When Mighty Big TV wasn't even a glint in the milkman's eye, Sars and Wing Chun launched dawsonswrap.com, and traded off recapping Dawson's Creek on alternate weeks. When the lovely Liz (not the same Liz from the official site, as far as we know) sent tapes of the first season, Sars recapped one tape, and Wing Chun recapped the other. Season Three came and went, with both chicas alternating episodes of Dawson's Creek and ER, and all was well until 'round about late March, when Wing Chun hesitantly told Sars -- flying in the face of a two-year-old tradition, mind you -- "I don't want to recap Dawson's Creek anymore, because I can barely stand to watch the show once through, much less many, many times, as recapping it requires. Please don't be mad." And Sars said, "I'd been waiting for the right time to tell you that I don't want to cover ER anymore, because the sixteen-page recaps are giving me tendonitis." "Well, that's handy," said Wing Chun. "But maybe we can trade back -- like, for sweeps and such," Sars suggested. Since sweeps were so far off, Wing Chun agreed.
Fast-forward to about a week and a half ago.
Wing Chun: Hey, do you want to trade shows for sweeps, like we'd talked about doing?Repeat this conversation every other day from then until...well, two minutes before the latest episode of Dawson's Creek aired, and you should have an idea how conflicted we were to haul ourselves out of our sole-show-recapping grooves. So you all better appreciate it, bitches!
Sars: Uh. I guess.
Wing Chun: Do you not? Because I --
Sars: No, it's fine.
Wing Chun: Are you sure?
Sars: No. But let's do it anyway.
Just kidding.
But, not really kidding, at all.
God, what have I done?
Previously on Dawson's Creek: Sars was woman enough to recap the whole season, to date, all by herself. I love her recaps -- which are better than ever, and a million times better than mine ever were -- and I love not recapping this scrapy-ass show even more. Oh, wait. That was "previously on Mighty Big TV." On Dawson's Crack, Andie stole Jen's Ecstasy and keeled over at a "rave"; Jack bitched at Jen; Drue told Jen that her Capeside friends would never see her as anything but the "bad girl" and that, therefore, she and Drue "need each other"; Jen pretty much told Drue to get bent.
At Capeside High, "Shoeless (and Spineless)" Joey Potter sits in the office of the way-too-perky-and-glib guidance counselorette. Katie Holmes does her best to portray Joey's stress and anxiety by raking her hands through her hair a bunch of times, but I'm not convinced. GC makes a bunch of tired "deer/headlight" jokes about Joey's college-application anxiety and tells her, basically, that she shouldn't worry, and that her applications are all in order, except that for Williams College. Hold up. Joey's applied to the alma mater of Wendy "A Return to Modesty" Shalit? Please, please let her get accepted there, and let her trade her strappy tank tops (on Cape Cod. In November) for the full-length skirts and high-necked collars that Wendy insists we women should wear so as not to inflame the indiscriminate and ungovernable passions of men. (By the way, that book sucked ass, and Williams should be ashamed of having produced such a lazy thinker. But I digress. I know it's hard to believe.) Anyway, this plot line is so utterly predictable, at each stage of its "progress" (and I use the word very loosely) that I'm going to give it the short shrift it deserves. GC tells Joey that she needs to solicit a peer recommendation from "the person who knows [her] best." Joey looks distant and conflicted. Who, who will she ask? Duh, it'll be Dawson, and he'll be all snitty when she asks, and she won't tell Pacey, and he'll be snitty that she didn't tell him, and then Dawson will have an epiphany and realize that he has no choice but to write the recommendation, and Pacey will realize for the fiftieth time this season that Joey really, honestly, loves Pacey as a man, and Dawson as a friend, blah blah blah blah BLAH.
You know that Levi's ad with the dude walking through the woods in those (rather smurfy) baby-blue cords? Sars mentioned it last week. If you watch it with the captions on, it transcribes the sound the guy's cords make: "vvt, vvt." That just strikes me as terribly cute.
Oh, fuck, the goddamn stupid show is back. [Sigh.] "John Wayne" Pacey Witter stops by The McPhee Institute For Cryogenic Reanimation Research to deliver Andie "Claire Arnold" McPhee's homework. He makes some good-natured crack about what a drag it is to keep bringing her assignments by, and she replies in kind that she's "not in a rush" to go back to school and be "stared at like some kind of social leper." We're to believe that "pariah" wasn't one of the SAT words Andie learned? Hey, Andie: I'll bet Jen "Pariah Carey" Lindley could tell you in graphic detail what it means. Andie is wearing a yellow-and-baby-blue-horizontal-striped tank top that makes her boobs look really, really big. Oh, and that song from Poo It Forward is playing in the background. How appropriate.
Pacey half-heartedly counters that "it won't be like that," even though it totally would, because it's a small school, and word gets around -- which is pretty much what Andie tells him, except for the "small school" part, because we have to pretend there's a reason the Capeside High exterior looks like it was originally built as a Boeing hangar. Anyway, Andie continues, "Can't you hear it? 'Ooh, there's that really smart girl who almost chem-ed herself to death inside the inflatable fun house!'" "Really smart girl"? Someone thinks awfully highly of herself. Pacey tells her that he's done stupider things than she did, last week, and lived to walk the halls. Andie chuckles, and remarks that "you guys" have been "good about" coming to visit her, but observes that each person who's come to see her has been alone, that no one has mentioned "the other night," and that, finally, they aren't all talking to each other. Pacey avoids her eye and says, "We're not the most huggy of groups right now," adding that their group of friends has "gone and fractured itself again." Andie deduces that he's referring to Jen and Jack, but Pacey clarifies that he means "everybody." Andie thinks that's ridiculous: "We all talked about this." Pacey reminds her that she's talked about it, and gave him a "two to tango speech," but that as far as he can tell, "every tango needs a lead." And every rose has its thorn. Just like every night of recapping has its dawn. And just like every Dawson's Creek recapper sings a sad, sad song. Really sad, y'all. Miserable. Pitiful, even. Suicidal, sometimes. Help me. ["Don't get me started. Oh, right. Too late." -- Sars] Andie's position is that if she's said that her collapse wasn't Jen's fault, no one should still be blaming Jen for it. Pacey stares at her impassively, and Andie throws up her hands (literally) and goes for a cordless phone, saying that she's going to get hold of Jen and "fix this." Pacey stops her: "Why, Andie?...Maybe not all friendships need to be saved. Maybe we're meant to just spend a certain part of our lives with certain people and then move on. Isn't that what this whole year's supposed to be about, anyway? Moving on?" Okay, that speech? Totally out of character for Pacey. He's just finished reminding the audience of the myriad times that he's messed shit up and been misunderstood, and yet he's writing Jen off, too? That was really more of a Dawson speech. Though if he'd been talking about Dawson...dude, I so feel you. But he wasn't, and it was weird and unbelievable. Andie tells him that they can all move on without moving away from each other; Pacey's not convinced. Commercial. Commercial! No? Dammit. We're not even at the end of the credits.
Dawson "Grease Train" Leery unscrews a roller from the end of a broomstick at Mr. Brooks's house. The man himself -- the future Mr. Sars, if I'm not very much mistaken -- ambles over and grouches that it's "about damn time." Dude! I'm usually either reading the boards or folding laundry or napping while I watch this show now, so I never noticed that Mr. Brooks is played by Harve "Wade Gustafson" Presnell from Fargo! From the Coen brothers...to this. That is sad. Wade adds that he has Dawson's damn money so Dawson had better hand over his daughter. Not. But now I'm just watching Fargo in my head. Dawson makes some cocky sarcastic remark about Mr. Brooks's heaping praise on him "for a job well done" and slides a buttery hank of hair behind his ear, and Mr. Brooks snaps, "Two things about that statement trouble me, Mr. Leery: your use of the word 'well,' and the word 'done.'" Dawson's like, "Heh...heh?" Wade tells Dawson that his paint job sucks ass, and that he's not finished. Dawson's all, "But --" and Wade's like, "Shut it, bitch." Dawson tries to backstory about the boat blah illegal blah blah life and death blah bling blah, and Wade sniffs, "Well, compared to [life and death], what's the little matter of whitewashing my fence?" Dawson's all, "Well, there's the issue of my untouched applications for higher learning." Wade is like, "Believe me, Mr. Leery -- from my observation, it isn't gonna be all that high." Hee hee! They should have just called this character Sarsman C. Wingfield and had done with it. Wade reminds Dawson that he's a "resourceful lad" -- resourceful enough to steal a boat when he needed to -- and that Dawson will find a way to repay the damages, adding, "I'm not talking about your damn word, Jerry!" Dawson is crestfallen. His hair is just...fallen. Like, fallen out. Haw. He angrily returns to the crappily painted fence.
At school, Jen opens her locker and gazes balefully down the hall. Presently Jack "Son of Angry" McPhee wanders into her eyeline. He glares at her with this weird look of...naked terror (I really don't get it); she just looks sad. Finally he presses his lips into a line and storms off in the opposite direction. Jen miserably watches him go until a pair of hands appear in front of her eyes and the voice of Drue "Shabby Morgan" Valentine asks, "Guess who?" Oops, I went and ruined the non-surprise. Jen makes this little hissing noise and shoves his hands away from her face, commenting on his "rough skin" and "questionable odour," which add up to her "least favourite person on earth." Girl, get in line. But check out the paws on Drue. They look like they could crush Jen's head like an overripe melon. Anyway, she turns around with a dark expression and he shit-eatingly grins, "No, it's me!" Fuck off, Poo, and take your wall eyes with you. She says she thought that they'd come to an understanding that he should "curl up and die," and he counters that there's "something [they] need to address" -- namely that he's been getting "the vibe" from Jen's friends that they think he's a bad influence on her, and snarks that he doesn't know what he'll do with himself if they won't "play" with him. Jen quietly says that, because of Drue, her friends aren't even speaking to her. "Not even the precious Jack?" Drue asks incredulously. Jen confirms that even he is giving her the deep freeze.
She tells Drue that it's none of his business, and starts toward class; he hangs around like...well, like the aforementioned bad smell reportedly emanating off him. He makes this feeble "business"/"pleasure" segue: "Right. Never mix business with pleasure. And nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing you and the rest of your buddies all conflicted." Yeah, that line's not laboured at all. This plot line is so laboured. At least with Abby, she and Jen had some good times -- the catty gossip behind the other kids' backs, the scheming (however misguided) to get Jen and Dawson back together, the sharing clothes, the barely concealed homoerotic undertones of Abby's attachment to Jen. With Drue? I got nothing. She hates him. She's said so in as many words -- and in other words -- and not playfully, nor, at any time, incompletely. She despises him utterly. Any real person would have just given up and moved on to pester someone else long ago. It's just stupid. Like the dialogue in this scene, which boils down to this:
Drue: Pester. Annoy. Harrass.
Jen: Fuck off and die.
Drue: Your friends suck, and I'm smarter than all of you.
Jen: No, for real, fuck off.
Drue: I never judged you, unlike your new friends.
Jen: Blah blah solace blah bling.
Drue: Just remember, Jen: that which does not kill me makes me more diabolical.
Wing Chun: WHAT?!
I take back what I said about Andie; clearly, Drue is the one with delusions of grandeur. "Diabolical"? No. "Reptilian"? Sure, particularly around the eyes. "Dull"? God, YES.
Pacey pulls up to the Witterschloss, Joey and Gretchen "Whistler's Mother" Witter are within. Gretchen -- wearing jeans so tight they're sure to aggravate her phlebitis -- breaks his balls about forgetting to pick up the groceries, and he heads out again. What a nag. And, no, I did not misspell "hag." This time. As soon as the door swings shut on his ass, Joey tells Wretchen about her Williams College peer recommendation blah blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Wretchen tells Joey in no uncertain terms that she has to ask Dawson for a recommendation, and that if Pacey has a problem with it, it's not Joey's problem.
Back at The McPhee Institute For Cryogenic Reanimation Research, Andie watches what sounds like a soap opera with Angry McSixPheetUnder. Doesn't he have a job? He watches her, pensively, and she turns the TV off. He says that he's been watching her the past week, and that he's "made a lot of mistakes with this family." She tries to disagree, but he talks over her, saying that he's talked to the principal, and that she has "more than enough credits" to graduate, and that, with her early acceptance to Harvard, all she has to do is "walk, come June." His big idea is that she should take the rest of the school year off. Okay. Doesn't she have a semester to finish, and then another one after it? I know she has her acceptance, but if she just skives off school for the rest of the year, that acceptance can be withdrawn. And while I can accept that a keener like Andie might have taken extra classes in summer school just for the hell of it, and had enough credits that she could, say, have a spare in her last semester, where I went to school there were eight credits per year, and that's a lot more than you could make up in summer school. But WHATEVER. Andie can't conceive of what she could do with the rest of the year: "Get a job?" Angry laughs and says that he was trying to think of the last time she was really happy and relaxed, and that he realized it was when she was in Florence when she was eleven, visiting her Aunt Georgia, in some market "running from cart to cart," blah blah blah clichécakes. He's already asked this aunt, who's said "she'd be delighted to have some company." Andie thinks he's nuts. Like you'd have to think about this twice. Please. I mean, if it were at all feasible or realistic, which it isn't. Oh, and he claims, "The four years are going to be even more intense than the last four -- trust me." That is patently untrue. University is way easier than high school! You can skip classes if you don't feel like going. Most of the time when you do show up, all you have to do is take notes (or pretend to). There's a lot less writing, at least in the classes I took. And unless you're planning to do graduate work -- and, really, even if you are -- you no longer have the I-have-to-do-well-to-get-to-the--stage anxiety that's always hanging over you in high school. Seriously, if you're a really diligent high-school student, university is a breeze, by comparison. Just FYI. So, while I wouldn't turn down a year in Florence, that wouldn't be at the top of my list of reasons to accept. Anyway, Angry says that this might be Andie's only chance at an opportunity like this -- which is true. He whispers at her to think about it, and pets her head into a commercial.
The song in the Gap holiday ad where the boy and girl slowly walk toward each other and then kiss -- it's nice. Anyone who knows who does it, email me.
Jack's got mail. It's from Jen. He grimaces at her very name, at which point Andie walks in. Oh, dude, Jack's hard drive is named "Jackers." I know he's gay, but really. Andie tells Jack that he can't keep avoiding Jen, and Jack grunts, "I can try," and deletes Jen's email without reading it. Andie tries to press the point, and Jack tells her that he knows what she's trying to do, but he doesn't want to have this conversation right now. He gets up and makes for the stairs, but Andie stops him by announcing, "Dad wants me to take the rest of the year off. How's that for a conversation?" Jack turns back and actually has the realistic fraternal reaction of bitterness at a sibling's greater fortune. Not that I'd know anything about that. Nope. Not when I still had a curfew when I was twenty-one (a fact my parents now deny, by the way), whereas my sister got to live on her own, in a different city from my parents (when they moved for new jobs), and drive a new Volkswagen Beetle, when she was seventeen. But I'm not bitter. (You know, I think I've probably even mentioned all of that in a recap, but I happen to feel that it bears repeating. I won't even get into the time I got grounded for knocking over a bowl of cat food and lying about it vs. the co-ed sleepover parties Toque gets to attend. WHATEVER.) Anyway, enough about me (but not really) -- Jack misunderstands and thinks that Andie will be getting "all the perks" of senior year in Capeside (uh, perks? In Capeside? Is the fresh fish on Cape Cod really such a draw?) without any of the homework, and Andie drops the bomb that she'd be in Italy. Jack sits down and, once the news has sunk in, tells her it seems like she'd just be "running away." From high school? Girl, please. "Running" isn't fast enough; get her a damn bike, at least! She asks him what he thinks she'd be running from, and he exhales, "You tell me! You've been looking forward to senior year with anticipation that often borders on frightening, and then, here it is, and you want to leave -- and you stay, and you have six months of no responsibilities, surrounded by family and friends!" Okay, she's going to Florence, not Beirut. And she's staying with "family," so, the fuck? Andie points out that her so-called "friends" can't stand to be in the same room with each other, and Jack seizes on that: "Do you really want to leave when you're the only one that everyone's still talking to?" Okay, so when you said "no responsibilities," what you really meant was "the responsibility of holding together our circle of friends, pretty much against their will, and at the expense of your own happiness." Now I think I understand. Andie marvels that he's making it sound like she has no valid reason to go. Jack gets up to leave, pouting, "I always pictured you as the girl who didn't just go to the last party of senior year -- but threw it. You'd leave and miss the end of this? All of it? That's not something I thought you'd ever do." Oh, for the love of -- look. On one hand, we have high school -- soul-crushing, repetitive, probably offering very little in the way of intellectual challenge for a student who's already been accepted to Harvard. On the other, we have months and months of sun-drenched, art-littered, lousy-with-cute-boys Florence. And she's leaning toward the latter? Yeah, get Andie a new prescription, because she's clearly lost her mind. Shut UP, Jack! Andie sadly watches him go, and he adds, "But then again, heh, I guess I've been making that mistake about a lot of people these days." Who are you, Dawson? Step off, Snotty McJudge.
At school, Jen pushes open an official-looking door with a textured-glass window; within are "Fool Me Once, Shame On" Grams Ryan, a uniformed cop, Drue's mom, and, for some reason (John Wesley Shipp was low on cashmere socks that week and needed the money?), The Flash. The Flash thanks her for "coming down," and she haltingly tells him that it was nothing. I guess the sight of the uniformed cop (whom The Flash introduces as "Officer Morris from Juvenile Correction") tips her off that something's wrong, and she asks, "What's up?" From beside her, just outside her peripheral vision, Drue pipes up, "I had to tell them. We've been naughty, naughty kids, Jen, and we need help." With a terrified expression, she asks, "Drue, what are you doing?" "What's best," he says. "I told them all about our mutual experience with Ecstasy, and how we both contributed to the delinquency of poor Andie McPhee." Okay, what the -- WHAT?! This makes no sense -- no sense at all! Why would Drue spill something like this after the damage had been done, after it was clear that Andie's family wouldn't be trying to press charges of any kind, and in a way that would not only screw Jen over -- in direct contravention of his repeated (if misguided) attempts to rekindle their friendship, or relationship, or whatever -- as well as implicate himself?! It makes no earthly sense, and no otherworldly sense, for that matter. It's just plain stupid, no matter how you look at it. ["And no high-school administrator that could tie his own shoes -- and I'll grudgingly include the Flash in this category -- would fall for Drue's line, either." -- Sars] Speaking of stupid, no matter how you look at it, The Flash invites Jen to sit down, which she does, warily explaining, "Listen. You can't believe a word that this guy says. He's --" "A victim," concludes Mrs. Valentine. "Drue had finally cleaned up his act." Jen asks whether she may tell her side before they hand down a sentence, and, from behind her, Drue sadly tells her, "It's not about punishment, Jen. It's about prevention." Jen rolls her eyes and then sputters, nervously laughing, "Are you guys actually buying this crap?" "Jennifah!" Grams says warningly. Drue ingenuously asks, "Are you saying that we don't have a past speckled with recreational drug use?" Shut up, Drue. Jen says that she doesn't have "a present" speckled with same. She tells Grams directly that Grams has to believe her, but before Grams can say anything in reply, Drue interrupts to tell Jen, "I've admitted to my part. I mean, I admit that I gave you the drugs. Somehow they got from your hands to Andie's nervous system. I mean, do I fib?" Mrs. Valentine tight-assedly points out that by "coming forward with this information," Drue has demonstrated his ability and willingness to "tackle his past indiscretions." Grams eyes Mrs. Valentine distrustfully, and The Flash deadpans that they all appreciate Drue's "forthcoming nature." Officer Extra decrees that Jen and Drue will be able to work off their crime by doing a hundred hours of community service. Jen rolls her eyes heavenward as though she'd just been told she has inoperable cancer of the crank case, and Grams excuses herself, quickly brushing past The Flash and out the door. Jen gets up and manages to choke out a "wait!" before Drue stops her at the door, suggesting that they get together later "to discuss which part of the community is most in need of servicing." Jen swallows hard and books, while he watches her go. God, that boy is ugly.
Outside, where Grams is angrily stomping off, I get a load of Jen's Secondhand-Rose-ish ensemble. The dark wine cardigan? Not bad. The brown boot-cut hip-huggers? Sure. The black tank top that leaves a band of bare midriff under the oddly ruffly brown-and-black blouse under the cardigan? No, and no. Are ruffled shirts back? Because they were all over Buffylast week, too, and I just don't like them. Anyway, Grams is clearly not in a chatty mood. Jen calls, "So, should I start packing my bags immediately, or should I wait until after dinner?" Grams looks like she's crying, or just about to, but says nothing. Jen begs Grams to listen, and says that she's "so, so
sorry," but Grams stops her and says that she doesn't want to have this conversation: "I thought we had a relationship based on honesty and truth. I will not yell. I will not punish. Scolding is for children, and, Jennifer, you are no longer a child -- I wish to God you were; maybe then there'd still be time to right whatever it is that is wrong with you!" Jen flinches, her eyes pooling with tears. Grams concludes, "I have never, in all my life, been so deeply disappointed in anything or anyone." Um. Ow. That's a long life, dude. She's old. Grams mumbles, "I don't even -- I don't even have the words." Ow! Uncle!Jen rings the bell at The McPhee Institute For Cryogenic Reanimation Research. Jack opens the door. I got your email. I never sent you any email. Oh, it must have been Andie. Well, this is awkward. Oh -- well, since I'm here...No, I don't have anything to say to you; get bent. I've apologized. Whatever. What you're doing to me now, I'd never do to anybody. [Slam] Andie's apparently overheard the whole exchange. Jack turns around to her, hands on his hips, and spits, "There. We talked. Now do you get it, Andie? Nothing you can do is ever going to fix this." Yeah, Jack. You're right. This is exactly why she should blow off Florence. P.S. Shut up.
Joey peers in the window at Reconciliation Ranch, and then runs into Dawson loading up some kind of SUV with all the painting equipment he's taking over to Wade's house. Dawson chaffs Joey mildly for not chipping in her share of work for the boat they both damaged, and then tells her to ask whatever she means to ask, since he can see she's wearing her "favour face." She busts out the peer recommendation form, and asks him to fill it out for her. He says "wow" a couple of times, and she shrugs and asks what he thinks. He asks what she thinks, and whether she thinks he's the right person for the job, and whether Pacey knows about this. She says that he doesn't, but that if Dawson agrees to fill it out, she'll tell Pacey. Blah blah favour face blah history blah nostalgia-at-age-seventeen-cakes. Dawson purses his lips and then says, "Okay." She leaves. Gee. I Wonder What Will Happen. Not. I don't care, either.
Dawson whitewashes a fence. Wow, he sure makes that shit look like fun. I wonder if he'd let me have a turn? And...oh, man. His hair. Someone get that boy a barrette. Or a Beretta. Wade calls him in for lunch so that he doesn't have to go to MACdonalds. What do you think they do there? They don't drink milkshakes, I assure you!
On his way to the porch, where Wade has set a quite lovely table, Dawson pauses to eyeball a wall full of photos. Wade gruffly calls him again, and Dawson heads in, sits down, takes a bite, and marvels at how good the food is. Not shown: Wade peeing on Dawson's plate while Dawson was out in the yard. Or maybe that was just a fantasy I had. No sooner has the compliment barely passed Dawson's lips than Wade growls, "You're not one of them." Yes, he is. Whatever you're about to say, Wade, he is. Dawson asks what he means, and Wade elaborates, "One of those teenagers who can't stand a moment of good, old-fashioned silence. If the dinner table was meant for talking, they'd call it 'the talking table.'" Dawson childishly throws his fork onto his plate, picks up his dish, and says he'll eat it outside. Wade needles him that he's demonstrating the very reason none of his friends come by to help him with the fence: "You don't finish your issues, Leery. You just take them outside. You keep doing that, you're going to end up doing a hell of a lot more than just painting alone." Don't help him. Let him fail on his own. Dawson decides that whole "respecting your elders" thing is totally 1998 and snits back at Wade about the wall full of photographs, and Wade's own solitude, which is Wade's lead-in to a sob story about his brothers' borrowing money to finance a business that failed, leaving hurt feelings all around. I wonder if it was a parking lot? $750,000 is a lot! Wade has a really nice house. The view from the porch is quite lovely, and full of books and light. Anyway, Wade concludes by saying, "As you take on years, Mr. Leery, you'll come to realize that you don't always lose people from your life by choice; sometimes it just happens when you make the wrong ones." Watching from the bushes, Joey, Pacey, and The Flash furiously take notes on how to ditch Dawson. "'Lend money...hold grudge.' It's brilliant!"
Andie, wearing another boob-intensive shirt and full make-up, is sitting on her bed writing something when Pacey comes in with more homework. She drops the Italy bomb on him. I'm bored enough to use my recapping notepad to draw a picture of a girl wearing the kind of jeans I want to look for when I'm in New York week. Pacey's initially taken aback, but sits down and calmly asks all the right questions -- first, how Jack took it. Andie says that she thought Jack would be all for it, but that he decided that she needed a guilt trip more than she needed a trip to Italy. She sums it all up thus: "My father wants what's best for my health. My brother's being selfish out of love." "And you want a tie-breaker," surmises Pacey. Andie points out that he's done it before, and has "practically made a hobby" of saving her. He protests that she saved herself, and took him along for the ride. She wonders whether Jack isn't right, and that a trip to Italy isn't running away from a rough patch. Pacey counters that it could be just what she needs. Blah. Blah. Blah. We all know how it comes out, so who really gives a shit?
In yet another guidance office at school, Jen sits stiffly on a couch, at the other end of which Drue sits leafing through a booklet of community-service jobs they could do. She quietly tells him to shut up. He claims that his reason for ratting himself out was that he felt they were growing apart, and that they should spend some quality time together. Uh. Huh. Because the way to endear yourself to Jen is to force her to see your ugly mug in a setting where she's doing something so unpleasant you can't pay people little enough to do it and it has to be done by volunteers. (I shouldn't say that. Of course, volunteer work can be richly rewarding. But not when you're seventeen and it's mandated by the court because your bitterest enemy came up with some ludicrously unrealistic scheme to throw you and himself together for a hundred hours. And -- on that tip, where did it say that they had to do their time together? Why can't Jen just volunteer somewhere she knows Drue wouldn't feel comfortable working, like...a crack-baby orphanage, or a senior-citizens' home, or a large-reptile conservancy?) Anyway, he rhapsodizes about the idea of their picking up garbage together in orange jumpsuits all Escape from Badham County until she bitterly hisses that she knows him, and that he did this to look better to everyone: "But I think that you'll find that no amount of apologizing is good enough for these people once they've made up their minds about who you are." Drue says that "these people" have no idea who he and Jen are: "That's what I've been trying to tell you. These are not your people. I am your people. And all that Capeside will ever be for you is your past." Jen worries at her lip. Shut up, Drue. No, seriously -- seriously? Shut the fuck up. You're not even worth hating; you're just a recapping roadblock.
Andie pours tea at The McPhee Institute For Cryogenic Reanimation Research as Angry arrives home from work. He remarks that she seems to be getting her colour back. She says she thinks she is, and observes that things between Jack and Angry now. Angry agrees that they are, and Andie figures that if Jack and Angry can work out their differences, Jack and Jen should, and Pacey and Dawson should, and they'll reconcile two friends, and they'll reconcile two friends, and so on, and so on...blah, just go, already.
Joey reads on her dock. Dawson steals up behind her and returns the peer-recommendation form, telling her he can't do it, and surprising no one. Though I have to say that he turns her down very gently. Joey is disappointed, but thanks him for considering it. Dawson turns to go, and sees Pacey standing behind him. Dawson flinches slightly at the sight of him, and then furrows his mighty brow (causing avalanches for those microorganisms living on it) and curtly says, "Pacey," as he barrels forward. "Dawson," replies Pacey dryly, shaking his head in a "what a tool" manner. Then he takes a breath and prepares to get on Joey's nads about talking to Dawson. She tells him about the peer recommendation: "He said no, so it's really nothing." It's the somethings you keep secret. I don't want to fight. You don't get to decide what we talk through, and were you ever going to tell me? You weren't even around this week. You're jealous of Andie? No. Blah. Bling. Snark. Snipe. [Stifle yawn] He really is the person who knows me best. When do I get to be that person? Haven't they already had this fight, like, eighty times before?
Dawson rolls up outside the International House of Fishcakes just before Joey, who observes that he's dressed pretty swankily for fishcake duty. Dawson says that he's meeting Andie for dinner, and Joey says that's what she's doing, too. Jack is the to arrive. I think we all see where this is going.
Sure enough, Pacey's waiting inside; Andie's in the bathroom. They all ask her what's up; she says that they'll see soon enough, since they're expecting one more person. Right on cue, Jen turns up; Jack -- who'd been in the process of shrugging off his jacket -- shrugs it back on and says he's not hungry. Jen counters that if anyone is to go, it should be she, and Andie tearfully tells them that neither of them is leaving: "I am." She corrals everyone to their chairs and delivers her swan-song speech -- something about it shouldn't take a scheme to get everyone to the same table, and when she made her pro and con list about Italy, the con list was topped by the thought of leaving all her friends, and they're a mess now, and the fiasco at the rave wasn't Jen's fault, and Pacey and Joey and Dawson should be grateful they have friends they've known their whole lives, and Jack and Jen need to stop fighting because Jen has to be Jack's surrogate sister when Andie's away. Everyone's crying at this point. Except me. Andie winds it up by saying that she didn't know anything about love or friendship when she arrived in Capeside, but that they all taught her a lot about both, and that maybe the consequence of her leaving will be to remind them all what love and friendship are about. Joey wipes her face with the heel of her hand. Pacey looks morose. Dawson looks...like such a wet end. He really is all soppy and cow-eyed. It's embarrassing. Finally, Andie says she hates the thought of remembering them all the way they have been the past week. Jen -- who is practically sobbing, because she wishes it were her leaving Capeside and not Andie -- gets up and hugs her. Aw. [Cough]
Joey and Pacey rendezvous outside the loo, which is occupied. Pacey adds, "And there's only room for one, which, I guess, is kind of a recurring theme these days." She starts to apologize (for what? I don't fucking know), but he stops her and apologizes first, explaining his snit by saying that Dawson's supremacy in Joey's life (or at least his perception of said supremacy) is a hot button for him. Joey pretty much says that Dawson knows her past, but her future lies with Pacey. Yeah, for the month, maybe. They kiss. They glance toward the table, where Dawson and Andie are talking animatedly. Wearily, Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You" starts up. Dude, even she has got to be sick of this song by now.
Jen storms out of the restaurant sobbing like mad. Jack follows. They make up and hug.
Joey leans over a railing so that eight miles of bare back is exposed between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her jeans. On Cape Cod. In November. Dawson strolls over and says he knew he would find her there. She mildly snarks that she thought he didn't know her anymore. He says that he never doubted how well he knew her, but that he was afraid of what would happen if he had to set it all to paper, but that if her offer still stands, he'd like to -- all together now -- write the recommendation. It's a good thing I'm sitting down right now so that the shock of this development didn't cause me to swoon, strike my head on the edge of my desk, collapsing it and giving me a concussion. However, I will be sending a bill to Sony for the cost of the socks it just blew across the room and into the skylight, where I can't reach them.
Andie and Pacey chat on the boardwalk. She starts to say that it could be the last time they see each other, but Pacey interrupts her before she can finish and begs her not to say it: "You'll be back, you know. There's prom, and there's graduation...." I think it more likely that she'll be back since her dad and her mysteriously disappeared mom live there, but then, that's what we all thought about Brenda when she went to Europe, too. She tells him there's a whole other world out there, that he said it himself. He asks whether she's going because he told her to, and she kind of shrugs, and he sighs at the responsibility for her decision. She sits down to him and tells him that he helps her to do things that she needs to do but is too afraid to do. He takes her hand and tells her that she is no longer entitled to use the word "afraid" about herself. She smiles and sucks her cheeks, trying not to cry. He tells her that they'll all miss her overwhelming optimism. Her chin starts to tremble. He asks her to leave them a little of that optimism when she leaves. They hug.
Back inside the IHOF, everyone stands around awkwardly, pretending to talk. Jack tells Andie that the only reason he told her not to go was that he was going to miss her so much, and that "the thought of not having [her] around -- of having to say goodbye --" Can't they have this conversation when he drops her off at the airport? Whatever. She tells him, "Jack, you're my brother! There are no goodbyes!" Well, again, that's what Brandon thought, and look how that turned out. They love each other. They hug. Dawson gathers everyone in front of his camera and they arrange themselves in a group shot. Andie finds herself standing between Pacey and Dawson, and slips out (as who wouldn't) to stand at the other end of the group, beside Jack, leaving Pacey and Dawson to throw their arms around each other's shoulders. I'm sorry, but, as if. Anyway. Smile. Snap. Credits.
This episode was in loving memory of David "Dead" Dukes, whose photo is on screen for exactly four seconds before being abruptly replaced by the promo for week's episode of wackiness. Fortunately, I'll be back where I belong -- among the scythes, demons, evil robot preemies, and scenery crumbling under the stress of Sally Field's many teeth marks on ER. This show is a job for...Catwoman! I mean, "Sars"!