We open with Joey sitting cross-legged on Dawson's bed, watching The Movie. She wipes away a tear as the credits roll. Oh, dear God. I hope she was crying because she has no idea how to tell him that his movie bites. Dawson bounds into the room just in time to see Joey brush a drop of glycerin off her cheek. "Is it over?" he asks. She nods. "All two hours and forty minutes of it." Dawson grimaces and takes a seat to her, explaining that it's "the director's cut" and it's "way too long." He takes a closer look at her face. "Are you crying?" he asks. She insists that she's not. "I think you were!" Dawson crows. "There may have been a tear shed or something, all right? I don't remember," Joey admits. "That's a good thing, right?" Dawson asks. "Not unless I was bored to tears," Joey says, grinning. Wow, Katie Holmes's teeth are enormously yellow. Katie? It's called cosmetic dentistry. Look into it. "It's good. It's really good," she finally tells him. In fact, she says, she can see something "actually happening with this." And that's why she was crying, see. "It's a pretty amazing thing to be there when your best friend becomes exactly what he's dreamed about his entire life," she gushes. Dude, he just finished a student film. It's not like Steven Spielberg is presenting him with a Lifetime Achievement award and then adopting him as his son, or anything. Dawson smiles, and Joey tells him that she was really surprised by Charlie's performance. "He was shockingly good," she says. Dawson agrees, saying that it drove him crazy, but Charlie actually "has something." Joey shrugs. "He's not that bad a guy, Dawson," she says. Dawson raises his brows. "I know he was kind of a jerk to Jen, but I think that was out of fear more than anything else," Joey insists. Dawson just looks skeptical.
He's about to say something (probably, "Joey, are you smoking crack?") when Pander skips into the attic. "Holy smokes, Leery!" Pander yelps, seeing Joey sitting on the bed. "You work fast. Broke up with Betty and you've already got Veronica in your bed." Joey rolls her eyes, but Pander asks her about the flick before she can set him straight about the circumstances surrounding her presence on Dawson's bed. She thought it was excellent, she says. "Was there ever any doubt?" Pander asks rhetorically. He thinks the movie is ready to screen. Dawson sputters that they still have a lot of work to do before they're at the point where they can show it to other people. "Then you better get to work, chief, because tomorrow is approaching awfully fast," Pander chirps. "What?" Dawson says. Pander scrunches all his features into the middle of his face. "Ooh, I forgot to tell you, didn't I? Silly me. We're screening the movie tomorrow at school for cast, crew and assorted highbrow intellectuals." Dawson's all, "No, we're not." And Pander's all, "Yes, we are." He skips toward the stairs, explaining that Dawson has no say in this particular manner. "The train has left the station!" he sings as he leaves. Dawson shoots an exasperated look at Joey and gives chase. Once she's alone, Joey rewinds the film and freeze-frames Charlie's face. She sighs dreamily. I used to do that to Back to the Future because I had a giant crush on Michael J. Fox. Of course, I was ten years old at the time. Okay, by the time we had a tape of it, I was like twelve, but whatever. I'm convinced, by the way, that I'm bad luck. Every celebrity boy on whom I ever had a major crush has had a horrible disaster befall him. River Phoenix: Dead. Michael J. Fox: Parkinson's. Tom Cruise: Scientology. Ron Howard better watch his back. (What? I was in second grade. Richie Cunningham, people, come on! No, come on. Oh, shut up. I know about you and Chachi.)
Film School For People Who Have To Be In Boston For Purposes Of The Plot -- Or, Er, The "Plot." Pander lounges across a plastic chair and informs Dawson that their film is not only the best movie he's ever been associated with, it might just be the best movie ever. Dawson, wearily, asks if Pander's been hitting the smack again. "It's way too long," he says. "It's like The English Patient without the laughs." Heh. Pander thinks Dawson is being too hard on himself. The movie "kicks some serious donkey ass." Dawson begins to say something, but stops short when he realizes that Pander actually used the phrase "serious donkey ass." "Never mind," Dawson says, then tells Pander that he doesn't think the movie is "terrible," just that it needs a lot of re-shoots, "including the sex scene." Pander raises a brow, and Dawson mentions that "from a certain angle, you can actually see Charlie in all his glory." Wow, they actually made him go commando for the sex scene? That's pretty unusual. "Is it…substantial?" Pander queries delicately. "Enough to warrant its own credit in the titles," Dawson says. Pander looks thoughtful as he ponders the enormity of Charlie's schlong. And now we know why Joey's suddenly back into the boy: she's a size queen. Finally, Pander shrugs and tells Dawson that once the film is picked up by a studio, they'll have the money to "CGI it the hell out of there." Dawson rolls his eyes. "You know what the real problem is, don't you?" Pander asks, and Dawson bursts into hysterical laughter. "Please, enlighten me," he chuckles. "You're still reeling from your break-up with Jen," Pander says. Dawson doesn't think so. "Come on!" Pander says. "You dated her for months. She helped you grieve. She robbed you of your precious flower." HA! Sorry. "I don't care how cool you want to play that off, but that means something, bucko. You want to talk about it?" Dawson, not surprisingly, does not. Pander accepts this, and then wonders if Dawson would mind if he, Pander, were to ask Jen out. Dawson furrows his brow.
Cut to Pacey and Audrey, sweaty and heaving in post-coital bliss. She's in the bed. He's on the floor. They're panting. And yet he's fully clothed. Magic! "Where'd you learn to do that?" Pacey sighs. "National Geographic," Audrey replies. Seriously, boys? Don't ever ask that question because you never will be happy with the answer. I guarantee it. "How many guys have you done that to?" Pacey heaves. "Enough to know you've got staying power," Audrey says, artfully dodging the question. She rolls from the foot of the bed to the head, and Pacey follows her, revealing to all and sundry that he wears tightie-whities underneath his boxers. And, yeah, Pacey looks hot and all, but a guy who wears two pairs of undies whilst having sex has some serious issues. Or is really, really talented. Audrey sighs blissfully and drapes herself over Pacey, saying that she's really, really happy Chef Danny asked Pacey to housesit. "I am more glad," Pacey says. "I am gladder. Gladdest. And I can't feel anything below my waist. Is that supposed to happen?" Audrey nuzzles him and murmurs something I neglected to write down before I taped over this episode. Assume it was something naughty. Pacey catches his breath and looks thoughtful. "How many guys is 'enough'?" he asks. Oh, don't. Just -- just don't. Because the likelihood is that you're never going to like the answer, Pacey. If it's more than, like, "one," you'll eventually be jealous of at least one of the other boys, and if you're the one and only, eventually, you're going to worry that she's going to want to sow her wild oats. So just leave that topic alone. Really. Shut it. You'll thank me later. "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" Audrey asks. Pacey hems and haws and finally outright asks how many guys she's… "Given access to my most intimate of areas?" Audrey asks. "Well, yeah. Respectfully, of course," Pacey says. Audrey grins that she can't believe he's actually going there. And Pacey's all, forget it. "How many girls -- " Audrey begins. ""Six. Seven, including you," Pacey says immediately. "That's not a lot," Audrey comments. Audrey, he's eighteen! And he was in a long-term relationship for a while! I think seven is plenty. Pacey's all, "Compared to?" And Audrey's all, you are asking me! Oh, here we go. This isn't a good idea. This is never a good idea. At the very least, you're dooming yourself to the occasional snide comment about the guy with the pierced nipple. "You don't want to know how many men I've slept with, Pacey. You think you do, but once I've told you, you'd wish I hadn't," Audrey says. "It's that many?" Pacey squeals. Audrey leans in and smooches him and purrs that she makes Madonna look like a prude. This is sort of funny, but I know it's going to a place that will make me mad.
House of Grams. Dawson meets Jen in the kitchen. They awkwardly converse, Dawson confessing that he's really nervous about the screening because the movie "isn't finished." Jen watches him stutter and stammer and finally smiles and tells him that "it's okay if this is weird." Dawson sighs and sort of laughs. Jen says that it's "okay not to know what to do with each other." Dawson leans against the kitchen counter and points out that just last week, he was "covering [her] face with kisses," and that while "it's such a comfort" to do the check-in with her, the change in their relationship is confounding. Jen leans over and pecks his cheek. "Who's to say what we can and can't do?" she asks. He grins.
Worthington. Joey's really piling on the make-up in preparation for the screening. Audrey grills her about the flick, asking Joey to be "honest and unmerciful. How brilliant was I?" Joey turns away from her smoky eye make-up. "You were horrible," she deadpans. Audrey rolls her eyes and tells Joey to "give it to her straight." Joey says that Audrey's "washed up." This little game continues for about six more pages of the script before Joey cracks and tells Audrey that she was "fantastic" and has "amazing chemistry with Charlie, who was, surprisingly, really good." Oh, just get on his jock and get it over with, Joey. Also, I can't believe I just used the phrase "his jock," because, ew. Audrey's all, why are we talking about Charlie? "This is about me," she says. Joey turns back to her make-up mirror and asks Audrey to stop interrogating her. "You look hot," Audrey announces suspiciously. "Why do you look hot?" Joey cracks the half-smile and starts to tell Audrey about Charlie and his ginormous johnson, but Audrey decides she'd rather get back to talking about herself. This time, she asks Joey what she should do about The Drama Of Pacey And The Number Of Sexual Partners. Joey shrugs and lies that "honesty has always worked for her," but advises Audrey to be careful of Pacey's ego. "I shouldn't tell him," Audrey deduces. Joey shrugs that it really all depends on the answer. Because if it's too high, you know (whatever "too high" is), Audrey should be deeply ashamed and ought to tell Pacey that she's a dirty, dirty whore and unworthy of love and then she should shave her head and put on a hair shirt and enter a convent, because Girls Who Have Sex Are Bad and Should Be Punished Severely (see Exhibit A: Lindley, Jen). What ever happened to either telling Pacey that it shouldn't matter how many people she's slept with and leave it at that, or telling him the truth and if he can't handle it, then telling him to shove it? But what kind of lesson would that be for the children? Won't someone please think of the children?
Pacey's Mustang. Audrey and Pacey are circling the block, looking for a parking spot. Audrey wonders why Joey got dropped off at the door and she has to drive all over creation with him. "It's all part of the deal," Pacey shrugs. "What deal would that be?" Pacey blushes and stutters that "it's all part of our arrangement we got going." Nice grammar, Pace. Blah blah blah, Pacey wants to start thinking about whether or not Audrey wants to wear his pin and be his steady girl. "Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven men," Audrey blurts out. "What?" Pacey spits, and promptly rear-ends the car in front of them. I don't think I even knew twenty-seven boys when I was eighteen.
Grams's. Jen opens the front door to reveal a dapper older black man. "Can I help you?" she asks. "You must be Jennifah," the man says. "I'm Clifton." ["That's my grandfather's name. Shout-out? No, probably not." -- Sars] Jen furrows her brow. "Your grandmother told me you were very beautiful, but I guess words can't convey a thing like that," Clifton says. This convinces Jen to let him inside, just as Jack is bounding downstairs. "Dawson?" Clifton wonders. Jack vomits, and then corrects him. "Jack? The homo-sexual? Nice to meet you," Clifton offers. Hee. Clifton explains that Grams invited him to join them for the screening. Speaking of, Grams sails into the frame and right into Clifton's arms. "Ah, Mr. Smalls," she purrs. "I see introductions have been made." And then she kisses him! On the lips! Go Grams! Jen looks shocked and horrified at the sight of Grams kissing anyone. Jack surreptitiously smacks her shoulder and plasters a fake smile on his face. "Get a hold of yourself, Jennifah," Grams advises. Oh, dear Grams. I adore you. Clifton Smalls stands there and looks pleased to have landed such a honey. Jen is gobsmacked. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she stutters. "What…what was that? That you were doing with…the kissing? Why would…? You did -- did you? Young lady, do you have a boyfriend? Clifton, are you my Grams's boyfriend?" Heh. Clifton is smoooooth. "Yes, I am," he says. "I think. Aren't I?" Grams coos that he is. "Oh my goodness!" Jen says. "What? Why? Did this just slip your mind? Is this something that you just forgot to mention to me?" Jack wonders if he and Cliff ought to leave the two of them alone. "Because we can do that." Heh, part deux. Jen elbows him, and then turns to Clifton. "Clifton, what do you do?" she asks. "You have got to be kidding me," Grams mutters. Clifton tells Jen that he's a geometry teacher, and a widower. "All right! All right! Do you approve? May we leave now?" Grams asks. Jen reluctantly agrees to go.
Film School. Dawson's fiddling with some sort of film something on the ground when a brunette on a cell phone stomps inside, in the middle of a loud break-up on her cell phone. After much name-calling and screaming, she throws the phone down. Dawson sticks his head up. "You okay?" he asks. "Hello? Excuse me? Nosy?" the woman spits. Dawson shrugs that he couldn't help it: she's loud. The woman snaps that she doesn't know why they're even having a conversation and then tells him that she's sorry, but he caught her in the middle of an "ugly break-up." Dawson mildly apologizes. The woman -- let's call her Amy (because we later learn that's her name) -- shares that she can't believe the boy is dumping her instead of the other way around. They eventually start yammering about film school yada yada yada. I really hate it when this show gets all The Nature Of Art And The Movies on my ass, because, hello? It's Dawson's Creek. Somehow the conversation winds around to that one movie that everyone has, the one you love and are totally embarrassed about but can't turn off if you see it on television. Mine, by the way, is Dude, Where's My Car?. Seriously. It's really, really funny. There's this whole bit where Ashton Kutcher and Stifler are dancing around in matching tracksuits to "Bust A Move." It's high-larious. It really is.
Anyway. Amy's is Hardball, the Keanu Reeves movie about a gaggle of loveable inner-city scamps who learn about life through softball. She saw it in the theatre five times. "That explains that, then," Dawson says. "What?" Amy asks. "Why your boyfriend dumped you," Dawson explains. "You're a sentimental drama queen with crappy taste in movies." Whatever, Mr. I Love Steven Spielberg. (Not that Spielberg is crappy -- I don't think so, anyway -- but sentimental? E.T., phone home!) Also, rude much? "What's your name, little man?" Amy asks, God bless her. Dawson tells her. Turns out that she's the film critic for the Boston Weekly, and she's there to review Charlie and the Giant Euphemism.
Speaking of Mr. The Party Is In My Pants, he and Joey share a painfully flirty interlude back at the theatre. Dear God, just do it already. Who knew that the only thing Joey was looking for was a gigantic schlong on a dumb guy? Not that there's anything wrong with that. Blah blah blah, Charlie talks Joey into sitting to him for the movie, and if she tosses her hair one more time, she just might give herself whiplash. She bats her lashes and purrs that she already saw the movie, and he was "pretty good." Charlie stares at New And Not Improved Joey (Now With 150 Percent More Flirting Action)! He asks what's "going on with her" tonight. She seems kind of slutty. I mean, "different." Joey twitters that she's the same as she ever was, but that it's nice when Charlie's "not trying so hard." Charlie smirks. "Contrary to popular opinion, I may not actually be the devil," he tells her. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Slim," Joey coos. "Slim"? Is Joey running with Al Capone now or something?
Outside, Pacey is apologizing to the driver of the car he smacked into. He gets back into his own car and heaves a giant sigh. Audrey peers at him nervously. Is he okay, she asks. He's fine, he says shortly. She clarifies that she's talking about "the sex thing." Pacey lies and tells her that "they're fine." Audrey looks distraught.
Pander meets Dawson at the front of the theatre. "All right, Captain, it's go time," he says. Dawson sputters that Pander invited a critic! Pander wonders why this is a bad thing. He's trying to explain himself when Amy strolls up and wonders if they're planning to "show this thing or just act it out for us?" Pander grins and begins an introduction, but Amy informs him that she and Dawson have "exchanged unpleasantries" already. Pander looks crestfallen, shoots Dawson a dirty look, and tells Amy to take a seat. "We're waiting for a couple of VIPs to arrive," he says, pronouncing it "vips." Amy rolls her eyes. "It's been a slice and all," she says, but she has to go. "Give me a ring when you get your act together, okay?" she asks, and trots off. Pander turns on Dawson like a viper. "What did you do?" he hisses. "Told her she had crappy taste in movies," Dawson whispers. Pander buries his head in his hands. "And I might have called her a drama queen, I don't remember," he adds under his breath. "Why, oh why would you do something like that? Is it because you hate me?" Pander asks. He instructs Dawson to go after Amy and make it up to her. He squeals that, once, Amy gave a bad review to this one guy's thesis film simply because he "said something mean about Point Break," and now that guy is no one! Dawson must go! Go! Go save their budding careers! ["Point Break is mine, by the way. Shout-out? Hmm. No, I guess not." -- Sars] Dawson's like, "Calm down." Pander huffs. "You calm down!" he says, "I'm going to freak out!" He points at the door, and directs Dawson to "get her back!" Dawson looks resigned. "What are you going to do?" he asks. "I'm going to go hit on your ex-girlfriend," Pander says.
So, Dawson runs after Amy, apologizing all the way and yelping that he totally would have kissed her ass if he knew who she was, because he's totally a huge fan. Amy says that film critics don't have fans, but Dawson manages to quote an extremely old review of hers and thus wins her over, because, as you may know, all recappers -- I mean, "reviewers" -- love to have their more artful pieces recited to them by memory by cute boys. Well, in Dawson's case, "cute" boys. I have to say, I don't dislike Amy at all. "You really like my stuff?" she asks. He does. "I don't always agree with you," he says, "but I always want to hear what you think." Amy beams, and invites him to get a cup of coffee with her. "Who knows? You may get lucky. I'm in a strange mood," she says. Dawson smiles shakily.
Screening room. Audrey stomps inside and stops right in front of Joey and Charlie. She has to talk to Joey. Joey's all, I'm sort of busy with The Big Unit here. "Hello? Does the expression 'bros before hos' mean anything to you?" Audrey asks. I laughed out loud at that line. This convinces Joey, who follows Audrey up the aisle. Audrey wants to get their stories straight: "If it happens to come up, I've slept with twenty-seven people," she says. "Rock and roll!" says a random passerby. Hee, again. "You've had sex with twenty-seven different people?" Joey asks, incredulous. Audrey dubs this "creative math" and looks at Joey pleadingly. Joey smiles patronizingly and advises Audrey once more to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Which is, by the way, horrible relationship advice. Not that I advocate lying or anything, because I don't, but you don't have to tell your significant other everything about everything, especially if you're just telling them something to ease your own guilty conscience, because that generally just causes the other person intense and long-lasting pain, when all you really wanted was to feel better about something that was rotten but which is also over and never even needed to be brought up in the first place because if in fact you feel so bad about it, maybe you ought to just suffer in silence instead of ruining MY ENTIRE SENIOR YEAR. Um. Never mind. Joey simpers and tells Audrey to "go do the right thing!" Then she smiles a big patronizing smile and skips back to Big Dick.
Joey sits back down. "Everything cool?" Charlie asks. "Relatively speaking," Joey purrs. Chatter chatter chatter, flirt, flirt, flirt. Hey, have you heard that Joey is totally hot and completely out of Charlie's league, and that she's also really smart and clever and great in the sack and has excellent eye-hand coordination and can do complex logarithms in her sleep and also donated one of her kidneys to a poor orphan whom she recently saved from a burning building? Joey giggles that everything Charlie is thinking "is written all over his face." He's all, what am I thinking right now? Joey chirps that Charlie's thinking that he really, really likes her and he wants to take her out on a proper date. "No. Actually, I was thinking that I want to take you into the bathroom and do ungodly things to you," Charlie tells her. This, for some reason, appalls Joey and she runs off. Dear. God. First and foremost, almost everyone I know would have chuckled at Charlie's comment and told him (either seriously or very sarcastically) to keep hope alive. Or rolled their eyes and advised him to jump in a cold shower. Or, you know, hit the bathroom and done some ungodly things. But Joey? A pain in all of our delicate asses. "I blew it, didn't I?" Charlie squeals as she stomps off, her girlish feelings all a twitter. "I am the devil," he says to himself.
Lobby. Pacey. Jack. Pacey's all talking about how he's got it bad for Audrey and how wonderful she is and blah blah blah, and she's conveniently right behind him to hear all of this. He turns around and looks at her. "I have to be honest. Want to be honest. It's not twenty-seven. It's fifty-seven!" she blurts out. Pacey spits his drink everywhere. Of course he does, because Pacey Witter is now suddenly the star of a slapstick romantic comedy where he falls down and sits in boxes and spits a lot.
So, somehow Pander corners Jen in an abandoned classroom. Don't ask. He's nervous, he tells her, but not about the screening. "I find that I am kind of, well, nervous around you." He looks at her pleadingly. Jen blushes. "Oh," she says. "Gosh. I. I'm. I'm just going to go ahead and say this. I don't think there's a possibility of something happening between us, well, ever." Pander looks crestfallen. Jen apologizes, and says she's going to go. She turns to leave, but Pander starts blathering. He gives this big old speech about how he's not all hot, or slick or whatever, but he's going to "blow her mind in a million ways that [she's] never even imagined." Her back still turned, Jen furrows her brow. "You know it too," Pander says. "And you know, when you look at me, that it'll be different. Which is why you're not turning around right now. Because you're nervous about what you might find." Jen doesn't think so. She announces that, in fact, to prove a point, she's going to turn around. She does. And he's gone. Jen looks surprised and -- dare I say it? Intrigued.
So Jen walks down into the lobby, where she runs into Joey. They decide to go outside for some air. Once outside, they walk awkwardly together for a moment, before Joey asks if she can ask Jen "a boy question." Jen's all, "Shoot." Joey wonders if Jen has ever met a really hot guy, and got almost hypnotized by the hotness, but then realized that the hot guy was a moron? And was thus torn between the hotness and the idiocy? Man, who hasn't? Jen snorts that this has happened with every man she's ever dated except Dawson. I don't know if I'd call Henry "hot," but maybe that's just me. "Can I say something?" Jen asks. "My Grams is dating a sixty-five-year-old African-American man whose name is Clifton Smalls." This both amuses and delights Joey. Jen thinks Clifton Smalls is "really great," because he proves that no matter how many boys screw them over now, in the prime of their lives, maybe one day when they're old, they'll meet a Clifton Smalls of their very own. Joey grins, and coos that this is a very good point. "I thought it was," Jen chirps. The girls smile at each other. "But that's a long time," Joey says.
Coffee house. Amy asks Dawson why she ought to stay and see his movie. He admits that he doesn't even know. "[Pander] loves it, but he might be mildly insane," he says. He says that they worked very hard on the movie, but he doesn't think it's quite finished yet. Amy wonders what the movie is about. Really about. To him. Dawson thinks about this. He's had a tough year, he says, what with dropping out of school, and then the Flash buying the farm, and then his whole thing with Jen. He's put all of that into the movie, he says, one way or another.
Amy smiles at him, and tells him that "anything imbued with that much passion and heartbreak" will, at the very least, be interesting. "Plus, you're a fan, which satisfies my enormous ego," she tells him. Dawson grins. "Shall we?" Amy asks. They get up to go, and end up making out. Yeah, you read that right. There's some contrivance about making some guy (who Amy thinks is her boyfriend) jealous, but of course the guy turns out to not to be her boyfriend after all, and I suspect that Amy just wanted a little Dawson Love. Oh, ew! I can't believe I even typed that!
Audrey. Pacey. Whatever. It turns out that Pacey's been thinking. "I know that you've slept with other men," he says. And he can accept that. He's got insecurities, he says, but those insecurities are his problem. Not hers. "The only thing that matters is this, just this," he says, looking into her eyes. "I have totally and completely fallen for you," Pacey says. "You move me, Audrey. All over the place." They kiss. Aw, Pacey. So cute! So not realistic, but so cute. "Five," Audrey says. "What?" he asks. "I've only slept with five people," she confesses. Oh, my God. Of course she's slept with fewer people than Pacey has! Because otherwise, she's a dirty, skanky whore whom the viewing audience will have to reject. Because girls who have sex should be shunned by society! Shunned! Shunned! Shunned and maybe stoned! I really think the writers here missed a good opportunity to make the point that even if Audrey has had sex with a whole bunch of people, that doesn't make her bad or dirty or wrong. It would have been really gutsy if Audrey had had sex with considerably more people than Pacey (I mean, realistically. Come on, fifty-seven people at age eighteen seems like a bit of a stretch), and that was something that they had to deal with. Instead, with this scenario, Pacey gets to have the "correct" reaction to her past, but he doesn't actually get stuck with a slutty girlfriend. He gets to nail someone who's a real pro in the sack, but she didn't learn any of those tricks from sleeping with a bunch of boys! Oh, no! She probably learned it from a book! It's the best of both worlds! Except for Audrey, who clearly worries that Pacey won't love her if he thinks she's slept around, hence the "testing" here. Anyway, she apologizes for testing him, and tells him he "aced" it and she might give him a reward. They kiss. Whatever. And it's not like five is a small number of people to have slept with when you're eighteen (or whenever, really -- and who cares, really, how many people you've slept with, and who is to say how many is too many, other than you?) or anything, but Audrey's been built up as this charmingly free-spirited girl who sleeps with whomever she likes and does whatever she wants, and I feel like the writers are totally backtracking on that now that Audrey is Pacey's girlfriend and not just Joey's saucy roommate. And it sucks.
Amy and Dawson walk back to the screening. How is it that their entire audience hasn't left yet? People have been waiting to see this stupid movie for hours. She's whinging about her most recent failed romance and yada yada yada. They're flirting. We get it. She likes him. Blah. Dawson is concerned that his movie is going to suck, he says. "If it sucks, I will tell you. Over coffee. And you might just get to make out with me again," Amy grins at him. Dawson smiles back, tentatively. She turns to go, but he stops her. "Roadhouse," he says. The movie he loves for no reason? The Patrick Swayze flick Roadhouse. I don't even know what to say about that. There's got to be a joke about the Flash in there somewhere. I just can't find it!
So, Dawson comes back into the theatre, Amy in tow. "How did you get her back?" Pander whispers. "I made out with her," Dawson says. Pander's jaw drops. Over across the theatre, Joey watches Grams snuggle with Clifton Smalls. She smiles. Charlie strolls up at this point, kisses her ass for twenty-five minutes (serious ass-kissing, too, all "you make me want to be a better man" and "I like you very very much" and "I'd vote for you for president" and "you're the most beautiful and perfect girl to whom I've ever had the privilege of speaking") and finally manages to worm his way into sitting to her again. Joey is so perfect; she's going to turn Charlie from Womanizing Rock Star into Pathetic Boot-Licking Lapdog in less than sixty seconds! Could you do that? (Would you want to?)
Pander walks past Jen toward the back of the theatre. "Oh my God," Jen says as she looks up and catches his eye. Jack's all, huh? "Nothing, I didn't say anything," Jen sputters. "Yes, you did," Jack says. Jen's all, "Shut UP." Jen and Pander? Holy crap.
So, Dawson gets up and introduces the movie to the crowd. It's really quite nauseating. It's all slow-motion shots of all of his friends and former lovers, and slow, slow clapping like it's the Dead People montage at the Oscars or something. Dawson blathers about how the movie is "a labor of love" for everyone involved in the project, and blah blah bliddly blah blah. "It is and it always will be a snapshot of who we are at this particular moment in time," he says. Jen looks over at Clifton Smalls and smiles. Joey grins at Dawson. Audrey and Pacey gaze adoringly at the Beek. "So, brace yourself," the Head says. "Roll it." Gag. Everyone claps and claps and claps as Dawson slowly walks up the aisle and the lights in the theatre dim. The executive producers flash their own names on the movie screen. And we're out.