For days, I've dreaded writing the recap for this episode, because the writers somehow managed to make it boring and fairly offensive at the same time, and while I could just write the entire recap as one long infuriated sidebar, it's, like, not even worth it. All right, then. Let's get it over with, shall we?
Previously on the Creek: Mr. Brooks had Dawson sign a legal document, which Mr. Brooks said would allow Dawson to get Mr. Brooks's medicines for him; Pacey reassured Anna about Drue; Pacey told Joey that, while he hasn't minded waiting, he wants their relationship to progress to "the level," and if it doesn't, it's not because of him, and Joey made melted-wax face; Dawson found Mr. Brooks passed out on the floor.
Fade up on Gretchen "AARP" Witter telling Pacey "The Rhythm Of The Saints" Witter and Joey "Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now" Potter, who look bored and constipated respectively, that the Capeside High ski trip is a "rite of passage," and she relates some of the wild goings-on from her senior ski trip. Then she hugs them both goodbye. They didn't get drafted, Gretch; mellow, please. As they head towards the bus, Gretchen calls Joey back and suggests that she give Dawson a call over the weekend: "With everything that's going on, I'm sure he'd appreciate it." Joey purses her lips, then thanks Gretchen and walks off. Gretchen looks pensive.
Elsewhere in the CHS parking lot, Jen "Contract Killer" Lindley tells Jack "Flip-Flop Hooray" McPhee that she probably shouldn't even go on the ski trip; Grams is at the hospital with Mr. Brooks, and she feels bad. Jack says that Dawson can handle that stuff, and that Jen should "have some fun this weekend." I love how Jack is always on about "cutting loose" and "having fun," but when it comes down to going out on a date with a guy, he's all, "Oh, no fun for me, no sirree Bob," like, whatever, Jack. "Fun" = "kissing boys." Look it up. Anyway, Jen deems the prospects of her having fun "not likely," saying that anything you look forward to for too long inevitably winds up a disappointment, and over and above the meta-indictment of this episode she's just delivered, I have to agree with her. Pacey cracks, "The eternal optimist speaks." Jen says she'll try to make an effort. Joey slings her duffel bag into the luggage compartment of the bus, and Pacey expounds on how getting out of town "is exactly what [they] need," and Joey gets all "what does that mean," and Pacey stammers. Oh, you don't get it? Well, see, there's still the elephant in the room with them because of The Sex Issue, so it's all awkward between them and stuff. Do you get it now? Oh, right. You didn't just wake up from a coma. My mistake. Anyway, some asswipe opens a window on the bus and yells, "Everyone who plans on getting laid this weekend, get on board!" The crowd of seniors cheers. A quick cut to Jack and Jen looking tolerantly amused; cut back to Joey heaving a martyred sigh and Pacey looking like he's just eaten a wasp. The four of them head for the bus.
Cat stuffed into a tube sock.
The bus. Mr. Kasdan calls the roll. Jen remarks that not only does she not want to ski, she doesn't even know how, which could make the weekend a "dangerous" one for her. Jack offers to show her "a few things" (bamp chicka bamp bamp), and adds that whether or not she skis is irrelevant, that the ski trips "aren't about what goes on during the day." "Oh, you don't say!" Jen snarks.
Farther back, Joey says "here" when Kasdan reads her name. Then Mr. Kasdan reads out a "Penelope Price," and behind Joey and Pacey, Anna "Robert" Evans calls out, "Here!" They turn around to see her snuggled in her seat with Drue "Silla" Valentine, who greets them, "Lucy, Ricky -- we've gotta stop meeting like this." Anna says hi. Joey and Pacey blink, stunned.
"If sexual misadventures were an option for me," Jack is saying, "I'd be all over it. So to speak." Yeah, right -- if "all over it" means "running in the opposite direction from it," maybe. Jen mentions Tobey "Goes To Hollywood." Jack snaps that she's "like a broken record" with that. Jen doesn't get why Jack isn't into Tobey, asking if he's too cute or too intelligent for Jack. Jack stutters no, but Tobey's very -- he's very -- "blond?" Jen guesses. Jack admits that Tobey's too gay, and "when it's that obvious," it's kind of a turn-off. I see where the writers wanted to go with that, i.e. Jack's in denial, but I have it on good authority that it isn't uncommon for gay men to feel that way. Still, it's pretty obvious that 1) the writers don't have a sincere understanding of that, and 2) Tobey is about as "too gay" as Harrison Ford, so whatever. Jen seconds my emotion by rolling her eyes, and asks if "too straight" is also a problem for Jack. Heh.
Pacey asks Drue if he thinks he can "get away with this." Drue says that by the time Kasdan notices, "[they'll] be halfway up the mountain." Joey smirks and turns back around, and Drue says conspiratorially to Pacey that it would really suck "being the only guy not chalking one up this weekend. Right?" Pacey stares at him for a long moment, considering it.
Dawson "Jack Kedorkian" Leery looks through the window of a hospital room, then slips in and walks over to the bed, beside which Grams "A Widow For One Year, Twice" Ryan sits, knitting. "Glad you came," she tells him. "Good to have some company." Um, only if it's a choice between "company, meaning 'Dawson'" and "a night alone in the morgue, naked." And I'd still take the morgue, and I'd like it, too. There's a shot of "Our" Mr. Brooks attached to a ventilator before Dawson asks what the doctors say. "What can they say?" Grams says acidly. "More bad news delivered in even tones." She gets to her feet to do the funky exposition, saying that Mr. Brooks "remains in a coma, brought on by pills," and the machines keep him alive, but "it's still cancer." Dawson, who has neglected to shave, mutters that it doesn't make sense, that Mr. Brooks is "stuck between dying and dead." Uh duh. Shut up, Dawson. Grams says that, before Dawson came in, she sat there and tried to picture the situation through Mr. Brooks's eyes, and she watched the nurses and doctors coming and going and blah blah blah it's in God's hands. Dawson smiles slightly. In the oh-so-apt words of Parker Posey's character in Dazed & Confused, "Wipe that face off your head, biiiiitch."
Ski lodge. The Guitar Chords Of Fratty Fun Times crank away on the soundtrack as the seniors file off of the bus. Pacey tells Joey, "Okay, Missy Self-Reliance, please let me give you a hand." Joey, hauling a duffel the size of Gary, Indiana, retorts that she carried it to the bus, so she can carry it to their room. Pacey takes it from her anyway and slings it over himself; Joey smiles tightly in response. On the steps of the lodge, Mr. Kasdan makes an announcement about the room keys and says, to groans from the kids, that it's same-sex sleeping arrangements and the keys to the mini-bars in the rooms "have been duly confiscated." Whatever, Mr. K -- like the kids don't all have bottles wrapped in t-shirts in their bags. Somehow Drue puts himself in charge of key duty, making sure that Joey and Pacey and Jack and Jen (and himself and Anna) get to room together. Jack asks Jen when obnoxiousness "became an adequate substitute for wit," making it two meta-statements for this episode. "Ignore him, we're making an effort," Jen grumbles. It's not that easy, sister. Trust me. Still blathering on in the "we're just gonna have fun" vein, Jen goes down like a ton of bricks in the snow.
Establishing shot of Capeside Memorial Hospital, which must have gotten built since Bessie gave birth to Alexander -- if memory serves, it took an ambulance an hour to get to Capeside from the nearest hospital -- and which looks suspiciously like one of the office-park sets from The Sopranos. Continuity calls from the couch, "Do we have eddy bore Kleedex?" Dawson heads down the front steps of said hospital, but a glasses-wearing doctor stops him to tell him that their files indicate Dawson signed a "health-care proxy" for Mr. Brooks. Dawson says that's true, but it's only so that Dawson could help him get his medications. Dr. Bronin says that the situation has changed, and since there's no immediate family, so have Dawson's responsibilities. "Meaning?" Dr. Bronin looks ill (word, my bespectacled brother) and suggests that Dawson call his parents.
Quick cut to Mitch "The Flash" Leery and Gale "Ew-Tan Clan" Leery as Mitch grunts, "He signed the papers so that he could pick up the guy's medicine." Dr. Bronin says he knows that. A shot of Dawson looking angry and Grams looking headachey. Gale snaps, "That piece of paper should not give a teenage boy the responsibility to decide when and how a man should die," like, give that woman a cigar. "It's state law," Dr. Bronin says wearily. "It shouldn't be his choice," Gale says firmly. Dawson passes a hand nervously over his mouth as Dr. Bronin says that she's right, "it shouldn't be, Mrs. Leery, but it is." He starts to leave so the four of them can discuss the matter in private, and Dawson asks him what chance Mr. Brooks has of waking up. Dr. Bronin doesn't know, but even if he did, it wouldn't make Dawson's decision any easier. Um, what? If Mr. Brooks has, say, a fifty-fifty shot at regaining consciousness, I'd say that makes the decision pretty damn easy indeed. Shut up, Dr. Bronin. Dr. Bronin leaves. The Flash starts ruminating about "the only humane thing to do," and when Gale stops him with a warning "Mitch," The Flash grumps that he doesn't want to talk about it either, "but here we are." Gale turns to Dawson and tells him that he doesn't have to make any decisions, but he says that he does, and asks how he knows what's best. Grams sits to him, her mouth clamped down in a line, visibly trying not to trash the room in response to this entire insultingly ludicrous turn of events. The Flash sighs, "It's not that kind of choice." Profile shot of the nostrils going to Flare-Con 4 as we fade to commercial.
Dude. Heath Bites. Bundle up, Continuity -- we're going on a snack run.
Ski lodge. Kids play what looks like beer slide and have snowball fights; inside, Pacey observes that "it's just like last summer, minus the water and the hammocks." Joey adds with a sneer, "And the boat?" Pacey allows that that's true, but says that "it does have the two most important ingredients, you and I." Then he suggests putting the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and pretending they're anchored off the coast of…"Greenland? It's freezing in here," Joey bitches, masterfully avoiding Pacey, Pacey's eyes, and the subject while walking around the room and rubbing her arms. As she figures out how to start the automatic fireplace, Pacey suggests junk food and TV, and Joey comments that it sounds like a typical Friday night in Capeside, but Pacey tells her that "this place has way more channels," and flips on the TV to find what the closed captioning calls a "soft-core porn movie" playing. Joey looks dismayed. Pacey flips the TV off and wonders how "they got in that position," but Joey just slumps over to her bag and pretends to rummage around in it while tucking her hair sulkily behind her ears. Pacey, wearily: "Oh, come on -- please tell me we can laugh about this now." Joey stiffens and asks too-brightly, "Laugh about what?" Sex. Joey sighs as Pacey goes on to say that they can't "enshrine" it ("enshrine"?), and they can't run from it: "It's like food and water, and air." Joey asks if they can't just breathe something else. Pacey asks in turn if she knows how "ridiculous" that sounds. Joey whines that "it's just a weekend," and she doesn't want to spend it the way they spent the past week, with "this incredible tension" between them. Pacey says that he feels relaxed, not tense: "I'm on vacation, Jo." Melted-wax face: "Really?" Yes. "So we're in complete agreement here?" Pacey says that he doesn't know what they've agreed on, but he's sure they agree, or something; Joey looks disappointed before confirming in a trying-to-joke-but-really-almost-crying voice that "this weekend does not have to be about sex." He says no, it doesn't. Joey grins with relief. Pacey smiles blandly.
More outside scenes of snowball-fighting fun times before we cut inside to Jack and Jen's room, where we find Jack busting on Jen for her hypochondriacal ways. Jen holds ice to her ankle and listens patiently as Jack announces that he won't let her sprain "affect [their] vacation in any way," and they'll have fun even if he has to carry her around on his shoulders for the three days. "Well, the fun's gonna start with you taking off my pants," Jen informs him; she wants to take a bath before dinner. Bamp chicka bamp bamp. Jack says he can't do that. Jen snorts, "Why not?" She's a girl, he's a boy, "it's inappropriate." Um, didn't they share a bathroom at the Ryan Home? Doesn't he, you know, like boys That Way? She's not asking you to perform a breast exam, Jackers -- get over it. Jen agrees with me, telling him he'll have to "stop clinging to these macho conventions about what is and is not appropriate." Jack just stares at her all "not this weekend, I don't." Jen snarks that fine, he doesn't have to help, but as she attaches her wooden foot every morning for the rest of her life, she's going to remember this. Ha! She limps towards the bathroom, undoing her pants, and Jack says, literally, "Yeah, well, whatever," and turns around to see her top button undone -- seriously, that's it; it's not revealing at all -- and wigs out all whoa-little-lady-that's-enough, and Jen's like, chill out, Quarterback Princess, and Jack asks if she would want him to get undressed in front of her, and Jen just smiles sweetly, and he grumbles, "Okay, that -- that's withdrawn." Then she clings to the mantelpiece and goes, "Oooh." Hee hee!
Dawson fiddles with a projector. Bamp chicka bamp bamp. No, not really, it's just a projector. But it does look like the hair and make-up department shot a tube of K-Y jelly out of a cannon and onto his head. So maybe one little "bamp." Gretchen comes in with a picnic basket and asks, "Hungry?" Dawson gives her a distracted "yeah," and adds that he's "kind of busy" looking for clips to add to the documentary, but Gretchen says he's got "a lot going on in [his] head right now" (no comment), and cheese and crackers might help. I like the way she thinks. Okay, not really, but cheese does cure all ills. Dawson sits at the table and hopes aloud that she only brought one kind of cracker, because he can't handle any more decisions right now. Gretchen sits down too and listens with a furrowed brow as Dawson says that he doesn't know how he got here, that he should "be on [his] senior trip right now, making decisions like 'glasses or goggles'" and who to room with. Gretchen senseis that "it's never very nice" when adulthood "encroaches on" your life. "Encroaches"? Shut up, Gretchen. More blather about philosophical levels and family members of theirs who have died and the fact that Dawson's never lost a family member he "was close to." Dawson has so little experience with death; how did Mr. Brooks know Dawson "would do what he wanted?" And now, boys and girls, it's time for the weekly heaping o' praise upon Dawson's sizable head -- Gretchen tells him he has better judgment than anyone she knows, "probably better than anybody that Brooks knew. That's why he chose you." Gretchen goes on to say that Mr. Brooks didn't see Dawson's youth and figure that he would "contribute to [Mr. Brooks's] end." Rather, "he saw how old [Dawson's] heart is, and he knew that whatever choice you made? It would be the right one." Oh my god, whatever. Dawson sighs smugly and leans down to kiss her hand. Gretchen strokes (ew chicka ew ew) Dawson's oily pate. I chuck a size nine at the TV.
Okay, do I really have to go into the essential, visceral wrongness of this subplot? Do I have to explain that it's not only legally impossible, but also morally repugnant, that Dawson is allowed -- nay, encouraged -- to play God? I didn't think so.
Ski resort. Pacey and Joey try to decide on a restaurant; Jen and Jack hobble up to them, and Jack proposes that all four of them head to a nearby pizza joint, and Joey says it "sounds fun" and asks Jen if she's sure she's okay. Jen says she's fine. The four of them head off down the street, and Jen promptly slips on the ice and lands on her back with an "oof!" Hee -- yaaaard saaaale!
At the pizza place, Drue, Anna, Pacey, Joey, and some randoms sit around a table telling funny sex stories; everyone laughs at a punchline except Joey, who sulks. And now, a missive from my outgoing mail. Dear Joey: I well remember my own virgin days, when it seemed like everyone else had already Done It, and nobody could talk about anything but Doing It, and I felt really apprehensive about Doing It and I really didn't want to think about Doing It or talk about Doing It, and it seemed like everything pointed back to Doing It -- my mother packed a banana in my lunch, or I had to write an essay about The Awakening for English class, or I got my period, it didn't matter. Everything had gotten all fraught with The Meaning Of Doing It. My advice to you is to Just Do It. Nike overtones aside, it's just not that big a deal -- I mean, it is a big deal, but only as big as you make it, and you love Pacey and Pacey loves you, so that's all good, so Get It Over With Already. Then you can get on with your life and, more importantly, you can stop feeling like the rest of the world is in on a joke you didn't hear and acting defensive and bitchy as a result, because I know that routine, and it's old. Either that, or decide not to Do It and feel good about it, but stop putting your shit on everyone else. Love, Sars. Anyway, Drue needles her all how-would-you-know, and Joey snaps back at him about the "negligible" pleasure the average teenage girl derives from sex with the average teenage boy. Good point, that. Pacey looks teeth-grindingly uncomfortable as Anna sniffs, "Unless you're doing it with a man who knows what he's doing." Another good point. Drue declaims to the entire room about girls having it "way easier" than guys and says that girls, not guys, should carry the condoms around in their wallets. The other guys in the pizza place cheer. Joey seethes that not every guy carries a condom around in his wallet. (Quick PSA: if you do carry a condom in your wallet, you should replace it with a fresh one each month, because the wallet and the heat from your hip act as stressors on the condom, and it might break. Okay, on with the recap.) Anna calls for all the guys to bust out their wallets and put Joey's statement to the test. Naturally, every guy in the place has a rubber on him. Joey looks like she might start sobbing. Anna says she doesn't see Pacey's wallet; Pacey lies that he left it back in the room, and Joey glares at him.
Outside, Joey asks shyly why Pacey didn't want to "show his wallet in there." He lies again that it's back at the lodge, but Joey cuts him off: "It's in your pocket." Busted, he hands over his wallet; Joey opens it up, and Durex gets a product placement. Pacey sighs. Joey hands the wallet back, shrugs sadly, and walks past him. Okay, I don't see a problem here; just because he has a condom doesn't automatically mean that he expects her to put out. He's just prepared in case they get carried away some night and she changes her mind. Anyway, he purses his lips in frustration and turns to follow her as we go to commercial.
Nikki is still on? Well, good for them. I…guess.
Capeside Memorial Hospital. Dawson slouches into the chapel and finds Grams sitting quietly by herself. He hesitates at the entrance to the pew, then sits beside her with a heavy sigh; she gives him a vintage Grams "well, this sucks, now, doesn't it" smile. Dawson, in a tone of mild surprise: "I don't know why I'm here." Grams: "Well, that's as good a reason as any." Heh. Did Grams come there to pray? "Ohhh, yes. And also for the quiet." When she prays, what does she pray for? It depends: "I pray for those who I love, for those who are no longer with me…what about you?" Dawson turns away from her and flares his nostrils; the back of his hair juts off of his head like a toupee. If he'd just cut it short in the back, he'd have the beginnings of a not-terrible hairstyle. Anyway, Dawson admits that he hasn't prayed in years, and when he did, "it was more of a wish -- something I wanted but couldn't say out loud." "If you could say it out loud…what would you want?" Grams asks. Dawson's eyes fill; he has no idea whether to pray for Mr. Brooks to wake up and start making sarcastic comments, or for him to die, "to ease his suffering." He keeps looking for a sign, "something to confirm my instincts." "What do your instincts…tell you?" Grams asks gloomily, almost as if she fears the answer. Dawson, trying not to cry: "To keep waiting." Grams regards him gently and says, "Then that's what we'll do. Together." Dawson looks at her. Sad piano. This storyline is detestable, but both actors did well with that scene.
Ski lodge. Joey sulks at a picnic table beside the skating rink; Jack approaches and asks if it's just him, or if the lodge has a strong eighties-John-Hughes vibe. Oh god, not John Hughes again. Blabber about tackiness, "nostalgia for a time we never really experienced," fillercakes. Joey admits that she's "just in a funk." Huh? Did they have to pad the running time or something? Jack, in tight close-up: "What's your problem?" Heh. Don't get me started, honey. "Sex is my problem," Joey mumbles. "Sex is always my problem." Yes, clearly. Joey explains that she has "so much conviction about waiting until the right moment, not feeling guilty or obligated -- and I don't!" Jack nods, then asks her if she's ever considered that there isn't a "right" choice here, or a "wrong" choice, just "a bunch of choices." She thinks that over, then whimpers, "You're a real help." Jack squints at her and says that "there's nothing to figure out here -- it's only what you feel." "Well, I feel fear." Yeah. WE KNOW. Jack philosophizes that "the only really exciting things in life require more courage than we currently have," and we have to make a leap of faith, and "the kind of fear that [Joey's] talking about" is sometimes the only way we know what's worthwhile. That's not bad advice, but I can see Joey not finding it terribly helpful. Joey's face melts some more.
Mr. Brooks's bedside. Dawson slumbers in a chair to the bed as -- oh, for the love of Matlock, it's Andy Griffith. Dawson wakes up and recognizes him as the guy who stole Mr. Brooks's one true love. There's some confusion regarding Dawson's relationship to Mr. Brooks. Andy says that Mr. Brooks wrote him a letter last month asking "for forgiveness," but "the only person he ever hurt was himself," and he thought about calling after Ellie died, but didn't, because he realized "how much greater [Mr. Brooks's] hurt would be than" his own and how he had Ellie and three kids and blah blippety blee, but Mr. Brooks would always have "that part of your soul you give your first love." Could we stop it with the first-love fooferaw? Please? Andy adds that, when Mr. Brooks goes, "he'll be with her. I suppose that's the way it…should have always been." Then Andy thanks Mr. Brooks for writing, and for waiting until he could say goodbye. All the teeth in my head rot and fall out. Andy starts to leave, but Dawson stops him, saying he doesn't know what to do. Andy says that what's "required -- is a little faith." Dawson blurts out that he doesn't have that; in fact, he doesn't know what that means. "Faith is believing in something when common sense tells you not to," Andy homilies, and refers to Miracle On 34th Street, saying that Mr. Brooks believed he could find the answers to life's questions in the movies: "Crazy idea, huh?" "Not so crazy," Dawson smiles smugly, and as I slip into a diabetic coma, Andy leaves and takes the sad piano with him, and Dawson folds his arms and mulls.
Lodge. Jack comes in to find Jen getting sloppy on mini-bar booze. She says she "was in all kinds of discomfort," so she broke into the mini-bar with a hairpin and started self-medicating. That's my girl. Jack sits down beside her and tells her she looks pathetic; Jen just shrugs. Hee! Jen then asks if he's tired; no, he's "very very awake," but he is tired of "feeling so numbed" and playing everything so "safe and harmless," so he's going to go cruising and pick up a hot little number -- oh, wait, not that last part. Unfortunately. Jack does want to do something reckless that night, though, like get fucked up or get in a fight or something. Jen offers him a drink now, "and I'll fight you later." Snort. Jack accepts a hotel-room-water-glass-snifter of vodka and says that Jen's the "expert" on all sorts of "risky business" -- isn't there anything she wants to do? "Yes. I wanna sit here with you," she slurs. They clink glasses. Aw. Also, bamp chicka bamp bamp.
Joey answers the door to find Anna in a bikini top outside, reminding them about the hot tub: "I just wasn't sure if it was clear." Huh? "Crystal," Joey snips, and Anna goes on her way. Joey, attired in a sweater that looks like all the colors of Benetton threw up, closes the door, turns to level Pacey with a hostile gaze, and asks, "No comment?" Not really. Joey finds it hard to believe that a "nearly topless female" knocks on the door and "asks if Pacey can come out to play" and Pacey doesn't have any comment. Pacey responds flatly that, no matter what he says, she'll just take it wrong, like, no kidding. Joey passive-aggressives that he should let her know when he has any thoughts he'd like to share, and she droops over to the fireplace, but when Pacey observes with weary sarcasm that he's certainly glad they "tabled that whole sex discussion," she turns around angrily. Pacey calls her out on her passive-aggressive crap, in so many words, finally, and she snarks back, as expected, that she's so sorry her "neuroses and hang-ups" ruin his fun, so why doesn't he just go to the hot tub and party it up without her? "And give you something to be really pissed off about, right? That's what you want, isn't it?" Right on, Pacey. Joey slits her eyes: "No, she's what you want, isn't she? Someone who's a little bit more…fun, a little bit more experienced, a little bit more eager to help make this a truly memorable weekend?" Pacey looks sad and repeats that it's Joey he wants, but there's no reason for him to argue the point if she's "so eager to refute it." Joey doesn't doubt that he wants her, but she doesn't know "why, or for what reason." Pacey stops her, snapping that he wouldn't have lasted in the relationship for nine months if he'd only gotten into it for sex; Joey admits that no, he wouldn't have. Pacey refuses to feel guilty about wanting to sleep with someone that he loves as much as he loves her. Aw -- but Joey jumps on that, of course, accusing him tearfully, "But there is something wrong with not wanting to." Okay, Joey? You think that. Just you. Stop throwing it on Pacey! God!
As Joey folds her arms and sets her jaw, Pacey says that there isn't; he just wishes he knew "what that something was." Yeah, join the club, G. Pacey knows she's scared, he gets that, but she won't admit what she's scared of, and he thinks she knows "exactly what it is -- you're just too afraid to say his name." "Dawson?" Joey sneers, then starts whining that Pacey can't bring Dawson's name up every time their relationship hits a rough patch, and frankly I agree -- Dawson isn't the problem here, and I really wish the writers would stop trying to force that. Pacey says "fine" about a dozen times to shut her up, and confesses that he's scared, not of whether they sleep together but of "that little piece of [her] heart that will always belong to Dawson Leery." Joey fights to keep from crying as Pacey talks about that part of Joey "that always envisioned [her] first time being with" Dawson. Pacey's scared that that part of her doesn't want her first to be him. Joey says as coldly as she can manage, "That's how you feel?" and in so doing pretty much turfs any sympathy she'd built up with me. I could understand the sulking, and even the humorless whining, up to a point, but -- I've had it. Joey struggles to keep an even tone of voice as she asks why he stuck around for nine months if that's how he feels and what he believes. "I'm just a glutton for punishment, I guess," Pacey says, getting up to leave and bringing our meta-comment count to three. Pacey closes the door behind him, and Joey leans on her arms to cry in earnest. Hey, Joey? Looks good on you, virgin.
Jen and Jack's room. They sit facing each other in front of the fire, and Jen polishes off another makeshift highball of vodka while Jack says sourly that he's a lousy drunk. "Aw, baby, you're a great drunk," she reassures him, but he blithers on about how she gets entertaining when she's inebriated, whereas he just becomes "sullen and introspective." Jen calls "sullen and introspective" sexy qualities, but he corrects her, "Sexy is the ability to have a little bit of fun." You do see what's happening here, right? Anvil's not blocking your view? Can you hear the music? Here, I'll turn it up: "Bamp chicka bamp bamp, wah wah wah wahhhhh wahhhhhh, bamp chicka bamp bamp." Okay, on we go. Jack tells her that she's a sexy drunk: "You get brave and crazy." Jen says that he's much braver than she. He says no, he's scared. She asks what of, and he says he's scared he'll "end up alone," that he'll always be the friend or the brother or the confidant and "never quite somebody's everything," and mostly that he'll never find a guy he loves as much as he loves Jen. Aw. Jen is touched. She kisses her hand and touches it to his forehead. Then she kisses his forehead with her lips. Then there's an interminable moment where they get closer…and closer…and closer…and the flames leap in the background…and then they kiss. And then we go to commercial, and I wonder why the writers and the WB can't just have Jack kiss a boy instead, because this is ridiculous, and if it's Kerr Smith holding up the show, well, he's an actor and he can bloody well get over it. In short, WHATEVER. Also, bamp chicka bamp bamp.
Fade back up on the Sanctum Dawsonorum; Joey says over the phone, "I'm really sorry, Dawson." Dawson says he is too, but he feels like he's doing the right thing. Gee, now there's a surprise. He says that's the strangest part, and when Joey asks what he means, he says that at a certain point it just becomes "too much for your brain to process," and you have to rely on your heart. Okay, we get it. Joey frowns and looks vague as Dawson yammers on about how it's liberating, if terrifying, and that's the point and blah dee blah: "If we weren't so afraid to let go, we wouldn't feel so free when we finally did." What did I just say? We get it! A lightbulb goes on over Joey's head, and she smiles that Dawson makes it sound so simple. "It's anything but that," Dawson sighs. Oh, thou art wise, Dawson. Not. Shut up. Dawson says he thinks Mr. Brooks waited for his friend. "To say goodbye?" Joey asks. "Something like that." We get it, we get it, we. Get. It. Already. Jesus. CHRIST. "That can be really hard," Joey says sort of tearfully. "Yeah," Dawson says, and then sits bolt upright like he's scented something in the wind, flares his nostrils, and grits out all portentously, "Goodbye, Joey." "Goodnight, Dawson," she whispers. He hangs up and stares at the phone. She listens to the dial tone for a moment and then puts down the receiver. Cut back to Dawson staring at the phone some more and brooding. Cut to Joey also brooding.
Pacey, taking a walk, runs into Anna by the hot tub. She notices that he looks "down," and offers to do him a solid in return for his counsel on the double date.
Jack and Jen's room. Jack and Jen make out on the floor; Jack has only a tank top on. Yum (chicka yum yum). After a few seconds of lip-mic feedback, Jen puts a stop to it, saying that they "can't do this." She's a stronger woman than I, that's for sure -- Kerr Smith looks like a great kisser. Sigh. Anyway, Jen struggles up to a sitting position and tells him while buttoning her shirt, "I'm sorry, Jack, you're drunk. You're drunk and lonely and…and gay," and it might seem "really really good" right now (no doubt…sigh again), but "it won't when the feelings pass." Jack asks what if the feelings don't pass. "Jack…" Jack nods and squeezes his eyes shut: "Aw. My head is spinning." Jen says she'll go get some ice and fix them a couple of tall glasses of water; as she gathers up the ice bucket, Jack reaches over to take her hand and apologize. She smiles.
Mr. Brooks's room. The TV/Movie Cliché Of Flatlining Machines. Dr. Bronin turns off the vent after listening to Mr. Brooks's chest, and we pan across Dawson, nostrils flared in grief (or "grievously flared," your choice); Grams, her chin trembling; Gale, a tear leaking down her face; The Flash…not…having a neck; Gretchen, wearing yet another space-dyed sweater and looking worried. The rest file out of the room, leaving only Dawson behind. Why Grams didn't get to stay the longest, I don't know, but I don't know why there isn't a show called Grams's Garret, either, so whatever. Sad piano. Dawson puts his hands on the bed's railing: "See you, Mr. Brooks." Yeah…IN HELL. I'll miss Harve Presnell, though. He really did wonders for this show.
Mr. Kasdan, out for a nighttime stroll, sees Jen dumping the little liquor bottles into the trash: "What the hell?" Jen's all blasé: "Recycling. Night!" Snerk. Kasdan watches her weave back inside. That's not going to be good for anybody (tm Seinfeld).
Anna, in a complete turnaround from her character last week, lays it on thick, basically propositioning Pacey for a night of strings-free sex, and when she leans in for a kiss, he stops her and says she obviously doesn't "get it, at all." Anna agrees, saying that "it's just sex, it's not that big of a deal, we're all adults," like, no kidding, and the world of TV needs to accept the fact that it's okay for teenagers to have sex, as long as they do it safely, without having a soulmate-love bond first. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: a loving relationship is preferable when having sex, but that's not the way the world always works, and it's high time teen-oriented shows knocked it off with the Madonna-whore crap and took a look around. Anyway, Pacey delivers a nice monologue about having someone he wants "to be with for more than just one night," and losing or hurting her isn't a consideration, and it's not about the sex -- it's about sharing the most intimate thing you can possibly share, "no matter how long you have to wait." Anna looks sulky, then sad. Pacey apologizes if he gave her the wrong idea and gets up to find Joey standing there, listening. Oh yeah, that's healthy. He asks how long she's been there. "Long enough to remember why it is that I love you," she whispers schmoopily. Yeah -- because no matter how high up or how on fire the hoop, his pussy-whipped ass will jump right through it. "Why every part of me loves you," she adds. Except the moist parts. Heh. Bamp chicka bamp bamp. Okay, ew, sorry. Joey kisses him on the forehead and takes his hand, and they head off, and she tells him it's okay for him to still be upset and angry with her. Gee, thanks for the dispensation, Pope Oh So Innocent The Ninth. Pacey denies it, but she knows he's angry, and it's okay, he doesn't "have to be perfect all the time," she doesn't have to be so afraid, all right, fight fought, make-up made up, will you two please bloody well have sex already? Kissing. A testicle moans in the background. Pacey suggests that they lock themselves in their room and cuddle up and he'll read her a story. What story, The Story Of O? GET ON WITH IT. Joey says that they didn't bring their book. Pacey says they'll make something up. And then send it to Penthouse Forum. Bamp chicka bamp bamp. Well, except for that last part. Joey likes that idea, and they walk off arm-in-arm.
Reconciliation Ranch. Dawson sets up the projector screen -- why he doesn't just stand at the front of the room and point the projector at his giant forehead is not explained -- while Gale comes in with two huge bowls of popcorn and Grams asks what gave Dawson "the idea to do this." Dawson explains that she'd never seen Mr. Brooks's movies, and Gretchen hits the lights as Dawson says that he thinks "this is how he would have liked to have been remembered." Grams thinks he's right -- and, much as it pains me, so do I -- and plunges into the popcorn. Hee. Wistful piano as Dawson rolls the film; Gretchen comes to sit down between his legs (ew chicka ew ew) and he rests his chin on her head (ew ew ew ewwww ewwwwww) as they all watch the film.
Lodge. Pacey comes out of the bathroom as Joey brushes her hair. "May I?" "Sure," she laughs, handing him the brush, and Pacey brushes her hair all guy-clumsily. Aw. Except it really doesn't need any more brushing, dude -- there's more split ends on her head than on the floor of a barber shop. Seriously, Katie? Cut it. Cut it by like three inches. Cut it now. It's all flat and limp, and it looks assy. Anyway, Joey asks very timidly if he still has his wallet. Pacey thought they'd finished talking about that. Joey says they have, and Pacey hands over the wallet, asking if she wants to throw the condom away. "I wanna throw the wrapper away," she says. Okay, I had a whole sidebar prepared on how it's really stupid for her just to decide that she's ready and that's that, because she doesn't know anything about the thing she's supposedly ready for and that's just the nature of losing one's virginity, but she'll still wind up resenting him on some level since she's basically had her hand forced…but, really, what's the difference? The writers will just end up making the whole thing about Dawson instead of taking the time to address the real issues for a girl in Joey's place, so, fuck it. Any. WAY. Joey tells him that "this is about" how Pacey carried her bag from the bus, and how he always remembers to bring a napkin with him when he buys them popcorn at the movies, and how he took all the shots first when they played miniature golf so she would know "the correct path." Pacey looks profoundly touched by the fact that she appreciates him and all the things he does for her, and it is nice to hear her give voice to those things, since she so often comes off as an ungrateful bizzotch. While unbuttoning Pacey's shirt, Joey goes on to say that he taught her how to drive, and last year at the anti-prom, he knew that the bracelet she had on belonged to her mother. "You kissed me first, sweetheart," she says, and Pacey smiles as she remembers aloud that, the second time, he counted to ten first, "just in case [she] wanted to stop [him]." She peels off his shirt to reveal a wife-beater. Pacey bought her a wall, she says, and he starts to say modestly that it was really more of a rental, but she interrupts to say that, during their three months at sea, he understood "without a word why [she] wasn't ready." She peels off the wifebeater. Somewhere, Mr. Peepers crashes his cymbals. "Do you have to ask me now -- why I am?" she breathes. Pacey stares at her, confused and adoring at the same time. As they intertwine hands, she tells him she's going to count to ten, and then she'll start kissing him, and if he doesn't want her to, then he'll just have to stop her. She traces her finger up his arm, then down his chest, then whispers, "Ten, my love," and then they start making out. Neck kissing. Hand kissing. Strappy-tank-top lowering. He lifts her up; she gasps. Fade out, and in the ensuing blackness we can assume that they finally, at long last, DO IT.