We all saw the promo, right? Dawson and Gretchen smooching, followed by Joey sobbing into her hand, right? And we all know that that had nothing to do with anything on the actual show, and that the editor of the promo pretty much hacked up the episode into seven-second bits, tossed them up in the air, picked random pieces up off of the floor, and cobbled them together -- right? Because we've watched a TV show before, and we can spot this sort of amateurish manipulation on the part of the WB, right?
Right. On we go, then.
Previously on the Creek: Dawson discovered Mr. Brooks's yearbook and found that the two of them share a love of film, but Mr. Brooks colored himself unimpressed with this epiphany; Jen bitched at Drue for trying to capitalize on The E-Tarts Incident; Grams expressed her disappointment with Jen; Pacey and Joey noted that Dawson and Gretchen had become "going-out-together buddies"; Gretchen thanked Dawson for making her "transition" from college "a lot more enjoyable than [she] ever thought it could be," leading me to believe that she equated the return to her hometown to a raging case of dysentery or something, becauseDawson? "Enjoyable"?
Pan along the porch of Reconciliation Ranch and up to the window of the Sanctum Dawsonorum. "Scary" "music" plays. Inside, we see Dawson "Bad Hair-y Truman" Leery sitting against the foot of his bed. Gretchen "Laugh Lines -- Except For The 'Laugh' Part" Witter -- non-cleverly non-hidden behind the panel of a bookcase for the first few frames, so that members of the viewing audience born yesterday might think she's actually Joey -- lolls on the bed. On the TV, a black-and-white movie plays. Cut to a full-face shot of Dawson and Gretchen, Dawson absorbed in the film, Gretchen arching a skeptical brow in Dawson's direction. The film ends with a woman screaming hysterically over a man's dead body in the rain, and the end credits inform us, "Directed by A.I. Brooks." Dawson clicks off the set and sighs, "Wow." Gretchen asks if he means "wow, great movie," or "wow, that sucked." Except, of course, she takes about a hundred and twelve more words than that to say it. Dawson confesses that he "wanted to hate it," really, but he can't: "This is theheartbreaking work of a staggering genius." Somewhere in Brooklyn, Dave Eggers clutches his head, drops dead, and begins spinning in his grave like a rotisserie spit. Gretchen waxes doubtful about Turn Away, My Sweet, saying she only saw a formula gangster movie and she's "still picking the pulp" out of her teeth; Dawson admits that the movie is pulpy and formulaic, but argues that it has a "thumping heart," and he mangles the pronunciation of "Sturm und Drang" before calling the film "a love story masquerading as a genre piece." Symbolism comes in and tells me it's a friend of Foreshadowing's and can it use my bathroom as Gretchen points out that the girl hired the guy to kill her.
Dawson reminds Gretchen in turn that the girl fell in love with the guy even though she'd given up on love, and then he couldn't kill her because he loved her too, and Symbolism yells all echoey off the bathroom tile, "Everything okay out there?" and I yell back, "Yep, don't get up, I GET IT," and Gretchen sniffs that "Tarantino does this stuff a lot better, and in color." Do the writers draw these pop-culture references out of a hat or what? Tarantino doesn't "do this stuff" at all, much less "better" than A.I. Brooks. Scorsese is the reference they want here, but I suppose it's too much to ask the writers to yank their thumbs out of their butts for five fucking minutes and think a reference through, when they probably think Raging Bull is a fucking Playstation game. Jesus.
ANYway. Dawson says smugly that Gretchen's Tarantino reference "completely prov[es] his point even more [sic]" -- huh? -- because "A.I. Brooks was way ahead of his time." Gretchen says all buck-up-little-camper that she likes Dawson "like this," all worked up about the film, and Dawson rolls his eyes and wonders aloud why Brooks quit making movies, and Gretchen says she could ask Dawson the same thing. She rambles on about how, when she left for college, Dawson had moviemaking on the brain, and now "film is like this unfinished project you've sort of stuffed in your closet." She goes on to say in her best Behind The Music-announcer voice, "Which begs the question [AGH!], whatever happened to the talented young filmmaker Dawson Leery? Why did he stop, and where is he now?" During the requisite tertiary-character ego massage, Dawson looks pensive; then he laughs with that off-putting oh-you-have-to-say-that-but-I-still-know-it's-true face he wears whenever he hears praise of himself.
Oh, God. I've only gotten up to the credits? Sigh. Credits. Cat in dunk tank.
And while the commercials roll, let me take a moment to refer you all to A Dictionary Of Modern American Usage, written in fine acerbic style by Bryan A. Garner. It makes a great Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice gift for the grammarian in your life. Here's what Garner has to say on "begging the question":
Begging the question does not mean "evading the issue" or "inviting the obvious questions," as some mistakenly believe. The proper meaning of begging the question is "basing a conclusion on an assumption that is as much in need of proof or demonstration as the conclusion itself." The formal name for this logical fallacy is petitio principii. Following [is a] classic example"Reasonable people are those who think and reason intelligently." (This statement begs the question, "What does it mean to think and reason intelligently?") [Boldface and italics Garner's; you can find the entry on pp. 77-78.]“ Or maybe the writers don't have the faintest understanding of the difference between 'cunningly self-aware' and 'fucking rude.' Either way -- shut up, Dawson. ”
Yacht Club. Non-Liz Non-Claiborne snipes at Joey "Ivy Beleaguer" Potter that she's not paying her to study for her GED. Joey snipes back that she's early, so she can spend the time before her shift starts as she likes, and why can't NLNC keep in mind that Joey and Drue go to the same school? NLNC simpers that she'd rather forget; she adds that she saw Bessie at the drugstore that day, but she gets Bessie's name wrong and throws in an Abby Morgan-esque comment about Bessie obviously not buying contraceptives, like, stow it, NLNC. Joey sneers, "It's Bessie." NLNC doesn't care. A middle-aged man approaches and asks NLNC if everything is ready for Saturday night, and NLNC oozes yes, of course, "fully stocked and fully staffed," just about to tell "little Joey Potter here" that she has to work Saturday, fishcakes. Joey starts to object, but NLNC cuts her off to exposition that Mr. Kubelik is hosting a "networking party" for promising applicants to Worthington, and Joey had better show up to "wait on them." After much unamusing blather, Joey finally makes it clear to NLNC that she'll attend the party "as a guest." NLNC cackles in disbelief all Cruella DeVille until Mr. Kubelik asks, "Wait -- you're Josephine Potter?" He compliments Joey on her essay, tells NLNC that Joey's "one of our most promising applicants," and instructs NLNC to give Joey the night off and seat her at his table. NLNC tries to cover for her earlier bitchitude, yammering that she doesn't know who she'll get to replace Joey since "she's such a shining member of our wait staff," and Joey suggests Drue. NLNC smiles coldly.
International House Of Fishcakes. Dawson hunches over a laptop, his greasy hair shaped into a perfect sphere. In the background of the shot, Mitch "The Flash" Leery and Gale "A Womb Of One's Own" Leery hang Christmas lights. Dawson announces that, at that "historic moment," he's finishing up the last of his college applications -- namely, the essay for USC film school. "Congratulations, honey," Gale says, with a barely-suppressed eye-roll in her voice, and tells him that now he can relieve his pregnant mother of her light-stringing duties. Gale then makes a big show of clutching her aching back and arching it so that we can see the pregnancy pad under her little red maternity jumper. Apparently, her gestation has sped up to double time or something. Gretchen blathers something effusive about the "annual Leery holiday party," and Gale and The Flash exchange a significant look and don't answer, and Gretchen asks if she said "something wildly inappropriate," and Gale stammers, and The Flash demurs that "we haven't done that in a while." Look, Gretchen presumably knows the whole divorce backstory; why not just say that you haven't thrown the holiday party for a couple of years and leave it at that? Oh, right, because then Dawson wouldn't get to pipe up with yet another snotty, entitled comment about his parents' marital woes, to wit: "Let me decode. We haven't had a Christmas party the past couple of years because Mr. and Mrs. Leery have been busy riding the roller coaster otherwise known as their relationship." Do Gale and The Flash tell Dawson to hold it down, since there's a restaurant full of workers within earshot? No. Do they tell him to lose the judgmental attitude? No. Do they point out that his own relationships haven't exactly held to an even keel? No. Gale and The Flash actually look chastened and make "aw, he's right" faces. Maybe they've given up, figuring that it's too late to change Dawson's view of himself as the sun of Capeside's solar system. Or maybe the writers don't have the faintest understanding of the difference between "cunningly self-aware" and "fucking rude." Either way -- shut up, Dawson.