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Things get steamy in our discussions about season 1 episode 3 of Dawson's Creek: Kiss, also known as Prelude to a Kiss. Don't miss the boat!
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.
Welcome to Freaks and Creeks a Dawson's Creek Podcast, the show where four millennials who missed the boat 25 years ago take the dive for the first time. Join us as we explore, experience the series with a fresh perspective week to week and see if our adolescent experiences match up with Dawson and the gang. My name is Cody.
I'm Stella.
I'm Mal, short for Mallory.
And I'm James. And this week we are talking about season one, episode three, titled Kiss. This episode aired on February 7, 1998, and here is the rough synopsis says the class movie hits some trouble, giving Dawson an advantage. Joey falls in love with a visitor to the town Pacey's school achievements and his relationship with Tamra intensify, and Dawson brings his feelings about Gen out into the open. Written by Rob Thomas, and it was directed by Michael Toshiyuki. Uno. And this was a great episode. I thought, what did you all think about the watch this time? How did it go for you?
I um mixed feelings. I think I liked it less than the last episode. Not my favorite so far. I mean, we're only three in, but um yeah, definitely surprised. So I'm excited to talk about it. And I'm excited. I'm still excited to keep watching. I'm like intrigued. I want to know what happens next. But I wasn't a big fan of the app.
Yeah, um I kind of agree. I didn't like it quite as much as the last episode. Um i did feel like we're getting to know more about Capeside a little more, and I enjoyed that. Seeing lots of water and boats, Broll of that type of thing. Um i don't know. Plots seem to be advancing, and I feel like we're kind of starting to dig in a little more.
Um.
Uh The thing that I can say with my utmost confidence is this is an episode of Dawson's Creek.
Yeah.
Uh i don't know. It was fine. There are some things I really like. There are some things I really did not like, but uh also for a clarification, this was written by Rob Thomas. Is that the creator of Veronica Mars or is that the singer of Matchbox 20?
I'm pretty sure it's the singer of Matchbox 20.
Okay, cool. Give uh me your heart, make it real, or else forget about.
Exactly. Yeah, I did notice Santana was in the background of every shot. I don't know if you guys saw that. So that's what I'm basing that off of.
So that's where that sick ask guitar lick was coming in.
Exactly. He actually wrote the music that uh Anderson Crawford was playing, and it's violin on the boat.
Oh, my gosh.
That's a little no fact, I think without further Ado, actually.
Sorry.
I have one thing that I have to mention.
Oh, and I do, too, before we.
Get in about the time period around this episode, um like I said, was released on February 7. And actually, I have a note that was released on February 3. Oh, really, I need to double check that. But the only reason that I find that important is because we mentioned a very popular um crime case that is very relevant to this whole Pacey and Tamara Jacob's drama, which is the Mary K. Leturno Mary uh Kataro is the teacher who in the 90s was convicted of rape uh of a minor for her who was her student. So on February 3, she's found violating her probation. Oh, no. She's um been out of jail for a little bit at this point in time. And what happens is part of her stipulation for um her plea deal where she instead of serving seven and a half years in prison, she only gets six months in jail.
That's it.
Yes. Three months of which is suspended. So she actually only does three months in a penitentiary, and then she gets out where she basically has three months of supervised house arrest. So she only serves six months for this very strange relationship that she has with a literal child. And on February 3, 1998, just four days before this episode is released, she is caught with this child who is now I want to say, like 18 or something. So he's an adult at this point in time. But as part of her plea deal, she had to have no contact with him for life. And she had caught in a vehicle with him just the same way that happened way back when when they were caught fooling around in the back of a car. And they have a bunch uh of money, they have a bunch of documents, and they are basically planning to escape the country together at this point in time. And a couple of days later, I think actually on February 7, she is then sentenced to her full prison sentence at that point in time by the judge who was like, okay, clearly, you are not actually in good faith trying to stay away from your victim and the um father of two of your children.
Her three month punishment of jail, wasn't it?
Right. Yeah.
Can we see what happens to Miss Jacobs?
Yeah, exactly.
So cool that you can go to prison for life for a nonviolent drug crime, but if you have sex with a minor, you get 20 uh minutes in jail.
Pretty much a slap on the wrist. Fun stuff.
I wanted to say something fun. So all of our armchair expert theories on some writing here is valid. So I uh was listening to an episode of Gilmore Guys, and it's an old one. But Ayesha Mahar had uh said that there was a writers reunion panel for Dawson's Creek back in 2015. And during that, Kevin Williamson had said that Joey was written as a boy and uh it was because of the studio that they forced that to end up being for a girl.
Interesting.
Yeah. And Joey was 100% based on a child relationship or childhood relationship. He had not childhood, but during his adolescence, he used him as a friend.
I think that's interesting. I'm glad. Do you feel vindicated, Cody? Because I feel like you're the first person to throw that out when we were talking about the show.
Maybe. Uh yeah, I definitely do. But it's Clairvoyant. Uh yeah. My third eye is wide open. Uh it just felt really obvious that her name is Joey and he's gay and he was closeted for so long that it just felt like, oh, this has to be like a queer coded character. Uh i haven't listeners uh out there. Don't scream at me if I've gotten anything incorrect about this. This is just what Ayesha Mahara said. So tweeted her. But uh I didn't want to Google anything more about this because I didn't want to get any spoilers. What else must have been talked about? I mean, if it's like a big panel, I don't want any spoilers.
Did they happen to mention this? Uh what I'm pretty sure is fact, but Nelly being a vampire, did they talk about that at all?
They talked about the connection to The Vampire Diaries. Kevin Williamson University.
When Cody told me that, I feel like that just would have changed the whole dynamic of the show. I want to know what it originally.
Would have looked like. Dawson's uh Creek with Joey.
Yeah.
I hope there's like an original script out there before all the changes were made, because that'd be great.
Interesting. It would be really cool to see that. I'm glad they made that change, though, because can you imagine if it was fucking Joey as a dude? Dawson and Pacey walking around and uh then Jen? Yeah. Jesus.
Yeah. The show already has way too much gross testosterone.
I know. We're kind of in the pre episode discussion here. This episode is where it hit me. Everybody talks the same in this fucking show. When they get into the heightened stylistic dialogue, every person sounds the same.
Yes. I think that's just the flavor of the show for me, though. Um it's like Buffy or any other show they're going to have that unique um style of speaking to. It like Gilmore Girls obviously has their version of that where everyone talks really fast in every single sentence of pop culture reference. But I think with this, it's that. I don't know. I can't put my finger on what it is, but it's like teen noir.
Definitely.
Everyone's making these really strange allegories with everything that they say, right? I don't know. Uh it's weird. It's definitely stylized.
Well, I guess. Does anybody have any final thoughts before we actually jump in and do the scene by scene?
Get into it.
Fuck you. All right, Cody, take us away.
Yeah.
So the opening teaser has Dawson and Joey watching from here to eternity. And this is where the rest of the episode theme plays out, where they're talking about the difference between having kind of a cynical uh outlook, where you should just have romance happening when it does, when it happens, let it be natural versus uh Dawson's. Weird set up. I was thinking that everything needs to be staged for romance to happen, which uh is gross and just more in line with his character, I guess. At least he's still exactly who he is. This is an off for him. He thinks everything needs to be staged. Joey says, you know, you can't storyboard a kiss, which is funny because later we're going to see that these two characters are going to do a little uh swapperoo.
Exactly. Um i had a note here when Joy was criticizing um Dawson. She was referring to the movie and she said, it's um take 22. The girl is bored, the guy is gay. It's cellular propaganda. And I kind of looked up researched from your eternity um a little bit. And apparently Bert Lancaster, who plays the man who has the affair with Deborah Carr or the character played by Deborah Car, he was gay. He had affairs with men.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Between that and then also, like, Dawson making that clip to Joey if she's actually into Sandra Bullock, right.
Yes.
Two little uh gay quips there.
Interesting. Yes. A note um on the Sander, Bulk and Brad Pitt comment. I was like, have they ever been I was thinking, have they ever been in a movie together? Uh or was it just a reference to two really famous actors in the couldn't find anything until this week.
They're just calling it.
That was so funny.
I was just more shocked that he was surprised that she was attracted to Brad Pitt.
Right. Yeah.
Oh, the most handsome man on Earth. Did you sing with Brett Pitt?
Yeah.
Um i think I may have said something about this in our last recap, but um I just keep going back to Dawson. Um what does he actually know or like about Jen? He seems so adamant, like, oh, I have to create this perfect moment for our kiss. She's just so amazing. And it's like, what do you know about her? Are you just like, really just infatuated with this idea of romance?
Has a major crush.
I think she has a pretty head. That's all he knows about her.
Yeah.
He mhm has no idea anything about her Besides the fact that she seems to want to go along with my movie idea. That's about it. I liked the scene, though, when we're talking about the scene in totality in relationship to the rest of the episode. I liked it because Dawson and Joey are diametrically opposed here. Right. Dawson is saying movies are real. You can live your life through as a movie if you just try. Yeah. All you have to do is think about it like a movie and it can be real. And Joey is like, no, movies are not real life. You're living a fantasy. But we end up seeing, as you mentioned, both of them end up living their life as if it's a movie here when Dawson's storyboards a whole romantic encounter that we get to at the end of the episode, that is 100% a scene out of a movie. And when Joey goes on her date with the mystery man that we're soon to meet, that is literally a scene out of a movie. And not only is it a scene out of a movie, she adopts a movie character's name. Initially, she goes by Deborah Carr, then catches it and corrects it to Deborah Carson. Yeah.
And Deborah Carr is actually the actress.
Interesting, the first time I watched it, I was like, why did Joey just come up with that name? And then when I watched it again, I was like, oh, there it is.
There we go.
Like a character named Karen.
Karen.
She has a really horrible haircut and complains about minorities. It's a really crazy, caring character.
What a fun episode or what a fun movie to watch late at night with your platonic, romantic friend.
Also, has anyone ever seen From Here to Eternity? I only know about them making out on the beach uh with the water scene. Is that movie just 2 hours of that? Because it's the only thing I know for the okay.
Must be also thought it was interesting that. So our last episode, Stella mentioned that we were in the first scene. We were watching a clip from uh Dawson's movie, and you were wondering if that was going to be a thing. But this is kind of similar. We're watching a scene from a movie in the first scene of the episode.
That they then play out basically in.
Real life, which is kind of what last episode was. We watched a scene that they were kind of working on for Dawson's movie.
We still do get a clip from his movie at the end of this. Yeah, really good scene, too. So after the intro uh theme, we get into uh Mr. Gold's film class where all the students are arguing about how they can touch up Cliff's script for Helmets of Glory because they're going to be shooting it that weekend. And the last episode, I argued that this is a better Helmet of Glory. It sounds like it's going to be a better movie.
How do you feel about that?
Yeah, I still think it's better. It's not good, but it's better because especially after seeing how Dawson shoots his final scene for his big epic movie that looks like trash. But here, this is not good that they have written a script and uh now they're deciding that they're going to change the ending to the movies they're going to shoot that weekend. Wildstyle.
Right.
But Nelly uh is just super upset about Dawson's ideas of implementing some actual structure to the script. And this is interesting because we're finally seeing Dawson actually say things that are smart about filmmaking instead of just everyone saying, wow, Dawson, you're so good. We're actually getting evidence of that. So I like that we're getting a little bit of that. But I don't understand from a production standpoint why Nelly being a producer on this later we find out why. She says, we worked on this all summer and you're just coming in here right now. But if you're a producer, you want the final product that you're producing to be good. And if he's coming up with good ideas, like, that's good. Right.
She was kind of like that to some of the other students, too. Not just Dawson in that scene because she called or she said something about non asinine ideas to the student behind her who had suggested a dance scene.
Yeah.
Deals a sense of ownership over this, I guess.
Well, I think it's more proof that she is a vampire. She has in between feedings. She's very hungry, and she just doesn't have time for this bullshit conversation that we're having, though. That said, Dawson's suggestion, aside of very basic storytelling, he's basically suggesting that we just do the Hero's Journey, which, like, if you've ever played Dungeons and Dragons, if you've ever read a fantasy story, if you've ever even seen, like, an action movie or pretty much any real movie, you have seen this in play. And it is basically the most basic storytelling technique that you can have.
She hates it.
Like, why? I mean, I don't understand why she is so vehemently opposed to what the teacher himself would probably suggest.
It makes no sense.
It's not like he's coming up with his own crazy story structure and imposing it on everybody. Sure. He's not really articulating it in the best way. He's kind of coming across, in my opinion. He kind of comes across as an asshole, especially when what we know, you're supposed to shut up and just do your homework. You're not supposed to take part in this, but everybody else's um suggestions sucked ass.
But also it's like, where are your ideas, girl? Like, you're just being, like, shutting down everyone.
I'm starting to dislike her a little more. I liked her at first, and now I'm like, I don't know.
Well, I feel like this episode, she was, like, really annoying. Like her voice awful. I felt like, different. It was weird.
Yeah, I agree. Well, I mean, that said, we only really got one line out of her in the first episode where she is like, Where's Forrest Gump go? And it had this kind of weird delivery. But we got a lot of Nelly in this episode. Uh we got a lot of Nelly in this episode, and a lot of it was rough. It was hard to defend. It made me, like, feel sad that we kind of hyped her up.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean, this shows 1000 episodes, and this is only the third episode. They're still definitely trying to figure out who these people are. Like, we're going to get to Mr. Golden a little bit. He gets flushed out a little more in this episode. And his first appearance, he was cold and mean. And this one, he's like, kind of a smooth operator. So they don't know who these characters are yet.
They're definitely flushing them out. This is also where we get our very first needle drop of the whole episode. We get the song first time by Billy Myers. I went ahead and have made um a playlist that we will share uh out of all of the music from this episode. I actually enjoyed this episode's music quite a bit. It felt like I couldn't place any of the songs except for one which we'll get into when we get to it. But um it felt perfectly 90s. It felt like exactly what I remember the 90s sounding like. And this song specifically really scratched that 90s itch for me.
One thing. So they're all arguing over the script and they're all a writer's room. I feel like this might be a meta thing where the writers of Dawson's uh Creek are kind of describing their own writer's room and, like, kind of poking fun because that's a lot of fun. But Nelly uh has that little bit about including an unexpected death at the end, and I wonder if that's their way of doing, like, foreshadowing it. Maybe there's going to be, like, a big death in this show. Maybe the season finale.
Who do we think is going to die at the end of the season?
Soft be Bob.
Soft B Bob. Okay, Cody coming out strong.
I think that's what it's. It just seems like such a TV show thing for Dawson's mom to be at a crossroads um of. Does she want to be with Mr. Manmade or Soft be Bob? And I think his death will be like, does she want to still be with Dawson's dad? And is that uh just because stop B Bob is now literally out of the picture.
That's a good read.
I don't know.
What do you think, Stella?
I don't know. I think potentially obvious choice would be Gran. Yeah.
Or Gramp Grand um Gramp. Remember?
And then I was just trying to think of other people, like maybe Joey's sister Bessie.
Is that her name? Yeah.
It would be interesting. God, she would uh just be the most tragic character in Allen Creek. My read is Gramp. I feel like they set up the whole that's the reason that Jen is here. He had this open heart surgery. He's recovering from it. We've seen nothing from him. He's played no role since then. Let's just fucking kill him off. And then it will also beg the question, is Jim going to stay here or not? But I hope it's Pacey. I uh hope he gets killed off.
And that's such a twist.
I really hope it's Dawson. I think I dislike Dawson, Worth and Pacey.
Yeah, it's getting there. Who do you think is going to die? Mal?
Maybe Cliff. I don't know how much farther his.
True helmets of Glory, Friday Night life.
Well, I guess he's going to graduate though, too, so I don't know.
What show was he on, Felicity?
Yeah, that would be interesting. That would be very interesting.
Before we move on from the scene, uh I do want to point out Nelly's outfit.
Oh, I didn't even take note.
Beyond her attitude, she was wearing, like, a fuzzy purple uh sparkly top, the same color tights, and like a floral purple skirt. And then bright red shirt.
Did see that? That's right. I remember that because in a later scene, she's wearing the same outfit. I'm pretty sure. And I remember just being like, Damn, that shirt looks cozy.
Yeah.
Um we were talking about um Dawson showing his knowledge of how movies work, but I just thought it was um funny because there's, like, a shot of Mr. Gold looking at him like, oh, hey, Dawson does know about me. Just like, wow, I thought that was funny.
Uh the Joseph Campbell hero's journey is, like the most basic form of storytelling you could possibly have. I don't know, maybe Nelly's like David Lynch, and she has this really far out idea of what Helmets of Glory could be.
Yeah, she's just a super progressive storyteller and filmmaker. And she's like, no, that's hack. We can't do that. We have to have an unexpected death.
That quarterback must do something.
Groovy will find out that she is the producer.
Yeah, well, in a later scene, she says that she spent all summer writing the script. So she's also a writing producer.
Yeah, she's M. Night Shyamalan.
Yeah.
She does everything.
Yes.
Anyway, I thought this scene was fun. I love the idea. I love storytelling. I love Dungeons and Dragons and all that kind of stuff. And I think that I'm realizing now I really wish that I joined a film class because this scene was like, oh, man, I would love to have a brainstorming session with a bunch of people trying to figure out how to fix a script, how to fix a story. That would be really fun. Not if I'm getting shit on by everybody um in the room, though. But I think it also kind of was cool of Dawson to just like uh he was articulate. I'll give him that. He clearly identified what the problem was and tried to give his suggestion. So as much as I hate Dawson and think he's a real turd, like, he can get his ideas across even if nobody listens to him.
And again, I know this is a corny movie, and I know Cliff is supposed to be a stupid guy and we're supposed to River Dawson. But at the same time, we already do have the underdog story with Cliff's character because doesn't he have a broken arm? And the big game is coming up in the weekend? Helmets a Glory narrative. Not just Cliff, uh but that seems like a narrative hook. We already have an ending. You bring in the second string quarterback and you do Friday uh Night Lights. I don't know. Maybe I'm getting in the weeds of Helmets of Glory. I just hope we see Helmets of Glory one day. And I hope it beats Dawson's dumb movie.
Well, should we move on to the next scene?
Yeah.
Uh.
Tomorrow, Jacob's Lit class. Pacey is there, and uh she is flirting fun with him and reveals that he's failing all of his classes. No surprise there. Uh and she agrees to tutor him later after a teacher's meeting. Come by back at six ish and uh the sexiness between them really sucks. You know what's going to happen after uh 06:00 p.m.. And, like, the tutoring stuff, it feels like extortion, too. The way that they set this up just sucks. I hate it. God, I hate Pacey. I hate tomorrow.
Yeah. Pacey basically says that he's failing on purpose, which is sick, but the reason being uh so that he can be tutored by her. But it's like, wouldn't it take a while to fail your classes?
All of them.
She's not going to tutor him in math.
All the other teachers are talking about how he's failing.
Yeah.
This made me wonder what's going on in Pacey's life, because did any of you guys fail a class in high school?
Yeah, all of them.
No. But he reminds me of, like, the smart slacker.
He reminds me of myself. Let me caveat that in this way because I didn't uh give a shit about school and early in my academic uh career was getting very good grades. And by the time high school came around, I was just like, who cares about any of this? Why should I care? I definitely failed classes, and I kind of agree with what he's saying. It does take some work to actually fail every single one of your classes, unless you just are not showing up, in which case that also takes some work because how are you covering all that up? But I have almost no notes on this scene because I just started dissociating.
Anyone on Ethan Frown.
Uh never fucking heard of this.
No, I read it.
I mean, I've heard of it but didn't read it. I haven't wasn't on.
I also had no idea what they were talking about.
Well, so a big plot point in that book is forbidden relationship. Um what happens at the end of that book is the two people that are not supposed to be together. It's like a bad thing that they want to be together. They end up together, but with the caveat that they're both like, one becomes completely paralyzed and another one is very seriously injured. And it's like, uh oh, you got what you want, but interesting in a bad way.
Yeah, interesting.
I thought that was kind of fun. Maybe that's foreshadowing for the relationship and maybe Pacey gets paralyzed that way.
They put the wheelchair in this.
Where did that come from?
Yeah, right.
Okay. We broke protocol, and Stella and I had a very brief discussion about this episode before we recorded, and I was like, Where the fuck did he get the wheelchair? And Stella casually says, oh, it's because of the movie shoot.
Well, uh yes.
They had it on set for the movie.
Oh. So like someone in the movie maybe has an injury and is in a wheelchair. That makes sense.
That makes sense because it was on my husband.
Why else would he be, like cruising the halls in a wheelchair?
I know, but I wish we got a scene where he stole it because he has it for almost every scene he's in.
Yeah. I wonder if they filmed that scene and then cut it.
A lot of this episode feels like scenes were cut.
Yeah. Uh i don't care. Yeah. But I don't know. The only thing that I feel like this scene gave me is a curiosity into who Pacey is, what his home life is like, what he does outside of class. Because I agree with what you said, Mallory. He is like the smart slacker. He's articulate. Right. He's emotionally aware, at least at some levels. He isn't just somebody who would fail on merit. Right. You know what I mean? So I'm curious as to I hope that we get and I'm sure that we will a look at Pacey outside of school because that still is the only context we've seen. Pacey is school and then the movie theater and then kissing his teacher on the dock. So we really haven't seen Pacey in a neutral setting where he's not trying to play it up for his friends or he's around his mentally diverse sisters or uh any of that. So.
Yeah, I just want one see where Pace, he's talking about golf or something. It's not about sex or like anything related to women because uh everything he has to say about women is bad. So I just want him to be like, wow. Yeah. I shot nine holes over the weekend.
Right.
I feel like he probably does play golf.
Yeah.
He always wears a collared shirt.
Yeah.
Like his uniform.
Because he's a dork.
He's the only one that just consistently wears a collar shirt.
Yeah. Well, I think it's time for our first break of the day. So we will be back after these messages. Bye.
Well, now we finally get to the Ice House Diner, which is so exciting because we talked about this. This is their way to branch out and start showing more of Capeside. But we're here and it starts off with Modi and Joey teasing uh Bessie's big old pregnant body, which is this is a show from 1998. And uh we also get Dawson talking to um Pacey about something that doesn't involve women for once.
For a brief moment.
For a brief moment, we hit a reprieve and they really um get to the discussion of them shooting Helmets of Glory over the weekend. And this is when we start to get a little bit of like where this episode is going to be going because there's a conflict of Dawson shooting his movie over this weekend, but also Glory. So what is Dawson going to do? He dives in a little bit about how he has this perfect set up for his conclusion, and it's going to be using Jen and how this is all, like, set up so he can kiss her. And that's when Pacey can finally his light bulb blinks again. He's like, oh, we can talk about sex again. And that's when Pacey talks about his plans with that mystery girl again. So strange that none of his friends know who he's talking about, especially because it's the only thing they do talk about. If it's not Das talking about movies, it's about their relationships. So how can Pacey go 5 seconds without ever saying, like, who the mystery girl is? And we're also introduced to um a hot new character, Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
Just real quick to touch on um the Pacey.
Yeah, please.
Going on a um date with a, quote, unquote stranger or mystery girl. Um so surprising um to me that there are no rumors going um around, especially after the movie theater fight and him talking to Miss Jacob so uh much in class.
No rumors. Mr. Gold, right. That fight is Mr. Gold.
Okay, so Mr. Gold was there, but he isn't the one who punches him. It's the person behind Pacey that punches Pacey in the movie. But to your point, I guess teachers aren't going to gossip to students, so maybe that's the case. But how hasn't this been talked about? That two teachers were at the school at the movies uh and a student comes up and starts a fight? Like all that stuff at my high school, guaranteed would have been being talked about probably for the rest of the year. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So this is the best kept secret in Capeside, which I guess makes sense because it's a town of, as we know, like 20 people.
I think there's an episode of Batman The Animated Series where all of the bad guys, the Rogues Gallery, they all are just sitting around playing cards and swapping stories about their experiences with Batman. And I would love to see a Dawson Streak episodes where it's all the teachers being like, hey, remember Pacey, right?
Sleeping with the English Lit teacher?
Why was he failing all his classes?
Yes, I think this episode um again, I kind of alluded to this in our preepped discussion or pretty scene by scene discussion, but I love this. This is what I want to see more of. I love slice of life. Um this show is so um heightened, so it's cool to see something that is relatable. In a sense. Um there's some interesting stuff about this scene. I think I might save it for later when we get to the kind of the apex I've been doing. Too much racing. I'm sorry, the culmination of this episode, but we get our second needle drop. Um i'll interject that right now. We got our second needle drop in this episode. The song uh is Kingdom by the Slugs. It is very like, 90s alt rock acoustic guitar and grungy vocals, and I liked it. I thought it was really fun. It did definitely set the scene for the rest of this episode for me. But what I found interesting is so Dawson lays out his whole plan. Like you mentioned, Cody and Pacey hears it. So he knows that Dawson is planning to shoot this video at the ruins tonight.
Right.
And then we're going to talk about this. But he goes there later in this episode, knowing it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
He wants to create catastrophe.
Yeah. It is just a big old mess uh that I couldn't separate myself. As soon as I saw my rewatch, I was like, Wait, why the fuck would he do this?
I do want to go back a mhm little bit to the beginning of this scene.
Sure.
Bodie and Bessie. This is kind of the first time we see them again since the first episode.
Bodie two point out.
First time we um see the new actor who plays bodies.
Right.
And this entire scene explains why he was making sampling food in the first episode. Because they own a restaurant. Well, they own it, I think seemingly. Yeah.
I meant to note what people ordered. It sounded like it was basically just like burgers and fries. And then also raw oysters, seafood for Pacey for his 06:00 date later that night, he wants to just carry around some oysters with them for the rest of the day.
You pocket those guys.
Dawson ordered ten fish and chips, five family fries, and a dozen shrimp burgers. I know. He ordered so much food. It has to be for the film set. It's definitely a seafood restaurant.
Uh yeah, five family fries. That's a lot of fries.
The whole thing with him and Joey staring at each other uh and, like, locking eyes. Has that ever happened in real life to anyone?
Oh, absolutely.
What?
Yeah.
You mean you've never. I fucked anyone?
No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where they just, like, where all moments cease to happen and you're locked in and you just both know at the exact same time, like, we're going to fuck now. That's real.
Yeah.
Okay. I guess I'm a weirdo uh and no one's ever been attracted to uh me before.
Cody, next time we go out, I'm going to pretend I'm a stranger, and we will. I fuck each other from across the hall.
I would love that.
Okay, so when this happens, I did notice um that Dawson was giving a lot of weird looks, and I couldn't tell if he was confused or jealous because he was like, do you know him? Who is that? He seemed curious and confused, but also kind of jealous.
I think he's confused.
I thought it was interesting because he wants Joy to have this fantasy. He wants her to have a romance or something. But then in that moment that he sees it, I think he's a little bit jealous.
It's such a cinematic moment. I was like he knows what's going on.
Yeah, I don't know.
I also was picking up on how mean Joey and Pacey are to each other, like in every interaction.
But it also gave me friend.
It gave me that vibe of when you like someone to tease someone because it definitely just she calls him a butt plug.
Yeah. Butt plug. Yeah.
Because he starts talking to the uh hot new stranger and saying, this young woman finds you very attractive or something like that. When whatever incel speak Pace he has and Joey shouts over him, you bump plug.
And he calls her a serving lunch.
Yeah, I remember that.
Cool.
But I agree. I think that I feel like later down the line, there's going to be something between them that sucks.
Poor Joey.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
Well, yeah.
Next thing moving.
Yeah. So we're at the locker room and they're shooting a sequence and we see Dawson and he's in action as a PA. And Jen shows up. It looks like she was just, I don't know, plopped out of the ether in a cheerleading outfit. And it's revealed that she's going to be part of this film and she's casting uh a bit part. And I just want to say, for me, being a Cliff fan, Jen does confirm here that Cliff is a nice guy.
How does Jen confirm that? What does she say?
She says, Cliff, isn't it?
Oh, right. Because Dawson says, Was there a couch involved or something?
Again, being a gross piece of shit.
Yeah.
Because Dawson is a disgusting guy. Yeah. This is, though, to your point, not to undermine your love of Cliff. This is the first time we get to see Cliff actually be an asshole because he intentionally calls Dawson David. That's right. We know that. You know, his name is Dawson. You're in a fucking class with him, for God's sake. And then the little smirk that he gives Dawson as he's walking away with Jen, which, again, we saw this whole interaction happen to the dance. So this is the one time where I'm like, okay, Cliff, you're actually kind of being a prick here.
Walk a mile in Cliff's shoes. He took Jen out on a date, and then this scraggly squirrely incel runs up during the dancing. She's my trophy uh wife.
I like some time with the object of my affection. Sir, please.
Yeah. I'd be uh calling him David for the rest of high school.
Also, I noticed we had another Dawson crafting moment where the stickers? In the previous episode, he was crafting the head of Joey. The first thing we see in this scene is he's putting stickers on helmets, like in some polka dot pattern. I don't really know. I mean, it's for helmets of glory. What are the polka dots for filming things?
No, it's for when uh you play football. For every win or uh any achievement, you put a sticker on your helmet.
That makes total sense.
It shows how much I knew about being a big boy Jock.
I was a big boy Jock. I played football for two years.
How many stickers did you have you on your helmet? Absolutely none.
But yeah, this whole sequence is really short because then it goes back and this is where we're going to get, like a back and forth for the rest of the episode, really, where it's like a couple of locations that we're going to be returning to. So we're back in the literary class, and Pacey kind of starts flirting with Ms. Jacobs again about what she was like in high school and if they would have dated. And she's just like, no, yeah, because you're a fucking info. Uh this is where um I don't even want to say this out loud, but Ms. Jacobs forms a plan to say, like, here, I'm going to actually uh help you with your homework, even though, like, you thought you were coming here to have sex. But if you do good with your little study quizzing that we're going to do right now, maybe you'll get a little treat.
Positive reinforcement, which I mean, look, positive um reinforcement could mean anything, right? Like, I worked at a dog hotel. I worked in the dog parks. Part of my job was helping train dogs. I worked with our dog trainers. Sometimes positive reinforcement is just getting a little treat. Here you go. A little biscuit. Sometimes it's, hey, I'm going to let you go pee outside. Cool. You're uh not going to have to pee in, like a little pee spot. Yeah, Pacey um needs to go pee outside on a tree. But I feel like when you are a teacher who has already kissed your student, positive reinforcement has one um very clear meaning. And it's not extra credit. It is not extra credit. He's not going to get a little biscuit. All right? He's going to get a little biscuit, if you know what I mean. But it's not the kind. Yeah, I hated this. I dissociated after in the middle of the scene uh and just I am getting to the point now where whenever I see the two of them on screen, I'm just like, don't watch this.
And again, too. I'm like, this comes later. But she's like, oh, well, I was just kind of bluffing about doing sexual favors. But when your entire relationship in the show has been set up to do this, uh clearly it fucking sucks. Also, this is finally the return of Pacey's seductive voice, which is my least favorite thing in the world. I don't know what notes he got from this director. It's like, yeah, be sexy, be seductive. Ok, I'll talk like this.
Speaking about notes from the director and notes in general for Joshua Jackson, the actor who plays Pacey, I feel like in between uh episode two and episode three, they definitely were like, oh, hey, Pacey, we actually want you have two eyebrows. So we're going to tweeze this unibrow because he doesn't have a unibrow anymore.
I didn't even know.
Yeah, he's got two eyebrows now.
Good for him.
Definitely got some poor hair and makeup person in there uh to just pluck the shit out of that before this episode starts. But I think this episode raises an interesting question that I would like us all to consider. Which is, what were you guys like in high school? I'm genuinely curious to know. I know what Mallory was like in high school because we've talked about this quite a bit, but I want to know what Stella and Cody were like in high school. What were you guys like?
Okay, so it's weird. I went to a um very small school that was filled with a lot of really wealthy preppy people. And so my freshman year, I would say in middle school before I went there, and then my freshman year of high school, I was very, like, Goth punk vibes. And then I kind of adapted to, like, this preppy style and tried to be more preppy. Lacrosse, um lacrosse, lacrosse. Wait, did I play lacrosse or did you wear lacrosse? I bought a very expensive pair of lacrosse shoes to try and be cool. No, I played tennis.
Did it work?
I was never, like, one of those, quote, unquote popular girls, but I was someone that was, like, friends with everyone. And I was always, like, a very bubbly, friendly person and just like. Yeah, I felt like I had friends in all the groups, and.
This doesn't.
Mean a lot, but um I do like to brag about it. I was prom Queen senior year.
Wow.
I'm undressing you with my eyes right now.
Wow.
Okay.
I didn't know that. That tells me a lot about you. That explains so much. That's why you're always wearing that tiara. Okay.
I know. I can't put it down.
Cody, what were you like at high school?
You know, I was an insufferable neck beard. I was the worst. It is a miracle that I had friends or that I'm not dead. I was extremely obnoxious. I loved my nerdy dumb shit. I did horrible in school. I um was a class clown. I am everything you thought and more.
See, I don't know that I would have thought that. I really thought that you would probably just be, like, a nerdy little guy. I didn't think that you would be that I would have thought that you would have been a neck beard.
I was um like, proto neck beard. I don't know. It was like before the neck beard became the insignia. I would have never worn one of those hats. Yeah, I would have never worn a fedora. I didn't play, like, card games.
Damn.
I don't know.
Couldn't have been friends then.
I don't know. I mean, I had a lot of friends, and I don't know. All I have is regret, right? That's what I'll say.
I feel like that's pretty universal about. Well, maybe not for Stella, since she was a prom Queen. But when I look back at my high school years, a lot of regret. Mallory, what were you like in high school?
I would say probably close to um the athlete quote if you were to categorize me. I played soccer freshman year and then um was a track nerd. I had a very close knit group of friends. I um was like super nerd. Track, like, not really that popular. I knew everybody, but I was pretty shy within yearbook and photography. Those um were kind of my two lots of extracurriculars. Yeah.
Um he was a good student.
With an IB English.
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean, I can see that.
Well, my dad was a lawyer, so I had a good editor at home and, yeah, I was a good uh writer.
Me, too. My dad was not a lawyer, but my dad was a writer, so he always was. Editing always helped me.
Yeah. In high school, it seems like aside from you, Mallory, I'm going to exclude you. You're out of the circle. I was kind of friends with a lot of people as well. Um i kind of didn't really have necessarily one defined friend group. I tried to kind of, like be friends with everybody as much as I could, but I was into musical theater. That was like our core friend group was all the musical theater nerds where I went to high school. Our musical theater Department was actually across schools, so it was called Kpak, and it was basically my high school and our two rival high schools all would do musicals together. So there were a bunch of kids that were in different schools and different parts of the island that we would get together and do rehearsals and stuff like that. And then I also played soccer. So I was kind of like this. I don't know, like Jack of all trades. I just had weird friends across the board. But I was also not popular whatsoever. I was super nerdy. Like, I wore girl jeans, had long hair, and wore size small T shirts. And it was very much like the scene kid that didn't quite fit in. This is early two thousand s. And especially where I grew up, there weren't a lot of people like that. So I was very much, like ridiculed and made fun of across um everybody and bullied and stuff like that. So, yeah, I don't know. High school was not exactly a fun um time. And it's funny to kind of see this portrayal of high school life that doesn't feel like it does not resonate with my experience whatsoever. I was not getting promised sexual favors from my teachers.
I guess uh I just remembered something that says a lot about me. Do you remember on Facebook there was an anonymous quiz? Does anyone remember this? I don't think it was like an app that you could put onto Facebook and you could vote on things with people anonymously. And there was a positive one where it was like, oh, they're the nicest or whatever. But there's also a negative one. And that brought a lot of drama. I remember to people that I knew in my high school class. And I remember uh I was voted out of my high school. The most annoying.
Wow, that's so sad. That is terrible. It.
Makes sense to this day.
At least you're self aware enough to realize that.
Yeah, I was clown during high school. Uh yeah.
You had Facebook during high school?
Yeah.
Because I feel like it was like 2007.
Facebook was new the first year I was in College.
You mean when it went public? Oh, no. Public because you used to need it.
Was hot or not. And then it turned into Facebook, like, that year that I went into College.
Yeah, I remember it was in my junior year, maybe my senior year of high school, when we found out about it. And at that point, everybody was on MySpace. That was cool. Your top eight? My top eight was all my favorite bands. And then the one girl that I liked. No, I existed, but she was at my top.
Did you check her page to see if she definitely.
And I would ask her about her top eight. And she would just be like, who are you? Why are you talking to me?
She didn't know about you. If you had her in your Salvation.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Love that.
I told you I was Dawson, right?
That is a Dawson move, for sure.
She was up on a pedestal. I would never talk to her because that would change the vision I had of this person. Right.
Can we guess what Dawson's top eight on MySpace would look like?
Yeah.
Oh, man. It would be Steven Spielberg.
Yeah.
I'm trying to think it'd be like The Friends, but then it would be Spielberg. And then whoever his favorite editor is.
Pacey. Joey, Mike, Joey, Jen. He's got to put Jen would be number one.
Yes, it would be The Toad in the Sprocket Track.
I use my MySpace as my personal uh essay dumping ground. I would just write five page um dissertations on whatever I was thinking and put it on my MySpace.
Wait, do we know if there's a way to access our old MySpaces?
I tried last year. Couldn't figure it out.
I feel like it's probably the most, like, nostalgic cringey.
Like, oh, my God.
I have to know.
Whenever I think about the Gen Z and TikTok and stuff, I am so glad we did not have that. Because having video evidence of what I thought was interesting as a teenager will burn it all. If you are 15 right now and you use Tik Tok and you're putting your opinions on there, like, wipe it clean right now. If you're listing this right now, wipe it clean. Do not leave a digital footprint because you will want to die.
Set a calendar invite for the day before you turn 18 and then just delete everything. Or at least like, the week before you go to College or guest gap years are cool now, so just delete it before you actually make adult friends because you don't want that evidence there. And I say that as somebody who has deleted my Instagram feed, like, five.
Times, just imagine if Dawson had set up his live feed.
Oh, my God.
For the Gen kiss. Can you imagine?
Oh, yeah. He went live on TikTok. Yeah. Uh anyway, that's not Dawson's related, so.
Maybe we're trying to bring it back.
Good job. It did remind me that we're recording a podcast about a TV uh show. Yeah.
Okay, so we're um out of that, and we get back to the ice house, and this is where Joey is taking out the trash, and she, with her tiny little ears, picks up the beautiful sound of violin coming off of the waves of the Creek. And she walks down and she sees that sexy mystery man, Patrick Bateman look alike. And he is playing a violin on a boat.
Right.
This uh is where she tells him that her name is Deborah Carson.
Deborah Carr Carr.
Yes, it is Carson.
Yeah.
I mean, they locked eyes, so they knew that the magic is in the air. And so he invites uh her out sailing. And he is clearly rich. He talks about how he's only in town for a little bit with his parents because they have some antique.
Yeah, he says they're antique towns, and they're looking for a chair that Paul Revere once parked in, which is like, what the fuck? This is what rich people do. They just sail around looking for fancy chairs.
It probably is.
Also, there's three people living on that boat as they're sailing around, and they're also hoping to bring back some fancy chair. It didn't really look like the biggest.
Yacht to me underneath. Usually they go further down. That was my question.
I think all rich people boats are yacht.
Yacht.
Okay, so this is where I think I have a theory going into this, too. I think this is all a facade as well.
Uh the boat facade.
Michael Anderson. Yeah.
Wait, do you think Anderson.
Anderson Carpenter in there earlier. And I fix it. It's Crawford, but it's all the same. It's all the same.
I did that on purpose because this is all fake. I think that he's a little sneaker and he wanted to look cool for her. So he is, like, stealing someone's boat. Uh yeah, I think he stole someone's boat.
They're all.
We don't see his parents.
Yeah, we never see his parents.
Interesting.
We'll never know. But see, the only thing is, he does know later on that Boulet has been closed down.
But the reason he doesn't fucking do anything about it is because he is like, also.
Yeah. So I think I'm going to adopt your theory here and weave it into my own.
Which is?
He's a lost boy. Uh he's a little vampire. Child. He has just come out for his snack, and he is like, oh, damn, you could be a cool vampire girl, too. And that is why we don't see his parents. He knows that this boat is available uh because he's a vampire. And in this universe, also, of course, vampires can be out in the sun. So we have to just kind of excuse that.
I did, like, Joey's line gap ad has a tattoo. She called him a Gap ad.
This is where my initial point where everybody talks and sounds the same came from. Is this because this is our first time meeting this character? He sounds exactly like Dawson. Why is he talking exactly like Dawson, who also talks exactly like Pacey, who also talks exactly like every other character. Right. He's like. He's like, talking, talking, talking. Well, I'm doing all the sharing here. Blah, blah, blah. And then Joey comes in and she's just got like, this snarky, fucking sarcastic answer. It's just like, wow.
Yeah.
I was really surprised that she came off mean, that's an awesome thing.
He seemed nice. I thought he was kind of like, the first thing you hear out of his mouth is no pause. Just send money. So first you're like, you see Joey kind of like, huh? But then he's like, just kidding. And then to me, he came off as more down Earth than you would expect. Someone who is from a rich family.
Yeah. I was trying to figure out why is Joe even like this guy? Because she's pretty grounded herself and you'd think that she wouldn't be interested. But then he kind of felt a little cool, too.
How didn't he pick up on her body language and also the clothes that she's wearing like that. She's not Deborah Carson Daddy. He didn't bring the chauffeur because mommy, is the son sick or whatever the fuck she said. This is so clearly a lie, and he's just, like, eating it up like, oh, cool. So you want to go sailing tomorrow?
Yeah. I was like, he is either also lying or he's a serial killer.
Right.
Also so quick for her to be like, yeah, I'll go on your sailing boat with you and be isolated out in the ocean.
Yeah.
Let's go to a remote desert, deserted island and play Frisbee.
This is interesting, though, because it's kind of the moment where I feel like she's taking Dawson's advice to heart and thinking, oh, okay. I am going to create a fantasy for myself here.
Sure.
And yeah, I'll go in the state.
And I was wondering, did this start in her head because he didn't get her bit about the chauffeur? I couldn't tell if she was doing a bit or not. So when she says the chauffeur thing, was he just dumb and didn't pick up on it?
Yeah.
He goes, oh, shit. Now I have to pretend, or is it her being like, Well, I'm going to use this to my advantage and keep going with this.
No, I think it was purposeful on her part. And he believed her.
Yeah. I kind of felt like she got in over her head to both of your points. She made something. He took it seriously, and then she didn't want to be like, Wait, no, I don't have a Chaffer. Mommy isn't sunsick? Daddy isn't a boat man Daddy isn't.
A boat man is uh my favorite song.
We talk but.
Okay. Joey, throughout this episode, whenever she refers to her mom, she says um mother. She uses weird things like mother, Mama.
I don't know.
It's just like, okay, yeah. You clearly don't have a mom anymore.
I think it's the lingo. She thinks that's what rich people say.
Rich person move to call somebody mother. Somebody. No, to call your mother or to call them by their first name.
What do you think Grimes and Elon Musk make their kids call them?
Zebulon prime.
Alpha operating system.
Father genetic material.
Donator Grimes, if you're listening, fuck you right in. I'm just holding off because I don't want to talk about the next fucking scene because we're going back to Pacey being an English Lit class, and she is quizzing him on Ethan from he nails the first two questions, but then on the third one, which is more complicated, his brain fizzles out. Um i mean, it's a pretty quick scene. Did anyone gather uh anything from this?
No, not really. The final question was, why do you think Ethan had such a strong sense of duty?
The word duty. I laughed. We all laughed.
But clearly her using the positive um reinforcement um was good motivation for him because he has those first two questions and then we later see him.
Well, it's also kind of like two softball questions mhm and then totally question.
What the fuck is this quiz? May be really nostalgic for high school.
Yeah.
Uh he's like, answering, like, Jeopardy, what.
Is we get out of that and we get back to the locker room film shoot. So we already kind of talked about this, but Nellie uh confronts Dawson because he's talking while they're shooting a movie. We learned that the reason she's so upset is because her and the rest of the class had spent the entire summer making this incredible masterpiece and he had nothing to do with it. And now he's here and he thinks that he knows more than everyone, which, I mean, he does know more than everyone when it comes to structuring a script. But I understand her plight. I understand why she's annoyed with him, but she's coming on way too hot. She's so angry. And it was also weird that everyone stopped mhm the shoot to just listen to them argue.
Yeah, I'm very embarrassing.
Yeah. I thought it was interesting that she was blaming him for interrupting the scene.
But she's the one.
I feel like she's the one that kind of led on that interaction. He was kind of whispering, and if.
You watch Cliff in the background giving his rousing pregame Pep talk about smacking helmets or whatever it is that he's talking about. He doesn't actually get distracted until Nelly starts talking. So if anybody interrupts the scene, it's actually Nelly who does it.
I feel like he also ended the scene. And then we hear Nellie.
No, he calls Cut. He calls Cut because this whole thing is happening in the background. But, yeah, I don't know. I just thought this was a very strange. I get it. Dawson hates this movie. He thinks it sucks. He doesn't want to be there. Also. You have to be there. It's the school project. So why are you sabotaging?
Like, he wants this credit. It'll look good in the long run, right?
Acknowledge that he was like, I have to do this PA thing. And then I'll get into the class. So it's like he has the want to do well.
Kind of in the background looking like she's feeling bad for Dawson for being yelled at.
Yeah. Initially, I really thought that Cliff was going to tear into Nelly. I thought we were going to get a good guy Cliff moment, and he was going to tear into Nelly and be like, hey, Dawson. Actually, regardless of what just happened, he doesn't hear what Dawson is saying, but I thought he was going to do that. Instead, he's just like, okay, cool. They got that shit taken care of. Let's take it again. And you get the classic every time that a film is being shot in a TV show or piece of media, you know, you fucking know you're going to hear, all right, everybody back to one. At some point, it has to happen. And sure enough, we get it. And I loved it, but, yeah, I thought that this was strange. I want to know what you guys thought about Dawson's latent homophobia when he's saying his little snarky quips. And he's like, everybody into the shower because I like to watch. Oh, yeah, right. Very strange little line to throw in there. I mean, I wonder if that was a studio note to throw in that. But I thought that was really weird and didn't quite jive with what we know of Dawson, who is a fairly accepting character. He seems to be uh pretty open and stuff, but I don't know, it's really weird.
And again, Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 runs this episode, so we don't know what.
Yeah.
All right, um well, we smash cut to Pacey answering Ms. Jacob's question with uh this sucks. He answers it and she's like, okay. And then he's like, okay, I want my sexual favor now. And she goes, no, we can't do that. And then she plays reverse psychologist because she remembers that he's a moron and he'll fall for it. And so she's like, okay, let's do it right here and there. Let's have a sex party on this table. And he's like, oh, no, I don't want to do it. And then it's finally revealed that he's a Virgin. And you knew that.
You know that I am.
You know that I am. And it's so sad. And then it's like her um face when he says, that was fun because it's like a cold shower uh moment. She goes, oh, wait, you're a baby. And she wakes up and she's like, Get out of here.
Yeah.
Uh i've said, I don't understand. Uh i think every single time we talk about Pacey and Ms. Jacobs, because the way that he's treating, like, they both know that this is just like some weird fling with a lot of sexual energy, but he treats it like they're a romantic couple that is going through, like, a big fight. And so him being like, the way that the scene ends is him leaving the room. It just felt like, I don't know, scenes from a marriage. We're watching some big drama about a married couple, but it's a 15 year old and a 40 year old. Uh i hate all of it.
What was her goal?
What was her goal?
To get him to back down with that? What if he was like, all right.
I feel like she is definitely calling his Bluff, but at the same time, she knew that this was the end result of it. This is like one of many moments uh in this episode where I'm just like, what is going? Yeah.
And I don't know if it is thing getting cut or I just think it's a really poorly paced episode in general. And I can't tell if maybe some of these scenes, like, they're individual now and the cut that we saw. But I wonder if at any point it was just a very long sequence, because I feel like that would have flowed better maybe to get from point A to point B. But here it just seems really jumbled, and it seems like character motivations are kind of, like falling apart because we're cutting away and coming back.
Right.
I don't really know. I mean, it's just confusing in general. It's always been this way with them when you get over here. And so it's like, I think this is the next day. I don't know. The time in this episode is also really strange. Next day, next weekend, who knows? But so we're back at the sailing docks, and Joey arrives for her date. And I love this. I noticed that she's pretty much wearing the exact same outfit, but she had lipstick on, which means that she learned.
From her sister and she braided her hair.
Yeah. He compliments her pretty hard. He's like, oh, you look amazing.
Actually, she was wearing, like, a silk button up blast. She definitely tried for the state. I think, uh in 90s, in, like, 90s fashion.
I don't know enough about 90s fashion.
For, like, a casual boat date.
Yeah.
It's just a rich widow, rich person that wore this in the nineties, and.
Then this crop top it's like.
Yeah, I don't get it. It's okay.
Uh it's like boat chic.
Yeah, I guess.
Well, remember, she's like the girl next door casual already. This is like her version of dressing up for a casual date.
It's kind of like also when rich people dress like poor people because it's cool.
Uh exactly.
Yeah. I don't know. This is where Joey Deborah is her alter ego, which is like the really cool alter ego name. She like, untied. No, she brings the little boat that they drag behind the big boat. I don't know.
Everyone knows you always bring a tiny boat for a big boat.
It's your landing boat to get to the beach.
So they anchor the yacht out in the water, and then they bring in the little PETERPATTER boat to the beach. But when they're doing that, he is laying it on so thick. I don't know if you guys remember um that, but his face is like millimeters from hers. Dude, chill.
All of this is really scary. I guess people must have been more trusting in the 90s because you don't even know who this guy is.
Yeah.
I don't know. This in the next two scenes really kind of just, like, slide all together in my mind. So I'll save the rest of my conversation for when we get into this.
But going into the montage that it does, this felt like this was a scene that they were like, this um doesn't work anymore. So we're going to turn it into a monster.
Totally. I agree.
They were talking.
Yeah, they put music over it.
Yeah.
That song is The Right Place by Eddie Reader. Or reader. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but Eddie reached out to us. Yeah, Eddie reached out to us. I'm so sorry. E-D-D-I. No E on this one. So, hey, you're very stylistic, but did anybody notice the boat's name is Bells? No Bells. I thought.
I wrote down Bell Blbelle, and then it said Wilmington, North Carolina.
Yes. Which is where this is filmed, as we know it's filmed in somewhere in North Carolina. I don't know if it's Wilmington, but that was the one thing that for me, kind of I felt like, was a little bit of a production mistake. They probably should have fixed that to be related to where his family says they're from. I uh thought they said they were from Massachusetts or something like that. So why do they have a boat that's from Wilmington, North Carolina, which is also where we're shooting in?
Yeah.
It felt like this kind of, like, oversight that probably nobody ever thought about in that place.
La or something.
Like, wait, I thought we were in Massachusetts.
Maybe it's because he stole the boat.
Hey, here we go again.
It's going to be like, I let the right one instantly, but then we.
Get to the beach, and this is where I feel like the things get really weird. Um i don't know. They're just playing Frisbee.
She just continues this narrative, this lie about her.
Yeah. She's just getting herself deeper and deeper into this.
Everything that's shot on the beach feels like a Tommy Wazoo movie. The dialogue is super weird. Their interactions are super weird.
Yeah.
We'll come back to it, but later on they're talking about conspiracy theories. Uh the way that she crawls towards the Frisbee on the ground, the way they're giggling and tackling each other. All of it seems off.
Right.
Like maybe this is a dream. I don't know.
Well, it's a nightmare, I think, because my idea of a cool, romantic boat date isn't basically just like, hey, you want to do something we could do here? But there.
What do you think Joey's Endgame also is with all of her bullshit?
I don't know.
I think she knows that he's going to be there briefly and one night only. Yeah. I just remember that the first time we see Anderson when they're at the restaurant, Pacey notices that Joey's, like, looking at him and he says something like, oh, rich guys don't go for waitresses. She wants to be appealing to him.
Yeah. Is it safe for her because he's leaving and she can create this fantasy and try out? I don't know. I feel like she's, like, trying what Dawson has been doing, kind of.
Yeah. But I almost feel like she's doing that unintentionally. I don't think she's doing it intentionally. I feel like if she's doing anything intentionally, it's like getting back at Dawson because she's got these feelings that are unrequited from Dawson. So maybe she's doing this.
That is really my unintentionally continuing this lie.
Oh, no. I think that she definitely isn't intentionally continuing this lie. I mean, more. I don't think she was intentionally thinking, I'm going to try out this movie as real life.
No, that's not what I mean. I just mean, like, I think maybe that's kind of where she's like, if she wasn't friends with Dawson, would she be going this far and using movie references.
Right?
I don't know.
Yeah.
I mean, a part of me, too, is I read it more as she's using this facade to get with him because she thinks this is what he'll like to hear. But also I feel like she's afraid to be vulnerable and talk about her awkward family right now because it is pretty strange for her to have a dad in prison or mom had passed.
So I don't know.
And I think this seems interesting because Anderson kind of catches on to something. He tells her she's very hands off and asks if she's a boyfriend. I feel like he knows there's something that she's not telling him.
Yeah. He's not uh an idiot. He's definitely picking up on something. And I think it is kind of an interesting look at Joey in that uh she can't interact with people seemingly. She can't interact with people outside of her circle authentically. She has to have a cover. Right. She has to be embodying a character in order for her to talk to this person. She's not confident in herself enough to be able to be herself to this person who she is interested in. Right. We see it in that very first interaction. So I don't know. I think it's sad. It is kind of sad for me to think about her character in this uh scene. Specifically. It's her first kiss. And how does she get it? Kind of through manipulation and lies.
Wait, is this her first kiss in.
General that we know?
I think so.
I'm pretty sure because who else would she have kissed? I guess they haven't really. They wouldn't say it outright, but I kind of assumed it was because Dawson's getting kissing instructions from his day episode. All that kind of stuff feels like all of them are kind of in the same timeline trajectory.
Also, Pacey mentions like, oh, is this the first time that Joey's noticing the opposite sex?
Got it. Okay.
Yeah, probably hasn't.
It's sad.
I don't know. I feel just kind of, like, sad for her.
I can't wait for when this character comes back and we find out that Anderson is a serial killer and the reason that he didn't murder Joey is because he thought that she was actually rich and had too many big connections that he wouldn't be able to get away with it.
Right.
And she's like, oh, thank God I made that whole thing up.
Well, he is a vampire. Exactly. She's got the connections with the East Coast Vampire Mafia, my rap group. Uh anyway, we're going to take our second break, so please enjoy these messages from the East Coast Vampire Mafia. And um we will see you on the other side.
And we're back back to the football field. That is because we're doing the shoot and Nelly complains about the camera person whose technique for doing a tracking shot is shaking a camera, which is just bonkers to me that they said they storyboarded this in the last episode, but you'd think that it's like, okay, if this is the planned shot, we're going to actually figure out how to do it technically, other than some kids throwing a camera around. And Dawson seeing this happen, he clearly knows, like, oh, there's uh a way to get past this, but Nellie's not having any of it, so she just sends him off on an errand.
Yeah. Go pick uh up some more film from the film lab.
Yeah, right.
Doggy. Dawson.
Yeah, that anyone has anything to say about this tiny sequence.
It's just annoying that she's just, like, um is supposedly passionate about this project that she spent a bunch of time on, but she doesn't want any. I get that Dawson is, like, not technically, like, a part of it, but still, I don't know. He's trying to be helpful and she's just like, Shut up.
Yeah, I don't understand. I feel like something was cut out like there's a reason that she really hates Dawson.
Well, yeah, that's kind of what he gets to in that locker room scene, right. That we didn't talk about. But yeah, he mentioned that. Why do you hate me? When did this happen? What did I do?
Her explanation is not enough to be like, you weren't there when we thought of this. It's like, so what? He has ideas that are going to make us better.
It's Gatekeeping before Gatekeeping was known is basically what her whole stance is. Well, I deserve to be here and you don't. So I'm going to make sure you don't have any meaningful impact on this. It's kind of, like, cool.
It's just like her character, her boss. Like, she's so bossy.
It's also weird, too, because at the movie store in episode one, Nelly, they being Nellie and Dawson. Dawson sticks up for Nellie. Dawson gives Nellie the answer she's looking for. They seem to have a positive relationship. And then all of a sudden here Nelly is being a total fucking.
Yeah. I didn't like the epileptic thing. They could have kept that.
Yeah, but it was the 90s, baby. You have to call something someone.
I do have a question. So how heavy are those handheld cameras?
I don't know what that kind of camera was. My cameras have been heavy forever.
Imagine. So why would you just have someone running backwards?
Yeah, I do love the dialogue that's happening with those two football players in that scene.
It's like they're shooting uh a porn movie. The dialogue is crazy.
Yeah, it's great. But I mean, this scene is kind of just like, okay, so it's just an example. The only reason this scene exists is to make Nelly out to be a bad character, to make her mean, and to make Dawson the victim. Yeah. He's not being allowed to do what he is most good at, which is make movies.
I'm frustrated about this because Dawson is clearly right and he knows how to make this better. But I don't like, again, we've talked about this. He's starting from the bottom. He's going to get to the top one day. And this is a coming of age story, but I wish we saw it's not interesting that we're being introduced to this character who is already an expert at everything that he enjoys, and he's just knowledgeable about everything. I wish we would see the process of him getting interested in film and then learning about it rather than just him being good at everything, because it's not a very interesting thing to see someone already good at something.
Right. How does he know that this is the way to do it?
It would be cool to see him do, like, a Sherlock style, like figuring out how to make this shot work instead uh of being like, I know what to do. Yes.
If Pacey wasn't there with a wheelchair later for him to figure out how to doing a tracking shot. It would have been cool for him to figure out like, oh, how could this be smooth? There's got to uh be something more to this other than him just being the best and everyone having to applaud and worship him later.
And maybe that's why Nelly is annoyed because she's like, well, why should we listen to you? How do we know that? You know what you're talking about?
Maybe.
I don't know.
Yeah, well, it's a smooth transition to Dawson going on his run. And again, Jen has just dropped off into the scene and it's kind of cute because he's like, why are you here anyways? Because, you know, this movie is stupid. And she says duh because you're here. Well, this is uh going to be her big film breakout. Uh i don't really know.
I don't believe her because uh originally she was trying to play it cool with Dawson and she was holding back and I don't know yet the motivations.
Of all these characters really fell.
It's confusing. Unless their relationship I wrote in my notes when I was writing this, like, man, the dance that they had in the docks has really impacted their relationship because they went from a somewhat flirty, platonic relationship in the previous two episodes to they are very flirty, basically committed to each other. Like, she is saying, the only reason I'm here is you. Where did this come from? Out of nowhere. It feels really strange, especially when she.
I don't know, she went to the dance with Cliff. So you're telling me that there's no she's not there because Cliff asked her? I don't know. I feel like some part of her is there also because either she's friends with Cliff or she still likes Cliff.
Yeah. Thematically, I feel like we're watching these episodes out of order. It's funny because when we watched the first pilot, we all kind of guessed, like, where is this show going to go? And we're all shooting. Like the season finale is when they're going to figure this out or that's like, no, episode two, episode three, we're burning through this. I can't even imagine where the show goes.
Juxtaposed this scene where Jen is saying, the only reason I'm here is you. Duh to last episode where she totally ignores Dawson and uh Joey in the hallway after flirting with or not really flirting, but more or less being asked out by Cliff. It's just like there is a massive tonal. There's a huge gap between those two scenes that we do not see accounted for, aside from them having a really awkward dance on the dock where more than anything, Jen is pissed off at Dawson for being too pushy. The whole point of that scene is you're being too pushy.
Yes, but at least from what we get out of this scene is that they've agreed, like, we're going to hang out after the shoot. So it's like they're really telling us like, yeah, mhm no butts about it. This is a relationship forming good for them. We're not going to give you any context, but this is what it is.
Good for them. Yeah.
But I'm really excited because we get out of this and we get back to the beach. And this opening is explaining the JFK assassination conspiracy theory. And again, I'm saying Tommy Wasau wrote this because the dialogue is so bananas. The way that they flirt with each other with talking about JFK. And then she heard the conspiracy that she wants to talk about is how alien chips blow up cities.
Right.
Which is like, I could say, like, UFOs, that's a conspiracy. But I don't really understand. They explode uh cities. Yeah, they destroy cities. Sorry. Explode cities. I'm tired.
They explode.
They explode the cities. And then she turns back, sees the Frisbee, and then just starts running for it. Man, I love all of this.
Uh tackles her.
It's so sexy.
Yeah, it's very hot.
This moment when they were discussing the Kennedy assassination took me straight back to high school. Yes, truly, uh because I had a history professor who was obsessed with the Kennedy um assassination, and we had to study, like, for half a year, all of the conspiracy theories.
Oh, my God.
What?
We watched the Pruder film. We read that information. We had to debate about all the different conspiracies. So this moment from you was actually realistic.
Uh i was like, Mal. And I actually did visit the book deposit.
Yes, we've seen the grassy Knoll.
So this is something that's continued on for the rest of Mao's life. Jfk conspiracy theory.
In fact, I think I forgot about that moment of high school until this scene. Wow.
What a weird thing to teach in high Value is a conspiracy theory.
Oh, yeah. Like all of the conspiracy theories. Yeah.
Do you think that teacher went on to believe, like, 911 conspiracy theories?
I wonder, flat Earth.
Do you think if the show was made now, it would be about, like.
Instead of JFK assassination, what would be the conspiracy now? That's why.
Joey.
I don't know. I mean, in my high school, we did talk about the JFK assassination conspiracies, but it was more of like a critical thinking exercise to be like, there are people who believe all sorts of things about this. So, like, get familiarized with them, because at some point in your life, my US history teacher was fucking awesome. Mr. I love you. You're great. I had Ta for her class in my senior year of high school, and she just let me take it off all the time. Just go have lunch somewhere, leave campus. It was fucking awesome. I loved her anyway. She was great. But.
Yeah, well, it was critical thinking, definitely, because everyone had to kind of, like, choose a uh theory that they thought was that's fine, but was the way it went. And then we debate about it.
Did you guys watch the.
Watch the Pruder film? Yeah, I remember we did seven times. Like, a lot.
Jesus.
Uh yeah. Seeing a um President get assassinated in school is like, that's a pretty weird thing.
I think we also probably watch scenes from the JFK movie, too.
Of course. Yeah, it's fun. I think it's really romantic, though. If I was on a first date with somebody and we were talking about the ways JFK was killed, I would definitely want to kiss that person. Right. Don't you all agree?
Doesn't melt fuel.
I like this almost kiss moment. Rolling in the sand. It was very reminiscent of the movie scene at the beginning, the eternity. Yes, true. It's her beach moment. She's rolling in the sand, but she doesn't.
I noticed that the beach sequence and the rolling um of the sand was very. Um almost shot for shot of the opening scene, but um I thought it was. I mean, Joey is, like, lying and manipulating um to get to that point, but it also felt like she ended up in this situation that was very cinematic without really trying. Whereas Dawson is always trying to manufacture these magical cinematic moments where Joey just fell into this kind of true.
It's almost like she wasn't trying with this lie.
Right.
But it's, like, still working.
But it's also kind of like she is kind of playing the Hollywood woman in this where she has no agency or control over what's happening. Hey, do you want to go on a date where we're going to go sailing somewhere where you can't sail this boat? So I'm going to sail you somewhere and we're going to play for it. She has no control over any of it. Right. So she can't really control any of it until she decides not to kiss. That's the one moment of agency that she really gets in this entire exchange with whatever. Michael Crawford. Anderson Crawford.
Michael Anderson Cooper feels um bad because in a previous scene, he said that the quality he's looking for is honesty. And I think in that moment, she's like, Give me a second. I'm lying.
I don't care.
She kind of cares.
So in every scene with Anderson Cooper, whenever they talk about something and he clearly says something that triggers her and her lying, she makes a very transparent face of like, oh, shit. And you would think that. Plus how the scene ends with them talking about Cinderella and she's like, I'm not Cinderella. You would think that he'd be like, hey, do you want to talk about what is going on right now?
Why are you so weird?
Yeah.
This must be such an awkward date for him, but I guess. I don't know.
He doesn't care.
He's just like, whatever you say.
He's leaving the next day. He doesn't care.
Yes, I find it. I like to imagine that after she says, I'm not Cinderella, they just sail back in silence.
Ride back. Maybe they just debated more conspiracy theories.
I love you, Rob Thomas. Matchbox 20 is great. And your part and smooth is really good. But I don't understand your writing, Rob. When you have uh this big, like, it's not even a reveal, but her being like, I'm not Cinderella. And then we just expect that they didn't ever talk about that for the rest of the day.
But also, this does feel like Cinderella because she is peasant whatever. And dressing up as, quote unquote, she.
Is Cinderella.
Servant lady.
Yeah. Elon Musk and Grinds. Kids call us peas. Peasants.
Mummy, um Daddy, the peasants were talking to me. Mummy, do you have to perform for the peasants again?
Well, we go back to the football field and God, again, Dawson knows how to fix this. And Nelly is at this point screaming at him. And Cliff is just like, Jesus, Nelly. I want to hear what he has to say. So at least again, Cliff, being the um coolest, best, smartest person at the school, gives him a shot because he's such a wonderful man. This is what Pacey rolls up in a stolen wheelchair. I wish we got some context where this came uh from. I think it's a much bigger deal than them just having this prop. Uh i think he stole this from an individual and I would love to see that episode. So they finally do the shot and it works and everyone applauds and worships Dawson. I was expecting them to put Dawson on the football player's shoulders and cheer for him as though he had won, like, the football game or something.
Gave him a commemorative helmet of Laurie. Yes. The only thing I have to say about this scene is Nelly. I don't know if you guys caught this. Um nelly calls Cliff sweetie.
I wrote that down.
I know it's the we're in that kind of period. We're also in this kind of, like, timeless period where everybody calls each other like sweetie and honey and baby and stuff like that. But it felt a little bit different to me. It felt like Nelly and Cliff have history or something. I don't know. What do you guys think?
I didn't pick up on that. I mhm thought she was kind of saying it kind of felt like a little demeaning, like a condescending sweetie. Yes.
Interesting.
Okay, sweetie how we talk to each other.
It's true. I see this all the time.
Yeah, I wrote down, are they dating because of that? I don't know. It was hard to tell. If it was stay worthy, we would.
Have gotten some out of the dance drama.
Therefore Nellie and Jen would hate each other. We'd get something.
I just want to know the deleted scene where Pacey got the wheelchair. I'm really hung up on this and I'm never going to let it down. If I were to ever meet anyone from the show, my only question would be like, excuse me. In season one, episode three, Casey shows up with a wheelchair.
Also, he has it later when he's cruising the hall.
Exactly.
It looks like it's his then, like, took it after the end.
I think he broke his leg last year because, look, when I broke my leg, my foot in middle school, I got some crutches. People really thought it was pretty cool that I had crutches and I uh had a foot cast. I definitely brought those crutches out a couple of times just to be like, hey, remember these old things? Hey, so maybe he broke his leg last year and he got a lot of attention and he was just feeling a little insecure that day. So he's like, I got to bring out that old wheelchair. Just bring it around, see what people think.
Well, I just remembered that when we first see Pacey in it, Dawson immediately was like, hey, get out of that. So that kind of makes me think that they were using it on the set for something.
Maybe they ran out of director chair.
When Cliff's character broke his arm.
Yeah, my arm wheelchair quickly.
Since the only media we ever get these days is just like, nostalgiabased stuff. Do you think we're going to get a Dawson's Creek prequel where we uh see, like, twelve year old Pacey stealing wheelchairs? This has always been a character trait.
It's going to be like the Twin Peaks firewalk with me, but we just get the deep lore on Pacey's obsession with wheelchairs.
Uh no humor, all darkness.
Dude, wouldn't it be so cool if while we're in the midst of recapping the show, they do a great reboot?
They are 100% going to do it.
We go to number one on the itunes podcast charts and all of a uh sudden everybody knows who Cody and Stella and Mallory are. And I'm that annoying guy.
Listeners give us five stars, five big ol, big boys.
Mash.
Those stars match those stars. Put that on a T shirt.
Yeah.
So they left some people on the shoulders and everyone cheers and go Das. And that scene then transitions uh into what was my personal favorite scene. Agreed of this episode. So we're back at the ice house. Hello. Uh my cat Betsy is pissed at Joy for showing up late for her job. And we have Jen and Dawson. They're already hanging out there and who comes in but Anderson Cooper um himself? And so everyone has to do the classic sitcom bait thing of being like, oh, this isn't Joey. This is Deborah, Terry Deb, not Deborah. And I just love this. It felt like such a this is what I wanted the show to be. Uh i agree.
I loved Bodies. Covering for Joey as Bessie is like Joey, Earth to Joey. And like, Bessie, please, God, can you not read this room at all? What's going on here? Only bodies can read this and figure out that something is going on here. I thought that was cute. I thought it was sweet. I really enjoyed it.
I thought it was weird that Bodie, who was working in the kitchen, picked up on up on what was going on. Betsy did not, and then Dawson didn't and Jen did it um and he.
Wanted to ruin it.
Yeah, he did.
He was genuinely confused. He was like, I don't know. Maybe not.
Remember.
We see that in the previous scene where him and Pacey are there and they're like, who's that guy? Have you seen him before? And she's like, what guy? And Pacey says, the guy is breaking your neck. Dawson makes that connection then, oh, Joey is interested in this guy. Now we see him come in. Right. So Dawson knows what's going on. I feel like and the only explanation in my mind for why he's doing that is because he's jealous.
Also, like, they show right toward the end of that scene, they show their feet and Joey kicked off. So I feel like he knows. They know. He knows.
The um Scrabble game. Charade is a good set.
At that point, it seemed clear like he was purposely trying to dip.
I agree on the bodies. We get a little bit of like, I like that we kind of see that Bodie and Joey have a good relationship. He's her brother in law. There are a few moments in this episode where they have a kind of connection when they're joking about how pregnant.
He is and stuff like that. What's his name? Bodie. Bodie and Joey. It's difficult to remember, but Bodie definitely seems like the um cool brother in law. Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
I bet they have fun in their cool house right on the Creek that they paddle to work from.
Everyone's chemistry here is like a family unit in this scene, except for, like, Bessie was just, like, angry because Joy wasn't doing her job. But with this and the truck scene later on, this is so much better than them. Like, putting lipstick on each other and eating each other's orgasmic chili.
It feels healthy and wholesome. Yeah. In a way that the show really hasn't felt at all up until this point. If we got a scene every episode where they're hanging out at the Ice House Diner, I would be fucking stoked.
Yes.
You know. Yeah, I know.
It's still early on. The show hasn't grown the beard yet, so I'm sure everyone loves this show. So I hope we do get up to a point where this show does become wholesome fun and not just the horny people screaming.
Yeah. I mean, this is our last time here in the Ice House Diner. So I'm going to bring this up now, but I just had watched I Know What You Did Last Summer, the week that we were watching this episode um and the Ice House um Diner fits in so well. I Know What You Did Last Summer that I felt like I was back in watching that movie. So I really feel like we all need to go and anybody out there listening to my voice go and watch. Um i Know What You Did Last summer. It's on Netflix. Currently there is a location within I Know What You Did Last Summer called Dawson's um Beach, which I texted all of um the three other people in this podcast with me about that because it blew my um mind. Like he had this kicking around in his head for a while, but also he didn't quite have it nailed down because he called it off the beach. But yeah, it's just like I was expecting a man with a hook to come out and kill somebody at any moment in time. God, please kill them. But yeah, I thought the steam was fun. I don't know if anybody heard this, but Bodie has his own fat free herb sauce. Yes, um he brings out sounds weird. I don't know what that could be. And I also thought Anderson kind of seems like an asshole when he's talking to who he knows as Deborah's friend. Yeah, Deborah, the girl that I went out on sailing with all day today. He's like pissing on her. Trying to Mark his territory is how it felt like to me. I don't know what you guys thought about that.
Yeah, I think he was. To me, it just seemed like he was confused. Are these your close friends or are these people you just met? I know you as Deborah, and I thought it was interesting that Dawson was trying to porpe you because you would think that if he's good friends with Joey and he sees. Yeah, he would just back her up in this moment like, oh, okay, I'm going to go along with this fantasy that she's created because that's like, so his demo.
Yeah.
He's such a narcissist. It has to be like his show and no one else's. He doesn't like anyone else succeeding. I feel like Anderson's, I guess he was a little defensive, but he still was just like, okay, whatever by he didn't want to confront it at all because he's a serial killer and he didn't want to get caught.
But he did say something like, what.
Did I must have walked into uh something. Or he said something like that where he senses that it's a weird, awkward situation.
I mean, how could he not? Dawson is being such a fucking asshole. I don't know. We are all coming to terms with the fact that Dawson is the worst character on the show somehow behind Pacey and this scene kind of underscores it for me. It's just like, why are you such a prick? You are rubbing it in Joey's face that you are pursuing this relationship with Jen and you're also not letting Joey have her own relationship at the same time. She needs to just be waiting in the wings for you. I don't know. He's just such a turd.
It would have been so much better as a character beat for him to actually screw up the uh film shoot today to make him grounded more because he's such a hothead.
I hate it it would have been cool to see him have an idea that fails. And then he comes into that scene all down. And then that's why he acts out to Anderson about Joey versus he's on a high. He's about to go on this date with Jen and he still has to shit on Joey. He's having his cake and eating it, too, in this reality. But in a different reality, at least that would be a justifiable lash out from his character. But we don't get that.
Yeah.
It would have been also cool if Nelly was the one to figure out, like, the wheelchair tracking shot idea or something, just like give someone else something to cheer for and to make him be like, oh, maybe these people that I'm being extremely judgmental about actually know what they're doing too, right?
Yeah.
At least give her a reason to be so resistant to anybody else's ideas. When we write this next season, the reboot of Dawson's Creek look out for these scenes because we're going to keep Pacey in. Of course, he's definitely going to try to have sex with his teacher, but we're going to fix all this stuff.
What if they do a reboot and Pacey's a teacher and he tries to.
Fix one of his students, Joshua. Definitely. He could play a teacher. At this point, he looks like a teacher.
Oh, my God. Okay, I want to actually talk about this for a little bit. Okay. So let's say they reboot Dawson's Creek and it's all of them grown up. So what do you think it's going to be like? I imagine Dawson is a filmmaker and.
He'S the film teacher.
Oh, he's the film teacher.
Yeah.
And he's trying to get the. Okay, so they all end up as teacher.
I feel like Jen or Joey. Joey uh could be. Bessy.
Yeah.
Sorry. Katie Holmes uh could be. Well, except she might resist getting back into this, but she could be best. I'm just thinking, like Twin Peak, she owns a diner type thing. Right. But I could see that plot line working out for her. I don't know who Jen would be, though.
Uh i think we're too early on to make these predictions.
Make these predictions later.
Okay. Now or never.
Cody's really excited.
For those listening right now. If my feet are jumping up and.
Down in excitement, he turned into a little nine year old boy.
Okay, here it is. All right, here it is. Dawson is making Dawson's Creek the TV show, and he goes back to town. He comes from La, back to Capeside, and Joey is still living there and she resents him for having left. And so this is his way to connect again with the town uh and Pacey's a teacher at the high school. He never left either.
Of course not.
And so while they're shooting Dawson's Creek within the meta of the show, Pacey is sleeping with one of his students, and he's like, I did this when I was your age.
How about he's a College Professor sleeping with one of his students?
That might make it a little bit more acceptable, but I agree. And that also kind of fits in with the Kevin Williamson narrative. It could then be about Kevin Williamson's high school life. It's then about his Hollywood life. Right. Dawson's Creek in the midst of being a Hollywood name. Right. That could be kind of cool. There'll be like a whole another meta layer on a meta product.
Warner brothers. Are you hearing us, baby?
You are probably one of our three listeners, so I'm confident you're a Warner. Okay, let's talk about the wheel.
That wheelchair back in Pacey wheeling through the halls of high uh school, screaming at the top of his lungs. John air, and he is uh going past Mr. Is it Mr. Gold's room or is it just rumor?
Ms. Jacobs room?
Is it Ms. Jacobs room?
Yeah.
So he overhears Ms. Jacobs with Mr. Gold, who is now no longer a cold, mean robot man. He is smooth. Uh he is cool as a cucumber. This guy rules. And he's talking uh about movies with Ms. Jacobs. They're flirting, they're having fun, and they're going to go hang out. So, man, Paisley is the sad.
Yeah. This is where I realized that Mr. Gold was who she was with in movie theater in the first episode. I went back and checked and he got a haircut between felt different, short mullet. And I do think he is the one that hits Pacey. I think if I remember correctly and maybe I'm wrong, Pacey runs into someone with popcorn. But then I think Mr. Gold is.
The one that hits it.
That's the guy who's sitting behind them.
Exactly like Benji. Mr. Gold joffles Pacey in some way, and that causes him to throw his popcorn over his shoulder to the guy behind him who is then who punches him in the face.
Either way, he's like, Mr. Gold goes, who is this guy?
Right?
How does he not know the people at your high school?
Yeah. So when we watch that, I remember thinking he kind of looks like.
Yes, I remember we talked about it, but then we were like the same.
What the hell is this teacher getting into a verbal altercation with a student? I mean, he's clearly a teenager, right? I guess in that episode we did see he's incapable of having a conversation with Dawson. So maybe he's just really bad at talking with teenagers. But I feel like the way that he is talking with Ms. Jacobs is very much like he has inserted himself into her life. And Mr. Gold, you mean? Yes, Mr. Gold.
Well, she does say they're close friends.
Yeah, but didn't she just move into town? So how close can they really be?
Best friends?
You're right.
Meaning they've gone to movies together. And so we know that they both enjoy movies. Movie here.
Do you guys know what movie. They're talking about it's the way we were. Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford.
Beautiful people.
Yeah.
Love those two. Yeah.
They're definitely flirting here.
Yeah.
It's even way better than hazy.
I don't even know. Does she try to pretend it didn't happen when she runs uh into Pacey in the hallway outside? There's something weird about the way that she's talking with Pacey out there. Like she's afraid of what Pacey is going to do. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Because she's like, Mr. Gold is right in there, so don't do anything.
I think she doesn't want Mr. Gold to hear that old.
Yeah.
I wonder why she'd feel that way. Right.
Who knows?
And again, it annoys me that Pacey is viewing this as a relationship. And he's like, oh, you're talking to other men? It's like, no, she's having, like, a normal relationship with someone her own age. And you're the side piece.
Yeah, I like that. He's just sitting in a wheelchair like a fucking psychopath in the corner, like, waiting.
But he also makes a statement where it does feel like a little bit Blackmaily.
Definitely.
Where he says Ms. Jacobs was like, yeah, we're good friends, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, well, he doesn't know um what you do with your students or something.
And it's like, no.
Well, I know what you would do with your students, so he must be in for one hell of a ride.
Yeah.
I don't know why. It also kind of comes uh across as a revelation of him saying that he wants her at the end of the scene.
Right.
Because it's like, we know that already.
I want you.
How effective we already know that.
Just so emotional. I love when a man says what he wants and it's uh regardless of whatever is politically or socially acceptable. It's just, like, so romantic to me. In case you guys couldn't tell, that was fucking sarcasm, because disgusting out of five stars. Yes, please. That was an acting performance. Give me my Oscar and scene. Yeah.
And for everyone that listens, like, you watch the um episodes, you know where this is going. And it's weird that from here on out, this is the final scene we see of them together, and then we'll see them at the end of the episodes.
Right.
What the fuck happened between A and B?
So did he walk her home? And then Pacey is waiting at her house and then is like, in a wheelchair. I've got a place to go fuck in the grass.
Because it's the same night.
Yeah, the same night.
Yes. It is so weird.
So weird.
That would mean Pacey would have gone to her house.
That's what I'm saying. What the fuck happens here?
Yeah. Bizarre.
Because they show.
Unless she went back to the office and told Mr. Gold, like, I have a tummy ache.
Poop. More likely.
I got to make poopy. I have to go to the nurse's office because I have to make Poopy. Oh, my God.
I totally understand.
Please, we have one more break here.
You're right.
This is brought to you by the nurse's office where you can go to make Poopy. See you on the other side.
Go to squarespace.com to buy Poop. And we're back to the ruins uh for the first time. So Dawson is showing up with Jen to shoot the final scene of his film. And, I mean, this is like such a weird setting that everyone just casually knows about these, right? How do they even explain it was like, based on an ancient Greek setting from a guy that dedicated it to.
Uh his wife, his sick wife.
His estate. Part of his estate. Yeah.
Everyone knows about it, but it's just sitting there rotting.
Right.
But rotting with a running fountain at the same time.
And they were, like, worried about getting caught. So it's like, does the guy still.
Live there or is it some historic or maybe there's a landscaping crew.
Yeah.
It's so funny. We'll get to it later. Another couple shows up, but it seems like this is the spot that everyone takes people to.
This is my complaint.
Um yeah.
Okay. I have so many questions about the logic of Dawson for this. Right. Okay, so when you're shooting a movie, but I think that's, like, his number one goal, because at the end of the day, that's the one thing that he loves the most, like, aside from kissing Jen. But he wants to shoot a movie. So it's like you're going to go to a place that everyone goes to all the time to shoot this final scene. The second is kissing Jen. Okay, so you're going to try to kiss Jen at this place that everyone goes to, so it might be crowded.
Also, Jen calls them out because she calls uh schmaltzi.
Yeah.
For a horror film. Why are we doing this here?
Yeah, and she's not wrong because, God, his movie sucks so much. I can't get over how awful the stupid movie is. So he takes, again, a great filmmaker. He does one take of Jen standing somewhere, right? He decorated this entire place, uh but he's not going to film any of that. It's just going to be like a closeup of Jen's head uh looking kind of sad. And that's the final shot. 3 seconds.
Yeah, maybe.
And again, he's playing this toad song and he's like, I was thinking of ending the movie with this. And she's just like, wow, that sucks. And he's like, oh, no, it's going to be great. But again, there's no actual boom mic. No one's doing audio for this movie.
Plan for that.
Absolutely not. And again, I forgot to mention it, but same with Cliffs movie. They weren't doing audio on that either. That doesn't make any sense.
When did he have the time to set all these candles out there's? Like 50 candles. Uh you guys noticed that?
Yeah.
And he's still setting it up.
I felt like it was like a music video setting.
It looks awful.
Even if you were to get coverage uh and shoot a bunch of stuff around that area, it looks really bad for the stupid movie he's making. God, I hate this movie.
He screwed this up because I feel like when they walk in, she says, that is so romantic of the story. So he probably would have mailed uh that up. No, if he had brought her as a date to this setting just outside of filming, it would have been perfect and filmed whatever scene for a film somewhere else.
Yeah.
He tried to combine these two things.
He's capable of that because he doesn't have the interpersonal skills to understand that he can actually just ask Jen out. He thinks he needs to have an ulterior motive for this to ease to facilitate this kind of moment happening, which I feel like really speaks to who Dawson is as a character that he can't. Either he's incredibly not confident in himself, like he doesn't have self confidence, or he's just very manipulative.
It's the latter.
Exactly.
That's what I'm saying. Like, he is manipulating this whole moment to get what he wants, which is, as we will see later, a kiss. But he knows that she wants to go slowly. So why is he pushing so hard for this kiss and filming it?
Yeah, that is the scene. Thank you. And it's right there. It's like, okay, so we filmed you looking great. And I'm going to walk up to you. And then they're about to kiss, and then she realizes he's fucking filming it. Um it's so weird. But then, okay, so then we cut to Joe. He's playing violin on the boat again, just like how he was introduced. And Jojo goes up, and I'm just, like having so much trouble with this character kind of thing with him and her, because he has to know that she is full of shit. Right. At this point. This is like when she brings up the restaurant.
Right.
He knows that you don't actually know what you're talking about, uh but they still have a sexy kiss and he still gives her the number. Um is he a recurring? I guess when you looked him up on IMDb, mhm which I'm always scared of. Does he ever come back?
I think he just had the one episode part in Dawson's Creek. Sorry to spoil that. I agree, though. I mean, if he didn't know before the scene, he definitely knows in this scene. So the question that I have is, does he actually give her his number or does he give her a fake number?
I don't know.
I kind of felt like it was.
Real because he was like, hey, call me, okay?
Like, it felt very.
I agree. I feel like he gives her his real number. So then what does that say about his character?
Right.
You know what I mean? This entire time, it seems like he's willing to dig deeper with Joey, and she is willing to give him.
She has provided nothing but red flags for him the entire episode. I just don't understand why he is like, he's fine with it. He kisses her. I mean, I guess it's just like, for him, he's like, yeah, she's hot. So I'm totally fine with whatever bullshit she feeds me.
Well, immediately after the kiss, he's like, Can I walk you somewhere?
And then she tells him to stay right there in the moonlight where he belongs.
So they have reference to Barry Jenkins's film moonlight, which will come out 1718 years after this.
Yes.
Completely related.
Yeah.
That's incredible. Wow. There uh when he said, Can I walk you somewhere? How pushy he was earlier um in the episode flashed before my eyes. So I'm like, okay, he's just looking to sex. He's looking for sexy sex.
We didn't say, Can I walk you home?
He said, Can I walk you somewhere?
Somewhere?
Can I walk you to a grassy patch to fuck it to a ruin?
Can I walk you to wherever you're going next? Are you going? I don't know what I thought too.
Well, I'm glad, because this show makes.
Me think, like, Pacey, when I walk.
You home, that's like, very personal versus.
Well, but he knows that she doesn't live here. Remember? She's on vacation with the chauffeur and the Mommy's got the son.
You're right, um of course.
So he wouldn't offer to walk her.
Home to your hotel room.
Yeah. Because she's not staying on a boat, right? I don't know. I was happy that Joey got a little smoochy. Smooch with a cute boy. It's not dolphin.
It felt kind of romantic. Like, it felt organic.
But that's the thing.
It was all built on bullshit. So for her, she can't even consider it a first kiss. Because he didn't kiss Joey.
He kissed Deborah.
Deborah.
Yeah.
But I think Besides her lying about her identity, it felt like they did have some pretty real chemistry and have fun together and tackled each other.
I felt happy for her just for getting out of her normal, everyday life and having a little adventure of her own.
Yeah, me too.
I think to Cody's point, she's not having an adventure of her own. Deborah is having um an adventure at Joey's expense. At no point is Joey really being herself. Aside from the grit, the in the moment stuff, everything else is Deborah's life. Right?
I know what you mean. This reminds me of every episode of Catfish, because the person, whenever they get caught as the catfish, they all say the exact same thing. That might not have been my name, but the feelings were real. They all say that. But we, as the audience, always know that's false because it's like, well, you weren't really you. You had to present yourself as some caricature for us to have this romantic connection, be it a fake photo or this fake identity. For our friend Joey is the facade of Debra. All right, well, we're back to the roots.
Great.
And Jen is rightfully like, Why would you film this? This is such a weird, Overthetop gesture to manipulate me into this. And again, I hate that. Again, we're just getting Dawson somehow being able to twist it as to being an okay excuse for him. His reaction is, like, not his reaction, but he says his intentions are honorable. Everything is okay. Because at the end of the day, he cares about jetting me. Doing all this weird stuff that makes you uncomfortable is fine because I did it with you in mind.
Yeah. It's like he admits that he tries you hard and he's, like, claiming to not know any better. I don't know. Uh i don't know any better.
Uh and his answer about the filming part is never answered.
Exactly.
So over the top gesture.
All right.
Makes sense about him setting up this whole scene and stuff and, like, trying too hard. But why are you filming it?
Dude, follow his logic at all. He's like, I want everything to be perfect. So I filmed it. Okay. He doesn't know any better.
Doesn't know any better?
Yeah, I don't know. The entire time this scene was happening, all I could think about was the end of the last episode where Jen is being vulnerable with Dawson and saying, Back in New York, I was moving way too fast. And I'm worried that if I do that again, my life is going to fall apart.
She was walking over there and she.
Was walking over there. Exactly. And here he's just like, Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me. Move fast. Move as fast as you possibly can. Because if you don't, I'm going to explode. Yeah, that's the thing.
It makes me so mad because, again, she falls for it and she's manipulated because he says her reaction is that he has built this up to be such an enormous thing that she doesn't want to disappoint him because that's the way that it's being twisted into.
Totally.
And she falls for it. She's actually sad that this has happened.
Yeah.
It's so gross.
It's really gross. It's kind of like a master class in manipulation because he just is constantly turning it around on her.
You're the reason I set this up and filmed it.
Yeah. And I mean, as we will see in the next scene, it very conveniently. Something happens that takes the spotlight away from just how fucked up it is that Dawson did this, though. I don't know. I'm still kind of like, if we remove the fact that he is recording this, that's a big if. But if we remove the fact that he is recording this first kiss, is it actually that bad?
No, that's what I was saying. Like, if he just brought her on a date to this cool spot or.
If they filmed the video and then they film the scene and then they stop recording and then kiss happens. That's okay, right?
Yeah.
His logic makes sense. Well, we just did all this production design. It looks so pretty. It's beautiful out. Why don't we hang out and then a kiss happens.
Cool.
Great.
But the filming of it is really what crosses the line. And I'm trying to figure out why exactly. That feels so weird. And I think it's because I don't trust what Dawson is doing with this film. Like, why do you need to have this film? What is it about this that you need to film this?
I mean, you didn't ask her.
Oh, sure. There's the whole consent piece.
I can imagine that Dawson's reasoning is that he needs to analyze it and be better or how is this?
Does she like it? Did she look like she likes it.
To his point that he's talking about here? He needs to make everything perfect. So that's why he's filming it, because he needs to analyze it back later to see. Was his lip dancing? Was it actually a good kiss?
Was it like From Here to Eternity?
Was it like From Here to Eternity? Did it look like a movie romance?
Yeah.
Okay, so we find Joe Deb, walks back to Bodies Truck and gets in, and Bodie and Bessy are all smiles because they uh know that she was out on a hot date. And this is where we realize that that restaurant no longer exists and she's pretty selfconscious and throws the number out the window. Yeah.
The only question I have is why does she throw that number out? Is it because she's embarrassed or because he, in my opinion, is giving off? The only vibe he's giving off is like, I'm interested in you. So then she just can't face it down.
I think she's embarrassed, but it's also the fact that she did what she was criticizing Dawson for at the beginning of the episode. It's like you can't manipulate um a romance. And she did that with her facade. So she's just like, well, even though I got the kiss, it wasn't a real kiss because I wasn't being myself. So her throwing the number out is like the fantasy is over.
Yeah.
To, I guess, complicate that it seems like the element that makes her throw the piece that makes her throw that number out is finding out that Boulet, the restaurant that she name drops, is closed, that her facade, her fantasy, has been seen through. So it seems like for me, what's mhm confusing is, to your point, she feels bad about using this as a manipulation tactic to get the kiss, but in the reality, he is like, I don't really care about your fantasy. I'm actually interested in whoever you are.
Probably just can't see that yet.
I think she was just embarrassed and done with it. Yes, she learned a lesson and do it differently next time.
Her self esteem also was so low that she probably can't even fathom the fact that he wouldn't care about that anytime.
Yeah. I mean, she probably is thinking he gave me a fake number. So I'm not even going to try to call this person because he sees through my ruse. Right. I just got confirmation that Boulet is no longer open. Fuck it.
Yeah, I think that's valid.
Yeah.
Um also just want to say how cinematic it is to show someone actually throwing a scrap of paper outside a window, because now it would just be like uh a shot of someone deleting a text message.
Yeah. Who do you think picks up that phone number in the parking lot for Crusty Crab Shack or whatever this place is called?
It's going to be Dawson, and he's going to play a character and he is going to be the new Anderson Cooper.
Yeah, that's good. All right.
But let's get into the final scene.
Where it gets good people. What you've been waiting for? God.
So Jane and Dawson, they hear a car coming up to the ruins because this is the hot spot for kissing and canoeing. And so they're like, we need to run and hide because we don't want to get coughs.
I don't know.
So they go and hide and come hide some bleachers.
What the fuck are they hiding?
Yeah, I don't know.
There's cobwebs.
Yeah.
It looks like the thing in Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring, where they're hiding from the ring uh race on the side of the road. They're hiding there, and we see, like, a couple, but we can barely see it. You're like, who is that?
Who is that?
We think of this as a couple of teenagers. They run past uh and we see it enlarged on the monitor, which gives you the first like, uh oh, that can't uh be who I think it is.
You see Miss Jacobs in the monitor, throw her head back a couple of times.
Yeah, it's really cool. And Jen and Dawson have their first kiss set to what song.
Is uh set to what would happen by Meredith Brooks would happen if we kiss is.
Meredith Brooks the I'm a bitch lady?
Meredith Brooks does sing a song called Bitch. Yeah, that's it.
That's so cool that she had another song that wasn't Bitch and it was in Dawson's Creek.
Yeah, that's it.
I'm a singer. I was saying, I will not be ashamed. So they kiss. And I actually thought without the context of who these people are and how awful Dawson is a person, I thought that was like a fun first kiss.
I thought it was natural.
I thought it felt natural. But I also couldn't help but think like, okay, it smells like shit. There's cobwebs, there's buggies. There's all sorts of weird shit here. And I'm just going to kiss you.
It's the me Cube, baby.
It's good. Yes. I don't know. I'm happy that it happened, but I also. Look, I'm going to move a little bit here. So as you mentioned, we hear a.
Car pull up, right?
And then we see a couple, which we know is um Pacey and Ms. Jacobs. So Pacey uh doesn't have a car. He walks everywhere. So Ms. Jacobs has to drive them there, which feels very like on Brand.
Um he's 50.
Doesn't he have his driver's license yet again?
He had to propose this place. He had to propose this place.
He didn't know about the ruin.
Exactly. She just moved to town. So he brings her here. I cannot get away from. Why is he doing this? He knows what is happening there. From Dawson's plans. Right. This is such a plot hole, in my opinion. I just can't get away from it.
It's the one spot you know, people are at because your um best friend telling you he's going to be there.
She is a literal adult, like we've already talked about. Presumably he meets her at her place. Does she have roommates or something? Why can't you just have whatever you're going to do? What we know is sex. Why can't you just have sex there?
See, earlier, when they were at the Crab Shack, they were talking about the ruins being, like a romance spot. Right, right. So he just so hornyed out and his uh brain is just gone, and he's like, I'm going to take her to the most romantic place here. Capeside. Like, he just forgot.
He must have.
He's losing his virginity and he wants it to be romantic.
Are you smiling while saying you?
Wow.
Are you all for this?
I am not all for this.
You heard it here first PC stand.
Yes, I think you're right. Because you talked about the one star. Yes. Um right.
Okay. Yes. I was going to say something about this. That, like, area.
No.
We know nothing really pockets all day for you.
We know nothing about Pacey. But the thing with the oysters and then hit wind and then in the classroom, when he's like, you know, it's my first time. It kind of gives a little bit of a glimpse that maybe he is a romantic and that he is sensitive and he wants to make it a sweet thing.
So I think he's been planning.
I don't draw the connection between wanting it to be a sweet thing to having sex in the grass at this.
Decrepit better than a room or a classroom.
But why not a bedroom? Uh are they in a house?
Like, wrapped in a blanket?
It's like a weird. Yeah, it looks somewhere between, like, a silk dress shirt and a blanket. I don't know. It was very strange. I couldn't understand exactly what they were.
Swaddled in, but I feel swaddled. I remember when you're younger, the idea of having sex in outdoor places or somewhere Besides, like, a bed is really exciting.
Well, been there.
I feel like I was going to say something else about your plot hole thing to just defend the situation.
I feel like it's a weird thing to defend.
Maybe.
I mean, who knows? But it did seem like it was much darker by this point.
Right.
And Dawson had talked about the Golden Hour shot, so maybe he didn't think.
People would still be there. Yeah.
How long did they spend arguing? I guess because I agree it did look significantly later in the evening. Like, it was pretty fucking dark out.
Dawson said, I'm going to be at this one place, so if I'm pacing, I go. I'm going to go anywhere but that one place. Even if it's 12 hours later. I don't know. Pc knows that Dawson's end goal with that entire scenario was like, Maybe I'll kiss Jen there Pacey. It should be logical for him to think, well, maybe they're still there. Maybe they had sex there too. So they're there still. I don't know, maybe they wanted to.
Have a four way that would be very much in Paisy's.
You want to be my friend?
Yeah. Okay.
So we didn't even talk like the reveal of um we know that it's Miss Jacobs. And then we see Dawson and Jen kissing, and then there's like, go to.
The monitor, it goes to the monitor.
And then we see Pacey. Is that right?
No, we saw them pass the monitor, and then it goes back to Jen and Dawson, and then the next shot is Pacey. And no, we don't see them.
The reveals on the monitor.
Yeah. Because I uh noted that we started and ended the episode watching a kiss on a monitor. Are you pulling it up? Right? Yeah, we watched the eternity was on a monitor, and we end the episode with on the monitor.
I don't think we see them because the way that the shot is set up is up so they wouldn't be able to see the ground from where the camera is pointed. Yeah. That's not the monitor Cody is pulling up.
The last shot is uh them there, but the reveal is on the monitor. Yeah, well, the reveal that it's PC and Ms. Jacobs.
Yeah.
I feel like we do get a monitor reveal of the two of them in the monitor, but not that they're having sex.
Yeah, we see them kissing on the.
Monitor, but then the actual reveal, do we ever actually see Pacey in the monitor?
Well, maybe not until that's.
Afterwards. That's not the monitor. They're literally just on the grass naked, which feels very Shakespearean. It's like Midsummer's Night Dream. I'm going to go fuck you in the forest.
Look at that face of regret that Miss Jacobs asked.
Yeah. She is definitely like, um this was not worth it.
That post nut regrets.
Yeah.
Or that look of I'm going to jail.
Yeah. Again.
Okay.
So similar to the last episode, I felt very convinced by Ms. Jacobs that it was done.
She was like, no, we can't do this.
This is wrong.
It's over.
And then again, with this episode. Um she really was laying it down multiple times like this cannot continue 1 second longer.
This is over. This is wrong.
This is so bad.
We have this and it's definitely not over.
No way.
They have to follow up with something.
Every beat of Pacey is exactly the same in these three episodes that we've seen so far. So what if they just keep this going in the next episode is the same thing where she's like, we can't do this. It's going too far. And then it ends with them going in on buying a house together.
Right.
It ends with them getting married.
You need to live in tutor. How long is this going to go on?
Yeah, Miss Jacobs is in Horny jail now.
She's definitely locked up in Horny jail for the rest of her life because she can't stop.
She'll probably get caught in the show and get three months in jail. Then her face end up getting married.
Well, if it's anything like the Mary Kay Latino case, then she's going to get pregnant. She's going to give uh birth to a child. Mary Kay Letturno has two children from her underage.
No way.
Yeah, they continue.
So potentially that's what we have to look forward to. I guess if Art imitates life, then yes, we will get confirmation um of that. So I'm really excited to see some little Pacey juniors running around in season four of Dawson's Creek. Um yeah. Yucky, Yuck, yucky, Yuck.
Yeah. This used to make me really mad and angry that this is like in media for people to enjoy. But no, we're having a good time. This is so fucking stupid.
I could not believe that they actually showed. I just couldn't believe it. Were we all shocked by that?
Was it filming it because he never stopped it, right.
He is going to see because apparently he just left the camera running all fucking night.
Yeah.
Also I wish that we got a little post credit scene of Dawson and Jim sneaking up and grabbing the camera and walking away with this because it's like, did they just stay making out for a couple of hours until after, right.
How does this night end?
Someone's got a leaf and are they going to discover a secret next?
They definitely are. The next episode is called is titled Discovery. Clearly Dawson is going to discover this. So what is this going to do to their friend group?
I just can't believe this is already happening in the fourth episode.
There's eight more episodes to go in this season. What the fuck is going to happen.
Here to end up in space?
How are they going to heighten this?
Like I said, I audibly gasped. I could not believe it. And yeah, the fact that this is part of a TV show is completely wild.
And then also the fact that it's.
Like this is still our introduction to this show and this character that it's like maybe this plot line would make more sense later in the middle of.
The series or something.
But it's like we have understanding of who Pacey is. But the fact that it's just like this is Pacey.
We know nothing else.
Sad way to introduce a character.
We know nothing else about him.
I mean, it's like the worst sign of the times that I feel like could exist because I'm caught between this, like, with our modern sensibilities, we would hate Pacey and Ms. Jacobs for this, right? Uh this is an unacceptable thing. But in the 90s, it was fucking free game. Like, who knows what we're supposed to think about this? Are we supposed to celebrate that this is happening? Are we supposed to think? Ms. Jake, I just don't know how to interpret this. I'm so unsure of how I'm supposed to look at this through the lens of the TV show. Is this self aware? Like, I imagine it is. In which case, what is the point of what we're seeing here?
Yeah. Again, our modern sensibility is like, and I've said this before, it's like this plotline deserves to be in a different show because it's so totally different. But back then, here's the thing. So this week, the music blog Stereogum, they do a special where they talk about hit singles um and like, what it was like when that song was going on, right? And so they talked about uh Michael Jackson's You're Not Alone, which was his last number one single. And it was right after the molestation allegations came out. And I think it was in the comments section, but people were talking about how different it is back then versus now and how when those allegations came out at the first time, people just kind of laughed. Like it was just like, oh, Michael Jackson's like a freak haze. That kid is a freak.
Haha.
Like, no one really took it seriously. It was all just kind of a joke. And this is six years before this show or this plotline is going on. So I feel like it's so just like when this aired, I'm sure people were just like, ha, ha. Not taking it very seriously. It's just like a whatever thing. People weren't really they thought statutory rape was just kind of like light and it wasn't that big of a deal.
Back to our discussion in episode one where I feel like when we were talking about this, you mentioned people like Bill Maher back then. Hell, yeah. I wish I had a teacher like that. I guarantee you that's what the discourse was around Mary Kay Laturno and that whole case, which, like we already mentioned, is basically the inspiration. It's carbon copy, you know, copy paste that to this show. And that's what we're getting between Pacey and Ms. Jacob. It feels like they're trying to shine a light on it in what I would imagine now and make us realize how bad it is. But letting us make our own assumptions of it, which is, in my opinion, what good art is.
Right?
You should always make your own assumptions of this. They are not, at least up until this point, showing us any characters who are like, Whoa, what are you doing? Right? Just infer what you think about this, how do you feel about these two characters um doing this? And I would really be curious to know, I wish that we had that context of watching it back when we were kids to know what we thought then versus what we thought now. And I would love to talk to somebody who is a Dawson's Creek mega fan who watched it then, who watches it regularly and still is connected um to it, to hear what they think about this, because I just feel like it's one of those things that has aged, in my opinion, like milk. But maybe to them as they I'm just kind of rambling here.
No, I know exactly what you mean. I asked my friend who she's about like five or six years older than me, and she's from Canada. Remember I told you that in Canada their statutory rape law up until 2008 was like, you can um sleep with anyone at 14, which is bonkers to us because it's always been 18 for us. So I asked her. I was like, when this aired in 1998, she was watching. And for her, she was like, you know, I don't really recall how I felt, but I knew that it was bad, but just not to the same extent as, like, I would now when I'm watching it. Because obviously as times change, we become more aware of these things. Right. She gave me as much as she could really tell me. She's like, I now realize how bad that is. But back then, I'm sure when I watched it, it was just like, oh, whatever.
Yeah. I think we're going to need to have a season one post mortem where we really dissect this because I'm curious if this is going to be a plot line that extends into season two in the mhm beyond of Dawson's Creek, or if this is going to be one of those things where we get Pacey and Miss Jacobs. And sure, obviously the ramifications of this plot line are going to play out, but I just don't see this relationship moving beyond probably. I feel like it's going to wrap up before we even get to the end of season one very fast.
Yeah. Because I feel like anyone that we talked to so far that watched it likes Pacey. It must end swiftly because and also.
Thinking about where this could go is he was vulnerable in this episode. He was sad, like, I am a Virgin. You knew that. I want you and all the stuff. Maybe this is like a really big learning Turnpoint for him. It finally gets him to grow up and not be as gross as he has been and maybe they make Ms. Jacobs like a bad person. She goes to jail and then smooth sailing from here on out for him to grow and learn from this and maybe it's hopefully bad, like the way they frame it. Well, do you want to get into our ratings?
Yeah, let's fucking do it. Who wants to go first?
We're doing on a scale of five creeks.
Five Creek, five creeks.
I'm going to give it a two. Um yes. I mean, I was intrigued with how the story moved forward and I'm still excited um to see what happens next, but overall felt a little bit like a dud and was kind of bored and yeah, I'm ready to move on to the next one.
Yeah, it's fair.
I was definitely like um a let down from the last episode because the.
Last episode felt really fun.
It's such a huge jump in quality.
For the pilot, right? Yeah. I would be curious. Like, we talked I don't know if this made it into the final cut of last week's episode, I forget. But um like, we talked about everything was filmed before it was released, so I'm really curious as to the filming order of episode um two and episode three and when it actually happens because I felt like episode two was a massive jump. Like we're just talking about right. It's like so much better production wise, writing wise. It just feels really well thought out. And then episode three almost feels like as we've kind of been talking about it's just the leftovers of like a couple of different episode shoots and they're like, oh, wait, this could maybe make an episode. It almost feels like it wasn't really a coherent episode. Aside from maybe the uh ruins part and the dynamic between Helmets of Glory and Dawson's movie, it feels like everything else kind of just like, throw that in there.
What uh did you think about the episode um Creeks? I liked that we got to see a little bit more of Capeside. I enjoyed the ice house scenes.
But.
Yeah, it was just kind of like um by the end, the ending just um really brought my rating down. Um could have gone without that. So, yeah, I don't know. It was nice to see some things happening for Joey um and Jen and Dawson and some of those plot lines advancing, but overall, yeah, um I thought it was kind of a dud.
For me. Two and a half or three out of five. It's interesting because I really liked some character stuff in here. Even though I disagree uh with the character stuff that's going on for the most part, I still thought it was rich. I thought it was really interesting to see the teaser and how they played out these relationships of fantasy plan stuff versus the cynicism of just like, oh, romance should be grounded. And I thought the way that they did that wasn't very good. But I do like how those beats work, if that makes any sense. So I just wish it was done in a better way. But you could definitely feel like the lack of Williamson in this and you could definitely tell some of the goofiness was gone. Like I wanted more of Dawson's um parents or stuff like that. But then again, we got some interesting stuff with Bodie and Bessy that I really liked. And again, Ice House stuff was cool. I really hope that becomes more integrated into the feeling of this world that they live in. So yeah, hit and miss stuff doesn't not. I don't know.
Uh i totally agree with that. My rating is probably closer to the two um than the three, which hurts because I actually did like this episode. I had a good time watching it as soon as this episode ended. When we get that scene of the two of Pacey and Ms. Jacob's laying in the grass, I was like, I need to watch the next episode. So it really propelled me right. It really made me want to watch more. But when I actually uh think about this episode as a standalone product, it's a stinker like we've already talked about. There's like three locations. There's very little actually happening in this world. The entire episode takes place over two days, which you wouldn't even know. Right. It just feels incoherent. As far as the timeline is concerned, the character development is basically non existent. The only development we get is kind of you have to infer it's like, Pacey, sorry, it's that Joey has this moment happened, her first kiss, but she does it through a disguise, right. Dawson has his first kiss with Jen, but again, it's through manipulation. So all this development that we have happen is kind of like veiled. It's kind of mysterious and shadowy, and it doesn't feel particularly intentional. It feels like a byproduct of what is kind of like ultimately happening at the emotional manipulation level, which just makes me feel bad. But I don't know, uh walking away from this episode, I'm a huge fan of world building. I really want to know why we are, why what's happening in this place is happening. And I feel like the way that we get to understand that is by getting a look at places like the Ice House and what's happening in the world. That's why I really like Stephen King. His locations, his worlds are so fleshed out. They feel real. And in a way, this episode was the most real feeling episode uh that we've had, which is weird because really it's like totally fantastical at the same time. But I think I um would have to agree with the overall consensus that this episode really was kind of um not good. I think Mall, yours was a three. Stellar's is a two, and you were a two and a half.
Cody, two and a half.
That's not a good average if I'm a two. We're looking at about a two and a half average here. And I don't know, I mean, I'm excited to see where this show goes from here. Again, like I said, I really just wanted to watch the next episode, and I think as soon as we're done recording this, Mal and I are probably going to start watching episode four. So it doesn't ultimately change my excitement for the show or anything. But if we were to look at a graph of um enjoyment levels, it's weird because I've really enjoyed this show, but the value uh of this episode kind of didn't really meet the expectation that I had uh based off of the previous two episodes. So long story short, that's a two out of five for me. Yeah.
And also, it's like, always remember, it's always fair to, like, you can enjoy something that's not very good. I still really enjoyed this episode. I thought it was weird, but it's just, like, so haphazardly put together from an editing standpoint that Joey's date starts with them at the boat and then turns into a montage of them on the boat, um and then it transitions to them on the beach in the background. It's just like, just cut away or do something, something interesting.
You don't need to see that. Yes. And also to that point, so is that a super long voyage that we had to go on on the boat? Because that's the only reason you would show a montage, right? Look at Lord of the Rings. They're showing montages when they're traveling over days. So are they fucking sailing for days to the beach, or is it like a 15 minutes boat ride? If it's a 15 minutes boat ride, fucking. Who cares?
Skip to the fucking beach.
Yeah, I don't know.
Whatever.
Who cares? Fuck this show. It sucks. Our next episode is titled Discovery, and it sounds like a really juicy one. I'm actually really excited for the next one. The synopsis here says Dawson turns to Jen for comfort after learning about his mom's affair with her co anchor Bob, as well as Joey's knowledge of it, which is didn't we call this didn't we call that that was going to be a huge plot point, that Joey's knowledge of this affair was going to cause some kind of friction there. It continues, but he regrets doing so when Jen tells him some of her own problems involving her promiscuity and the real reasons her parents forced her to move to Capeside. Uh meanwhile, Pacey and Tamara or tomorrow, they said tomorrow during Marshall. So Meanwhile, Pacey and Tamara continue to tempt fate with their affair, which was compromised because Dawson accidentally videotaped uh it again.
We're getting these synopsis from IMDb, which means that some weirdo is like writing all this out, which I love. I love that someone spent the time hinged.
It kind of makes me worry that we're going to get an underplayed representation, uh or at least like the reality of the fact that Dawson filmed this is going to be underplayed sorry that Dawson filmed tomorrow, and Pacey is going to be underplayed in the episode when it feels like that should be the entire episode.
Well, the recap or not the recap, the synopsis I saw was just a couple of lines on Netflix and it seemed more heavy on okay part, at.
Least I hope so.
Yes.
We have to have some reality here. I just can't imagine a world um where we get what we just got, which is literally evidence that this is happening. And then we go into next episode and they're still pretending like, who's the mystery woman again? I'm excited. I don't know. How do you guys feel going into this next episode?
Really? I feel ready. I also feel like I want to.
Watch it right now.
Yeah. Should we just watch it right now?
Yeah, we should record um it while like, us watching it with live reactions.
Let us know if you want to have a live listen episode.
One of my favorite podcasts is Treks in the City Shout Out. And for a lot of their season finale, they would do like live watch commentaries. So that could be something that we could do.
Probably just going to be a lot of us groaning and screaming in the background as we're just like, oh no, but if you want it, you let us know.
Well, one of my notes.
Or questions.
About what will happen next time was for some development with Dawson's mom, like um love affair because we didn't get.
Any of that right.
So I'm excited to see what happens with that.
Yeah, I agree. I felt like there was a noticeable vacuum in the manmade representation. We didn't get any of that.
There's no uh meat.
Nothing.
There's no meat here. It's all filler.
Um do you guys have any recommendations for things that have nothing to do with Dawson's Creek?
I definitely do. Should I go first? Yeah. Well, this uh week I got into something fun that I would like to share with everybody, which is go carding. Alright, look, you don't have to be a little boy or little girl to um go out and enjoy this. It's not just something you uh do at the Family Fun Center. I know Mallory and I have basically teased our Formula One obsession and this is really just an extension of that. So please go out to your local um gokart track. This last week I went go Kart racing twice and uh I had a great time. It was really fun. I felt like a very fast boy in a RoomRoom uh machine.
Did you scream woo when you went past the checkpoints?
Yeah, the checkpoints. Exactly. That's very good. Whenever they wave the flag at me, I felt like I was in a real race and it was fun because I follow a lot of racing. I play um racing video games and the difference between playing a racing video game and actually being behind the wheel um of a racing machine is very exciting. And I feel like I felt a tiny taste of what it's like to be a driver in one of uh these cars who is out hunting for tents on a course, trying to improve their time, trying to find the best way through a course. And it was really fun. So go out and do that. There's probably, like, one person in the entire world who will hear this and think, hey, I'm going to go do that, but please go do it. It was really fun. And that's my recommendation for the week. Go guarding.
I uh think it's cool that you can have an interest in Formula One or whatever racing kind of thing, and you can actually go out and do something similar to it. That's so fun that it gives you, like, a taste.
Totally. I guess if you think of watching basketball or playing soccer, like, yeah, you can go play a pickup game. It's not really close. I guess it's close in the sense that you're playing the same sport. But go karting, I guess because auto racing is such a ultimately it's you versus the stopwatch, not you versus anybody else. Right. So it's just purely your own performance. So in that way, it really did feel like an authentic representation of it. And I suddenly got a very different appreciation for the sport. And I'm really excited because the Formula One season is going on right now. So we've got 22 more races to watch in the next couple of months. So now that I'm a pro at Go carding, I can't wait to just tell them how they're doing it all wrong.
Broomfirm.
Yeah, baby.
My recommendation is a Netflix TV show. A new show on Netflix called Is It Cake? Not sure if anyone has heard of this one.
I saw the trailer for it.
Yes, we binged um it. So it's a competition show hosted by Mikey Day from SNL, um and several highly skilled cake artists are um creating cakes that look like anything but cake. Each episode has a um different set of judges, and the contestants are competing to win money, and it's just a lot of fun. I'm um not really a cake person, but I've never wanted to eat cake more in my life because after they judge the cakes, they get um to taste them. And yeah, uh it's a fun one.
It's cool. I mean, have you ever thought, like, a tackle box could be cake, right?
Or a sewing machine?
Yeah.
It's crazy to see what these people who I can't even really make a cake that tastes good or that looks uh good. I can do neither of those things, and they do both, but then they also are making it look not like cake, like a real world object. And it's kind of crazy to see that kind of shit. And Mikey Day, he makes it fun. He makes it really fun.
He's a cute little guy.
He's just a funny little guy. And it's cool to see him outside of SNL. Yeah.
It's like, based on there's like a Japanese.
Oh, really?
Game show, right? Because I've seen clips of people, like, biting a doorknob to see if it's like a real doorknob or if it's like chocolate.
I do that in my daily life. Every doorknob I come across, you never know if it's cake.
And this one, Mikey Day pulls out a knife and he'll go and cut uh different objects. And if it's cake, it cuts.
It reminds me of the subreddit. Oddly satisfying. Where in that whole subreddit it's all about things that are, as the name implies, oddly satisfying. And there's something so satisfying about watching him pull out a knife and cut through like a cash register. I don't know. There's just something so fun about it.
So the people have to guess.
Yeah. So there's like rotating judges, every different celebrity judges, and they have to guess out of five items, which one they think is cake, and they only have how many seconds to hit a button to guess. And then he reveals he takes the knife out and goes through each one.
It's really strategic, too, which is something that I feel like a lot of these kinds of food competition shows don't highlight is the strategy element. And they have strategies here.
Yeah. The bakers get to choose several decoys that may look similar to the cake that they made. So it's definitely strategy.
Watch it.
That's so fun.
It's great.
Netflix.
Uh i'll go just general pop indie rock from the 2000. I've been having a moment started maybe uh a couple of weeks ago when uh Cody and I were watching a live feed of Arcade Fire performing, and then I uh started listening to old.
Arcade Fire, and then it was like.
Artists similar, like playlists um and stuff. And it just like the last couple of weeks I've been going on this, like, nostalgic list of just old music that just feels so fun and I don't know, it's been making me happy.
Names Martin, 2008 indie rock bands.
Grizzly Bear, M 83, like old Death cap for Cutie.
What else, girls.
I feel like those are the highlights. I feel like I'm blinking.
Maybe on some.
It's funny because I have also been on a mid to um just a 2000s music kick. In general, I've been listening to a um ton of Motion City soundtracks.
Oh, my gosh.
I don't know if. Um yeah, okay. It started before we went to Disney. We were on Disneyland recently, and that entire trip was basically like the soundtrack was supplied by Motion City soundtrack. And it's been really fun to go back in time and listen to music from a formative era. And I think all of our lives and to see kind of like the same way that we listen to the music or we watch Dawson's Creek. It's really in some ways moved really far from that. But also um it feels very accessible in the same way. Like at least like Arcade Fire, for example, if Arcade Fire came out this year, it would still feel somewhat fresh to a certain extent. So it's interesting to see the way that this music kind of ages and doesn't age at the same time.
Well, when I think of Arcade Fire specifically, there were so many other copycat bands around that same time that used like, Big Coral arrangements.
Edward Charles, Magnetic Zero. Yes.
And what's that fucking um awful song?
Hay Ho by the Lumineers? No, that sucks.
By the Middle East.
Yes.
Blood Blood by the Middle East. Uh like, that is God a band.
Ripping off that song.
Oh, we all did. But just like ripping off Arcade Fire to uh the biggest degree, that shit has not aged well at all. And whenever I hear it, I can feel my soul leaving my body because it's so embarrassing. Archie Fire still great.
Beirut was another one.
Oh, Beirut rules.
Yeah.
Uh shout out to Beirut.
Hell yeah, go listen, Cody.
Yeah, go listen mid OTS Indy Rock um my Rec four this week is the TV series Servant on Apple TV. Plus, the official basic premise is a Philadelphia couple is in mourning after an unspeakable uh tragedy creates a rift in their marriage and opens the door for a mysterious force to enter their home. And uh I'll keep it at that just because the show has so many interesting twists and turns that I don't really want to get into it too deeply because it is so cool and it's marketed as a horror series. But I think it's more in line with a surreal drama like Twin Peaks. It's very peculiar. And so if you like stuff like Twin Peaks or Lost or The Leftovers, this show is for you. It's got Lauren Ambrose from 6ft under. It's got Rupert Grint from Harry Potter being the best he's ever been, Nell Tiger Free from Game of Thrones, Toby Cabell and more. Uh i'm obsessed.
It's great.
And if you're the type of person that loves hitting the message boards after finishing an episode just to see other people's fan theories and nerd out like this show was made for you. It is so um good. And every episode is only like 25 minutes long. So for people that are like, oh, I don't want to slog through like another hour long drama like ten episodes of season. The third season just ended. You could blow through this.
Wow.
It is amazing. And I only know a few other people that watch it, but critics really like it. The people that I do know that watch it totally love it. So get into it, everyone. Great show.
Great. And if you guys haven't heard about our message boards for Dawson's Creek podcast, all you have to do to be a part of it is just write it in your phone and then delete the message. It will show up where it needs to show up and we will read it. So please take part in that. Um the engagement really means a lot. And speaking of engagement, please follow us on all of the social media platforms, freaks and creeks, pod. All one word. It's probably listed in the show notes for this. Please like subscribe review smash that like button ring the Bell. I don't know we're still figuring out exactly what you're supposed to do. But please do it and um yeah, I don't know any last words before we're all executed.
I hate Pacey.
Uh yeah, us. I hate Paisy. He's the worst. Okay, well, uh until next time, I love you.
See you soon.
Bye.