Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Alternative Lifestyles
By Sars | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.20.1998
Capeside High interior shot. Andie "Dexatrim" McPhee dashes in the door and accosts Pacey "Functional Orphan" Witter wanting a favor, and Pacey tells her that he wants to continue having a "mellow morning" and "keep a low pro." Memo to the writers: your concept of "how kids talk" has no basis in reality. Anyway, Pacey tries to blow Andie off but she has none of it and starts spluttering and freaking out about borrowing Pacey's notes and getting behind in class, and Pacey tells her to chill, and Andie says that the downward spiral starts with missing one day and then getting more and more confused and behind until you wind up "out on the street, drunk and dirty, wheeling a shopping cart," and first of all, I don't think the writers could possibly hit us over the head any harder with the whole Pacey-the-lazy-blue-collar-slacker versus Andie-the-studious-neurotic-rich-girl contrast, and second of all, Andie, you do know those diet pills have speed in them, don't you? Anyway, Pacey tells her she won't end up on the street, because rich people don't end up on the street, they end up in Florida. Um, Pacey? Don't you mean "old people end up in Florida"? The bell rings, Pacey says mockingly, "You're doomed!" in a meta-statement (tm xix) about Meredith Monroe's career, and they go to class as I scribble "who cares" for the seven hundredth time on my notepad.
Cut to class, where of course Andie gets called on, and of course Andie does not know the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics and she has to whisper "pass" while turning bright red and letting the resident overweight glasses-wearing nerd cliché Kenny answer instead, bringing us up to The Plot Twist Of Great Contrivance in which the teacher pairs off the entire class for a household-budget microeconomics project, and Jen and Dawson get paired up, and Abby and Kenny get paired up, and Andie and Pacey get paired up, and the two meatheads get paired up in a same-sex couple and the teacher has to explain to them that "same-sex couple" means "gay" and one of them says "what do you mean, 'gay'?" in an attempt at homosexual-panic humor which I can't imagine anyone finding funny besides Trent Lott, and I would ask if they could possibly have found a more tired subplot, but alas, I already know the answer to that question.
In the cafeteria, Joey and Dawson shuffle through the food line and Joey bitches about the pointlessness of the assignment. Compared to the Puritan church diorama I had to make in eighth grade, this little household-budgeting thing seems like the height of relevance, but whatever. Dawson defends the assignment as a look ahead at what they will have to deal with in the "real world," and Joey says, "I hate to break it to you, Peter Pan [Spielberg reference], but some of us are already dealing with those problems," and as they pay the cashier Joey says she doesn't want to think about the future because she has no idea what she wants to do with her life. Yeah, take a number, sister. Dawson says she does too, and she says, "No I don't -- that's you, Dawson. You've got it all mapped out -- you're going to go off to Hollywood, become some high-profile movie director, make millions of dollars, get a drug addiction, end up at the Betty Ford clinic..." and Dawson starts laughing and interrupts, "Excuse me?" Joey has no idea where she'll be in ten years and says the project will just depress her, but Dawson thinks it will be "fun," which earns him a suspicious look from Joey, who says, "Oh, really -- and are you as excited to partner up with Jen as she is? The look on her face was classic, Dawson," and if you listen closely you can hear the hissing and scratching of an angry kitten, and Dawson tells Joey she has nothing to worry about, and Joey smirks happily with one side of her mouth, and then she sees Jen and Abby entering the caf, and she sees Jen looking wistfully at Dawson with her dress all clinging to her belly, and Joey says, "Famous last words," and takes a pull on her bottle of product-placed Dannon spring water.
Okay, cut to strategy session with Abby and Jen at another table. Abby busts Jen for giving Dawson the furry eyeball: "Unh, Jen, you're drooling!" Jen sits down and rolls her eyes. Abby: "Look, this is the moment of truth. You're going to be working with him all week long, one on one, so the question is, are you going to be passive, and masochistic, and really piss me off, or are you going to be proactive and grab him by the dipstick and make me proud?" On the one hand, go Abby, but on the other hand, "dipstick"? Jen looks at Dawson and Joey canoodling on the other side of the caf: "Abby, it's not that simple, all right? I mean, take a look at him, he's totally into Joey. He's in love with her." Abby delivers a brilliant assessment of adolescent males everywhere: "He's a fifteen-year-old boy -- he doesn't know what love is. All he does know is that he goes to sleep every night jerkin' his gherkin and wakes up every morning humping his mattress," and on the one hand, go Abby, and on the other hand, "gherkin"? They both break up laughing, and I guess I would have found that funny too in my sophomore year of high school but now I just find it, uh, sophomoric, not to mention painfully true. Then Kenny arrives at the table to talk to Abby about their assignment and she more or less tells him to bugger off, but he persists, so she says really meanly, "Look, can you just do the assignment and put my name on it, 'cause that'd be great, thanks, bye," as if we hadn't long ago established Abby's bitchiness to everyone's satisfaction. Kenny shambles off. Abby: "I think it's time for a little bit of this New York City regression. I mean, you have to show him the old, naughty Jen, 'cause this new Jen just isn't workin'." Uh duh. Abby continues, "I mean, you're going to be working together all week, it's the perfect opportunity. Late-night study sessions, role-playing like you guys are husband and wife -- you can remind him of what a great couple you used to be and how compatible you are." Jen, skeptical: "I don't know -- I don't want to jump the gun, you know?" Abby: "I want you to jump the gun -- his gun. And I want all the gory details." Two words: Puh. Lease.