Previously on Dawson's Creek: Dawson and Joey had sex, Jessica's eyes fell out and exploded into a hail of throwing stars that embedded themselves in her stomach, and Sars felt guilty; Joey snarled at Dawson for having a girlfriend when they slept together, and Dawson tried to get her to chill; Joey got a job at Emma's bar; Jack swooned at his pop-cult prof; Bobby Briggs got all Gordon Gekko on Pacey; Pacey and Jack moved in with Emma; Joey thought maybe she and Dawson made "a huge mistake."
Cue opening montage of Joey "It Churl" Potter agonizing over an email to Dawson "Headwig And The Angry Inch…Oh, Ew. Sorry" Leery. It's titled "The Incident," and as a testicle rages on about Eve and the apple, Joey sighs and shrugs and writes "Dear Dawson," then frowns and picks her cuticles and sips coffee and rubs her forehead. The testicle would like to know, "Whatever possessed you, bay-behhhhh?" Excellent question, testicle. Enter Audrey "Clairol De Lune" Lidell with an armload of shopping bags to drop her customary "quit angsting and get on with it, Potter" science on Joey. Joey whines that writing a good email is hard, and Audrey agrees, adding that that's especially true when it's "a huge mistake." Joey tells her to shut up, but Audrey goes on about how email is "the scourge of the modern age" and "the internet has made it way too easy to express oneself," blah blah blah shout-out-cakes -- I think her point is that online communication is a poor substitute for just talking, but she goes on for so long that I kind of lost track. Anyway, she winds up her diatribe and asks what Joey has so far. Joey confesses that she got as far as "Dear Dawson," but erased it. They debate whether that greeting seems "cold." Audrey reminds Joey that she did just "nude up with" the guy, then jokes to my unbridled horror that maybe they did it "through a hole in a sheet, that's very Dawson and Joey," like, Lidell! Four minutes! Unnecessary roughness! Joey, laughing, tells her again to shut it, and Audrey asks what Joey really wants to say, then. Joey doesn't like the way things ended; she wants Dawson to know she cares, but she also wants to "hold onto [her] righteous indignation." Indignation over wh-- oh, right. God, she's annoying. Anyway, Audrey's all, "So call him up and say so," but Joey thinks they'll just fall into their old patterns: "Email is a far safer alternative at the moment." Okay, Audrey says -- then pull out all the stops. Get all schmoopy, but "be real, Joey," and say everything you want to say that you can't to his face. Joey smiles that she's right, and thanks her. The Sad Piano And Clarinet Of Ew, You Slept With That Guy?! cue up as Joey writes, "Dear Dawson, I don't know where to begin. Because I'm an idiot." No, she really writes that.
Time-lapse. Audrey turns on a light in the fading dusk as Joey works on the email.
Another time-lapse. Audrey is passed out in front of the TV. Joey, now in a different shirt, continues to tap away. Cut to the computer screen and the text of the email -- it's mostly about how maybe she and Dawson need to "separate," and how she doesn't know if she'll still be there when he turns back around. I've used that line a couple of times in my life, and it sounds great in the movies, but in real life? Doesn't work. Take it from a practicing drama queen. Shot of Joey looking satisfied; another shot of the screen and the bushwa in the email about how she wishes Dawson well. Time to send. Long story short, Dawson's email address is in her address book right to "Campus Wide," and while Joey's yawning and rubbing her eyes in exhaustion, her finger slips on the track pad and she sends the email to the whole campus. Oblivious, she gets up, turns off the TV, and slumps down on her bed.
Two Guys, A Girl, And A Nasty Protein Shake. Jack "Unambiguously Sentenced To The B-Plot" McPhee shuffles through the apartment and turns up his nose at Emma's liquid breakfast. Banter about British stereotypes. Pacey "Bud Fox" Witter appears, besuited and sipping coffee. Jack and Emma bust on him for his attire; he sniffs in response that "some of us have to work for a living." Jack moves on to teasing him about his hair. Pacey asks if it's "too much product," but I actually like the gel; it's the gratuitous chin pubes I could do without. The running "joke" about Pacey looking gay is unfortunately revived for another jog around the track, and then Emma nags him about doing the dishes, and then there's a bit of "humor" about Jack and Pacey blaming each other for leaving the door unlocked, and then I fall asleep because the scene is boring and has no discernible point.
Joey and I bolt upright at the same time. She creeps over to her laptop, takes a deep breath to steel herself, and opens her email to find dozens of messages from other students in response to "The Incident." Confused, she checks her sent mail folder, figures out what happened, and yelps, "Audrey?" Audrey comes to, and when Joey tells her that she sent the email to the entire campus, Audrey groggies, "Well honey, why would you do that?" Hee. Joey explains that she clicked on the wrong address by mistake, and Audrey half-yawns that she tried to tell Joey the email "wasn't a good idea." Joey glares at her: "That's all you have to say?" Well, Joey, you can't hit a girl with a problem like that pre-coffee and expect to get results. I might have managed an "it's all about witness protection, dude" before going back to sleep. Audrey's on my wavelength, shrugging a sleepy "I don't know -- 'sucks to be you'?" before flopping back on her pillows. Joey fixes her with a wide-eyed stare, unable to believe that Audrey isn't leaping out of bed to unsend the email, stroke her hair, or otherwise make Joey the center of her early-morning universe.
Boiler Room. Pacey arrives at 9 AM, but the office is already a hive of stage-business activity. Bobby Briggs busts on him for his tardiness and makes a snitty did-your-mommy-dress-you-today comment about how Pacey looks "like a pansy." "Pansy"? Ah, the hard-charging heterosexual world of high finance, where the wrong tie means you take it up the ass. Whatever. Shut up, Bobby Briggs. No such luck -- Bobby refers to Pacey's alleged lack of sack, and sticks the young Jedi with a stack of cold-call files on rich guys and the prediction that Pacey won't succeed in selling them anything. Let's just assume the writers' thoroughly misconceived idea of how cold calls actually work as facts in evidence, and move on to Bobby haranguing Pacey about how his good looks won't get him anywhere with the cold-callees, so he should "stop batting his eyes at [Bobby]" and get to it. As Bobby breezes off, Pacey asks grouchily if the cold-calling is a punishment for something. Bobby says he's just trying to get rid of Pacey: "I don't have enough desks!" Yeah, well, all the desks in the world won't prevent this "plot" from plunging me into a coma.
Jack and Jen "Liza" Lindley file into class. Jack is all hectic about getting a good seat, the better to drool on the hot prof, and yanks Jen out of the way so that he can sit on the inside. As they clamber over another student (who, weirdly, looks a lot like Tobey…man, I miss Tobey. Come back, Tobey!), Jen shoots him a "whatever" look. Jack claims he just wants to see the blackboard, but Jen isn't buying that and gives him guff for ogling Professor Freeman. Audrey, suddenly seated on Jack's other side, is there for the same reason, and Jen gives her guff too, pointing out that she must have her own classes to go to. Audrey shrugs that off, and Jen says that maybe Worthington will boot Audrey if she misses enough class, but as they start to do shtick about that, Jack officiously shushes them. Jen leans over him to tell Audrey that "this is studious Jack, not to be confused with fun-time Jack," and he doesn't like to miss a word of Freeman's lectures. Jack ignores them as Audrey asks how Jen manages to nap during class, between Grams and studious Jack and everything. Jen very seriously says that she doesn't, and then Freeman calls the class to order and Jack shushes the girls again. Freeman, who is wearing what looks like a guayabera, announces an extra-credit assignment that involves going to the movies, then poorly delivers a weak joke about it, which Jack laughs too hard at. Audrey and Jen look at him like, "Um, it's not that funny, G," and Jack's all, "…What?" Freeman drones on about the trope of the beautiful girl playing ugly in film while Jen and Audrey whisper about Miss Congeniality and Jack adopts a mien of great concentration; Freeman adds that students can see him after class to find out more. Oh, dear.
Over at Worthington, Joey arrives late to class as Professor Flip-Flops is telling everyone to "knock back [their] Ritalin and settle down," like, ha ha, a Ritalin joke! So current! Not. A pan around the classroom shows the students reading what we know is Joey's email to Dawson, and tittering at her arrival. Yeah, because that would happen. As Joey slinks to her seat, Flip-Flops blithers on pretentiously about Portnoy's Complaint, saying that the class "won't be dabbling in Roth's stream-of-consciousness sexual rivers much longer," like, what does that even mean, Flip-Flops? No, really. What does that mean? Oh, it doesn't really "mean" anything? I see. Then you might want to look into shutting up. Flip-Flops eyes Joey as she passes him, and adds that fate assigned them some additional reading the night before "via email." Joey freezes for a second, then shrugs and continues unpacking her bookbag; Flip-Flops wonders aloud why they shouldn't focus on something the students actually might have read. He begins reading in a stentorian voice: "'Dear Daw-sun. I don't know where to begin.'" Joey, horrified, tries to interrupt him, but he rudely cuts her off by saying that "nobody likes a show-off," then needles her with the observation that she doesn't "reach a point for several paragraphs," so he'll just skip ahead. Heh. I hear that. Flip-Flops continues reading, with a great deal of ironic gesturing and snarky tone: "'In the moment when we touched, maybe we went somewhere else that rose above all this, but then we landed, and I think maybe we crashed.'" Flip-Flops makes a dismissive moue. The class laughs. Joey puts her hand over her mouth as Flip-Flops muses on the difficulty of writing about sex, despite the universality of the experience, and the difference between Roth's writing and Joey's, in which she "distances herself from the act with vague metaphors." Joey purses her lips, determined not to break down. Flip-Flops walks towards her seat and tells her, in a tone that's almost angry, that she "can't be stream-of-consciousness if [she's] observing from the shores. Right?" Joey doesn't meet his eyes or respond. "Right," Flip-Flops perks, and strides away. Shots of Joey's classmates laughing smugly at her as she makes melted-wax face.
Okay, we all know that that shit would never happen, right? That no way would a professor risk a lawsuit by using an email like that in class, not to mention reaming out the author out so crassly? And that the students, if they reacted at all, would probably cringe in sympathy with Joey rather than guffawing in her face? And we all know too that Flip-Flops's so-called burn on Joey is stupid too, right? That stream-of-consciousness is about a style, whereas the "distancing" in Joey's writing is about a tone? That Contrivance just overflowed my bathtub again? Okay, good.
Shut up, thetruth.com.
Back at the Boiler Room, Pacey -- whose neatly gelled 'do from earlier has morphed into a wig-like spherical pouf -- is flailing on a cold call. As the customer hangs up on him, Bobby swaggers up to hit him with a few more salesmanship koans, advising him to ditch the sweet-talk and "make them feel like morons for doubting your financial prowess." Pacey doesn't understand how he's supposed to sell the stock when he doesn't know anything about it, but Bobby rolls his eyes at Pacey's naïveté and tells him to find an "in" with his potential customers -- "become them, become who they want to be," blah blah blah Gordon-Miyagi-cakes. "You're never gonna land a guy like Topper playin' the nice guy." Who is Topper? He's the call on Pacey's list. Bobby waxes boring about Topper's miserliness, then tells Pacey to grab his keys: "We're going off-campus." Oh, goody. I can't wait to hear more of Bobby's philosophical musings on money, power, and closing the deal. Oh, no, that's not right. I could actually wait forever and a day to hear more of that crap, because it's boring, trite, nonsensical, and a waste of my goddamn time.
Brit Bar. Emma is trying to train Joey, but Joey is resisting, reminding Emma that she has worked in restaurants before and managing to work in a reference to having seen them burn down as well. Emma, not impressed, points out that Joey's never worked "in this dive," has she, and steers her to Table 3. Table 3, to the surprise of nobody who has ever watched television before, is animatedly discussing The Email Of Infamy in a totally unrealistic fashion. Instead of saying something credible like "oh my God, I soooo don't envy that chick, what a nightmare," the girls snottily posit that they'd never send an email like that, at least not if they ever wanted to hear from the guy again. Joey smiles tightly and asks if they know what they want to eat, but they don't seem to hear her; the guy at the table protests that "not all guys are like that." The first girl dismisses him with, "Oh, whatever, Mike -- you're gay," and Mike theorizes that maybe the guy in question is gay too, "and that's why he screwed her over." Look, Mike, I don't know what you've heard, but James Van Der Beek is engaged, okay? So not gay. So never slept with The Flash. (Heh.) Anyway, the first girl sniffs that the emailer is obviously starved for attention, and when she makes a crack about The Real World, Joey has had it. She angrily blurts out that maybe the author never meant to send it out to "the gossips at large" -- maybe she just wanted some "private closure" and never thought she'd have to hear "the Oprah psychobabble of her life-lacking peers." "Life-lacking peers"? Hot diggity, that's bad writing. Plus, that's so not the way to handle it on Joey's part. Just mention in a mild tone of voice that, you know, you wrote that email, and then just stand there let 'em squirm. Katie Holmes does a good job selling the line -- "Now do you guys want something to eat, or should I just bring over a nice tray of bon-bons so you guys can hunker down and watch your stories?" -- but the kids at the table greet her outburst by sending a "bitch is crazy" look around the table. The second girl says, "Maybe later," and Joey frowns and walks away as they all laugh at her.
Jen, Audrey, and Jack stroll along the sidewalk; Jen is trying to convince Audrey that Boston Bay "is not a party school," but Audrey won't hear it. Jack tells her that the "midday keggers" get a little old after a while, "trust me," then gets distracted by the sight of Professor Freeman in front of the movie theater and says he'll meet them inside -- he wants to talk to (read: "try to hit on") Freeman. Jen warns him away from that plan, calling it "a tad Tracey Flick," but Jack assures her that Freeman knows him, he's talked in class a bunch of times, blah. Jen and Audrey look doubtful, but the script calls for Jack and his overly Tin-Tin hair to crash and burn in the scene, so he trots off to do just that. Jen calls him Swimfan, and sighs to Audrey that "somebody has got to talk to that boy about his love of the straights." Oh, I don't know -- he turned Ambiguously Gay Eric, after all, so it's probably not time for an intervention quite yet. "Whatever, it's totally hot," Audrey sighs. Yeah. Wait…huh?
Across the street, Jack barges up to Freeman and tries a bit of small talk about the small turnout; Freeman plays along gamely for a minute, then asks, "I'm sorry -- do I know you?" Jack, flummoxed, gapes in disappointment for about a week and a half before choking out his name. Freeman apologizes; the class "is massive" and he can hardly "keep people straight." Heh. "Straight." Jack's like, "Right, right. Yeah well gotta go," and bolts inside. Freeman's all, "Oooookay then."
Brit Bar. Emma wonders if she's made a mistake living with Pacey and Jack, and Joey is reassuring her that it won't get boring when suddenly her face freezes: "You've got to be kidding me." Emma turns to look, spots Flip-Flops, and smiles that he's a regular. Joey grumbles that of course he is -- he's been assigned to ruin her life, oh woe is Joey, et cetera. Emma pretty much tells Joey to suck it up. Joey sets her jaw and walks down the bar to where Flip-Flops is sitting. Without looking up, Flip-Flops muses that he can see how she'd find the bar "much more alluring" than the English department -- "all that silence, all those books." "And then of course your constant positive reinforcement," Joey grits. Not the strategy I would have chosen, but a bold move. Flip-Flops redeems himself somewhat by chuckling that yeah, "that would get really annoying after awhile." Now, here's where I would have tried to form a jokey rapport with the Flip-Flops in order to get him off my back in the future, but Joey elects to death-ray him with her eyes. Flip-Flops, feeling the twin holes sizzling through the top of his head, looks up and asks if she's waiting for him to order, or if she has something to say, because it looks like she has her "bone-to-pick face on." "And how would you know what that looks like?" Joey ices. "Word gets around," Flip-Flops tells her, and orders a tuna melt and a beer. Mmm, tuna melts. Joey writes it down, starts to walk away, then turns around to pick the bone; she hasn't gotten two words in when Flip-Flops mutters, "Oh, here you go." Heh. I've got to say, he looks like a third-generation photocopy of Denis Leary, he doesn't know fuck-all about the explication of English literature, he dresses like Michael J. Fox in High School USA, and he's a right pompous jackass, but he likes tuna melts and taking the piss out of Joey, so Flip-Flops can stay as long as he likes.
Anyway, Joey sneers that she's sure his hard-as-nails routine earns him respect and that she'll learn a lot from him, but after today, she wishes he'd negged her from the class when he had the chance. Flip-Flops flippantly (see what I did there?) responds that he thought she'd enjoy the spotlight: "I don't single people out that often." Joey stalks closer to snap that, whatever he thinks, she's not an idiot, and she doesn't think the twenty minutes he spent mocking her qualifies as "modern comp lit." As she rants, Flip-Flops leans his chin on his hand and appraises her idly while totally not listening to what she's saying, but she doesn't care, asking sarcastically if "today's total evisceration" means she's off the hook for a month or two, or if she has more of it to look forward to. Flip-Flops doesn't know; the class is about to read "the poignant ramblings of Joyce and Woolf, and [Joey's] work provides such a marked contrast." Wow. Harsh. Good line, though. Joey, almost smiling in sheer disbelief, starts to walk away again, but Flip-Flops kind of sighs and says, "Hey Joey. You do fancy yourself a writer, correct?" "You could call it a hobby," she snips. Flip-Flops patiently reminds her that, in addition to neurosis and self-doubt, writers also "have to endure public humiliation every once in a while." Well…okay, I see his point generally, but it doesn't apply here. It's one thing to learn to take criticism when it's writing you've actually worked on and submitted somewhere -- a class, a literary magazine, whatever -- for critique. But a diary, or a letter? Filleting that kind of thing publicly is off-sides, and it's not a matter of Joey taking it like a man. Maybe she does need to toughen up, but using private correspondence to Teach Her A Valuable Lesson about that is inappropriate, period, and that's not a distinction the writers of the show seem to get, possibly because their own work stinks.
Yeah, so anyway. Flip-Flops says that she promised him "fearless academic ego," and he hasn't seen that at all so far from her, so if she can't hack his class, she should just quit. "I'm not a quitter," Joey snips, and Flip-Flops insightfully observes that people love to say that -- it's like they saw it in a movie once and they like the way it sounds. Heh. Joey flounces back over to tell him that she's not "just saying it, okay?" She wanted to take his class to work hard and learn something, not "be personally ridiculed in the process." Flip-Flops tells her sternly that her "heartfelt rant to what's-his-name proved good fodder for the topic at hand," namely that it's hard to write about sex, as her email "aptly proved." He goes on to say that, in the future, if she gets her writing circulated "beyond the campus inbox," she'll always have "some irritable writer type claiming to do better." Huh? Flip-Flops adds that maybe she didn't mean to send it out to everyone, but "whatever, bygones" -- she should declare victory and move on. Joey wants to know where's the victory here. "One down, only a lifetime of proving yourself left to go." Joey joins me in rolling her eyes as Flip-Flops tells her that if she stays in the class, she should "start proving that it's worth it. To one of us, at least." Joey thinks it over and smirks. Uh…okay.
Rapid montage of Boston scenes. Cut to Pacey's car, which Bobby is maligning as they drive to a car dealership to pick up Bobby's gleaming new capitalist wheels. When Pacey sees Bobby's Z8 -- and I won't even try to identify the make of car, but it looks like a Jaguar -- he's disgusted, complaining that Bobby can't possibly afford it because he's not that much older than Pacey. No, Bobby agrees, but he's "so much wiser." Oh, no. I feel another Zen And The Art Of Weary Wall Street Clichés monologue coming on. Sure enough, Bobby launches into a sermon on "what your car says about you." I'll give you the short version because, honestly, who cares -- Pacey's car says that Pacey sucks. So do Pacey's suit and Pacey's facial hair. After grimly enduring a tired boxing metaphor from Bobby, Pacey tries to assert that he's not at Boiler Room to become one with the lifestyle; he's just trying to make rent. I have run out of Vivarin, so it is to my deep dismay that Bobby disagrees with that assertion at hackneyed length, informing Pacey that he doesn't buy that -- he can see that Pacey wants something, that he's "hungry," so Pacey should "effin' go for it already." The use of the word "effin'" causes my dislike of Bobby to detonate in a supernova of white-hot loathing. Pacey merely looks thoughtful.
Back from the break, Pacey's on the phone to Topper, pitching him on a stock using lots of faux attitude. The Casio Keyboard Of Semi-Wacky Hijinks lets us know we should find it amusing. As Pacey lies and blusters and throws a lot of finance jargon around, The Guitar Of Hey That Kid's Got Moxie joins in with a few optimistic twangs. Pacey actually says the phrase "greed is good," thereby atomizing any tiny shred of patience I may have had left for this subplot. Long story short, Pacey succeeds in selling Topper on the stock, then strolls into the conference room to gloat to Bobby. Bobby sleazes something about a "nooner" before Pacey tells him that he just "closed Topper." Bobby's stunned; Pacey brags that he "sold him some b.s. line from an eighties movie" and Topper bought it, then rambles on about his mad stock-selling skillz for approximately a decade. Bobby regards him with a "who farted?" look until he finishes, then acts impressed and tells Pacey to go get them a couple of drinks from the fridge. But a mere thirty-four minutes into the episode, you know it's not that simple -- after Pacey skips on out of there, Bobby makes a "that asshole" face, followed by a sneaky face.
After the movie, Freeman strolls out of the theater and runs into Jack, Jen, and Audrey. It's awkward with a capital "for the love of God, JUST STOP TALKING" -- Jack is tongue-tied, Jen is unsubtle, and Audrey is babbling uncontrollably. Finally, Audrey rights the canoe by suggesting that they all go visit Joey at work. She invites the professor, too, which is pretty smooth of her, until she adds, "At least, if you're into the whole crossing-the-line kind of thing." Fed up, Jack snaps that that's a great idea -- why don't the girls go get the car and he'll meet them at the corner? Jen fumbles the pass: "You're gonna let me drive the Saab?" Jack laughs it off with a pointed, "Of course, Jennifer -- why wouldn't I? So why don't you two skedaddle and I'll see you in a second?" Freeman looks on, bemused, as the girls chirp "okay" and scuttle off. More monumental discomfiture as Freeman tries to discern why Jack is still hanging around him like a bad smell, but Jack decides to take the plunge and delivers a monologue on how much he loves Freeman's class, how he hasn't cared about school (or about anything else) in a while but the work Freeman puts into his lectures really means a lot, how Freeman's obviously not phoning it in, on and on and on -- it's a torrent of verbiage. Looking a little weirded out, Freeman attempts to interrupt, but Jack is on a roll, saying that he didn't know before what he wanted to major in, and he doesn't know whether it's how Freeman uses words or the subject matter or what, but "I walk away from class still thinkin' about it, and -- and, you know, and I just look forward to the time, and I-I'm just wondering how I could become more…" Freeman is now gazing at Jack as though he's a particularly bizarre species of insect; at the end of the sentence, Jack catches that look and trails off red-facedly with, "…involved. You know." After a second, Freeman chuckles uncomfortably (or so my closed captioning says) and asks, "Are we talking about the class, Jack, or are we talking about me?" Busted, Jack stares at him before trying to play it off with a stammered series of "no"s and "that's not what I meant"s before ultimately giving up and crossing his arms tightly over his chest. When the hoped-for hole in the earth fails to materialize and swallow Jack, Freeman generously comes to his aid, saying he's glad Jack likes the class, and he's sure it'll show in Jack's work this semester. In response, Kerr Smith pulls a truly eloquent "thanks for pretending I didn't just blow up, dude" face. Freeman nicely asks if he's walking up to the corner, and off they go together, Jack with his hands jammed miserably in his pockets.
Boiler Room. Pacey's on the phone again. He gets negged by the customer, and Bobby materializes to needle him before giving him some small change for lunch. Pacey grouses, but Bobby tells him to hurry up; nobody else is getting lunch today, they'll think he's getting soft, blah. Pacey rolls his eyes and tools into the break room, where he overhears his colleagues discussing "killer" this and "frickin' awesome" that in regards to a deal. When Pacey asks what's up, he's told that Bobby closed Topper. The other guys blither on about how Bobby is their "personal god" and how he'll make partner for that and yadda yadda as Pacey stands dully in the middle of the room, his innocence shattered.
[phone ringing]
Sars: Hello?
Ray Charles: You'd think he'd have seen that coming.
Sars: Dude, tell me about it.
Ray Charles: I hate this show.
Sars: Me too, dude. Me too.
Brit Bar. Oliver Hudson hots into the bar area and asks Joey if she started today. "So it would appear," she sighs, and places a drink order, explaining that Emma's in the back. Oliver remembers aloud that Joey can't pour her own drinks -- too young -- and snipes that "this should be fun, baby-sitting you on top of everything else." Joey wants to know what that means, and Oliver tells her not to get all "fired up," but he's not in the mood to deal with her bullshit that night, especially since it's going to be the same bullshit the night anyway. Ha! Good for him. Joey immediately starts bitching at him about how he must want to see her crack, and when Oliver doesn't know what she's talking about, she whines about the horrors resulting from the wayward email -- the whispering, the laughing, the "unsolicited sexual advice," Flip-Flops's harshing of her buzz, blah blah blah. Oliver clearly could not care less if he were actually dead, attempting to put a cork in her with a weary, "Sounds fas-cinating, sorry I missed it," but Joey doesn't catch the sarcasm and speed-freaks on some more about how she didn't send that email to get feedback from Oliver or anyone else and she's sick of getting mocked and could Oliver just "concentrate on [his] own deep unhappiness for a while?" Oliver takes a moment to stop himself from throttling her, then points out acidly that before Joey "got all crazy confessional on" him, he'd planned to do just that. Joey fixes him with a bratty "yeah, right" look as he goes on, "You see, we don't just walk off into a void when we leave your line of vision. Some of us even have our own lives, and don't even talk about you -- at all." Joey clearly can't believe that -- the It makes every aspect of her life mesmerizing to others, after all -- and she glowers at Oliver as he continues to snark on the relative pettiness of her problems, then dismisses her to go serve the drinks. Joey holds that obnoxious look for a moment longer, but Oliver turns her back on her, so she huffs off with her tray.
Quitting time at the Boiler Room. Pacey: Why spend the day building up my confidence if you just want to steal my glory (and commission)? Bobby: Allow me to deliver yet another sermon composed of taglines from Successories posters by way of "explanation." Like most of what I say, it will make no damn kind of sense and bore you to tears, but we've got a few minutes to fill here. Pacey: So you screwed me because you could -- do you expect me to take that crap and kiss your ass? That's not fair! Bobby: Well, according to the writers, you object to the injustice, but you also worry that you tend to run away from problems. I ostensibly point up that conflict in you, but the writing is so dreadful that it's really hard to get that from it. Pacey: [Frown.] Bobby: Oh, also? You idolize me, and that scares you. Got all that? Okay, so now's the part where I dare you to come back to work tomorrow, and where I tell you that someone did the same thing to me that I just did to you back in the day, and then I let the studio lighting glint off my buck teeth to make sure everyone knows I suck, and then I leave. Pacey: So what do I do now? Just think about what you said or something? Bobby: I'd go with "blink resignedly as we go to commercial." Pacey: [Resigned blinking.]
Commercial.
Brit Bar. The gang commiserates with Joey about the email. She seems to have gotten a shred of a sense of humor about it, though, snarking that it "serves [her] right -- we don't take kindly to closure in these parts." Audrey says she hardly heard about the email all day long, but Joey points out that Audrey spent the day off-campus. Heh. Jen asks if Dawson even knows about it, and Joey comments on the "irony" that, while her "intimate aftermath was discussed in English class," Dawson didn't get the email at all. Jen wonders if that's such a bad thing -- this way, the two of them get a little more space, and Joey still has a clean slate with Dawson. Jack agrees, saying there's worse humiliation than the public kind. Audrey offers to serve as Joey's sponsor, and the time Joey is "jonesing to express [herself]," she can just call Audrey instead. Enter a bushed Pacey; Audrey greets him enthusiastically and says that "today was terrible" (she means without him, presumably) and he should never go back to work. "Don't tempt me," he monotones, and there's some banter about not drinking, "rough day," blah. After he heads to the men's room, Joey appears with appetizers and asks if Pacey's okay, and Audrey says she doesn't know, but it's not her fault, she swears. Then Jen spots Oliver at the bar and wants to know his deal; Joey starts to crack on him for the chip on his shoulder, but then admits that "it only rivals the one on [her own] shoulder," and concedes that he's "okay." Then there's a weird little scene where Audrey asks what it's like living with Emma, and Jack says it's fine, and Audrey asks if she runs around in her underwear asking the boys to zip things up for her, so Jack tells her that the three of them bathed together that morning, and Jen says sweetly that she thought he only took baths with Grams, and then Pacey comes back from the bathroom and asks Audrey to come get some air with him, like, what just happened there?
Outside, Audrey is raging about Bobby and how Pacey can't let him get away with it, and Pacey is sort of telling her that that's baseball, and now he just has to figure out "how to get through the days." Audrey fondles his weird wig-like hair and pouts that "that doesn't sound like the greatest way to live" -- he's only twenty and already marking time. She asks why he doesn't quit, and when he claims that it's not that easy, she disagrees, saying that they shouldn't have to deal with the grind yet; they should play "ridiculous drinking games" and laugh and have fun. After a strange comment about running out of places to hide, Pacey tells her that you can't just do whatever you want in life, and he can't pretend otherwise. He's wasted too much time already, he feels; he wants to make something for himself, "whether it's easy or not." Audrey sulks that she's sorry he feels she's "been a colossal waste of your time," but that's not what Pacey means. When he adds that they come from "very different worlds," Audrey says that her dad is "a heartless old fool" just like the Sheriff, but he happens to wear better suits. Pacey cedes that point, but he needs respect; Audrey says she respects him, and he loves her for that, but he needs respect "out there." Blah blah he'll have to take a different path than he thought blah blah that's life blah blah all he knows for sure is that he needs to get some sleep blah blah blah jaded-youth-cakes. Audrey asks if it's always going to be "like this." Pacey can't tell. Smooching. Banter about pre-sleep naked fun times as they walk away. Okay, here's the thing. For it to qualify as a plot, strictly speaking? Something has to actually happen from time to time. Uch.
Jen and Jack head home, and Joey braces herself to go apologize to Oliver. She stands behind his chair, rehearsing, but before she can say anything, he hands her her share of the tips; she starts to say she's sorry, but he tells her not to sweat it. She continues to stand there fussing with the cash, and Oliver asks her if he missed "anything…big in class today," aside from the email. She says he didn't. A song starts up on the jukebox, and Joey makes an "oh, for fuck's sake" face and promptly is a million miles away -- apparently it reminds her of Dawson. Oliver notices, and says nicely that he hates that song. Joey eyes him warily, then smiles that she does too, and Oliver kicks the jukebox until it skips to the same song from the opening montage. Détente achieved, the two of them start cleaning up.
The morning, Jack pads through the apartment; Emma is drinking another giant seaweedaccino and providing exposition about Pacey doing the dishes when he got up at the crack of dawn. Emma: Unfunny joke about boyfriend. Jack says he's not going to class, and starts to explain about bombing with Freeman, but thinks better of it; when Emma presses him, he admits that they had "this really weird moment yesterday" where it seemed like Jack "was into him." Emma's like, well, did it just seem that way, or does Jack "really fancy him"? Jack admits that he fancies Freeman, but he doesn't want Freeman to know that. "Well, maybe he was flattered," Emma cheerleads. "Uh, maybe he was…married?" Jack mock-grumps. "Well, he should be flattered," Emma says. Jack inexplicably wants to try some of Emma's seaweedaccino, which is apparently just an excuse for Kerr Smith to do a spit-take, chase Emma around the apartment, tickle her, and prove that he's oh so very straight. Or something. I don't know.
Boiler Room. Pacey is in the office early. He's got his hair combed back like Bobby's. Bobby enters, there's a brief moment of alpha-male challenge gazing, they wish each other good morning, Bobby smirks, Pacey smirks, whatever.
Joey runs to class, late again. Get an alarm clock, Potter. At the door, she hesitates, then forces herself to go in. Flip-Flops gives her guff about class interfering with her "all-important email schedule," and asks if she "whip[ped] out another diatribe last night." Heh: "Whipped out." Joey is determined to take it on the chin, and jokes that she did, actually. Nodding towards the handout the rest of the class is holding, she asks, "Did you guys not get it?" Flip-Flops isn't going to let her play, though, sniffing that the handout is actually the assigned follow-up reading; he hands her a copy and smarms that he figures her "mini-drama" prevented her from checking the syllabus. Joey sets her jaw and reminds him that yesterday, they spent most of the class "eviscerating [her] personal life," and the rest of the session consisted of "a rant composed of [his] dated theories." Flip-Flops turns around to face her with a look approaching respect as she continues that she's sorry she's late, but "the first half of class is usually when you reveal how bitter you are, how moronic we are, and how literature is dead. Were you thinking of moving on to something slightly more stimulating today?" Oh, please. I mean, I don't think Flip-Flops's attack on her email is right or anything, and I imagine the writers meant us to cheer Joey for standing up to Flip-Flops, but it's kind of like the "Pacey spits on Mr. Peterson" incident -- it's unrealistic, too pat, way out of proportion to the teacher's misdeeds, and hella manipulative.
Then of course we get a bunch of shots of random student extras exchanging "check out the balls on It Girl" looks, just in case we didn't know to root for Joey, like, whatever, he'll become her mentor, nobody cares, move on already. Flip-Flops continues to semi-beam at Joey before blithering about how he thought he'd teach today, but he doesn't know if he has much to offer, "what with the tenure and the published articles and all." Joey half-smiles as he introduces James Joyce's the girl on the beach by saying that he's "too hackneyed to illuminate the subject, but maybe someone else can shed some light." Then Flip-Flops calls on another student. Across the room, Joey catches Oliver's eye. He wiggles his brows at her by way of congratulations, and she smirks back.
On a studio lot, Dawson sits in an office, wearing red lipstick and struggling with an email to Joey. A testicle croons, "How can you say that I don't know you well?" Dawson types that he "was going to call" Joey about five times yesterday, then grimaces at his laptop. Just then, Todd barks at him that "break's over," so Dawson deletes the whole thing and flounces into another room.
week: Catfight over Dawson. Yeah, you heard me. And Joey kisses Oliver.