Episode Report Card Sars: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Failing Down
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.10.2000
It's a good thing the Bedazzled trailer shows us almost the entire movie, since nobody is actually going to buy a ticket for that bag of crap anyway.
Gretchen and Pacey, house-hunting. We fade up on the front porch of what looks exactly like Ta-MAH-ra Jacobs's house, which Gretchen finds "charming" and Pacey thinks is "something out of Better Homes & Crap." Heh. More back-and-forth, Gretchen seeing potential, Pacey seeing a rat infestation, blah blah blah. As they wander through the house, which they could never afford in the second place, Gretchen tells him without a hint of irony to "face facts, Pacey -- we don't have a lot of money!" Right. So why not look at a two-bedroom instead of a big old Cape Cod with a harbor view? More Gretchen babbling about "going to turn this place into a home," more Pacey grumbling. Gretchen diagnoses Pacey with "a particularly nasty case of 'first day of school,'" which naturally puts me in mind of Office Space and that annoyingly perky lady saying that "someone's got a case of the Mondays," and then Gretchen asks if "senior status" can't improve Pacey's mood at all. He grunts that, as it happens, he's "not exactly a senior." What exactly is he, then, she wants to know. "I'm screwed. I'm totally screwed." Gretchen asks what that means. Pacey briefs her: he failed three classes last year, so now he has to retake those classes on top of passing this year's classes in order to graduate. Gretchen closes her eyes sadly and shakes her head, then says in her best rah-rah tone that he'll just do it -- he'll "work really hard this year" and pass everything, and "it's…not that big of a deal." No response. Gretchen asks what Joey thinks. Still no response. Gretchen guesses that Pacey hasn't told her, and incredulously asks why; Pacey, tears standing in his eyes, says that "Joey is smart, but Pacey is an idiot, and I'm trying not to make her any more aware of that fact than she already is." Gretchen doesn't think that Joey's feelings for Pacey have anything to do with his GPA. She gets up and says that she could tell him herself that everything will turn out all right, "but it's gonna sound a lot better coming from [Joey]."
Yacht Club. Joey serves a couple of plates, and as she heads back towards the kitchen, a guy in a pink oxford -- who looks exactly, but EXACTLY, like a guy I had a huge crush on in college -- calls her over. She asks if she can help him; Crush Doppelganger cracks that that's "up for debate, actually." Joey says she doesn't have "a lot of time for verbal ping-pong," so he gets to the point, namely that he ordered an iced tea and a club sandwich half an hour ago and it still hasn't arrived at the table. Joey blanches, then apologizes and hustles over to get a pitcher of iced tea. Crush Doppelganger tells her not to worry about it, "I know how it is." "I doubt that," Joey mutters, pouring him a glass, and Crush goes into a "let me guess" diatribe on why Joey works at the club, conjecturing that she got pregnant and her boyfriend dumped her, and now she has to leave the baby with her alcoholic mother while she waits tables "on [her] high horse." Then he sniffs that the attitude will cut into her gratuity. Once again, the writers could have phoned up any country club on the East Coast and discovered that, in fact, most clubs include the gratuity in the bill, thus making it unnecessary for members to tip the wait staff. (My parents belong to one. Don't get me started.) Joey stares at him as though she's going to dump the pitcher of iced tea over his head, and Crush smirks, "Oh, come on. Where's your sense of humor?" He goes on to say that he's conducting an experiment, that his father is "a world-class cretin" who says stuff like that "to the help all the time," and that he always thinks to himself that his father's an idiot because "they're just gonna go back to the kitchen and spit in his food -- or worse even." "Fancy that," Joey says frostily, and pointedly excuses herself to go check on Crush's order. She huffs away, and Crush rolls his eyes and gets up to follow her, asking if she's going to spit in his food. "Or worse even," she snarks, bussing silverware. Crush tells her that she strikes him as very much "in touch with" her dark side, and thanks her for her candor. "Oh, my pleasure," she grunts. "First day on the job, huh?" She nods. He asks how much she hates "them" already, and goes into a rant about overprivileged snobs "laying down huge sums" blah blah blah "other members of their tribe" blah blah blah "creeps" blah blah blah fishcakes. Joey remarks that "nothing tugs at the heartstrings like the anguished cry of a poor little rich boy." Ouch. Crush smiles. She asks him to sign the bill. He does so, and hands it back to her; the block print at the bottom reads "OWEN ROSS." Um, you actually have to sign it, buddy. Like, in script. Joey stares at the name, taken aback. "Something wrong?" "Your order will be right up," she says, and flees in terror.
The Flash enters the Sanctum Dawsonorum, where he finds Dawson giving the Dead album another listen. Dawson confesses that he doesn't "get it" (yeah, no duh), and has no urge to start wearing hemp clothing or tie-dye; nor does he have "the slightest inclination to drop acid." Unlike his hairdresser. And the writers. And, for the preservation of their own sanity, a goodly percentage of the viewing audience. The Flash waxes rhapsodic about hearing the Dead play live. Snore. Dawson asks if he ever gets the feeling that he and Gail "are maybe a little cooler than I am?" Oh, man. So many responses, so little time. The Flash: "It's a burden, but we cope." Ha! Okay, give it up for The Flash, who then mentions casually that he saw Pacey at school earlier in the day. "Me too," says Dawson, not looking up. The Flash says he met with Pacey to sort out his schedule. Dawson, still not looking up, says in a tone of tried patience, "Uh huh," and attempts to tuck a lock of greasy hair behind his ear; it doesn't reach, but the oil makes it stick to the other locks and stay in place. Ew. Dawson, for the love of Pete, please get the urge to herbal. "He's in trouble, Dawson," The Flash says meaningfully. Dawson, evenly: "And that concerns me how?" The Flash knows that Pacey "isn't [Dawson's] favorite person" at the moment, but Dawson won't always feel that way; Dawson disagrees. The Flash reiterates that Pacey has gotten himself into serious academic trouble, and Dawson shrugs, "Well, what do you expect me to do about it?" The Flash doesn't know, but he's always taken pride in the fact that "my son is someone his friends can turn to when they need him." I hate to say it, but I don't know that I agree with The Flash's point; whether or not he has valid reasons for it, Dawson doesn't consider Pacey his friend, and Pacey doesn't consider Dawson his friend, so I don't think Dawson is obliged to step in here, and he'll just saddle Pacey with a bunch of condescending bushwa anyway. Dawson says more or less the same thing, explaining that, while it might seem "hyperdramatic" from The Flash's perspective, it's his world and his life, and Pacey "pursued a relationship with a girl that I've loved in one way or another for as long as I can remember, and that hurts, so much that sometimes I can't sit still." Dawson goes on to say that, while he thinks he's done a pretty good job "of moving forward," that doesn't mean Pacey gets to continuing "reaping the benefits of" Dawson's friendship: "He's on his own, I can't help him." And, based on what we've seen of what Dawson considers "friendship" as regards Pacey, he's doing Pacey a favor with that. The Flash sighs heavily and says that maybe Dawson knows "someone who can" help Pacey. Dawson, nostrils returning slowly to DefCon 5, mulls this over.
Andie, lugging a laundry basket into her room, grunts, "You're kidding me -- he wants to break up with her?" Jack clarifies that Henry said he wants to "take a break." In a rehab facility somewhere in New Jersey, Michael Pitt snorts scornfully while chain-smoking Marlboro Lights. Andie can't believe that, after stalking Jen for an entire school year -- and she actually calls it "stalking," too -- Henry is the one who wants space. Jack sorts towels and points out that Henry's at