Episode Report Card Sars: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT R U Experienced?
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 13 | Aired on 01.30.2001
Gretchenmobile. Gretchen parks -- on the Cape in winter, you can just park in the middle of the damn street, apparently -- and as they get out of the car, she asks Dawson, "How you doin'?" But not like Joey Tribbiani or anything, although that would have cracked me up. Dawson laughs uneasily that "it's been an interesting evening so far," and goes on to admit that he's "never felt so seventeen" in his life. Gretchen cracks that if he's seventeen, what is she doing with him, and then pokes him and says that she's kidding. Oh, ha ha. Not. She reassures him that she and the other girls "are just catching up," then says prophetically that "it'll be over soon" and "the worst of the night is already behind us" just as they walk up to the bouncer and Dawson has to run the embarrassment gantlet all over again, getting a big red UNDER 21 stamp on the back of his hand while the girls look on and laugh at him. I feel for him. I didn't turn 21 until late in my senior year of college, and I did a lot of watery-Coke-drinking and designated driving while my friends shot me pitying looks, and it sucks. Anyway, Dawson holds up his stamped hand and whines about "how perfectly this encapsulates [his] life right now" -- what life? -- and then there's a really sudden fade to commercial as Gretchen looks sorry for him.
Back from the ads, Pacey finds Anna outside and tells her he hopes she's not crying over Drue: "The man is a world-class moron." Anna jokes sadly that, if that's the case, then they should "be perfect for each other." Pacey gives her an encouraging speech about finding something that she's good at, but Anna just sighs that she's only good at one thing: men. Pacey tries to tell her that surely there's something else she's good at too, but Anna says no, not really: "That's always been the easiest thing for me." She wanted Drue to like her for more than the way she looks. "You don't know that he doesn't," Pacey points out, but Anna heaves another sigh and says that now she'll never find out: "I blew it. I fell into bed too easily." Oh, boy. I can feel a Tolstoy-length sidebar about to burst forth fully formed from my head here, but let's see where this goes first. Anna asks Pacey tearfully if he thinks Drue would have liked her if she hadn't slept with him so soon. Pacey winces and says he can't answer that, but he can tell her that he sees a lot of nice things in her besides how she looks, "and if Drue Valentine can't see that, well, that's his loss, not yours." Anna smiles ruefully.