Episode Report Card Sars: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Baby
By Sars | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 02.23.1998
Capeside’s town hall. Pacey heads up the stairs, and when he sees TaMAHra, who has her hair styled in a frumptastic horns-of-plenty arrangement, he sighs, "Tammy," only to get cut off by TaMAHra’s attorney, who introduces herself and informs Pacey that TaMAHra "has chosen not to discuss her case with [you] at the current time." Pacey reaches for TaMAHra’s hand and tries to appeal to her directly, but she shrinks away from him as her lawyer asks him again to "refrain from communicating directly with" TaMAHra. As TaMAHra looks anywhere but at the fuming Pacey, her attorney hands him her card and says, "Should you feel the need to speak with her at any future date, you’re instructed to contact me and I’ll pass along any pertinent information. Is that clear?" Pacey mutters, "Yeah." Then he asks the lawyer to tell TaMAHra that he’s sorry. He walks away. TaMAHra watches him go and her lower lip trembles.
Dawson. Camcorder. Bessie screaming. Jen dealing with timing the contractions, Grams on the floor between Bessie’s legs, Joey curled in a ball of inappropriate resentment on the couch. Grams telling Bessie, "It’s time to push." Jen mopping Bessie’s brow. Dawson telling Joey, "She’s gonna be okay." Joey sneering, "Yeah, I know." Sars lending Joey a trampoline so that she can get over herself.
In a courtroom or a similar chamber-type room, a chubby man drones that the school boards finds itself "faced with a persistent rumor." As he talks, TaMAHra clenches and unclenches her hands while her lawyer scribbles notes. Chubster asks if TaMAHra has heard the rumor; she says yes, she’s heard it. Chubster asks if Pacey is a student in one of her sophomore English classes, and TaMAHra says yes, he is. Pacey skulks in the back door of the chamber as Chubster announces, "There have been allegations of a sexual relationship between you and Mr. Witter. Please forgive my candor when I ask you, Miss Jacobs, are these allegations true?" Deputy Doug, stationed in the back of the room, shoots Pacey a glare. TaMAHra draws a breath, looks to her attorney for support, and begins, "Well, you see," only to have Pacey interrupt, "No, no, they’re not." Chubster says, in a distinctly Southern accent which he happens to share with Bessie, "Mr. Witter, you are to wait until you’re summoned." TaMAHra turns in her chair to stare at Pacey as he says quietly, "Look, I don’t mean any disrespect here, but if you’ll just give me a second, I’ll have you all home for dinner, okay?" The members of the board fold their hands expectantly, and Chubster gives Pacey the floor. Pacey says he knows the rumors "have been traced to" him, and he supposes that makes sense, "because look at me -- here I am, a C-plus student, sitting in the back of Miss Jacobs’s English class every day, daydreaming about the same thing." TaMAHra and her horns-of-plenty coif face front, eyes shifting, then turn around to look at Pacey again as he continues, "About what it would be like to be a little bit better looking, a little more sophisticated, and about fifteen years older, ‘cause then and only then could Miss Jacobs possibly look at me as anything other than just another one of her students, and only then could this rumor stand any chance of being true." TaMAHra regards Pacey with grateful admiration and bites her lip, touched, as he finishes, "I mean, don’t get me wrong -- I’m real flattered with [sic] the seriousness that you took these allegations, but you know, personally, I’ve always kind of chalked them up to adolescent fantasy. [I] kind of expected you guys to feel the same." Chubster asks Pacey if, "for the record," he denies the allegations, and Pacey says firmly that he does and that "Miss Jacobs is my English teacher, and to my great disappointment, absolutely nothing else." TaMAHra faces front again, then turns around again to look at Pacey again. Please, please, let that shipment of fifty-pound bags of coffee beans get here soon.