Episode Report Card Sars: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Future Tense
By Sars | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.24.2000
Streets of Capeside. Andie tries to bright-side it for Jack, saying that the shoulder injury will give him more time to work on his applications. Jack tells her to "lay off the lectures" for now, or at least until he gets some painkillers into him. Motion seconded; motion approved. Andie agrees, but then stops him short to suggest that he use it as "a really great essay topic." He makes "yeah, yeah, whatever" noises and asks if they can go home. Andie says soon, she has to get a birthday present for Jen first. It's not her birthday, Jack points out. Andie knows, but "it seems kinda rude" to show up without a gift. Jack glares at her.
IHOF. Gale, wearing a Hallmark paper napkin, sets a plate down in front of Dawson, who says with a tight-lipped smile, "I'm never eating a home-cooked meal again, am I?" No, Slick, because your mother doesn't exist to see to your comforts. ["Or, yes, when you realize that seventeen is plenty old enough to open your own damn can of soup." -- Wing Chun] Also, shut up. Anyway, Gale says -- a lot more pleasantly than my mother would have -- that he'll just have to settle "for four-star gourmet cuisine." As if…nah, forget it. Too easy. Dawson comments that Gretchen seems to be working out so far, and there's a shot of Gretchen's boobs cinched into a belly-baring tie-top paisley shirt, which so isn't appropriate work-wear for a so-called four-star so-called gourmet so-called restaurant, but ANYHOW, then Gale worries that Gretchen won't stick around for very long and wonders why Gretchen isn't "furthering her education" instead of tending bar in Capeside. Go take a pregnancy test, Nosy Grier -- it's none of your business.
"Because maybe college isn't the be-all and end-all that parents make it out to be," Dawson smugs, putting away a notebook. Gale looks annoyed (and it's about damn time) as Dawson turns up his nose at "those great books nobody reads" ["Speak for yourself, proud member of the Illiterati; I know plenty of people who read them because they were in my class" -- Wing Chun] and describes college as "a holding pen for eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds." Gale hopes that Dawson is only saying these things to "get a rise out of" her; Dawson says that people don't go to college to learn, they go to drink beer and get laid. Except he says it a lot more pretentiously than that. He also uses the word "commingle," and pronounces it incorrectly. And he's fugly. And nobody would commingle with his XXXL ass anyway. Shut up, Dawson. Gale says she doesn't know how she wound up with the only seventeen-year-old in the country who thinks "that's a bad thing." "I'm not opposed to those things," Dawson says primly, picking up his cutlery. "I'm just saying I think the whole idea of higher education is a little bit of a misnomer. You know -- I think people should call things what they are." Oh, where to begin -- shall we start with you, Hydrocephalus Fuglicus? And by the way, you can't call an idea a "misnomer." You can call a term a misnomer, but that's not what you said, because you don't know the fucking language, so fucking SHUT UP. Gale sucks her teeth: "Like when people running away from their problems, they should admit they're running away from their problems?" Zing! Dawson gets a "busted" look, but asks if she's talking about "somebody we know?" Gale and The Flash have noticed that the applications in the mail all come from faraway zip codes. Dawson snipes that it must never have occurred to them that their "movie-obsessed son" might go to California for school. Well, since said son makes a snotty point of reminding everyone that he's no longer movie-obsessed…but Gale skips over that and pointedly says that she and The Flash don't care where he goes to school, "as long as that's what you really want," and he shouldn't make a decision that will affect the rest of his life "based on the wrong criteria [sic]." Dawson sighs, "Like?" Like trying to put an entire continent between himself "and a certain girl [they] both know," Gale says gently. Dawson looks down. ["If I were Gale, I'd be grateful I lived in the same town as that girl, and that it would put a continent between Duh-son and me. But then, if I were Gale, I'd have drowned his giant melon in the creek years ago." -- Wing Chun] ["And you'd dress your age. And wear a bra. And stay divorced from Steroid Annie. There's really no applying logic to Gale's life." -- Sars]
Cut to said girl asking Pacey not to laugh at her or tell her to get over herself if she admits to what's bothering her. Oh, goody -- more pointless what's-wrong-nothing-tell-me-it's-nothing-okay-then-well-actually-it's-this-that's-wrong-why-didn't-you-just-tell-me-I'm-sorry fun times. Pacey agrees not to give her any shit. Joey is fourth in the class. Pacey doesn't think that's a problem, but rather "a reason to quit studying." Joey doesn't know why she bothers, she knew he wouldn't understand, blah bling blah, he apologizes and tells her to start over, and he pulls her into his lap while saying that he doesn't think that's what's really bothering her. Joey yammers on about always thinking that, if she did well in school, "these doors would open" for her, but maybe she's naïve and hasn't set realistic goals for herself. Pacey is blatantly not listening. Joey realizes this after a few more sentences, and calls him on it; he protests that he was in fact listening, but that everyone should have Joey's problems, and she's got one of the brightest futures of anyone her age, while he's not going to get into any school "where they don't give him his own tools." Then he gives her a "lighten up" smile. She regards him in silence, then gets out of his lap, saying, "Put on your shoes, let's go out." Pacey accuses her of bailing when the conversation gets "emotionally complex," adding, "Who's the guy in this relationship?" Like, ha ha. Not. After a little more battle-of-the-sexes tripe, Joey tells him that he can stay in her room, or they can both go to Jen's un-birthday party. She leaves. "Right, I'll get my shoes," Pacey mutters, in a tight close-up that doesn't do his skin any favors.