“ Dawson tells Joey to have fun, and bring him back a tee-shirt that says, 'My Soulmate Went to Florida and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt.' Hey, what's that? Oh, it's my dinner. ”
Last week: Dawson and Pander screened Charlie Todd Has A Giant Package; Pacey told Audrey that she "moved [him]"; Jen hates Charlie but Joey likes him; and Jack began television's more boring descent into destructive alcoholism and despair.
We open with Joey perched on Dawson's bed, watching a spring break-themed movie while Dawson throws things in a duffel bag. "So, let me get this straight," she begins, eyeing the television screen. Dawson grins. "Why do I feel a quasi-feminist rant coming on?" he asks. Shout out? Joey tells Dawson to "shut up." Shout out! Then she spews some nonsense about how, in these movies, spring break is "hunting season" and "girls are the target." Dawson takes a tee-shirt out of his chest of drawers and comments that it's not like the girls "don't have a choice." Joey snips that they certainly have the option to "stay home and study," which is what she thinks she's going to do. Dawson rolls his eyes. "Just go already!" he mock-yells as her, telling her to have some fun for once, because she "deserves" it. Joey rolls her eyes and spins around on the bed to face him and pleads with him to "skip the big Hollywood meeting" and come along with them to Florida. Dawson snorts that it's so not a "big Hollywood meeting," just a sit-down with an agent in New York who's interested in his movie. Joey shakes her head and chuckles that this meeting is, in fact, "huge," and she's so totally proud. Dawson cocks a brow. "You rule, you rock, you are a golden god, now accept it!" she crows. Oh, ew. I'm actually watching Almost Famous right now, and...yeah, let's just say that it's a whole lot better than Dawson's Creek. Dawson just shakes his head and smiles and adds more cotton undergarments to his bag.
Joey watches him and slowly smiles and says that the Flash would have been really excited about this whole Meeting With a Big Hollywood Agent Thing. Dawson nods and makes bittersweet faces as the Piano of the Dead Gay Dad tinkles cheerily in the background. Joey smiles at him. "It's weird," she says, "you've had this year, this completely awful year and yet, somehow, everything worked out for the best." I'd like to live in Joey's world, where losing a parent equates "working out for the best." I'm quite sure Dawson would sacrifice having a (probably fly-by-night) agent buy him lunch in a split second if it would bring his father back. "That's one way of looking at it," he mutters, making a series of uncomfortable faces. After working through Chapter One of Smell the Fart!: Emoting for Dummies, he apologizes to Joey for treating her like crap after the Flash bought the farm. Joey shakes her head and swears that she never "held it against [him], not once." Dawson sinks down to her on the bed. Joey continues, telling Dawson that she thinks "it's better," anyway. "Do you really believe that?" Dawson asks. In other words, "How could you possibly think your life is better without the possibility, however slight, of sex with me lurking under the surface like a bloodthirsty shark?" Joey shrugs. "I spend half the time wondering what might have been, and the other half thinking, just as well." Dawson nods thoughtfully and wonders if the two of them will "ever get it right." Joey half-grins. "Not in this lifetime," she says. I hope to God she's right. "How about the one after that?" Dawson cracks. "Or the one after that, where we're both cats?" Joey asks. Dawson gives her a funny look, and they both burst into giggles. They hug and Joey wishes him good luck. He tells her to have fun, and bring him back a tee-shirt that says, "My Soulmate Went to Florida and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt." Hey, what's that? Oh, it's my dinner.
A Hundred Light Years From Home
“ Jen and Joey start chattering about yogurt and cold medication, but Jack stops them. 'I said the necessary provisions. That's beer and Jell-O.' Ah, well do I remember those days. Okay, maybe not really all that well. ”
Dawson and Pander are driving to New York, New York. Apparently, Dawson hasn't spoken in the past ninety minutes, and Pander'd like to know what's on his mind. "Or, shall I say, who?" he asks. Dawson hems and haws that he wasn't thinking about anyone. Or anything. Pander tells Dawson that if he doesn't spill, Pander will have to sing. "Be my guest," Dawson chuckles. And Pander launches into a rather humorous Elvis imitation, to which Dawson very quickly puts a stop. "Joey!" he says. "Don't ever do that again, please." Pander grins and announces that he wants "the story on that one." Dawson rolls his eyes and says it's "a long one." Pander raises a brow. "Does it look like I'm going anywhere, sport?" Dawson purses his lips and steers violently. "All right," he says. "Stop me if you get confused." And this cues a long series of sepia-toned flashbacks. I'd get more detailed, but you know the story: Dawson used to have really unspeakably bad almost mullet-like hair, Joey loved him for some reason, and then they started doing a lot of yelling and hair flinging and crying horrible tears of angst.
Fade to Joey reading a book on the beach in Florida, all covered up and studious in the midst of mostly naked co-eds. Because the mere suggestion of the pleasures of the flesh offends her saintly and delicate sensibilities. Audrey waves at her sanctimonious roommate from the balcony of a nearby beach house, and is shortly thereafter swept off her feet -- literally -- by Pacey, who carries her into a bedroom and tosses her onto the bed. Pacey kisses her and exposits that this is her parents' beach house. "Do your parents even know who I am?" he wonders. "And why would Southern Californians have a beach house all the way in Florida, when Malibu is so close?" Audrey sucks his face and murmurs that they don't know about him, and that the place is in Florida because, later, when Dawson gets a bee in his bonnet about Joey for the one thousandth time, he'll be able to hop in the car and drive to her. Pacey laps up her lower lip and tells her that his parents don't know a thing about her, either, and that he's sick of all the contrived plot points on this show, especially regarding the apparently extremely fluid geography of the United States. Audrey pulls her face away from him, and wonders what she'd tell her parents about him anyway, and also says that he needs to work on his suspension of disbelief. "You could tell [your parents] I'm good in bed," Pacey suggests. Audrey laughs, then looks sort of thoughtful. Pacey pulls back to stare at all the moles on her neck in silence for a moment, then repeats that they agreed not to tell their parents about each other, and that's still the plan, "right?" "Right," Audrey says sadly. Cue more yammering, the upshot of which is that Audrey and Pacey aren't officially an item. So what happened last week, then?
Jack sits on the beach house porch's overhang and talks quietly on the phone, looking very perturbed. Joey and Jen stand on the porch beneath him, and manage to coax him off of the roof as soon as he gets off the phone. Jack shakes off whatever was bothering him, and tells the girls that he's about to go to the market for "provisions." Jen and Joey start chattering about yogurt and cold medication, but Jack stops them. "I said the necessary provisions. That's beer and Jell-O." Ah, well do I remember those days. Okay, maybe not really all that well.