Episode Report Card Sars: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sex and Death
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.06.2001
Lodge. Pacey comes out of the bathroom as Joey brushes her hair. "May I?" "Sure," she laughs, handing him the brush, and Pacey brushes her hair all guy-clumsily. Aw. Except it really doesn't need any more brushing, dude -- there's more split ends on her head than on the floor of a barber shop. Seriously, Katie? Cut it. Cut it by like three inches. Cut it now. It's all flat and limp, and it looks assy. Anyway, Joey asks very timidly if he still has his wallet. Pacey thought they'd finished talking about that. Joey says they have, and Pacey hands over the wallet, asking if she wants to throw the condom away. "I wanna throw the wrapper away," she says. Okay, I had a whole sidebar prepared on how it's really stupid for her just to decide that she's ready and that's that, because she doesn't know anything about the thing she's supposedly ready for and that's just the nature of losing one's virginity, but she'll still wind up resenting him on some level since she's basically had her hand forced…but, really, what's the difference? The writers will just end up making the whole thing about Dawson instead of taking the time to address the real issues for a girl in Joey's place, so, fuck it. Any. WAY. Joey tells him that "this is about" how Pacey carried her bag from the bus, and how he always remembers to bring a napkin with him when he buys them popcorn at the movies, and how he took all the shots first when they played miniature golf so she would know "the correct path." Pacey looks profoundly touched by the fact that she appreciates him and all the things he does for her, and it is nice to hear her give voice to those things, since she so often comes off as an ungrateful bizzotch. While unbuttoning Pacey's shirt, Joey goes on to say that he taught her how to drive, and last year at the anti-prom, he knew that the bracelet she had on belonged to her mother. "You kissed me first, sweetheart," she says, and Pacey smiles as she remembers aloud that, the second time, he counted to ten first, "just in case [she] wanted to stop [him]." She peels off his shirt to reveal a wife-beater. Pacey bought her a wall, she says, and he starts to say modestly that it was really more of a rental, but she interrupts to say that, during their three months at sea, he understood "without a word why [she] wasn't ready." She peels off the wifebeater. Somewhere, Mr. Peepers crashes his cymbals. "Do you have to ask me now -- why I am?" she breathes. Pacey stares at her, confused and adoring at the same time. As they intertwine hands, she tells him she's going to count to ten, and then she'll start kissing him, and if he doesn't want her to, then he'll just have to stop her. She traces her finger up his arm, then down his chest, then whispers, "Ten, my love," and then they start making out. Neck kissing. Hand kissing. Strappy-tank-top lowering. He lifts her up; she gasps. Fade out, and in the ensuing blackness we can assume that they finally, at long last, DO IT.