Episode Report Card Sars: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Baby
By Sars | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 02.23.1998
Inside, Joey comes up behind Dawson and Jen and confides with a disbelieving smile, "You guys aren’t gonna believe what I just heard," and Dawson responds grimly, "Oh, I think I will." The three of them watch Pacey approaching, but before he gets to them, a girl in a denim jumper pulls him aside and whispers in his ear, and then she heads off down the hall and Pacey just stands there in his red Kramer shirt, lost, before focusing on Dawson and staring at him with growing hostility as Dawson stares back all stricken-looking.
Cut to their provisional war room in a utility closet as Dawson tells Pacey, "Okay, Joey said she heard that Kenny Leaverton was smoking in one of the stalls, overheard everything." How many Kennys can one high school have? Pacey grumbles that it figures something bad would happen, since everything had gone a little too well for the last little while, and Dawson chides him, "Come on, Pace, it’s not that bad," like, buck up little camper! Pacey tells him that he appreciates the effort, but not only is it really that bad, "it’s worse -- this is cataclysmic. This is one of those rare milestone events that separates the first half of your life from everything that follows." He goes on to pray that the rumor doesn’t reach TaMAHra, and very sarcastically asks Dawson’s permission to feel sorry for himself. Dawson grants him that it doesn’t look good, but says, "You can control this now," and Pacey informs him sternly, "This is the wrong time for the Obi-Wan moment, Dawson." Heh. Dawson tells Pacey to blow it off and act like he couldn’t care less, and then maybe he has a chance of convincing people to drop the subject. Pacey says he can do that. Pacey and Dawson go out together into the hall, where apparently their fellow students have bad enough manners and little enough better to do that they have all stopped dead in order to stare at him. Pacey guts it out, though, swaggering down the hall and smiling at people, as Dawson leans against a wall and watches him go, and once Pacey has shot the rapids of the main hallway and rounded the corner, he slumps against a bulletin board and covers his eyes with his hand.
Oh, brother. Fade up on TaMAHra’s classroom. TaMAHra -- clad in her customary cheesy "daytime look," which includes the only pair of oyster-colored pumps I’ve ever seen outside a Hanes factory-seconds catalog -- smilingly says, "Romeo and Juliet offers perhaps the most notable exploration of the forbidden-fruit theme we’ll examine this year." "Not anymore," a wiseass in the back of the room adds, and the rest of the class cracks up as TaMAHra fails to catch on. Enter Pacey, late, which TaMAHra busts on him for; a different wiseass pipes up, "Probably resting up from last night," and Pacey cringes but tries to pretend he doesn’t care. Then Wiseass #1 leans forward and says to Pacey, "Hey, man, settle a bet -- real or silicone?" TaMAHra snaps, "Keep up the running commentary, Mr. Twitchell, and I’ll see you after class," and Mr. Twitchell asks, "You promise?" and the class cracks up again. More giggling and dumb comments as Pacey and TaMAHra lock eyes and TaMAHra finally begins to get the picture.