Episode Report Card Wing Chun: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Decisions
By Wing Chun | Season 1 | Episode 13 | Aired on 05.18.1998
In the Sanctum, Dawson flicks through his CDs. Jen comes through his bedroom window, and Dawson asks her how his grandfather is. She scratches her arms and laughs, a little hysterically, "It doesn't really look too good. I think I'm losing him. I feel like I'm losing everybody!" Dawson says he's sorry. Jen walks toward him, sighing, and sits at the end of the bed to tell him, "I miss you, Dawson." He hurries over to sit next to her, and she continues, "I really do miss you." He tells her he's here, and she says, "No, you're not. You're half here. And part of that's my fault, Dawson. I blew it, you know? But I'm going to stop blowing it." He asks what she's talking about, and she asks, "Can I sleep here tonight? Dawson? With you? The way Joey does? As friends? Can I just lie here with you tonight?" Caught off-guard by the request, Dawson says, "Yeah. Sure." Sarah McLachlan starts whining on the soundtrack as Dawson reclines on his back, and Jen cozies up to him and starts crying. Dawson awkwardly tells her it'll be okay. Sympathy grab or booty call? You be the judge.
On opposite sides of the prison fence, Joey and Mr. Pothead approach each other. She tells him she doesn't really know what she's doing there, and then says, "That's not true. Look. I came here tonight because I wanted to tell you that you messed up. You really messed up. And not because you broke the law, or you got caught, or you left me without a father. You messed up because you don't know me. I'm your daughter and you don't know me at all. So, I guess I just came to say that I'm all right. I turned out pretty good. And I'm gonna be okay. No help from you." Tears trickle down Mr. Pothead's pock-marked cheeks. Joey continues: "And I just had one question. [long pause] Do you love me?" And thus commenced the great Joey Potter spinectomy, because, as I've already said, she shouldn't give half a shit what he thinks of her. Mr. Pothead sobs, "More than you'll ever know. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Joey starts to melt, and she asks, "Do you think about me?" and I call up Mount Pleasant cemetary and ask them to break ground on a grave for Old Joey. Mr. Pothead moans, "Sweetheart -- all day long: Every day, every hour, every minute." Joey asks again, "Do you really love me, though? Because I'm fifteen years old, and I go through every day of my life thinking nobody loves me." Mr. Pothead tells her nothing could be further from the truth, and adds, "And I'm not the only one. Dawson Leery -- he loves you, Joey." She shakes her head, and Mr. Pothead asks, "He's never told you?" Um, hi -- you're standing at the fence of a prison in the middle of the night, a four-hour drive from home. The most pressing issue on your mind to discuss with your incarcerated father is your dating prospects?
Joey says Dawson's never told her that he loves her, and Mr. Pothead says that Dawson does. Joey asks how he knows, and Mr. Pothead burbles, "Because he looks at you the same way your mother used to look at me." Joey weeps, and Mr. Pothead chokes, "And you love him!" Joey nods. Mr. Pothead asks her if he's told her, and she shakes her head, and Mr. Pothead says, "You have to tell him, Joey. Don't make my mistake. Don't wait 'til someone you love is eaten by cancer and wasting away while you hold back the one thing they're waiting to hear." Joey seems finally to have an inkling of how inappropriate this conversation is, and she shifts her weight from foot to foot and then grabs her father's hand through the fence and says, "I love you, Dad." He says, "I love you." They both cry. She says she has to go. I do too, and the toilet seems like it's a four-hour drive away. What is Mr. Pothead, Cupid? Doesn't he have better things to do in prison than hook his daughter up with a little action?