Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT First Encounters Of The Close Kind
By Sars | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.14.1999
After class, A.J. follows Joey and asks her to wait, and she snips, "Why, so you can sic one of your over-educated minions on me? Try again." A.J. apologizes half-heartedly, but Joey won't have it; he then tries to justify his behavior by telling her that, well, she wanted the real "college experience," as if this episode so far bears even the faintest resemblance to anything collegiate. Joey bitches him out -- he acted insensitively blah blah blah he barely knows her blah blah blah A.J. has forgotten the fun part of the college experience blah blah blah semioticakes. A.J. looks taken aback; he apologizes, genuinely this time, and suggests that they "start over" and that he show her "what college is really all about." Joey looks skeptical.
Cut to Joey, doing a kegstand while frat boys chant -- oh, sorry, back to the screening room. The audience stares at the screen, rapt. A few of them discuss "who shot this" as generic somber music plays and people make awed remarks. Dawson looks half entranced and half in shock. When the lights go up, the audience applauds enthusiastically, and then I have to go downstairs and sign for an anvil, but by the time I get back, the audience is on its feet, giving Nikki a standing ovation. Dawson looks puzzled as Nikki gets behind the podium, smiling and nodding.
If you got me a Sears Portrait Creation for Christmas, go get your money back. Go on.
Back at the film festival, Dawson comes out of the screening room to find Nikki pounding on the front of a candy machine. He approaches her, and she explains that she needs "a sugar fix after all stressful experiences." After treating us to a row of product-placed candies, the M&Ms do us the favor of dropping, and as Nikki retrieves them, Dawson sneers, "'Stressful'? Come on, that was a love-fest." Nikki gives him a look and snaps, "Don't sound so overjoyed," and Dawson tells her -- get this -- not to "be falsely modest." Holy pot calling kettle black, Batman! Nikki says loftily that "if it had been the other way around," she would have enjoyed Dawson's success. Um, I doubt that, and so does Dawson, saying acidly, "So you're not only a better filmmaker than I am, you're a better person." I hate to say this, but -- zing! Nikki absorbs the hit before asking if they can "start over again." Ah, yes, the whole "starting over" leitmotif. I think we get it. I know the writers will repeat it until both my eyeballs run red down my cheeks, but we do get it. Dawson says yes.
Nikki asks what Dawson thought of her film, adding, "Constructive criticism only, please." Dawson busts out the faint praise by calling it "technically accomplished," and Nikki calls him on it, and Dawson says, "It's better than 'derivative,'" and goes on to throw all of Nikki's other comments back in her face. Nikki regards him for a moment before admitting that maybe she went off too harshly on Dawson earlier (whatever), and Dawson accepts her apology, then wants to know why she didn't mention before that she also had a film entered in the contest. Nikki says she doesn't lead with her chin, because "you can get hurt that way," and Dawson agrees with that. ["However, he fails to add that, due to physiognomy, the boy can't help it." -- Wing Chun] As she fixes him with a look, Dawson musters up some polite congratulations and leaves Nikki alone with her chocolate.