Episode Report Card Sars: D+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Boyfriend
By Sars | Season 1 | Episode 8 | Aired on 03.09.1998
Dawson comes home to find Billy packing and asks drily, "Leaving so soon?" Billy grumbles something about checking out "the scenery up the coast." Dawson says sarcastically, "I assume you haven’t tried to steal anything -- other than my girlfriend." Billy pulls on his oh-so-New York leather top-coat and sneers, "Hey, relax, all right? You win -- I just talked to Jen, and apparently, she’s not as confused as she seems, so, looks like the nice guy’s gonna get the girl after all." He shoulders his bag and makes to leave, then turns around and says that, if he has the traffic with him, he can make it up there from New York in under three-and-a-half hours, so "you’d better treat her good, Dawson." Dawson, whose hair looks like one of the molded butter pats used in sniffy restaurants, says smugly, "I will." He walks to his window and sees Jen pacing on the dock, and his giant face fills with elation.
On the dock, Dawson comes up behind a tense-looking Jen and says, "You know, for somebody who views himself as a tragically nice guy, I spend an awful lot of time apologizing." Jen, whose hair looks like an uncombed wig, makes a disgusted noise and wriggles away from him as he continues, "Jen, I’m sorry about what I said earlier -- insecurity brings out the worst --" but Jen cuts him off: "You know how you’re always curious about what my life was like in New York? Truth is, I mean, it’s really no different than it is right now. I mean, geography aside, I am -- I am still the same stupid girl who’s always found it easier to escape into a relationship than to face life on her own." Dawson says that they can "go back" now that Billy has left town, but a tearful Jen asks, "To what?" As Dawson looks half surprised and half saddened by the question, Jen folds her arms and sniffles, "Dawson, I -- I’m sixteen. I’ve never stayed home on a Saturday night, I’ve never gone stag to a school dance, I -- I mean, I’m pretty, I’m lucky, I’m fortunate, and -- and I am still way too unhappy most of the time." Dawson stares at her as if he can’t believe what he just heard. Speaking as somebody who, at age sixteen, spent most Saturday nights at home and who always went stag to school dances and who felt neither pretty nor lucky nor fortunate but who, as a result, felt unhappy most of the time, um, Jen? Boo. Hoo. Not.
Jen tells Dawson, "I told Billy today that it was over with us," and Dawson says, "I know, he told me," and he clearly thinks that Jen will rage at him a while longer and then get over it and they can start making out, but Jen puts paid to that idea: "And now I’m gonna have to say the same thing to you." Ouch! It doesn’t sink in at first; Dawson, the smug little smile wiped off his face, gabbles, "Wha? Jen?" Jen says she knows she’s criticized Dawson for living in a fantasy world, but in all honesty, she envies him: "Everything’s so new, so untouched for you, I -- I would gladly trade in all my experience for just an ounce of your idealism, and I wish I knew some better way to say this." Dawson leaps forward and grabs her arms, babbling, "We can make this work, we can fix this," and Jen tries to pull away, sobbing, "No we can’t, no, it’s over, it’s over!" and Dawson ignores her and begs her to "sleep on this, we’ll talk in the morning, we don’t need to go over all this now," and Jen pleads tearfully, "Dawson, please, listen to me, listen to me! I gotta take a few steps back, I -- I, I’ve got to try life on my own for a while," and as Kelly Taylor waits patiently for her check to arrive in the mail, The Piano Music Of Unexpected Dumping starts up. Dawson, on the point of tears himself, yells, "You can’t just make me fall for you and then -- bail as soon as --" and he chokes up and turns away from her, and Jen says, "I’ll miss you, you know," and Dawson whispers sarcastically, "Yeah," and Jen says, "I’ll be sleeping eighty feet away from you and it’ll feel like a thousand miles." Dawson whirls back around with an incredulous arm-flap as Jen goes on, her voice quavering, "I’ll regret my decision constantly, I’ll kick myself to no end, and -- and when I come crawling back to you, you’ll have every right to say, uh, ‘Take a hike, Jen, I’m with somebody else now, and I don’t --’" and Dawson interrupts bitterly, "Somebody who appreciates me, somebody who doesn’t blow into town with her dysfunctional past and play mind-games with the boy next door, somebody who is capable of a healthy, committed relationship, and unfortunately, it’s somebody nothing like you." Dawson starts to do his trademark frustrated flounce up the dock, but he pauses momentarily to look back at Jen, who has turned her back on him and started to cry, and he snorts and proceeds to fling himself up to the house, and when he turns to go, Jen turns around, hugging herself, and watches him go, and the camera pans out from the lonely lit dock as a falsetto croons, "What have I done?"