Previously on Dawson’s Creek, Bessie complains about her "way too" pregnancy, Bodie gets up in Grams’s face, Grams and Bessie face off, Pacey and TaMAHra totally don’t keep their relationship "strictly teacher-student."
Sanctum Dawsonorum. "The End" appears in curlicue writing on the TV screen. Joey "Days Of Spine And Roses" Potter, clad in a tomboyish pair of overall shorts, says with zero emotion, "Okay. Great movie. Thanks a lot. I gotta go." Dawson "Forehead Primeval" Leery protests, and Joey says she really can’t stay -- Bessie "Babycakes" Potter is due any minute. Dawson says that Bodie can take care of Bessie, and besides, they’ve only watched one movie -- they never watch just one movie on movie night. Joey says limply, "Well, first time for everything," and Jen "Wee Wee Wee All The Way Home" Lindley pipes up from her chair on the other side of Dawson’s bed, "Huh, a night of firsts all around." Jen has her hair barretted to the side, and it actually looks cute, but that doesn’t stop Joey from biting her head off: "What are you talking about?" Jen, momentarily flummoxed, stammers, "I’m talking about the obvious, which I know we’ve all tried our best to ignore, but it’s easy to see that I’ve intruded on a very personal ritual here, and clearly my presence is making you uncomfortable," and as Jen speaks, Joey advances towards her with her arms folded across her chest and her face set in stony disapproval. Jen gets up and tells Joey to stay and watch another movie -- she’ll go. Joey rolls her eyes. Dawson says, "No, Jen, you don’t have to do that," and Jen says, "No, it’s okay -- I mean, you and I have decided to slow things down, so I’m sure that a few hours apart won’t kill us," adding, "Grams has kinda been on the warpath, meaning once she sees Joey leave, there’s no way she’s gonna trust you and I [sic] alone, so, so I should go." Joey summons just enough grace to say in an extremely grudging tone of voice, "Well, don’t leave on my account -- I mean, I’m not interested in ruining anyone’s evening." Jen tells her that it’s not her and she shouldn’t take it personally. Dawson, feigning ignorance to the unresolved tension, claps his hands and says, "Great, so, issue -- what to watch," like, buck up little camper! Not about to let it drop, Jen points out that if she and Joey both stay, it leaves them "stuck in the same uncomfortable position we’ve been in all night," and Dawson flops back on the pillows and comments that, from where he sits, neither of them can stay, regardless of whether the other one leaves, and since he lives there, that seems to leave "only one option," and on cue both girls say, "’Night, Dawson," and as he sputters, "Wait a minute," Joey climbs out the window and Jen goes down the stairs. Dawson grumbles, "Movie night -- way too complicated," and fondles the remote.
Credits. J.Crew. Poodle in wood-chipper.
Outdoor Capeside scenes, just in case we forgot the ostensible location of the show and needed a lighthouse to jolt us back to Kevin Williamson’s version of reality. At Bessie’s Bastard Barn, "Where In The World Is" Bodie "Sandiego" asks after Bessie’s health, and Bessie complains that she feels "nauseous and swollen and irritable," and Bodie tells her to "look at the bright side" and reminds her that "in less than a week, this will all be over." Bessie, a green Popsicle in one hand and a book in the other, continues to kvetch, envying aloud the fruit bat’s gestation period of two months. Bodie pours himself a bowl of cereal and makes exaggerated "whatever, o pregnant one" faces. Nothing goes with muesli like Maalox, so mark those scorecards at six minutes - a new record. Bessie whines, "Why can’t I give birth to a fruit bat?" Joey, entering the kitchen, answers, "Because we’re about eighty percent sure you’re human." Like, ha ha. Not. Bessie glares at her and asks, "Do you still live here?" Joey grumbles, "Unfortunately," and asks Bodie about his interview, which he says will take place "today, after work -- that new French restaurant over in Hyannis." Bessie tells Joey that if she doesn’t like it at the Barn, "No one’s stopping you from moving out. In fact, in most states, you’d be considered an adult," and Joey snipes, "That’s funny, ‘cause you wouldn’t." Um, Joey? Shut up. Bessie frowns and whimpers, "Bodie," and Bodie tells Joey to take it easy on Bessie, and the sisters scowl at each other. Bodie promises Joey that Bessie will get back to her old self once the baby comes, and Joey groans, "That’s what I’m afraid of." And thus the writers set up The Scene Of Sisterly Dependability In Crisis. Yawn.
Grams "Revelation" Ryan straightens up Jen’s room, gathering various skimpy undergarments with an expression of patent distaste. As Jen walks in, Grams spots a calendar on the wall that features a man naked, and she gasps, "What in heaven’s name is this?" and Jen says, "A calendar, Grams," and Grams huffs, "It’s a filthy calendar," and Jen corrects her, "No, it’s an art calendar. And before you get apoplectic on me, these photographs happen to be hanging in some of the world’s finest art galleries." Um, "apoplectic"? Who wrote this episode, Charles Dickens? Grams responds, "I don’t care who’s hanging them -- in my house, we don’t ogle naked men." Jen teases her, "No, we pray to ‘em, right?" Um, Jen? I wouldn’t mind your jokes at the expense of Grams’s beliefs so much if they bore even the slightest resemblance to humor, but I can assure you that they don’t. In other words, shut up. Grams echoes my sentiments by spluttering, "Don’t you dare compare the two -- uch, my Lord, Jennifer, what has happened to you? To the little girl I used to know, who I took to Sunday school when she would come visit me each summer, and who once showed respect for the church and its teachings?" Jen squirms a bit before giving a less flip and combative answer than usual: "Well, she’s carefully considered all possible scenarios detailing a God-like source, and she’s found them unconvincing." Jen goes on to say that while she respects those who choose to believe in a higher being, she herself does not, and we’ve seen precious little evidence of that respect, but anyhow, Jen adds, "Simply put, Grams, [I] grew up." Grams says, suppressing a smile, "Perhaps. Perhaps she just thinks she did." Right on. Jen rolls her eyes resignedly as Grams bustles out, and so it came to pass that the writers prepared us for The Scene Of The Mutual Increase Of Respect.
Tamara "TaMAHra" Jacobs and Pacey "You Must Be This Tall To Ride The Ride" Witter chat to TaMAHra’s midlife-crisis-mobile -- I mean, red convertible. Pacey invites TaMAHra to "go out this weekend." TaMAHra says, "That’s what we usually do, Pacey," and Pacey points out, "No, we don’t go out. We stay in," and bemoans the fact that they have to "lock the doors and close the blinds so that none of the townsfolk could possibly see us together." "Townsfolk"? Pacey ribs her, "I know you’re having trouble acknowledging the fact that we have a relationship, but you have to admit there’s something going on here." TaMAHra collects various books from the backseat and sighs, "Yes, there is something," but she smiles as she says it. "Right," Pacey says, "So you know what? I think we should start acting like it. Going out, in public, together -- it’d be great, like a real couple." TaMAHra calls this fantasy "hardly practical," and Pacey says they don’t have to go out in Capeside; they can drive down to Providence instead, because "nobody knows [them] down there." TaMAHra says nothing. Pacey asks again, "Will you go out with me, Miss Jacobs?" TaMAHra simpers.
In the men’s room, Dawson asks incredulously while washing his hands, "She said she’d go to Providence with you?" Pacey, taking a whiz, comments, "Well, she didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no, either." He flushes, adding, "She gave me that ‘I really want to, Pacey, but I just can’t’ look," and predicts that once he gets his learner’s permit, TaMAHra will "cave completely." Then Pacey checks under the stall doors for feet, to make sure nobody overheard their conversation, explaining to a puzzled Dawson that they "really can’t be too careful with this information." Dawson says wryly that he really feels for Pacey, "spending all [his] time trying to get Miss Jacobs out of the bedroom." Pacey wags his finger at Dawson: "Listen, this relationship is not all about sex, okay? I mean, luckily for me, some of it is." The bell rings, and Dawson makes a snide comment about not standing up Pacey’s girlfriend; then he tells Pacey, "Hey, dude, you’ve gotta be careful, too." As they leave, the camera lingers on the closed doors of one of the stalls, then cuts to a stoner hunched on top of a toilet, coughing and muttering gleefully, "Ohhhh, man." Ruh roh!
Outside of school, Dawson comes running up to Jen, who has on an attractive long dress but who mars the effect of said dress by walking like a backhoe, and announces that he "may have finally found an upside" to his parents’ "marital woes." Then Dawson comments humbly, "Since it isn’t really about me, I’ve decided to chill." Oh, wait, he doesn’t say that at all, telling Jen instead that Gale "You Don’t Love Me, You Just Love My Doggy Style" Leery and Mitch "The Flash" Leery have couples’ therapy this weekend and have "left Leery Manor [sic] in my sole possession." Translation: the producers cheaped out on the actors’ payroll.
Jen says hurriedly, "Okay, that’s nice and everything, but --" and Dawson interrupts, "’Nice’? I was hoping for something a little bit more illicit than that," and I think he meant "enthusiastic," but anyway, Jen finally gets a word in edgewise: "Okay, listen, there’s this kind of weird Pacey rumor going around school -- have you heard this?" Dawson, dismissively: "What, that he finally handed a homework assignment in on time?" Jen, with relish: "Not exactly, and it’s not just about Pacey. It also involves Miss Jacobs." Dawson, getting suspicious: "What about them?" Jen: "Well, let’s just say that for a student and teacher, they have an exceptionally close relationship -- so close, in fact, that it’s considered illegal in about thirty-five states." Dawson, thinking aloud that maybe they can still "nip this in the bud," asks Jen who told her, and Jen says that he should really ask who didn’t tell her -- "it’s out there, it’s prevalent." Dawson sighs and heads for the front door of the school, mumbling, "We gotta find Pacey," and Jen dashes after him and wants to know, "Is it true?" She has to ask a couple of times, and Dawson -- whose hair looks like a wilted version of Jim Carrey’s coif in Ace Ventura -- says he can’t lie to her, so she should just forget she ever asked.
Inside, Joey comes up behind Dawson and Jen and confides with a disbelieving smile, "You guys aren’t gonna believe what I just heard," and Dawson responds grimly, "Oh, I think I will." The three of them watch Pacey approaching, but before he gets to them, a girl in a denim jumper pulls him aside and whispers in his ear, and then she heads off down the hall and Pacey just stands there in his red Kramer shirt, lost, before focusing on Dawson and staring at him with growing hostility as Dawson stares back all stricken-looking.
Cut to their provisional war room in a utility closet as Dawson tells Pacey, "Okay, Joey said she heard that Kenny Leaverton was smoking in one of the stalls, overheard everything." How many Kennys can one high school have? Pacey grumbles that it figures something bad would happen, since everything had gone a little too well for the last little while, and Dawson chides him, "Come on, Pace, it’s not that bad," like, buck up little camper! Pacey tells him that he appreciates the effort, but not only is it really that bad, "it’s worse -- this is cataclysmic. This is one of those rare milestone events that separates the first half of your life from everything that follows." He goes on to pray that the rumor doesn’t reach TaMAHra, and very sarcastically asks Dawson’s permission to feel sorry for himself. Dawson grants him that it doesn’t look good, but says, "You can control this now," and Pacey informs him sternly, "This is the wrong time for the Obi-Wan moment, Dawson." Heh. Dawson tells Pacey to blow it off and act like he couldn’t care less, and then maybe he has a chance of convincing people to drop the subject. Pacey says he can do that. Pacey and Dawson go out together into the hall, where apparently their fellow students have bad enough manners and little enough better to do that they have all stopped dead in order to stare at him. Pacey guts it out, though, swaggering down the hall and smiling at people, as Dawson leans against a wall and watches him go, and once Pacey has shot the rapids of the main hallway and rounded the corner, he slumps against a bulletin board and covers his eyes with his hand.
Oh, brother. Fade up on TaMAHra’s classroom. TaMAHra -- clad in her customary cheesy "daytime look," which includes the only pair of oyster-colored pumps I’ve ever seen outside a Hanes factory-seconds catalog -- smilingly says, "Romeo and Juliet offers perhaps the most notable exploration of the forbidden-fruit theme we’ll examine this year." "Not anymore," a wiseass in the back of the room adds, and the rest of the class cracks up as TaMAHra fails to catch on. Enter Pacey, late, which TaMAHra busts on him for; a different wiseass pipes up, "Probably resting up from last night," and Pacey cringes but tries to pretend he doesn’t care. Then Wiseass #1 leans forward and says to Pacey, "Hey, man, settle a bet -- real or silicone?" TaMAHra snaps, "Keep up the running commentary, Mr. Twitchell, and I’ll see you after class," and Mr. Twitchell asks, "You promise?" and the class cracks up again. More giggling and dumb comments as Pacey and TaMAHra lock eyes and TaMAHra finally begins to get the picture.
At the waterfront, Pacey sulks on a bench. Joey walks up to him and says in a not unkind tone, "Hey, jailbait." Pacey growls, "Feel free to keep on walking, I won’t think you’re rude." Joey sits down, saying, "Despite first impressions, I’m not here to bust on you." She says she doesn’t know if the rumors are true, or exaggerated, or designed by Pacey to make himself more attractive "to the senior girls," but regardless, she knows how he feels. Pacey laughs bitterly and says he really doubts that. Joey: "Well, let me see. People stare at you when you walk down the hall, we’ve seen that, they whisper behind your back, you suddenly overhear your name in the conversations of strangers, and pretty soon a justifiable paranoia sets in -- whether they are or not, you’re convinced that everyone’s talking about you. Imagine if you’d done something even worse." Pacey, not convinced: "Like what?" Joey, ruefully: "Like sharing a house with your pregnant unwed sister and her black boyfriend while your father serves time on a drug conviction? Imagine that, Pacey -- we actually have something in common: providing gossip for the small-minded townsfolk." Again I ask, "townsfolk"? Joey continues, "And unfortunately for you, you’re -- tonight’s top story." Pacey stretches his neck and sighs, then asks what he should do now, and Joey says, "Same thing I did. You pray like hell for a better story to come along."
As they walk up the lawn, Jen complains to Dawson, "Grams’s way of dealing with my point of view is to pretend that it doesn’t exist." Well, at least she doesn’t mock it with unfunny jokes like, say, you do to her. Jen goes on to admit that this "of course infuriates me -- it causes me to speak emotionally rather than rationally, and I become rude and defensive and I give her even more of a reason to dismiss my viewpoints. It’s like we’re locked in this awful vicious cycle." I’ve made a point in the past of saying that I don’t like the way Jen behaves towards her grandmother, but I have to give her snaps for copping to it. Dawson tells her she has to "do something" because she can’t just ignore Grams until she leaves for college, and Jen cracks, "I can’t? Great, there goes Plan A," as Grams appears at the door and gives them the stink-eye. Jen grumbles a bit more and says she’ll see Dawson later that night, and she goes inside and tries not to mouth off as Grams tells her to get to the table for dinner at six.
Cut to Bessie, revving the engine on the pickup. The wheels turn, but the truck doesn’t move, and Joey appears and asks what happened. Bessie climbs out of the cab, relieved at Joey’s arrival, and says she "had a little mishap" on her way to the clinic, and Joey doesn’t remember Bessie having a clinic appointment that day, and Bessie says she didn’t, but she’ll probably have to reschedule, and when Joey suspiciously asks why, Bessie wails, "Because I’m fairly certain I’m in labor," and Joey begins to panic. Bessie, clutching her womb, tells her to calm down; she needs Joey to call an ambulance, but their phone "isn’t exactly in working order at this very moment," so they’ll have to go to Dawson’s house. Joey observes that Dawson’s house is the closest, but not the most convenient, and there’s really only one way to get to Dawson’s from the Bastard Barn. Cut to a sunset shot of Joey rowing Bessie across the creek and telling her not to worry, "I’ll get you there," and Bessie gripes, "At the rate you’re going, Joey, the two of us is gonna be the three of us," and then she grabs the oars from Joey and accuses her of "rowing like a girl." Heh. Joey notices that the boat has started leaking. Bessie, out of breath from rowing, gasps, "It’s not the boat, Joey." Ew.
In the Sanctum, Dawson leaves a message for Pacey. Joey comes in -- the front way, for a change -- and Dawson says he’s "kinda worried about Pacey," but Joey cuts him off: "No time to talk, Dawson. My sister’s having her baby." Dawson responds, "Cool, congratulations," and Joey adds, "On your lawn." Dawson: "What?" Downstairs, a sweaty Bessie watches anxiously as Dawson says into the phone, "Yeah, sure -- yeah, I understand, but -- yeah, please, I’ll hold," and then says to Bessie, "Well, the good news is the ambulance is on its way. The bad news is it’s stopping in Duxbury first." Bessie exclaims, "Duxbury? That’s an hour away." Dawson says that "childbirth is not a high priority today" due to a major traffic accident, but "they’re giving me an ETA in a second." Bessie bitches, "One hospital with one ambulance and no doctor within thirty miles -- another of the hidden joys of living in the middle of nowhere," and I know I’ve talked before about the small size of the year-round Cape Cod community, but I think they have more than one hospital and they certainly have more than one ambulance. As Dawson says in disbelief, "How long?" into the receiver, we find out that Bodie has already caught a bus for Hyannis and nobody can reach him, and Bessie grabs the phone from Dawson and snarls into it, "Listen, you sorry-ass civil servant, this is the mother-to-be talking. Maybe I’m not in the tax bracket that guarantees a prompt response to medical distress, but I have a shoe full of amniotic fluid, my pelvis is beating like a rumba band, and I’m in real danger of having my first child delivered by two high-school students, so why don’t you stop making excuses, get off your oversized backside and get us an ambulance before my fetus enters college!" Did I mention that Bessie rocks? Because she does. Bessie hangs up and chucks the phone away as Joey sarcastically says, "Terrific. I’m sure they’ll be right on their way," and she and Dawson exchange a worried glance while Bessie continues to pant and sweat.
Pacey, brooding among the dune grasses on TaMAHra’s porch. TaMAHra approaches with her pleather briefcase, slows down for a moment, and says, "Let’s not have this conversation, Pacey." "What conversation?" Pacey asks. "The one where you apologize to me, and tend to my wounded heart," she answers derisively, continuing, "All the while explaining while you’re not to blame for opening up your big mouth." Pacey protests that he isn’t to blame, that he only told Dawson and he didn’t know Kenny Leaverton was listening, but TaMAHra is having none of it: "There was one boundary placed on this relationship, Pacey. Not sex, not true intimacy, only one -- you don’t talk about it. You don’t tell your friends, and you don’t brag to your classmates, although now I wonder if discretion is just too adult a concept for a boy to grasp." Um, TaMAHra? Nobody forced you to sleep with a fifteen-year-old, so how about you stop blaming Pacey for your neuroses and shut up? Pacey wants her to hear his side, but TaMAHra won’t let him explain, saying with deep sarcasm that he can’t tell her anything she hasn’t already heard in the teachers’ lounge, "which means it’s only a matter of time before the administration gets wind of it, and then the school board, and maybe, if we’re really lucky, the district attorney." Pacey tries to apologize, but TaMAHra cuts him off by reminding him that, that morning, he’d suggested they do "more of the things that couples do. Well, I’ve got one idea that fits the bill. Let’s break up." Nearly in tears, she storms into the house. Pacey winces. I care. Not.
I want James Earl Jones to go away and leave me alone. Just thought I’d share that.
Fade up from commercial on Bessie’s womb. Moments later, her abdomen bursts open and an alien drags itself -- oh, sorry, I meant to say that Bessie moans, "Where’s the damn ambulance?" and Dawson reassures her and Joey panics that they can’t "perform a birthing" because they haven’t even finished high-school biology. Dawson says, "There’s gotta be somebody in this town who knows what to do in this situation, right?" Joey stares at him; when she realizes he means Grams, her face hardens.
Jen, doing homework. Rummaging around in a drawer, she finds the Holy Bible. Clang! Jen comes out strong with a short jab: "What is this?" Grams blocks: "Standard King James edition, Old and New Testament[s] -- though I am partial to the later chapters." Jen goes in with an uppercut: "You know what I’m partial to, Grams? I’m partial to people who respect my privacy and the right I have to my own beliefs." Grams parries by not responding; Jen dances in close to land a few body shots: "And I know that atheism is about the least desirable trait any granddaughter of yours could ever possess, but it’s nothing you should take personally. And it’s not just God either, Grams -- I don’t have a whole lot of faith in man these days."
The ref calls time for a knock on the door, which Grams opens to find Joey. Joey bursts out, "Look, I know you don’t like me or approve of my family, and I know you can think of at least eighty reasons why Bessie and Bodie are the worst kind of sinners, but right now, as we speak, my sister’s sitting door, in Dawson’s house, inches away from giving birth, and of those eighty reasons, I can’t think of any that the baby’s actually responsible for, so if you could remember that, as a nurse, you took an oath to help others in need and, well, it’d be really nice." Um, nurses don’t take an oath, as far as I know, but in any case, holy speed-talking, Batman! Grams withstands the onslaught of verbiage by glowering silently at Joey.
Cut to the waterfront. Pacey still has the same red shirt on, but the clock has apparently turned back, because despite all the sunset shots we’ve just seen, it looks like full day at the pier. Deputy Doug pulls up in his cruiser, gets out, and starts slinging a bunch of mud around about the rumor he heard in the barbershop; he implies that Pacey made the whole thing up, and that Pacey’s lies "must be tearing [TaMAHra] apart." Doug, in his customary non-charming manner, asks Pacey why he did it. Pacey says he wanted to let the town know that at least one of them "was having heterosexual sex," and asks Doug if it ever occurred to him to stick up for Pacey, and Doug laughs mirthlessly at that before telling Pacey that his "lies have made it all the way up the food chain" to the school board. Pacey blanches as Doug blathers on about the emergency board meeting to decide whether Miss Jacobs should have charges brought against her; he tells Pacey that Pacey has to attend also and says, "It’s funny, Pacey -- there are actually people in this town who take you seriously." Pacey grumbles, "Yeah, unfortunately you’re not one of them," and walks away dejectedly. Whatever.
Meanwhile, back at the No-Fault Placenta -- I mean, the No-Fault Hacienda, Dawson tries to sell Bessie on the idea of videotaping the birth so that Bodie will have more than "a hazy second-hand story" to remember it by. Bessie, who has gotten even sweatier, reluctantly agrees, but says she wants "final cut." I love Bessie. Joey runs in, followed by Grams, and says she’s found someone to help Bessie, and Bessie closes her eyes and shouts, "Please -- don’t tell me you’ve done what I think you’ve done!" Dawson whispers, "God, what a movie!" and through the camcorder’s viewfinder we see Grams asking, as the union requires characters to ask in any scene involving a woman in labor, "How far apart are the contractions?" Bessie protests, "Joey!" as Grams massages her abdomen, and Joey sputters, "What? She’s a nurse, she can help!" and Bessie gasps, "She’s also a borderline racist who hates everything about me, and my boyfriend, and our unborn child!"
Jen comes in and asks, "Is everything okay?" and Grams takes Bessie’s pulse as Bessie leans as far away from Grams on the couch as she can. Grams comments drily, "Just having an impromptu home birth, nothing to be concerned about," and Bessie arches a damp brow and barks, "Really, because I’ve got a few concerns." Grams starts giving orders and reports that Bessie has a strong pulse and a normal temperature, and they move Bessie to a chair as Dawson films the action and Bessie yowls in pain, and Grams orders Dawson to get towels and washcloths as Bessie continues to object, and then she helps Bessie with her breathing while Joey props her up with sofa cushions. Grams says, "Thank you, Josephine," and Joey corrects her, "It’s ‘Joey,’ actually," and Bessie adds, "No, it’s ‘Judas,’ actually," and Sars snorts, "Heh!" Grams says she’ll make a deal with Bessie: "This is going to be a big day for you, and as your attending nurse, you [sic] may feel an overwhelming outpouring of gratitude towards me when we’re done here today. But I promise I will not take advantage of your postpartum bliss, and I will resist any urge to bond with you over the shared experience of this event if you will do me one small favor in return." Joey shifts from foot to foot and Bessie rolls her eyes and gasps, "What’s that?" Grams whispers, "Shut up," and as Bessie looks to Joey for backup, Grams yells, "Now where are those towels?" To hell with the 18-to-34 demographic -- can we please rename the show "Grams And Bessie’s Creek"? Please? Because only these two prevented me from falling into a boredom-induced coma during this episode.
Capeside’s town hall. Pacey heads up the stairs, and when he sees TaMAHra, who has her hair styled in a frumptastic horns-of-plenty arrangement, he sighs, "Tammy," only to get cut off by TaMAHra’s attorney, who introduces herself and informs Pacey that TaMAHra "has chosen not to discuss her case with [you] at the current time." Pacey reaches for TaMAHra’s hand and tries to appeal to her directly, but she shrinks away from him as her lawyer asks him again to "refrain from communicating directly with" TaMAHra. As TaMAHra looks anywhere but at the fuming Pacey, her attorney hands him her card and says, "Should you feel the need to speak with her at any future date, you’re instructed to contact me and I’ll pass along any pertinent information. Is that clear?" Pacey mutters, "Yeah." Then he asks the lawyer to tell TaMAHra that he’s sorry. He walks away. TaMAHra watches him go and her lower lip trembles.
Dawson. Camcorder. Bessie screaming. Jen dealing with timing the contractions, Grams on the floor between Bessie’s legs, Joey curled in a ball of inappropriate resentment on the couch. Grams telling Bessie, "It’s time to push." Jen mopping Bessie’s brow. Dawson telling Joey, "She’s gonna be okay." Joey sneering, "Yeah, I know." Sars lending Joey a trampoline so that she can get over herself.
In a courtroom or a similar chamber-type room, a chubby man drones that the school boards finds itself "faced with a persistent rumor." As he talks, TaMAHra clenches and unclenches her hands while her lawyer scribbles notes. Chubster asks if TaMAHra has heard the rumor; she says yes, she’s heard it. Chubster asks if Pacey is a student in one of her sophomore English classes, and TaMAHra says yes, he is. Pacey skulks in the back door of the chamber as Chubster announces, "There have been allegations of a sexual relationship between you and Mr. Witter. Please forgive my candor when I ask you, Miss Jacobs, are these allegations true?" Deputy Doug, stationed in the back of the room, shoots Pacey a glare. TaMAHra draws a breath, looks to her attorney for support, and begins, "Well, you see," only to have Pacey interrupt, "No, no, they’re not." Chubster says, in a distinctly Southern accent which he happens to share with Bessie, "Mr. Witter, you are to wait until you’re summoned." TaMAHra turns in her chair to stare at Pacey as he says quietly, "Look, I don’t mean any disrespect here, but if you’ll just give me a second, I’ll have you all home for dinner, okay?" The members of the board fold their hands expectantly, and Chubster gives Pacey the floor. Pacey says he knows the rumors "have been traced to" him, and he supposes that makes sense, "because look at me -- here I am, a C-plus student, sitting in the back of Miss Jacobs’s English class every day, daydreaming about the same thing." TaMAHra and her horns-of-plenty coif face front, eyes shifting, then turn around to look at Pacey again as he continues, "About what it would be like to be a little bit better looking, a little more sophisticated, and about fifteen years older, ‘cause then and only then could Miss Jacobs possibly look at me as anything other than just another one of her students, and only then could this rumor stand any chance of being true." TaMAHra regards Pacey with grateful admiration and bites her lip, touched, as he finishes, "I mean, don’t get me wrong -- I’m real flattered with [sic] the seriousness that you took these allegations, but you know, personally, I’ve always kind of chalked them up to adolescent fantasy. [I] kind of expected you guys to feel the same." Chubster asks Pacey if, "for the record," he denies the allegations, and Pacey says firmly that he does and that "Miss Jacobs is my English teacher, and to my great disappointment, absolutely nothing else." TaMAHra faces front again, then turns around again to look at Pacey again. Please, please, let that shipment of fifty-pound bags of coffee beans get here soon.
The Leery Birthing Center. Joey jumps up from the couch and stands by the door with a stricken look on her face. Jen whispers to Grams that she needs to talk to her, that "there’s a lot of blood here," and Bessie asks Grams, "Are you afraid to tell me something’s wrong?" as Grams tries to soothe her. She tells Bessie that a bit of blood is natural and demands a cool washcloth from Jen. Dawson reassures Bessie that he wouldn’t keep filming if something had gone wrong.
Joey leaves the room as Grams grabs the camera and pushes Dawson out of the room; Jen asks if there’s a problem. Grams busts her chops for mentioning the blood in front of Bessie, thus alarming her needlessly, but Jen keeps on about it, saying she knows what a lot of blood looks like even if she doesn’t know much else about childbirth. Grams sighs that yes, "there’s more blood than I’d like," but that technically she doesn’t see evidence of any kind of rupture or whatever, and Jen whispers, "In English, Grams," and Grams says that, in English, she needs Jen’s help: "I need you to set aside your attitude and second-guessing and help me get this baby out of her before, God forbid, she loses any more blood and complications worsen." Jen pouts; Grams asks, "Do you think you can do that, Jennifer? Do you think you can summon up even the smallest amount of faith in me, because if you can, I guarantee you there’d be no better time for it than right now." Um, Jen? What Grams said. And shut up. They both hurry back to Bessie’s side.
I would make a snide comment about 7th Heaven, but I can’t decide on just one, so forget it.
Bessie straining. Jen looking worried. Sars chanting the line from Bill Cosby’s childbirth routine, "Push it out, shove it out, waaaaaay out!" Bessie needing something for the pain, Jen repeating this to Grams in a too-snappish tone of voice. Grams not having any, but suggesting "something that may work better." Bessie willing to "try anything." Grams asking Bessie to repeat after her, then beginning the Lord’s Prayer. Jen, nearly crying, saying that Bessie needs a sedative, not prayer; Bessie moaning that "that stuff" won’t work on her, and Grams answering, "No, dear, it’s for your baby." Grams starting the Prayer again, and Bessie repeating each line after her. Jen joining in. Grams telling Bessie to push. Did they film this in real time or what? Let the kid fly already before I die of boredom.
Joey sits in a lawn chair, making it all about her. Dawson comes out of the house and stands to her. His hair once again adopting the Hanna-Barbera-lion style, he jokes, "I can’t wait to see my mom’s face when I tell her what happened in the living room." Like, ha ha. Not. Dawson again tells Joey that Bessie will be okay: "As frightening as Mrs. Ryan is in daily life, I think she’s incredibly capable when it comes to medical emergencies. Joey says impatiently, "I know, Dawson. FYI, I’m not out here because I’m too worried about Bessie to stay inside. I mean, I’m worried, but," and Dawson asks what’s up, and Joey says, "It’s nothing, it’s -- it’s okay. It’s stupid." Dawson tells her that he may not always agree with her, "but your reasons are never stupid." Yeah, right. Let’s hear her reasons for going out with you, then. No? Didn’t think so.
Anyhow, Joey asks Dawson who Bessie reminds him of. Dawson says gently, "That’s easy. Your mother." Joey, not looking at Dawson, remarks, "There are times when the resemblance is merely a passing one, and then others when Bessie says or does something, and -- it’s like my mom never died, you know?" Dawson looks at Joey sympathetically as she keeps talking: "When she got sick, when she had chemo every month -- it left her in this terrible pain" -- Joey begins to cry a little bit -- "and I would come home and I would sit with her and she let out these cries that I had never heard before, and I prayed to every available higher source that I would never hear them again from anyone or anything, and somehow somebody listened, ‘cause luckily I never did, you know?" Huh? "Until today," Dawson finishes, and Joey says, "Yeah." Dawson asks her, "Joey, when your mother was in all that pain, why did you sit by her?" Joey tells Dawson fretfully that her mother needed her, that she could tell that even though her mother never said so, and Dawson asks, "So what makes you think that Bessie needs you any less?" I hate to admit it, but the guy’s got a point.
Back at the courtroom, TaMAHra leaves the room, fiddling with the front of her suit jacket. Deputy Doug follows her out and smarmily apologizes for Pacey; he doesn’t want TaMAHra to tar the entire Witter family with the same brush, so he uses words like "bane" to describe his brother. What a prince. TaMAHra says, "Well then, you must be very proud." Doug doesn’t follow. TaMAHra adds, "Of the way he’s grown up," calling Pacey "a sweet, sensitive, intelligent young man." Doug looks at his feet as TaMAHra starts to walk away, then stops and says, "And Douglas? It’s ‘Miss Jacobs.’" I sort of hoped she would add "if you’re nasty," Janet Jackson-style, but she doesn’t. Oh well. Outside, TaMAHra climbs into her red convertible and starts the engine as a Lilithite burbles, "You better listen." As she reverses out of her parking space and pulls out, Pacey watches her go, hands in his pockets.
Oy. Bessie, thoroughly exhausted, drenched, and looking like she might puke, tries to push at Grams’s urging. Jen, holding the sheet up, says she can see the head. Finally. Jen and Grams cheerlead for "one more little push," which Bessie says she can’t do -- "I’m too tired" -- and Joey comes in and kneels down beside her, accompanied by The Piano Music Of Sisterly Affection, and Bessie rolls her head sideways to look at Joey, and Joey puts her hand over Bessie’s, and Bessie grabs Joey’s hand with hers, and as Dawson rolls tape again, Bessie gives one more giant push, and we hear the sound of crying. Jen gasps, "He’s out!" and Bessie asks, "He’s okay?" and Joey smiles. Grams says, "He’s better than okay, he’s beautiful, and he’s all yours," and she hands the baby to Bessie wrapped in a Fieldcrest towel. The captions read "[baby fussing]." Heh. Everyone shares a miracle-of-childbirth moment, except Bodie, who probably thought he’d gotten written off the show already or something. Aw.
Heathcliff stalks across the moors, raging -- no, no, no, sorry, just Pacey wandering through the dune grasses towards TaMAHra’s house with his Bad Idea Jeans on. TaMAHra, her hair up in a ponytail, lifts a glass of red wine, then spots Pacey and smiles. Pacey asks if they can talk, or if he needs "a lawyer present." TaMAHra just says, "Hi, Pacey." After a pause, she says that if he’s come to apologize again, he needn’t bother -- she deeply appreciates what he did. He climbs the porch steps to sit beside her, saying, "Well, actually, I was kinda hoping that I could assume that all that talk about breaking up was said in the heat of the moment?" He goes on to say that it won’t happen again, that he won’t tell a soul, as TaMAHra nods ruefully as he speaks, then says that it won’t happen again because she won’t let it. Pacey pats her leg and says, "Neither will I," and she remarks that perhaps he doesn’t understand: "There will be no further gossip because there will be no further subject. I’m leaving Capeside." Pacey laughs, at a loss, as she says briskly, "I’ve already turned in my resignation to Principal Geiger, and I should be at my sister’s house in Rochester by tomorrow evening." Pacey: "Wow. You don’t waste any time, do you?" TaMAHra, gently: "Pacey, you knew this day was inevitable." Pacey, sarcastically but trying not to cry: "Oh, I think I’d have to disagree with you there, Miss Jacobs -- never in a million years would I have predicted Rochester to be a plot point in our little saga." TaMAHra gets all condescending: "I meant us [sic] ending was inevitable. Hey, maybe you’d graduate, maybe I’d meet someone my own age. Maybe you’d meet someone your own age." Pacey says nothing. TaMAHra adds, "But you knew there was a ticking clock inherent to us and to everything about us." Damn, they’ll let anyone teach English in Massachusetts, won’t they? Anyhow. TaMAHra explains that, although she cares for Pacey more than she expected or wanted to, she’s thirty-six, and she wants to have children, and "I want to be their mother, not their girlfriend." She confesses that she still doesn’t know what to say in situations like these, and asks him, "Please, let’s just say goodbye now, before I get maudlin and embarrassing and entirely too truthful." Pacey asks for "a farewell kiss." TaMAHra thinks that that got them into this mess to begin with, and as Pacey massages her hand, he tells her he thinks he can handle it, and TaMAHra says tearfully, "I’m not sure I can," and withdraws her hand and tries to smile bravely. They embrace, both crying, and TaMAHra kisses him on the forehead, and he says, "Okay, well, I hope you enjoy Rochester," and she says, "I hope you enjoy high school," and waves as he walks away. Or at least I think it happened like that -- I could barely hear the dialogue over the seventeen coffee grinders I had going at once.
Evening. A napping seagull. The lit-up Ryan house. Cut to Grams, doing a crossword at the dining-room table. A freshly-showered Jen comes down to wish Grams good night and says, "Long day, huh?" Grams doesn’t say anything, which I guess makes Jen feel unwanted, so she starts to leave, but Grams stops her: "Just because we don’t say certain things to each other, doesn’t mean we don’t feel them." They smile at each other. Jen starts to leave again, but Grams stops her again and asks her, "After what you experienced today, can you honestly tell me you still hold no belief in God?" Jen says she doesn’t know about God, but she "may have come around a little on man." She goes upstairs as Grams half-smiles.
Back at the Barn, Bessie holds the baby as Bodie hovers nearby. Bessie hands Joey the baby, who has tripled in size since his last scene, and says that he has "Mom’s eyes," and Joey laughs, "That’s the first thing I noticed." The baby gurgles and coos and Joey looks at her nephew in awe as Bessie leans on Bodie.
Pacey, brooding on the beach. He pauses in front of TaMAHra’s house, just in time to see her stop in front of a window, look out, heave a sigh, and turn out the light. He swallows hard and says, "Good night, Tammy." The camera pulls back to show him walking back the other way, front-lit by the moon. !