Thanks to Wing Chun, as always. I'll miss her around here; nobody gets a rolled eye across better.
Previously on Dawson's Creek: Henry slobbers on Jen; Pacey yells at Dawson, Dawson screams in Pacey's face, and Sars tells Dawson, "Say it, don't spray it"; Joey wants a friend who doesn't have an agenda, and Dawson volunteers (as if); Pacey asks Joey if she could feel the same way about him that she feels about Dawson; from a jar in Philadelphia's Mutter Museum, Joey's backbone wails, "Let me out, pleeeeeease!"
Exterior of Reconciliation Ranch. Joey "Minor Spiner" Potter kvetches about finals and having to memorize part of The Canterbury Tales as she and Dawson "The Maltese Forehead" Leery walk up to the porch. Dawson says patronizingly that, as he's told her a thousand times, her "pronunciation is flawless," like, buck up, little camper! Joey says that "[she's] gonna continue torturing [herself] until test time, I just have to," and if it's torture she's after, spending time with Dawson should get it done quite nicely. Dawson describes himself as "well aware of the Potter neuroses," just in case we missed the oft-made, skillet-enhanced point that they've known each other for many years, and Joey snaps flirtatiously that she prefers "to think of them as quirks" and then threatens to "get into the Leery neurosis," and Dawson says good-naturedly that "we don't have to do that," and I agree, particularly since on the one hand we have "neurosis," and on the other hand we have the monomania Dawson suffers from. Anyway, Dawson confesses that he's nervous about something too. "Why?" Joey asks suspiciously. Dawson, whose hair resembles nothing so much as a flattened cheese Danish swaddled in a cobweb, reminds her of "an event . . . looming on the horizon . . ." and when Joey still looks puzzled, he prompts her by recalling "a certain pact made by two high-school freshmen regarding said event," and Joey smiles awkwardly and nods, "Junior prom -- we both agreed, if we didn't have dates, we'd go together." Dawson, pleased: "So you do remember." Joey, obviously uncomfortable with the idea: "Are you asking me to prom?" I would throw out an "uh duh, Joey" here, but in her place, I'd assume that the romantic scuffling of the last two years would negate an obviously platonic arrangement made as freshmen. Dawson says he doesn't want to go with "some random person" and have it not mean anything; he wants to go with his oldest friend: "That'll be something I'll always remember." Joey's spine shows signs of life as she tries to get out of going with Dawson: "Or we could always agree that it's a meaningless event and not go at all." Dawson doesn't buy it, saying that yes, "proms are ridiculous and stupid," but that they made the pact because "it obviously mattered to us." Blah blah blah "rite of passage" blah blah blah "move forward" blah blah blah "fulfill a pact made by two old friends, and just have a good time" blah blah blah unhealthy fixationcakes. Joey takes Dawson's guilt trip, but says she doesn't want a corsage and she doesn't want Dawson to wear a ruffly blue tuxedo shirt. "Done," Dawson says, staring at her all dewy-eyed. Joey looks uneasy, but before Dawson can pin her to the doorjamb and start humping her leg, they hear rustling, and who should appear before the two kids in a first-season-esque liplock but Mitch "The Flash" Leery and Gale "Tan With A Plan" Leery. Noticing Joey and Dawson, they stop and make "busted!" faces. Joey stares at Dawson with her mouth hanging open; Dawson stares at his parents in confusion.
Credits. Cat getting its tail caught in a juicer.
Fade back up on the front porch of Reconciliation Ranch. Joey makes a feeble excuse to get the hell out of there, and does so. Dawson trains a tight passive-aggressive smile on his parents, and Gale suggests that they talk about what Dawson "just saw." The Flash offers to talk to Dawson and tells Gale to go ahead to the restaurant, and Gale leaves, giving Dawson a kiss on the cheek as she passes him. Dawson brats, "This should be good," and heads into the house. Oh, you want to talk "should be," Lawrence Of Bad Hair-abia? Because your father "should be" delivering a Rockport moccasin to the seat of your XXXL pants for the 'tude you keep copping with him and your mother. Also, shut up. The Flash follows him into the house, shooting a "thanks a lot" look in the direction of the departing Gale, and asks, "You okay?" Dawson says yes and heads for the fridge. The Flash begins, "About what you just saw --" but Dawson cuts him off, saying he's seen it "about five million times" before; The Flash asks if, "under the circumstances," Dawson wants to talk about it. Dawson describes himself as "numb" to the situation, calls his parents' relationship "a little dramatic," and complains that he's "been in the middle," and he goes on to say that he realized recently that he doesn't "need to do that" -- he can sit back and "watch from afar." Well, no, Dawson, you didn't need to do that, because you put yourself in the middle, so the time a rescue helicopter flies over your house and drops one of those rope ladders down, use it to get over yourself. The Flash tells Dawson that what's going on between himself and Gale "is a lot more than casual." Dawson asks suspiciously if that means they're getting back together, and when The Flash says that they "haven't discussed" that possibility, Dawson tells his father to leave him out of it "entirely," but apparently that doesn't include not giving The Flash lip, because he says all dismissively that The Flash hasn't talked to Gale and doesn't "know what she's feeling." The Flash reminds Dawson that he was married to Gale for twenty years and knows some things "without having to ask." Dawson makes a snotty "whatever" face. I know I keep saying this, but it bears repeating -- The Flash must have the longest fuse in parental history, because my father is no tyrant, but if I'd given him that kind of tone at age sixteen, he'd have put me out with the trash.
Anyway. Cut to Pacey "Welcome To The Doghouse" Witter, standing in the doorway of his room and asking Andie "Captain Perk" McPhee, "How's the studying going?" "Fine," she says. Pacey offers to get her a drink, but she says, "No, I'm good." He sits down heavily in a chair, and Andie, seated at the coffee table, looks up and asks hesitantly if he wants her to leave; he says no: "Why would I want you to go?" She says she just gets that feeling, but he repeats that he doesn't want her to go. After a brief silence, Pacey tries to explain: "I just, sometimes I . . . I just feel kinda . . ." "Thirsty? Tired? Mad, sad?" Andie prompts, and Pacey says, "Yeah." Andie, concerned, repeats, "Sad," and Pacey stammers that it's "something like that, yeah." Oh, poor Pacey.
Andie chirps that he should "come out of this cave" already and "get back out there," and when Pacey asks, "Back out where?" Andie perks, "Out there! You know -- go to the prom!" Oh, great idea, Dr. Love. Not. Pacey looks disgusted and asks, "With who, Andie?" Andie shrugs, "I don't know, anyone, a girl," adding oh-so-casually, "you could go with me if you wanted to." Pacey expresses disbelief that Andie doesn't have a prom date; Andie dissembles that she's "sifting through offers" and hasn't made a decision yet. Pacey gives her a look and asks if she wants him to ask her to the prom; Andie grins, embarrassed, and answers that she just wants to see him happy again. Pacey says dully that he doubts the prom will do the trick happiness-wise, so she'd "be better off" going with one of the other guys who asked her. Andie says, "I'm sure I will," and looks back down at her notebook.
Over at the PB&B, Joey mutters that Dawson asked her to the prom and she said yes. Bessie "Like A Hot Knife Through Butter" Potter, seated on the couch, gives her sister a "you've got to be kidding me" look as Joey goes on to confess that she feels like she "made a huge, horrible mistake." Well, seeing as how you agreed to attend a formal event in the company an obsessive dweeb whose head belongs in a display case at the Museum Of Medical Oddities, yes, I think "huge, horrible mistake" covers the subject rather well. Joey babbles that Dawson told her that going to prom together would only "serve to re-cement our admittedly shaky friendship, but I don't know -- what about the undeniable romantic implications?" "Re-cement"? Joey keeps thinking aloud in the "and what about Pacey?" vein, and finally Bessie cuts through the bullshit to ask what effect Joey thought accepting Dawson's invitation would have, "if not to put you right in the middle of his tug-of-war with Pacey?" Preach it, Bessie. Joey says she just wants to get things "back to the way they were," and Bessie slings an arm around her and says mildly, "Come on, Jo, you're not that naïve." Joey says she's "backed up into [sic] a corner" and has no choice, and when Bessie demurs, Joey says, "Well -- no appealing choice." Bessie asks if Joey expects her to come up with an answer, and Joey says that she does, and she gripes that Bessie hasn't really come through "in the advice department" of late. Bessie tells her to "give [her] a problem that actually has a solution, and I'll solve it." The problem does have a solution, ladies -- punt Dawson for the extra point! Problem solved! God! Anyway, Joey rolls her eyes a few times before admitting that Bessie's right: "I mean, no matter what I do, somebody gets hurt. Including me." Yeah, boo hoo.
In the Capeside High cafeteria, the camera pans over a big sign for "Junior Prom Tickets," past an officious blonde manning the ticket table, and down to Andie crabbing, "I hate the stupid prom, the stupid prom can kiss my ass," and thwapping an orange peel onto her tray. Heh. Jack "Cherry 2000" McPhee busts open a pudding snack cup and asks mildly, "What's wrong with you?" Andie bitches that she thought Pacey would ask her to the prom, but now she has to "humiliate" herself and go alone. Jack points out that it's better than "going with an ex-boyfriend that [she's] not over yet," to which Andie scoffs, "I am so over him. I am! That's why I want to go with him, is because it'll be safe!" "Mm hmm," Jack says drily, lifting a skeptical eyebrow and eating his pudding. Andie can see her brother ain't buying what she's selling, and she asks sulkily if Jack has bought his tickets yet. Uh, wouldn't Jack go to the senior prom? What damn year is he in, anyway? Jack says he's "working on it," and he complains about the prom theme of "couples" and how each couple's name will be printed on all the balloons and souvenirs and whatnot, and how dumb a theme is that for a prom? I mean, why not make the theme "formalwear," or "decorating the gym," or anything else that you'd find at a prom anyway? It doesn't make any sense. Anyhow. Andie asks, "So?" Jack reminds her that, when they buy their tickets, they have to say "who they're bringing," and thus he has to announce to the entire world that he's bringing a guy to the prom. ["In a town that small, who wouldn't already know that Jack was gay?" -- Wing Chun] Andie points out that, when he shows up with Ethan, the entire world will pretty much get the idea anyway, but Jack protesteth too much that "he's not my date date, we're just going as friends," and when Andie rolls her eyes, Jack says that Ethan calls this "the step towards self-acceptance and actualization, whatever the hell that means," and a hearty "word to that" -- Ethan hasn't even appeared onscreen in this episode, and I already want him to shut up. Andie observes that "it's not like [Jack] to care what other people think," and Jack grumbles, "You seen who's selling the tickets?" and Andie looks over at the officious blonde and snorts, "Barbara Johns?"
At a picnic table outside, Jen "Mack Attack" Lindley tells Henry "Fondle" Parker about the prom, which evidently takes place the weekend. At my school, we had to reserve for the prom at least a month in advance; you couldn't just buy a ticket the week of the event. And we didn't have separate proms for juniors and seniors, but I went to a really small school. I know you'll all sleep better at night knowing how we did things at my school. Not. ["I have to ask: A school as small as Capeside High would bother to throw a junior prom? Because I went to a tiny rural high school and we didn't get one. (Sep did also, and pointed this out to me via ICQ as she watched the episode.)" -- Wing Chun] Anyway, Jen blathers on about how it's a "ridiculous and embarrassing ritual" and how it reinforces gender roles and "punishes the geeks," on and on and on, all by way of showing how much she really wants to go but feels nervous about asking Henry to come with her. Henry sees through the rambling: "You've never been to a prom before, have you?" "Well, no," Jen admits, and starts babbling again about how much proms suck, but Henry interrupts her again: "So in other words, you're asking me to go." She nods and bites her lip: "Yeah." "I'd love to," Henry says. Jen beams. He puts his arm around her and they head inside.
"The theme of this year's prom is couples," Barbara Johns drones. "Please state your name as well as the name of your date." Jack stutters out his own name, then Ethan's name. "Excuse me?" Barbara sneers, and when Jack starts to spell the name "Ethan" for her, she cuts him off with, "A boy cannot go to the prom with a boy. The definition of a prom date is a boy and a girl." Jack doesn't think that's any of Barbara's business, but she's not done, saying that she doesn't understand why Jack needs to "cause a spectacle" and "ruin the prom for the rest of" the students. Like the sight of you in a strapless gown isn't a spectacle of ruination all on its own, you heterosexist T.J.-Maxx-fashions-wearing cow. Anyway, Barbara says that if Jack insists, she'll have to check with Mrs. Meyer, the faculty advisor. "You're not going to sell me a ticket?" Jack sputters in disbelief, and Barbara keeps up with the bigoted invective, asking Jack if he thinks him and Ethan dancing cheek-to-cheek and having their picture taken and so on won't "weird out even the ones who are sympathetic to people like you?" Jack looks like he might cry from frustration: "You can't do this." Barbara blows him off, saying he can try again after she talks to Mrs. Meyer and calling out, "!" Jack stomps off, passing Dawson as he comes up to the table, and Dawson asks if he's okay, and Jack sneers, "Fine," in Barbara's direction and says he has to go. Dawson looks after him as Barbara drones her little piece again. Dawson reminds her that they have gym class together, so she knows his name; Barbara repeats pointedly, "Please state your name as well as the name of your date." Get a life, Barb. Dawson says smugly, "Dawson Leery and Joey Potter." Barbara coos, "Oh -- happy couple, back together?" and we see a shot of Pacey sitting nearby and looking defeated as Dawson says, "Something like that, yeah," and Dawson walks away from the table with his tickets and sees Pacey staring at him sadly, and Dawson makes a little "ha!" motion with his mouth and keeps walking, and Pacey looks down at his tray.
On the front steps of Capeside High, Andie, Joey, and Dawson encourage Jack to file a formal complaint, but Jack, his head resting on his arms, doesn't want to deal with it; he appreciates their support, but "it's okay, I'm just not gonna go to the prom." Andie says he has to go, and Joey says that "at this point, it's political," and Jack says that's his point: "It's a prom, it's supposed to be fun. I mean, why does my entire life have to be a fight? Why does something that's normal for everyone else have to be so political for me?" Andie says that until things change in that regard, Jack has to fight, and Joey says they'll support him "all the way," but Jack isn't having it. Andie announces that, if Jack's not going, she's not going either. Joey's on board with that. Dawson's eyebrow shoots up in alarm, because if he and Joey don't go to the prom together, he'll lose his chance to manipulate her emotionally by dredging up times gone by -- oh, I mean, "win her back."
As the others discuss picketing the prom, Dawson sits up and suggests, "Let's hold our own prom. Right? An alternative prom. Think about it -- why are we paying eighty bucks a pop to sit where they tell us to sit, eat rubbery chicken, and listen to a selection of Barbara Johns's favorite tunes, when we could hold the anti-prom?" The others look thoughtful as Dawson finishes, "Where it's not about who you bring, it's about who you are." Uh, Dawson? Oh, forget it. Joey nods and says, "I like it," Andie agrees, and they both look expectantly at Jack, who laughs, "Yeah -- what would an alternative prom be without a couple of gay guys?" Dawson smiles a self-congratulatory smile, and Joey gives him an admiring smile of her own, as if he'd actually come up with the idea for Jack's benefit and not as a way to circle Joey off from the herd and hamstring her.
At the International House Of Fishcakes (tm Wing Chun), Dawson pitches the idea to his parents. The Flash says that Dawson has obviously given it a lot of thought, and he asks why; Dawson shrugs and says that "big things are happening all around," then concedes that he's "trying to facilitate my own big thing, if the answer is yes." And by "my own big thing," does he mean his massive cranial -- no, I can't. Too easy. Long story short, Gale and The Flash agree to host the anti-prom at the IHOF, but only if they can chaperone. Dawson says okay and heads off to hang some flyers. Gale and The Flash discuss Dawson's reaction to what he saw yesterday, and then The Flash wants to discuss their relationship, but Gale, distracted by the presence of cayenne pepper in the marinara, says she just wants to see where it leads and not analyze it to death. The Flash looks annoyed.
At school, Jack and Andie have set up a table and a big sign that says "Alternative Prom Tickets Half Price" right to Barbara's table. ["I find it hard to believe that some school official wouldn't have prevented them from selling the tickets at school, but whatever." -- Wing Chun] Jack remarks that "this thing could actually turn out to be a success," and as a punk couple approaches their table, Andie twitters, "In a manner of speaking." Barbara, attired in an outfit straight off the rack at Ross Dress For Less that's about forty years too old for her, leans over and snipes that "just because the dregs of society go to your prom does not make it a success. Nobody that matters would be caught dead there. I certainly wouldn't go if you paid me." As the writers of Some Kind Of Wonderful wait patiently for their check, Jack shrugs, "Oh, that's a good thing, 'cause we don't want your kind at our prom." "And what kind is that, the good Christian kind?" Whatever, Barbara. Judge not, lest ye be judged. Look it up. Jack snorts that "this is not about religion, Barbara; I mean the kind that hates people. You know, the intolerant, judgmental, hypocritical kind -- close-minded, immature, bigoted kind?" "With bad fashion sense," Andie pipes up from his other side. "Really bad," Jack snarks. Ha! McPhees 2, Barbara 0. Barbara snits that at least she's not "going to hell." Jack and Andie laugh in her face, and Jack wants to know if "that's [her] whole comeback," and Andie makes an I'm-so-scared-not face and goes, "Oooooh," so Barbara says that she thinks the threat of eternal damnation "is a pretty good comeback," but Jack points out that "that threat is not yours to make. You just don't get it, do you? You're totally missing the point." That shuts Barbara up, finally. Go, Clan McPhee. Oh, and this just in -- if you really believe that gays and lesbians will go to hell, you'd better ask one of them to save your bigoted ass a seat.
Grams pins up an old tuxedo of Gramps's to fit Henry. Jen says he'll look great; Henry says he feels "like a busboy." Grams blathers on about "the burden of men" and how they have to stand in the background and let the ladies shine, and Jen thinks Henry shines "just fine on his own," which I'll agree with because Make-up put about a pound of lip-gloss on Michael Pitt for some reason, and Grams's kettle whistles, so she leaves the room, at which point Jen thinks it's time that she and Henry "had the talk." "The talk?" Henry repeats. "Yeah, the prom sex talk," Jen says. Henry repeats, "The prom sex talk?" Jen thinks it would have come up sooner or later; Henry says, "Not necessarily," and Jen busts on him for expecting her to believe that he didn't think anything would happen in that department. Henry starts to protest, but Jen delivers a monologue about the pressure to have sex on prom night and how the sex ends up sucking as a result (can't argue with her there), so she thinks they should agree now "not to do it." Henry says he's "in no race [sic]," but he asks if they "are going to do it -- eventually, right?" Jen smiles indulgently at him, and they start kissing. Yawn.
Pacey drops by McPhee Manor, and Andie asks to what she owes the honor of the visit. Pacey says he's "just bored, I guess," and Andie laughs that he always knew "how to flatter a girl" and sits down at her computer. Pacey asks if Andie's going to the alternative prom, and Andie crows about how she threw her ticket back in Barbara Johns's face, and then she bitches about what Barbara said to her when she bought it, namely that Andie is so brave for going to the prom alone. Pacey asks why she'd go to the prom alone: "I thought you were sifting through offers." Andie admits that she "didn't have any," and when Pacey asks why she didn't just tell him that, she says, "Because I didn't want a 'pity ask,' okay?" and adds that it doesn't matter now; all her friends will be at the alternaprom, and she's only going to support the whole concept. Pacey mutters, "Well, you should have been able to tell me. And it wouldn't be a 'pity ask,' 'cause it can't be a pity if it's an honor," and he asks her to the alternaprom, and she accepts.
Cut to Dawson in a tux, crossing the lawn of the PB&B and greeting Bessie, who has camera in hand. For the record, a tuxedo makes most men look good. But not all men. And not Dawson. Anyway, Dawson and Bessie turn to see Joey clomping down the steps shyly in a pair of heels she hasn't learned how to walk in, attired in black strappy satin with her hair in a chignon. "Wow," burbles Dawson, "You look . . ." "It's just a dress, Dawson," Joey says, embarrassed by the attention. Bessie giggles with pride and takes a bunch of pictures. Aw. More Bessie, please. We see a shot of Dawson standing proprietarily behind Joey as she half-cringes away from him; then she says they should go, "we don't want to be late," and Bessie teases Joey for not liking to have her picture taken and chaffs Dawson for not bringing a corsage, and he explains that they had a deal, "no corsage, but I had to bring something," and he pulls out a jewelry box and pops it open. "Diamond earrings?" Joey breathes. The Some Kind Of Wonderful writers, joined by Guy de Maupassant, check their mailboxes a second time as Joey says she can't take the earrings, and Dawson reassures her that he borrowed them from Gale, but Joey still doesn't want to wear them: "What if something happens?" But Dawson railroads her into putting them on, and she does so, reluctantly; then they pose for more pictures, and Dawson again stands behind her all boyfriend-like while Joey hunches away from him, and we have a freeze-frame of them in a "picture," Dawson looking smug, Joey looking tired.
At the IHOF, a girl with wings on her dress and the punk couple walk past The Flash and Gale, who says, "Interesting crowd." Shut up, Gale. The Flash tells her to secure the cash register. Like, ha ha. Not.
A shot of a couple dancing pans over to a fidgety Jack sitting at a table with Ethan "Gayoda" Brody. "Hey, can you believe we wore the same thing?" Ethan says, and cracks himself up, but when Jack doesn't laugh, Ethan sighs, "Yeah, well, I thought it was pretty funny." That was pretty funny, especially coming from Gayoda. ["I'll cop to a snicker." -- Wing Chun] Jack doesn't answer, just sighs himself. Ethan says sort of snottily that he won't ask Jack to dance with him, "if that's what [he's] worried about." Jack denies worrying about anything. Just then, Jen and Henry appear -- Jen has a champagne-colored gown on and her hair in ringlets, and she looks very nice -- followed by Dawson and Joey, and Jack looks really relieved to see his other friends. The other couples sit down with Jack and Ethan, and Jen compliments Joey on the earrings, and Joey thanks her; Dawson beams at Joey with proprietary pride. Just then, outside the shot, we hear Jack greeting Andie and Pacey, and Joey looks up and quickly tries to hide her crestfallenness just before we cut to a shot of Andie, who's wearing a cheap-looking lilac satin shift and way way too much lavender-y eye make-up, and Pacey, standing behind her and clearly wishing for a hole to open up and swallow him. Dawson whips it out and marks Joey with urine by asking, "Shall we dance?" Joey nods, but as she gets up, she shoots Pacey an "oy vey" look. In the background, an ovary murders Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual." Pacey and Andie sit down, and Andie and Jen compliment each other on their dresses; Pacey stares glumly at Joey and Dawson dancing, and Joey looks sadly past Dawson's giant head at Pacey and then looks away.
And we're back at the alter-not-ive prom after commercials. Joey and Dawson dance; Dawson's hair looks like a lobster claw that mated with a bale of moldy hay. Andie and Pacey dance; Pacey looks wistful. Jen and Henry dance. Jen asks what Henry's thinking, Henry denies thinking about sex, and Jen tells him he's allowed to think about sex but reminds him that "tonight it's not a factor." Shut up, Jen.
At the edge of the dance floor, Ethan tells Jack that he's glad Jack "had the courage to bring [him]," and that he knows it's not easy, and he starts to launch into a story about when he and his ex first started dating, but Jack stops him: "Can we maybe put a pin in the 'when I was a young gay boy' stories for tonight? It's not providing me with a lot of solace right now." Thank you for finally acknowledging how patronizingly Ethan comes off, writers -- but do y'all receive a bonus every time you fit the word "solace" into a script? Because that's twice in three weeks, and it's annoying. Anyway, Ethan confesses that he and Brad never "did anything" in public, that "for all [his] bravado, [he's] never asked a guy to anything like this," and Jack snaps in disbelief, "You mean, all that crap about actualization -- you've never actualized?" Ethan thought they could jump that hurdle together. Jack, annoyed: "At my high-school prom, where you know no one, and I know everyone? Tell me, how 'together' is that, Ethan?" Jeez, Jack, lighten up. You departed the closet in view of the entire school; it's not like they don't already know, and besides, you invited Ethan, not the other way around.
"So you win in the courage department," Ethan snarks, but Jack corrects him that courage would have meant telling Ethan that he didn't feel ready for this, regardless of Ethan's proselytizing about Jack's sexual maturation, and he adds that he really doesn't want "to be here right now" and prepares to stomp off. Ethan, stung: "Well, I'm sorry." "So am I," Jack growls, and Ethan asks where he's going. Jack's getting a soda, but not before busting what's left of Ethan's chops: "You know, I was wondering, wise gay sage that you are -- Coke? Diet Pepsi? What's better for my self-actualization?" Then he stomps off for real. "Wise gay sage" -- heh.
Elsewhere, Jen says that they can talk about other things besides sex. Henry says of course they can, but he can't come up with a topic off the top of his head. "Summer," Jen suggests, and she outlines a few of the things she thought they could do, like day trips to Nantucket and concerts "up in Boston," and for the last time, Boston is down from the Cape, not up, unless Capeside is Lower Cape, in which case Boston is over, not up. Buy a map, writers. Henry says they can do those things after he returns from eight weeks of football camp in Cleveland. Jen gets mad because he's "leaving [her] for the whole summer" and it's the first she's heard of it, and bitches him out for springing it on her at the prom; Henry doesn't understand why she's getting so bent out of shape, and frankly neither do I. Then she says that he can forget about any hope he cherished of getting laid that night, to which he responds that he thought they'd already decided they wouldn't have sex, and Jen sneers that she only said that to alleviate the pressure and "make it seem spontaneous when [we] actually do it -- of course there's a chance, it's our prom." She trucks on out of there. Henry makes a "wuh duh fuh?" face and says, "Damn!" Whatever, Jen. Quit yanking his chain; it's getting old.
Pacey and Andie, dancing. Pacey gives Dawson and Joey the stink-eye, then looks away; the camera pans back to Dawson and Joey. Joey starts to look pissed and says, "Can I ask a brazen but obvious question?" "Brazen"? I take a stroll over to the post office to express-mail a copy of the dictionary to Wilmington, NC, and when I get back, Dawson says, "Yeah, of course." Joey asks why he brought her to the prom: "Was it just so you could throw jabs at Pacey?" Dawson denies this, saying he didn't even know Pacey would come, but Joey demands, "You don't think I get the subtext of every one of those looks you keep throwing his way? I mean, Dawson, you might as well get on the PA and scream, 'She's mine, Pacey, ha! I win.'" Zing! And yet, you went with him anyway, Joey, and you've continued to dance with him, so whatever.
Dawson extends his nostrils, sending everyone else on the dance floor tumbling ass-over-tip into the seating area, and snips, "Actually, that's not what I'm thinking." "Then what are you thinking?" Joey asks, and Dawson priggishly says he's thinking that Pacey has no right to show up at Dawson's mother's restaurant to a prom that Dawson organized, and he wants to know what Pacey's trying to accomplish. Joey says that, given the spirit of the anti-prom, Dawson has no right to exclude anyone; Dawson nonsensically says that he isn't excluding Pacey, he just hasn't "said a word to him." Joey sneers that that hasn't stopped Dawson from "parading" her around all night "like [she's] some sort of a prize," and while I agree with her, I must again point out that she's submitted herself to it, so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for her. Dawson again denies doing any such thing, saying that Joey's his date and he's dancing with her: "It's not my fault [Pacey] keeps staring at us." Joey grumbles that no, it's not Dawson's fault, it's not anybody's fault, "it's just happening, and who cares what it's doing to me," and she glares at him, and yet again I have to call that off-sides -- I'm not defending Dawson, mind, but Joey's woe-is-me routine has gotten almost as tiresome as Dawson's ludicrous self-absorption. Dawson suggests that they start over: "It's just Dawson and Joey, at the prom, having a good time, okay?" Joey starts to submit, then throws a glance at Pacey before saying, "I need a breather," and leaving Stalker, Texas Ranger alone on the dance floor to shake it off.
Outside, Joey finds Jack sulking on the deck. "Care to make a run for it?" she asks, and he says, "Yes, please." Heh. Joey slumps against the railing and asks, "So what are you hiding from?" "I am hiding from Barbara Johns," Jack sighs, and when Joey says incredulously, "She's here?" Jack says no, but "in a way she is," and he goes on to say that Barbara "was right, Joey -- I don't belong here. I'm not gonna dance with Ethan, I'm not gonna have my picture taken with him, and whatever good time I was gonna have tonight, I just ruined it by the way I treated him." "You really like him, don't you," Joey says, and Jack doesn't answer, but Joey says she remembers a conversation less than a year ago when all Jack could see "was the pain and the loneliness that made your life different from everyone else's." "As opposed to now," Jack says acidly, "when all I can see is the pain and loneliness that makes our lives the same?" Joey smiles wryly. Jack tells her that he knows "how sad it is to hide from something that you really want," and Joey repeats that she just wants everything "to go back to the way it was, you know, I -- all of us friends again, and me not caught in the middle." Jack tells her that, to accomplish that, she has to "set the example," because Dawson and Pacey can't do it themselves yet. Huh? Joey wants to hide out there for a while longer first. "Sounds good to me," Jack says. Joey takes his hand and thanks him, and he thanks her back.
Inside, The Flash and Gale dance. Gale says she packed a bag for that night; she thought maybe she could stay over. The Flash doesn't know about that: "I'm not here just for your whim, Gale." Gale doesn't get it. The Flash airs her out for always leaving it up to him to define their relationship, and ditches her on the dance floor. Gale looks worried. Snore.
Joey asks Pacey to dance. He accepts, looking quietly thrilled. They begin dancing, a bit awkwardly. "How come this feels so right?" Pacey whispers. "I think it was those dance lessons," Joey smiles. As Pacey tucks a lock of hair behind Joey's ear, we see Andie gazing at them and her heart falling into her stomach, and then we cut back to Pacey asking Joey where she got the earrings: "They're not you." Joey, defensively: "Why, because I'm just a poor tomboy, or 'cause Dawson gave them to me?" Neither, Pacey says, and points to her bracelet, saying, "This is you. It's not showy, or gaudy. Just simple. Elegant. Beautiful," and his voice breaks a little at the end. "My mom's bracelet," she says, and he says, "I know," and when she asks how he knows, he reminds her that she told him "six months ago -- you were wearing that blue sweater with the snowflakes that you have, we were walking down the hallways at school, I was annoying you as per usual. You said, 'Look, Pacey, I just found my mother's bracelet this morning, so why don't you cut me some slack.'" Joey, flattered: "You remember that?" Pacey: "I remember everything." Yeah, I think we get it, but you'd better send an anvil over here just in -- oh, look, you already have. Also, ow. The camera pans over Pacey's shoulder to show a livid Dawson glaring at them and undulating his nostrils like the wings of a manta ray. Joey rests her head against Pacey's. Andie stares blearily at them from the depths of her eye make-up and tries not to cry. Pacey closes his eyes and blisses out; over his shoulder we see Joey struggling internally some more. Then she catches sight of Flare-y S. Truman and freezes, probably terrified by the poisonous blond anemone that has attached itself to his skull in the guise of hair. Pacey feels Joey freeze, and freezes himself. Dawson snits off. Joey turns a Droopy-Dog face to Pacey as her eyes fill with tears.
Dear WB: Please stop putting Kerr Smith in dork-assy turtlenecks. Thanks, Sars. P.S.: Please force Barry Watson to get a haircut.
Dawson flounces out of the alter-not-ive prom. Joey, for reasons I can't begin to fathom, runs after him, calling, "Dawson, wait! I forgot to plant a dyed silk pump in your ass!" Well, except for that last part, but I don't see why she doesn't just do it already. She grabs his arm to make him stop, and he turns around and snarls, "How could you do that to me?" with such force that Joey literally jumps back. Dawson asks if she's trying to hurt him, and she says no, she's trying to set an example and -- all together now -- "get things back to the way they were." Dawson screams that she can't do that, doesn't she get it -- she can't just climb through his window with E.T. and expect things to go back to normal, and she can't dance with Pacey at the prom Dawson organized and expect Dawson "not to be hurt." Joey reminds him that he himself said the prom was about their friendship, and if he really meant that, it wouldn't matter who she danced with; Dawson says that it's about moving forward: "What did you think that meant? You can't have thought that that's all I wanted." Gee, Dawson, you said that that's all you wanted, so don't get your panties in a bunch when she takes your manipulative, puerile, delusional words at face value. You've got a big enough face, god knows.
Joey closes her eyes, exhausted, as Dawson admits that he didn't suggest the alternaprom to help Jack, "it was about [her]," and he says that maybe he tried too hard ("maybe"?), but "I didn't want to miss my chance to dance with you, to hold you, to make you remember what it was like between us." Oh, barf. Dawson thought maybe if he made it perfect . . . Joey, looking sad, says bitingly, "That I would pick you? Say it, Dawson. You thought that if you orchestrated this whole evening that I would be convinced into picking you over Pacey, right?" "You have to pick somebody, Joey," Dawson says coldly, flapping nostrils darkening the lower half of his colossal face. "I just wanted to remind you of what you'd be missing if you didn't pick me." Yeah -- emotional blackmail. Whatever, dicksmack. Joey hangs her head; I can't believe Dawson's brand of bullshit works on anyone over the age of eight, but I guess it does, because she starts to cry. "'Cause you'd be missing a lot," Dawson adds softly. "Joey, you'd be missing everything." She raises her head to look at him, and he draws close to her and kisses her. Bleeeccccccch. After he pulls away, she stares at him, looking like one of those bugs that nature programs show getting stunned by poisonous frogs, and he says smugly, "That's how the evening was supposed to end." He walks away from her really stiffly, as if he has a pole up his -- oh, right. Never mind. Joey stares after him with Droopy-Dog face some more. Buck up, little camper!
Ryan Home. Jen snarks at Henry. Henry tries to reason with her. Jen won't hear it. Henry speaks for the entire audience by saying, "You know, I hate it when you do this -- you get extreme about the future of our relationship at the first sign of one of your insecurities," like, TELL IT, HENRY. Jen says it isn't about her insecurities, it's about Henry's "cowardice," like, WHATEVER, Jen. He's maybe fifteen years old, his parents probably made these arrangements months ago, it's only for the summer, and since you probably won't end up marrying the guy, STEP BACK. Good GRIEF. Anyway, she keeps haranguing him -- she planned their whole summer and he didn't even think about her, she made herself vulnerable to him, blah dee blah. Henry says again that his going to football camp has nothing to do with her, and Jen says, "Exactly," and pouts that, "if this were a real relationship," he would have chosen what to do with his summer based at least in part on her. Henry just stares at her, and I feel for the guy; she's way over the line here. "Good night, Henry," she says, and makes to go into the house. Henry finally says he can't take her volatility anymore, adding, "You walk in that house, and it's not just goodnight -- it's goodbye." Choking back tears, Jen says, "Goodbye," and slams the door in his face. Oh, please. Run away, Henry!
Jack catches Ethan at the train station: "What are you doing, are you leaving?" Ethan joins me in saying acidly, "Are you kidding me?" Jack stammers out an apology for treating Ethan like crap; Gayoda condescendingly says, "No, Jack, I'm sorry. You clearly weren't ready for this," and I go back to being on Jack's side. Shut up, Gayoda. Jack tells him, "That's just it. Because I don't know what 'this' is, so can we define 'this' before we decide who's ready?" Ethan relents and comes back down the stairs and drops his bag: "What are you saying?" Jack admits that he didn't feel uncomfortable taking a guy to the prom per se, but rather that he felt uncomfortable taking someone who doesn't feel the same way about Jack that Jack feels about him. "Jack," a stunned Ethan says, "I really like you!" "Then why all the hurdles?" Jack asks. "Why the long journey for us to be together, when all you had to do was just lean over and --" Well, because it's network TV, Jackers. "-- kiss you?" Ethan finishes. "Yeah, something like that," Jack says. Apparently, the writers also get a bonus for that sentence construction, because we've seen it a good four or five times in this episode alone. Ethan says he doesn't want to kiss "someone who isn't ready," and to prove his readiness, Jack will have to kiss Ethan first. "How do you know that I couldn't?" Jack says sulkily. "I don't know. I'm guessing," Ethan says wearily. Jack gets to his feet and says that maybe Ethan's "guessing wrong" -- maybe Jack is ready after all. Okay, let's review: two cute boys. In tuxes. Alone in the train station. Standing maybe ten inches away from one another. I'M DYING HERE, WARNER BROTHERS. ["Yeah! Give it up, already! Justify my love!" -- Wing Chun] Anyway, needless to say, Ethan points these very things out to Jack and dares Jack to kiss him. Jack's eyes fill with tears; of course, he can't do it. Ethan makes an "I knew it" face, picks up his bag, and walks out without a word, and Jack starts crying. Oh, sad.
Andie and Pacey stroll along the waterfront. Pacey tells her that he honestly believed that, when he invited Andie to the prom, he wanted to go with her, and he really wishes that had been true, but as soon as he got there, he realized he wanted to go because -- "I know why you wanted to go to the prom, Pacey," Andie interrupts, "and I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you. But at least you got to dance with her," she adds sweetly, even though it's obviously killing her. Pacey swears he'll do whatever it takes to make it up to Andie, but Andie says what it would take to make it up to her isn't something Pacey can do right now. Pacey's face falls, but Andie quickly assures him that she's not mad: "I just really feel bad for you." They keep walking. Pacey tells her that he plans to sail the True Love down to Key West this summer, "just me and the sea. How's that for Hemingway-esque, huh?" Um, only if you start drinking at eight every morning and shoot yourself in the head. ["Yeah, and you stopped annoying me, like, a year ago, so that's one more thing you don't have in common with Hemingway, Pace." -- Wing Chun] You can visit his house while you're down there, though; it's really nice. Andie asks when he leaves; he says "after finals." After a pause, Andie asks if he's told Joey how he feels; Pacey says Joey already knows how he feels, but Andie says, "I mean, have you really told her, Pacey?" She says he can't just leave without letting her know, that it's not like him to stand down from something like this or run away. "You have to tell her that you love her," Andie says, starting to cry, "and you have to try to get her back, because if you don't, I promise you, you will regret it." She made her bed, and she's got to lie in it, but I feel for Andie right now. "Maybe," Pacey mutters in response, but Andie says firmly, "No, Pacey. You will." Judging from the look on his face, he knows she's right.
The day, Joey comes over to the Ranch to find Dawson reading outside, and she returns Gale's earrings, saying that she's not sure they're "her," but that she had "a really fun time wearing them." Um . . . okay. Except for the "fun" part, right? Anyway, Joey goes on to say that she can't deny she felt something when Dawson kissed her the night before, "something [she] wasn't expecting, and something that will probably always be there." Revulsion, I assume. Dawson regards her expectantly as she shakes her head and says, "But I can't keep hurting people, Dawson. And I can't choose. So I'm telling you the same thing that I told Pacey -- please don't make me? I'm not ready, and I can't do it." "Okay," Dawson says. "Okay?" Joey repeats, smelling a rat. "I'll wait," Dawson says firmly. Oh, for the love of Pete. Give it UP, Bad Hairi Krishna. "Call me an eternal optimist, but I have faith," he says smugly. Joey gives him a "the hell?" look, as if finally realizing the depths of his delusion, but Dawson ignores her in favor of blathering on about how he's "been on this soul-searching journey" for the last year, and he feels like he's finally come to the end: "And what I found -- is you." Joey looks dismayed by this, as well she should, but before she can bolt from her lawn chair to the Capeside County courthouse in pursuit of a restraining order, she spots Gale running across the lawn and into the house.
Inside, Gale makes The Flash sit down in a chair, and she kneels in front of him, and she unzips his -- no, no, she doesn't, but she does admit that she's felt afraid of screwing up and making the same mistakes twice, but she wants to get back with him, screw-ups be damned. Joey and Dawson wander in and watch the whole scene unfolding, like, get some manners, young'uns. Anyway, The Flash impersonates a straight man long enough to hike his tongue down Gale's throat, and the kids look on uncomfortably, and Joey shoots a "whatever" look at a condescendingly smiling Dawson, whose hair looks like a pinwheel that got run through a paper shredder.
That's it for me for Season 3. week, Wing Chun faces off against the season finale, in which Pacey paints "ASK ME TO STAY" on the wall he bought for Joey, Joey dances with Dawson some more (and cries some more), and Dawson treats Joey to yet another all-expenses-paid guilt trip. See you in October.