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Drinks Taken: 15
Welcome back to the Dawson’s Creek Rewatch Project, where Joey’s making strides in the corporate world and Eddie has returned to ruin everything for everyone.
Let’s drink to a good ol’ office makeout sesh!
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!
6.17 “Sex And Violence”
Joey and Pacey are officially trying their hands at dating, and it’s super cute if still a little awkward:
But they haven’t gotten to see much of each other, because they’re both so busy. So when Joey’s on Spring Break, she accepts a random offer from Rich to work as Pacey’s temporary secretary. What a recipe for disaster! Pacey already knows it, but it takes Joey longer to realize the self-evident truth of this matter. When he asks her to make coffee, she tells him to make it himself, and she drops important phone calls and spills coffee on important people, and also she’s like Scarlett O’Hara at the Wilkes Family BBQ with all of these sharks circling:
Eventually, it all goes to hell. That hot, mysterious lady from the party who gave Pacey a warning he totally didn’t heed? Is journalist Sadia Shaw, and she shows up to interview Pacey and Rich. Joey picks up on some latent vibes between the two, and girlfriend gets JEALOUS. She behaves hideously and it’s very embarrassing, and then she and Pacey get into a fight, and it’s all totally okay because it ends with THIS:
So later, they meet up in Hell’s Kitchen and make their amends, and it’s one of the cutest latter-season P&J scenes:
They make plans to meet up later, and it’s all so great, until Pacey leaves and – UGH – Eddie shows up. CREDITS.
Other stuff that happened in this episode:
* Dawson pitches his next movie to the producer Heather, and it’s very Creek Daze-esque, and she tells him she likes it and he should pitch it to that other producer, Larry, but warns him that Larry’s a giant pervert and won’t approve anything without sex. So suddenly Dawson’s pitch moves from being about a small-town boy in love with a small-town girl, to being about a stripper named Sunset. Name of the film: Sunset Stripped. Larry loves it! Dawson’s spiraling a bit, until he goes to visit Todd, who gives him a great pep talk and tells him to find the money himself and make the movie his way. Dawson turns down Larry and walks out, looking very pleased with himself.
* CJ and Jen are fighting, because they honestly don’t seem to like each other very much. Jen’s trying to take it slow with CJ because she wants this to be a Real Relationship, and CJ just wants to have sex and is offended that Jen sleeps around with everyone but him. NO, but really, he says that. CJ sucks so much! And it’s not even true! This myth that Jen is a harlot persists through nearly all of her terrible boyfriends. They fight, until Grams fixes everything because Grams is awesome, and then they have sex. I guess stupid CJ won this round.
How many times did I have to drink?
7
These are the faces of two people who hate each other:
Jen’s not the only one who hates CJ
He tells her, “It is true what they say. Once you start dating, sex goes right out the window,” and omg, you guys, I never thought I could hate Jensen Ackles so much.
The truest thing anybody said this week
When Pacey asks Joey if she thinks she can handle a boss/employee power dynamic for two weeks, she replies, “We both know who’s boss here.” (But that’s also why you should not accept a position as his secretary, dude!)
The second truest thing anybody said this week
After Dawson’s 10-minute whine sesh, Todd sighs, “You’re such a bloody drama queen, Leery.”
Most meta moment
When Heather’s asking Dawson if he can sex up his script some, she asks if he can add something like a teacher affair with a student. He looks thoughtful and is like, “Yeah, I could work with that.”
Best foreshadowing
Jen tells CJ that if he were counseling her, he’d put on his “very best Dr. Drew,” the co-host of Loveline who will be guest-starring in two episodes’ time.
6.18 “Love Bites”
The episode opens where the last one ended, with Joey gaping at Eddie in Hell’s Kitchen. He tells her, in a roundabout way, that he dropped out of that prestigious writers’ program she worked so hard to get him into because she’s the only writers’ workshop he needs, or something. I would be FURIOUS. You just know Joey’s gonna hear about this from Hetson, who recommended Eddie despite his best instincts. Anyway, Joey’s not focusing on that so much as the part where Eddie came back because he loves her, and she tells him that she’s moved on. He looks sad and says okay and leaves, and she stares after him balefully.
The next night, she’s supposed to chaperone Harley’s dance, and Pacey invites himself along. It’s so sweet and heartbreaking – he’s trying to make up for the Prom From Hell, so he brings her a corsage and spends the night complimenting her and dancing with her. It kills me. Meanwhile, Harley and Patrick are having pretty typical teenage relationship problems, but they’re lucky in that their older and wiser counterparts are there to coach them through the same mistakes they once made, so Harley and Patrick end up dancing happily together. I wish I could say the same of Joey and Pacey – the night’s so perfect, but Joey just never feels right about it, so she tells Pacey she’s sorry, but she wants to be with Eddie. He’s crushed, but a gentleman, so he dances with her once more and then sadly says goodbye. And then she goes to Eddie’s house and makes out with him. GAH GAH GAH.
But okay! Here’s my theory on how this runs down. I’m not mad at Joey, because the truth is, this isn’t real Pacey! He’s taking her on all these fancy dates and bragging about his cool car, and that’s not the boy she fell in love with. He was the boy she fell in love with that night at K-Mart, but he’s been play-acting at being this fancy stockbroker douche these days. (ALSO, low-key, she deserves a chance to dump him at prom to make things right after he dumped her at prom.) And honestly, there are only six episodes (!) of Dawson’s Creek left. We don’t have to wait too long for their happily ever after.
Other stuff that happened in this episode:
* Grams has broken up with Uncle Bill, and when Jen lightly teases her about it, Grams gets really testy and unlike herself. After some digging, Jen learns that Grams has breast cancer, and they’re both devastated, but Grams promises her she’s not ready to die yet. And she’s not!
* Dawson stops by Pacey’s office and asks to invest some money so he can make enough to produce his own picture. Pacey’s hesitant to get into business with his friend and actually warns Dawson against doing this several times! Please remember I said that later. But Dawson persists, and Pacey agrees. Dawson moves back in with Gail to save some money, and Gail is DISPLEASED with this harebrained scheme, because she remembers how many harebrained schemes Mitch used to have. Dawson does what he can to convince his mom that he’s not quite as brainless and irresponsible as sweet, doofy Mitch. Who is?
How many times did I have to drink?
8
Joey’s cute hair
I’m a sucker for pigtail braids.
Best callback
Pacey even mentions the sad corsages from The Prom From Hell when bringing Joey two beautiful options this time.
Best foreshadowing
When Pacey’s trying to convince Dawson that they shouldn’t go into business together, Dawson says, “We’ve been though a lot together!” and Pacey says, “We’ve never been through ‘I’m broke and it’s all your fault.'”
That’s it for this week! Readers, I have a question for you. How do you feel about my Pacey-Joey theory? I don’t mind that they gave us this little sneak and then pulled it away once more. I want Pacey to wrap up this gross stockbroker storyline before he moves on with Joey, so he can deserve her.
Meet us here next Wednesday morning as we cover “Lovelines” and “Catch-22.”
