Episode Report Card Sars: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Alternative Lifestyles
By Sars | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.20.1998
Fade up to the Icehouse again with Bessie and Jack slaving away in those brightly-colored shirts unique to the food service industry, and Pacey comes in fresh from yet another raid on Kramer's closet wearing a beige polyester-ish shirt with brown psychotic pineapples on it and Jack McPhee tells him, "We're closed," and Pacey says, "Listen, could I just get a cup of coffee, man? I'm desperate." Well, I think he said "desperate" but it sounded more like "Desiree." As Jack pours him a cuppa cuppa, Pacey asks, "You're Andie's brother, right? I'm Pacey," as if Andie hadn't regaled the family with Pacey horror stories every day since they moved to Capeside, and then Pacey asks, "Listen, is your sister on any medication, 'cause she just went completely ballistic on me," and Pacey, wake up and smell the dexedrine, and Jack laughs and hands him a mug and says, "Why, what'd you do to her?" Pacey: "Nothing -- I just -- called her a spoiled princess, she goes psycho. I guess the truth hurts sometimes." Jack, wiping the counter: "Andie a spoiled princess -- I don't think anything could be further from the truth." Pacey, all self-righteous: "Oh, come on - don't try and tell me your family's not totally loaded." Um, Pacey? Give me a break with the inappropriate reverse-classist comments, okay, because the last time I looked, your buddy Dawson had a few expensive toys in his room. Jack, impatient: "You think I'm working here for kicks?" Pacey, confused: "Yeah, but your sister drives a Saab, man, and all those nice clothes?" Jack, rueful: "Well, it's the last remains of a decaying dynasty." Pacey: "I don't get it." Um, Pacey? OBVIOUSLY. Jack says, "Look, there was a time when things were -- easy for us, I mean, relatively, but -- those days are -- over now -- look, I really don't want to get into this, um, just do me a favor. Give Andie a break, you know, she -- she deserves it." Pacey, chastened and embarrassed, nods to himself, and voila, the moment of revelation as Pacey thinks to himself, "I guess I misjudged her." If only the moment of revelation had actually REVEALED something...if only Jack would learn to SPIT IT OUT already...if only I, well, I don't know, CARED or something.
At another coffeehouse somewhere, the Faithless Hussy, who has her hair pulled back on the top and then flipped under in this bizarro "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" ponytail bouffant style, gets herself some java, massages her temple, and looks morosely at all the other swinging singles. Meanwhile, in a bar somewhere else, The Flash gets himself a brewsky, eyeballs a short blonde who pays him no mind, and looks morosely at all the other swinging singles. Wow, that whole "date night" idea looks really fun. Well, except for the "really fun" part.
Meanwhile, in the Sanctum Dawsonorum, Dawson sits at his desk while Jen lies on her stomach to maximize exposure of her utterly unalluring cleavage, with her legs crossed in the air and crypto-slutty chunky strappy heels on. Jen closes her notebook as Dawson stretches and says, "Aaalll right, we're done," and she says, "Finally, huh?" Jen then tries to slink off of the bed all Maggie-the-Cat but on the way to "graceful" she took a wrong turn at "ungainly" as she sort of thrashes over the side and onto her feet. She clomps over to Dawson holding up their plastic-covered report and says, "Mission accomplished," as part of her blue bra peeks out of the top of her blue dress, which as owen pointed out looks like she spilled coffee down one side. Then she leans her cleavage over Dawson's desk and says, "Ohhh my God, I am so exhausted I can barely see straight," as Dawson eyes her chest with foreboding and says, "Yeah, I feel like I've become one with this chair," and Jen makes a big show of laughing at his not-that-funny remark as she hunches her arms to push her breasts together even more, creating that unattractive phenomenon known as "butt-chest," in which over-torqued cleavage resembles a butt-crack. That 150-watt bulb over Dawson's head begins to sputter to life as Jen walks around behind his chair, trailing a hand through his hair on her way, and says, "A massage? Get rid of a little bit of that tension?" and rests her chin on his head while kneading his shoulders, and as Jenga pointed out, perhaps Jen could stand to ease up on the Sebastian Styling Mud. Dawson stammers, "Um, I'm, I'm, I'm cool," and Jen runs her hands down his arms and asks, "Are you sure?" and as the deer now firmly ensconced in the headlights says, "Yep," I wonder if someone couldn't hand Jen a harbormaster's schedule and point out that, in fact, THIS SHIP HAS ALREADY SAILED. Finally, Jen gives up on that angle and moves away, saying, "God, I am so beat," thus acknowledging the infinite number of times my best friend and I have looked at each other while watching this show and said either "dude, Jen is BEAT ACTION" or "dude, Jen is a BEAT SCENE," and she sort of limps over to Dawson's bed and tries in vain to arrange herself in a sexy pose while moaning, "I don't think I can even make it next door." As I polish off my first bottle of Maalox and prepare to shotgun a second, Jen gnaws at her "big, red, moist" lower lip and asks in a little-girl-lost voice, "Do you mind if I just crash here for the night?" Dawson half-laughs and says, "Actually, yeah, I do," and CLANG, Maalox bottle number two hits the trashcan empty as Jen goofily and says, "What?" with her flabby breasts schlumping down the side of her torso like Glenn Close in that scene from "Basic Instinct," and Dawson repeats with an air of disbelief that exceeds only my own, "Yeah, I do mind. I think you should probably go home," and Jen plays her so-called trump card with, "Oh, what, so, so we can't hang out together anymore, is that it?" and Dawson doesn't want to offend her and protests, "No, absolutely we can hang out together, we just can't sleep together," and Jen oh-so-coyly gets off the bed and comes towards Dawson with the straps of her dress and bra starting to slip down and as I tear off another child-proof cap with my teeth, Jen protests too much, "Whoa, calm down, Dawson, God, I was just asking if I could crash at your house -- nobody said anything about sleeping together."
Dawson makes a "yeah, right" face as Jen seats herself carefully on the edge of the desk (visible in the background next to her head: Dawson's "Misery" poster) and says, "I know what it is -- it's Joey, isn't it, she's been putting ideas in your head about me," as Dawson makes yet another face of great incredulity and says, "No, Jen, Joey is not putting any ideas in my head [something I didn't catch], I'm not oblivious." Jen, hurt: "Meaning?" Dawson gets up and says, "Well, look at you" -- gesturing at her regrettable get-up -- "I mean, is this what you normally wear for a study session?" As Jen gapes at getting busted, Dawson goes on, "I mean, you've been making, you know, suggestive comments and touching me all night, and I've been trying --" and Jen gets up and interrupts, "Dawson, if you can't handle being in the same room with me --" and Dawson interrupts her, "I can handle being in the same room with you, I just can't handle you throwing yourself at me every other second. I mean, don't you find it humiliating?" like, I can't handle it either, and also, YEAH, REALLY, and Jen wants to seem all superior and sophisticated, so she smiles and says, "I'm not humiliating anybody." Good evening, and welcome to the Department Of Keep Telling Yourself That. Jen continues loftily, "And I know that you're with Joey, and I accept that," and Dawson nods, but then Jen adds, "I just don't respect it" -- Dawson furrows his giant brows -- "and I don't mean this in a slutty, self-degrading sort of way, but I want to let you know that you've got options. And I'm one of them." Pardon me while I fall on my knees and pray in the name of all that is holy for this intestinal rupture to end, since I have now downed all the Maalox in the 212 area code. Dawson blinks hard and says, "Who are you? What happened to Jen?" and Jen says, "She got bored, decided to liven things up a bit," and leans in to Dawson's nonplused face for a kiss and clamps his head to hers even though he doesn't close his eyes or respond AT ALL, and then she struts to the door of his room with her arms held out at a weird angle from her barrel of a body, turns around, and says, "I hope you can handle it, Dawson," in a tone of voice that tried for "sex kitten" but took a wrong turn at "kitten that got drowned in a boot," before going out into the hall and leaning against a wall and closing her eyes in total defeat, and I hope Dawson can handle it too, because I know I can't, and I will refer to a certain old saw about silk purses and sow's ears, just as soon I get off the phone with the organ transplant hotline regarding a new stomach.