Episode Report Card Sars: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Breaking the waves
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 20 | Aired on 05.01.2001
Joey and Dawson, dancing and laughing and generally having a grand old time. Pacey pushes through the crowd. Another shot of Joey and Dawson yucking it up. Pacey gets a look on his face like "so that's how it is," and again, it's ridiculous -- if he hasn't gotten a bee in his bonnet about Joey and Dawson's friendship by now, I don't buy that seeing them dancing at the prom would do it. Anyway, Gretchen joins him and follows his gaze to Joey and Dawson. Shot of Joey laughing, then spotting Pacey and looking a little bit guilty. Shot of Gretchen looking like she's about to get pissed. Shot of Joey seeming annoyed at Pacey, then rolling her eyes and looking at him all "bring it on." Dawson looks over his shoulder at Pacey and Gretchen, unconcerned. We go to commercial as Pacey heaves a sigh and looks determined and pained. What. EVER.
Cram it, thetruth.com. Cigarettes alone get me through these damn recaps.
Okay, remember the "Black Hole Sun" video with the creepy eye animation that made the characters look like dolls? The Salon Selectives "see it, do it" ads bug me out for the same reason. Like, ew. Quit it.
Very long establishing shot of Das Promboot. Okay, we know it's the prom, and we know the prom's on a boat. You couldn't have used those eight seconds on a bit of believable back story? God. So Pacey prowls up to Joey, and Joey heads him off, assuring him that she and Dawson "were just dancing," and Pacey snarks that that's what it looked like to him, "just dancing." Joey snaps that this isn't "about Dawson" and he knows it, so why doesn't he just tell her what's going on? Pacey launches into a sarcastic tirade about how he saw the two of them dancing and it's the happiest he's seen Joey all night; shot of Joey and Dawson looking irritated and "please let a trapdoor open underneath me" respectively as Pacey goes on that it's the happiest he's seen her in weeks, and does she want to know what's even worse? Joey braces for impact as Pacey says, "I don't care. I saw the two of you dancing together, and I just don't care." Joey, stung, looks down. Pacey: "I'm not angry, I'm not jealous, I'm not upset, I'm really not much of anything." Joey moves to take it outside, but Pacey ups the volume a notch, asking, "Why, why -- because you wanna clean up my mess again? You wanted me to take off the happy mask, and the happy mask is off, so answer me this one question, because this is what I've been wanting to ask you, Jo -- why are you with me?" Joey, utterly at sea: "Pacey…?" Pacey, more angrily this time: "Why are you with me?" Dawson and Gretchen exchange a "dude, the hell?" look as Pacey goes on that he doesn't know why he's still with her -- he used to, but he doesn't anymore. Joey, also angry but on the verge of tears: "I'll make a note of that." But there's no stopping Pacey as he shouts that he feels like he's Joey's "little charity project," like he's the designated loser, the failure; Gretchen tries to break in, but he yells at her to back off, and Joey takes the opportunity to sputter that she never said that, and this isn't about her, it's about Pacey. As other couples stare at them, Pacey starts yelling in earnest, saying that it is about her -- it's about her, and about how she makes him feel: "I feel like I'm stupid and I'm worthless and I'm never right, but you know what I realized, that is NOT MY FAULT!" Seriously, he's screaming at her, and he's totally out of line. And while I don't disagree with the sentiment -- I can see how her constant princessing would make him feel small -- it's not coming from the right direction. Joey cringes away from him in tears as Pacey continues ranting, delivering a litany of the things he's supposedly done wrong, and Joey comes back in a yell that she already told him she doesn't care about that stuff, but Pacey howls, "But I WANT you to CARE!" ["Here's where he totally lost me. Like, either you want her to accept and love you the way you are -- which she apparently has -- or you don't care what she thinks of you at all, but it doesn't make sense to want to have it both ways. The path of his motivation, again, meanders all over and I can't make sense of it. It's lazy writing, is what it is." -- Wing Chun] Dawson looks around, then sets his jaw and glares at Pacey. Pacey bellows that he doesn't want her just to accept his fuck-ups "like that's the way it's supposed to be," and says that they aren't trapped on the boat -- the two of them are "trapped in this relationship!" He can't take it anymore, he says: "When I'm WITH you, I FEEL like I'm NOTHING!" He takes a breath and repeats, more quietly, "I feel like I'm nothing." Joey, slumped over, looks at him pleadingly as he explains that that's why he flinches when she touches him, and why he doesn't touch her, because when he starts to touch her, "it just reminds [him] that [he's] not good enough." Joey, hands on her hips, nods acidly and asks, "You done?" Pacey says that he's just getting started, but Joey ices him down: "Well, you can stop right now. You can go to hell." She walks past him. Dawson follows her. Great job -- with crap writing -- by Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes.
Drue tries to keep Jen from pitching into the drink Abby-style. She pushes him away, and in doing so nearly falls in; he grabs her and yanks her back over the side, and she lands on top of him, then hauls herself up to the railing and speeyacks over it.