Episode Report Card Wing Chun: D | 2 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT None Of The Above
By Wing Chun | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.12.1999
Wing Chun: "The hell?"
Sars: "Dude, the show has not been on for two minutes yet!"
Wing Chun: "But...WHY?!"
Sars: "It's really amazing the way they manage to make Dawson's hair look horrible in completely distinctive ways for every single show. It's always bad, but it's never the same bad twice."
Wing Chun: "Is Eve almost off the show? Because I really can't handle her."
Sars: "I don't know. But I do -- Oh, it's back on."
An alarm clock rings in what turns out to be the bedroom of Joey "Ohndrea" Potter. She has apparently fallen asleep in her clothes, and seems to be late for something, so she leaps to her feet and tears down the hall of Capeside High. Arriving at a closed door with a sign marked "PSAT in Progress," she starts pounding on the glass and calling Dawson's name; he doesn't look up. She continues pounding and hollering until the alarm clock starts ringing...again. Thank God -- it was only a dream! I saw that one coming all the way from southern Ontario.
Andie "Nutrageous" McPhee does sit-ups whilst talking back to a newscaster on a TV in her bedroom, and quizzing herself with vocabulary word flashcards. I wouldn't have been able to divine the fact that she was driven to succeed academically just from that, so the producers helpfully dressed her in a Harvard sweatshirt, just to make sure I got it. Anyway, she tells the talking head on TV about the pressures she's under, and to make her point all the more plain starts listing synonyms for the word "'dogmatic': single-minded, stubborn, obdurate, adamant," and when she says, "Antonyms would be..."
....the producers cut to Jack "Louganis" McPhee coming out of Grams's house accompanied by Jen "Smells Like Teen Spirit...Not" Lindley, who is saying, "Wishy-washy, ambivalent, equivocal." She pauses, in which time I yelled, "Indecisive!" at my TV, because I have problems, but the pause is for her to register Jack's look of surprised admiration, so that she can answer that he shouldn't have thought Dawson was the only one with "a prolific vocabulary." That's not quite the correct meaning of the word "prolific," but I'll let it slide. Turns out he's surprised that one of them had time to study, what with their newfound extra-curricular activities. Jen tells him he hasn't won "that football scholarship yet," and invites him to pick a flashcard. He picks "nonchalant," for which the synonyms (which he recites over a shot of a blissfully sleeping Pacey "Cuckold II: On the Rocks" Witter) are "carefree, languid, oblivious!" Heh.
At the school, Principal "Moe" Green is, improbably, pointing at a large placard with "nonchalant" written across it, and asks Dawson to list some antonyms. He comes up with "alert, attentive, concerned," and adds, "That is, if provided you believe that the PSAT is a true measure of intelligence, and not a culturally biased weapon against the poor and disenfranchised." Only White Bread Dawson would have the gall to say that to his African-American principal, who, instead of introducing Dawson to his culturally biased backhand, agrees that the test is biased in many ways, but that ultimately it's just a game, of sorts, besides which it's a requirement for anyone who wants to go to college. Well, that was a bracing debate. Not. The bell rings and the students start to file out; Principal Green asks Joey to stay behind.