Props to Miss Anthropy, Kim, and Sars.
Previously on Dawson's Creek: Jen was a crappy cheerleader, and Jack was quite incredibly on the football team. Eve and Dawson got caught making out in front of the whole school. Andie cheated on Pacey with some dude in the loony bin. Dawson and Joey were "Dawson and Joey."
On the TV in the Sanctum Dawsonorum (where the operative phoneme is "snore"), an episode of Felicity that originally aired November 3, 1998 (the one called "Cheating," for you sticklers) is being broadcast. If you think the intertext appears to address, finally, the similarities between Dawson and Felicity, you're absolutely right. Dawson "Honey Dome" Leery remarks that this isn't exactly what he had in mind: "The whole point of us [sic] spending a little time together was for us to actually talk, and get to know each other." "And then can we have sex?" chirps Eve "Cape Broad" Whitman. Dawson says he's not ruling it out, but that they need to do "first things first" -- "Movie Night" is for watching movies, not TV. Eve says she prefers TV. Every time they cut back to the image on the screen-within-the-screen, I'm reminded of how much I'd rather watch Felicity help an oblivious Ben to cheat on his English paper, even though I've already seen that one about three times. Dawson tells Eve she has to be kidding. Everyone, break out the lead umbrellas -- an Anvil Storm's a-brewin'. Eve: Not kidding. Dawson: Movies are an art form, whereas TV is just the "pablum" that fills the space "between beer commercials." Eve: Don't be a snob. TVs are like shorter movies with built-in bathroom breaks and weekly sequels. Dawson: "Sequels I hate on principle." Eve: Whatever. Dawson falls back on the bed in an effort to express his exasperation. He then tells Eve that she should take Felicity as an example: "If you've seen one hour of whiny, over-analytical teen angst, you've seen them all." Dude, not even Knoll on his worst day is as annoying as you are in scenes where you have no dialogue, so cram it. Dawson goes on to say that Felicity is paralyzed by romanticism, and is moreover "kind of chatty." Eve, echoing the sentiments of online bulletin board posters everywhere, remarks, "She's you." Eve gets up, struts her dangerously swaybacked self over to Dawson's side of the bed, and straddles him (ugh), all the while declaiming that Dawson is straight out of "Central Casting," what with his perfect hair (not. In this scene, his bangs look like an oversized set of false eyelashes) and perfect skin (whatever), and that the total package is "Our Hero." Dawson stammers that she must not have been watching last season (or this season, or ever, if you ask me). He says that his general complaint about television is that it's perfect, and isn't reality, since no one ever makes a bad choice or a wrong decision. Eve says that's where she comes in, to shake things up. Dawson finishes her thought by calling her "the temptress who will test our hero's very moral fibre." Would that be his Moral Fruit and Fibre? I don't mind that, as long as his Meat and Two Veg stay out of it, to say nothing of his Frank and Beans. While pressing herself on Dawson as if she were a human blanket, Eve asks rhetorically, "Will he survive unscathed?" Dawson says that the other thing he hates about television is that they always cut away before anything good happens. I assume no one needs me to tell them that this is followed instantaneously by the opening credits. How very meta.
Sars: "Hello?"
Wing Chun: "The hell?"
Sars: "Dude, the show has not been on for two minutes yet!"
Wing Chun: "But...WHY?!"
Sars: "It's really amazing the way they manage to make Dawson's hair look horrible in completely distinctive ways for every single show. It's always bad, but it's never the same bad twice."
Wing Chun: "Is Eve almost off the show? Because I really can't handle her."
Sars: "I don't know. But I do -- Oh, it's back on."
An alarm clock rings in what turns out to be the bedroom of Joey "Ohndrea" Potter. She has apparently fallen asleep in her clothes, and seems to be late for something, so she leaps to her feet and tears down the hall of Capeside High. Arriving at a closed door with a sign marked "PSAT in Progress," she starts pounding on the glass and calling Dawson's name; he doesn't look up. She continues pounding and hollering until the alarm clock starts ringing...again. Thank God -- it was only a dream! I saw that one coming all the way from southern Ontario.
Andie "Nutrageous" McPhee does sit-ups whilst talking back to a newscaster on a TV in her bedroom, and quizzing herself with vocabulary word flashcards. I wouldn't have been able to divine the fact that she was driven to succeed academically just from that, so the producers helpfully dressed her in a Harvard sweatshirt, just to make sure I got it. Anyway, she tells the talking head on TV about the pressures she's under, and to make her point all the more plain starts listing synonyms for the word "'dogmatic': single-minded, stubborn, obdurate, adamant," and when she says, "Antonyms would be..."
....the producers cut to Jack "Louganis" McPhee coming out of Grams's house accompanied by Jen "Smells Like Teen Spirit...Not" Lindley, who is saying, "Wishy-washy, ambivalent, equivocal." She pauses, in which time I yelled, "Indecisive!" at my TV, because I have problems, but the pause is for her to register Jack's look of surprised admiration, so that she can answer that he shouldn't have thought Dawson was the only one with "a prolific vocabulary." That's not quite the correct meaning of the word "prolific," but I'll let it slide. Turns out he's surprised that one of them had time to study, what with their newfound extra-curricular activities. Jen tells him he hasn't won "that football scholarship yet," and invites him to pick a flashcard. He picks "nonchalant," for which the synonyms (which he recites over a shot of a blissfully sleeping Pacey "Cuckold II: On the Rocks" Witter) are "carefree, languid, oblivious!" Heh.
At the school, Principal "Moe" Green is, improbably, pointing at a large placard with "nonchalant" written across it, and asks Dawson to list some antonyms. He comes up with "alert, attentive, concerned," and adds, "That is, if provided you believe that the PSAT is a true measure of intelligence, and not a culturally biased weapon against the poor and disenfranchised." Only White Bread Dawson would have the gall to say that to his African-American principal, who, instead of introducing Dawson to his culturally biased backhand, agrees that the test is biased in many ways, but that ultimately it's just a game, of sorts, besides which it's a requirement for anyone who wants to go to college. Well, that was a bracing debate. Not. The bell rings and the students start to file out; Principal Green asks Joey to stay behind.
Andie trudges down the hall reading yet another flashcard (this time it's "belligerent" -- ruh roh!). She runs into Pacey -- literally, and scatters books and flashcards all over. When they both lean down to pick them up, Pacey smacks his head against hers. Andie tells Pacey "this isn't going to be one of those horribly awkward hope-boy-didn't-mean-all-those-hurtful-things-he-said-during-the-breakup moments." Pacey says that's a relief, since he doesn't want to play "the guy-feels-guilty-about-breakup-even-though-it-was-girl-who-had-an-affair-with-the-mental-patient scene." Andie ruefully says, "Fair enough." Looking at all the detritus, Pacey asks Andie if she's ever heard of over-preparing for a test. She asks if he means "as opposed to not preparing at all?" He says he means "as opposed to making yourself crazy over something with the word 'Practice' in front of it." She switches over to her censorious, pre-Pacey tone and says, "If you want to throw away everything we've...I mean you've worked for, that's fine by me." She concludes by saying that she's not going to let their "little bump in the road" throw her off her chosen course and perks off on her merry way.
Principal Green tells Joey that she has a shot at a National Merit Scholarship. Joey says everyone keeps telling her that, and that she's feeling as if her whole future depends on her doing well on the PSAT. He tells her to take a night off to relax, and that she'll do "better than fine." To lay it on just a little bit thicker, some alterna-loser on the soundtrack sings, "This is the story of a girl / Who cried a river and drowned the whole world / And though she looked so sad in photographs / I absolutely love her when she smiles." ["And couldn't someone, anyone, have yelled 'cut' instead of forcing us to look at Joey half-smiling and having bad posture for another full minute?" -- Sars]
Joey heads over to Dawson's locker to suggest that they spend an evening hanging out and watching some crappy escapist movie to take her mind off the test. He says she should name her time. She suggests they do it that night. At that moment, Eve comes skanking along in a halter top. She greets them, and when Dawson turns Joey puts her hand on his arm and suggests nine o'clock. Dawson says, "Uh. Tonight, she [indicating Eve] and I were thinking..." and then remembers he's wearing his XXXXXL Bad Idea Jeans and invites her to join them for whatever undefined activity they'll be enjoying. Joey looks stricken and then quickly recovers to say, "I might. On another planet, in a different universe," and adds, to Eve, "No offense." Eve asks what that was about. Dawson rolls his eyes. Dude, you couldn't possibly be rolling your eyes at Joey with as much force as I am rolling mine at you.
Football scene. "Tertiary" Henry Parker gives him some advice about going fetal when he gets hit. Jack gets tackled. The Flash continues to look like Jughead Jones on 'roids. Jack whines that the tackles are putting up more of a fight than they should because he's gay. The Flash pretty much tells him that they're singling him out because he sucks. Jack runs the gauntlet of tackles again, with more success this time. Whatever.
Down at the docks, Joey puts cans of pop in a cooler while her boss, Rob "Alex Kelly" DockDude tells her a story about some guy he knows who isn't (in Rob's estimation) "a ladies' man," and that Rob had told this guy that it all comes down to the simple rule of giving the ladies what they want. Joey suggests that Rob give her what she wants. He looks intrigued, and says he thought she'd never ask. When she deflates his tiny boner by telling him she wants Friday off to study for the PSATs, he agrees, and says he remembers what it was like to be in school, although he didn't take that test himself. He then tells her that he paid "some brainiac" $2000 to take the PSATs for him. Okay, I am Canadian; we don't even have the full-on SAT here, and even I knew it was incongruous for Rob to have paid someone any amount of money, much less that much, to take them in his stead. But whatever. Joey asks if "Daddy built the university," and Rob said he just endowed it. Rob invites her on a date. She tells him first that she's married, and then that she's a lesbian. He says, "Anyone I know?" She sort of chuckles. He presses her, and she finally asks, "Would it be all right if I just said no?" He says it's no problem and mopes off. Joey makes the grapefruit face. I am telling you, this guy has upper-class rapist written all over him.
Dawson reads in his room. He hears noises outside and glances up to see an apple perched on his windowsill. Unfortunately, it's Eve. She says she was searching for the perfect apple, and tells him to find out if it tastes as good as it looks. He says, "And if I do?" I say, "You know, Ted Kaczynski knows what is coming . Why must you bludgeon us so?" Eve says that he'll forever know the difference between good and evil. Because it's an apple. And her name is Eve. GET IT? GOD, you people are killing me. She invites him to sit out on the roof, and he comments that he hasn't sat out there since he and Joey...but before he can finish, Eve asks if he means "the ubiquitous brunette" who hasn't yet learned the power she has over men. Dawson tells her about the sleepovers. Eve says she had a boy door named Monroe, and that they had adjoining houses on the base, which Dawson cleverly interprets to mean she's an army brat. Eve says she and Monroe could see into each other's bedrooms (and I'm not sure how that would work in adjoining houses, but whatever), but that the relationship was doomed because Monroe was her dad's commanding officer. I'm not surprised -- she is thirty, after all. Dawson looks shocked, but before he can ask her about it, she tells him she's brought him something else, and smacks a manila envelope down in front of him. Long story short, it is, very improbably, a copy of the PSAT. Dawson tries to refuse it, and she tells him not to be so selfish, since even if his moral code forbids him from making use of it himself, he probably knows someone who would like a chance to use it. Then -- get this -- she says, "The apple was a metaphor, Dawson. This is the real thing." At that point I ran out to my front lawn and wrote "We get it" in cursive writing using gasoline. And then I set it on fire. Because WE GET IT.
Sars: Not.
Wing Chun: I was trying to call you!
Sars: I was trying to call you.
Wing Chun: I need you to explain the PSAT to me.
Sars: Oh, God. Well, for one thing, the ETS is run like the Kennedy compound, so the odds that someone could get an advance copy of anything out of there....
Wing Chun: Damn, it's back on.
Sars: Okay, I'll call you time.
The envelope sits on a table in the room where the PSAT prep was going on in the scene. The soundtrack plays the bass guitar riff of moral quandary, while the producers have apparently kidnapped a cameraman from the set of Law and Order, because there's some freaky hand-held shit going on throughout this scene. Pacey doesn't think that an envelope deserves this kind of hushed interest, but Joey draws his attention to "the fine print" on the tiny address sticker that reads "ETS" as in "Educational Testing Service." Now, again, I'm just a humble Canadian, but I'm thinking that the ETS is probably a powerful enough organization that it could afford to have envelopes printed with its logo on it, as opposed to having to use the free address stickers that the Humane Society sent to try to get the ETS to donate money. Eventually, everyone surmises that the envelope contains the test, and Andie asks where it came from. Dawson tries to evade the question, but Joey muses that it was probably someone with "golden locks and a name that rhymes with 'Steve.'" Pacey says he loves Eve. Joey says, "Once again, Dawson Leery proves that the groin is mightier than the brain." Heh. Jen asks whether anyone has bothered to look inside, and astutely points out that "anyone can just whip up a label." Pacey leaps into the fray and goes to open it, only to have Andie harangue him about returning to the ranks of "academic loserdom." Pacey suggests that Andie open it, on the grounds that she's been pretty comfortable with cheating lately. Ouch. Jack tells Dawson to take it back where he got it, so that they can all act as if they've never seen it. Jen says that there's no harm in peeking, and Pacey says that if they go beyond peeking, he can have "a detailed crib sheet in half an hour." Dawson tries to make the argument that, since the test is (in the principal's words) "a game," they might as well at least discuss cheating. Joey insists that cheating is wrong, besides which it's only the PSATs, and no one is even required to take the test, much less do well. Dawson adds, "Unless you want to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship." This shuts her up. What follows is an illicit game of hot potato. First, Jen passes it in Jack's direction, since he's been "too busy getting the crap beat out of [him] to study." He, in turn, suggests that Andie should open it, since she really wants to go to Harvard. Andie looks at Pacey and implies that he should open it, since "a failed relationship has put [him] in the emotional wringer, and [he] just [doesn't] care these days." He passes it back to Dawson, who's "just been too darn busy gettin' busy." Dawson concludes that they've all got a reason to open the envelope. Just then, the principal comes in with sample math tests. Dawson quickly flips the envelope over to hide the address label. Then, conveniently enough, the fire alarm goes off and the principal instructs them all to leave everything just as it is and file out. Dawson starts to go, with the envelope in hand, but the principal is standing right to him so he can't pick it up without looking conspicuous. The principal hustles him out, so the Beek sets his jaw in an approximation of tension and Dawson goes outside. The principal turns on his heel and goes too, without picking up the envelope.
After the fire drill, the gang comes back inside, only to discover that the table which formerly held the envelope from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is empty. Jen says she took the envelope, and when everyone turns on her, she says she was just joking, and tries to fade into the background. This scene goes on far too long without anyone suggesting that Mike just kicked it into the creek. Dawson asks Pacey if he took it, and Pacey jokingly evades the question, making it clear that he doesn't really care. The principal comes upon the group and asks what the topic of the morning's debate is: "Let me guess. 'Why isn't the PSAT an oral exam?'" He reminds them that they each need to work on it independently, and moves off again. The several gang members look guilty.
At the dock, Joey pumps gas into a boat without looking and it floods into the water. Rob briefly chastises her, and tells the patron the gas is on the house. Joey tells him he didn't have to do that, since it wasn't a big deal. Rob tells her the cost of the gas is coming out of her paycheque, and that she should consider her night off cancelled. Joey tells him he's just doing this because she rejected him. He denies it. Yeah right.
Meanwhile, Viola de Lesseps has finally got William Shakespeare into her bedchamber and he's unwinding the cloth she used to bind her already pretty tiny bosom, and...wait, my bad. A topless Jack is having a tensor bandage wound around his midsection, only Jen, who is assisting, actually has the other end of the bandage in the hallway, and instead of having her -- presumably the one who isn't injured -- wind it around her, he's secured one end and is spinning in circles, slowly drawing her (holding the other end) closer. Huh? Whatever. He tells her he wants to quit the team. She tells him he can't. Jack has nice arms. He says he doesn't care what lessons he might learn about sacrifice and pain "on the gridiron," even if not learning them will mean he fails in other, more important contests in the future. Jen tells him that he must have caught that first ball last week for some reason, and that maybe he's fated to become a famous gay athlete whose purpose is to help other people come to terms with their sexuality. If I were Jack, I would take that cue to yell, "Not wanting to play this stupid game doesn't mean I'm a bad gay man." She also suggests that he might be destined to help the team win a few games to boost school morale, or to meet someone on the team in a similar situation (speaking again, one assumes, of his sexuality). He tells her she's being cheesy. He is correct.
Under cover of darkness, Dawson searches the multi-purpose room in which the test was lost. Eve lounges on a windowsill and tells him he's wasting his time. He insists it has to be in there somewhere, and asks her to help him look for it. She tells him they'll never find it. There are noises off-screen, and they both crawl under a table. A security guard walks in and does a cursory search. While the guard is still in the room, Dawson asks which would look best on his high school transcripts: "(a) Cheating, (b) Possession of stolen materials, (c) Breaking and entering, or (d) All of the above." With the guard's calf directly in line with her head, Eve says -- in a normal speaking voice -- that they should get out of there. The guard leaves the room. Eve tells Dawson that someone must have taken the test. Dawson says it could have been anyone in the room. Eve remarks that no one would "steal something they didn't know the value of [sic]," so that if someone did steal the test, it had to have been one of the Gang of Six.
Wing Chun: Hello?
Sars: You know, I have found that when I'm hiding, it helps not to speak.
Wing Chun: Well, especially when the person you're hiding from is still in the same room.
Sars: "Room"? Hell, he was in the same frame.
Wing Chun: Anyway, about the PSAT.
Sars: Oh yeah. I did have to take it, and it was never that big a deal. There were never prep courses, because pretty much anyone can get a scholarship -- university, in this country, is practically socialized -- and the students who were really desperate to get scholarships couldn't afford to take prep courses anyway.
Wing Chun: But realistically, would someone who's as brilliant as we're all supposed to believe Joey is get that stressed out about the test? Is it really that hard? I mean, admittedly, I never took the SAT, but I took the GRE, and I imagine it's about the same...
Sars: It is the same.
Wing Chun: ...and it was pretty easy.
Sars: Yeah. The PSAT means nothing, unless you want to get a National Merit Scholarship, and there are tons of those. And I won't even get into the incongruity of getting a test in advance of the testing date. The ETS guys drop them off in a Brinks truck, for God's sake.
Wing Chun: Well, I thought so.
Sars: Plus, you usually take the PSAT when you're a sophomore, and the SAT when you're a junior.
Wing Chun: That's how the kids on did it.
Sars: There you go.
Wing Chun: It's back.
Sars: Oh, goody.
The aforementioned Gang is all seated in the principal's office as he chews them out over "a national cheating scandal." I can already tell it's a dream, because night has followed the loss of the test, yet in this scene it's daytime and the kids are all wearing the same outfits they were when Dawson presented the envelope to them. As Principal Green works himself into a lather, Joey gets up and pulls the fire alarm. Of course, her real alarm goes off simultaneously, and she sits up, looking agitated.
Back at the school, the kids gather around the same table as the day before. Joey asks Dawson what "black-market booty" he has for them today. Dawson says he wanted to give them all a chance to rectify this situation. Thank God Jen saves me the trouble, and asks: "Well, wasn't it already stolen, Dawson?" Dawson says, "The point is that it's missing, and yesterday it wasn't." Maybe I'm just dense, but I fail to see by what possible means Dawson thinks he can claim the moral high ground on this issue. He has the divine right to have returned to him a test someone else had stolen for him? As soon as he took the envelope from Eve, he stopped being Gary Cooper and started being...I don't know. Gary Oldman, I guess. Jen says she's starting to feel like "a psychologically abused lab rat." Joey says Jen isn't the lab rat: "Dawson is." Trying for a warning voice, Dawson says, "Watch it, Joey." Joey, on a roll, says, "Throwing parties, crashing boats, upstaging marching bands -- Dawson, if your rope was any more yanked, you'd be a church bell." Pacey chuckles. Again, these two have excellent chemistry. Get them together! Dawson insists that Eve has nothing to do with this. Except giving you the test in the first place, I guess. Joey lays into him about the effect Eve has had on him, winding up by saying that it's only his friends "who have to sit here and suffer through the Dawson Leery morality play -- bleached-blonde ho-bags willing to put out need not audition." Dawson grits his teeth at Joey's dissertation, but makes no response, and instead tells the group that he'll leave his locker open, and whoever has the test should put it in there before 5:30 that evening. Pacey tells him that, having left, the thief has no incentive to return to the crime scene. Dawson says that the thief, in fact, does have just such an incentive: "To do the right thing." But...by what standard, Dawson? Have you said that, upon receipt of the twice-stolen test, you plan to destroy it? How would the thief know that returning it was the right thing -- just because you say so? Needless to say, Dawson is on very shaky moral ground here. I, for one, am not buying it, and am squarely on the second thief's side.
Andie gives Pacey a box full of items he'd given her. He picks out a t-shirt and a baseball cap, and then finds a plush Dumbo toy and tells her it's the first thing he ever gave to her. She tells him that everything he's ever given her is in the box, and that she doesn't want it anymore. He asks whether she doesn't think this is a little harsh. She says she won't have a long, drawn-out breakup, since she's not the crazy girl she was last year, and that she has a plan, and other such control-freak blather. He says he knows what the plan is: "Harvard, Harvard, uber alles." She says she had wanted him to be a part of her plan, but that if he can't, he gets nothing. He roots through the box some more and finds a gold-framed (very cute) picture of the two of them and asks, "Not even memories?" Firmly, she replies, "Especially not those." Hey, is Pacey's "Frankie Says Relax" t-shirt in there?
Football. Jack and Henry do some kind of training...circuit...whatever. Henry tells Jack he needs a mantra. Jack asks Henry why he's helping Jack. Henry tells him that there are two reasons. First, he wants to win football games, and the only way to do that is by means of Jack's "magic hands." I swear he said that. Then he says, "You're gay, right?" which I thought was going to be the opening to Henry's telling Jack that he was also gay, just like on Party of Five when Sarah's boyfriend thought Bailey was gay and came on to him. ["Either that, or he's modeling himself on Teck." -- Sars] But instead, Henry tells Jack that he's in love with Jen, and what that has to do with Jack's being gay, I have no idea. Jack laughs long and loud, and tells Henry that Jen would never date a freshman.
A drunken Pacey rings a bell on the dock. Joey asks him what's wrong. While stumbling drunkenly along the dock, he holds the box in front of him and tells Joey its provenance. Of course, in his drunkenness (did I mention he's drunk? He is), he wipes out and send the box into the water. Joey makes an "ouch" face, and leans over him solicitously. He says he doesn't want to go home "like this," and asks her to call his dad and tell him where Pacey is. Pacey notices that the picture he'd been looking at before is still teetering on the edge of the dock, but when he clumsily reaches for it, he accidentally pushes it into the water. He looks dismayed. On the soundtrack, someone whines, "As long as I don't think about her / I can still breathe."
At school, Eve is telling Dawson that he's like a St. Bernard: "Loyal and faithful to the last." Dawson says that he'll prove her wrong as soon as he opens his locker, because he believes in happy endings. Eve says that "happy ending" is "a contradiction in terms." Dawson accuses her of "enjoying this." She says she isn't, and that her taste in fairy tales runs more toward the brothers Grimm. He asks how she can be "so relentlessly cynical." She asks how he can be "so profoundly naïve." In an effort to break the stalemate, Dawson opens his locker. Lockercam reveals that the test is not within. Eve coos, "All is not lost, my sweet prince." Dawson says, "You know what, Eve? Just leave me the hell alone." Uh. Okay. She tells him she can help him get the test back by telling him who took it. She asks who he thinks it is. After a moment, he says he doesn't know. She quickly answers, "Yes, you do. Whoever you were just thinking of." Wow, she's a regular Miss Marple. Dawson scoffs at the notion that it could be so easy. She says that whoever Dawson thinks took it, the obvious choice, is probably right. Dawson says that if he's learned anything from the PSAT prep books, it's that the most obvious answer is usually wrong. She tells him that this is not a standardized test, but the real world, "where the first person to stab you in the back is your best friend."
Pacey lolls against a pole, waking when he hears Dawson's white-sock-and-brown-boot-clad footfall, and says, "Well, if it isn't Inspector Get-a-Clue-seau." Ha! Dawson's hair now reminds me of the early years of Steve Sanders. Dawson observes that Pacey is drunk, and asks why he would drink the night before the PSAT. Pacey says, "I don't need to study. I got the test, right?" Dawson does his best to use the big-boy voice, and says, "If you have it, give it back." Pacey laughs and says he wishes he did have it, but that he doesn't. Dawson flares his nostrils and says, "Pacey, we've been friends for sixteen years. I'm not stupid." I don't see what the one has to do with the other, but okay. Pacey sarcastically says, "'Friends'? 'Friends,' huh?" He staggers to his feet to say, "You know, that word, 'friends,' it's an interesting word. It implies that you would actually believe your friend when he's telling you something." Dawson says, "When you tell me the truth." Pacey says, "You want to know what I find so very amusing about this situation? I mean, what I think is really, really rich about all this? It's that you yourself were capable of stealing this test. You thought about it -- you didn't throw it away. You didn't give it back to Eve. You brought the test to us!" Even when he's drunk, he's so right. Dawson and his spindly bird legs protest, "No, I wanted to consult the people I trusted to determine what the best thing was to do." Pfft. Pull the other one, hair pie. Dawson goes on, "I never that thought anyone would be so weak or self-motivated as to actually swipe it." Pacey takes umbrage: "'Weak and self-motivated'? Now which one of those two colourful adjectives would I be?" Lake Superior sniffs, "You are who you are, Pacey." Pacey grins, "Yes, I am, Dawson. And so are you. You, Dawson Leery, are a self-righteous son of a bitch who cares more about his rose-coloured defunct 1950s belief system than the people who fail to live up to it." Dawson spits, "Interesting choice of words, coming from a smug, cold-hearted son of a bitch who just dumped his girlfriend after she begged and pleaded for an ounce of sympathy." Pacey growls, "At least I didn't send her father to prison." Dawson says, "No, you just made her go crazy." Pacey slugs Dawson in the eye; Dawson comes back with a punch that we're to believe drops Pacey to the ground -- only because he is drunk, say I. I'd also like to add -- Dawson, people who live in smug houses shouldn't throw cereal, and as for criticizing Pacey for his treatment of women, let's not even bring up the one you summarily sent packing from your bedroom as if she were covered in weeping sores. Oh, hey -- there she is, come out to look after the fallen Pacey. Pacey says it's all his own fault. Joey tells Dawson, "This has got to stop." Dawson does his best "Who am I? WHAT HAVE I BECOME?" Eh, I always knew you had it in you, Grape-Nuts.
Joey brings Pacey a cold can of pop. Actually, maybe she should tell it. Joey: "Here, I brought you a Pepsi." Can: "Product placement!" Pacey: "No thanks, I'm not thirsty, and I must have a concussion to refuse a cool, refreshing Pepsi-Cola." Actually, he stopped at "thirsty." She tells him it's for his lip, because she doesn't have an ice-pack. Pacey says he can't believe Dawson thought Pacey had stolen the test. Joey says, "So what, Pacey?" That's the spirit. Holding the can gingerly to his lip, so as to allow "Pepsi" to show through his fingers, Pacey says he thought if he'd earned anyone's respect, it was Dawson's: "I mean, if the guy who knows you better than anyone else on earth thinks you're a loser, then maybe --" "Maybe you are one?" Joey finishes. She reminds him that she's thought Pacey was a loser for years, but he's never believed her. Pacey chuckles, and tells her to tell her friend Dawson that Pacey is innocent, since Dawson will believe her. Joey tells him that Dawson is Pacey's friend too, and that Pacey knows as well as she does that Dawson is off sulking somewhere about the gravity of what's just happened. Pacey tells her that it would be good for Dawson to "stew in his own pride for a while." Amen to that. Joey remarks that they're all guilty of that. Pacey says he'd never accuse Dawson of cheating. Joey replies that Dawson would never take the first swing at Pacey. Pacey says Dawson started it. Joey says she's not getting into it. Pacey opens his thirst-quenching Pepsi and asks Joey what she thinks happened to the test. She says she doesn't know, and doesn't want to know.
With his back to the camera, Dawson sits on a picnic table and stares at the creek. Eve walks up to him wearing a...dress...I guess, but it's so short, and so tight, that it looks more like a wet suit. She asks if he got "it" back, presumably referring to the test. Dawson turns around to display his shiner. "Not exactly," he says. She asks what happened. He says that's what he's been trying to figure out, and that the only thing he can come up with is her: "You happened to me, Eve. You and that stupid test." Hey, I'm not fond of her, but she didn't hand him the test with a gun to his head -- and if she had wanted to, she could have had a clear shot from three counties away. She asks whether it was her or the test that gave him the black eye. For once, Dawson admits to having some responsibility there: "I accept my blame in this, but don't even try to tell me that you didn't know what giving me that test would do." She chuckles, and tells him that if making her the villain in this scenario helps him sleep at night, he can go ahead, but that, in fact, "we're all criminals, Dawson, in one way or another. It's just the stupid ones who get caught." Put on your safety goggles, everyone -- Eve's busted out the aphorisms again. Dawson turns his back and says, "Nice knowing you, Eve." He starts to go, but she and her terrible posture stop him, asking (in baby talk, no less), "Is that how it works? Someone offers you a view of human nature that's even remotely truthful, and you just walk away from it? It terrifies you, doesn't it? That wholesome Dawson Leery could be so overwhelmingly attracted to someone so flawed -- so real?" Oh, gack. Someone certainly has an unjustly high opinion of herself. And, FYI, anyone would be attracted to someone with a "Get It Here" tattoo on her forehead and a skirt that barely clears her ass, so don't rest too long on your laurels. She leans in for a kiss, but Dawson pulls back. Dawson puts on his steel face again, and says, "The purpose of our spending time together was to get to know each other. And you know what? Now that I know you, I don't really like you." She has no reaction to this line. As he strides off, she chuckles, and then looks wounded and lost. Boo hoo. Not.
At football practice, Henry watches as the cheerleaders run through their routines and Jen makes her way through their lines trying not to touch any of them, and certainly not joining in on any cheering. Jack is about to run the gauntlet again. He has a mantra. It's "Fug." I'm thinking this is an attempt on the WB's part to sneak in some almost-swearing, though I'm not sure why. Anyway, Jack starts chanting "Fug" and makes it the whole way through the gauntlet of tackles. As if. The cheerleaders start spontaneously cheering. Henry watches as Jen breaks away from the group of cheerleaders. Yelling "FUG," he runs straight at her, and then past her, into a table. Nonplussed, Jen asks, "What the hell was that?" I don't know why -- it must have been Michelle Williams's line delivery -- but I laughed out loud at that.
I guess practice was the morning of the PSAT, because it's the day of the PSAT (and Dawson said that Pacey had been drinking the night before the PSAT, so that's the only logical explanation. No, I will not accept the notion that the editors transposed some scenes, or that the writers have no sense of continuity) and the students are arranging themselves as Principal Green outlines the test. Before he can start his stopwatch, Dawson gets up and hands his test back. Principal Green asks what he's doing. Dawson says, "It's a long story," and walks out. Principal Green starts to say, "If there's no one else," but then Pacey gets up and hands his test in too, saying, by way of explanation, "Left the oven on." As he walks out, he and Joey exchange a look. These two are SO getting together.
Dawson waits for Pacey on the steps, and, when he comes out, asks, "What took you so long?" Pacey says the analogies are killer, and asks Dawson to remind him why they just did that. Dawson says, "Because if we're going to beat the crap out of each other, it should at least be over a chick." Oh, whatever. Pacey grins. They stride off, maybe to work at the video store we haven't seen in a year and a half.
Within, Principal Green says they may begin. The camera pans across the room as the students break the seals on their test booklets, and settles on Andie, who is already busily filling in the ovals on her answer sheet. After a moment she looks up, glances around, and surreptitiously opens up her test booklet. OH MY GOD! I know Miss Anthropy saw it coming, but I totally didn't. This is about the first time this show has ever surprised me, and, no doubt, the last.