Date of airing: November 18, 1998 (WB)
Nielsen ratings information: 6.42 million viewers, 4.6/7 in Households, 2.6/7 with Adults 18-49
written by: Greg Berlanti
directed by: David Semel
The show has reinvented itself just a slight tad, now that the writers were working with more characters and using some additional people to fill up the ranks of recurring characters. During the first season, it was all about the core four: Dawson, Joey, Pacey, and Jen. Now that the McPhees have entered the fray, the number is up to six, and even if Jack was not in this hour (for obvious reasons, as he is probably hated by the whole lot for ruining Dawson and Joey’s sophisticated teenage romance), the writers still kept the idea of keeping six people involved with one another as friends (and lovers in second position), and have them go through the same kind of adventure. The six (minus Chris, plus Jack) went to the Homecoming dance in the previous episode, and they could have established themselves as a band of best friends in this episode, if it had not been for the case of teenage infidelity in the previous episode, and a very annoying and scheming Chris in this episode who looked like he was planning on ruin a couple of lives. It is almost like he could be lured into a blind date with Abby, because after this episode, the two could not be more alike.
This episode was solid. Chris was a weird character because he was both too horny for his own sake (as a teenager is most of the time), but he was also nice enough not to be comparable to Bryce from 13 REASONS WHY – yes, that is what I was thinking about, seeing Chris and Jen together in the pool, hoping that he is not going to turn out to be a monstrous creep in need of a proper beating. Still, it felt to me like Chris was only here to use Jen to still his horny hunger, and Jen will be heartbroken by the fact that she was being used, because maybe it is not such a wrong idea to have Jen be heartbroken again. After all, her storyline so far seems to be about needing to return to her former New York self, including a bout of depression, emotional instability, and having sex left and right because that is what would piss off her grandmother most. The focused shot of the two ripped condom packages was enough to tell me that Chris was a stud in this episode, never to return as Jen’s boyfriend because he definitely is not good enough for her heart, although he is good enough to completely crap on her broken soul.
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| The group has arrived to study all day and party all night. |
What a shame that Dawson’s current situation is not being used to have him go back to Jen, although maybe I am happy about that. Dawson and Jen were dating first, with Joey standing in the back and being jealous about it. Then Dawson and Jen broke up and it gave Joey a chance at taking on Dawson’s heart, which she succeeded at, only this time Jen was standing in the back of the room, being all jealous about their relationship. If Dawson and Jen had returned to becoming lovers again in this episode, it would have essentially repeated the storyline from the first season, annoying me in the process. So, I guess I must thank Chris for his existence here, distracting Jen long enough not to have her think too often about Dawson, the boy she wanted to get back to at the beginning of the season.
Meanwhile, I am kind of surprised that Pacey’s adventures with his teacher in the previous season (and a couple of episodes ago) still had such an effect on his life. Although I am a little weirded out why Andie was so angry and saddened and heartbroken over the fact that her boyfriend kept a sexual activity with an older woman which was essentially a crime as a secret. Okay, she did not know something personal about Pacey’s life, now that they were close to dating, but her disappointment halfway through the episode seemed quite conveniently built around a small storyline to fill the episode with, as there possibly was not enough story material available for the writers as they began breaking the episode.
Dawson and Joey’s fight in the middle of the night was also kind of absurd, especially since they seemed to have been fighting every time they laid eyes on each other, when I was expecting them to bury the hatchet and have a civilized conversation. But alas, there was Chris’slittle sister Dina, who was pulling quite a few strings in the background to have her own little real-life soap opera being acted out in front of her. First of all, I would love to watch a CRUEL INTENTIONS-type thriller with pre-teens front and center, who are out there, manipulating the lives of their middle school friends for the sake of being cruel and bully-ish to those who consider themselves nice. Secondly, seeing Joey and Dawson verbally fight could not have been more of a stereotype in the narrative, especially after the two broke up and were busy mending their broken hearts.
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| Will she star in her own version of Cruel Intentions next? |
Thirdly, Dina should have been used more as a plot device in the Dawson/Joey drama, but I assume that the writers realized they were writing a pre-teen character and it would have been ridiculous for her to be directly involved in the love lives of a bunch of 16-year-olds when she was most likely still in middle school (although she did not behave like it). In the end, Dina’s story was all about wanting that first kiss (possibly due to peer pressure at school – someone should check in on that), making DAWSON’S CREEK a show that is mostly about kisses and not about how an Abby-type character is ruining someone’s life. Dina could have been that for the friends in this episode, but her story had to end with a cheerful smile because she got a kiss on the head. For a moment there, I got really dizzy rolling my eyes into the back of my head so fast.
