Date of airing: January 27, 1998 (WB)
Nielsen rating information: 8.04 million viewers, 5.9/9 in Households
While President Bill Clinton was addressing the nation in the middle of his own scandal that involved him having an affair with a White House intern, which might have kept the TV-watching audience glued to the television screen that night like this was just another O.J. Simpsons White Ford Bronco expressway low-speed chase, DAWSON’S CREEK aired over on the WB network, in which 15-year-old teenagers were becoming adolescents, and Dawson had to fight hard (and failed) to get that first kiss, all while Joey had to fight hard (and succeeded) not to speak up about her feelings for Dawson, wanting his first kiss to be her first kiss. But as it turns out, it was easy to be quiet about it when Dawson was doing all the talking and his mother was causing all the impending doom of the Leery family and their friends. I’m surprised this episode wasn’t titled “Kiss” (instead, the next one is, which probably means someone is going to have their first kiss in the next hour), considering how often the characters were dealing with the premise of the first kiss and conversing about it, let alone fighting for it to happen.
This episode was weird. I never had this pretty and charming, unapologetic smalltown life, which is why I found myself rolling some serious eye during Dawson’s moment of kissing the Joey puppet head right in front of his father, as well as the moment of Pacey and Ms. Jacobs going for another kiss at the same spot (probably – who knows, every creek and dock in this town looks the same). For 15-year-old kids, they surely went through a lot of drama during this hour, and suddenly I’m not sure if I lived a proper teenage life when Dawson and Pacey experienced more action during these 44 minutes than I ever did between the ages of 13 and 21. That scene between father and son was awkward to watch even for me, and I don’t know if that was because I never had such a moment with my father (he instead berated me for not keeping my room clean and emptied the garbage bin on the floor right in front of me before getting drunk and drowning in cigarette smoke, so he can vomit it all out right beside the toilet bowl) or because it was generally weird to see Mitch witnessing his only son taking attempts at a kiss on a doll’s head. All this became even weirder and more uncomfortable to watch when Joey was witnessing the action from a close distance as well, imagining her own head in Dawson’s hand, as he is kissing her fake head. But that scene was only weirder for me because after this episode I do not understand what Joey sees in Dawson. He was bitching and moaning and talking about Jen nonstop, and for someone who is in love with him, she surely had a lot of patience listening to him blabber about the other girl next door.
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| Openly flirting in front of the class: very stupid! |
By the way, with only fifteen years of age, Dawson is expecting the world of Jen a bit much, isn’t he? He pretty much demanded of her to be his girlfriend, for him to be the boy of her adventures, and not to be the friendzoned guy who can’t get a little lip-and-tongue action from her when he so pleases. In a way, Dawson became a terrible boy in this episode, becoming highly obsessed with locking lips with the blond girl and seeing himself as her one and only. In today’s standards, that would be considered creepy, and maybe Dawson would qualify for getting #MeToo’d. Then again, these are the behaviors of a fictional 15-year-old, so maybe everything is fine in the end. Have American 15-year-olds in small towns always acted like this?
I must say though, the story brought a lot of depth to Jen as a character – the pilot episode had her established as this big-city girl who wouldn’t have any troubles getting into trouble in Capeside, but her scene with Dawson at the pier made it clear that this is not what she wanted, and she was trying hard not to fall down that rabbit hole again (her New York experiences must have been rough, I wonder if hard drugs and an aborted pregnancy were involved). In a way, the weird premise of needing that first kiss led to Dawson’s object of affection getting the most character depth. And thank the heavens, Dawson understood at least a little of what Jen was saying and accepted it, allowing the episode to end in the titular dance.
Pacey made things weird as well, by “stalking” his teacher in her classroom (by sitting at her table like a boss) and then during the school dance, but at least the story removed Ms. Jacobs from being the statutory rapist she was about to become, as she wasn’t the one actively pursuing a relationship with Pacey. That was all his doing in this episode, despite her leading herself into another kissing moment with him. It was Pacey who constantly pressured her to come closer to him (becoming the second nominee to get #MeToo’d today, right after Ms. Jacobs is imprisoned for having sex with a minor), because for some reason he couldn’t think of anything else than being with a teacher when there were probably enough girls in Capeside High who could be interested in Pacey if he would just talk to them. He couldn’t think of any reason why his wishful relationship with his teacher was all kinds of wrong, and he couldn’t spend a single second listening to her worries. Yes, Pacey was equally at fault as Ms. Jacobs was, and I can’t wait for this story to be over, just so I don’t have to continue thinking about it any longer. Also, Tamara seemed to not have anything going on outside her life as a teacher and her fling with Pacey. Either she was talking to him or standing at the pier, waiting for him. Didn’t she have friends of her own or colleagues who would want to hang out with her for a drink after work? There’s no family in town for her to deal with?
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| Here's a doll to practice kissing with. |
One story happened to be extraordinary though, and it’s when Joey was the one dealing with Mrs. Leery’s infidelity, instead of Dawson. That is the twist in this story, because neither Gail’s husband nor her son were currently dealing with her attempts to wreck their home life, giving Joey a huge secret to keep, and the writers an opportunity to drag this story until it hurts. And with it, Gail could come over as antagonistic towards Joey, which leads to another interesting premise: The beautiful and honest girl next door who is in love with your son knows about your affair with another man – that is great conflict material. It’s so great and specific in fact, somebody in the writers’ room may have had experience with such a situation, and decided to include the premise into the script. It also creates a lot of potential for the future of the show. Just imagine how Dawson is going to act when he finds out his best friend kept such as secret from him, especially when he may realize sooner or later that his best friend is also in love with him (and vice versa).
