Date of airing: February 24, 1998 (WB)
Nielsen ratings information: 7.34 million viewers, 5.0/7 in Households
It has been a very long time ago since I watched this season of TV, which is probably why I always seemed to have remembered that Bessie gave birth in the previous episode, with the hurricane going strong and the drama in the Leery house defining the entire hour, but it looks like I just mixed up two highly emotional back-to-back episodes or considered them as one, simply because when you watch two great back-to-back episodes, while the rest of the program is rather boring and forgettable, you tend to melt them together. And thank the heavens that DAWSON’S CREEK didn’t just do one great episode out of a blue, but two in a row, because this episode really was great and dramatic on all the proper levels. Maybe Pacey and Ms. Jacobs’ story was dumb and nearly vomit-inducing, although I am happy that it found its ending here, but the birth of Alexander Potter Wells turned out to be great.
Bessie was unpredictably emotional, going through the motions of childbirth, all while having to face her idiot little sister and a possibly racist nurse. And Grams helping out as Bessie’s impromptu midwife was great, although bringing all the tension and drama and conflict into the story, which Dawson was so hot and horny to film with his little video camera and have a movie made out of this, may have been a bit over the top at times, especially with Dawson in the middle of it all, ecstatic and excited about what was unfolding in front of his camera lens. Grams should have kicked the boy out long ago, as he didn’t seem to be interested much in actually helping to facilitate the birth of Bessie’s child.
Plus, I wasn’t expecting Bessie to follow Mrs. Ryan’s lead and repeat the Bible verses, putting religion into the narrative once more and giving Jen another opportunity to get into a conflict with her grandmother. Maybe the two will always confront each other over their beliefs (or the absence of a belief, in Jen’s case), but maybe there will be moments when Jen actually appreciates Grams’s faith since it seemed to have helped bring a new life into this world. Finally, the way the birth was not just a story for Joey to grow up a little quicker here, but also becoming a story of Jen and her grandmother growing closer and more accepting of each other showed that DAWSON’S CREEK really had some great writing back in the day. Alexander Potter Wells brought together a couple of hotheads and made peace between them.
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| This is the best place to talk about all your sexual encounters. |
But not the Pacey/Ms. Jacobs arc though. That one can go straight to hell. Dammit, the boy is an extremely dumb character six episodes into the show, because I cannot imagine why Pacey would act this horrendously in this relationship with Ms. Jacobs and very much risk everything they have going for themselves by wanting to bring their romance out in the open. He blurts out his and her bedtime stories in the school bathroom because he can’t help himself not telling fables of him and his English teacher in bed and on a date soon. Funnily enough, Pacey checked the stalls of the bathroom almost at the end of his conversation with Dawson, because as we have already established, Pacey is as stupid as one can be for the world to end. As if he has not listened to a single word Ms. Jacobs said to him in the previous episode about needing to keep the relationship a secret or having to end it.
Pacey then had to go to the courthouse (I assume it was a courthouse, but this wasn’t even a legal case yet) to try and talk to Ms. Jacobs and tell her he’s sorry, approaching her with a cute nickname he has for her, not even realizing that she is sitting there with her attorney. Does this kid not know anything about how things go when you have been caught sexing around with your English teacher? I would love to know what the writers thought when they were breaking and writing this episode in the room because Pacey does not behave like an actual human here and very much looks like he was directed by his penis only.
And then he showed up at her place by the end of this episode and figured he could keep the relationship going after all of this? This 15-year-old boy who talks like he knows everything about life does not know anything about life. He didn’t know anything about the situation he brought himself and Ms. Jacobs in, and he had no idea what Ms. Jacobs was going through after he decided to hype up his upcoming date with her. And in addition to all that, the writers still weren’t interested in Ms. Jacobs’ point of view of the story, and I kind of got confused during this hour because of it. She is going through a nightmare scenario like this, which in the worst-case scenario could end with you in prison and the best-case scenario ends with you losing your job, but it seemed like she was actually in love with Pacey. And yet I have no idea if that was the case since no minute has been spent on her perspective of the entire ordeal. Their goodbye scene was almost a little too romantic, I was wondering where that love was during the entirety of their relationship and if it was ever more than just a sexual thing.
Thanks to Alexander’s birth keeping things alive in this episode, as stated a couple of paragraphs ago, I loved this hour, and not just because of the drama aspect, but how emotionally stunted Joey was throughout the birth and how Bessie turned out to be a great character. Nina Repeta’s name may show up during the show’s title credits, but I never really considered Bessie one of the show’s main characters. Maybe it’s because she never really was and was mostly treated as a supporting character in Joey’s life, but this episode made it look like she could be more than that, with her relationship with Joey strengthening, so that the two can become sisters, instead of a weird mother/daughter duo.
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| The hardest part of the world is to bring another life into it. |
By the way, the scene in the boat was hilarious. The way it moved from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen while Joey and Bessie had a not-so-friendly conversation about how to row a boat and what it entails to row a boat (“Oh my god, Bessie, the boat is leaking!” “It’s not the boat, Joey.”) gave me a lot of joy, including the moment the two women changed spots and Bessie was forced to paddle to Dawson’s house since her little sister couldn’t bring it or didn’t have the stamina. There was so much awkward hilarity in this episode, I almost wanted that idea to fill the entire hour. DAWSON’S CREEK needs some more comedy.
