Season 1, Episode 7: Detention

First of all, above and beyond ANYTHING ELSE in this episode:

Dawson's hair looks really unnaturally pretty all of a sudden. Like, did he start using a new shampoo? His hair looks like...a lion's wild untamed splendiforous mane. I'm surprised that, in all the one-upmanship that goes on between Pacey and Dawson this episode, no-one is like "Pacey, you might have a better bod, but CHECK OUT DAWSON'S HAIR!"

Secondly: I totally remembered this one! This is the first “special” kind of themed episode of Dawson's Creek – and the theme is The Breakfast Club. The gang go so far as to point out the episode-long reference for those who may not be big John Hughes fans (I have to admit, I'm not really a big John Hughes fan and have maybe seen the Breakfast Club once, a long time ago) It doesn't matter though. All you need to know is:

PACEY TAKES HIS SHIRT OFF.

Okay actually the important bit is everyone gets detention, hijinks ensue (sort of). 

But anyway. This episode is FULLY AWESOME and important in the Grand Scheme of Dawson's Creek, so let's get stuck in.

The pre-credits banter between Joey and Dawson on “movie night” focuses around Dawson's desire to switch a film off an hour and a half in, because it's “unrealistic” to him that two guys would have a drag race over a girl (I confess, I have no idea what film they're watching) and when a film is unrealistic then FUCK IT ALL THE FANTASY IS RUINED AND HIS LIFE IS OVER EMO-ATTACK. Joey mocks him by pointing out his favourite film is E.T. (seriously Dawson?! WOMP WOMP) and it descends rapidly into 1. a sexually charged wrestling match for the remote control (no wonder Joey doesn't sleep over anymore!) and then, incredibly 2. somehow, a weirdo argument about what women want in a man and WHY HASN'T JEN SLEPT WITH YOU YET DAWSON, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Joey is quite a little bitch and knows ALL the buttons to push to turn Dawson into a bundle of raw insecurity.

Movie night must have been a Thursday, because post opening credits we find out it's Friday at Capeside High, and rapidly gain yet another glimpse of a school where the teachers are incompetent. Joey is giving some kind of history presentation about shoguns and concubines and some smarmy jock kid keeps interrupting to ask stupid questions while the loser teacher just hangs out in the back of the class and lets him (if ANYONE deserved a detention, it was smarmy jock kid). Jen is in some kind of a sciencey health class where the teacher  - Mr Pickering – asks for opinions on the assigned reading on euthanasia. Apparently there is a “right” opinion (agreeing with the teacher's point of view) and a “wrong” opinion (voicing any other view) and Jen gets in a heated argument about it. And over in the gym, Pacey and Dawson are chilling on the basketball court. Only Dawson has some BARELY REPRESSED RAGE as usual because he thinks that Pacey is trying to get into Jen's pants after seeing them share a private joke together in the corridor.

Long story short: everyone ends up in Saturday detention!

• Joey: for PUNCHING OUT the smarmy jock when he cut in line in the cafeteria
• Jen: for using the word “bitch” in her argument for euthanasia
• Dawson: for throwing a basketball in Pacey's face because Pacey taunted him with a childhood nickname that apparently sums up everything he hates about himself
• Pacey: refuses to reveal his reason for being in detention until the last second (spoiler: it's embarrassing)

Joining them in detention is...school troublemaker ABBY MORGAN (who claims to be on detention for participating in an Ecstacy fuelled orgy in the boys' locker room)! 

In what is becoming an embarrassingly familiar trend: I remember hating Abby. BUT SHE'S ACTUALLY HILARIOUSLY BITCHILY AWESOME. 

While the teacher/librarian who is supposed to be supervising them watches a week's worth of Days of our Lives, Abby the master stirrer initiates a game of Truth or Dare, during which a seething Dawson is forced to watch Pacey and Jen kiss, only to have Pacey retaliate and make Joey and Dawson kiss on a dare. 

OMG DAWSON AND JOEY'S FIRST KISS YOU GUYS! 

For a full FIFTEEN SECONDS (as required by Pacey's dare to Joey). Obviously this causes ructions and despite Jen trying to lift everyone's spirits with a questionable game of “Guess That Butt” (the rules and organisation of which seemed haphazard), even Jen snaps when she realises JOEY IS ACTUALLY AFTER HER MAN:

and the (undeniable sexual) tension between all four (Abby, despite her alleged orgy experience, is excluded) continues to mount until detention becomes THE MOST AWKWARD SITUATION EVER:

If you can't see it, it's not happening.

Dawson and Jen decide to hash out their lack of sexlife in front of everyone while Joey has a quiet meltdown in the corner, which, of course, Dawson is totally oblivious to. Dawson apologises to Pacey for breaking his nose and calling him a useless waste of space good for nothing joke, but points out that Oompa Loompa is like THE WORST THING YOU CAN EVER SAY TO ANYONE, and is probably actually BANNED in some states, so he was kind of justified. 

 Maybe I have [gone retarded].

Meanwhile Joey continues her quiet meltdown in the corner. Until she EXPLODES, all gnashing teeth and snot and ugly crying, the gist of which is AWKWARD CITY: she's in love with Dawson BUT SHE CAN'T SAY IT SHE CAN'T SAY IT because she's SOOOOOO ALOOOOONE.

It's okay Joey, everyone in the room knows you've been trying to get in on Dawson's lion-mane action for weeks, except maybe Dawson because he's too into his OompaLoompa-induced pain. 

Luckily, detention's over so they all get to go home and pretend like this NEVER HAPPENED (ha just kidding!). I hope next ep Dawson goes apeshit emo!

Season 1, Episode 6: Baby

Bessie goes into labour, a week early! But Bodie's gone out of town for...some work thing, Bessie gets the ute stuck in mud, the phone's not working so she can't call an ambulance (another one of those subtle “Joey's family's poor” reminders) so Joey, in an ultra suspicious plot twist has to row her across the creek to the closest phone. At Dawson's house. Where CONVENIENTLY:

• Mitch and Gail are away at a couples' retreat (guess he decided NOT to hate her in the end)
• we learn there is only one ambulance servicing Capeside but it's an hour away at a traffic accident and women in labour are not a priority

Faced with an...irate...pregnant woman none too thrilled at the thought of two high-school students delivering her first child, Joey sucks it up and goes next door to ask Mrs Ryan, a registered nurse, for help.

This pleases Bessie EVEN LESS than the prospect of Dawson and Joey being in charge, given Jen's gran has OPINIONS on Joey's family (basically, the Potters are wicked sinners: not only is there the whole druggie dad in jail, but Bessie and Bodie are a mixed race couple LIVING IN SIN AND BREEDING).

Guess what? The ambulance never arrives (quelle surprise!) and Mrs Ryan has to deliver the baby.

Here's what we learn through this turn of events.

• that although just moments prior, Mrs Ryan and Jen were shown, YET AGAIN arguing about religious beliefs, with Grams expressing her dislike for the arty naked men calendar Jen has on the wall and then hiding a Bible in Jen's drawer (implicit: JUST COME TO CHURCH ALREADY JEN); and although previous episodes have indicated that Mrs Ryan has definitely got a problem with Joey's family, SHE CAN PUT HER PERSONAL FEELINGS ASIDE AND ACT IN THE TRUE, NON-JUDGEMENTAL SENSE OF HELPING THOSE IN NEED. I am not a Christian but it's always struck me that THAT is (or should be) what true Christianity is about? Isn't that really ''love thy neighbour” when you get down to it?

• Up to a point, I am all “OMG Mrs Ryan is SO BADASS AWESOME”. She puts her judgement aside to take leadership of the situation; she smacks Dawson's camera out of the way as he is filming Bessie (which did seem a little bit mean, he WAS only trying to help and he IS only a 15 year old boy...but haha she essentially punched Dawson in the face by proxy, which is HILARIOUS); and she lays a super-smackdown on Jen who so had it coming. Seriously, if I was in a situation where someone was giving birth and there was a registered nurse in charge, dishing out instructions, I would FREAKING DO AS I WAS TOLD, not question every single instruction and freak out the expectant mother by mentioning scary details I really have no experience of like “THERE'S A LOT OF BLOOD SOMETHING'S WRONG ISN'T IT?” Grams uses this as an opportunity to teach Jen about having faith – like “If you are going to stay and help, I need you to develop some faith IN ME, and shut up and DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD because I know what I am doing”. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  IF ONLY THE LESSON IN FAITH HAD STOPPED THERE.
• But it doesn't. Dawson's Creek writers wreck things, and make me throw out my new Team Grams button, and also make me THROW UP IN MY MOUTH at the point where Bessie is exhausted and losing too much blood, and can't push, and wants something for the pain. Jen is being an unhelpful idiot, and going “GIVE HER A SEDATIVE!” Do you SEE any freaking sedatives just laying around, Jen? Because I'm pretty sure Grams would have shoved them down your throat a while back to shut you the fuck up. (Hey guess what? Looks like I'm off Team Jen! WOOT). Grams gets this weird, beatific glow, which is creepy, because it is like it is coming out of Bessie's vagina, and starts reciting the Lord's Prayer.

No. NOOOO. (Bessie pretty much says the same thing). And Grams goes “Oh, it's not for you! (subtext: because you're living in sin with a BLACK man. I really hope Jen pipes up at some stage and points out Jesus was black) It's for the BABY.” Cue all three of them – Grams, Bessie and FREAKING JEN, that atheist, reciting the Lord's Prayer until the baby pops out.

Meanwhile...Pacey reveals this episode that he is a 4 million times better human being, not to mention far more adult, than that insane burned out wreck of a woman he's been sleeping with (otherwise known as his English teacher, Ms Tamara Jacobs).

Everything about their relationship to my adult eyes is just so painful and twisted to watch. Pacey is pushing Tamara for a real date outside of Capeside where they can go out in the open with their relationship, instead of being confined to hiding inside her house on the pretext of a tutoring session.

(Pretty sure I don't need to spell out everything that is horrifically wrong about Ms Tamara Jacobs, but to seduce a student already in need of academic help – and use ''study sessions'' as the cover for your shenanigans, thereby ensuring he doesn't RECEIVE the academic help he needs...you're not just a sick person, you're a terrible teacher).

It all goes horribly wrong when Pacey – understandably excited and in the flush of youthful passion (as misguided as it may be) – confides the news of the potential date with Ms Jacobs to Dawson in the ''privacy'' of the boys toilets at Capeside High. He fails to properly check whether any of the cubicles are occupied, however, and a rumour that “Pacey Witter and Ms Jacobs are having a hot affair” spreads through the school - and the town - like wildfire.

Joey and Pacey have AN AWFUL LOT IN COMMON. Both of them put themselves second in this episode, stepping up for someone else at the last minute (Pacey for Ms Jacobs; Joey puts her fear aside to be beside Bessie as she gives birth). But it's a scene near the beginning of this episode that fills me with anticipatory JOY – despite Pacey and Joey's antagonism toward each other, Joey is the first to comfort Pacey in the aftermath of the rumour getting out. She knows how he feels and doesn't try and take the pain away, just lets him know he isn't alone. It's my favourite scene in the whole episode.

Pacey reacts like a 15 year old in love: he doesn't know any better than to try and work it out with the person he (thinks he) loves.

Tamara reacts like...she's been in this situation before.

 

BITCHFACE

Inevitably, there's a hearing in front of the school board. Tamara Jacobs, the 36 year old adult woman, in a position of power, who KNEW Pacey was her student, who knew better than to get involved – this is her time to front up to her involvement in a federal offence.

…

You could wait forever for that to happen. Pacey, poor, smitten, love-struck Pacey, fronts up, and claims the rumour was the fantasy of his adolescent mind. That Ms Jacobs is innocent.

Pacey's speech is another Dawson's Creek genius metaphor moment, and a really poignant painful one, at that. Pacey DOES WHAT MS JACOBS, that irresponsible, CRIMINAL BITCH, is incapable of doing - he rises above his own selfish feelings. He lets it go, and lets Ms Jacobs go, and takes the blame, and no-one but Dawson (and Ms Jacobs) will ever know the truth.

Of course, Dawson's Creek has Pacey go and attempt a final goodbye with Ms Pedophilia 1998 because he is 15 and still thinks there's a chance they can be boyfriend-girlfriend. HA! Turns out SHE'S RESIGNED (shocker, also HALLELUJAH) and is going to visit her sister in Rochester.

 (WOMP WOMP)

I HOPE YOU ENJOY... JAIL, TAMARA!

Season 1, Episode 5: Hurricane

The set-up for episode 5 is simple and genius, and also mildly confusing, in that it opens with Joey and Dawson happily watching TV together in Dawson's room, waiting for the weather report as if Dawson had not declared Joey dead to him last episode (it turns out he's still mildly pissed but it's a case of "heeey at least you're not a slut, Jo, I need SOMEONE to hang out with"). A hurricane is fast approaching Capeside, school is cancelled and Dawson's house is the safest place to be, apparently; so Joey, Joey's sister Bessie and Bessie's boyfriend Bodie head to the Leery's for shelter, as do Jen and her grandmother. While Mitch is busy battening down the hatches that adulterous hussy Gail is still being an adulterous hussy...and everybody knows.

EXCEPT IT'S NOT SAFE AT THE LEERY'S! While everyone may be safe from the meteorological hurricane (“Hurricane Chris”), there's a HURRICANE OF EMOTIONS brewing and getting ready to WRECK SOME SHIT.

That hurricane, I'm sure you have already guessed, is Hurricane Dawson, who since last episode has worked on his crazy attack. Check him out, catching his adulterous whore of a mother on the phone to her lover: 

and then...just...oh NO YOU DI'NT DAWSON:

The only person who can outdo him in sheer unadulterated pettiness is Joey, who plays her trump card:

Dawson (and Joey) lurking around every corner making veiled allusions to what THEY KNOW finally push Gail to confess her adulterous affair to Mitch. To which I say:

a) Gail? Could you not have waited like, 2 hours for ALL THOSE RANDOM PEOPLE TO LEAVE YOUR HOUSE? Because seriously? That's freaking AWKWARD.

b) Gail?! What kind of a mother are you that you want to confess your adultery to your husband IN FRONT OF YOUR 15 YEAR OLD SON? It's bad enough he had to guilt you into it; don't make him be part of this conversation, YOU CRAZY BITCH.

As you can probably imagine, IT DOES NOT GO WELL (and Gail's hair, it turns out, reflects her emotional state). We also discover EXACTLY where Dawson gets his flair for the melodramatically emo from: 

Meanwhile, over on (I assume) the other side of town, Pacey is being forced to hang out with his big brother, Deputy Doug Witter, as he makes his rounds checking on properties and helping people prepare for the oncoming storm. 

Whose property should they come across other than Ms Tamara Jacobs? When she claims to hate storms and be super scared of the hurricane, Doug offers the Witter Bros services to help secure the property and to stay and ride out the storm with her. Commence Deputy Doug flirting, which involves bonding over show tunes. 

And Pacey making this face. 

AWKWARD.

Actually, no, the definition of awkward is your cop brother pulling a gun on you and threatening to shoot you unless you tell the teacher he's flirting with, who you're secretly sleeping with, that he's not gay. 

THIS EPISODE IS ACTUALLY FULL OF GOOD STUFF

1. We find out in this episode that “Jen's Grandma” is actually known to other people as “Mrs Ryan”. She also, awesomely, gets to show another side to her character, other than the one-note “Judgemental Old Religious Lady” she has been stuck as thus far. I actually forgot how much I liked Mrs Ryan and how she gradually reveals herself to be a caring, kind, incredibly wise and supportive person to have onside.

 She talks to Dawson in a language he can understand: film. 

Because initially – yeah, sour-puss with an unfortunate way of phrasing things.

2. We get a hint into Pacey's background. It's weird how Pacey is the least fleshed out character so far: he's a seemingly happy go lucky clown who doesn't do well with girls (his own admission, last ep) and who is flunking at school (Ms Jacobs told him when she offered an inappropriate 'study incentive' that she'd been speaking to his other teachers about his grades). But that's all we know. This episode we discover that he has a brother in the police (Deputy Doug! His love of showtunes and Broadway musicals is worth remembering, although he claims he isn't gay) but interestingly, that his father is the Capeside Chief of Police. The way Doug talks about Pacey in front of Ms Jacobs is really sad too: he puts him down constantly, and refuses to believe the good things Ms Jacobs (in her role as teacher, lol) says about him, because “that doesn't sound like Pacey”.

3. Jen and Joey continue to slowly warm up to each other, bonding because Dawson is being a jerk to both of them. They have a really sweet scene, actually, where they are discussing the potential size of Dawson's...err...package, the way girls TOTALLY do; Joey drops the hostility and the fake 'bad girl' routine she has pulled thus far in all her dealings with Jen and is genuinely coy about Dawson and sex; Jen defers to Joey's knowledge of all things Dawson, and appeals to her “girl to girl”. Something about this little scene just struck me as really nicely done.

4. Dawson's dad is dreaming of building a scuba-diving themed restaurant. Called the Kelp, or something. Just remember that. He's tinkering with the model when Gail breaks the news. 

5. WE FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO JEN.

Don't judge me you guys, but I cried during this episode, and it was totally unexpected – because remember? I was never Team Jen, and didn't care ONE BIT about her story. And yeah – her pronouncements up to now about teen sex have tended to be a tad didactic and tonally out of sync with the rest of the episode, but I can overlook it. Because I REALLY DID HATE DAWSON last episode for being SUCH an asshole and judging Jen based on learning one fact that wasn't to his liking.

And now we learn all the facts. Jen approaches Dawson as the hurricane ends, after he has broken his silence by all but calling her a slut to her face. And she tells him the whole truth, so he can judge her all he wants. 

Damn it. I cried so hard. 

This doesn't mean I want him to BE with Jen though. DAMMIT Dawson's Creek is so confusing.

Last episode was where the emotional side of things started ramping up: this episode marks the official point where I am, all snark aside, TOTALLY INVESTED IN THIS SHIT.