About:
Drinks Taken: 7
Welcome back to the Dawson’s Creek Rewatch Project, where Audrey is breaking my goddamn heart.
Let’s drink to the shattered remains of my poor, poor heart:
The Dawson’s Creek Drinking Game
Drink Once every time:
Joey purses her mouth or chews on her lip
Joey tucks her hair behind her ear
Sex makes Dawson and/or Joey extremely uncomfortable
Grams says “Jennifaaah”
Pacey wears a shirt that makes you want to blind yourself
Audrey declares something risqué or insane with utter confidence
Drink Twice every time:
You have literally no idea why Joey is mad
Pacey gives someone a really good hug
Cool Jen Lindley is totally crapped on by the universe
Onto the episodes!
6.05 “The Impostors”
Everyone’s awkward this week! Joey and Eddie are awkward after their kiss, Dawson and Natasha are awkward even though Natasha decided to forgive Dawson, Jack and Professor Freeman are awkward after Professor Freeman admitted to his crush on Jack, and Pacey and Audrey are awkward after last week’s party. Gah, it sucks. Okay, let’s get to it.
Joey and Eddie: He’s really giving her a hard time after the kiss, not really making it clear how he feels about the whole thing while still teasing her about it. It’s driving her crazy. In class, Professor Hetson continues to harangue Joey, and Eddie stands up for her, and then Hetson turns on Eddie. He makes several weird, vague insinuations, and Eddie storms out. Later, Joey finds out from Emma that Eddie doesn’t even attend Worthington, and she goes to his apartment to ask him about it. He’s pissed and tells her to mind her own business, but later he mellows and finds her at the bar. He admits he’s not a student anywhere, but he likes attending classes just to learn. Aaaaand he maybe also attends just to see Joey.
Dawson and Natasha: It’s clear they’re crushing on each other, but their last attempt at a relationship crashed and burned so spectacularly, neither’s willing to make a move. Heather, the a-hole producer from last season, shows up to ream Todd for the fact that this production is over-budget and delayed. She wants him to fire Natasha because the studio hates all of the footage, but Dawson stands up for Natasha and then coaches her into giving a great performance that mollifies Heather, because really Natasha has just been over-thinking it. She’s grateful and they have a really lovely talk about the night they met and how lucky they are to get to do what they do for a living. Natasha’s so cool and real. I dig her.
Jack and Professor Freeman: Jack gets a C- on a paper he worked really hard on, and he’s disappointed because he’s making such an effort this semester. When he goes to talk to the professor about it, he’s rudely dismissed, so he goes back and confronts him, suggesting that the bad grade has more to do with Jack’s reaction to Professor Freeman’s flirting last week than anything else. He pretty righteously scolds his professor, telling him that he’d expect this from a scared teenager, not a fully grown man. Freeman says things were different when he was growing up, and it was a much bigger deal to come out then. But he admits he graded Jack’s paper unfairly, and gives him a B. Jack coolly tells him to have a TA grade his papers from now on and walks out. Go Jack! (This is why professors and students should not have romantic entanglements.)
Pacey and Audrey: sigh. Pacey’s still studying like crazy and neglecting Audrey, who’s clearly getting pretty anxious about it. She refuses to talk to him about what happened at the party, but to be honest, he’s barely asking. He’s really putting in very little effort at this boyfriend thing. Emma needs a lead singer for a gig for her band, The Hell’s Belles, and after hearing Audrey sing in the shower, she asks Audrey to do it. Audrey’s so excited and nervous, and tells Pacey how important it is to her that he be there, and he begrudgingly promises he will. But then OF COURSE he falls asleep and doesn’t make it. Audrey’s amazing, seriously amazing, at the gig, and she’s on Cloud 9 afterwards – until she realizes Pacey flaked. She goes back to his place and he apologizes, and she just asks him to drive her home. She’s obviously heartbroken, and Pacey doesn’t even have the nerve to notice. Gah! Pacey!
How many times did I have to drink?
4
Audrey’s punk performance
She KILLED. Seriously killed. She is such a babe and Pacey is such an ingrate.
The truest thing anybody said this week
When Freeman condescendingly tells Jack “The world’s changed,” Jack replies, “Look, if the world’s changed, it’s because people are willing to stand up and be honest about themselves, not hide behind things that are easier.” Jack is so badass with this guy.
6.06 “Living Dead Girl”
Aww, it’s the very last Halloween episode of Dawson’s Creek. It’s always been a fun tradition for this little show, and “Living Dead Girl” is a great way to go out.
So the majority of the episode takes place on the set of Todd’s movie. Todd and Natasha tell Dawson that the soundstage is supposedly haunted by a woman named Melanie Ray, “the Jamie Lee Curtis of her day, the original scream queen,” who was strangled on set by her husband after he found out she was having an affair with the director. After Dawson hears the story, he starts seeing weird things – shadows and ghostly presences in the dailies, someone who looks an awful lot like Melanie Ray in the rafters and dark corners of the set. He also starts seeing a spark between Natasha and Todd, and gets pretty jealous – especially when he sees how insanely hot Natasha looks in her skimpy Halloween costume. Natasha and Todd are flirting and touching a lot, and it’s driving Dawson crazy, and he finally confronts them in bed (in the bedroom set made to look like his childhood bedroom, weirdly) and tells Natasha she deserves better and that he cares about her, and tells Todd that he quits. Natasha and Todd scare him one more time and then admit that the whole thing is an elaborate prank – Todd is SO delighted by this, by the way. It’s cute. He leaves and Natasha gets Dawson to admit that he was jealous. She tells him she’s wanted him back ever since he broke up with her, but she wanted to make him suffer a little first. They kiss, and aww, yay! I’m glad! I really like this relationship.
In less happy relationship news: Audrey forces Pacey to join her for a costume party at the movie set. They’re dressed as Sid and Nancy, which will end up being sadly prophetic. Pacey’s grumpy the entire time and then confronts Audrey about an F on a paper he saw on her desk, and she shrugs it off and tries her HARDEST to get him to seem like he’s having any fun with her whatsoever. He refuses. She tells him again that she wants him to quit this job, and they get into a pretty big fight in the middle of the party. Audrey walks off and, later, is weirdly hanging out in a coffin (?) when she overhears Pacey talking to Emma, and he says the worst thing. The very worst.
I’m not really sure if the reason I’m checking out is because I just can’t handle the rough spots or if it’s because I just don’t love her anymore. Or really, for that matter, if I ever truly loved her.
GAHHH! Audrey gets trashed and waits for Pacey outside of the party, and then she dumps him. She won’t let him get a word out – he’s trying to do that “noble” thing where he tells her she deserves better, and I love and admire her for not letting him, because he shouldn’t get to make himself feel better about the way he’s treated her. She tells him she’s failing out of school because she’s been too depressed to go to class ever since things got so bad between them. She starts to cry and breaks my heart:
Don’t you dare try to make yourself feel noble, Pacey. You are not some knight in shining armor. You’re just a guy who’s grown tired of screwing the same girl and you feel guilty about it. You think that sucks? Why don’t you try being the one who has to wonder why all the people that she loves don’t love her back.
GAH. Pacey goes to comfort Audrey and she lashes out and hits him across the face. She sobs, he stands there quietly, and it’s over. I’ll say it one more time: GAH. One of the most brutal breakups on a series full of them.
Other stuff that happened this episode:
* In an attempt to get Hetson to allow Eddie back in his class, Joey agrees to babysit his daughter Harley. Harley’s a VERY sassy pre-teen with a loud mouth, a real handful, but it’s clear that she’s mostly just bummed that her dad is Hetson, and he’s the worst. He flaked on their Halloween tradition so he could go on a date with some rando, and Harley’s crushed. She also has a crush on Eddie, so Eddie agrees to spend the evening with Harley and Joey to give Joey a break, and also because he clearly likes Joey. They go to a haunted house and Eddie surprises Joey by kissing her, and it all seems to be going great until Joey realizes Harley’s missing. They find her at the movie theater – where Harley and her dad usually spend Halloween – and Joey wins over Harley by being firm but honest about her own deadbeat dad. I kinda like Harley, and you know, I’m starting to like Eddie, too. He and Joey end the episode sharing a root beer float, and it’s pretty cute.
* Jack convinces Jen to call CJ and invite him to the costume party. She nervously does, and he brings a guy named David, who’s pretty clearly gay. Jen thinks this means CJ is gay, too, so she and Jack divide and conquer to find out. Jen talks with David, who tells her that CJ talks about her all the time – she thinks he means romantically, but David amends that CJ just really wants her to become a counselor at his peer program. Meanwhile, CJ tells Jack that he’s not gay, but he’s also not interested in Jen. “She’s not my type.” Jen tells CJ she’ll volunteer for his peer program, and then asks him out, and when he politely declines, she happily tells Jack she thinks he’s just playing hard to get. Poor Jack doesn’t have the heart to break it to her that CJ just kinda sucks – a piece of information he gets from David, who tells Jack that Jen’s better off without CJ. BUT at least Jack gets a date out of it! He and David hit it off, and make plans to get coffee together soon. Yay!
How many times did I have to drink?
3
Most meta moment
When Jen asks CJ what his plans are for Halloween, he tells her he’s planning on watching Halloween: H20, which starred Michelle Williams alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, the Jamie Lee Curtis of our day. Also the story for that film was written by none other than Dawson’s Creek‘s Kevin Williamson. From the poster:
Guess who
Harley is played by child actress Mika Boorem, who already had a ton of credits to her name before she stopped by Dawson’s Creek.
Guess who x2
David is played by The Young and the Restless‘s Greg Rikaart.
Halloween Pacey
Halloween Audrey
Halloween Jen
Halloween Jack
(plus fangs)
Halloween Emma
Halloween Todd
Halloween Dawson
Halloween Natasha
Impact-wise, Natasha might win this Halloween showdown. But Jen’s costume is my favorite.
That’s it for this week! I’ve got a question for you, readers: can you defend Pacey’s actions here? I know you can’t make yourself love someone, but it felt like Pacey was always half-assing this relationship, even though he knew how much Audrey loved him. It really breaks my heart.
Meet me here next Wednesday morning as we discuss “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell” and “Spiderwebs.” Here comes No Doubt!
