Episode Report Card Jessica: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Song Remains The Same (2)
By Jessica | Season 6 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.01.2002
At the other end of town, Jen is at the Up With People -- or, er, The Stand -- meeting. The group leader is just inordinately perky in a deeply terrifying way, chirping that people should "never be afraid to ask for a hug at the end of a tough day," and so forth. Jen eyes the poster hanging on the wall right next to her head. It's of the "One of These Days, I'm Going to Get Ornagized" ilk. She makes a skeeved face and bails.
She runs into Blandy right outside the meeting and whines that she just can't go back in there. "I saw the posters," she says, continuing that she's really not down with "the hugging and the one day at a time" thing. Blandy nods. He gets it: it's not cool enough for her. Jen yammers that it's all really…"nice." But she's not much of a joiner. "It was really nice to meet you. And good luck. And bye," Jen stammers. Blandy furrows his brow and wonders why she even came to the meeting, if she's "not a joiner." "Um, that's not obvious?" Jen asks, shifting her weight. Blandy asks her to explain, "for argument's sake." Jen stutters that she promised herself over the summer to try to do things differently, to make new friends, but she can't do that by pretending to be something she's not, because then all her new friends will all think she's something that she's, you know, not. She gulps a giant breath after spewing all that out. Blandly raises a brow. I think. "Well, what aren't you?" he asks. Jen looks at him and confesses that she's not "as great of a person as [Blandy] thinks she is." Blandy calmly shrugs that that's too bad. "And no matter what happens this year, I hope you do one thing," he tells her as he takes his leave. "Change your mind about yourself."
In rebellion against the stupidity of this ridiculously predictable apartment plot, I am not recapping the next scene. All you need to know is that Pacey is being a jackass, up to and including telling Emma that "lesbians are notorious for committing too soon" and that before she knows it, they're going to be "splitsville and throwing appliances at each other." Table for Unattractive Stereotype Number Three! Unattractive Stereotype Number Three, your table is ready! Emma wonders how Pacey knows that she's not going to be throwing her appliances at him. "And for that matter, how do you know I'm not a lesbian?" she asks pertly. Pacey looks somewhat taken aback and concedes the point. From across the room, the entire Gay Contingent of Potential Roommates looks at him. Audrey perches on the sofa and reads US Weekly, which I must say has turned into a first-rate tabloid over the last few months. I love it now that it's all gossipy and trashy. It fills a void in my reading schedule. Anyway. "And you make your living selling people stuff," Emma wonders. Pacey goes to Plan L, which is Yammering About The Many Benefits of Living With Him And Jack, Like Security (Because They're Boys!) And Home-cooked Dinners! Plus, he points out, he has a steady girlfriend. Audrey pipes up that they're probably going to break up soon and then Pacey will have a "string of hos" running through the joint. Pacey gives her a dirty look and drags her off into the corner for a talking too. In another corner, Jack is lying to the lesbians about how the apartment is overrun with vermin.