Let me begin by pretty much skipping the opening scene. Okay? Please? Because it has, really, nothing to do with the rest of the show. I mean, Dawnie, the main character, is in it, but when you watch the whole show and then go back and see this scene again you realize that this is actually a cyborg Dawnie acting completely out of character. She sits in a bar and gets hit on by a drunk pathetic yuppie guy, and she plays along until she makes a big show of telling him she's a virgin and that he better have some "great sex chops" because the build-up in her head is extraordinary, and he better "rock her world," and we get the point that she is the Virgin Avenger, dropping her Cherry Bomb on all fools who cross her. Drunk Pathetic Yuppie Guy turns pale and flees, Dawnie smirks, and that is all the time I will spend recapping a scene that involves a cyborg. Thank you.
Then we get the opening credits: New York City! The main characters! The main characters in New York City! Flashy, frantic hyperspeed editing that could damn near give you a seizure.
Cut to commercial. L'Oreal HydraSoft Lipstick! I don't know about you, but when I want my lips to be a moisture magnet, I tend to just use a straw.
Now we get another desperate montage of stock NYC scenes trying way too hard to convince us of the setting. See! It's New York! Really! Look! The Statue of Liberty! We're here! Brooklyn Bridge! Really! Are you thinking New York now? Are you? How about the Chrysler Building? There it is! There it is again! Woo hoo!
At last we arrive at an actual scene, set in a yawning cavernous trendy-ass loft. Meet Jesse, Vandy, and Russell, who are so totally poor after paying the rent that they can only give their Dawnie a plate of scrambled eggs for her birthday. Oh, wait -- it really is "breakfast," and they're just being "cute." The group sings "Happy Birthday" and Dawnie exclaims, "Look at those candles!" before blowing them out. "You're old," says Russell. "We're old," adds Jesse. Yeah, yeah, old, whatever, but go ahead and eat that big pile of cholesterol on your plate, Dawnie. Dawnie, by the way, is the perky blonde; Jesse is the brunette; Russell is the swell-lookin' guy and Vandy is the guy wearing the do-rag on his head. And as they all talk, their voices seriously echo, because the apartment they're in is so very huge. Anyway. Dawnie gets up to try on one of her presents and asks, "So what time's the party?" Russell gets this "busted" look on his face, Vandy and Jesse act dumb, and when Dawnie leaves the room Russell points out that, well, they have been throwing her a party "every year since college." Ding-ding! They're all friends from college!
Jesse goes to answer the door buzzer. It's Sam, who comes in with a cake box and sassy Pippi Longstocking pigtails. After making sure Dawnie isn't around, Sam opens her mouth, and out of it slides the most sticky-sweet glob of Southern accent ever heard on network TV, made of a molasses heavy enough to suck in and trap large objects. "You are not gonna be-lieve who I ran into this mornin'!" she says. Sam goes on to say she was in the bakery picking up the cake, "When passin' by the window I saw Tyler Swindell walkin' by, eatin' a vendor bagel!" (Wow -- the accent is Carolina, and yet the sentence is Pennsylvania Dutch.) "No way," says Russell. "That's what Ah said," Sam continues. "Can't be! Not Tyler Swindell, Eastland's stud-man-about-campus! Not here, not in New York City!" Why Sam, I declare! You sound mighty fine deliverin' all that expos'tory dialogue! Sam persists, "I mean, hell, I haven't even seen him since, what, Dawnie dumped him back in college?" "Shh!" Russ cuts in, presumably to stop her from drawling out more backstory.
Anyway, we find out that Ty has lived in the city for three years and hasn't been in touch with anyone; he's as gorgeous as ever; and Jesse and Dawnie (and, we suppose, Sam) were among the few women at school who never slept with him. Then Sam says, "I invited him to the party tonight." Everyone exchanges "uh-oh" looks and predicts that Dawnie will be furious because she and Ty "ended ug-ly." A moment later, Dawnie comes out to show everyone her new sweater. God knows why it took her so long to put it on; maybe she got her head caught in one of the sleeves. Anyway, she says, "What do you think?" and everyone shuts up and just gives her a blank stare, and she's like, "What!" although, really, how can she expect anyone to give half a damn over a black turtleneck?
Tall buildings! Traffic! Subway trains! In one of the few on-location scenes, Dawnie makes her way from the Columbia University subway stop and walks across campus. She says in voice-over, "No one votes anymore -- the Internet, cell phones -- all these forms of communication have turned us into a non-communicative generation," though you sure wouldn't call Dawnie "non-communicative," since she's delivering this monologue nearly at the top of her lungs. Cut to a shot of an office door; "Department of Anthropology," it reads, and as if there would ever be any confusion as to what kind of person would have an office in Columbia University's Department of Anthropology, the name "Professor James" is printed on the door as well.
Inside, the professor speaks to Dawnie: "And your thesis will discuss the reasons that your generation seems lost and inactive?" "Take me, for example!" barks Dawnie. "I'm twenty-five -- actually twenty-six, today -- and profoundly lost as a human being. I, I've spent my entire life in school, my parents still support me, human relationships baffle me, and I am acutely self-aware to the point where I'm clueless and slightly suicidal!" She says "slightly suicidal" as if it's supposed to be endearing. Ha ha! At any rate, Dawnie, I'm sure your professor is really impressed. She blathers on about her generation, about how the entry to adulthood is now age thirty, blah blah, hence her master's thesis: "A second coming of age, if you will, a void, post the teen years [sic] that we are drowning in." Must be a really wet void. "So how are you going to provide some new insight?" asks the prof. "I am going to offer you a course of action!" she yelps. And goes on and on, "a manifestation of a certain type of fear that immobilizes us," yeah, yeah. But Dawnie's really worked up here, and by now she's pretty much shouting across the desk at poor Dr. James: "ONLY by conquering those fears, RIPPING ourselves from the comfortable protection of this fantasy world can we initiate the passage into the adult world! Professor James, I will LIVE and BREATHE this thesis!" Dawnie? I think first you need to BREATHE into a PAPER BAG. Whew.
New scene. Twang! That guitar means it's time for Vandy! I would just like to ask, what kind of a name is Vandy? What's it short for -- Van Dyke? Vanderbilt? Vandy strums a little tune in the office of a bored, cynical record producer. Van Damme? Producer is not impressed. Neither are we, though we feel kind of bad for Vandy. He sings a seventeen-second song with lyrics that sound like they came straight out of his butt five minutes before the audition:
Everything looks good.
The sun is shining on me today.
Everything looks good.
For a change.
For a chaaaaange.
I think we're supposed to take this as a sign of his waning enthusiasm, but we're really not sure, are we?
Cabs! Shiny glass buildings! Russell, clad in a black leather jacket, is making an appearance at a bookstore to autograph copies of "Soap Hunks 2000" calendars. Oh yeah, he's a soap-opera star, by the way. There's a long line of giggly female fans, and Russell is nice even to the ones who gush about the other characters like they really exist. Jesse, ever the professional publicist, sits to him also clad in black leather, looks bored, and ignores everyone. "We talked last night till 2 AM," she tells Russell. "I'm falling hard. Think he might be the one." Who the hell is she talking about? Oh, her boyfriend, I guess. More fans come up, and Jesse goes off to have a cigarette, leaving Russell alone at the autograph table. "Who would you like me to make this out to?" Russell asks the person in line. "You don't remember?" replies a tall blondish man in a black leather jacket. Okay, I have to stop here and ask if is this show is called Everybody In Leather: The Series. Anyway. Russell doesn't recognize him even after the guy gives him about three million meaningful hint-hint looks. Finally, the guy says, "You picked me up one night a couple months ago." Russell protests, but the guy goes on to give Russell's address plus a few other key personal details, and Jesse really needs to get her ass back there for some PR triage, because the fans in line behind One-Night Stand Guy seem to be overhearing the entire conversation. Russell goes, "Uhhhhh." One-Night Stand Guy gives him a withering look and says, "Now I know why you didn't call." Um, maybe because you're a creepy stalker?
The birthday party. The big-ass loft is crammed with the beautiful people of the Wasteland Outer Circle. Sam and Russell are on a sofa, chatting about stuff they discussed that morning but apparently forgot. "I haven't seen Ty since we were roommates in college," says Russell, helpfully. "That's ri-yight!" says Sam, "you two were the big studs on campus." "Things have changed," says Russell. "Yes they have," Sam agrees. "You guys will just have lots to talk about." What's that ticking noise? Oh, it's just the Time Bomb of Sexuality Surprises.
Jesse. Vandy. "He peed all over the Essex House," says Jesse. What, her boyfriend again? But Vandy replies, "That's what you get for representing an orangutan." "He's the star of the movie," Jesse says. Oh! Ha, um, ha. Anyway. Then Jesse spots her boyfriend, who, in a black leather jacket, is only slightly apelike. Meanwhile, Vandy moons over Sam. Dawnie comes up to him to comfort him, and they trot out a little backstory: Sam, Vandy, blah blah, broken up, boo hoo. Then Vandy says, "Hey, isn't that Ty?" and across the room we see a totally crunchy blond guy being greeted warmly by Jesse and Sam. Ty would look more studly if he weren't dressed just like your dad in a beige JCPenney jacket, but oh well. Dawnie is shocked and horrified to see him arrive, and she goes off to another room and hyperventilates perkily.
The party wears on. Russell to Ty: "Actually, I live with Dawnie." Ty: "Oh, you guys hooked up?" Russell: "No, we're just -- roommates. She's more like a sister, really." Time Bomb: "Tick, tick." Ty: "Where is she?" Russell: "Hiding. From you."
Sam in the kitchen. Enter Vandy, in his black leather jacket. Sam asks him, "Are you drunk?" I get all excited at the prospect of a tumultuous Pamela-and-Tommy-Lee-style relationship between them, and the kitchen is filled with dozens of liquor bottles just waiting to be broken, but unfortunately all that stuff seems to be in the past, and Vandy tells her he quit drinking, and he wants to take her out to dinner to celebrate her new job, and -- can we move on now? Thanks.
Back to the party, which is an awful lot like the party from last week's Felicity. There must be a New York City ordinance that states, "All loft functions attended by more than thirty (30) persons must play Macy Gray songs." Ty approaches Dawnie, who tries to ignore him, but then she says icily, "I'm sorry. You took me by surprise. It's been a long time." "Six years," says Ty. Okay, wait -- did they graduate when they were twenty? Oh, never mind. Anyway, Dawnie says, "I often wondered what it would be like to see you again. Kind of planned it in my head -- what exactly I would do, whether I would have the strength to say what I really wanted to say, do what I really -- wanted to do. " "And?" says Ty, with an expectant look. Dawnie pauses, then a shadow crosses her Kewpie-doll face, and--whap!--she slaps him. Dang!
Break for commercials. A cheery yellow ABC/Wasteland promo says, "Stay here! We'll come back for you." No, go on. Just leave me here to die, please.
It's Sam's first day on the job at the district attorney's office. The assistant DA, Vince, tells her that she'll be "a grunt, a peon," and that she'd better think on her feet and get out of the way. Sam is all Suck-Up City: "Yes sir! Thank you sir!" Vince heads into his office, then turns back to Sam: "Tell me something, Price, is that accent for real?" "Is there a problem?" asks Sam. "Only if you plan on keeping it," says Vince, who shuts the office door. Whoops! Looks like the focus group for the original version of this pilot decided to press charges, and this DA's office just so happens to be handling The People v. Sam's Accent.
Meanwhile, Jesse closes the door in her much more fabulous office, props a chair against it, and opens a window to smoke. She dials up Dawnie at home, who is wearing smart-cookie glasses to signify she is doing heavy grad-school work, and indeed she is blazing away, typing a lone word, "wasteland," on the computer screen in 87-point type. Then Jesse uses three-way dialing to call up Sam. Now, thanks to the wonder of conference-call telecommunications and split-screen technology, these three characters are able to have pointless dialogue in a new and exciting way! Dawnie bitches about Ty being invited to the party. Jesse bitches about Sam having dinner with Vandy. Sam bitches about Jesse's smoking. Suddenly Dawnie decides it's a swell time to do anthropological field work and pipes in with, "Do you guys think that in your late twenties there's a second coming of age?" Silence. "I'll call you back," says Jesse, and hangs up. Go, Jesse! "Later," says Sam, who hangs up too. Work it, Sam!
Aw, so poor Dawnie is left at her desk. She highlights the word "wasteland" on her computer screen, then deletes it. Good idea, Dawnie. As any college freshman could tell you, using a larger font to make your papers meet page-length requirements is one of the lamest tricks in the book, especially when it's your master's thesis. But, like, maybe you can try to make the margins rilly wide instead.
Back in Jesse's office, a brief scene with her Grape Ape boyfriend-boss, who makes some lame excuse about leaving the party early. Whatever.
An indoor swimming pool somewhere. Ty and Russell are standing in the water, ooh, in scuba gear. All right, fellow viewers, before we go any further, there shall be absolutely NO snickering about "water sports"! Do you understand? Anyhoo, Ty has been giving Russell a scuba lesson. "Remember to surface slowly," says Ty, "and as you're coming up, exhale the whole time." "Or your vessels will expand and explode through your forehead?" asks Russell. No, Russell, that's only going to happen to ME if I don't keep exhaling the time I watch a scene with Sam and Vandy. "How's Dawnie?" Ty asks. "Confused, bipolar," says Russell, adding, "I blame you." Ty admits that he was a real jerk in school. "Now you've changed?" asks Russell. "I like to think so," says Ty. "Haven't you?" Russell looks down. Tick, tick, tick, tick.
Cut to the showers. Tick! I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't turn the brightness control way up on my TV in order to see what was really happening with all the peekaboo towel action. Two male extras leave the shower, and I must now report a bona-fide flash of naked butt. A moment later, however, we get merely a full frontal eyeful of Russell's flesh-colored Speedo. But hey, we've just met Russell. As they shower up, Ty tells Russell that he didn't stay in touch with anyone for the past three years because he was doing the "loser thing." Because New York has just so few opportunities for Brad Pitt look-alikes. Ty goes on to say that he felt weird, compared to Russell; he says, "Come on, you're like this big hot soap stud." One last tick as Ty asks, "So, are you still getting all the chicks?" Russell goes ka-BOOM -- well, no, really he looks up and says, "Actually, I'm gay." Ty laughs. "No, really I am," says Russell, "I'm a raving homosexual," and he goes on to say that he's closeted and fearful of exposure but gay his whole life. As he's saying all this, Ty moves to the other side of the shower stream, as if the water acts as some kind of Hetero Shield. "God," he mumbles. Russell asks, "You're not like, freaking out right now, are you?" "Nah!" says Ty nervously. "It's cool. It's cool, man." Of course he's thinking, Did I just say "stud"? Did I just say "SOAP"?
Cut to Sam in a restaurant with Vandy, talking about her first day at work. "Ev'ry time I opened mah mouth, you'd think I was this freak in a sideshow!" she complains. I must exhale. I must keep exhaling. She goes on, "I don't think these people have ever met anybody from the South," meaning her dialect coaches, I suppose. Vandy asks her if she thinks this "friend thing" between them could work. Sam replies, "Maybe, if you would stop referencing [sic] it and let it happen." Vandy asks, "When did I stop being love-interest material?" and before the oxygen leaves my brain completely I'll report that Sam just goes off on Vandy, saying he lacks drive and ambition, and he's just a bartender, and he only talks about getting his music career off the ground, and he's still living in a dreamland. Which I guess is like a wasteland, only with acoustic guitar music.
Dawnie, Jesse and Russell at their apartment, eating Chinese takeout. Uh, wait a minute. The exterior shot is of a completely different building from the one we'd seen in the first half of the show, and this apartment is most definitely NOT the vast, windswept loft from the breakfast scene and the party scenes. THIS is a completely different apartment with completely different furniture and a completely different cozy-couch-'n'-candles aesthetic. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? Did they get kicked out of the loft or what? Are they now squatters on one of the sets of Russell's soap opera? Did Dawnie receive a graduate fellowship from Pottery Barn?
But there they are, in their classy new digs, and Dawnie gestures with her chopsticks and says, "I'm going to expose this whole pre-thirty wasteland that we're living in!" "Expose"? What are you going to do, tap its phone? Follow it around with a camera? Anyway. Dawnie continues, "I'm going to show that our almost paralyzing fears actually motivate us into adulthood." Oh, shut up. "I love the way your cynicism masquerades as optimism," chuckles Russell. "I couldn't have said it better," says Jesse. "That's because your cynicism has merely heightened your optimism," Russell replies. Somehow this prompts Dawnie and Jesse to exchange a look and say in unison, "Fag!" Yeah, yeah, Will and Grace, whatever. Dawnie goes to answer a knock on the door and looks through the peephole. "It's um. . . Ty," she says, looking freaked out. Really she looks completely adorable when she's terrified, and if this show tanks, Kevin Williamson ought to stick her in Scream 5 or something.
Any old how, Dawnie doesn't want to answer the door, but Russell and Jesse run off down the hall giggling and she has no choice. She braces herself and opens the door. "How did you get into the building?" she asks Ty. "Someone was leaving," he says. "That would be you," she says, but he manages to keep her from slamming the door. Dawnie is like, "I just remember how swore your love and fidelity to me endlessly and then proceeded to sleep with everyone in sight, except me." Ty admits he was wrong, but says she hasn't given him a chance to apologize, and Dawnie says he should go ahead, and Ty says he was selfish and too stupid and young, and Dawnie stares at him all bug-eyed like a foo dog; Ty says he couldn't commit and he's really sorry and so on and so forth, and long story short Dawnie slaps him again. Maybe, like, the first time didn't count, since it took place in a loft which technically does not exist anymore.
Cut to commercials. Here's that Toys 'R' Us ad! The little girl who goes around saying "I went poo in the potty!" was originally going to be part of the Wasteland cast, but she wasn't self-absorbed and annoying enough.
Dawnie answers the phone at home again. It's Jesse calling from work again. "Do your fantasies make you inactive somehow?" Dawnie asks Jesse. Oh, shut up. As she and Jesse dish some more about Ty, Dawnie opens her present from him: a CD of the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Uh-oh. "I guess I don't have to hate him," muses Dawnie. Jesse is on this whole campaign to get Dawnie to ask Ty to dinner. Dawnie is like, "Uh, I don't know," and Jesse replies, "Ask yourself -- what is it that you really want out of life? Dawnie says, "I want somebody to brush my teeth with each night." They're both silent after she says this -- a contemplative pause, if you will, where we all ponder this, and I believe we're all thinking the same thing here: Dawnie, you're never going to find someone short enough. You'll just have to use a toothbrush, that's all. Anyway. Jesse uses three-way calling to trick Dawnie into speaking with Ty. Dawnie gets flustered into apologizing to Ty for all the slapping and winds up having to cook him dinner that night.
Russell walks into a coffee shop and spots the Bitter One-Night Stand from the bookstore. He goes up to him and says, "Hi, I'm sorry about the other day. The job thing kinda, you know." "No -- I don't know," says Bitter One-Night Stand, in a rather old-school "Wounded Queen" performance. "It [the job thing] kind of gets in the way," says Russell. B.O.N.S. goes, "Well, if you're going to sleep with people you don't know, you've got to be ready for anything." Oh, you mean like people not calling you after a one-night stand, Bitter One-Night Stand? Russell apologizes for not calling. "You lied to me," hisses B.O.N.S. "You said you were a doctor." Russell says, "I am -- on the show!" And then for the third time he says, "I'm sorry," and asks B.O.N.S. if he can make it up to him and see him sometime? Because Bitter One-Night Stand is such a sweetie, after all. Not. But B.O.N.S. says, "You've obviously mistaken me for a closeted, dysfunctional, socially unenlightened, noncommittal, confused, unevolved homosexual. That would be . . . you." Exit Bitter One-Night Stand. Sorry, B.O.N.S., but I bet plenty of homosexuals have no interest in "evolving" mousse-a-rific hair like yours.
New York traffic! A bus that at first glance looks like it has a Wasteland ad on the side. Wouldn't that NOT be a hoot.
DA's office. Sam taking dictation. Vince babbles some DA-speak: "Tell Peter his no-quote wouldn't be in the best interest," blah blah. When he dismisses Sam, she tries to make some small talk and asks about his wife. "You're from North Carolina, right?" asks Vince. She nods, "Born and bred." "No kidding!" says Vince sarcastically. Sam straightens up a little and asks him, "Do you have a problem with the South?" Sam. Think about that question. Just think. But Vince just goes off on the fact that her dad and the DA were old college buddies and calls her Daddy's Little Girl and just acts like a big meanie, and I wish I enjoyed it more, but somehow I didn't. ("Maybe because it was trite, derivative, and poorly written? Just a thought." -- Sars)
The "new" apartment. Ty at the door with flowers. Dawnie with her hair combed around her face like a My Pretty Pony mane. Ty tells her to aim for the other cheek because the left one's a little sore. They both grin like morons.
Jesse, stridin' down the street all in black, with leather mini. Poor thing, she's so desperate for a storyline with real action that she's walking around dressed like Trinity from The Matrix. She's having some kind of powerbitch convo on the cell phone: "I only want you doing national press, no regional!" Then she spots her boyfriend in a restaurant and gets off the phone and strides happily in. Well, old Grape Ape is there to meet another woman, and Jesse makes this whole production of going up to them and very loudly acting like Mr. Ape's Sexually Compulsive Anonymous counselor, which is slightly funny, but really it would have been way better if she'd whipped a grenade through the front window and somersaulted through the air a bunch of times.
Back at Pottery Barn, Dawnie and Ty finish eating dinner and discussing anthropology. Ty jokes, "In other words, it's a bogus science." Only when you study your own friends, Ty. So they drink wine and chat, and things go swimmingly, and Ty starts reminiscing about their first date and how they watched Dirty (oh, no) Dancing, and he puts on the CD to play what he calls "our theme song." The guitar riff to "Love is Strange" starts playing, and Ty starts Dorky Dancing. Dawnie goes, "Don't even think about it," and believe me, I'm still trying not to. Ty starts jumping on the furniture while Dawnie secretly checks him out and starts shaking her booty a little, and, then, oh God -- "Sylvia!" "Yes, Mickey?" -- it begins. Dawnie and Ty go through the creepy motions of lip-synching the Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze lip-synching of the creepy Sylvia and Mickey lyrics, on and on in infinite regress of creepiness. I wish I'd never seen this scene. I'd hate for someone to even read my mind and come across the memory of this scene and know that I'd seen it. ("Like, say, your editor, who didn't see it but will now have nightmares about it anyway." -- Sars) Anyway, oh yeah, Dawnie and Ty wind up kissing, which is almost beside the point.
More New York at night. Russell is signing autographs for his fans, a small group of Everybodies In Leather. He looks up to see Jesse waiting for him, taking a big drag off her cig. She says she dumped Grape Ape, I mean Kurt: "He was too controlling. I couldn't breathe." She looks really sad. Russell invites her to get drunk. Aw.
The apartment again. Thumpity-thump sexy music. Dawnie pours two glasses of wine in the kitchen, then turns to see Ty lounging on the couch. She gets a funny determined look on her face, then puts one glass down and marches over and straddles Ty and rips his shirt open and pours some wine on his chest and, ew, begins to lick it and eventually they start kissing with all kinds of passionate snuffly noises and -- d'oh! The scene suddenly cuts back to Dawnie standing in the kitchen nervously looking at Ty on the couch. Ha ha! It's just an Ally McFantasy! The whole thing never happened! But now Dawnie really gets a funny determined look on her face, then really puts one glass down and marches over and straddles Ty and rips his shirt open and really pours some real wine on his chest and, ew, begins to lick it with her real tongue and eventually they start kissing, and except for a little giggling, this "reality" is no different from any other reality of Dawnie licking Ty's chest, and then I come to understand that the universe keeps collapsing onto itself, though the revelation doesn't help my stomach one bit.
Anyway. "You surprised me," says Ty to Dawnie, who says, "Want another surprise? I'm a virgin." Kissing screeches to a halt. Dawnie says that she kept waiting, that she wasn't ready, and then she was but had no opportunity, then she wasn't ready again, then she made such a big deal about it that it never happened. Then she says, "Take me." Ty starts to say something but Dawnie says she won't take no for an answer. She says, "I'm twenty-six, Ty," and stands up and takes off her shirt. Ah yes, the classic Standing And Taking-Off Of The Shirt To Reveal The Tasteful Gray Bra And To Indicate An Ill-Considered Readiness For One's First Sexual Experience -- Joey just did that on Dawson's Creek, so it must be a new Williamson-esque motif. Anyway, Dawnie says, "it's time." For a commercial! Please!
Ty in the bathroom, pacing around nervously. He sniffs his pits, gargles mouthwash, and checks to see if his boxers are clean. Russell accidentally walks in on Ty while his pants are still down. Har har! "Sorry," says Russell. "We gotta stop meeting like this!" says Ty. Really. I can see ahead to future episodes, where Ty is going to keep on running into Russell in wacky, vaguely homoerotic mishaps. I see split trousers being taken to tailor shops that actually turn out to be bathhouses . . . ha ha! Anyway. Ty and Russell discuss Dawnie. Ty asks, "How do I do right by her?" "Be kind, be honest," says Russell, "that's what people deserve."
Ty comes into Dawnie's room, which has a fabulous four-poster curtained bed. Evidently she has been decorating with that "about-to-be deflowered" look. They embrace, roll on the bed, and exchange squeaky smooches.
Jesse is in the living room reading an InStyle magazine. Russell comes up behind her: "Dawnie's got Ty in her room!" They giggle and tiptoe over to listen at the door of Dawnie's room. They're listening, I suppose, for a huge popping sound.
Meanwhile, somewhere out in the big city, Vandy is cleaning glasses in a deserted bar. We still haven't figured out what "Vandy" is short for. Van Der Beek? Van De Kamp's Fish Fillets? Despite the fact that this bar establishment is clearly very classy, with stained glass and Deco sconces and accent lamps, Vandy has shown up for work without shaving and is wearing some Salvation Army thing over a t-shirt and has some sort of stupid alterna-beanie on his head. Enter Sam, who says she owes him an apology: "I shouldn't have said the things I said about your music. It was insensitive and judgmental [and twangy] and I'm sorry." Then somehow she makes it all about herself and blathers on about her "real" job, working with "real" people who are adults. "It's just not cool to be that struggling artsy couple anymore," she says. Vandy says it sounds like a direct quote from her father. "No. Just me," says Sam. "I don't find the struggle attractive anymore, Vandy," and you can bet that she was thinking of that skanky shirt of his when she said that. As she walks out, she turns back to say, "I'm glad you quit drinkin', Van." After she leaves, Vandy gives her a look that says, "I'm glad you came in and made me feel like total crap while I'm surrounded by all this liquor."
Back to Dawnie and Ty, who haven't gotten any farther. Ty pauses and looks down at her in horror. "What's wrong?" asks Dawnie. "I'm sorry," says Ty, "I want you to understand something and I'm not rejecting you but -- you've laid something so monumental on me -- " Now Dawnie looks horrified. Ty suddenly decides it will be really noble if he doesn't make a woman out of Dawnie. "I don't want to be remembered like how I was," he says. "You're at a second coming of age," says Dawnie. "I guess," says Ty, and seeing that his taste in clothes is completely Land's End Bland, I would have to agree. "The problem is that I'm still in my first [coming of age]," says Dawnie. Ty tries to comfort her, but she says, "You should go." Ty puts on his jacket. "Want to go for coffee sometime?" he asks. "Right now I want you dead," mutters Dawnie. "Then I should go," says Ty, who walks out. Dawnie slumps back in her boudoir.
For God's sake, a song from the Dawson's Creek soundtrack is playing. We see Ty in the bar; we see Sam at her place looking through a yearbook at pictures of her and Vandy. Then she goes to sleep in her sofa bed, which for once is the sort of detail that you would expect in a show about twentysomethings. Then we see Russell and Jesse all cozy amid the Pottery Barn furnishings; then we see Ty walking down the street; then we see Dawnie standing at the bathroom mirror sticking a toothbrush in her mouth and trying to keep a mournful expression on her face as she brushes, which means that basically she has to sort of Roto-Root the brush around inside her closed mouth, and tears stream down her face, and we're to understand that this is very poignant, for apparently this is how virgins brush their teeth.