Episode Report Card Sars: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Future Tense
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.24.2000
Jack, the sling back on his left arm, plays with a football in his room. Andie knocks and enters: "It's Dad. He's dead." Okay, she doesn't. She does apologize for not being "more understanding about football" and for getting on his case about college. Jack tells her to keep going with the apologizing. She protests a little, saying that she's not as obsessed with the future as he thinks: "I don't want it to get here any quicker than you do." She has a funny way of showing it, Jack says. Andie says that, in a year, her whole life will have completely changed, she'll live somewhere different and have different friends, "and you know, in times of uncertainty, I look for things that I can fix." She shrugs and bites her lip. Jack tells her gently but firmly that she can't "fix" him; he has to make his own mistakes, and she has to "work on letting go of things [she] can't control." Andie agrees, but whines that, next year, they won't be going to the same school for the first time ever. Jack says that he tried to start kindergarten without her, and Andie says that that's just family lore, and she, the more responsible one, "[is] definitely the older sibling in this relationship." Yeah, no kidding. Time to stat page make-up for some alpha-hydroxy, honey. More sibling banter.
PB&B. Pacey opens the passenger door. From inside: "I can't walk, Pacey." "Before, I had to drag you kicking and screaming, but now you want to be carried? No." Heh. Joey starts to haul herself out the car, hissing that it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind -- shut up, Joey -- but Pacey swings her legs around, telling her that tonight she's one of the guys, "and guys walk." Shut up, Pacey. They manage to get Joey onto her feet, but she stops short, all hunched over: "Uh. I don't feel so good." Pacey shuts the door and tells her cheerfully that she'll feel even worse the next day, and she still "won't be any closer to getting into the ivy-covered institution of your choice." Ouch. "Pacey," Joey says all cotton-mouthed, and I thought for sure that she'd hurl at that moment, but she doesn't; instead, she leans against the car and explains that she's done some thinking. "Yeah, drunk thinking," Pacey sighs, but Joey goes on, barely seeming to hear him, "Maybe…maybe that's not what I really want. Maybe I just wanna stay here." It's beautiful there, and maybe she could just… "Just what?" Pacey interrupts. "Stay here and work as a waitress all your life? Come on," and he tells her she's not making sense and hasn't all night, but before he can take the thought any further, she interrupts back with, "I wanna be with you, Pacey -- I wanna stay and be with you!" Okay, okay: aw. Pacey tries to keep the joy of hearing those words from taking over his face, then sighs and tells her that, if she wants to be with him, "then staying here would be a really stupid idea." Joey looks bereft, but he finishes strong: "Considering I don't plan to be here. I plan to be wherever you are." A smile creeps slowly but surely across Joey's face: "Really?" He nods, adding, "Not that you deserve to hear such things right now," and slings an arm around her shoulder, and they head towards the house, and Joey PSAs that she shouldn't have gotten drunk, and Pacey says that she's "destined for academic glory" while he's "circling the drain," and that's a problem, but she shouldn't have thought that she could solve it "with alcohol, of all things." "No," Joey agrees grudgingly. Pacey says that alcohol never solves problems, "and I'd hate to think that I fell in love with a moron." She smiles victoriously and turns to him and puts her arms around him: "So you're in love with me, huh?" Pacey does the Monkey Boy thing and says, "Not currently, no," and says she's just "some drunk girl" he has to get inside without waking up the paying customers, and then he finally admits, "Yes," and we cut to Joey grinning like a madwoman before asking if she can kiss him, and they kiss. "But I'm still not carrying you." Joey looks sulky, then flirtatious, and she does the whispery-little-girl thing, and then she hikes her tongue down his throat, and he agrees to carry her halfway. Oy.
IHOF. Dawson finds Gretchen cleaning up, and congratulates her on the job. Awkwardness. Gretchen puts a glass on the bar. Dawson asks for a rain check, but Gretchen says they aren't drinking -- for every quarter she can bounce in, he has to tell her one thing that's bothering her. She's using a highball glass? Pfffft. Amateur. Blah dee blah. Plink. Gale accused Dawson of wanting to go to college in California to run away from his problems. "And you think she's right?" Plink. Dawson doesn't know. He's seen things lately that make him want to "run screaming to the opposite coast." Dude. Don't stay on our account. ["Word. Is it because you're a bit short on the airfare? Because it's on