Episode Report Card Jessica: C | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Use Your Disillusion
By Jessica | Season 5 | Episode 5 | Aired on 11.06.2001
Worthington College For Young Ladies Of Boston; The Biggest Dormitory In The Whole Wide World! Audrey's painting her toenails; Joey's cleaning like a maniac. She sprays Windex all over the place. "Jo?" Audrey says. "You just 409ed my face." Joey twitches and apologizes. Audrey wonders what happened to "low-key, no stress?" Joey sniffs. "What happened to you leaving before he gets here?" she asks. You know, I think that at a time like this, Audrey is exactly what Dawson needs: someone who has no history with him, who won't spend the entire weekend trying to figure out what to say so as not to offend him, someone totally divorced from the Flash situation. Instead of pointing this out, though, Audrey just tells Joey that she has plenty of time before Dawson shows up. At this point, of course, someone knocks at the door. It's Agents Mulder and Scully, looking for a strange creature with an abnormally large skull that sucks the spine out of adolescent girls. They've heard that he's in the area. Whoops, wrong show. It's just Dawson.
"So, I'll be going now," Audrey announces, as Joey answers the door and throws her arms around Dawson. "Hi gorgeous, bye gorgeous," Audrey tells him, squeezing past the Head and out the door. "So, she's still weird then," Dawson comments. Yeah, she just called you "gorgeous." Oh, come on! They handed that to me! Joey smiles as Dawson tosses his bag down and asks how she's been doing. She tells him she's been great! "I mean, I'm okay," she corrects, as if being "great" is insensitive in this, Dawson's Time Of Need. She begins to tell him about being part of Team Wilder, but stops herself, saying that "it's not a big deal." She thinks about that for a moment. "And it's actually kind of confusing," she adds. "To me. Not that you would be confused by it. Anyway. How are you?" she sputters. Dawson looks perplexed. "I'm okay," he says slowly. They stare at each other for a moment, before Joey hops up and hands him a book she picked up for him. It's called How To Deal With Your Parents [sic] Death. Sounds like a barnburner. She does the half-mouthed smile thing and tells him that she wishes someone would have gotten it for her "when [her] mom…" She trails off. Dawson thanks her, fairly sincerely. Joey then launches into her spiel about them watching movies and eating pizza and sitting in the dark and not talking. "All day?" Dawson asks. Joey starts backtracking, but Dawson interrupts and admits that he's sort of tired anyway. "I thought you might be!" Joey chirps. "Well, you were right," Dawson tells her. She scampers over to find the movies, and Dawson makes a face like this is going to be one long sucky weekend.
Grams's. Jen's walking through the house, talking to Pacey on the cordless. She's trying to convince him to accompany her to the play that evening. Pacey must have asked what play it was, because Jen tells him very, very quickly that it's Shakespeare. She then holds the phone away from her ear, and starts talking very quickly and loudly. "Okay, great, so I'll pick you up at seven, see you later on tonight, bye," she rattles off, and hangs up. Tobey's just entered the kitchen. She smiles at him. "Men. I swear, you gotta ram culture down their throats," she says. I know there's a dirty joke in there somewhere. Tobey laughs politely, and looks around the kitchen. Jen offers that she thought he was out meeting Jack. Tobey tells her that he thought so, too. Jack never showed. "I can't believe he flaked on you for those frat morons," Jen says. Tobey puts on a brave face and makes some excuses for Jack, but Jen won't hear them. "The very least that he could do is loosen his grasp on his beer bong and be on time," she says. Dude. There's nothing wrong with beer bongs. Tobey points out Jack had "an obligation," which is true. Jen insists that Jack is "obsessed" with Sig Ep and is "turning into a pod person." Jeez. He's just meeting new people. I mean, they are a little Stepford, but joining a frat doesn't automatically make you the Bride of Satan. Tobey tells Jen that he doesn't think Jack "has the pod mentality." He smiles, sheepishly, and then goes out to wait for Jack some more. Poor Tobey. This is why the pop-in is a bad idea! Damn the pop-in! The pop-in never ends well! Never!