Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Kiss
By Sars | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 02.02.1998
In an empty hallway at school, Pacey does wheelies in the wheelchair. He rolls up beside the door of Mr. Gold's classroom, in which TaMAHra and Mr. Gold have a conversation about The Way We Were, and TaMAHra comments, "It's so bittersweet -- they belonged together." Mr. Gold offers to walk TaMAHra home. They flirt. Pacey seethes. When TaMAHra comes out of the room rustling some papers, Pacey says in a voice of great portent, "Hello, Tamara." She sighs officiously and says, "Mr. Gold is right around the corner." Pacey, pissed off: "I know, I heard -- he's walking you home." He gets up to follow her as TaMAHra tries to tell her that she and Mr. Gold are "friends," and Pacey sneers, "I know what you do with your students, so I guess he's in for one heck of a ride." On the one hand, ouch, but on the other hand, TaMAHra sort of deserved that. She flinches and hisses at him, "Look, you have got to stop this before it gets out of hand." Pacey firmly points out, "This is already out of hand." TaMAHra doesn't trust herself: "I have to go." Pacey grabs her as she heads up the stairs, and she turns and asks plaintively, "What do you want from me?" Pacey searches for the right word before answering, "You. I want you." TaMAHra stares at him, looking touched and defeated at the same time.
Shot of the ruins from afar, complete with -- oh, brother -- a pair of swans swimming along. Dawson and Jen huck equipment up a tree-lined trail as Dawson explains, "We're actually not supposed to be here -- the guy's dead and the son's a real ass. If you see somebody, run like hell." Jen makes a non-witty comment regarding trespassing, then asks, "What is this place?" Dawson replies, "The monster's secret haven," but Jen wants to know "for real," and Dawson goes into a long-winded tale about the guy building it for his late wife as part of his estate, and the wife loved Greece, but she got too sick to travel so he brought Greece to her, a concept that Jen deems "so romantic," which Dawson takes as a hopeful sign. They pause inside a scaled-down agora-type structure to admire the fountain and the aggressively honking Canada geese, and Jen murmurs about the beauty of the spot, and Dawson says they have to hurry or they'll lose the light. Jen asks what Dawson wants her to do, and Dawson tells her to sit on a bench "and watch me as I create the moment." Dawson, please, I beg of you -- shut up. Dawson dresses the set and puts on a Toad The Wet Sprocket tape (no comment) and asks Jen what she thinks of his using this as the closing sequence. She deems the idea "a little schmaltzy, considering it's a horror film." Dawson, backtracking: "Yeah, but I was going for the tragic ending. See, the monster's dead, but in his death, Penelope finds understanding. She comes here to his secret place to say goodbye. It's thematic. It kinda balances out all the blood." Jen says she sees it. Sars jams a knitting needle into her eardrum. Then they get ready to summon the spirit of Uta Hagen, and Jen asks Dawson to direct her, and he asks for "longing -- incredible sadness," and Jen poses herself next to a pillar and looks solemn as Dawson narrates, "You've just discovered that the monster you've killed is really the man you love," and he watches her on the monitor and continues to prate on about an experiment gone wrong blah blah blah fishcakes, and after a short time, during which Jen just stands there morosely, Dawson says with a foolish grin on his face, "Cut. And print." Jen wonders if she should do it again, but Dawson calls her acting "amazing" and "perfect," and Jen says she "had a good director," and Sars doesn't think she'll ever get solid food down again, and they have an awkward pre-kiss moment before Dawson says, "It seems a shame to waste all this good production design -- the sunset, the music, the soft candlelight," and the so-called suavity of these lines make the Backstreet Boys seem positively deep, and then we cut to the monitor as Dawson finally gets the requisite stones to kiss Jen, and she starts to kiss him back, but she stops when she realizes Dawson has the camera rolling, and she says, "Wait, wait, what are you doing," and on the monitor, we see Dawson turn around to look at the monitor and stammer, "Um." Jesus, Mary, and Joseph -- could they please just kiss already? I'd like to get the puking done with, if you don't mind.
Sunset at the marina. Joey heads over to Richie's boat. Richie plays violin again; Joey comments, "You're pretty good at that thing." Richie puts down his fiddle and says he hoped she'd show up, and he comes over to the dock and says regretfully that "we leave tomorrow, but, um, I come to New York all the time. I'll take you out to dinner -- the Rainbow Room, we can dance the night away." Joey smiles sadly and says, "I'm not a very good dancer. And I prefer Boulet [sp?] -- it's my haunt, I'm an east side girl." Richie says slowly, "But Boulet isn't -" and then gives her a quizzical look and says, "Let me get you my number," and Joey looks nervous. Oops -- busted. For the record, I've never heard of Boulet, or Boulé, or whatever, and I live here, but then I don't get out much. Any road, Richie goes belowdecks, and Joey bites her lip, and when he reappears and hands it to her, he says, "Call me -- would you?" Joey says "yeah," and Richie smoothes her hair away from her face, and they have a sweet little kiss, and Sars realizes that Richie actually looks a lot like her first true love. He asks, "Can I walk you somewhere?" She shakes her head and says, "No. You, uh, you need to say right here in the moonlight. That's where you belong." He looks wistful. Joey can hardly restrain herself from grinning like a maniac at getting that first kiss over with, and I so remember what that was like. They both look sort of sad as Joey walks away. Aw -- that scene was sort of cute.