Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Join us for a singalong of On My Own while we debate who wore it better on Season 1 Episode 12: Beauty Contest, also known as Pretty Woman.
A Dawson's Creek Rewatch Podcast for those who missed the boat!
Freaks & Creeks: a Dawson's Creek Podcast dives into each episode of the hit '90s TV show Dawson's Creek with a fresh perspective. Join Cody, Stella, Mal and James as they set sail through turbulent waters determined to understand this iconic teen drama’s place in the modern television zeitgeist.
Cody: Welcome to freaks and creeks, a, uh, Dawsons creek pageant. The show where four contestants who missed the boat 25 years ago go down the catwalk talk for the first time. Join us as we experience the series with a fresh perspective week to week, and see if our adolescent experiences match up with Dawson and the gang. I'm, um, your pageant host, Cody. And let's introduce Stella, wearing nothing but a tiara and light up reebok sneakers.
Misc: Yay.
Stella: Hello. Hi, I'm Stella. Thank you.
Cody: And Mallory in a gorgeous three piece chicken suit made of kaffi.
Mallory: Hello there.
Cody: And James, dressed like a race car driver with two foam fingers and clown shoes.
Speaker E: And, uh, yeah, uh, we're here for Freaks and Creeks, baby. This week we're going to be talking about season one, episode twelve beauty contest, just in case you didn't know from our intro there. But before we get into it, we do have some Capeside correspondence to get to.
Mallory: We have an email from listener Chris. He, uh, sent us a fan theory.
Speaker E: We love these. Send us more.
Mallory: Yeah, send us more. Um, Kevin Williamson wants us to hate teachers.
Cody: I believe it.
Misc: Fuck yeah, dude.
Mallory: Yeah. So the evidence presented is one Miss Tingle being so terrible, she kidnapped in she gets kidnapped in teaching ms. Tingle, which is a movie that Katie, uh, Holmes is in, that Kevin Williamson directed. Um, number two pacey and Ms. Jacobs and Mr. Gold. So the storyline of Pacey, miss Jacobs and I'm not sure about Mr. Gold's element there.
Speaker E: I, uh, mean, Mr. Gold, he gets in a little fight with Mr. Gold at the movie theater. I added that one in Chris to include that. But I felt like it was worth mentioning because he's a fucking teacher. He knows he's a teenager and he's not being anyway, not to forget all.
Cody: The other teachers at Capeside, right? Just in general.
Mallory: Yeah, they're horrible. Um, and then the third one that he presented was The Faculty. The movie. The faculty. Every teacher is a murderous alien.
Misc: Yes.
Speaker E: And that movie, uh god damn, that's like a seminal 90s movie for me. I just remember the Pink Floyd song, The Wall they play in that one introduced me to that band. Thank you.
Cody: Yeah, that movie is extremely good. Yeah, I love that movie to death. Robert Rodriguez movie. If you haven't seen The Faculty get into it, you got it.
Speaker E: Um, I wanted to actually just throw a quick shout out to Chris, not just for the email, but he's actually been a day one listener of ours.
Misc: Um.
Speaker E: He, uh, followed us over from our initial Reddit Post announcing the show, and he's been listening ever since. So hey, Chris, thank you very much. We really appreciate it.
Misc: Thank you.
Speaker E: And the fact that we don't know you and you've been listening since day one is even crazier wild bonkers crazy.
Mallory: Wow.
Stella: We love it.
Mallory: Thank you.
Stella: Also, we have a fun new review from a listener in New Zealand. Uh, they review five stars as a longtime Dawson's Creek podcast listener in Connoisseur, this is just the breath of fresh air I've been looking for. A bunch of newbies to the show giving their thoughts and insights with no knowledge of what's coming up is a really fun listen, and I love the attention to detail and hearing their plot speculations, some more accurate than others.
Speaker E: Mine.
Stella: Hashtag team Joey. Thank you so much, listener. Everything shiny from New Zealand.
Speaker E: Ah, New Zealand.
Cody: A functioning country.
Speaker E: Yeah.
Cody: I wonder what that's like.
Speaker E: Well, I mean, it's because they have all the Hobbits there, I think. Isn't that run by the Hobbits? Wow. Okay, well, I guess it's time for us to get into the episode then, huh?
Misc: Huh?
Mallory: Before we get into it, James, did you want to let the listeners know why the sound might be a little different?
Speaker E: Yeah. Thank you for the reminder, everybody. If you're listening, well, I hope you're listening at home and not in our home, because if you are here, I'm scared. But if you are hearing a little bit of strange noise in the background, like a high pitched, low pitched noise, white noise, it's just because we're in the middle of a heat wave. And also a wildfire smoke party, I guess. Very strange party. So we're doing our best to stay cool in here. Very sorry. If you hear any of those noises, hopefully you can excuse it. I'll do my best to remove it and post, but I just wanted to throw that out there. Don't give us bad reviews, please.
Cody: Considering, uh, our global heat death, uh, I would be surprised if in the next couple of years, every podcast has a fan blowing behind.
Speaker E: I think we actually need to get another microphone for our fifth host, which is just a fan. What do you think about that, fan? All right, well, on that note, uh, we're going to be talking about season one, episode twelve. As previously mentioned, this is beauty contest. It's also known as Pretty Woman. This episode was released May 12, 1998. And in this episode, Joey and Pacey both enter a local beauty pageant, the Miss Win Jammer Pageant, which is just such a great name. I love that name. So this episode was written by Dana Barada. Directed by Arvin Brown. And I've got a little bit of trivia about, uh, this episode when it was released. Like I said, May 12, the movie on the top of the Billboard charts sorry, box office charts, deep Impact. And I forgot about that movie existing somehow until reading that and it brought back so many memories. Did you guys see that when you were kids?
Mallory: Oh, yeah.
Misc: Who's in that?
Mallory: I can't remember.
Speaker E: Oh, I got it's. Uh, Robert Duval, tia Leone and Elijah Wood. Kind of like the three big ones, but there's actually a pretty big task stacked.
Cody: Morgan Freeman's, the president.
Mallory: Yeah.
Cody: Who's, uh, the crush that Elijah Wood has that they survived at the end. Spoiler alert for debugger.
Speaker E: I will have to pull that up. But it's a crazy movie.
Mallory: Lilly Sovietsky.
Cody: Uh uh, did Armageddon come out first?
Speaker E: I know.
Cody: Or was it after Deep in my.
Speaker E: Head, Armageddon came out first, but I think actually Deep Impact did.
Cody: Okay.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: It's like the 6th month of media movies.
Mallory: Both uh, yeah, they were both that year, but Not Sure Again was released June 30.
Speaker E: So a month later.
Mallory: I feel like I remember them there being a lot of movies that were.
Speaker E: Like, yeah, was Independence Day. I know that's a slightly different take on this, but was that also 98?
Cody: No, that was 95 or 98.
Misc: Okay.
Speaker E: Yeah. Anyway, man, what a time for apocalypse movies.
Cody: Yeah. We, uh, were just talking about how movies fell, and I were talking about how sometimes you'll get two movies that are very similar coming out in the same year. Remember, for all, uh, the magic heads out there must have been super stoked when the Prestige and Illusionist came out in the same year. Uh, what were we talking about?
Stella: No idea.
Misc: Okay.
Cody: Sounds good.
Speaker E: But I agree. It feels like every couple of years you get this cycle of movies where you have at least two that are basically the same film. And it always makes me wonder, like, what happened? Did somebody leave a pitch meeting that they declined the film? They're like, I've got a screenwriter friend and I'm going to give them this idea or them this idea and see what they can do. And then we'll buy that film instead because it's going to be cheaper.
Cody: Yeah, I remembered I had referenced that Disney did a live action jungle Book, but at the exact same time, you had Andy Circus directed Mowgli the Dirty Jungle Book. Um, but yeah, same year.
Mallory: Also, there's like a couple of Pinocchios this year. Speaking of that place, too, right?
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: Guillermo del Toro is doing the pinocchio. And then there's just the generic Disney beef for beef liveaction. Full quotes.
Speaker E: I'm really excited about that Gearwell DelToro one. I want to be worried by a little wooden boy.
Stella: That original one is scary enough for me.
Speaker E: Well, we know you don't like water. Maybe.
Cody: I just hope it goes, uh, the same way as the shape of water. We get a sex scene with Pinocchio.
Speaker E: Oh, god. Um, another thing about May 12, 1998 and this is honestly probably the biggest piece of news ever to come to Dawson's Creek, um, a very important album was released on May 12, 1998.
Cody: I can't wait to hear it's.
Speaker E: Dark and Hell is Hot by DMX, his mainstream studio debut. And I bought that album. Uh, my dad broke it. He was very upset that I had an album that had explicit content at eight years old.
Stella: How did you buy it?
Speaker E: I, um, think I had my brother buy it for me. Or maybe my brother bought it and I stole it. I know I had it through my brother somehow. Um, but yeah, I remember him breaking it in front of me, which is a cycle that then later repeats later on when I bought Limp Biscuits, chocolate Starfish, and the Hot Dog Flavored Water album. Because the fuck song is the opening track off that. And he says fuck like 36 times or something. My dad heard that and he just broke it in front of me. Anyway, um, I really like that album because DMX barks like a dog. And I thought that was so cool.
Cody: I feel like every song on that record is a single because that's like, y'all going to make me lose my mind up in here.
Speaker E: Starfriend is anthem. Um, there we go. Yeah, I mean, that's an incredible album. If you haven't listened to it, go listen to it and rest in peace. DMX. We miss you.
Cody: Is that going to be your recommendation for this week?
Speaker E: It's an early one.
Misc: Let's see.
Speaker E: We'll have to wait until the end.
Mallory: One m thing I wanted to add to keepsake correspondence that I forgot was shout out to Wordle this week. Not sure if any of you did the Tuesday or Wednesday word. I can't remember what day it was, but the word was leery.
Speaker E: Yeah, baby. Really dated.
Mallory: I was very excited when I found out that was the word.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker E: A little bit of viral marketing on our part.
Mallory: We slip that in there.
Speaker E: Well, this episode has a little bit of everything. It's got just about every ism that you can imagine. There's misogyny, there's ableism, there's transphobia, there's classes. It's just great. I love all that. There is diegetic music for, uh, a large part of it, including a whole ass musical number that we just heard in the beginning. And there's some legit sorcery that happens in this episode.
Cody: Oh my God.
Speaker E: Sorcery what did you guys take away from that? Those are my I love this episode for those reasons. What about you guys?
Stella: No notes. Perfect.
Cody: Ah, Jesus Christ.
Mallory: I thought it was kind of terrible, actually.
Cody: The worst.
Mallory: Yeah. I felt a combo of sad and sick at the end. Like terrible.
Speaker E: I was ill. We watched Mal and I watched this after you both had watched this and texted us saying, have you watched it yet? Um, and then you sent us a photo of Cody's face, which we may just have to post on our Instagram, as he was witnessing the Beauty of My Own by Joey. Um, when we got to that part, I didn't want to watch any more of this show. It scared me. It was uncomfortable. I really didn't like it.
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: When I watched it again, I just really wanted to fast forward through that scene, but I had to watch it this is rough. So it's something I never want to hear again.
Speaker E: We're going to hear a lot today.
Mallory: Yeah.
Stella: That is going to be stuck in my head for a very long time.
Cody: On an engagement entertainment level, this episode was perfect. Uh, but, uh, for a, uh, realistic criticism, I'm going to say this is an abysmal 42 minutes of television. One of the worst episodes of TV I think I've ever seen. Uh, I could not fucking believe my goddamn eyes, ears, and all three other senses. Or fourth, if I'm Haley Joe Osmond in the system, the only thing that I can even kind of compliment would be Joey realizing that Dawson is full of shit and turning him down for falling for the facade of her beauty pageant version of herself instead of her. And I thought that speech was really great, but then they completely negate that and it's the antithesis of the entire episode themes when at the end they both smile thinking of each other and it fades to black. Playing one of the worst songs I've ever heard, uh, in my life. I, uh, hate almost everything about this episode. I hate the beautiful girl has self esteem issues, but learn she's beautiful trope. I hate, uh, how Jen's ark makes no sense, uh, ah, at all. And, uh, the only thing that's worse than everything that I've already spoken about is the score is one of the most grating, dearish, horrible things I've ever heard. At every moment, it tells you exactly what you're supposed to feel instead of allowing the audience to feel based on the performances or the shots. It is disgusting and I hate it. It's even worse than the jangly guitars that they use in other episodes to, uh, tell, uh, us that this is a funny romcom moment.
Mallory: I, uh, hated that we essentially get nowhere with Jen and Joey. It's like a fake out. Like, oh, they're going to become close, but then at the end, we got nowhere.
Speaker E: To me, honestly, this feels like an episode that would should have come in like episode three or four because what happens in this episode? Fucking nothing. They introduce a bunch of stuff and then by the end of it, they're like, anyway, never mind all that stuff, so why the fuck did we watch any of this? Nothing happened.
Cody: To hear the greatest song of all time.
Speaker E: Yes, but all of that said, I totally agree with every single thing you guys are saying. This episode sucks ass. It is awful. But on my rewatch, I had so much fun, uh, watching this episode. It was probably the most enjoyable episode I've had so far. And on my own, it's a BOP. It gets stuck in my head. I can't stop thinking about it. I'll be working on completely non Dawson's Creek related stuff and then just in the back of my head, I just.
Misc: Hear.
Mallory: Some beach, see where it goes. Let's do a remake.
Speaker E: After this, we're going to drop in our, uh, produced remix of On My Own.
Cody: In Dawson's bedroom, our hero watches a nature documentary about animals that use the world's boom boom room for procreation. Joey expresses her distaste and they fall into a discussion on sexual attraction. Dawson thinks it's all about animal instinct, baby. Whereas Joey thinks people are socially influenced to be attracted to whatever is currently in. When Dawson prides further about instinctual attraction, she turns away and states she hasn't the slightest idea, a clue for an audience that yes, she does in fact have a thing for Dawson.
Speaker E: Let's talk about that argument really quick because what the fuck do you think happens here? I had to rewatch this scene probably like 15 to 20 times to really get what's being said here. What do you guys think?
Cody: Okay. Ah, a lot of this episode is like very surface level discussions on deeper social issues. And I think what they're trying to say is, and I agree with both to an extent, I mean, like, sexual attraction is like instinctual, but also we are programmed by our media to be attracted to certain things. So this is setting up the theme for the episode like all the other episodes have where Joey is saying that when you're told that something is beautiful, you're going to fall for that beauty no matter what. And later on when she's all dolled up, Dawson is like, wow, it's like I'm seeing you for the first time. And she's like, yeah, we had this fucking talk. Of course you're going to be attracting me when I look like this. But the next day I'm going to have no, uh, hairspray or makeup and you're not going to be attracted to me anymore.
Speaker E: Right.
Cody: Um, but then, like I said earlier, that scene collapses in the final shot. So I honestly don't really know what this show is trying to tell me in the scene or throughout this entire episode or really what this is. I don't even know what they're arguing about. It doesn't really make sense. The dialogue was super weird the first.
Speaker E: Time I watched this. So what we're talking about here, they're watching this video of Praying Mantis as fuck and Dawson is then talking about essentially they're then talking about like, what is biology's impact on your partner? Right? That's essentially the argument they're having. Dawson argues well, Joey argues that unlike humans, the animal kingdom is driven purely by instinct. Humans are driven by culture, really is what she's trying to say. And then Dawson's like, well, no, you can't really say that because there's definitely biological impacts into who you're attracted to, but it's also cultural as well. Joey so Dawson is like, you can't tell me that this doesn't have an impact. And Joey's just like, I haven't the slightest idea. What the fuck does that mean? What are you saying?
Mallory: I think she's responding to Dawson. If he's right, about animal instinct in terms of human attraction. I have the slightest idea about that. If you're right. I don't know. But it was a weird way.
Stella: I thought she was referring to her attraction to Dawson.
Speaker E: I know, but that's what's confusing to me is because she's acting coy, right? Like, oh, I don't know what you're talking about. So is she saying that she's been cultured to find Dawson attractive? Because that's her argument that humans are not biological and Dawson is saying, no, actually, that does have an impact in it. And she is she's saying, I haven't.
Mallory: I don't know, maybe the fact no, it's not. But she's faced away from Dawson. So I think it's like a double maybe we're supposed to be seeing it in two different ways.
Cody: This is such a good discussion. So later on, uh, because the trope that we're working with is that Katie Holmes is obviously a beautiful person and that trophy, she's too tall.
Mallory: She can't walk in heels.
Cody: This trope is the constant thing of like, oh, well, if she only let her hair down and took her glasses off. Ah, she's the most attractive person you've ever seen. She's all that, um, baby. Is her argument coming from a place of self loathing? Because she knows that she doesn't match what she's talking about when she says people want to fuck the gens out.
Speaker E: There, the heroin addicts.
Cody: She's not Jen. So when she's saying the slightest idea, uh, to finish off that conversation with Dawson, I don't know if this is three layers of mhm that she's keeping above herself to not I honestly don't. Yeah, it is so poorly written and the themes are there, but not really that it doesn't really make any sense to me.
Speaker E: It honestly feels like they mixed up which shot they were going to use and they were like, I kind of fucked up the dialogue on that one, I couldn't quite get the delivery. Can we do that again? And they're like, yeah, totally, let's do it again. But they only kept the first day or something because I know it's written that way, but it just really is so hard to follow. And like I said, I probably had to watch this scene like 20 times to really understand what the fuck was at least what I think they're trying to say and I'm still not confident in it. I still don't really know it's stuff.
Cody: Like, uh, this either means that this is the most well written show about nuanced characters I've ever seen in my entire life or they wrote this in 20 minutes and because they needed a Filler episode and this is the garbage that we're getting, they do a pageant.
Speaker E: Okay, cool, we don't need to write more than that, right? No. And then they're shooting that day and they're like, uh, we've got one scene. Joey, can you sing? Yeah, totally.
Stella: Yes. I think throughout this episode there's a lot of dialogue that is just really poorly written. Um, I feel like the writer that name didn't sound familiar so I don't know if we've had any other episodes.
Cody: By this person but little rough for sure.
Speaker E: Yeah. Well, at least it gets better from.
Cody: Here at, ah, the Ice House. Dawson reveals that Capeside's Yacht Club is holding an archaic beauty contest via the Windjammer Days pageant in which the winner receives five grand in a trip to New York City. Not only is his mom going to be one of the judges but he's been given the task of covering it for the local news. When Jen reveals she used to be a pageant girl dawson compliments her condescendingly as Joey and Jenlive pacey criticizes Dawson's backhanded comments and Dawson admits that trying to win her back has become a bizarre hobby.
Stella: Uh, okay, so first off I just love introducing the pageant. They say that it's, uh, a way to get in tourists before uh, the town shuts down for the season.
Cody: Everyone in the state of Massachusetts and New England in general is rushing to Capeside to see 15 year olds in a beauty pageant.
Stella: Do tourists go to beauty pageants?
Mallory: How like local beauty pageants?
Speaker E: Yeah. How bored were people in 1998 that they're like in Arkansas and they're like what are we going to do this weekend?
Cody: It's the last weekend of summer, there's.
Speaker E: A few weeks pageant in Massachusetts and.
Cody: Another thing that absolutely makes zero sense to me is the character of Hannah who were introduced later is, uh oh God. She's given to us on a silver platter as being someone who's very like, uh, a one percenter silver spoon. Ah, silver spoon. And she's off to a private boarding school but she's coming home to do a uh, beauty pageant for what? Cred. Like why? Yeah, I guess the only thing I can think of is to just rub it in that she's better than everybody.
Speaker E: Yeah, I got some thoughts on that that I'll share later but yeah, that character is a uh, trip. I have some thoughts on wardrobe here and costuming. Okay, so I don't know what you guys thought here but I think that there is a, I think one of the things that I like about this episode and one of the things that impressed me with it was that the wardrobeing and the costuming for Jen and Joey I think tells this episode story very well. I'm sure you all noticed this but in this scene specifically Jen and Joey are dressed nearly identically. Jen is wearing a brown suede, a chestnut suede jacket and a which she had worn before.
Mallory: That's another repeat one.
Speaker E: Yeah that's cool. Mhm and a green RIBnet sweater underneath that and then like light washed blue jeans. Joey is wearing a dark brown corduroy jacket so it's a similar texture to the suede. Same three button styling. She's also got a green gray V neck sweater and then light wash jeans. Like if you put them side by side to each other. The only difference is Jen is a little bit brighter than Joey. And this continues through at least the first half of the episode before we get into the um, pageant. And then at the pageant we get a flip and Jen starts wearing a clothing that Joey would traditionally be wearing. Like very kind of cover UPy, uh, loosefitting clothing. Including the last scene where she's literally just wearing a big baggy hoodie and black jeans. And Joey is now wearing like ball gowns and fresh clothing. Right. So I think that the wardrobe is telling the story that this episode is trying to tell, but way better than the episode is actually doing.
Mallory: Yeah, I love that. One thing I did notice is when they're at school though, they're back to their normal outfits. Um, but outside of school, what you're saying uh, is yeah, that might be there.
Speaker E: Well, I'll talk about that but yeah, when we get to the school there's an interesting thought there, but yeah, I don't know, I thought that was cool. I thought it was like an interesting thing. I know we've talked a lot about the costuming on this show and this is the first time that I felt like they were doing something very intentionally that um, besides obviously just using the styles and the colors.
Misc: Right.
Speaker E: That's intentional. But I mean, like costuming the same.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker E: Come on.
Mallory: Yeah, definitely.
Cody: That's a very astute observation because we're finally getting a glimpse of those characters being placed on the exact same level for Dawson. But again, it's so frustrating that this is again, only for Dawson. This is the purpose of showing his attraction to both of them being on the same playing field instead of them being individuals and uh, doing something else. But I'm really happy I didn't notice that at all. So I'm really happy you brought that up.
Speaker E: Oh yeah.
Cody: Because I want this show to be more than what I'm recognizing.
Speaker E: Yeah, that is the silver lining for me on this episode. It feels like I have to give it just a little more credit than I was initially giving it because that's a little bit more thought than the rest of the episode appears to have.
Cody: Totally.
Mallory: Um, I thought it was interesting that, uh, Dawson is, ah, volunteering for this for the TV station. This might be a foreshadow that we have talked about before. Will Dawson eventually work at the TV station?
Misc: Definitely.
Mallory: Is this his leg in to work in the show?
Cody: It seems so lazy to me. This person must have been in the writer's room but it almost feels like someone was just brought in off the street and they're just like, okay, so what is Dawson like? Movies like, okay, well, movies have cameras so I guess that building a new story. It just seems weird. But yeah, I mean, this might be a through line for him maybe becomes a documentary filmmaker, right?
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: I mean, just all the backhead and compliments and Dawson saying that it's just a hobby to get Jen back. Very strange.
Speaker E: Um, I think he read, uh, that book by Mystery on Naga also.
Misc: Ah.
Mallory: He says, quote, he's tried everything else. So that leads me back to what we talked about last episode where he clearly was coding. Yeah, I saw it in this episode. Totally.
Cody: So I was like, yes, he's being super manipulative now. And he missed he's, like, condescending manipulative last time, excluding her and all the stuff. And it reminded me of Dennis Reynolds from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. If you're not familiar in that show, in that sitcom, he is a womanizing scumbag. And he admits to all of his other characters that he has a system for how to best manipulate a woman, to sleep with them and then get rid of them. And it's called the Denis system, which sounds exactly like what we're dealing with with Dawson. So the D going off of here is demonstrate value, engage physically, nurture dependence, neglect emotionally, inspire hope, and then separate entirely. Well, and even though that's a joke and it's always funny to show how awful of a human Dennis Reynolds is here, it seems like that is the playbook that we're getting for Dawson.
Speaker E: Do you think that Casey, uh, feels some kind of responsibility for the monster that he has created? Because he is the first person to have told Dawson, like, yeah, well, in order to get Jen back, you basically have to nag her into loving you again.
Cody: It is interesting that we're now seeing him kind of being combative with it being like, well, why are you such.
Speaker E: A fucking dick, dude?
Cody: Uh, but I hope that we actually get to that point, maybe in the season finale where he's like, I can't believe I gave you this advice.
Mallory: Um, so we talked about how this show presents these teenagers as more like adults. So I noticed in this scene I don't know if anyone else noticed they're all drinking like Coke or Coke, some sort of soda, but they're all holding it as if they're like, drinking beers or cocktails or whiskey or like cocktails.
Stella: And it looks like wine.
Mallory: Ah, wine.
Misc: Something.
Mallory: But the way they're kind of like, sauntering around Jen's kind of like holding the cup like she's drinking liquor.
Stella: Yeah, there's like no ice in it.
Speaker E: Yeah, if you just took that scene out of context and played it for an audience, they'd be like, oh, cool. A bunch of college age kids are having a drink before a party.
Cody: Something that came very clear across to me when I was watching this is it looks cold. When they shot this, it looks like a very cold beach day. And if you've ever spent any time on the coast when it's cold, it is very cold. So I can't help. But think, why would anyone drink an ice cold Coca Cola on a beach day like that? Why are they even eating outside? It's probably like if they're eating outside it's like at most 50 deg 45 degrees. Like get out of town tea.
Speaker D: Yeah, they're all bundled up too and so it's definitely a cold day.
Speaker E: Yeah. I don't know, maybe they're just trying to sell this idea because don't they try to say this is before summer or it's the end of summer? No, it's before summer. Right.
Stella: It just says tourist season season.
Speaker D: But we just finished. Well, we were in fall.
Speaker E: So tourist season is fall. Massachusetts listeners please tell us when the fuck is tourist season.
Stella: Uh, it is really beautiful there in the fall. So maybe that is a big time for tourism.
Cody: I work with people that are in Massachusetts and they say that the tourism to Salem, which is kind of gross around Halloween, is absurd. Like you're driving anywhere around that area is a nightmare. So maybe in some way, shape or form, we're around that time.
Speaker E: I wonder.
Speaker D: Um, another note I had. So they're talking about the prize. Five, uh, thousand dollars. Um, I was curious what that is today. It's about $9,000. So I don't know, I thought that was interesting to know.
Speaker E: Good amount of money.
Cody: Yeah, that went very generous. Like doubled.
Speaker D: I know.
Cody: Inside the ice House, Joey insinuates that colleges out of the picture as uh, she'll be a poor capesider forever. Jen tells Joey she believes in her and thinks a scholarship isn't too far out of the picture. She then moves on to Prod at the friendship question. Now the Dawson isn't wedged between them. Although Joey is cold at first, she accepts and jokes about not wanting to do girly stuff with her.
Speaker E: This scene is yet another example of how Dawson's Creek continually just fails the Bectl test. Because what do they do? Just talk about Dawson?
Speaker D: Well, it's like this scene like, fails it while simultaneously trying to pass the Bechtel vest.
Speaker E: They're talking about their lives outside of Dawson. But let's get back to the real stuff here.
Cody: Yeah, the scene really gave me false hope. Uh uh, it was two layers. At the opening of the episode, I didn't even look at the gender I should have. But the person that wrote this episode, his name Dana. So I was hoping like, oh, a woman it is. So I was like, okay, well, maybe she'll have like I would like to views. Yeah, I want maybe more Jen and Joey stuff. Maybe that will be the focus. And I knew that Joey be the focus of this episode based on the little, uh, thumbnail that we get on HBO. But when they have this conversation and they introduced these kind of themes like, oh, they're going to work towards their friendship, I was like, hell yeah. This is going to be a really, uh, cool centric episode. With them bonding, which it kind of is, but then later that gets negated too.
Speaker D: Um, and her reactions to don try to become closer to her. It makes me wonder if whatever relationship she had with her sister or mother were either overly stereotypically feminine to the point that it's uncomfortable for her or if it's maybe related to her grieving of her mother or is it simply just like the Dawson issue?
Speaker E: Yeah, because she's like I think Joey has problematic views of what girl friendships, like, same sex friendships are. Because she's like, we don't have to be braiding our hair and putting makeup on each other. Right. Is that what you do in your free time? Joey, why are you immediately assuming that that's all Jen is going to want to do for you? I don't know.
Stella: Yeah, well, later, but when they have other conversation, um, Joey, they both talk about how they don't have a lot they've never had a lot of email friendships.
Cody: Email. Right.
Speaker D: But also, Joey has a sister and so it's just interesting to me that there's some other elements there that definitely uh yeah. Why is that uncomfortable for her?
Speaker E: Um, just really quickly we were talking about Dana Barrata and I looked her up a little bit more. She wrote and produced for Jessica Jones, which I love that. And that feels like a very strong departure from this episode. Specifically, Jessica Jones is like a pain resistant, super strong superhero in the Marvel universe. And it's like a super dark, gritty, very strong female character, which is the exact opposite of what we see from this episode.
Stella: Yeah, there were times in this episode when I was watching it and I was just trying to think like, if I was either a teenager watching this or just someone in the 90s watching this, how I would be viewing it. I could see myself as a kid enjoying it, you know, really? And so I just I don't know, I think us being adults now and watching it, we clearly have a very different viewpoint. But I think it probably people were rooting for this, these relationships and like the storyline. I don't know.
Speaker E: And also like the mid 90s, late ninety s is we're coming out of the grunge era, but we still have kind of like a big tomboy movement. Maybe you guys can speak more to that than I Stell and Mal, but at least that's my memory. That tomboy is and was like on the rise in a big part. So maybe that's where Joey she's representing the tomboy crew.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Misc: Got you.
Speaker D: I was more of a tomboy, but I had a very, very close best friend that we did fun things. I don't know, it's just like yeah, that's why I go back to like, she has a sister who we've seen her kind of be more feminine. She's showing her how to put makeup on. So I wonder if it's really that, uh, we also don't know much about her mother who passed away.
Speaker E: Uh, sure, we'll find out later.
Cody: This is where it makes me feel as though there wasn't that much thought put into these character beats within the themes of what they're talking about. Because at the beginning of the episode, joey is criticizing the social norms that she later buys into by then telling Jen, I don't want to do girly shit with you, when it's like, clearly Jen would know that at this point that she's not into feminine stuff that she's buying from magazines to tell you what feminism is or femininity is. Pardon me, but it's so half assed, like, with these relationships and how they're actually trying to express that, man. Yeah, what a bunch of bullshit. Makes me so upset that this is like, where we're at with these characters.
Speaker E: I'm also just confused about the timing here. Is this, like, before they go to school? Is this the day? Is this like not school day? Because the immediate next scene is they're going to school.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker E: So why is she working? She's complaining about tips and stuff.
Speaker D: I guess it is like the evening before and then school, uh, is the next day.
Speaker E: I just wish this show did a better job, uh, about communicating its timelines, because this is why we continued to be like, what is going on here? Are these happening at the same time? What day is it? What month is it?
Cody: They always do establishing shots of the buildings they're going to be in before you see them in the building, which is like, what? Every show or movie is done forever, but they never give us like, a transitional establishment where we see the sun come up and the birdies fly. Give us at least that so we know, oh, the morning has come.
Speaker E: Yeah. Passage of time. Because the immediate establishing shot of the next location makes me think instantaneous. We're just that's our next destination. Like, we're here at school now.
Cody: I wish, uh, Ari aster director of Hereditary, would time travel and go back and direct these episodes and use the same template for his time changes, where it's just like a snap and it goes from light to dark. And then also do the Hereditary thing. We put naked Colt members into the frame, only subtly, though. So when you notice that, you go.
Speaker E: And somebody's headquartered knocked off, too. Yeah, they're really cool.
Cody: Imagine if the next episode is Joey, uh, using a piano wire to cut her head off by a demon.
Speaker E: Spoiler.
Misc: Sorry.
Stella: Okay, lastly, before we move on to the next scene, um, anyone else appreciate Jen's face at the end of this scene?
Speaker E: I didn't even catch it.
Speaker D: I don't think it comes.
Speaker E: Okay.
Stella: It'll be a screenshot. It's like when Joey basically agrees to be her friend. Jen, I can't describe it, jen has the weirdest smile grin on her face that's like, really made me feel uncomfortable.
Cody: Like, she's like, so you want to be friends? That's fun.
Stella: I thought it was very silly.
Cody: At Capeside High, presumably the next day, Dawson finds Pacey thrashing through his locker angrily to find a pen. The angry boy divulges a family argument that paints Pacey as a delinquent loser and that his dad wants him out of the house. When Dawson offers him a place to crash, pacey says he's already looking for an apartment as a permanent solution, but has no money. Dawson reminds him of the pageant cash prize and illuminating a figurative, AHA, light bulb of brilliance over Paisley's head. A decision might have been made.
Stella: I thought it was strange that dad is just getting mad at Pacey about these things now that have seemingly happened maybe in the last month or two.
Speaker D: Yeah, I was going to say this is like the first time that we hear them refer to things that happened in previous episodes. Very specific things. So this was filmed after all of those?
Stella: Yes, very true.
Speaker D: Uh, he says his dad chewed him out for failing Bio, skipping school to go to Providence, fun one. And then Dawson references and or borrowing the family car which is just the previous episode.
Speaker E: Yes. I think it's because they wrote twelve episodes. No, they wrote twelve episodes and they had 13 to shoot and they're like, oh fuck. Okay, what would it be? Definitely down. Okay, throw that, uh, in there and we'll go.
Misc: Yeah. I mean.
Cody: Like any other show when at the.
Misc: Uh.
Cody: Beginning of the season when they're planning out these episodes. They have to break an entire season's worth of story and it makes me assume that and it's always tiny beats like. This is where we want the trajectory of the show to go. Obviously with the relationship drama and stuff. But we know at a certain point at the beginning of the show they're like. Pacey is going to steal his dad's car. That has to be a thing and we're going to put it at this point. So at least, at the very least we know that that was something that was solidified in their minds for Pacey as a character.
Speaker D: Right? Uh, yeah.
Stella: Also, the apartment that Pacey was looking at was $250 a month.
Speaker E: Wow, what a time.
Speaker D: Wow.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: It seems like, I don't know, maybe this is like my Twin Peaks brain, but have they ever shown a sign this is welcome to Capeside population? I don't think they have they ever said anything about the population size?
Speaker D: No.
Speaker E: They did have an FBI agent come in and he was like, dana, it's February 22 and I'm in Capeside. I hope I find some pie. That's the only thing I remember.
Cody: Yeah, that should sound weird. In the school cafeteria, Jen encourages Joey to enter the pageant since the prize money would be helpful for her higher education fantasies. Joey doesn't think she's beautiful enough. But when Jen's sincere. Reassurance that same figurative AHA uh huh. Light bulb of brilliance that had been over Peace's head begins to illuminate over Joey as well.
Speaker E: So we have a costume change here. Joey is still wearing the same jacket, but she's got like a bright green sweater on. We've seen her wear this before and Jen is wearing this, like, blue button up shirt.
Misc: Kind of weird.
Speaker D: It looks denim.
Cody: Yeah.
Speaker D: Or chambray. And then a sweater.
Speaker E: Like a dark. I thought it was like a dark.
Speaker D: Yeah, both are dark.
Speaker E: And it feels like they're costuming her to blend in. Like, she's wearing dark clothing. She's wearing kind of like shapeless clothing. Whereas in the last couple of episodes, she's been wearing that really form fitting, um, turtleneck. She's been wearing a lot of, like, clothing that I would say is meant to draw the eye rather than make her disappear.
Speaker D: I feel like structurally, they're both wearing their usual thing, but color wise, Joey stuck out more than.
Misc: Jen.
Stella: Did anyone notice the Antonio Banderos, uh, coaster in the background?
Speaker D: Yes. Bill Gates. Antonio manders, they're everywhere. Yeah, that lunch line. You keep getting that shot.
Cody: Uh, as critical as I can be about this beautiful, uh, girl, and she's beautiful.
Misc: Trope.
Cody: Uh, at the very least, I felt like Katie Holmes was selling this mhm. Like, I felt sad when she would say, well, I'm not pretty, so I wouldn't make it in the pageant. And I did. I mean, again, I fucking hate that everything has to be about beauty standards and stuff because that's what Femininity is. It's about being as beautiful as possible. So, uh, Jen having to encourage her, I did like, that is sincere. I felt that. So I love that there is like, a bond there, despite what the subject matter is. That felt nice.
Speaker D: Yeah. I feel like I felt even more sad on my second watch, though, because after watching, we know that Joey so she thinks she's not pretty then, only later sees herself as pretty. Only after Dawson reveals his new feelings for her. So then, like, seeing this scene again, it just was so sad.
Misc: Yes.
Stella: And it felt really relatable. Just like being a girl in high school who has very low self esteem. And just to echo Cody's point, it just felt really genuine and sweet. Jen really, like, trying to build her up and be like, you're amazing.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker D: Don't get to see that often on TV.
Misc: Yes.
Speaker E: He's really laying it on thick, though, if I am, um, being honest. She's like, you're the prettiest girl in the whole wide world.
Cody: Again, bad script. It doesn't really work. Listeners out there. If you can find me a piece of media where it is this Trope, but it's not someone that looks like Katie Holmes and it looks like a generic, normal human being, I would love to see it because that seems like something would be so much more relatable to someone at home if I was a kid. I mean, I have self esteem issues too, but if I could actually see myself in this character, seeing that and then they learned like, oh, your beauty doesn't have to be this fucking bullshit facade that you're getting from the media. Uh, that's what I want to see. So, listeners out there, if you have evidence, give it to me.
Speaker E: And don't send us Ugly Betty. All right? I don't know if anybody remembers that show.
Stella: I do remember that show, but she's.
Speaker E: Actually a beautiful woman. They made her look ugly for that show. But she's actually beautiful, so let's not fuck around with that.
Cody: I just want to see a normal person.
Misc: Exactly.
Speaker E: I do want to briefly complain about something in this episode that might be controversial and I'm very sorry. Please don't hate me or cancel me. All right, you guys ready?
Speaker D: Yes.
Speaker E: So Katie Holmes is acting in this episode. Drives me up a fucking wall. She does the same thing the entire episode and it's something that she does in every episode to a certain extent. But this episode, it feels like the director did her dirty because they're just like, yeah, just keep doing that. And what I'm talking about is looking down and shaking her head.
Misc: Yeah. Ah.
Speaker E: That's the only thing she does the entire fucking episode. And it drives me crazy because it's annoying. She does it like four, five, six times in a single take and it's like, I get it. You have low self esteem. You don't have self confidence. You don't need to do this 50 times in the episode. Like, we'll get to when she's actually singing the song. What the fuck are you doing?
Cody: The director fucking overboard. Like, you are saying we have to reiterate that it's like no fault of her own because we've seen her do this performance good. Clearly the director is like, yeah, you got to let the audience know you're uncomfortable. So just keep shaking your head.
Speaker E: Yeah, okay. Roll your eyes.
Misc: No.
Speaker E: Roll your eyes more. No, really, roll your eyes. And she's like, I can't roll them more.
Cody: Joey arrives at the Capeside Yacht Club to sign up for the pageant along with Jen as her coach. They find Dawson with the news crew documenting Pacey arguing with the pageant elites who argue over gender rules for pageant entrance. When Dawson takes Joey and genocide to catch up, joey reveals she's signing up as a contestant. Dawson goes on to hurt her feelings by being a condescending prick, mocking her and saying it isn't her. Even though he apologizes, Joey says it still hurts.
Speaker E: Such a prick. I capped his little, uh when he first approaches Jen and Joey and Jen walks away. Let's take a listen to how much of an asshole this guy is. Very.
Misc: Funny.
Cody: Kind of expose for the.
Misc: Paper.
Cody: Get out.
Speaker E: What an asshole.
Misc: Okay.
Speaker D: Such an asshole.
Stella: Also, maybe controversial opinion.
Misc: Here.
Stella: I don't know. I can see where they're both coming from. Like, if I'm dolphin and I am Joey's best friend, I know Joey. This isn't something Joey would do. So I understand where he's coming from and that he is really taken aback and isn't taking it seriously. And to be fair, she never tells him. I really need, like, in a sincere way before this argument. I'm thinking about doing this because I really need the money.
Speaker D: Yes. It's interesting to me that Dawson is very proud of Pacey right. For, quote, blowing the gender gap wide open, but this isn't something Pacey would normally do. But then he goes and laughs at Joey for entering because of his presumption that this isn't her thing, when really there's more to it than just the beauty part of it.
Cody: There are always two ways to react to news. And he chose the route to mock her instead of I mean, because that surprise is genuine and I completely understand what the fuck? Because it is weird that Joey wants to do it, but he could have.
Speaker E: Been like, whoa, really? Why? Yeah, exactly. And the reason that it's so bad is because of Joey's reaction. Let's take a listen.
Cody: Joey Potter entering a beauty patch.
Speaker D: And this is classic.
Misc: Oh, I see.
Speaker D: I'm such a barking car chaser that.
Misc: A D students with a Julie Caesar.
Speaker D: Haircut has a better shot than me.
Misc: Thanks a lot.
Speaker E: But I mean, Dawson is her best friend. He knows, presumably, that she has low self esteem. She doesn't have very much self confidence, that she doesn't view herself as like a traditionally beautiful girl.
Misc: Right.
Speaker E: He would know that if it's your best friend. You would kind of know that implicitly, even if you've never had that conversation. So why the fuck does he go about this?
Speaker D: Exactly.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: Sounds like the dentist system to me.
Misc: Does mhm.
Speaker E: I just love barking car chaser, though. I love that. Please call me up.
Speaker D: I'm so glad Joey pointed out that Julius Caesar haircut because that is spot on.
Cody: Yeah, for sure. I will do perhaps too. At least this kind of sounds like a writer sowing seeds to be dug up later. But the fact that Dawson is telling Joey it's so not you, and that's the facade that he falls for, uh, that allows her to later be like, well, obviously you're not falling for me. You're falling for the facade that you had told me that I am.
Misc: Right.
Cody: At least there's that. That's all I can give a props for.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker E: I just have a thought. Do you think that Joey saying that she's a barking car chaser is cross promotion for DMX's album coming.
Misc: Out?
Speaker E: Do you think that after this because they do cut, but after that she.
Cody: Goes, you know what?
Misc: Yes.
Cody: Do you think DMX watched Dawson's Creek?
Speaker E: Oh, definitely. It feels like it'd be right up his alley.
Cody: Uh, I don't know what DMX stands for. It possibly could be dawson, MX.
Speaker E: I hope it is. I really hope that that's what it stands for. It's not, but that would be great.
Misc: Listeners.
Cody: Write a sip. Okay, let's go eat some donuts.
Speaker E: Yeah, actually at lunch, too.
Misc: Bye.
Speaker D: M. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for listening. It means the world to us. If you are enjoying our Wet and Wild show, please consider subscribing so you never miss an episode. If you've already subscribed, we would love for you to give us a rating. It only takes a few seconds and can make a huge difference in helping us grow. All right, folks, back to the.
Misc: Show.
Cody: And we're back in a contestant waiting room. Pacey catches up with ex Capeside Boarding school one percenter turf hannah, as the pageant host, welcomes them with an info dump.
Speaker E: God, I don't even know what to say about this.
Cody: Yeah, okay, you're a, uh, writer for Dawson's Creek and what do you do with all these store lines with the A plot, B plot, C plot? They all kind of have to parallel each other a little bit and I guess what they're trying to aim for is the grass is always greener because we get into this thing about how they both wish they had each other's lives. Does, uh, not work for me. Hannah sucks and not many redeeming qualities about her.
Misc: No.
Cody: Uh, but the only thing I will say is that they do have good chemistry.
Misc: Yes. Yeah.
Speaker E: I mean, I buy that Pacey and Hannah know each other from way back when and there's some kind of cool story here. I wanted to know more about them. So on the one hand, it's a successful scene for that. I felt invested in this character. But then even within the scene and as we see later, I hate her. I don't want to see more of her because she seems really, like, mean.
Speaker D: The worst. She's a mean, she's mental and she.
Cody: Provides a lot of evidence to not root for her as a person.
Speaker E: Totally. Which has been so confusing. When we get to that scene way later in the episode where they're trying to redeem her in a way does it work? You didn't way too hard on making her a bad guy to try to then make her okay in the end.
Cody: Yeah, I tried not to look at IMDb. Uh, well, A because it's a cesspool for neck beards and B because I don't want any spoilers for how long a character is going to be on a show. Did anyone happen to see if she's, like, going to be a regular for now?
Speaker E: I didn't even look.
Cody: Is she a Mary Beth?
Stella: I feel like she's a Mary Beth.
Cody: Yeah.
Stella: Okay. Because she goes to boarding school, doesn't.
Cody: Seem like she'd be someone that returns. I agree, but I could imagine a, uh, character arc is like, oh, her family doesn't have enough money to send her to boarding school anymore. So now the rich girl has to go to public school with everybody else.
Speaker E: Or as she mentions in a later scene, which maybe I should say this for them, but her parents don't like her. She's the fuck up of the family. So maybe they pull her out of boarding school because they're like, you can't even win a fucking missed windjammer contest. You got to go to the pleb school.
Cody: That's true. Stella and I have like nine children now. And, uh, when all of them failed to get the wind jammer, they got the boot.
Speaker E: Well, on the subject of Mary Beth's, you know who's not a Mary Beth? The band. Chicken pox. Because they made another appearance in this episode, in this scene with this song, Pretty Face.
Speaker D: Okay, this is interesting because she's actually very pretty. This actress is very pretty to me. They made her look they kind of did her up. Like, she resembled Ingrid Bergman, in my opinion. But, um, like a Hollywood classic starlet.
Cody: She's got that hairdo.
Speaker D: Yeah, they gave her that hairdo. But she also like I thought she kind of resembled her in the face. Um, but she's the worst.
Stella: The worst. Yeah. So just not attractive. I did capture, um, that dialogue, uh, as I wrote it down. Um, just so everyone knows how problematic this is, I never figured you for a pre op transsexual, but now that I think about it, evening gowns, high heels, pacey response I assure you my sexuality is intact. I'm not the one taking showers at an all girl school.
Speaker D: That's cool. Why did Kevin Williamson let this fly?
Speaker E: Why it's so bad? Because I remember this kind of like, transphobic joke that was always in the sphere around men doing non masculine things.
Misc: Mhm.
Speaker E: Not necessarily this specific joke, but I just remember this as a theme of male ridicule.
Cody: Yeah, we've talked about it before. I mean, just the gay panic in all night media was absurd.
Speaker E: And it's disappointing that it is prevalent here when we have a queer creator.
Cody: Yeah, I don't understand why he would allow that.
Speaker E: Yeah, I don't know. Maybe this is a product of Dana Barada. I feel like she wouldn't be like, yeah, can we really get a gay panic joke in here? I really want to make sure that the gays don't feel okay.
Cody: Williamson is I mean, he's the show runner. He would have seen the final script. So it's like he saw and said, yeah, sure, I mean, this is normal. It's funny. Again, I mean, we've talked about it before. Just because the character says and does bad things does not, um, mean the show itself is trying to say that those things are good. It's really more about the character. So we are at least at the very least, the show is not saying these things are good. It's evidence to show that she is a shitty person.
Speaker D: Uh, mhm, uh, even though she's maybe quote pretty she's a shitty person. Yeah, exactly like that contrast.
Cody: But even then it's like if you are the head of uh, form of media that continues to project things that are very violent for queer people, it's like, why don't allow that?
Speaker E: You're part of the problem.
Cody: You don't need that to be a plot point in your show.
Speaker E: I'm guessing that the other reason they did this is to kind of back up what they were talking about in scene two where they're like, this is just the upper crust being fucking shitty people and just kind of like enjoying the smell of their own farts. They're just using Hannah as a way to be like, well we don't have any one percenters so let's use her and load her up so we can all understand the upper crust and capeside sucks. Which yeah, cool.
Cody: And again for loving Joey because she does specifically say this pageant is racist classist, um, and sexist, but at least.
Speaker E: We got chicken pox. That's true.
Stella: I think it's interesting that we haven't seen more of these types of characters since it is kind of like this coastal town where there is money.
Misc: Money. Yeah.
Stella: Uh, I don't know, I can't really tell if Cliff is kind of in that category but it seems House looks like it. Um, but yeah, I m don't know if we'll ever get more characters kind of like this that are just more like stuck up and have that kind of like east coast preppy energy.
Speaker D: Someone that sticks around more than just these few we've seen.
Speaker E: Yeah, the closest we have is actually Dawson who is very obviously wealthy in my opinion. Um, but he's not like the stuck up type that we're usually accustomed to with the fucking sweater tied around their neck type that Dawson would be.
Cody: Yeah. At Jen's house she teaches Joey how to walk in heels. Flustered. Joey questions Jen's intentions with coaching her since they've been our trivials up until now. Jen lets her know that she doesn't have a lot of girlfriends and gets the vibe that Joey doesn't either. And she brings up how they need to work on Joey's self esteem issues as well.
Speaker E: At least they talked about it.
Speaker D: Yeah, it's nice to see this conversation between them.
Speaker E: Um, well, I should say I am hoping that this is the beginning of the end of Joey looking down and rolling her eyes at everything character and that we're going to start to see her come out of her shell a little bit. Start to develop some self confidence and I don't actually believe it's going to happen but let's hope because god damn.
Speaker D: Well why did it take this? Why did they use this store line? It's annoying to me.
Cody: Really gross.
Speaker D: Did you get the quote from Jen where she says your perception of me is almost as misguided as your perception of yourself? Okay, well, there it is.
Misc: Yeah. So.
Speaker E: That was notable. Yeah. Again, comparing themselves to each other showing how similar they are, how they're basically in the same position on other sides of this fence. Um, this is an interesting my tracking of the costuming for this episode. This is maybe, perhaps a wrinkle here because Joey's wearing this weird blue and white long sleeve shirt, very 90s. It's blue on the top and then white on the underside of the sleeves and from the chest down. Very cool shirt outside, a white, uh, hem collar. And then Jen is just wearing like this brown long sleeve shirt. I don't really know what we're supposed to get there.
Speaker D: Joey's also wearing a skirt that is completely I think that is like, because she's in heels. Like Jen's like, oh, you should put a skirt on while you're practicing heels. Um, the blue sweater. So the next scene, uh, where we'll see Pacey singing and there's a figurehead of a woman, the figureheads that go on a ship. She's also wearing blue, the figureheads. So I thought maybe there was a connection there, but I don't know.
Cody: At Dawson's, Pacey practices singing for Dawson and his dad, Mitch. Mitch gives him an earful on how Pacey might become an accidental political activist by challenging social stereotypes. Meanwhile, at Jens, the girls stare at a window facing Dawson's house as they bizarrely contemplate each other's relationship statuses with Dawson where Joe admits to feeling like she was meant to live in Dawson's friend zone forever. Meanwhile, at the Leeries, Dawson admits to feeling as though Joey is avoiding him. Pacey reiterates how Dawson needs to figure out exactly what his relationship with Joey is but Dawson describes a romantic relationship with her would feel incestuous and Pacey hits them with, uh, her but you don't want to also, either.
Stella: Uh, so I wasn't really enjoying this episode up until this point um, where.
Cody: The women stare out the window and.
Stella: Talk about yeah, I feel like that's when it really takes a dive. I feel like the next few scenes get really weird and just awful.
Speaker D: Um, yeah. So Pacey's here singing, right? He's standing in front of the fireplace and like I said, I was just mentioning there's a figurehead, um, that is a new object in their house because I have never seen it before. I check back, um, and it's wearing blue and it has the figureheads that go on the front of ships. Um, and I kind of saw it as like is this like commentary on woman as object? We're also in the next scene, we see Jen and Joy peeking out the window in the same sort of, uh, pose stance and they're looking out at Dawson's house and this figurehead is kind of looking out and Joey, again, is wearing blue, which is what the figurehead is wearing.
Speaker E: So I thought that was that's cool.
Speaker D: I didn't catch that interesting parallel.
Speaker E: That's very interesting.
Cody: There's a lot of evidence there.
Misc: Yeah. Guess that.
Cody: Ah, but again, I don't want to give this episode any credit at all.
Speaker D: I know we could just be random. Um, while I'm on the fashion note, uh, Paisy's wearing a velvet green button up shirt and Dawson's wearing a very cozy looking fluffy maroon sweater. So they were both looking stylish.
Speaker E: So look, I have to jump in here and I have to say some things. Um, first, let's listen to this clip. Start spreading the news.
Misc: Down.
Speaker E: I'm, um, leaving today after this. Mitch Leary is like, Pacey, is there anything else you can do? So what I gotta say here, that's perfectly fine singing. It almost sounds exactly like the original, but they're pretending like it's vomit, uh, inducing mess, like it's Gigi Allen coming in here and taking a dump on stage.
Speaker D: Yeah, it just wasn't bad.
Speaker E: It was not bad whatsoever. And I really am trying not to, like, tear Katie Holmes singing apart when she sings on My Own, but this logic does not continue to when we get to that scene and Katie Holmes sings a different version of this song that does not sound particularly great or close to the original and everybody is moved to tears. So what the fuck?
Cody: We have entered into Superman's Bizarro world.
Speaker E: Yeah, maybe we're still in the dream sequence from last episode because Joey falls asleep on the bed and she thinks that there's a serial killer out to Hunter and now she's at a beauty pageant. What the fuck is happening here?
Stella: Yeah, I enjoyed Pacey's singing.
Speaker E: Me too. Nothing wrong with it.
Cody: I want to hear him sing on my own.
Speaker E: Me too.
Speaker D: Yeah. Also, uh, so we have a Mitch here separate from Gail. And I think this is like maybe the first episode we've had them just separate the whole time. We get to see them in separate.
Speaker E: Separate.
Speaker D: Totally just kind of refreshing.
Speaker E: Is my memory correct that he's smoking a pipe? No, it's not like chewing on glasses. No, I swear he's doing something like that. Maybe I'm just crazy.
Cody: He just got that mouth.
Speaker D: Yeah, he has that mouth.
Speaker E: I got to kiss.
Misc: It.
Speaker E: Uh, go ahead. I was actually going to move to scene ten. Yeah. Because like we've talked about, the show has some issues with the Bechtyl test and this scene is the most egregious example of it. I was very angry watching this, as I'm sure everybody was. Um, why?
Misc: Why?
Speaker E: That's my note. Why not only why is this happening? But also Jen is like, nose to the glass and Joey is like, directly over her shoulder. How comfortable could this possibly be? You can almost hear how close she is to the glass in the audio because it sounds like it's fucking bouncing off the.
Misc: Glass.
Speaker D: And what is this fucking conversation?
Cody: Bizarre is what it is. Uh, if you're a writer, the whole thing is like, show, don't tell. And for the most part, this episode at least, they're doing something that's like there's a pageant. So we're talking about the themes with them being actively involved in it, but with this it's like, how about we just stand and stare at his house and just talk explicitly about where our relationship status is with this boy?
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker D: The only thing is like, Joey says that she feels like the friend zone is meant for in Dawson and then right away Dawson then confirms what she said. But it's just like the set up was just so odd.
Stella: Well, earlier in the episode they talk about how the wedge of Dawson is now not between them, but clearly it is.
Speaker E: It's all they're fucking doing.
Misc: Exactly.
Cody: It made me very angry too. During our last commercial break, we went and eat some snacks and James, uh, had been talking about King Gizz new, uh, system of writing and recording and how the band members would each, uh, take time to write their own line and then they combine that. I feel like this is what they did for the writers room. They got like twelve people involved. You're like everyone's allowed to write one line of dialogue.
Speaker E: Totally throw it in.
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: How about you and Dawson?
Speaker E: What? And I understand it's a TV show. Look, I get it. Not everything is reality, especially in drama. But just this set up of this scene of two new friends, let's call them that. But they're friends talking to each other without looking at each other and just staring longingly at the boy next door's house is offensive.
Cody: That is fucking stupid.
Speaker E: These characters are not fucking fembot from Austin Powers.
Cody: They're the only, like the only thing that I can think of is that there is an antiquated feeling to Dawson's Creek that feels like big Douglas Cirque mellow dramas of the 1950s. Uh, the lenses allow the brightness of lamps to shine, a little fuzzier and it's kind of cozy and all that stuff.
Speaker E: Almost soap opera, but not quite.
Cody: Yeah, exactly. The only thing that I can think of is like in those movies and like big romance mellowdowns in the 50s, people would just stand and talk. They'd be at the camera and people would face it's not realistic. Sure. But it feels like this is the only time that everyone's been like that explicit with an homage to those type of melodramas that it would make any sort of sense for these characters to ever do that outside of. I guess. Like a regular form of realism that they've already done where they've established that these are regular teenagers that kind of talk.
Misc: Uh.
Cody: In a stylized way. This seems like they just went straight to the deep end, but it still is so weird. And if they wanted to do that. Do what they did with the Scare and make it an entire episode where the theme is like visually supposed to be like for the Scare it was a horror movie. So why not make this entire episode the melodrama where everyone is doing kind of like stage performances and having people like face the camera together and yeah.
Speaker E: The only insane look.
Misc: Maybe. Uh.
Speaker E: This is totally fucking. I don't know. I'm pulling this out of my ass. It's been a long time since I've seen Pretty Woman, the alternate title for this episode. Is there a scene somewhere in there where Julia Roberts is talking to her new friend about how much she loves Richard Gear and they're longingly staring at his house? Is there any way this is a reference to Pretty Woman?
Speaker D: It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I don't remember that because the m majority of the movie is like, she's already with him, so I don't think she's with her friend. It's only a very short time at the beginning. I.
Speaker E: Think maybe you're right. It's probably just a nod to the feeling that we're supposed to get from this, but god damn, it is really hard.
Cody: It was really hard even then. It's a stretch. I'm just trying to find something to hold on to.
Speaker E: But then over at Dawson's place, we get the confirmation like you already said, uh, Mal, that Dawson, he'll never see Joey that way, but he will. Wink, wink. Um, and Pacey is kind of like, okay, so you just don't want anybody.
Cody: Else to have her.
Speaker E: You want her to exist for you exclusively, but you're never going to fulfill anything with her.
Stella: Um, I think it's a scene yeah, where Pacey makes a joke about them.
Speaker D: Kissing and he was like, no, just kidding.
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: So Dawson still doesn't know that they actually kissed.
Speaker D: To me, uh, the joke was like another was more recent. He's joking about something that may happen more recently. That's how I read it, but I don't know. But it was still up in the air whether Dawson even picked up on like if they even kiss at all. So I think you're on the right track where he still doesn't know.
Speaker E: This is the scene where Pacey says, oh, finally, maybe we can all go home now. Isn't that in this moment? Yeah, because he's missing Joey in this moment and Pacey is like, oh, finally you've confronted the reality of your feelings and is like, oh no, it would be incestuous if I ever had any feelings for.
Misc: Her.
Speaker E: Can't we just end the show now? Just accept it?
Speaker D: Can't you just leave?
Stella: Yeah. Weird also that Dawson is like, yes, when she's not around, I miss her. It's been a day since you had that disagreement, right?
Speaker E: What if Joey is a ghost and she's actually missing? She's dead. That's why Dawson misses her so much. The serial killer did kill her. Um, and we're seeing a ghost. Joey being helped by Jen's spirit. I have to workshop that one. But I do think Joey might be a ghost right now.
Cody: Well, we have talked about how this is probably a part of David Lynch's Twin Peaks universe. True. And, uh, I had been, because I'm obsessed with Twin Peaks. The return. I've been reading that, uh, remember in the later episodes of that series, uh, there's that man in the jail cell who is covered in blood and all he does is repeat what other people say. No one ever acknowledges them. So something I've read is that, oh, he's dead and no one else can see him. That's a part of people being in the in between of the world. If there is a twist that Joey's been dead the entire time, it would make so much more sense.
Speaker E: Mhm, if only. But also, please don't kill off the.
Cody: Best character in the show. Oh, that's it. The next day, Dawson's crew is conducting filmed interviews of the pageant contestants. We get an earful from an actual nice person, roberta Krump. Oh yeah. Hannah gives Pacy shit for practicing his talent. A magic show. Once it's finally Joey's turn for an interview, she halfasses it until the topic of her vision for the future is brought up. She monologues about eventually moving away from Capeside, striking a chord with Dawson. She digs deeper about how everything changes, eventually rubbing it in to remind both Dawson and the audience that friendships, like life itself, is impermanent, giving us all a deep dish of existential dread.
Stella: Okay, this is also where we get some really problematic dialogue from. I don't think we ever get a name for this contestant. No, but we see her. Was it long blonde hair?
Cody: She's the incumbent, uh, pageant winner because earlier I showed her on the stage when the pageant, uh, lady whoever runs the pageant introducing the festivities, she was already standing on stage wearing the okay.
Speaker D: Uh, yeah, that makes sense. But yeah, very problematic.
Speaker E: And we get more characters named.
Cody: Please tell us your name and something about yourself.
Speaker D: I'm Roberta Krump. I'm a senior at Cape Side.
Speaker E: Um I love this character.
Speaker D: She's so nice. She seems just like reasonable and I'm.
Speaker E: So glad she name the show could come up with Roberta Krump.
Cody: Fuck yeah. And I feel like they are at least speaking to what we've already talked about. I wish like a normal looking person that's what this episode should have been about. Like Roberta Krump. Uh, is like a legit, talented, nice, kind person who is intelligent and very good at the piano. So really cool that guess what? She does win but uh, we don't even celebrate it.
Speaker D: I wish we had more of her.
Cody: She looks like a normal human being.
Stella: Okay, so I like to read what this blonde lady says. I'd like to study early education or help with children with special needs and then like yeah, okay.
Speaker E: I don't think you do want to.
Speaker D: Help those oh man.
Speaker E: Yeah, I don't know if I trust you lady.
Cody: Uh, it's obviously problematic language. I feel like to the point I think they were very specific in having her use that language for the audience to be like, wow, she totally sucks.
Speaker E: But I also wonder, because I remember in the word, which is what we're talking about here, she uses it very strongly, um, was very common to use. And it almost makes me think that they weren't trying to make her seem terrible because that's a very modern view of that exchange. Because back then, I don't know that people there have just been like, okay. I mean, they would have been like, she's airheaded and maybe like, ditsy, but I don't think they would have been.
Cody: I don't know, I think it was common but vulgar. People freely use that word, but I don't think anyone ever thought it was like, okay, right. It just got worse over time to be like, wow, that is actually really fucked up and we shouldn't just like, let people freely use that word.
Speaker E: You're right. I'm sure that even in the time it was, uh, despite the fact that maybe people use it, they're probably like.
Cody: Oh, yeah, like if you were in fifth grade, you use that word all the time because it was vulgar and it was like a curse word that you felt like you could get a.
Speaker E: Real thing because it wasn't a real swear word. Like fuck.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: Which is as real as it gets.
Speaker E: Uh, this is my favorite part of this scene.
Cody: You see the great pace of Danielle.
Speaker D: A rabbit out of his hat, magic act.
Misc: How appropriately juvenile.
Speaker D: I love you.
Speaker E: I just like to say fuck Hannah, but The Great Paisadini is a really good magician school.
Cody: Uh, earlier I talked about how obnoxious this music is. Did you happen to cap any of Joey's monologue? Because the music behind it is like, peak awfulness. Uh, it sounds like a Hallmark movie turned up to ten.
Speaker E: It is so weird. I got a different monologue later. I did get Joey's speech that she says at the end, like the final interview question. I got that one, but I didn't get this one here.
Cody: Yeah, either way, it's probably the exact same music.
Speaker E: The music.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker E: It's just like that, uh, hotel lobby pianist music.
Cody: That's how it starts, but then it becomes like, no joke. Third act. Gone with the wind. Sweeping orchestral notes. Like, it is.
Speaker E: Like I completely blocked that out.
Cody: All for good reason. Your brain will shut down if you hear that.
Stella: I also thought it was funny. So Joey is talking about where she sees herself in the future and it's all these examples of her traveling the world and Dawson is so shocked. And my thought was, aren't you best friends when you talk about, I don't know, your goals or things you want to do with your life? And he's just, like, completely shocked that he wants to do all these things.
Speaker E: Yeah, his reaction is like, oh, I mean, I know you talked about wanting to leave Capeside but I just figured you meant like to the house down the street. I didn't really think you were going to leave. You dumb idiots. Like you couldn't ever do anything. Fuck you, Dawson. You shithead.
Cody: Well, what do we know about Dawson? I mean, his whole perception of life is only through the idea of cinema and what he thinks life, uh, is supposed to be based on the entertainment that he's watched. So I don't think him and Joey are even like they're just acquaintances at, uh, the best. Like they do not have a best friendship. He only calls her a best friend because he's like, well, in the movies and TV shows I watch there's always a character who has a best friend and who's the person I spend a lot of time with. It's Joy, so she's my best friend. But they've never actually talked. There's only been like two or three scenes so far in this entire season where he's actually talked about heavier things. Be it his parents relationship disintegrating over sappy bob.
Misc: Um. Well.
Cody: I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. But I know that they had maybe two conversations but for the fact that this is the first time that you've ever been like. Wait. You want to move and do things with your life?
Speaker E: Uh, wait, you're not just going to exist in my shadow? Yeah, well, speaking of existing in shadows, we are going to go find, um, a corporate sponsor to, uh, ride their coat tails.
Misc: Bye.
Stella: Hey, you Creek freaks. Stella here. Did you know the number one way you can help us grow is by telling your friends about the show? New shows like ours thrive on the power of word of mouth. Which is why I'm here now asking you to please tell a friend about freaks and creeks. They don't even need to watch Dawson's Creek. It sure didn't stop us. Thanks for listening and for sharing the good word. Now back to the.
Misc: Episode.
Cody: And we're back and it's the night.
Speaker E: Of, um, the pageant.
Cody: While Jen helps Joey prepare, she gives her advice to rub some vaseline on her teeth. Elsewhere, Dawson finds Pacey dressing up in a broom closet. As, uh, Dawson helps him, pacey wonders out loud if this whole thing was a rotten idea but Dawson lifts his parrot and offers the same vaseline advice.
Misc: What?
Speaker E: I did not know about this trick.
Speaker D: Okay, so this is actually, this is wrong. So they don't put vaseline on to keep the lips from sticking to the teeth. The whole thing with the vaseline, it goes on the teeth to help to avoid having lipstick stick to your teeth. Uh, not to avoid having your teeth your lips sticking to your teeth. I don't know where that got twisted but yeah. So it's funny that like, Dawson's, like, yeah, this is what they say, but it doesn't make sense for Pacey because he's not wearing lipstick.
Stella: Right, well, I thought it was just like his mom being funny maybe.
Cody: Yeah. Benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're thinking that the audience is smart enough to know the true things about vaseline and lipstick and the joke is that these kids are stupid and don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker E: Kids be so stupid.
Speaker D: I don't know.
Cody: Kids be so stupid these days.
Speaker E: I capped this. What do you guys think about.
Cody: It? Steel for doing this? Hell, uh, yeah, I love it. Heard balls of steel but Testicles of Steel really rolls off.
Stella: It really does.
Speaker E: Yeah. And uh, lame gay joke to throw in there. I mean, I know they tried to act like they didn't make it but they still made the gay joke. Gay panic yet again.
Cody: Certainly did.
Speaker E: And yeah, the only redeeming factor for this scene was I did think it was kind of like cutecharming when Dawson handed Pacey the vasiling and he's like, I have no idea what this is for. Yeah, that felt authentic and real. That was a cute moment between friends.
Speaker D: Especially after seeing Jen and Joy have the similar interaction with the vasiling. That was kind of funny.
Speaker E: It is annoying that we kind of keep seeing the same thing happen twice. Yeah, we don't need to see that.
Speaker D: The mirroring.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: Uh, we've discussed at length about the true intentions of Dawson with pretty much every beat of this entire show. Do we think Dawson is actually being supportive because he cares about Pacey and hopes that he might win this pageant or is he just caring more about his news segment and wants it to be good?
Speaker D: The news? I think he's excited about the new segment.
Speaker E: I wonder though, because he is like, if you win this will be on the national media but then he's also understanding that Pacey has no chance of winning. So it feels a little bit like, yes, it is for the media but it's also for the experience of it or just the humor of it. Like maybe he finds it funny.
Stella: And also going back to that scene, uh, when they're at school when Pacey's talking about his issues with his dad. Mhm, I feel like there's a moment where Dawson looks pretty surprised or, uh, saddened by the news so I feel like he is trying to help in some regard.
Cody: He does look sincere when he offers him a place to stay.
Speaker D: Oh yeah, definitely.
Cody: The evening portion of the pageant begins and it's a fashion eye worth gouging one's eyes out to never see again. When Joey hits the stage, the music informs us that this is a transcendantly beautiful moment and Dawson salivates. Backstage, Pacey gives Jen some dumper's remorse flack as she clearly sees Dawson's excitement over Joey's evening wear. When Pacey hits the stage, the crowd erupts in earth shattering applause.
Speaker E: Yeah, I love the moment that Joey walks out and Dawson's like, get out of here, cameraman. I got to take over. She's like, dude, the fuck. And then at the same time, as soon as Joey's done, he's just like, fuck it. He just leaves. There's nobody manning the camera anymore.
Speaker D: Dawson, what the fuck about the evening wear for a second?
Cody: I love Joey's dress.
Speaker D: Well, so before Joey comes out, we see a lot of other evening wear. We've got lots of dangly beads and rhinestones, bright purples and blues. Then Joey comes out. Her dress is starkly different than everyone else's. Um, she's wearing, I think it was black or maybe like a dark plum draped velvety dress with like a paisley pattern. And it's more like form, kind of like flowy. Um, so she definitely stands out among the rest. They also announced her as Josephine. Josephine not herself.
Cody: Very much so.
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: Where's her family bed?
Speaker D: That's your sister?
Cody: She's working at the ice house.
Stella: Makes me really sad that no one's there to support her.
Speaker D: Friendly support. Also, um, I thought it was interesting when we see the camera shot of Dawson recording her, we see like the little record, which is usually we're seeing Jen through his camera. He's ogling Jen through his camera.
Misc: Normally.
Speaker D: This time he's seeing Joey.
Speaker E: Ah.
Cody: Gas queen. Joey is the only one that looks good. All the other women look like Louisana Troy from Star Trek The Next Generation. Yes.
Speaker E: Very over that.
Speaker D: I like Roberta Krump's outfit.
Speaker E: I don't remember.
Speaker D: It was like dark blue velvet and then it was like lined with like very tiny rhinestones.
Stella: It was taste and have like old silver abstract.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: Did you say blue velvet?
Speaker D: Blue velvet, I did.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker D: He's back. And, ah, she wasn't very made up, so I appreciated that too. She's just that normal girl. But she's still like yeah.
Stella: Also, ah, thought that it was weird when we're seeing like a close up shot of Dawson, who's watching Joey, we also get a close up shot of Gail intensely watching Joe. Why is this?
Speaker E: Because Joey is becoming a woman before my very eyes.
Misc: Maybe.
Speaker D: Uh, Joey's kind of like the daughter she doesn't have kind of they've grown up together, so she probably sees Joey as Joey.
Speaker E: Also did call her shit on the cheating though.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Cody: I imagine that they're establishing these relationships as like they've been friends for so long. I've had friends growing up, uh, even hard to believe for me, but I have friends. It's incredible. Uh, but when I think of my friend Sam, for instance, we've been friends since second grade. So his parents are so close that I feel like they're like parents. Numerous, uh, OS.
Misc: Right.
Cody: So I feel like the same thing with Joey. If they've known each other forever, then I'm sure for Gail it's like, oh, it's like my half.
Misc: Daughter.
Speaker D: Uh, also, again, it's very refreshing to see Gail separate from Mitch and, uh, doing her own thing. Just she's there helping out, judging whatever, but it was just nice to see them.
Stella: Yeah, I get that they have a close relationship, but I just thought it was weird for it to be in the same kind of like montage of seeing Dawson have this moment where he's like seeing Joey and then we go and see Gail who's also seeing Joe. I don't know, she was like a.
Speaker D: Funny she's part of it. I think she's a judge. Yeah. And we do see her later. There is some interaction with her in the context of her as being a judge, but also so I don't know, I think it kind of fits in to that.
Speaker E: I do think it's a weird shot to your point though, it felt weird because maybe I'm also conflating this with the song portion, but there's like tears in her eyes.
Speaker D: I think she's crying during the song as everyone is.
Cody: Yeah. Again, I think they're just playing into this like, oh, that Joey has always been a tomboy, but I wish she.
Speaker E: Would oh my God.
Cody: Uh, maybe in Horizon I knew that she could one day be a beautiful person. She just tried a little harder.
Speaker E: I knew she wasn't some ugly troll that she normally looks like.
Cody: This really is leaning into being like, you can be beautiful if you try hard enough.
Speaker E: Well, you're not too tall, you can walk in heels. I liked Pacey talking to Jen and yeah, he's giving her a little bit of shit but then he has this little sweet moment here.
Cody: Tell me, is it the possibility of losing him to somebody else that suddenly makes him seem so attractive?
Speaker D: I really think that I'm not sure.
Cody: No, I think you're that human.
Stella: Loved that love.
Speaker D: Mhm, that moment.
Speaker E: It's really sweet.
Speaker D: It was very sweet. And we don't often get to see Pacey and Jen interacting totally.
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: And Jen is, uh, during the pageant she's wearing all black.
Cody: Yeah.
Misc: Morning.
Cody: The death warning of the relationship.
Speaker E: Can we talk about Jen's motivations here? She's doing this to glow up Joey so that Dawson sees her. Is that like subconsciously pacey?
Speaker D: That's like his point, right? That's kind ah, of the point he's making.
Speaker E: Yeah. Um, sorry, that's not her subconscious motivation. That's like her exterior motivation. That's what she's doing. She's trying to glow up Joey so that Dawson finally sees her. What's her subconscious motivation? Why is she actually doing this? To sabotage.
Misc: Herself?
Cody: I don't know. Honestly, from the top, I said that's the worst part of this entire episode. But also show season one. The worst thing is Jen's character because it doesn't make any fucking sense. M. We do understand that she is having, uh, the push and pull of her wanting to be an independent person that doesn't rely on having to be in a relationship for her to feel like she is, um, needed. She wants to be on her own. But she does have a thing for Dawson or. Whatever the fuck. But we never get to see why. We never get to see anything really challenging that other than the fact that she's gone on a couple of weird dates with Cliff and that Billy has come in and out of her life. But there's actually no point in which we see that she has a turn and wants to be with Dawson. There's no actual tangible motivation for any of her actions. It is just preposterous. Other, uh, than like I said earlier, maybe this is the most nuanced show and it's just going way over my head and this is more of an Ingmar Bergman film than just a shitty mellow drama for teenagers. I don't know. But Jen here, it does not make any sense. Either way, she loses. And if she is self sabotaging, I guess that you could say something to that. But, uh, other than that, I don't know.
Speaker E: Yeah, it's very strange. And especially when we just had this scene where Jen says something to the effect of the entire time I was dating Dawson, I was worried that he was going to realize how beautiful you were.
Speaker D: And then she helps her fuck, are you doing this?
Speaker E: Right self satisfaction, sure. But then even in the moment, she's realizing this is the wrong choice. I understand the right inconvenience of it. It's a great plot idea, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to.
Misc: Me.
Cody: As one of the only saving graces of this episode, we're treated to an unhinged montage of contestant talents and Q and A's to goldfingers Superman and Famous from, um, Tony Hawks, pro skater. We get a taste of five star performances involving acting, contortionism, piano playing, as well as Pacey doing some wretched sort of standup comedy thing. As the montage concludes, Pacey asks Gail how she thinks he's doing, even though she thinks he's killing it. He's disappointed to hear that there's absolutely no chance of ever actually winning.
Speaker E: Do you really think he thought he could win? Like, why would he think he could win?
Cody: I, to this day, do not know if Pacey is actually extremely smart and is playing stuff for Goof or is the dumbest person in Capeside.
Speaker D: Also, is Gail crushing on Pacey?
Speaker E: Seems like it did that.
Speaker D: Was the vibe very awkward? Yeah, very awkward. She's like Pacey really close to her.
Speaker E: A little clammy in here.
Cody: We talked about Joey being close with Gail. Maybe it's similar like Pacey as her second son. Yeah, maybe the show loves, uh, Mommy Sun vibes.
Stella: Totally. Um, so in this montage of the different contestants okay, so Cody, I think you had said that the lady that I talked about earlier who said those problematic things, that she was like the previous winner, but I think we see her. She's the one that says, if I.
Speaker D: Could talk to the governor, maybe she looks similar to the previous winner. Yeah, uh, I know who you're talking about.
Speaker E: I tell him how he could lose 30 days.
Speaker D: You like gemstone? Blackout. Yeah.
Stella: Okay. Um, and then the shot of people applauding genuinely just made me laugh really hard. That's.
Misc: Amazing.
Speaker E: Fat people.
Cody: Fuck them. I can't.
Misc: Tell.
Cody: We haven't even gotten to the fucking song yet in the reaction to that. But in this bizarre world peepers from another period, uh, are people clapping out of sadness? I've gone to talent shows in junior high school where someone does a bad job and you're just like, well, you still got a clap. Is that what people are doing? But at the same time, people look genuinely moved by these comments.
Speaker E: Yeah, I think it is. In the scene where Pacey says, um, if the world leaders thing and how he would tell them about a country divided, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And if that didn't work, I'd just tell him I've got nude pictures of them. Yeah, the crowd goes fucking wild. Standing ovation from two women and there's like three dudes in the back who are like, I'm not getting paid enough for this, but good job. To your point, why are you clapping? That's not funny. It's crazy.
Misc: Reactions.
Cody: Yeah, unless you're like, maybe if I clap, this will end.
Speaker E: Yeah, but speaking of stellar performances, listen to.
Misc: This.
Stella: Love that, uh, was Hannah, right?
Cody: I think that was Hannah.
Speaker E: Was it?
Speaker D: I think it was. Wow.
Misc: Yeah. Mhm.
Cody: It's like Billy Madison doing Shakespeare.
Speaker E: Am I a cow blowing at the wind?
Cody: Or whatever the fuck she says. I loved it.
Speaker E: Yeah, and she's wearing like, um, she's wearing like, Medieval Times clothing or like.
Cody: A princess that they're competing over stereotypical.
Speaker E: Like, Shakespeare is so great.
Speaker D: Yeah, that was funny.
Speaker E: I love Pacey's speech.
Cody: I like to tell my kids that you don't have to be the handsomest.
Speaker E: Guy, you don't have to be the most intelligent guy.
Cody: You don't even have to be the biggest football stat to be a damn.
Speaker E: Fine Miss Win Jammer. And the crowd goes.
Misc: Why?
Speaker E: What's crazy to me is that everybody acknowledges that Pacey is the coolest, smartest, funniest, most entertaining guy there. Everybody loves him and they're still like, yeah, no, not going to happen.
Cody: You know what it reminds me of? Does, um, anyone remember the 2008 presidential debates, uh, between Sarah, uh, Palin and Joe Biden?
Speaker E: I, uh, can see Russia from my house.
Cody: Yeah, it's just, uh, as bad as this montage. Uh, one of my favorite parts was, uh, the question was, do you believe in gay marriage? And, uh, Joe Biden is like, I absolutely believe that love is love and everyone is entitled to being in a relationship with whom they choose and blah, blah, and they're just like, okay, so do you think that gay marriage should be enacted? And he just goes, no, obviously, because it wasn't popular. It's like, you have to be a fucking disgusting, uh, ass politician at the end of the day, but totally that thing where it's like, oh, we can love you a lot, but you're not a girl, Paisy, so you.
Speaker E: Can'T, uh just for pacey.
Cody: Yeah.
Speaker D: Gail points out that when she says honey bear is fair and beauty pageants aren't exactly synonymous. Truth.
Misc: Truth.
Speaker D: She speaks the truth.
Cody: When it's Joey's turn to perform, jen gives her a bit of encouragement as she walks out Dawson and Jen gets him alone time where Jen begins to reveal she might want to be more than friends with him. But the room is silenced as Joey opens her mouth and out of it, a performance of On My Own from Lay Ms spills into our ears for what feels like 20 straight minutes. As she concludes, the audience bursts into rapturous applause. Tears clearly seen in the eyes of everyone in the room.
Speaker D: Singing on my own from Le Mithell.
Cody: Ms.
Misc: Josephine. I walk with him too, without him.
Stella: Uh, when we watch this, we were in shock. Was it real? We did wonder if this was Katie Holmes's real voice. Oh, it is.
Misc: Okay.
Speaker D: I tried to like her too. Uh, you can hear her speaking voice in that. It's not her speaking voice, but you can kind of hear her in that.
Stella: Okay, so, yeah, we weren't sure. I tried to find stuff and I couldn't find anything super concrete. You guys did maybe yeah, uh, I.
Speaker E: Did research and, um, what I turned up, granted, it's really hard doing research for this show. I think, as we all know, because there's been off the air for a long time, there's tons of spoilery type shit and even when you find something that's very specific, they find a way to weave in stuff that is like five seasons later. Um, but from what I found at this point in time, I think, uh, Katie Holmes is like 17 years old when she gets cast on the show. Maybe she's 18 by the time this is being filmed, but I think maybe she had some musical theater experience before coming into acting. And I don't know if she volunteered to do this or if they asked her to do this, but that is her really singing. There's an article that talks about it later, um, that she actually sang. There's multiple articles from fans written about how this is her real voice. And, um, I believe that she's confirmed in an interview that this was her real.
Misc: Performance.
Speaker D: This reminded me of Britney Spears because because when you hear her sing in her produced in the majority of, uh, um, almost everything that we've heard of Britney Spears so far, she has a very high voice in the way that she sings. But if you actually hear her quote real singing voice, which she's actually released like some clips recently, it's a lot lower, right? So it was like, yeah, she's doing I feel like she could sing lower, but she was singing higher. I don't know, it was very odd.
Cody: It sounds like I know we're going to talk about Twin Peaks again, but it reminds me of James Hurley Justine and I totally where it's in that upper register because it's getting artificially pitched. That's what it sounds like to.
Misc: Me. Mhm.
Cody: I mean, I can hear how it is her, but at the same time it's like, was she, uh, directed to singing that register?
Speaker D: Yeah, that or is that just how she thinks that it? I don't know.
Speaker E: I'm not.
Cody: Sure.
Speaker D: Like, was it supposed to be bad?
Misc: No.
Speaker E: Uh, this is not played.
Speaker D: No. Because the response, audience response is that it was good.
Cody: They were losing their mind. They cannot believe there's not a dry.
Speaker E: Eye in the fucking crowd. And look, I've done a lot of musical theater in my life. I never did Lehmes, uh, and in fact, Ley Miz is not my favorite musical. But this is like a really important song in the musical. It's a very recognizable, uh, song. And Joey is doing a very different take on it.
Speaker D: It's very dramatic.
Speaker E: Very dramatic. And she's like normally yes, and she's like singing like a little baby doll.
Cody: And it's kind of like she puts that, uh, kind of like fun Broadway flare onto it too. I mean, like you would do for a Broadway musical, but in a way that's like kind of like haha a little bit.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Misc: Sassy.
Cody: But at the same time she's like emotional. It is so weird. And again, I don't want to mock Katie Holmes. I can't imagine what it must have been like for her back then, being a teenager, having to do this. And, uh, people, I'm sure there's, like, an entertainment tonight.
Speaker D: It wasn't off tune, it was on tune.
Cody: And it was a style version of it.
Speaker E: She's doing her take on the song and look, I'd like to say more power to you if you're going to do that. Hell yeah. Own it. Um, I don't want to tear her apart for any of this performance, but it's just very different.
Speaker D: Um, interesting choice.
Speaker E: We only played like 40 seconds of it. Yeah, it goes on. It's a three minute clip. They keep it on her the entire time she sings this entire song. Which is shocking.
Misc: Yeah, it is.
Speaker E: Cut it after the first chorus.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: To my point, filmmaking is just choices. And they could have made the choice to make this. You, uh, get 15 seconds of Katie singing the song and then that's it. But they force her to hit all of these beats for what feels like 10 hours of my life wasted, uh, through the sands of time. And then they play it again at the end. So it's like they really hammer at home. And it's all bad. It's over the top. And you could have been singing any song and this would turn out like, as bad as this. It felt like a Tim and Eric's sketch more than.
Misc: Anything.
Stella: Uh, the song choice makes sense for the story. Are we supposed to believe that Joey is like a Broadway girl?
Speaker E: Absolutely not.
Cody: No.
Speaker D: It would be in the style of the Broadway song.
Speaker E: And like she says she's never sang in front of anybody before so it's not like she's coming from right off the heels of doing Lame Is for Capeside Community players or some shit.
Misc: Right.
Cody: And there's nothing to even suggest that she's interested in the arts if she's supposed to be like a tomboy character, uh, which is what they've established her as being they should have had her.
Speaker E: Do like, uh, a gender bent version of another song.
Misc: Like.
Speaker E: Ah, in musical theater. The reason that musicals happen is they're articulating their emotions through song. Right. And so to Cody's point earlier about the score, it's always telling us exactly what we should be feeling and thinking. There is no subtlety here. There are 150 better musical numbers that deal with the same subject matter that are not this on the nose. That probably would have been a better mix for it aside from the fact that Lay Ms is fairly popular in the 90s but, uh, to that point.
Cody: Too, is I cannot believe that Joey would even give a shit about musicals. Yeah, like there's nothing about her character that says that she'd be interested in Ley Ms or musical theater whatsoever.
Speaker D: Maybe it was Dan's idea. Which brings me to a thought I just had.
Speaker E: Okay.
Cody: You're a girl.
Speaker D: Yeah. So Dawson, um, in the scene they're watching Joy Singh. Dawson says to Jen, you did an incredible job on Joey. My God. It's amazing. So is Jen's secret motivator or subconscious motivation for Dawson to notice her? She did an amazing quote. She did an amazing job on Joey.
Speaker E: Like maybe, um, it would bring Jen and Dawson closer together because he'll never act on.
Speaker D: Sure, I thought I had, but with that quote it's just such a like, strong line.
Cody: My God.
Speaker D: It's amazing. It's amazing. Not she's amazing. Like, it's amazing how you did a good job on Joey.
Cody: It's like, uh, at any sporting event when they give the main trophy to the owner of a team instead of the actual players dawson finds Pacey practicing his magic tricks in the broom closet and he's pissed. He explains how he truly feels as though there's nothing to lose as he has no chance of winning. Moments later, the pageant announcer lets us know that Pacey has changed his talent to a dramatic interpretation and were forced to watch Pacey do a reinterpretation of the famous freedom monologue from Mel Gibson's Braveheart in which he directs his misgivings at the pageant. Judges people for some reason still applaud.
Speaker E: Yeah, they really liked it.
Cody: I guess, uh, for me, ah, to each their own about things that annoy them but for me there is absolutely nothing worse than a Forest Gump or Braveheart reference. I don't know, it's just like it's skin crawling to me.
Misc: Like.
Cody: I would rather hear a borat Austin Powers. Napoleon dyne. Mine impression, uh, come out of your mouth for the rest of my life than ever hear someone say, run, Forrest, run. Or someone yell freedom. It is just like agonizing them.
Speaker E: You know what I have to say about that? My wife life is like a box of chocolates.
Stella: You just don't know what you're going to get. I have, uh, never seen Braveheart or a forest gown.
Cody: You're fine.
Speaker D: You've never seen Forest Go?
Stella: I've never seen it. When this was happening, I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker E: Oh, wow.
Speaker D: I've never seen Braveheart. Um, I see Dawson loved it because he got his movie line in.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: The thing that also just annoys me so much, too, is the Braveheart came out in 95. So this is a three old reference. Um, no one gives a shit about Braveheart anymore at this point.
Speaker E: But isn't this in the peak Mel Gibson trajectory? Is this peak mel Gibson in 98.
Cody: What happened in 98?
Speaker E: Well, I'm just saying, like, I feel like there was a time in American cinema where Mel Gibson was in fucking everything and it was after Braveheart, certainly where he was just coming up in all these different movies. And I feel like he was in especially like the late nineties. I can't tell you a single movie that he was in, but I just feel like there was a period of time where Mel Gibson was everywhere.
Cody: I don't know, because it's like, uh when did Lethal Weapon One come out? Was that 84?
Speaker D: Lethal Weapon 19?
Cody: 87.
Misc: 87.
Cody: Wow.
Misc: Okay.
Cody: Yeah, because for me, it's like he does Mad Max and then like the rest of the Mad Max movies. And then he has the Lethal Weapon series. And then I feel like he came into his own with Braveheart because he directed right mhm and then Maverick Two is patriot.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: I feel like after Signs, his career kind of slowed down a little.
Speaker E: What are you talking about?
Cody: The Passion of the Christ as a director. He's not in it as an actor, though. But I feel like his career thankfully died when he went on an antisemitic rant to a police officer. And now he's, uh, nowhere to be seen and cancelled.
Misc: Yeah.
Cody: Um, all right, so listen to this.
Speaker E: Well, I'm not William Wallace. No, but I am pacy with it. Pacey Whitter is 7ft.
Cody: Tall. And they say that this Pacey with it is a dangerous man who slaughters.
Speaker E: Capeside residence by the dozens with it. Slaughters Pacey is a dangerous man who, uh, slaughters Capeside residence by the dozens. Let's take another listen.
Cody: And, um, they say that this Pacey wizard is a dangerous man who slaughtered.
Speaker E: Capeside residence by the dozens. Why would he be doing that?
Cody: Well, let me tell you this.
Speaker E: Here we go for you.
Cody: Just one chance to stand in front of my fellow countrymen and tell them that you may take my life, but.
Speaker E: You will never take my freedom. Okay, yeah, that guitar is on the end, but this part especially. Stand in front of my fellow countryman.
Misc: Motherfucker's.
Speaker E: A vampire. That's a blood sucker right there. Listen to the way he says countrymen.
Cody: Chance to stand in front of my fellow.
Speaker D: Countrymen.
Speaker E: Uh, do we need more evidence than this?
Cody: No.
Speaker E: Plus, he's doing magic in the closet. This guy's a fucking vampire wizard.
Cody: Yeah, there's a deleted scene in Twilight One where Kristen uh, Stewart opens a, uh, broom closet and you see, uh, Edward, uh, and he's performing, uh, the classic, uh, rabbit out of a hat trick and he goes oh my God, Bella, I'm so sorry. You shouldn't.
Speaker E: Bella divan to do magic.
Speaker D: I'm tasty bitter.
Cody: Yes.
Speaker E: He really loses the threat on his accent about halfway and he recovers it in the end but goddamn, it is.
Cody: Painful to watch white trash it. I don't know what it is.
Stella: It felt very anti climactic.
Cody: Yeah, so what? Like it's not really a big fuck you.
Speaker E: Uh, he didn't even moon them like they do in Braveheart. Sorry, you guys don't know this, but during the speech after he makes a speech, he then goes on to moon. So in this case, uh, Brian Wallace. What the fuck is anyway, mel Gibson's character is leading the fucking anyway, they are in a fight with another band of Scottish clansmen and he gives this big impassioned speech about how you can take my life, you can't take my freedom.
Misc: Ha, ha.
Speaker E: And then he shows his butt to them. Look at this stinky hole.
Speaker D: Maybe that got deleted.
Speaker E: I bet it did.
Speaker D: Maybe they did film that.
Speaker E: At least if he did that, then.
Cody: That would have been cool. Uh, when we finally make our first piece of merch, the tshirt that has all of our Xerox butts. One of our butts should half of a cheek should be blue, should be like Pacey's face.
Speaker D: He did moon out of the car.
Stella: Yeah.
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: It's weird because then later Hannah says that, um, it was really ballsy that he did that.
Cody: Ah, in.
Speaker E: Dawson already said he has testicles to steal.
Stella: What was so ballsy about that?
Speaker E: Well, he gave the judges a what.
Misc: For.
Speaker D: Then he changes his, uh, plan and was able to I don't know.
Speaker E: Yeah, he's saying, who among you are to judge me? Look, I agree with you. Braveheart references are lame as fuck. This actually does apply. He is using this moment effectively to speak truth to power. Quote unquote, putting those in big air quotes. Um, and, uh, it works, but it is annoying.
Cody: Outside one of the dressing rooms, Joey overhears Hannah and another contestant mocking her personal life. Believing Joey to use it as a sobstory to win over the judges with sympathy. As she turns away to quit the pageant, dawson stops her with some love bombing to encourage her to continue. Joey then goes on to do her Q and a portion of the pageant where she does another shallow Sunday service monologue about why it's important to not be judgmental.
Speaker E: I capped Joey's speech. Let's take a listen.
Misc: I'd like to tell today's youth that, uh, no matter where life takes you, big cities, small towns, you'll inevitably come across small minds, people who think that.
Speaker D: They'Re better than you are.
Cody: Sure, I like them. The message is nice, but this is written by a five year old. I've said it so many times. I grew up in the church, and every single time I had to go to one of these Sunday services, it felt like this. It was like, you know what? You know what wasn't cool? Jesus getting killed for being a nice guy. Just like these shallow bullshitties. It's so aggravating that they build us up to be, like, such an emotional peak for Joey and this episode that the lesson learned is that you shouldn't be judgmental. Well, fucking duh. We knew that before going into this episode. You don't need this entire experience to jump into.
Misc: That.
Cody: You know what would have been better? If she too dressed up like William Wallace and gave a brave speech.
Speaker D: That would have been way better. We also got the one and only Pretty Woman reference. Here the quote joey says, I might as well have just sold myself on a street court.
Cody: Oh, yeah, I forgot because we've already taken a dig at everyone else. Why not hit sex workers while we're at it?
Speaker E: I did think that there was an interesting theme about in my opinion, we're approaching sex work throughout this entire episode. Because this idea jen has a line earlier on when she's trying to convince Joey to join the page and she's like, look, $5,000 for one night of your life seems like a pretty good deal to.
Misc: Me.
Speaker E: Uh, I'm not necessarily saying that that's clearly it's got to be about sex work, but it does feel potentially analogous to absolutely, it's worth it and justify the means, right? Yeah, but they never actually go there and it seems so.
Misc: Weak.
Speaker E: At least they could have taken a, ah, stand on something in this episode.
Cody: Yeah, that's the best part, is that the only thing that they're standing up against is judging people. Like such a fucking shallow, hollow. Uh, there's absolutely no digging into the classes and racism or sexism. That was even brought up at the beginning of this episode about, like, why this established kind of thing represents society as a whole and what we're doing is wrong instead of just like, you know what? I learned that sometimes when you judge, things ain't that.
Misc: Great.
Speaker E: All right, well, I guess it's time for our next commercial break. So we're just going to go listen to On My Own for, I don't know, 45 minutes and we'll be back.
Cody: Uh, did you know that one day all of our souls will be sucked out of our bodies and placed into Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse. I never asked for that. But it's our stupid reality. So please follow us on Instagram at freaksandcreeexpod. That's an at sign. F-R-E-A-K-S-A-N-D-C-R-E-E-K-S-P-O-D. Just like the Christian new metal band from the late 90s. Hey, that's when Dawson's Creek was on the air. Back to the show. And we're back with all the contestants on the stage. The pageant announces our winners. Drum roll.
Speaker E: Please.
Cody: Third place Hannah.
Speaker E: Runner up Joey.
Cody: In first place.
Speaker E: Rubber to crump.
Cody: Outside, Gale leaves Dawson and Joey alone where Dawson grabs her hand and begins spilling his love beans as Jen watches along before leaving. When Dawson and Joey park themselves on a bench, dawson spills even more love beans on how he sees Joey in a whole new way. Joey gets up stating it doesn't feel right as this really isn't her. But Rifle points out also that it shouldn't take having to glam up to get his attention. Although he states he doesn't believe they can go back to who they once were and ask not for her to walk away, she does on her own.
Stella: Uh, so Joey's prize was a free day of beauty at ah, betty's Hair Barn.
Misc: Yes.
Speaker E: Love that. I um, love that because it's like, look you old toe, why don't you go get.
Speaker D: Pretty even worse? And is with tickets to the theater for a mid week during school or whatever.
Speaker E: Oh cool. Also I live in Connecticut.
Misc: Exactly.
Cody: That's so funny. Having watched this a couple of times I didn't even notice how insane those prices.
Speaker D: Yeah and ah, then Roberta, when they put the tr on her, it's like completely crooked. I don't know if anyone noticed that.
Speaker E: It was like the way that we all wore our hats in the early 2000s, how they all went off on the side.
Cody: Very cool.
Speaker E: Very cool. Yeah. Um, I feel like they really put all their effort into the prize for the winner but everybody else is like, I don't know, got some old tickets I think. Betty's hair.
Misc: Barn.
Cody: Uh, is that also a trope? Calling something a Hair Barn and like other things. I feel like I've heard that before.
Speaker E: Like in Shit Creek or something. The salon is something m like that, you know what I mean?
Cody: I think it's like a way to show like white trash, like small town hopefully.
Speaker E: We may like to chew on our.
Stella: Toenails but we also like to get.
Cody: Birdie.
Speaker E: Betty, you want to go down to the hairburn today?
Cody: It's like Betty's house. Just like if you were to start like a crust punk band right now. Hair Barn.
Speaker E: I'm sorry if I offended any of our southern listeners with my bad accent. So back to my wardrobe and Costuming. Here is an example of what I'm talking about. So in this case, Joey is still wearing her evening gown. She is very glammed up.
Misc: Obviously.
Speaker E: She just got off of this. I'm talking about when they're in the yacht club talking their love beans and then Jen comes out and she observes them from the top of the dock much like in season one, episode one where they go to the movie theater and Joey peeps on Jen and Dawson from behind the street lamp and then walks away. So we're getting almost, it felt to me very much like an homage to earlier in the season, but now the roles have been reversed. And to put even more into this, jen's outfit looks very similar to an outfit that Joey would have been wearing earlier on. And Joey's all glammed up as if they have fully replaced like Trading Places.
Stella: Yeah.
Speaker E: Trading places. Why didn't they name this episode alternate title Trading Places?
Cody: I honestly think they should have made the alternate title Silence of the Lamb because at one point during this conversation when Dawson is describing his lover, he's like, it's like you were a catty pillar and you cocooned yourself but then he gets cut off. But you know that if you finish that thought he'd be like, you become a moth. So powerful, so beautiful.
Speaker D: Right. Didwen also reference Eminem here, I think.
Misc: Oh yeah.
Speaker D: Ah, he's like, uh, not really. But he goes, my mom's are.
Misc: Sweating.
Speaker D: Our first watch we were both like, mom spaghetti.
Cody: Yeah.
Speaker E: So again, I'm going to posit a potentially controversial opinion here, but I actually don't think Dawson is an asshole here. I agree with you because Joey takes what he's saying as you weren't beautiful, but now that I see you all dolled up, you're gorgeous. But, uh, the way I interpreted what Dawson is saying is actually not that she's now beautiful, but that he saw her for the first time because of this newfound confidence and whatever that's just exuding from her. He never says anything about her physical beauty or anything. He's actually more talking about how she was beautiful because of this energy that she had. And I see why Joey takes that the way she does. But mhm, it does feel like just like we've probably all had in our teenage years, those cross wires and communication where I say one thing and you hear another.
Speaker D: Yeah, I agree. I think it's coming from her. I agree that I don't think Austin's an asshole. I think she is maybe like mad at herself because she's in a.
Misc: Way.
Speaker D: What am I trying to say? Um, so at the end we see her thinking about how Dawson saw her as beautiful and that's what it took for him to see her. Right. So I think she actually agrees but she's angry at herself for that.
Speaker E: Yeah, I could see that.
Cody: I don't know. I don't think it's mutually exclusive.
Misc: Right.
Cody: I don't think Dawson's an asshole. Uh, But I think it would be annoying if you were joy that it's still falling under the umbrella of her being like, okay, so I get dialed up and now you're noticing me.
Speaker D: But then later she sees that.
Misc: Herself.
Speaker D: It took that for her to see herself as beautiful.
Cody: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker D: It took him seeing her in, uh.
Speaker E: That for me is where I am, um, a little bit on the fence. Is it, uh, her seeing herself all dolled up and the fact that she got second in this pageant and she kind of got recognized, that's what's giving her confidence. Or is it the fact that Dawson now thinks she's pretty and that's what's giving her confidence?
Cody: I think what they tried to do is give her second place instead of first place to tell us that she learned to be confident without someone telling her that she is the number one beauty girl.
Speaker D: Uh, similar to like, the most important person telling her is Dawson.
Misc: True.
Speaker D: Yeah. So even if she had gotten first, let's say she got first, but Dawson didn't react in that way, would she? I don't know. I don't know what's going on.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker D: What is happening?
Speaker E: I just still think about Cody SAG, number one beauty gal. I love that title. I want that to replace like, Miss Windjammer or any it's just like, oh.
Cody: Yeah, that's my Instagram number one beauty girl this year. Uh, so powerful.
Stella: Um, okay, so there's a moment where Dawson says to Joey, I thought this is what you wanted, referring to them.
Speaker D: Right.
Stella: Which is really confusing because earlier when Pacey was talking about how Joey loves Dawson, dawson's like, nah, that's Baloney Bogus theory.
Speaker E: Yeah, I didn't like Dawson. That is where I turn in that moment because him being like, well, I thought this is what you wanted.
Speaker D: Yeah, right.
Speaker E: Okay, how about, HM, go take a swim and fuck yourself?
Cody: Right. It's now him being like, well, I'm doing this for you, basically.
Speaker E: You realize I think you're hot, though.
Speaker D: This is what you want to hear, right?
Speaker E: Come on, babe. Babe, babe, you're pretty now, babe.
Cody: Aren't you supposed to love me now?
Speaker E: Yeah, babe, I'd fuck.
Misc: You.
Speaker E: Tune in next week for our 90 minutes radio play, uh, of Silence of the Lamb.
Cody: Man with Lotion on the skin.
Speaker E: You don't know what pain is.
Stella: I want to know. I think I kind of said this earlier, but I just want to know if we're supposed to be rooting for them and like, when this was airing, if the, uh, goal was for everyone to try and ship them or not.
Misc: Water.
Speaker E: If any of you listeners out there who are watching originally can let us know, what were your thoughts after this episode aired? Were you rooting for Jen and Dawson or were you rooting for Pace, joey, Dawson, or were you rooting for Pacey and Dawson? I don't know. You let us know.
Stella: We're Joey and peacey.
Speaker E: Because we got a little joke.
Cody: About this show. Makes me think it thinks that's what the audience wants at this point. They're like, yeah, we know what the audience is going to want at this point.
Speaker D: This is what you wanted.
Misc: Right?
Speaker E: That's great.
Cody: I've been watching so much, uh, wrestling lately, pro wrestling to be specific. Uh, that I love it because it's so much more dictated by what the audience wants. Even if pro wrestling is to push a narrative, if the audience hates it, they'll just boo. And so they're like, God damn it. Okay, now we have to change because audience doesn't want this. I wish they would have, like, a live track for audiences to watch Dawson's Creek or any other melodrama.
Speaker E: I wish Dawson's Creek was filmed in front of a live studio audience. That would be great.
Cody: I wish that they would wrestle more.
Speaker D: Well, Joey and Dawson do.
Misc: That's true.
Stella: Um, I guess the other piece of this is like, Joey not really being willing to talk about the situation and I don't know, it's like, I understand where she's coming from and that she doesn't want to wait around for him. I don't want to wait. Um, but it seems a little unfair to just like, dismiss his feelings right away and kind of walk away from the situation when this is a new feeling for him. I don't know.
Misc: Yes.
Speaker E: He's kind of trying to go about it the right way.
Misc: Actually.
Speaker E: I think we should talk about this. What was confusing for me is she's like, I have to walk away now, which feels like a breakup thing right in the moment. I'm like, okay, so they're done. They're never going to speak again. I know.
Speaker D: He gives his coat back. So that's like the ultimate, like, see you.
Speaker E: Uh, I don't want your sweater anymore. Do you think Weezer wrote destroy my sweater because of this scene?
Cody: Yeah, it was like three years before this, but yeah, I'm going to say.
Speaker E: That they got an early cut, I think.
Speaker B: When did Blue album come out? Was that 94?
Speaker E: I think you're.
Speaker B: Right. What do you want?
Speaker E: Please tell me. Please free me from my digital prison.
Speaker B: I'll answer whatever you want. Please. Pacey and Hannah find each other on the docks and commiserate over each other's pageant loss. She gives Pacey kudos for his bravery and they launch into a discussion on wishing that each other's lives. When Hannah reveals she never gets to be home, they laugh over their grass is always greener situation.
Misc: Okay.
Speaker D: This would be a good scene if it weren't for her being terrible.
Speaker B: It reminds me so much of Hurricane with, uh, Grandma.
Speaker E: Yeah, it's too little, too late. Yes, exactly. Okay, cool. This is a sweet moment.
Speaker D: It can be cute, but like, no, you're a shithead.
Speaker E: I don't like you, so I don't care.
Speaker B: There's no journey for her character of learning from her mistakes. It's just like, well, you might be a transphobic homophobic pile of shit classes asshole, but you're still empathetic and fun.
Speaker E: Oh, you poor baby. Your parents don't really like you that.
Speaker B: Much because you're not as good as your family.
Speaker E: I guess that excuses your hate of everybody.
Misc: Else.
Stella: Her siblings?
Speaker D: Yeah.
Stella: How old are they? One of her siblings is a CNN news correspondent. One of them is like the tennis.
Misc: Circuit.
Speaker B: Maybe she's one of the succession kids. Back at Dawson's, our hero stands stoically in his yard when Jen interrupts him. He lets her know the news story isn't going to go anywhere. And when they sit down, Jen goes into a spiel on how she really didn't have a good reason to break up with him and asks for another chance. Dawson can't believe it. He tells her that it isn't the best time and that, uh, he has some things to figure out first. When she leaves, we enter into a bizarre back and forth montage of Dawson sitting on the steps and Joey in her bedroom combing her hair before sleeping time. As the audio of her Lay Ms performance from 20 minutes earlier begins to play over the sequence, both Dawson and Joey begin to smile and we fade to credits.
Stella: Okay, so I think the first thing I feel pretty frustrated with is Jen.
Misc: Okay.
Stella: Jen and Joey supposedly have this bonding experience in our friends. Jen witnesses the interaction between Dawson and Joey, clearly like, having an intimate moment. And then Jen goes to try and get back with Dawson. It just doesn't make sense for her character. And I just really would have liked for her to talk to Joey and be like, hey, what's going on between the two of you? I'm having feelings for him.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker D: This can't bode well for their friendship. This whole episode has been trying to develop with Joey.
Speaker B: What is she thinking?
Speaker E: Yeah, she immediately goes and undermines her new friend that she put all this effort into.
Stella: Like you've already said, Cody, it just doesn't make any sense for her character.
Misc: Mhm.
Stella: I feel like it just contradicts.
Speaker D: Everything so frustrating.
Speaker B: Everything that is introduced in this episode and in the first season itself, uh, is just ripped right, uh, out of the scalp of its being. It does not make any sense.
Speaker E: It really doesn't.
Speaker B: But at least we get to hear that song again.
Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. It's the reprieve that none of us knew we needed.
Speaker B: That back and Forth is one of the most strangely edited things I've seen in the show so far.
Stella: And then it stands so abruptly.
Speaker D: She's looking in the mirror herself. She pulls up Joey, she pulls her hair up like as it was earlier in the evening. To see herself as, quote, more glamorous earlier as she was earlier in the evening. And then she smiles as if she's like, thinking like, oh, I am pretty. I was like, well, it takes.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker D: And so it's like, deep down, she is actually happy that Dawson is recognizing her as, like has finally recognized her as has noticed her. Um, I felt very sad for her.
Speaker B: What a disgusting message.
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker E: If only you were pretty, right? I know that's not well.
Speaker D: Um, no, it's just that it.
Speaker E: Took yeah, it's challenging to watch. It's sad. It just feels sad. I know it's supposed to feel sweet, but it feels fucking sad.
Speaker B: Like, uh, digesting media. I try to think of it like if I was not a media literate person, if I was a kid watching this, how would I view this? I imagine little me watching this. And the takeaway I get is, oh, I guess I have to be beautiful for anyone to even give a shit about me. Like, oh, my crushes aren't ever going to like me unless I do something about my physical appearance and trying m to get their attention.
Speaker E: That's the message I have to recreate myself. Not the way that I feel comfortable or the way that I feel attractive, but the way that society is telling me I should be attractive. Which is especially interesting considering Joey articulates that same fucking message in the beginning.
Speaker B: Exactly. And if they were playing this to be a tragedy, that's so sad that these characters are giving into the whims of our social norms. That's different. But this plays it as fucking straight and being like, fuck yeah, dude. Like, Joey, you're going to go get your man now.
Speaker E: It almost plays it as a well, I used to be liberal, but then I got a glow up. And now I recognize that feminism is kind of.
Misc: Bullshit.
Speaker E: I, uh, really don't like it. But I do like that Jen is wearing a, ah, Joey outfit. She's wearing this gray green sweater. Her confidence is like completely down in the gutter. And she now is completely transformed. So at least we are getting some kind of storytelling beyond the shitty story that we're getting here. At least they're, like, trying to do something.
Speaker B: Would you say Jen transformed from caterpillar to a beautiful moth?
Speaker E: I might. I'd fuck me.
Misc: Oh.
Speaker B: R-I-P-Q Lazarus.
Speaker E: R-I-P the Queen, by the way.
Speaker B: Who q lazarus.
Misc: Yes.
Speaker E: Uh, well, shit.
Misc: Is that it?
Speaker E: Do we have anything else to say on this beautiful, wonderful ten out of ten episode? So then on to ratings we go. Um, all right, so I will kick us off. I go first, right? No, Cody does.
Misc: Do I?
Speaker B: All right, point. Uh, five out of five. Uh, almost nothing redeemable about this pile, uh, of shit. Uh, I just feel bad for everyone involved. I feel bad for the cast having to say this dialogue. I feel bad that they were directed to do these things. These are all human beings. And no one should ever be able to do this in a professional way, ever. Nothing, uh, really works. The themes collapse in on themselves. It's a complete disaster. The only saving grace, I guess, is the fact that I didn't even realize how, uh, good the costuming was for at least trying to push those themes of the episode. At least. At the very least, even though I don't like it, the only thing that's keeping this from a zero out of five is the fact that they accomplished what they were setting out to do. As much as I disagree with it, at least they do what they wanted and none of it's good. Uh, but at least it's kudos for a kid finishing their project. That's the only good thing I could say. A for effort, basically. Um, but yes. What the fuck, man? I'm really disappointed because I really love Jen and her character no longer exists. Uh, the music is absolutely wretched. On my Own song was hard to stomach. This is not good. Not good at.
Speaker E: All.
Speaker D: Well, my turn. Going to give it a one. We get nowhere with anything and it was just terrible. I hated the beauty pageant storyline. Um, Cody was saying a little bit of redeeming qualities with the costuming.
Misc: And.
Speaker D: All in all, one bad episode. Um, we did get to learn a little bit more about Pacey and really how bad it is at home. Um, but other than that, just like, nothing for me. It did nothing for.
Misc: Me.
Stella: Yeah, I am also giving it a .5 out of.
Misc: Five. Really?
Stella: Um, just didn't like anything about this.
Misc: Episode.
Stella: Yeah, I got nothing to say.
Misc: Wow.
Speaker E: Well, I guess it's time for me to be contrarian here. Um, I am going to give it ten out of five. No, I'm just kidding. I'm giving it a 2.5 out of five. So I am giving it much higher ratings than you guys. Uh, only because I really appreciate that we got a little bit of humanism from Pacey. Um, something that we've been asking for for this entire season. And we got sure it was literally just a peak at his life, but we did get a peek at his life. Um, obviously we know he's a vampire. We know that Joey's a ghost. There's a lot of supernatural elements to this. The rest of the episode is pretty terrible. Um, I've mentioned this in other episodes, but for new listeners, I have a multi metric rating system. It's very scientific and, uh, uh, it's incredible. You wouldn't understand. Let's be honest, it's really too scientific. But yeah, so I gave it one on almost everything except for my personal enjoyment and paranormal and, uh, that's about it. So, yeah, 2.5 out of five, terrible episode. Never want to watch it again. But yeah, I mean, come on. On my own, it's going to live with me for the rest of my life. I'm never going to get this shit.
Speaker B: Out of my head. Earlier, uh, we are talking in the kitchen about how when we're dying, uh, our brains fizzle out and random memories shoot through our head. And I feel like on my deathbed, I won't remember anyone in my life, but I'll have on my own playing as I drift off into the ether.
Speaker E: And see, I'll have the moment of the four of us singing that. Well, Mumble wrapping that song, uh, together here earlier today. And I hope all of you listeners also will keep it with you for the rest of your life. Should we do recommendations, folks?
Misc: Yeah.
Speaker B: All right. Well, at, uh, the time of its recording, when this episode drops, uh, it is spooky season, so I want to recommend a horror movie. That's kind of a recent discovery for me, at least. Uh, I've talked about it before. When you Google what, uh, are the best horror movies of all time, it's always the same 50. It's like the shining alien the Exorcist yada yada. Yada. Uh, but kind of buried in there. Ha, ha. Is 1981s dead and Buried directed by Gary Sherman and written by Dan O'Bannon, who wrote Alien along with Ron Shusset schucett. I don't know. The premise is after a series of gory murders committed by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses appear to be coming back to life and living normally as locals in a small town. It starts James Farentino as the town's sheriff who's investigating the disappearances and unraveling the mystery. It's deliberately paced with a foggy coastal vibe, similar to John Carpenter's The Fog. That adds to a really cool, spooky atmosphere that I love. I really like coastal horror. Uh, it kind of reminds me of, uh, the great midnight Mass, which I finally caught up with recently. Um, the only thing for people that are getting into it, the opening scene is extremely cheesy, uh, and very, totally different from the rest of the movie. But I swear to God, once you get past that, it is extremely good. In the final ten minutes is legitimately bone chilling. It is horrifying. It is so good. I love it. It has completely won me over. Also, fun thing, the gore effects are extremely good and they were done by Stan Winston, who did Jurassic Park, Terminator Aliens.
Speaker E: Practical then.
Speaker B: Yeah, it's practical. And it looks so good.
Speaker E: That's awesome.
Speaker B: Um, what was it called again? It is called Dead and Buried.
Speaker E: Dead and buried.
Speaker B: It's very low budget. It kind of looks like shit. But there was a recent 4K release that really cleaned it up and it just looks so good.
Speaker E: That's awesome. Is it available streaming anywhere?
Speaker B: It's available streaming everywhere. I don't know what it is, but it's one of those movies where it's just like the rights must be just up in the air. So it's on shutter. Amazon prime. You can find anywhere. And, um, I don't know if it is like a sub genre of itself, but I love Agency Whore, where it seems like someone's life is being manipulated and you as the audience, you're watching it happen and there's just, like, nothing you can do, like Rosemary's Baby or even hereditary. It's just like, fuck. Like, oh, I don't want to watch this happen, but it's just happening, baby.
Speaker E: Would you call it follows an agency horror film? It's like a sexual horror, but yeah.
Speaker B: Like, in a little bit because you just know that it's following and there's nothing they can really do about it except for the one rule, you know? And then so you're just, like, watching as it just happens. Uh, yeah, I'd put that in there now.
Speaker E: I love it.
Misc: Follows.
Speaker E: Uh, this sounds right up my alley. So we're going to add this to our list and probably watch it very soon.
Speaker B: It's very cool.
Speaker E: Hell, yeah.
Misc: Cool.
Speaker D: Hey, my turn. Um, I am going to recommend a show on Netflix called Glow Up. Um, this is a reality competition show where ten aspiring make up artists, which is referred to as MUAs, um, navigate challenges to win a career making opportunity in the beauty industry. Um, it's actually a BBC show, British. So this is basically what British baker to baker's blow up is to make up artists. Uh, um, a lot of the contestants are self taught and have never done makeup on someone else. Um, but they're being put in front of models with a time limit and creating some of the most amazing makeup art that I've ever seen. Um, some of the challenges range from prosthetic face makeup to gore to full on, like, body art. So there's a host, two judges, plus usually a guest judge from the industry. Um, and then one of my favorite part things about this show is when someone hits it out of the park with their creation, one of the judges, Val Garland, gives them a quote, ding dong. This is where that ding dong comes from.
Misc: Yes.
Speaker D: That's like a Paul Hollywood handshake. For those of you who watch British Bake Off. Um, anyway, it's super entertaining and just, like, easy to throw on. We can't think of anything else to watch.
Speaker B: So when Jen was doing Joey's makeup, she should have said, ding dong.
Speaker D: Ding dong. Knocked it out of the park. Dawson should have said, that's a ding dong.
Speaker E: Yeah. And like you mentioned, the horror makeup and the gore makeup so cool. Just like, some of the looks that they create are absolutely incredible. And it very much fits in with this practical makeup that you were just talking about from Dead and Buried. Uh, it's incredible to see the way it's done. Uh, when you read about movies and actors having to sit in a chair for 6 hours to get their makeup done for a show, it doesn't really make sense until you watch something like this and you're like, oh, okay, this is why it takes so goddamn long.
Misc: Yes.
Speaker D: And they're under a time limit, and they're still, like, pulling off these amazing creations.
Speaker E: Very, very cool. There's a new season out, right?
Speaker D: Yes, new season just came out. There's four seasons.
Misc: Wow.
Speaker E: Go binge it.
Misc: Yeah.
Stella: All right. I am recommending a new album from one of my favorite artists, um, Charlie Crockett. His new album, The Man from Waco, um, just released a couple of days ago. And no king gives over here. But this is, um, his 11th album since 2015, which seems like a fair amount.
Speaker B: That's extremely intense.
Misc: Definitely.
Speaker B: That's a lot of records.
Stella: Um, yeah, he's become one of my favorite country musicians over the last couple of years. Um, and to clarify, I love country music. I'm not into Top 50 Billboard country music, like bro country or whatever. That's not the kind of country music, the fizz or that I like. Um, this is more like western kind of bluesy. He, um, has a very deep, romantic voice.
Speaker B: Would you say country, uh, fans that really, like, fancy, like, would they like this?
Misc: They might.
Stella: I don't know. It's not in the same genre. But maybe. Um, some of his other albums that I really love are welcome to Hard Times, which came out in 2020, and The Valley, which came out in 2019. Uh, if you ever get a chance to see him live, you should do so. He's a lot of fun. And yeah, take a listen to that new album.
Speaker B: It's great. I am not a country person, and I gave two thumbs up.
Stella: Yeah, Cody likes it.
Misc: Wow.
Speaker E: Yeah, we actually just had a conversation maybe a week or two ago about how much Cody does not like, uh, Cody music. Country music.
Speaker B: I don't like Cody music either, believe me.
Speaker E: That's cool. I'll check that out.
Speaker D: Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker E: All right, this week I've got a fun recommendation for you. I've been in a big Afro beat kick lately. Um, so I've got maybe a deep cut for some of you. Maybe you've never heard of this. Maybe you have. If you have, it's still worth going back and listening to. But I'm going to recommend the 1976 record Zombie by Felicuti. Anybody know who Felicuti.
Misc: Is?
Speaker E: Well, you know what? I'm just going to read this straight from Wikipedia because I don't want to fuck any of this up. Felicut is an incredible, incredible person that deserves your respect, deserves your attention, and definitely you should go and take a listen to this album. Fellakouti is a Nigerian revolutionary, I would say is probably the best way to describe him. He's also a multi instrumentalist and band leader and the pioneer of the Afrobeat genre. Basically, if you've ever heard an Afro beat song, you've heard Fella Kuti's, uh, lineage, um, fellow coote. In 1976, he released this album called Zombie that I'm recommending here today. And the title track off of it. Zombie is a political anthem that is kind of speaking truth to power against the Nigerian government in this time. And it's incredibly fascistic and oppressive rule over the people. Um, I'm going to play just a little clip of this because I really think it's worth hearing. Um, so let's take a listen to this really.
Misc: Quick.
Speaker E: M. It's fucking nasty. You got to go and listen to this. So if you've never heard Afrobeat, that's it. The uh, best way I can describe it is it's a mix of western African music. It's a mix of jazz and it's a mix of blues and rock. You mix all those three together, often there's a big horn section. There's awesome synthesizers because the time period that we're looking at the kind of the birth of the synthesizer and just go and listen to it. It's an incredible album. So Felicuti Six, often it's cited as 1977 because it was released then. Um, there's an edited version of that song that's much shorter. But Felicuti is known for um, expansive jams, 30, 45 minutes songs that are just absolutely insane. So yeah, go check it out.
Speaker B: You'll love it. If you like Vampire Weekend, uh, everything their music is based on is based on Afrobeat.
Misc: Actually.
Speaker E: I'm just going to throw this out there as well. If you like this band, if you like that album specifically, I've got another song for you to check out. Um, it's a song called Ice Five by King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard. Uh, it's their most recent single. It's coming off of their new album that's releasing in October around the time that this episode is releasing. And uh, it has some incredible deep afrobeat, uh, references and inspiration. And uh, it's pretty incredible to see a band like King Gizzard who is traditionally a psychedelic rock band, make this big divergence and go in a totally different direction. And ice five is fucking killer.
Speaker B: If you like jam, uh, music, you should check it out. If you've been turned off by the abrasiveness of earlier King GIZ, ah, but you like to get down and groovy to some improvised jams, you should check it out. Also when you're talking about uh, this music, I thought you were talking about folkies, uh, zombie too. It sounds so similar. The Italian, uh, ah, fake sequel to Donovidez.
Stella: Well, listen in next time where we will be talking about the finale of season one decisions, also known as Breaking Away. The uh, synopsis reads an offer for Joey to study abroad forces her and Dawson to reconsider their feelings for each other. Jeff's grandfather suddenly awakes from his coma.
Speaker D: Also abroad. Joy, uh, was just talking about traveling.
Misc: Interesting.
Speaker E: Uh, what a timely moment for the grandfather. We've all been waiting this whole season.
Speaker D: And he moved to the last episode. So.
Speaker E: Yeah, I love that. That's great. Finally we can maybe do you think next episode is going to be like he wakes up from his coma.
Speaker B: He's like, I got to stick the vampires. I feel like two things are going to happen. He's going to wake up and he's going to say something that's going to be detrimental to Jen's mental health or like, well being that's going to completely change the trajectory of her character. Also, I feel as though what we're going to see is Joey will be taking this abroad thing and when season two starts, it'll be like her coming home and us, uh, as the audience will be experiencing what's new to Capeside through her eyes, will have a new boo pace, will have a new boo. Life is going to be different. Jen's going to be different. I feel like this is going to be what the trajectory of the shows going on. That's cool.
Speaker D: I like that whole new world rights up. And maybe we'll find out that Jen is actually very close to him, a lot more close to him than she is with Graham's. And she kind of has been confiding in him.
Speaker E: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker D: So maybe he'll be like, I heard what you said and who knows?
Speaker B: Oh my God, what if he wakes up and he's like, God is dead. I will stop that house.
Speaker E: All right, Chelsea. Thank you all so much for listening. If, um, you've enjoyed the episode, go.
Stella: Ahead and subscribe to our show.
Speaker E: I'm sure you already are. Uh, if you want a little bit more of our Freaks content, join us online. You can find us@freaksandcreeks.com. It's our wonderful website. Go on over to our Instagram at freaksandcreekspod. Or if you would like to write us like our good friend Chris did, go ahead and send an email to show@freaksandcreeks.com. But otherwise, until next time, bye.
Misc: Bye. Bye.