Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT First Encounters Of The Close Kind
By Sars | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.14.1999
The odious strains of Counting Crows usher us into the next scene, where Jack waits on a bench under a sign that says "Gay Bus Stop." No, not really, but it might as well. A bus pulls up, and as Jack rises from his seat, two guys holding hands jog up to the bus and board it. Jack stands there, dismayed, until the bus driver asks him, "Well? Are you in or out?" Hardy har har. Well, except for the "hardy" part, and the part with the two "har"s. Jack gets on the bus. Riding, he stares at the two guys holding hands with a mixture of fear and envy.
On campus, Joey finds Dawson brooding on a bench under a sign that says "Wunderkinds." Really, it does. Okay, so it really doesn't. Anyway, Joey asks how the screening went; Dawson makes a choking sound, and when Joey laughs that "it couldn't have been that bad, could it?" Dawson whispers, "It was an unmitigated disaster." Joey looks sad for him and says very nicely, "What do those hipper-than-thou film brats know, anyway?" You may insert your own "plenty"-related comment here. Dawson thinks the film brats might be right. Joey sits down beside him and says he doesn't mean that, but Dawson thinks that maybe "the problem with having such a big dream is that you never stop to question whether or not you have the talent to back it up. What if I, I simply don't have what it takes to be a great filmmaker?" Dawson, Dawson, Dawson -- buck up, little camper! Joel Schumacher doesn't have what it takes to be a filmmaker, period, and he isn't exactly starving, right? Joey makes her customary "you the man" noises, remembering aloud the day that movies "became something more to" Dawson than just a way to pass the time, and she reminds him that he had the courage to go after his dream: "And you know what? I'm really proud of you." She puts an encouraging arm around his shoulder. Believe it or not, this scene -- which had off-the-charts annoyingness potential -- turned out sort of sweet. Sort of.
In a nifty segue from "sort of sweet" to "requiring insulin," we find Andie back in the admissions office, presumably after lunch. Marla Gibbs lets herself in to discover Andie waiting there; evidently, a janitor let her in, but Andie tells Marla not to worry, she "didn't touch anything." Um, Marla? I'd count the petty cash just in case; Andie's track record isn't so great in this department. Andie also brought Marla dessert. Marla shakes her head and says, "And I thought I'd seen it all," because nobody had ever thought of sucking up to the secretary of the admissions office before. At Harvard. Because nobody wants to go there. Hey, wait -- okay, never mind. Andie thought she might steal (geddit?) a moment of the dean's time if he got back from lunch early. Marla admires Andie's "chutzpah," but informs her that the dean is "a notoriously late luncher." Andie slumps into a chair. Marla asks her what's the matter, and Andie mopes, "Nothing." Marla informs Andie that she has seven children, and that none of them attended Harvard, and that it "didn't seem to bother them much." Andie says, "So you don't think I'm going to get in." Marla says she's given up trying to predict which students get accepted. Andie murmurs, "So, you had seven kids," and Marla tells her that one has become an investment banker, two have become doctors, "the three girls are married," and one of her kids didn't go to college at all and "plays horn in a jazz band downtown," and she asks Andie which of her children she thinks is happiest. Gee, Marla, thanks so much for that "success and fulfillment for women = marriage" subtext. Not. Andie asks if Marla means that she should "avoid medical school and Wall Street, don't get married, and skip college," and Marla says that whether or not Andie goes to Harvard "will have little or nothing to do with what kind of person you turn out to be, or whether you find fulfillment in your life." Nice speech, but if I'd heard it at Andie's age, I wouldn't have listened to it either.