Andie, in her capacity as the head of the student disciplinary committee, runs wild with the school's Rules of Conduct and gives way too many students detention for committing minor infractions. Why? I neither know nor care. Let us speak no more of it.
Outside the school, Joey and Dawson set up the camera and tripod, presumably for interviews. Dawson says, "I can't tell you how much I've missed this, Joey." She says, "Me too." He says he feels like he's been able to re-capture a feeling that he'd lost somewhere. She tries to agree but he keeps interrupting her, and finally says, "It's good to be making movies again." She wilts, and says, "I thought you were talking about us -- the way we..." Dawson dismissively says, "Well, that too -- obviously." Joey looks unconvinced. Dawson says, "I miss that whole 'let's-make-a-movie' bug we had before things got so terminally angsty [sic], but I'm really glad we're friends again." Sadly, Joey repeats, "'Friends.' Right."
At the kitchen table, in CamcorderCam, Grams says, "Three hundred years ago, harlots who were practising witchcraft were banished to that island. And what happened there is proof positive that the Good Lord doesn't take lightly [sic] to those who dabble in the black arts." Good old Grams. Cut to Bessie, who is dandling Alexander on her knee and saying, "One time in high school, this kid disappeared there. He was a big stoner -- one of those guys that has Led Zeppelin IV playing in his head at all times -- so everybody said he probably got wasted and drowned. I don't know. Some people say the witches got him." At least the director of this episode had the decency not to have Alexander cover Bessie's mouth while she delivered that speech, because if he had, this recap would end right here. Instead, we cut to the only female student of colour at Capeside High, who is wearing a shirt with "Who Killed JFK Jr.?" on it, and saying, "Yeah, well, kids just mysteriously disappear there over the years, and they say it's the witches, or whatever. But I think the CIA or the NSA had something to do with it. It's just like our government to come up with some occult backstory to cover up their malfeasance." Behind her, the only male student of colour sits on the stairs and glares at her while she advances her theory. I don't know why.
The Fearsome Foursome walks toward a small dock while Pacey grouses about the fact that nobody brought snacks. Charon stands in his boat and asks if it's his lot today to ferry the damned souls of the "Dawson Leery party" down the river Styx and into Hades. Whoops, I dozed off there for a second and had a beautiful dream. What really happens is that some guy standing in a boat asks the same question except for the "Styx" and "Hades" part. Dawson already has his camera out and asks Boat Guy if he can ask him a few questions for his movie. Boat Guy says that he will, in exchange for Dawson's returning the favour; it seems that Boat Guy is making a movie about all the people who have tried making movies about Witch Island since the release of The Blair Witch Project. Dawson looks pretty deflated that his ripped-off idea isn't completely original to him, and the other three laugh at him and get in the boat. Dawson recovers his composure enough to ask what Boat Guy can tell him about Witch Island, and Boat Guy says something about "spooky fun" and "kitschy cool" but that they shouldn't get so caught up in the fun that they stay on the island past dark. Jen says that they don't scare that easily, and Boat Guy gets all defensive and says that girls died out there, and they're not "above taking out their anger on an errant teenybopper or two" once in a while. He adds, "These girls -- sometimes they can't control their natural urges, you know?" The boat sets out from the dock. Dawson films their approach. The boat, for some reason, has a set of antlers mounted on the bow. Whatever. Hey, doesn't Dawson have his own boat? Why wouldn't they have just used it instead of depending on Boat Guy for their passage? Because then a certain plot contrivance wouldn't get worked in there? Oh, that's right. My bad.