Episode Report Card Sars: D | 2 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Home Movies
By Sars | Season 3 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.19.1999
Joey and Pacey, in the middle of what Joey calls "a death march on a deserted road." They traipse past an "Entering Capeside" sign while continuing to set up a future storyline in which they wind up kissing, but other than that, nothing else really happens in this scene. Oh, wait, Joey bitches about having to stand in line at the post office to pick up "some mysterious package" which Pacey has under his arm, but we don't learn the contents. Oh, and also, Joey uses the phrase "voluntary manslaughter," which, while not grammatically incorrect, still got on my Law & Order-addicted nerves. Oh, and Pacey makes Joey hitchhike, despite the fact that nobody has considered either hitchhiking or picking up hitchhikers a good idea since Ted Bundy got arrested. And did I mention that a car stops for them, a car containing Principal Green, and that I totally didn't laugh at that non-surprise non-twist that I saw coming all the way from the lower Cape, and that Pacey does his best slapstick by staggering out of the bushes with a lame excuse and a handful of poison oak? Did I mention that downing an entire box of No-Doz, foil packaging included, barely kept me awake?
Oh, criminy. After a shot of the football field by night, cut to The Flash scribbling plays on the chalkboard. Dear Flash: Get a life. Signed, Your Fellow Superheroes (co-signed "The Rest Of The World"). Dawson bustles in with tripod in hand (no comment) and asks his father for ten minutes of his time, "and then I'll be out of your hair." The Flash rumbles, "Can't it just wait till after the game?" and adds that after Saturday he'll have plenty of time for Dawson. Dawson tells The Flash again that he has a deadline for the project. The Flash doesn't understand, and Dawson reminds him that he has to turn in the material to his mother at the station. Well, now we know where Dawson inherited his tendency not to listen to people, because The Flash still doesn't get it, and when Dawson prods his memory, The Flash repeats incredulously, "Your mother is doing a story on Jack?" More back-and-forth in this vein; evidently, The Flash thought "this was just one of [Dawson's] school projects," and Dawson snipes, "Remember last night in your kitchen, the blond-haired kid moving his lips? That was actually me, telling you this." My father would have punted me for the field goal for taking that tone with him, but I have to say "heh" anyway.
The Flash flexes his neck muscles as a substitute for actually emoting (tm Tom Cruise) and thunders, "This is the last thing I need right now," and he slams his clipboard down. Dawson gives his dad the "whatever" face, and The Flash crabs about his best player losing focus, the team can't afford it, he's worked "too damn hard," blah blah blah beefcakes. Dawson says, "Well, excuse me if my entire future conflicts with your precious football team," and he's got a point, and then The Flash sighs, "Oh, don't be so theatrical," and he too has a point, but he ruins it by grumbling about the "football-loving principal breathing down [his] neck" and that he's trying to "build something here." Dawson wants to know what The Flash thinks he's doing, "dabbling in a hobby?" and says he's waited for just this kind of opportunity his entire life. The Flash snorts, "All sixteen years of it?" Zing! Dawson objects, The Flash reminds him he'll have plenty of opportunities, Dawson asks, "Are you telling me not to do this?" with a self-righteous nostril flare, and The Flash says no, "because I know you'll make the right choice," and he twangs his neck tendons menacingly while glaring at Dawson. Flare. Glare. Flare. Glare. Care? Well, no, as a matter of fact, I don't.