Date of airing: November 4, 1998 (WB)
Nielsen ratings information: 5.88 million viewers, 4.4/7 in Households, 2.4 rating with Adults 18-49
written by: Dana Baratta
directed by: David Semel
Relationships tend to turn in a different direction when something smelly and foul hits the fan and pretty much ruins your life. In a way, this episode is the first that was able to taste the emotional onslaught of feelings and emotional darkness the writers have been teasing since the beginning, with Jen’s grief over her grandfather’s death, and in hindsight, maybe you could consider this episode as an exercise for the viewers to get ready for moody things to come. This premise makes this quite a good episode, although Jack’s decision to put his lips on Joey’s may have come out of nowhere. I got the feeling it was included to make way for Dawson and Joey being in serious trouble and to continue the storytelling notion of couples always being in danger as soon as they found each other, or to continue the will-they/won’t-they narrative angle, even after the two became romantically involved. It means Jack is as much of a plot device to Joey as Andie has been for Pacey, although Andie got a fair size of backstory in this episode, even if I was a little surprised that none of it was connected to Jack. The two are siblings, and the life and death of their family only keep her agitated while he is working overtime and kisses Joey during one of the most romantic full moons in the history of primetime teen soap opera television? These siblings do not seem to share.
I mean, having a mother who still believes her eldest son is alive must be emotional torture for you every time you wake up and go to school and come back home and go back to bed, since you will never know when your mentally ill mother is losing it and if she does, whether or not she is losing it when you are not home. I loved how this backstory gave Jack all the shyness and insecurities he needed to be an imperfect and derpy character falling in love with Joey for some reason and turning into a rival for Dawson, because can you really hate a guy whose older brother has died and whose mother is essentially crazy? The writers will possibly make me feel sorry for Jack as they were trying to get him closer to Joey, just so they can ruin the Dawson/Joey romance.
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| Abby just got what she deserved! |
I also loved how that backstory was introduced via Andie, giving her a proper opportunity to be a character in this series and to somewhat explain why she would hang with Pacey, as his nutty and asshole-ish attitude could almost be on the same line as her mother’s mental instability. Plus, when Pacey and Andie are finally together, it would give Pacey a story that could connect with his own family struggles – he hates his father, and he thinks his brother is a joke. Turns out his romantic interest’s family is not that rosy either, so Andie and Pacey have a connection here. He will not be allowed to be the jokester any longer when Andie is around, because she kind of needs a shoulder to cry on, and Pacey needs to be on his best to not be a dick and chase Andie away when she desperately needs someone to cling onto. By the way, was this episode the first one in which Jack and Andie, the siblings that they are, shared screentime?
Meanwhile, Jen’s story was expectedly not my thing. I guess you cannot say what Jen was thinking when she decided to go on a date with older man Vincent and wait until he is making a move that would get her lucky (or she decides she is ready to make the move herself), but all this time I was thinking how wrong all of this is, and how Jen would allow her 16-year-old body to be taken by a man looking like he just entered his 40s, and how this would make Jen a terrible character. Then I remembered this is exactly who she was before she entered the Capeside universe, because this is what she most likely did in New York – sleep around, most likely drunk, and let herself be used by older men, which suddenly explains the character that was Billy (who I was about to forget). I am glad she decided to break it off with Vincent at the end, that she woke up and realized the wrongness of her carefree attitude, and that it led to a somewhat great scene between her and Grams at the end. While I am against Grams’ efforts in forcing Jen to behave like a lady, it is great conflict material between two entirely different generations, decades apart, and that is something you normally do not get to see on scripted television.
By the way, Abby Morgan is still a drama queen who could star in a soap opera. Her existence may be a solid plot device to show that Jen is attempting to disconnect herself from the life that gives her this emotional windstorm, but the character itself is kind of lame. Although I did love her face after she got slapped by Jen. Sometimes the “villains” need to suffer, too.
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| It is a good night for a VFX-filled illicit kiss. |
Then there is the marriage drama of the Leerys, which has finally blown up into Dawson’s face, and he sort of became a mediator or marriage counselor. The scene with the three could have been acted out a lot better, but there was an impressive story behind it, as Dawson is finally facing the mortality of his parents’ marriage and finding out what most of us have gone through in our teenage years when our own parents split up and divorced. Finally, he is about to go through what I hoped he would have gone through at the end of the first season, and finally, his world is about to crumble apart like a cookie in Dwayne Johnson’s closed fist. It is time for Dawson to taste the salt of his tears, and for him to be the emotionally troubled character for once, considering the writers have not done that to him at all during the first season. Dawson has as much of a dark cloud building above his head as Jen has, which kind of gives them a connection as well, even if it looks a lot more complicated for the writers to throw them together as it was easy for Andie and Pacey to find something they can connect over. Dawson will have other stuff to deal with, simply by witnessing his parents’ downfall, his relationship with Joey faltering, and maybe even seeing an enemy in Jack. There will not be time for him to also go back to Jen and have impromptu therapy sessions with her.
