Episode Report Card Sars: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Future Tense
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.24.2000
Conga line on the porch. Clouds crossing the full moon. Andie comes down the dock, exclaiming that she's looked all over for Jen and Joey. Joey points out sloppily that she didn't look there, because if she'd looked there, she would have found them. "Ignore her," Jen whispers. Hee. "So where's Jack?" Jen asks Andie. "He's avoiding me! Am I too controlling?" Jen and Joey, in unison: "Yes." Hee! Andie thanks them poutily for the vote of confidence. Joey intones philosophically that some people like salad dressing on the salad, and some people like it on the side. Andie and Jen stare at her. "Ohhhh-kay," Andie says, and adds that she just wants everyone she knows to live up to his or her potential. Joey announces that she has great potential as a waitress. "That's great, Joey," Jen tells her, patting her arm, and suggests going back inside: "I've got somebody that I…owe an apology to." She and Andie start to head back indoors, but Joey has other ideas: "Before anyone leaves this spot, we have a very important question to answer." Jen folds her arms and mouths at Andie, "I don't know," and rolls her eyes. I'd just like to say that, while Katie Holmes's take on drunk is pretty good, Michelle Williams's "indulgently sober onlooker" is hilarious and spot-on. Anyway, Joey asks where they all see themselves in five years, "and not the version you answer to your college advisor -- come on." Jen cracks that she'll be starting work on her master's thesis, "Are Men Necessary?" Like, ha ha. Not. Andie says that she guesses she'll "be in PR," because she's good at "painting a happy face on disaster." ["I agree, but on the grounds that she's annoying and pushy." -- Wing Chun] "Andie," Jen chides her, and Andie shrugs, "Well, you know -- think about it," and Jen starts laughing again. It's Joey's turn, but Joey -- who really, really needs a deep conditioning treatment -- dodges it with, "You tell me." Jen predicts that Joey will go to an Ivy, then move to New York and get a job in a funky SoHo art gallery for almost no money. Joey laughs sardonically and asks why New York, and Jen calls New York "finishing school for cynics like us," and Joey splutters, "I'm not a cynic!" and the other two crack up. Then Andie proposes that they all come back to the same spot in five years to see if any of the predictions came true, and Joey and Jen agree. They start inside, Joey weaving a bit and the other two steadying her, and then Joey worries that they won't remember the date: "It's not really Jen's birthday." "I'll remember," Jen says, trying not to laugh. Kind of a sweet scene -- it's about time the female leads started hanging out together.
Inside, Jack asks Dawson if anyone besides them isn't having fun, and Dawson says it's hard to tell: "Everybody else could be having fun, or they could just be imitating the fun they've seen people have in movies." Jack laughs; it's actually not a bad line, but the sight of Dawson's chest hair sends me scurrying for a barf bag before I can enjoy it properly. Naturally, moments later, John Hughes is again invoked, this time in Sixteen Candles, as a nerdy-looking kid knocks over a pyramid of soda cans. Jack makes a comment about the kid, and Dawson, whose hair has flipped its part over to the other side, says he forgets that Jack "actually know[s] these people," and Jack, whose sling has also switched to the other side, makes "you don't know how much you appreciate something until it's gone" noises, and at that moment Dawson spots Joey coming inside, and Jack mutters that Dawson probably knows the feeling pretty well while I flip through the Pottery Barn catalog for ideas on how to incorporate this anvil into my decorating scheme.