Episode Report Card 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Abby Morgan, Rest In Peace
By Sars | Season 2 | Episode 19 | Aired on 05.04.1999
Over at the Icehouse, Jack uses a broom as a microphone to "interview" Joey about the whole kissing-Dawson-on-the-dance-floor situation. Joey tries to blow him off, but Jack -- in his new role as The Gay Guy, Sage Confidante To All And Sundry -- doesn't buy it, and Joey finally says, "We're putting it on hold." Then Jack asks, "So how you feeling otherwise?" Joey says she's okay, although she's had a lot on her mind lately, and asks how Jack feels about "this whole thing." Jack admits that the fact that he kissed Abby at Dawson's party weirds him out, because that probably means that Jack was the last person she ever kissed, and Joey shrugs, "At least she went out with a bang," and for some reason they both break up laughing at this rather Abby-esque single entendre (tm Wing). Yawn.
Speaking of things crushingly boring, cut to Dawson's movie as seen on editing software. Dawson stares at a clip playing on-screen of Abby-as-Jen screaming at Devon-as-Joey. Pacey walks in and pulls up a chair, and when Dawson asks "what's up?" Pacey tells Dawson that Mrs. Morgan asked Andie to "give a eulogy extolling Abby's virtues." "Extolling"? Dawson snickers, "How do you speak glowingly about a girl who rode to school on a broomstick?" (Oh, all right -- heh.) Pacey expresses his frustration with Andie and her myriad neuroses, and Dawson sighs, "I know what you mean. That's why I'm here." Pacey says, "It must be kind of a surreal experience editing a movie in which one of your leading ladies is no longer." Then Dawson hits "play" and Abby does the scene again, but this time she starts laughing and points to Devon and says, "I'm sorry -- she has food in her teeth," and Dawson and Pacey both sort of laugh. Do we even need this scene in the show? I don't think we do.
Back at the Good-Versus-Evil Chalet, Grams fries up something for dinner, while Sars downs several shots of espresso in a vain effort to keep her eyes open until Abby gets a proper Christian burial. Jen clomps in and peels off her jacket as Grams says, "Perfect timing -- dinner's almost ready," and Jen leans waaaaay over the frying pan to smell the food as Grams recoils from the stench of alcohol and gasps, "Jennifer, have you been drinking again?" Jen, staggering towards the stairs, slurs, "Not only have I been drinking, but I am drunk out of my mind," and as she pitches forward in an exaggeration of her usual graceless clompy walk, Grams protests, "Jennifer, don't do this to yourself, don't mask your grief with alcohol -- try to feel your pain. This drinking will only make things worse." Jen giggles, "'Worse'? Worse than what?" Grams tries to tell Jen to remember "the good times [she] shared with Abby" and that Abby would want Jen to remember her that way, but Jen laughs, "Well, then, you obviously didn't know Abby too well, because Abby is probably down there with Beelzebub, doing tequila shooters and laughing at all of us," and I'd have to agree with that assessment (except for the use of the word "shooters"). Grams refuses to give up, assuring Jen that Abby "is in God's hands -- He has a special place in His kingdom for the children." Jen, looking like she might barf into her hand again, burps, "Really? God's got a five-bedroom beach condo in Maui for dead kids?" and stumbles off towards her room, and Grams starts to object, but Jen rails at her, "For the last time, Grams, there is no God, and there is no heaven, and there is no peace, and there is no hope. The only truth that I know is pain. So you can just keep your Sunday-school fables to yourself, because they make me puke." I can't believe she actually said "the only truth that I know is pain." Like, shut up! Grams accuses Jen of enjoying shocking and offending her, and adds, "I am trying to be understanding, but you insist on disobeying my rules and polluting my house with your disrespectful blasphemy." Jen, half-gloating and half-crying: "I guess you're finally sick of me, huh? I guess your infinite patience and compassion aren't as infinite as we thought." Then Jen yells, "If I can't just, just be myself and just speak my mind, maybe I should just move out." Grams's jaw drops at this, and she exclaims, "Jennifer!" and Jen clodhops her drunk ass up the stairs to pass out. I have to say that the writers have done a decent job with Jen's whole pretentious I-gotta-be-me atheism trip.