Episode Report Card Jessica: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Merry Mayhem
By Jessica | Season 6 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.10.2002
After the credits, we open on the snow-covered halls of Worthington School For Drunken Rich Girls And Their Sanctimonious Roommates. Joey packs her suitcase as Audrey stumbles into their room. "Allow me to count the ways in which I suck," she announces. Oh, wait, I know this one! Okay, number one: you used to be funny, and now you're just a pain in the ass. Number two: you used to be entertaining, and now I want to smack you. Hard. Right in the kisser. Number three: somewhere down the line, you turned into a total spoiled bitch. Number four: despite all of this, you've also become incredibly boring, possibly because your Downward Spiral storyline is agonizingly predictable. Number five: I'm sorry, but your skin? Is really, really bad. Seriously, Audrey has yet another monster zit in this scene. I have to wonder what's going on with Busy Philipps. Did she piss off her facialist? Do the makeup people hate her? Is she on drugs? What's the story with that? Anyway, Audrey just explains that she got wasted in the airport bar and missed her flight home to Los Angeles. My hometown heaves a giant sigh of relief. Audrey-free for twenty-four more glorious hours! Joey looks mildly alarmed and wonders if it's a little early to be drinking, even for Audrey. Audrey snits that it doesn't count if you're traveling, and points out that she always has to get "sauced" to fly. Why don't they just put Audrey in a shirt that reads "I Am In A Horrible, Potentially Tragic Downward Spiral. Stay Tuned!"?
Joey shrugs casually that if Audrey isn't careful, she'll be spending the next semester in rehab. "Rehab? Rehab is for quitters," Audrey "jokes." Joey has no comment, but merely wonders what Audrey's plans are. Audrey tells Joey that she can't get a flight out of town until the next day, which is, she exposits, Christmas Day. Wait, they're still in the dorms on Christmas Eve? When I was in college, the dorms closed entirely for Christmas break. Everyone had to be out the Saturday after finals. Why wouldn't Joey want to be home in time for Christmas Eve, anyway? Maybe she had to work? Let's just decide that and move on. Anyway, Joey makes the biggest mistake of her life and invites Audrey to come back to Capeside. "It's just too depressing to be traveling on Christmas Day," Joey offers by way of explanation. Well, I guess it is, if you celebrate Christmas. I mean, I don't particularly want to be on a plane on December 25th, if only because I don't want to miss my mother's potato casserole, but I don't think it bothers my Jewish or Buddhist friends all that much. And I know it's Christmas, and everyone loves a Christmas episode, but is no one on this show Jewish? Or Hindu? Or Muslim? On the other hand, it's not like Dawson's Creek is a hotbed of racial and ethnic diversity during the rest of the year either, so I'm not all that surprised, really.