Props to Liz, for hooking us up with the first-season tapes, and to Sars, for rocking the house all night long, and to everyone on the forums for being so patient as I FINALLY get around to delivering these last three first-season recaps.
Previously on Dawson's Creek: Pacey told Joey she had a crush on Dawson, and she scowled and said, "Bite me." Dawson moped over Jen's having dumped his sorry ass. Jen asked Joey if they could ever be friends, and informed her (in somewhat oblique terms) that Dawson was in love with Joey, and was only infatuated with Jen.
The camera glides over the back of the TV in the Sanctum Dawsonorum; evidently said TV is showing a horror movie, judging by the sounds (stifled shrieks, ponderous music) and by the anxious expressions on the faces of Dawson "Sam Lame-y" Leery and Joey "Help for the Lovelorn" Potter, who are watching on the bed. Oh lord, they're watching I Know What You Did Last Summer, and have come to the part where Sarah Michelle Gellar is fleeing from the fish-hook-wielding killer. Joey is gripping Dawson's hand and looking very distressed and, when Gellar turns and sees how close the killer is, Joey gasps and buries her head in what appears to be Dawson's armpit. To be frank, I can't decide which would be the less pleasant sensory experience. Dawson laughs at Joey's skittishness and calls her "such a wuss." She calls him a "rat" and pounces on the remote, announcing that "it's over." They wrestle over it for a while in a passable burlesque of sublimated sexual tension, ending with her decisively turning the TV off. Dawson protests, "That movie rules! And I'm not just saying that because the man who wrote it gave birth to me, Zeus-like, fully-formed, from his massive forehead!" Except for the Zeus/forehead part. Joey counters that she has better things to do with her time than watch "stupid horror movies that are loaded with Cheez Whiz." Dawson calls her "Roger Ebert" (whaaat?) as part of his argument that "in honour of Friday the 13th tomorrow, a little horror marathon was mandatory." Joey says that the movies are weak, and that Dawson has a "fascination with the dark side" (which does not extend to his highlights, as far as I can tell) that causes him to "enjoy scaring people -- in particular" her. Again, Dawson's hair also scares me, but that's neither here nor there. Dawson says that he loves the "adrenaline rush" horror movies cause, and that movies in the genre "provide positive examples of ordinary people overcoming their worst fears and conquering evil." Uh. They're not documentaries, Errol Snore-is. Joey tells him to "save it for Film class," concluding by saying that horror movies are unnecessarily violent and exploitative and that they provide no benefit to society. Dawson has no further pat replies and is reduced to calling Joey a "prude."
Joey turns the TV back on to a local news broadcast, and says that the world is already scary enough on its own that she doesn't need to see a guy in a mask pretending to slice up girls. They both turn their attention to the news, on which the local-news-looking anchorman is reading a report about the "Lady Killer" striking again, having killed an eighteen-year-old girl (apparently the killer's fifth victim) in Boston. Joey labours the point by drawing the parallel between the last thing she said and the news report, for those of us whose TVs aren't equipped with SurroundSkillet. Dawson tells her she's deflecting the real issue, which is that she's a scaredy-cat. Her response is to regain control of the remote and turn the channel to -- ugh -- Jerry Ma-fucking-Guire, but the weird thing is that the closed captions transcribe dialogue from what I believe is The Philadelphia Story. I guess some WB network executive nixed a pre-1987 pop-culture reference, and I can't say that executive was unwise to do so. The camera pulls back to reveal that Joey is now sitting on the bed alone. She notices Dawson's having slipped away, and instead of basking in the blissful silence and increased air space (from what was formerly taken up by his head), she starts calling out for him, asking where he went and telling him he's not scaring her. Of course, as soon as she leans over the side of the bed, he slides out from underneath wearing a Jason mask, and after gasping, she hops off the bed and starts wrestling with him some more. Joey, please get a hobby. Maybe horseback riding?
After an unusually brief establishing shot of Capeside High, we're inside, where Pacey "Bang Holiday" Witter is trying to get Dawson to tell him about his "evil plan." Dawson disingenuously claims not to know what Pacey's talking about, which conveniently allows Pacey room for exposition: Friday the 13th is apparently Dawson's favourite night of the year, and he is known for staging elaborate pranks whenever it comes around -- plus the Flashes are out of town. Dawson insists that he 's breaking with his own tradition: "No more life imitating movies for me...I'm done trying to turn my life into some exciting movie because you know what? I'll only end up getting disappointed." Wow, I sure am relieved to hear that, because it would be really tiresome if the two seasons of the show involved Dawson's making a very thinly veiled biopic titled -- I don't know, something twee like Creek Daze, or if the show's producers latched onto a movie that was a pop-culture phenomenon and did a sad, sad "homage" to it only they did it like four months after everyone else in the world was already pretty sick of that movie -- though, of course, since I'm projecting into the hypothetical future, I can't even imagine what such a movie would be, like if it would be something like the something Witch Project, or if every experience Dawson had for like the two years would have to be mediated through the lens, as it were, of the only frame of reference for life that he has -- films, generally of far higher quality not only than his fictional character could ever hope to produce, but of exponentially higher magnitudes of quality than this terrible show could ever dream of matching. Like, if any of that happened, it would make the show really boring and repetitive and painful to watch and discuss. But I'm glad that the producers are recognizing that now, with episode eleven, and plan to nip that downward trend right in the bud. What a relief!
Anyway, Dawson says that when he started seeing Jen, he built up their relationship in his mind to the level of an epic romance, when in fact, "the characters were flawed and uninspired, the love scenes were amateurish to say the least, and the ending was definitely not happy. It wasn't even tragic -- it just ended." It must be said that in this scene, Dawson's hair looks like one of those little molded-plastic wigs that you can pry off Playmobil men and women (and, of course, his looks like the woman's hairdo -- with the little points framing the face, and the ridge all around the crown the better to place the firefighter's helmet or princess's pointy hat). Pacey, like the rest of us, ignores everything Dawson just said, and reminds him that the serendipity of the Lady Killer's most recent crime, and the date -- Friday the 13th, which I'm not sure they've mentioned yet -- behoove Dawson to commemorate the day in some way. Dawson insists that he doesn't have any such thing planned, and Pacey says, "Bummer, man," and opens his locker in time for a small, illuminated, cackling corpse on a spring to pop out and practically clock him right in the face. Dawson laughs. Wing Chun coughs politely. A tumbleweed blows through her office.
In another part of the school, Jen "Lady Clairol -- no, wait, better make that Lady Nairol" Lindley rounds a corner wearing a bright cerise turtleneck that makes constructive use of her...well, breasts. They're big, she clearly knows it, so good for her, I guess. Cliff "Knoll" Elliot, wearing his Varsity jacket and being a jock -- whatever, whatever -- comes up behind her. They make the briefest small talk in history -- Jen, unloading books from her bag, even has her back to him -- and he very suddenly asks her if she wants to go out that night. "Well, that's abrupt," she observes, and then (still with her back turned) tells him that she's "kind of down on the whole dating thing after what happened last time," and he tells her that's because "the guy [she] dated wasn't any fun." As we now know, this episode was supposed to have aired before Double Date, which would have made more sense, because in the current order the last guy Jen dated was...Cliff himself. But anyway. Jen defends Dawson as "the most original and imaginative date on the planet." Joey walks in behind them and starts totally eavesdropping on their conversation, because, as I've already said, she needs a hobby. Cliff asks why, if Dawson was such a prize, Jen isn't going out with Dawson now, which Jen says is a "long story." He asks, again, about a date that night, and she hems for a minute and accepts. Joey, still watching them, pulls a pile of books out of her bags, on top of which has been placed a pretty fake-looking rubber snake. She gasps (third time this episode, folks) and flings it to the floor near Jen's feet. Cliff and Jen, both startled, jump back a little, and Jen says, "Yeah. Let me guess -- Dawson, huh?" Joey ruefully confirms that the snake can be traced to "dead Dawson," and Jen wistfully says that she admires Dawson's "sense of humour." Cliff defensively asserts, "I have humour." Dude, you need to get a refund on that ESL class you must have taken, because "have humour"? No. Jen gently says, "I -- I know." The bell rings and Cliff trips over himself getting to class. Jen fiddles with Dawson's snake. THE RUBBER TOY SNAKE.
Pacey over-ketchups his plate in the cafeteria and attempts to curl the hair of his companions, Jen and Joey, by telling spooky stories he's heard about the Lady Killer from Deputy Doug. Hey, what does Deputy Doug know from Lady Killers? Just kidding. Anyway, the LK reportedly stalks his victims (who are apparently around Joey's age, according to Pacey) with phone calls and letters before slashing their throats with a knife (no! He doesn't slash their throats with a sawed-off shotgun?) and cutting out their hearts. Joey scoffs at Pacey, who insists that the LK collects hearts, but that it hasn't been reported in the news because it's "a little morbid." Jen, without irony, says, "It's sad. I mean, the guy's really just looking for love." The hell? That is a pretty irresponsible thing for a character to say on a show aimed at young girls and women. Joey promptly shuts Jen down, fortunately: "Yeah, I'm sure that'll be his defense when they find him, Jen." Pacey corrects her: "If they find him." Dawson, overhearing the exchange from the lunch line (and standing only in Pacey's eye line) smiles, clearly hatching yet another "clever" "prank" idea. Pacey, having caught Dawson's eye, adds that since the LK attacks in hundred-mile increments, "Capeside is the likely target," and that the killer could be behind her right now. Of course, Dawson crouches down behind Joey and says "boo!" in her ear. Because that's not annoying at all. She hits out at him, but flirtatiously (of course) and tells him he's going to send her to a "rubber room." As long as it's not a rubber dress. Or just a rubber. ["Oh, hello, dinner." -- Sars] Dawson sits down at the table and invites them all to a séance at his house that he promises will blow their minds. Pacey reminds him about his resolution to stop modelling his life after movies (which, as I recall, lasted all of twelve and a half seconds), and Dawson confesses that "old habits die hard," and then trying to make his Tiny Tim voice sound menacing, adds, "and old friends die EVEN HARDER." Believe me, I'm rolling my eyes harder than you can possibly fathom, Dawson. Joey asks what he has planned, and he assures her that her heart can handle it. For some reason they all turn to look at some unseen person walking through the cafeteria in order to allow Dawson time to put a fake severed finger on Pacey's plate of french fries. Jen tells Dawson that she won't be able to make it because she'd already made plans with Cliff that night, and Dawson tightly says, "Oh, really?" Jen unwisely makes the mistake of asking Dawson whether that bothers him, and Dawson aims at "breezy" and instead hits "unconvincing" to ask her, rhetorically, why it should. An unfunny exchange follows over whether Jen should be bothered that Dawson isn't bothered, like, WHATEVER, and as Joey rolls her eyes and comments on how glad she is that no one's bothered, Pacey finally picks up the finger and throws it across the table. Joey thanks Dawson for giving her a break and Pacey admits that the finger trick was sly. Jen reaches into her lunch bag and takes out a snack-size can of worms to ask Dawson whether she gets a scare, since Dawson already scared Joey and Pacey. Dawson says he just figured Jen wasn't into "scary stuff," and she agrees that she isn't, but then trails off and tells them all to have fun, taking off. As Joey turns to watch her go, Pacey drops the finger onto her plate. Curses, a flung finger, and high-fives ensue. I'll leave it to you to piece together which players did what.
Oh God, Film class. Mr. "Not Mel Silver" Gold is talking about Alfred Hitchcock. Whatever. The bell rings and Dawson hurriedly makes his way to the door, but Cliff stops him before he can get there and asks for advice about where he should take Jen on their date. Dawson politely says he's going to "stay out of this," but Cliff presses him and asks what Jen likes; he says he wants to be imaginative and original and that Jen told Cliff that Dawson was the expert there. Dawson stretches out on the floor and exposes his belly to Cliff, purring and flexing his claws, and asks, "She said that? What exactly did she say?" Cliff asks again what Jen wants, and Dawson replies, "What does anybody want, Cliff? She wants to have a good time -- she wants to have fun." Cliff says that's too broad, since he doesn't know Jen's definition of "fun." Dawson says, "Let me think," and Cliff goads him: "We like think. Think is good." Uh, okay, Unfrozen Caveman Jock.
Jen opens her locker and unfolds a note that reads, "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE TONIGHT!!" The camera does this really lame swoon-y effect as Jen crosses her arm across her breasts and stares at the note until Cliff comes up behind her and taps her on the shoulder. She starts, and tells him he scared her, and shows him the note. He asks where she got it, and she starts to explain and then says that Dawson must have put it there. Cliff stammers, "How do you know it was Dawson?" and Jen tells him that it "reeks of Dawson" -- ooh, Brylcreem and Froot Loops. Cliff assures her that he'll protect her, and he'll see her later. She asks where they're going, and he doesn't say -- just promises it'll be unpredictable.
After an establishing shot of Grams's House of Discipline, we hear a phone ring, and cut inside to the kitchen. Jen is chopping something on the counter and stops to pick up the phone. Okay, have y'all seen Scream? Of course you have. It's the Drew Barrymore scene. (In fact, when the caller asks Jen's name, she says, "Drew Barrymore.") They do the "what's your favourite scary movie?" bit (and it must be said that Jen's hair is like one giant split end -- all dry-looking and brittle and nasty) with her assuming all the while that it's Dawson on the line even though it sounds a lot like Cliff to me. She asks if he's the Lady Killer, waiting outside to cut her heart out, and the caller says, "Maybe," and she suggests that he find a better heart, since hers is "a little dented." What? Jen's had romantic troubles in her life that have left her a little jaded? This is all news to me! The caller asks whether someone hurt Jen, and she says the dent is "completely self-inflicted," and then tells "Dawson" again to knock it off, and the caller once again asks who Dawson is. As if Dawson wouldn't do that too! GOD! Jen gets alarmed, though, and goes to the window as she asks whether he's standing outside. The caller says that would be too predictable, and that he's "far closer than that." Now Jen is really scared, and she goes back to the cutting board where she was chopping vegetables and picks up the unnecessarily large knife she was using to do it. She warns Dawson that he better not have broken into the house, and the caller says, "This Dawson sounds like a real loser." Ha! As if we needed more proof as to how much this show is built on a foundation of praise for Dawson, Jen defends Dawson to a person she now thinks may be a serial killer on the other end of her phone -- because that's important -- and says that Dawson is "a little out there, but in a good way."
Then she hears noises down the hall and goes in search of them, telling the caller that hiding in her Gramps's room is "really, really low." When she enters, no one's there (except Gramps, of course, still lying in bed), but the window's wide open, and she closes it. When she turns, something falls over, apparently knocked down by the motion of the closet door (though when she whips that open, no one's in there either). The caller says, "Whatever you do, Jennifer, don't look under the bed." "Gramps!" she squeals, and marches over to the bed -- still brandishing the enormous knife, of course, so I really hope Gramps doesn't choose this moment to rally. When she bends down to check under the bed, again, there's nothing there, but of course Gramps's hand falls down and smacks her on the back of the head (hee!). She stands back up and replaces Gramps's hand, yelling at the caller (who she's still calling "Dawson") that this isn't funny anymore. The front doorknob rattles and when she yells, "Who's there?" there's no answer. The back door whips open and Jen jogs through the kitchen to close it. On her way, a hand touches her and she turns on her heel, swiping rather carelessly with her giant knife, and barely misses -- duh -- Grams, who seems to have just returned from a trip to the grocery store. She sort of laughs at Jen's distress and says she couldn't find her front door key. Seeing the phone in Jen's non-knife-wielding hand, she asks who's on the phone. Jen yells the question into it, and the caller replies, "Soon, Jennifer -- soon." Not soon enough, if you ask me.
On the porch of the No-Fault Hacienda, Dawson tests out various locations on which to hang a small dummy in a grey suit and a noose (which looks a bit like a suicidal Mini-Me), and then, hearing Joey's footfalls, quickly chucks it behind a wicker loveseat. Joey says he's too late, and that she already saw it, and Dawson plays dumb (except for the "plays" part) and asks to what she's referring. She says she's talking about "one of [the] shady pranks" he has in store for his guests tonight, and he claims that if she's referring to his childhood fascination with fear, he's matured. She asks what, then, is behind the couch, and walks toward it, but he (flirtatiously) bodily restrains her, and they both giggle and struggle, and man, these two enjoyed way more physical contact before they kissed...but anyway, she says he hasn't fooled her, and that she knows he's conned her. He says, that being so, she should have nothing to fear. A car horn honks, and the camera cuts to Pacey, illegally driving the wood-panelled Wagoneer. Dawson tells her they have to go to the store to "cater the evening" and Joey rolls her eyes but goes anyway, because who doesn't love a trip to the grocery store? (At this point Sars is remembering taking Glark and me to her local Gristede's about a week ago, and marvelling that she was able to contain two Canadians in a space with so much comical snack food. Sars, in case you were wondering, yes, we did pick up and comment on every single item for sale. You're welcome!) ["Hey, I learned a lot about multi-national Dorito marketing." -- Sars] Joey complains that she doesn't like driving with Pacey because he's "a menace on the road." When they get to the car, Pacey makes a lot of irritating noise about his glee at getting to drive the Jeep (since, as we know, he doesn't have his driver's license yet) and Joey once again registers her objection to riding in a car driven by Pacey, but gets in anyway.
In the time it takes for them to drive from Dawson's to the store, night falls. Pacey lurches into a parking lot and, before climbing out, Dawson tells him he's the world's worst driver. Pacey asks Joey to "watch the car" while they're in the store. She asks why, and he explains that he "can't really turn it off." Turns out he boosted the car without his parents' knowledge and wouldn't be able to start it again if he turned off the engine. Joey mopes in the back seat as the lads go in to do their marketing.
Inside the store, a man and a woman are having a heated argument, the gist of which is that he claims to own her, and she disagrees, and doesn't want him to touch her. She starts shoving him, and he kind of grabs her arms to stop her. Pacey asks Dawson whether they should do something, and, predictably enough, Dawson thinks they should stay out of it because it's a "domestic squabble" and it's not like this guy is like a foot taller and a lot heavier than this woman and could flatten her if he got a notion. Oh wait. He is, and he could. Pacey continues to watch as the man picks the woman up and then, when she kicks at him, sets her down and walks away. She follows him out, demanding to know where he's going, and he doesn't answer, and she screams that he's "a puke." Oh boy, the drunk chick. My favourite televisual archetype. When it's clear that the man is gone for good, she turns back around, collects herself, and, spotting Dawson and Pacey catching flies, cheerily says, "Hi, boys." They stare some more. She peers into their baskets (THEIR SHOPPING BASKETS) and deduces that they're having a party. She asks if it's "a milk and cookies kind of a party," and Pacey drawls, "It doesn't have to be." Heh. Dawson looks alarmed. Drunk Chick can't believe that Pacey is under twenty-one, and he admits that he has another couple of weeks to go. She yells, "You want me to score you a bottle of wine?!" and Pacey glances over at the oblivious cashier and quietly accepts her offer. She takes a bottle off the shelf and sticks it in her bag. Dawson is edging himself away from the scene, and Pacey asks, "Not going to pay for that first?" "And take all the fun out of it?" Drunk Chick asks rhetorically. She leans into Pacey and whispers, "See you outside."
Ah, outside. Where Joey is still moping in the back seat. She leans forward to turn on the radio, then changes her mind and leans back to see a bland-looking, clean-cut, bespectacled white guy, about thirty, peering into her window. Okay, clearly this guy is the Lady Killer. I'm not even going to act like I didn't know how this was going to play out the first time I saw it. Joey gasps (Gasp Count: 4) and he motions for her to roll the window down. She does so (though she doesn't lower it all the way -- smart girl), and he asks her name, which she gives. He says his name is David and that he got lost on his way to Providence. Joey says that he's more than a little lost (yeah, he's not even on the right network), and he asks if she might point him in the right direction. She agrees, and turns a little in the seat to point as she directs him to the highway, and then stops when she notices that he's not writing down her directions or even looking where she's pointing, and he asks, "Was I staring? It's just that you have the most intense eyes. Has anyone ever told you that? They're really piercing."
Instead of rolling the window back up, Joey does the look-down, half-smile, and, encouraged, David tells her that he's really tired, having been on the road all day, and asks if there's a hotel around. She tells him there is, not far, and he says he doesn't know the area at all: "How about you? Do you live nearby?" At this point Dawson appears over David's shoulder and loudly asks, "What's going on?" The camera cuts to him and his ridiculous lion's-mane hairdon't as he tries to look fierce, and then back to David, who says, "No, sport, I don't." He turns back to Joey, who is FINALLY starting to get creeped out, and thanks her for his help. She wishes him good luck, and he gets back in his car. Dawson gets in the back seat beside her and (for once, rightly) chides her for talking to strangers, pointing out that he could be the Lady Killer. Joey feebly replies that he was just a guy looking for directions, but she doesn't really seem to believe herself. Dawson tells her that's the oldest trick in the book, and that serial killers are usually white guys in their twenties, and that she should be more careful: ALL TRUE, girl readers. Joey scoffs, "Whatever."
Back at the entrance to the store, Drunk Chick hands Pacey the bottle and he invites her to Dawson's séance. As she's considering it, the guy with whom she'd been fighting before materializes behind Pacey and shouts her name, which is apparently Ursula. To Pacey, she immediately replies, "I'd love to!" The man yells at her to get in the car, and Ursula asks Pacey where his car is; they both run to it, with Mr. Ursula in hot pursuit. Pacey and Ursula jump in the car; Mr. Ursula runs around the car pounding on all the windows until Pacey peels out of the parking lot. "Ursula" is a funny word to type.
Jen opens the front door at Grams's House of Discipline to Cliff, looking quite dapper. (Jen hasn't changed clothes, but instead merely hacked off the sleeves of her red turtleneck to create a short-sleeved red turtleneck.) Grams minces up behind Jen to introduce herself to "Clifford," who instantly makes a good impression by handing Grams some mail he found on the porch. Grams starts rhyming off all Cliff's desirable attributes -- football quarterback, honour-roll student, regular churchgoer. Jen tells Grams she's drooling, then steps out in time for Grams to warn Cliff to get Jen home before midnight, "or she'll turn into a pumpkin." Aw. Jen tells Cliff that Grams likes her, and says that's "not a good sign." She then notes that it's a bit chilly and makes to go in for her jacket, but Cliff tells her they're not going far -- "only about a hundred feet." Jen asks where they're going, and Cliff drops the bomb that they're going to Dawson's séance, adding, "Won't that be killer?" The camera cuts away too fast for us to see Jen making elaborate gagging noises, but I know she was.
Inside the No-Fault Hacienda, Ursula (formerly Drunk Chick) is pretty much casing the joint while all the non-drunk kids watch from the doorway. She falls for the spring-snake-in-a-can gag and laughs uproariously at it (because she's drunk), and says she loves to be scared: "My boyfriend Eddie scares the goop out of me." "Goop"? Pacey squeaks, "I can imagine!" Ursula storms toward the kitchen, saying, "I need a drink." Pacey follows, and the rest of the crowd disperses -- Dawson into the living room, followed by Jen, who thanks him for the phone call. Dawson asks, "What phone call? Oh, was I supposed to call you?" Jen says that the note in her locker was harsh, but that she knows he strives for realism. Dawson, of course, has no clue what she's talking about, but she tells him not to play dumb. He points at the fake snakes in his hands and says they're the extent of the pranks he mounts, and apologizes for not having planned anything specific for her. He walks off, and she glares after him.
In the kitchen, Ursula is checking out the Flash fridge for liquor, and, finding none, hands Pacey the wine bottle and tells him to get a corkscrew. She notes that the wine isn't cold, and will need ice, and flings open the freezer door to see a fake head with a large chunk missing. She screams. Then she touches the jagged edge of the caved-in skull and laughs and says, "It's like a fun house in here." Uh. Not here.
Dawson drags a really ugly round black plastic table in front of a pink Laura-Ashley-chintz sofa; on the table are various tools of the ostensibly macabre. Joey follows, carrying a bowl with a skull in it; Dawson asks her to go get "the séance book" from the closet, so she hands the bowl to Jen, who then hands it to Cliff and follows Joey out of the room. As Dawson sets up (plugging in the table, which has a ring of lights around its perimeter), Cliff thanks him for having him and Jen over, since the most original first date possible is to take a girl to her ex-boyfriend's house. Cliff, I know "original" and "odious" kind of sound alike, but they really don't mean the same thing. Cliff goes on to say that he thinks Jen is warming up to him, and Dawson tightly says, "Congratulations!"
In the hall, Jen comments to Joey about how weird it is that she's ended up at Dawson's, and asks whose idea it was. Joey gives the obvious answer: "Cliff's?" Jen says Cliff isn't that inventive, and that her being there has to be "the work of Dawson." Joey wearily says, "Ya think?" and opens the closet door to allow a Crypt-Keeper-looking thing to fall out on them. They scream. This is really, really getting tiresome.
Everyone sits around the fugly "mood" table. Ursula commandeers the séance book and reads, in a trance-y voice, "Spirits, are you with us?" Pacey mocks her tone, and the event as a whole, and Cliff very seriously asks, "Ursula, are you, like, a spirit goddess?" What is "a spirit goddess"? She says that she channels from time to time, and has "a couple of sister spirits" that "occupy [her] body occasionally." Dawson asks, "Dionne and LaToya?" which was kind of funny. Ursula makes a grapefruit face. Pacey suggests that they channel the victim of the Lady Killer, since it might help the police identify him and they'd get the reward money. You'll have to take my word on this, but Scott "Cliff" Foley lit from beneath is a scary thing. Dawson repeats Pacey's lunchtime news about the way the Lady Killer stalks his victims, and says it's how he got the girl in North Carolina: He sent her notes and then followed her home from school one day, and peeked in her window, and then called her, pretending to be someone else. Jen and Joey don't seem to like the direction the séance has taken. Cliff says, "That's creepy," and asks Jen, "You got a call, didn't you?" Jen dismissively says that it was Dawson who called her, and he swears he didn't. Joey tells Dawson to finish the story. He says that the LK figured out a time NC Girl wouldn't be home (and interrupts himself to say that NC Girl lived in a town where people didn't lock their doors), and then cut off her electricity, disconnected her phone, and strolled right in the house when she was sleeping and "cut out her heart in one clean sweep." I don't actually think that's physiologically possible. Everyone recoils. Dawson says that he uses a scalpel, so the cops think he may be a doctor. Even so, to get to the heart you need like a bone saw. I watch ER! Ursula rhetorically asks what makes that story so scary, and Jen says it's the fact that it's true, duh. Cliff yells, "I've got a story! It's true, too." Cliff may be on the honour roll and stuff, but he has really weak social skills. He tells the urban legend about the baby in his car seat with the snake down his throat that, when it's yanked out, brings all the baby's guts with it. Everyone recoils some more, and Jen says, "That's not scary, that's disgusting....Poor baby." Jen, I JUST SAID it was an urban legend, for Christ's sake. Cliff looks chastened. Ursula says, "I have a scary story." Of course, because Ursula is a scary story, the story she tells is...all about herself -- or rather, about a boy who picks up a woman in a convenience store and takes her home with him, without knowing that she's crazy and carries a big knife in her purse, because sometimes she likes to slice open throats and "see how far the blood will spurt." Oh, WHATEVER! She turns to Pacey, who laughs weakly. Then we cut to UrsulaCam, as the other five lean in a bit closer to stare at her until, of course, the lights go out and everyone screams.
After the break, Ursula is freaking out; everyone else is blaming the blackout on Dawson, who refuses to take credit for it. Jen gets up to call the electrical company, but when she picks up the phone, there's no dial tone. Pacey suggests that it may be the work of the Lady Killer, and Joey says, "Maybe it's Doofus Dawson." Pacey says that the joke is getting old, and that he's getting "spooked." Joey asks whether the doors are locked, and Cliff agrees that they should check them. Dawson dispatches Joey and Pacey to check the front door, and Jen and Cliff to get some flashlights (heh) from the closet upstairs. He gets up to go, and Ursula, left alone at the fugly table, asks where he's going. He says he's going to check the fuse box outside, but that she can stay where she is. She announces that she's going with him; he looks frightened at the prospect, as he should be.
At the front door, Pacey tells Joey that Dawson has succeeded in scaring her, which she denies. He insists that Dawson's orchestrated everything that's happened so far, and that "there's no psychopath in this house." Joey replies, "Yes there is -- and you brought her!" Point to Potter. She asks whether he's forgotten what happened with TaMAHra, and says that this could end up even worse: "Your bizarre mother complex is going to get us all killed!" Pacey says he thinks Ursula's sexy; Joey says he has terrible taste in women. Pacey mock-moans, "Ohhh, coming from you, that really hurts." She asks what that's supposed to mean, and of course he tells Joey that her taste in men is going to send her to her grave pining for her best friend, who is oblivious that she loves him. They hear a noise upstairs. Pacey asks, "Should we check it out?" "Yeah, go for it," Joey replies, trying to be nonchalant, but making a frightened face as soon as Pacey turns his back. They very slowly mince up the stairs, and stepping on one apparently trips a wire that releases a very large, swinging axe. Oh, where would Dawson find a prop like that? And how would he possibly rig it so no one could see it? AS IF.
Upstairs, Jen is alone, quietly calling Cliff's name; of course he jumps out of a doorway at her. See how banal it all is? She scolds him for scaring her, and then says she thought he was "that psycho woman." Cliff says, "She's a trip, isn't she?" and Jen stops him and says, "I think we're being set up," listing off all the likely items that could come flying out at them when they open the closet door. Cliff opens the closet door and nothing happens; he gropes for a couple of flashlights and they shine them inside the closet, not spotting anything at first, but then locating a mirror, across which is written, in some kind of red goo, "YOU'RE GONNA DIE TONIGHT." Jen's voice rises an octave and she whines that Dawson's been doing this kind of thing to her all day. Cliff asks how she knows it was Dawson. Jen asks who else it could be. Cliff offers the possibility that there really is a psychopath following her around, trying to kill her. Because that's what girls like to hear.
By the faint glow afforded by a lighter, Dawson tinkers with the fusebox. Ursula comments that it's cold out, and hands him the lighter. He watches as she fishes around in her bag; she catches him watching and plays it up, eventually producing a scarf, which she winds around her neck, asking, "What'd you think -- I was going to pull a knife on you?" Dawson laughs a little too hard and says, "Of course not." Ursula says, "I don't stab people. I take a pistol and I shoot 'em in the head." Dawson's face falls again, and she laughs like your fun aunt and says, "I'm just playing with you, sweetie!" He says she's a good actress. She says it's funny he should say that, because for a while she thought she might become an actress, but then she met Eddie. Suddenly we cut to the vantage point of someone outside -- someone who needs to get more exercise, because he or she is breathing very heavily -- watching as Dawson tinkers and Ursula looks on. Back inside, Dawson asks if she means the guy from the parking lot, and she says she does, and that "he's a lunatic, that guy. He's been in the pen." Dawson asks, "For what?" She says it was for assault and battery -- that he jammed a guy's head into a wall with enough force that the guy's eyeball was hanging out of its socket. She concludes by saying that Eddie is a monster, but he's her monster. Again, really responsible message to send to young female viewers who may just be on the cusp of dating. Ursula and Dawson agree that "love is a really complicated bitch." Ursula says she knew Dawson had to have "an issue," and that he recently broke up with a girl who's inside -- that she (Ursula) "felt the emotion," and that the girl loves Dawson back. Dawson scoffs, "What do you know about it?" and Ursula says she knows the girl wants Dawson, and that since Dawson's been scaring her all night, it's obvious he wants the girl back. Dawson says, "I haven't scared her once tonight -- I've been scaring Joey." Ursula says, "Yeah, the brunette -- cute. Feisty. The two of you will work out." Dawson tells Ursula that Jen, and not Joey, is his ex-girlfriend. Ursula says that therein lies his problem: "You're dating the wrong girl." Dawson starts to launch into an explanation of his and Joey's "intense friendship," but since this is already plenty long and getting longer and since we all know it intimately by now ANYWAY, I will skip it. Ursula has no response to Dawson's explanation, so he turns his attention back to the fuse box and complains that he'd set the timer to go off at 11 PM, so he doesn't know why it's off now. Ursula divines that the blackout was, in fact, a stunt, and Dawson admits that it was, but that since he last looked at the fuse box it appears as if someone's "come along and jammed it." They hear a noise, so we cut back outside to the Watcher in the Non-Woods, for no particular reason, and Dawson suggests rather urgently that they go back inside the house.
Dawson and Ursula come in the back door and find Jen, Pacey, and Cliff huddled together with their backs to the wall, all doing a convincing job of looking really scared. They ask where Dawson was; he tells them and asks where Joey was, and Jen says Joey went to look for Dawson. Alone? Muy macho, Pacey and Cliff. Dawson takes one of the flashlights out of Cliff's hand and goes in search of her, calling out her name. He stops alongside a closet door when he hears a thud; when he opens it, Joey falls out on her back, with red something all over her neck and a startled expression on her face. Before he can react, he hears footsteps and turns to see what appears, to the audience (who only sees it in silhouette) to be a large figure holding something pointy. Dawson screams effeminately. Wing Chun giggles nearly as effeminately.
After the break, Dawson's still screaming, but not for long, as the figure holding the knife turns out to be Jen in a black cloak and skull mask. She and Joey laugh at Dawson (as do we all, of course), and of course he gets disproportionately angry and huffs, "That was lame. That was really lame." Joey needles him for being able to dish it out but not take it, and he claims, "The level of scare here is different. I gave you rubber snakes, not Joey dead." Joey -- being Joey Classic -- rolls her eyes and sarcastically says, "Boo hoo," adding that it was Jen's idea, and a good one. Dawson is surprised that Jen is the mastermind, and she says that his notes and phone calls were just as real and scary, if not more so. Dawson insists. Again. That he neither called Jen nor sent her any notes. She asks, "Are you serious?" and he throws up his hands and goes wee-wee-wee all the way upstairs to pout some more. Jen watches him go, getting scared. Again.
In his room, Dawson rummages through his drawers. THE DRAWERS OF HIS DESK. Jen comes up behind him and demands that he look her in the eye and swear he wasn't the phone caller and note sender. OH MY GOD NO HE WASN'T which is pretty much what he says, too. She asks, then, who did, and he says, "I don't know. The Lady Killer?" She asks why he didn't try to scare her. Have they not had this conversation already, too? He reminds her that she broke up with him, and made it clear that she wants nothing to do with him, so, yes, he "kind of crossed [her] off the list." She looks cross. I can't believe how bent out of shape she's getting over something so dumb. She asks why he invited her and Cliff over, and he says, more quietly, "I don't know. [To] help Cliff out?" She cocks her head. He guesses again that it may have been an attempt to get over her. "Or watch over me?" she offers. He puts his hand on her cheek in what is probably meant to be a tender gesture, but it looks more like she's a honeydew melon and he's trying to determine how fresh she is. He tells her he doesn't like "the way things are," and she -- God -- melts and moves in for a kiss that seriously comes within a hair's breadth of happening, and then they both move away from each other, simultaneously saying it wouldn't be a good idea if they went through with it. She says she should go, buts adds that whatever the two of them may be going through, she doesn't want him crossing her off any more of his lists. He agrees, and she leaves. He goes back to rifling through his desk.
Pacey stands in the porch outside the front door with Ursula. He asks her if she's scared, and she drily replies, "I am peeing in my pants." Heh. Dammit, she went and grew on me! She takes a few steps forward and we're back to StalkerCam. Back on...Cam, Pacey is telling her that he may look young, but that he's been with older women before. Before she can answer, they hear a noise, and then there's Eddie, apparently the stalker of StalkerCam, breaking RIGHT THROUGH the screen porch door and calling her a bitch. Ursula seizes Pacey and pushes him over, partly to fight for her honour (I assume, by the way she exhorts Pacey to "get him!"), and partly as a human shield, and he backs away as Eddie yells some more, and just then Cliff flings open the door to the house and conversationally asks if either of them has seen Jen, and Ursula and Pacey hurl themselves inside and lean against the door. Outside, Eddie pounds on the door and yells that he's going to kill them both. Ursula yells back, "Promises, promises! Pacey'll tear you apart! He's my new man and he'll protect me!" Pacey insinuates his face between hers and the door and silently shakes his head and puts his hand over her mouth, which was kind of funny. Dawson and Joey tear downstairs and ask what's happening, and Pacey quietly explains. Ursula -- who may have grown on me before, but has since shrivelled up and fallen right off -- yells at Eddie that she's going to call the police, and he yells back that she won't, and Pacey keeps trying to shush her, and Dawson reminds her that he disconnected the phone line out back. Joey makes a "way to go, loser" face, and then the glass on the door breaks. Cliff, Ursula, and Pacey all spring away from the door, and everyone watches in horror as Eddie's hand reaches in and starts trying the knob. Ursula says that he's lost it (ya think?) and that she's getting out of there. Outside, Eddie grunts in a frustrated manner and his shadow disappears. Dawson deduces that he's trying to find another way in, and Cliff says, "Lock the doors!" They all split up to lock the windows and doors; everywhere the camera goes, there's Eddie outside, growling and menacing. As Dawson closes a chain lock, they hear noises outside; what sounded at first like Eddie climbing the walls turns out to be his climbing the ladder into Dawson's room. Dawson tells Pacey to go to Jen's and call Doug.
The camera cuts outside to the ladder, with no one on it.
In the Sanctum Dawsonorum, there's no sign of an intruder, but the window's open, and Cliff announces, "He's in." They all run out.
Downstairs, Pacey unlocks the front door, and, of course, there's Eddie, plunging inside, seizing Pacey by the throat, and demanding to know whether Pacey's trying to steal his woman. Pacey tries to tell Eddie he isn't, but Eddie's sort of choking the life out of him and can't quite get the air to form the words. Eddie says, "Say goodbye," and then Joey appears behind him and clocks him in the back of the head with -- are you ready for this? -- a skillet. Because Eddie is not, in fact, a cartoon, this doesn't knock him out, but only annoys him enough to let go of Pacey and turn on Joey, telling her, "You're dead." She swings again, this time catching him square on the side of the head and knocking him to the floor. She then sits down on his back and starts pounding on him until Ursula comes running down the stairs and pulls Joey off him. Ursula turns Eddie over and croons that she's going to take him home, and he apologizes, and the gang all look on. Eddie says he loves Ursula, and she says she loves him too, and is going to get them the hell out of there: "These kids are weird." She offhandedly apologizes for the damage, but magnanimously tells them that she works in the bowling alley in Daleman, and that if they come down, she'll give them a discount on their shoes. The weird kids watch them go, nonplussed. Pacey, that's the last time you get to bring home a stray.
Girls and boys: If you are in a relationship with a person who gets that jealous and violent when you don't do what he or she wants you to do, you need to get out of that relationship, because the chances are very good that violence like that will eventually be directed at you. There's nothing cute or funny or romantic or urbanely Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-ish about it, and every single thing Eddie did in this episode -- from making death threats to assaulting people to breaking and entering -- is a crime for which, if you were Ursula, you'd have cause to get a restraining order against him.
As Cliff walks Jen home, she comments that the evening was a complete nightmare. He says he thought she liked to be scared, and she decisively says, "Wrong. There is nothing I like less." He asks, "Are you sure?" because apparently that isn't what Dawson said. She asks what he meant, and Cliff says he thinks she's great, and she diffidently says she thinks he's great too, and he says, "No, you don't." Jen insists that she does, and he says, "I just kinda got the feeling that you liked Dawson because he's so creative, and maybe you think I'm too stiff or unimaginative or not unique enough." Jen assures him that he's wrong on all counts, and he says he went to Dawson to ask his advice, and that Dawson told him that Jen liked to be scared, and that if Cliff could get her all worked up, she'd be impressed. Naturally Jen is horrified at the realization that he, and not Dawson, was the one who pretended to stalk her, and that Dawson was the one who put him up to it -- but Cliff corrects her, and says that he came up with the stalking scheme all on his own. Jen quavers that she's "not really in the market for a boyfriend right now," but that if she were she'd want Cliff to be himself, and "not some Dawson knockoff." Cliff admits that it was stupid of him to try to be original by copying someone else.
Then there's a pretty pointless shot of Pacey cagily sidling up to the borrowed Jeep, and speeding off. What?
At Jen's door, Cliff asks if he could give her a goodnight kiss, and before she can answer, he leans in and plants one on her, but of course he gets interrupted by Grams's opening the door. Jen and Grams apologize to each other, but Grams is happy to see Jen snogging a churchgoer, and tells them to take their time. As the door closes, Jen observes that her Grams has the hots for Cliff, who says he kind of has a crush on someone else. Jen dismissively pets his arm and then pecks him on the lips and goes inside.
Inside, Grams is sitting at the kitchen table. When Jen stops to wish her a good night, Grams says that she likes Cliff: "Good stock." Jen agrees that he's very nice, and says she's going to bed, but Grams stops her to says she has some mail. Jen takes the envelope from her and opens it on the way to her room; there's a snapping sound, and then the camera shows a note simply reading "Happy Friday the 13th" and signed "Dawson." Grams asks what the note was, and Jen replaces the spring and says it was for Grams, handing it back. The camera cuts outside as Grams opens the envelope and yelps. Okay, that was kind of funny too.
Back in the Sanctum Dawsonorum, Dawson is holding the Crypt Keeper in front of his face and gloating at how badly he scared Joey with it. Joey says she scared him worse, and that the look on his face when she fell out of the closet made her think, for a second, that he'd be sad if she died. What a bizarre thing to say! They've been friends all their lives! Of course he'd be sad, God! I mean, I know at this point Joey has an inferiority complex and thinks Dawson's still hung up on Jen (mostly because he is), but no person would really think that just because of a friend's relationship with someone else, that the complete loss of a friend wouldn't be a mournful event. Geez. Dawson tells her she's being ridiculous, and that he'd be inconsolable if she died -- that if she died, he doesn't know what he'd do, and that it's the worst possible thing he could imagine. Joey smiles her stroke-victim smile at this really, really weird reassurance. He asks, "What about me? Would you shed any tears if I died?" Joey can't even verbalize, and simply nods. He asks if she's sleeping over, and she asks, "Do you mind?" since all the mayhem has her spooked. He says that it was fun, and she reminds him that Friday the 13th is over, so he should knock it off with the scares, already, and let them go to sleep and pretend the world's a safe and happy place. He agrees. She pulls back the comforter and sees a large collection of plastic bugs on the sheet, which she pronounces "cute." They climb into bed like an old married couple and Dawson turns on the TV to the same local-news-looking anchorman shown earlier; he's saying that the police have arrested a man believed to be the Lady Killer. Of course, they show a photo, and of course it's the guy who asked Joey for directions earlier. Predictable, thy name is Williamson.