Season 1, Episode 9: Road Trip

This episode begins with Dawson staring plaintive-slash-sullenly out his bedroom window at Jen's house, while Joey fills the audience in on how, post break-up, his heartbreak has swiftly changed him from “doomed romantic” into “The Creepiest Creeper that Ever Did Creep”. 

 

If that isn't enough to get your heart pumping because remember: CRAZY EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE DAWSON IS EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE DAWSON! - this next bit is like a gift from the Dawson's Creek gods, a juicy ripe cherry on the cracktastic sundae that is the character of Dawson Leery.

The whole time this exchange is going on, Truly Madly Deeply by SAVAGE GARDEN is playing in the background.

Um...!!!

Because this song 



Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply by cladstrife


is meant to represent Dawson's inner emotional turmoil and heartache.

I swear to god, I laughed for about half an hour before I could even commence watching the episode (this will come back to bite me in the ass).

We next see our favourite (not! HAH THROWBACK TO THE 90s slang!) no-goodnik Billy, who unsurprisingly has failed to fulfil his promise to Jen and Dawson to get the hell out of town. In fact, it appears he's stolen the ladder that Joey uses to climb through Dawson's window and is breaking into Jen's bedroom. The background music that plays while this happens, giving an insight into Billy's gritty 90s badboy hipster soul shows JUST HOW OPPOSITE HE IS to Dorkson:

Anyway. Cameo by Grams to remind us she's still alive (but no-one's mentioned Grandpa for ages) and still bad-ass and Jen boots Billy back out on the street in no uncertain terms, where CONVENIENTLY, he runs into Dawson, who was probably creeping in the shadows just waiting for an opportunity to “casually” run into Jen. Because WHOA Dawson, you have to learn to tame your inner beast (except please, NEVER DO THAT).

Long story short:

The writers of this episode threw logic and narrative sense out the goddamn window on this one YET AGAIN to answer the question “what's the quickest way we can get Dawson to do something KICKASS but COMPLETELY IMPROBABLE?”

Solution: JUST IGNORE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN THE REAL WORLD AND JUST SORT OF GLOSS OVER SHIT BECAUSE WHO THE HELL WOULD EVER ANALYSE DAWSON'S CREEK?

Otherwise known as: 

Obviously, the two characters who were arch enemies last week, Billy and Dawson now within the space of two minutes bond over their broken hearts and how they are both kind of creepily obsessed with Jen. And Dorkson agrees to go on a FREAKING ROADTRIP with MR UNRELIABLE (who I swear, 30 seconds prior to floating the idea, had totally insulted Dawson and implied he would steal Jen from under his nose) – not just for a bit of fresh air but for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of hooking up with random chicks so they can take their mind off Jen, that evil temptress, for an evening. 

 

Plausible?

TOTES REALISTIC! It's like watching a documentary!

So Dawson and Billy take a quick detour via Capeside High – Dawson is being daring and skipping school to a) try and get into a bar when he's underage, b) try and hook up with a random chick – but he won't go without handing his maths homework in first. THAT'S HOW HE ROLLS.

They pick up Pacey,

It's my blog and I can post gratuitous pictures of Joshua Jackson if I choose to. 

who of course invites himself along, and then they bump into Joey and Jen, which is

a) AAAAAAAWKWARD

b) AWESOME, since Billy spins this whole lie to the girls (out of Dawson's earshot) that the roadtrip is actually to a whorehouse to get Dawson laid. 

 

And then the roadtrip is aawwwwnnn. It really consists of three parts:

1. Pacey explaining and trying to convince Dawson of his place in the universe as the anti-rebel or “good boy”. Basically, what Pacey is saying is that Dawson = Dorkson (though I continue to be surprised that no-one has used this special name yet) and that for a 15 year old, he certainly seems stereotypically middleaged.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Billy explaining The Rules for scoring.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   SPOILER ALERT: Billy's rules don't appear to work (at least, not for Billy and Pacey). Dawson's cringingly awkward approach to Nina, a woman wearing a Film Threat tee, actually gets him results. Which brings us to...
3. Dawson's near-dalliance with a woman who actually looks WAY TOO OLD FOR HIM. 
   
   
   
   Nina's views on film are THE CORRECT ONES. She also cites Kubrick and Scorsese as "real" directors. Take that Dorkson. 
   Pacey is all like “Woah, that chick is HOT!” when he sees Dawson chatting her up but we all know about Pacey's thus-far questionable taste *cough* MS JACOBS *cough*. Dawson actually gets all the way out of the club and to Nina's car, where she invites him back to her place – not to “do” anything except watch TV of course because there's been enough statutory rape on this show already. Dawson TURNS HER DOWN, because he thinks it would be wrong...to watch tv with another woman when he's still in love with Jen? Uh..okay. Anyhow, it turns out he was onto Billy's pretty obvious scheme all along: of course Billy wanted Dawson to hook up with someone so he could throw that in Jen's face.
   But if Dawson knew that – why not just stay the freak away from Billy and his stupid road trip? Also...HE WATCHES TV WITH JOEY ALL THE TIME. How is that not wrong, Dorkson? 
   
   
   Anyhow - DAWSON DOESN'T THINK IT'S WRONG TO GIVE NINA A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED PASH OUTSIDE A SEEDY PUB. Dawson is all class.  

While all that's going on, back at Capeside High, Joey is having a drama of her own. Not only is she tortured by the thought that OMG DAWSON MIGHT BE HAVING SEX – and the horror of this, as well as the weirdness of Dawson behaving in such a ''male'' fashion, is actually mentioned more than once by both Jen and Joey this episode – but a new rumour is going round the school about young Ms Potter.

It starts when she accepts a ride to school from a football player called Warren Gary (two first names as a name? Dodge city).

What starts out as flirtatious banter soon becomes...just...icky and inappropriate and it's kind of totally obvious that Warren Gary is a total jerk. 

 

Um, eww, also: KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD, WARREN.

It's even more obvious when Jen informs Joey later that day that Warren has told pretty much the entire school (seriously – gossip spreads round Capeside High in nanoseconds!) that they slept together.

SO JOEY DOES A DUMB THING AND CONFRONTS HIM IN THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA IN FRONT OF LIKE THE ENTIRE WORLD.

At this point I was like “Seriously Dawson's Creek writers? ARE THERE ANY WOMEN ON YOUR TEAM WHO ACTUALLY WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL?” Maybe it's a cultural thing, I don't know. Maybe it's different in America, maybe that's TOTALLY what you do.

It's TOTALLY not what I would do. What happened to ignoring stupid rumours that clearly have no basis in reality – um HELLO he's a jock and she's apparently regarded as pondscum and NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET? Or bitching about people behind their backs to your friends? Oh wait, Joey doesn't really HAVE any friends. REINFORCING THE STRENGTH of my first argument!

Anyway, of course, confronting Warren in public only exacerbates things (he yells out “I never promised I would be your boyfriend” and makes Joey look like a stalker) so Jen suggests a plan for revenge.

Note to Joey: don't listen to Jen's stupid ideas.

Jen's idea is that Joey creates a counter-rumour – which she does, successfully, exploiting the keen ear for gossip and extensive social network of school bitch, Abby Morgan. The hook: Joey's pregnant, and scumbag Warren has left her hanging. Abby falls for it, and the rumour, naturally spreads like wildfire. 

 

OBVIOUSLY THIS BACKFIRES LIKE A MEGABITCH.

Though it does have the intended effect on Warren:

Joey starts to feel the fall-out,

Mrs Tingle (renamed since the Detention episode in which she was "Mrs Tringle'', I assume because of that movie Teaching Mrs Tingle Kevin Williamson made that also starred Katie Holmes..er, anyhow) wants Joey to join a family planning class. As if she doesn't know how to look after a baby - hello, ALEXANDER?

and then Abby plays a trump-card: SHE KNEW IT WAS A LIE ALL ALONG! *GASP* So now Joey looks even more desperate – like a rejected football groupie making up stories to try and trap her man. SIGH. Joey learns a valuable lesson: never listen to Jen, especially when her plan may have been influenced by an ulterior (okay, possibly subconscious) motive:

but the girls make nice when a tidbit of valuable info Jen gleans from Abby proves useful in helping Joey get a satisfactory revenge on Warren.

And THEN! FINAL SCENE! Bites me in the ass for laughing at the opening, because I got all kind of emotionally sucked in again. Dawson returns (by overnight bus) from his road-trip – sleep deprived, he gets ready for bed as Joey asks the question that has been on her mind the whole time.

Totally not creepy, ROMANTIC. 

As Dawson drifts off to sleep, the camera is focused on Joey, watching him – and it's clear what she's thinking. SHE LOVES HIM. We've come full circle since the beginning of the episode, when it was Dawson watching Jen; now Joey is watching Dawson.

And that bloody Savage Garden song is playing, only now...it's not funny.

IT'S PERFECT.