Previously: Joey gets fired and Jack tricks Jen because he wants to set her up.
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Secrets and Lies
Democracy Diva: Capeside High. Dawson and Jen talk to each other like normal friends for perhaps the first time in this show’s history, and it’s refreshing! She discusses turning into her mother, who was a beauty queen when she was young. Jen thinks she’s a poser for being elected homecoming queen, but Dawson thinks she’s being too hard on herself, and that people voted for her because she’s her. Jen still thinks her blonde hair and big tits had something to do with it, and Dawson doesn’t disagree, but he still thinks her “alternative” vibe is what’s drawing people to her. Also, I tried to find a gif of Christina Applegate in Anchorman talking about her “exquisite breasts” to use here, but you would not believe how difficult that questionable google search was, you guys. I saw a LOT of Tumblr tits.
Kirsti: I’m pretty sure we need to create a Snark Lady Therapy Fund for the things we’ve seen while searching for gifs. Because frankly, I will NEVER be over the picture of a woman fucking a continental cucumber. The things we do for you, Traumateers.
Diva: Mr. Milo interrupts them to introduce the last FIFTY YEARS of Capeside homecoming queens, all of whom had nothing better to do than visit their old high school on a weekday. The oldest living homecoming queen brags about her family coming over the Mayflower, because of course she does. Not sure why Miss Fussy Pants’s wealthy blue-blood parents would have sent her to – gasp – PUBLIC SCHOOL, where she would be exposed to all manner of uncouth things. Fussy Pants teaches Jen the secret handshake of homecoming queens.
K: A+ gif selection, Diva. Meanwhile, my notes say “WHY THE FUCK IS A JUNIOR THE HOMECOMING QUEEN?”. I mean, the secret handshake was confusing too, but…JUNIOR.
Diva: Put that in the ever-growing file of “shit that makes no fucking sense.” I’m not going to pretend I have even the slightest bit of experience with being a homecoming queen, but I’m pretty sure none of this “meeting every queen for all eternity” stuff is a thing. They just give you a crown and put you in the yearbook, right? Anybody know any kids who were popular in high school that we could consult about this?
K: I’m of precisely no use, because we only had dances in years 10, 11, and 12, and none of them involved voting for any kind of awards.
Diva: Potter House, where we learn that Joey had the idea to turn their home into a B&B, and Pacey helped her figure out how to do it on the cheap. I approve of this contrived situation for the two of them spending excessive amounts of time together! (K: SAME.) Bessie is happy, probably so she can work from home and take care of the baby that I’m not certain still exists, but Joey’s worried they’re putting too much of the insurance money into this place. They really need it to succeed, especially since she can’t go back to her job at the marina. Pacey asks her what happened with Rob the Tremendo-Douche. Joey explains the situation in vague terms, omitting the fact that Andie was the girl dating Rob. He can obviously tell she’s bullshitting him, and when she still doesn’t answer, he realizes it was Andie. She assures him that it won’t last, but Pacey just sadly says, “Whatever makes her happy, right?”
Leery Manor. Gail is there, pretending that she just wants to see her darling son, but really she’s here for the “HQ Gala” because she was “HQ” when she was in high school. Dear show: HQ is an actual abbreviation that no one in the real world uses to mean homecoming queen. Please stop doing this.
K: Truth. On the plus side, Gail’s hair seems to have calmed down a little in Philadelphia.
Diva: Thank goodness for small miracles.
Anyway, Gail and Mitch greet each other semi-tensely, and Gail wonders how the fuck Jen ended up homecoming queen. But at least that will create some fun for Gail and Dawson, because Gail is so lame that she’s taking her son as her date to the gala. Mitch just makes an awkward face and walks out of the room. This is uncomfortable and also boring. We may need to invent a new word for that phenomenon, so frequently does it occur on this show.
K: Maybe we should turn Mitch’s name into a verb, a la Ted Mosby. To Mitch things up. Definition: to create unnecessary tension that is interesting to precisely no one and requires the Snark Ladies to fight the urge to hit the fast forward button until Pacey appears on screen again. Yes?
Diva: YES.
Capeside High. Andie joins Pacey and Joey in the lunchroom. He makes up a fake reason to leave, so Andie realizes Joey told him about Rob. Joey’s cold, blaming Andie for getting her fired, which is completely unfair. Joey either got fired because her boss is a jerk, or because she’s a shitty employee, or maybe both, but Andie is not to blame. Andie says as much, and admits that she likes Rob, but Joey insists there’s an “I told you so” in Andie’s future.
K: Ugh. The only good thing I have to say about this scene is that Joey’s hard at work, earning sponsorship dollars:
Diva: (Not at all surprised, but very pleased.)
Giant mansion. Jen enters and sees old-timey pictures of fancy ladies doing fancy things. Inside, there’s a gown on a dress form. Miss Fussy Pants comes in bringing tea – doesn’t she have servants for this? – and she’s making a dress for the gala. Jen calls Fussy Pants “Mrs.”, but MISS Fussy Pants explains that she never married. Probably because she went to public school like a common whore.
K: I don’t know what it is about her, but she kind of looks like an old lady version of Carol Brady. To the point where I went and checked IMDB to make sure that it wasn’t actually Florence Henderson.
Diva: That would have been AMAZING.
Meanwhile, a “handy boy” named Hank is upstairs making a racket. I thought that was a euphemism for Fussy Lady sleeping with younger men, but apparently it’s just an actual boy who fixes things around the house. Lame. Anyway, Jen tells Fussy Lady that she’s been through this debutante thing with her mom and it’s not her scene. Miss Fussy Pants says, uh, this your job now, so DO IT. Jen insists she never asked for this, and Miss Fussy is all well, I never asked to deal with YOU when what I wanted was a human barbie doll, preferably one who wears a bra. Jen walks out, basically like:
All of a sudden and for no reason at all, a guy comes flying off the roof. What? Oh, it’s the handy boy, and he takes Jen’s hand and yells about bees and they run off. It’s Michael Pitt’s character, who I definitely do not remember being named Hank, but Miss Fussy Pants definitely called him that. Was he named Hank? Has it really been THAT LONG since I last watched this show that I don’t even remember Michael Pitt’s name?
K: Henry is DEFINITELY not the kind of guy who can be a Hank.
Diva: Agreed. A Hank needs to own a surfboard, in my headcanon.
Potter Soon-To-Be-B&B. Pacey wants to name the place after himself, of course. He and Joey do their faux we-hate-each-other brand of flirting, until Bessie runs in with a phone call for Joey. She just hears Andie, crying and begging her for help.
After the not-break, Pacey and Joey are with Andie outside some house. She’s crying and won’t tell them what happened. Joey asks if Rob tried to hurt her. Through sobs, Andie explains that they were just kissing and he tried to take things further. She said no, but he ignored her and tried to force himself on her. She got away before he could rape her. Pacey immediately decides to find Rob and pummel him. Andie tells him not to, but Joey just hugs her as Pacey storms inside the house. Pacey walks up to Rob and punches him IN THE FACE. Before Pacey leaves, he threatens to kill Rob if he ever touches Andie again, but Rob insists he never laid a hand on her.
K: My notes at this point say “NO NO NO. DO NOT GIVE ANDIE A RAPEY STORYLINE. NO.”
Diva: Jen and Hank/Henry are in Miss Fussy Pants’s greenhouse. Henry knows the names of all the sluttiest-sounding flowers, which is fun. Turns out, Fussy Pants taught him what he knows about flora – she’s not so bad, she’s just sad because she’s lonely. Henry has lived next door to her for ten years and might be her best friend. He explains that Fussy Pants was really looking forward to meeting Jen, because the homecoming gala is the only thing in her life besides flowers. Jen gets pensive face.
Back at the Potter house, Joey tells Andie she has to report Rob to the police. Andie says she can’t. She explains that Rob didn’t “actually” do anything, which seems like a strange thing to say. Joey tells her to stay here for the night, but Andie says she can’t. Pacey tells Joey that he can handle Andie from here. He calls her “Jo,” which is a small and unimportant detail that I absolutely love for no apparent reason. (K: Agreed.)
Back at Fussy Pants Mansion, Jen asks Fussy Pants if they can start over. FP says Henry’s clearly very persuasive; Jen smiles and says she’s just getting to know him. Fussy Pants decides that if Henry likes Jen, Jen must be okay; Jen feels the same way about her. Henry’s ready to join the party planning committee now that his gals are getting along. Fussy Pants’s list of things that categorically cannot be at the party is long and hilarious, but Jen agrees to her conditions, and says she’s bringing “Hank” as her date. I will stop expressing my confusion over this name situation, because I googled it and apparently Hank is a nickname for Henry. So I feel stupid now, but I’m not deleting my confused rants because now we can all just laugh together about how dumb I am!
K: Meanwhile, I feel the need to stop and rant because Jen was LITERALLY JUST COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW YOU NEED TO INFORM PEOPLE BEFORE TAKING THEM ON DATES, and now she’s gone and done exactly the same thing to Henry.
Diva: I forgot that that happened because I watched that episode approximately 8,000 years ago, but you’re so right. DAMMIT, JEN. Practice what you preach.
Pacey and Andie in a docked boat on the creek. She wanted to go someplace quiet, so he brought her here, to show her his boat, something beautiful that he made out of his pain over their breakup. Andie says she’s not over him. Pacey doesn’t want to go there, given everything Andie has been through tonight. Andie says it’s okay if something that horrible brought them back together, but Pacey insists, not unkindly, that they aren’t together. She ignores him and tries to kiss him, but Pacey tells her that they just can’t. He’s there to be her friend, and make sure she’s okay, but nothing more than that. Andie insists that she wants to be with him tonight, presumably in a sexual way, but then is all “just one kiss,” so I’m confused about what she actually wants from him this evening. “Don’t you want to?” she asks, and it’s kind of manipulative and terrible when he’s already said no this many times (K: SO TERRIBLE OMG). But finally, they kiss. And then keep kissing.
Post-break, it’s the next morning and Pacey drops Andie off at her house. She thanks him for taking care of her, and they do that innuendo thing where it’s unclear whether they had sex or not. She says she’s okay with what happened last night between them, even if it changes their “status,” and she does the word vomit thing for awhile. She wants to know if he’s feeling what she is and he says yes, but he looks hesitant. As she leaves the car, he closes his eyes and broods.
K: NGL, Puppy Dog Pacey is one my favourite Paceys.
Diva: Agreed. It’s like, 1) Braveheart Pacey, 2) Puppy Dog Pacey, 3) Explaining the Plot of The English Patient to Fussy Babies Pacey, 4) all other Paceys.
Rob shows up at the Potter Soon-To-Be-B&B, and Joey straight-up calls him a sex offender and orders him to leave. He forcefully tells Joey that he’s innocent, and asks if Andie has gone to the police. His version of the story is that Andie practically dragged him up to the bedroom, and when they started kissing, she freaked out and ran. He says his “flirtation” with Joey at work was “inappropriate,” but that doesn’t mean he’s capable of something like this. Joey takes a black-and-white view of things and tells him that sexually harassing an underage girl at the workplace is against the law, as is rape. This isn’t my favorite argument (lots of things are illegal, but they’re not all equivalent), but I’m glad she’s reminding him that his behavior around her has been both disgusting and illegal. Rob quietly explains that he has never forced himself on anyone. Louder, he douches that everyone knows that Andie has some mental issues. Joey slams the door in his face, and he yells through the door asking why Andie would accuse him of something like this.
K: Blaming things on people’s mental illnesses is not cool, Rob. Even if you weren’t already a tremendo-douche, I’d punch you in the face based solely on that.
Diva: Yeah, if anybody’s got a good old-fashioned Snark Lady punch to the face coming to them, it’s this dude. And, you know, everyone who thought this plotline was a good idea.
Fussy Pants Gala. Miss Fussy Pants herself looks around in approval. Some snooty people are bitchy to Gail. Dawson defends his mom, but the snooty douchebags are all, “Hey Gail, remember when you got fired because Philly people don’t want to watch someone as old as you report the news?” Dawson, of course, has no idea what’s going on because Gail hasn’t told him that she lost her job.
Jen and Henry walk in, not particularly appropriately dressed for a black-tie gala, but looking pretty badass. Fussy Pants can’t imagine how or why Henry would do something like this (“this” being “wearing a ruffled shirt,” I believe), but Jen insists that she put him up to the outfit. Then the door opens, and a fabulous, husky voice says, “I swear it’s hotter than a French prostitute in this dress.” Into the party strut several queens that put these homecoming queens to shame. Jen introduces the drag queens as the entertainment, and Miss Fussy Pants is like,
K: Your gif game is second to none right now, girl. Also, as much as I love the drag queens as entertainment thing, I can’t help but wish that they’d hired ACTUAL drag queens rather than actors. This is probably an odd complaint from someone who loved Priscilla, Queen of the Desert as much as I do… Whatever.
Diva: Thank you, because I spent a disturbing amount of time gif-hunting to try and bring some much-needed light-heartedness to this atrocious story line. (And also because Tumblr failed me in terms of gifs from this actual episode.) Also, if this episode were filmed today, you KNOW they’d include half the cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race and it would be even more amazing.
Joey asks Andie if she’s going to tell her dad about what Rob did to her, but Andie says no. He’d only freak out, “and it’s not like anything cataclysmic happened.” Andie casually mentions that she may have just overreacted. Joey asks if Andie thinks that, but Andie takes that as an accusation that she’s lying. Joey explains that Rob came by her house to tell his side of the story. Andie again assumes Joey believed him, but she doesn’t. Joey says she should have reported him for his workplace sexual harassment of her, and maybe she could have prevented this whole mess. Andie says, weirdly and not for the first time, that something good might have come out of this whole situation. Andie explains that she and Pacey are back together, and now everything can just go back to the way it was. Joey looks a little shocked and awkward (except unlike most awkward Joey faces, this one is intentional) and turns away to brood.
K: Not gonna lie, I was really surprised by how much I loved Joey during all of this.
Diva: Joey actually displayed a level of maturity throughout this episode that blew me away. She’s always better when she’s not with Dawson, and she’s often a blast when she’s with Pacey, but this was probably the first scene without Pacey in it that made Joey seem human and caring.
Jen introduces the drag queen performance (of a song that is not “It’s Raining Men,” but is a damn good rip-off of it). Jen says she thinks Fussy Pants got the point of this show, which is that drag queens are the same as homecoming queens. They’re all just dressing up and playing a role. Jen drags Henry off to dance. There is one bald dude right up near all the drag queens, just staring confusedly but not disrespectfully at them, and it’s amazing. Some old guy starts shakin’ it with the queens and it’s pretty great. Everyone loosens up and starts having a good time, and even Miss Fussy Pants’s foot is tapping under the table.
Andie visits Pacey at his… boat-making warehouse? I don’t know. She bought him some boating gear. He puts on the cap and looks adorably dumb in it. (K: YUP.) Pacey says he’s starting to wonder if he’ll ever be done building True Love, and now the boat is a metaphor for their relationship and blah blah blah you know I have no fucking patience for this show’s extended metaphors. Also, I can’t take him seriously when he’s still wearing that cap. Andie asks if they can stop beating this metaphor to death and actually talk about this. THANKS ANDIE, I AGREE. Pacey confesses that they made a mistake last night. He knows what’s happening between them isn’t right, but Andie thinks it is right. She thinks he’s punishing her, but Pacey says there’s nothing to punish. She reminds him about how she had sex with someone else. Pacey thinks that maybe that wasn’t wrong, not if she wanted that guy – maybe it was her heart telling her that she and Pacey not meant to be together. That’s what his heart is telling him now. Andie just cries and tells him he doesn’t mean that. He apologizes, and she leaves.
K: I had a lot of feels for both of them, despite the total shittiness of the plot that led to this scene.
Diva: Surprisingly Un-Fussy Pants Gala. There is a full-blown conga line happening. Miss Fussy Pants tells Jen the evening wasn’t a total disaster, and hey, those drag queens can really dance! Jen apologizes for trying to shock her, but admits that she actually had fun being a homecoming queen. Fussy Pants tells Jen that Henry is just crazy about her, but she’s not sure Jen feels the same way. Miss Fussy Pants says she had a “beau” once, who proposed to her at his mother’s gravestone on the anniversary of her death, which kind of explains why Miss Fussy Pants never married. She says she should have run screaming then, but the wedding didn’t happen anyway. He led her on, then ran off with another girl. She tells Jen that hearts are fragile and might never recover – you see, she’s talking about both Henry AND herself! Miss Fussy Pants, it was literally 50 years ago. Move the fuck on, get yours, and let it go.
K: Yeah, but at least she’s not wandering around her house in her wedding dress watching her wedding cake rot. So, you know, there’s that.
Diva: Fair enough.
Jen and Henry in the greenhouse. He tries to kiss her, but she’s all, dude, NO. He’s confused, because he thought Jen asking him to be her date to this gala meant she had feelings for him. And he confesses that he’s falling in love with her. She just laughs, which is ROUGH. C’MON, JEN. She thinks it’s impossible for him to love her when he doesn’t even know her. Henry asks if this is about their age difference, which is less than two years. Jen explains that those two years between 14 and 16 are pivotal – that’s when all the changes happen, when all the firsts happen, when he’s going to fall in love every other day. Henry still wants her to give him a shot, but Jen says Henry needs someone who can go through all this with him for the first time. Everything he’s about to do, she’s already done. But, he wisely points out, she hasn’t fallen in love yet. She doesn’t know everything about love – she could do this for the first time with him. Jen explains that until she’s ready to love herself, she can’t love anyone else. GOOD FOR YOU, GIRL. I SHIP JEN AND JEN. (K: SAME. Just like Buffy, she’s cookie dough.) But anyway, Henry leaves, heartbroken.
Dawson and Gail, in the plot line I care least about, discuss why Gail kept her lack of employment a secret from her son. Dawson insists that she’s not a failure and she looks young. And also, maybe talk to dad! You could use a friend! Dawson says it’s okay for her to lean on him a little. Whatever. It is impossible to give any fucks about this.
Andie shows up at Joey’s door, screaming and accusing Joey of destroying her relationship with Pacey. Joey is all, uh, I haven’t even talked to him, so calm your tits. Andie’s all, LIES, YOU TOLD HIM I LIED ABOUT ROB TRYING TO RAPE ME JUST TO GET PACEY BACK. Joey admits that the thought crossed her mind, but she didn’t believe it for a second. Because she knows Andie is a good person who is just not capable of doing something so horrible. Andie gets teary and says Joey doesn’t know what she’s capable of. She gets tunnel vision for what she wants and she can’t see anything else. Joey doesn’t understand what Andie’s saying, until suddenly she does. Andie doesn’t even know what the truth is anymore. Joey just puts an arm around her.
K: Give the girl a hug, Joey. I think she needs it. Maybe also, I dunno, GO GET HER BROTHER.
Diva: Jen heads back to the party. Miss Fussy Pants is getting drunk with the drag queens and generally living the dream. Meanwhile, Henry walks alone on the pier because that’s what sad people do in this town. Back at Leery Manor, Mitch and Gail sit on the porch and have life chats. Pacey works on his boat. Back to Joey with her arm around Andie.
So, everything in this episode that didn’t have to do with Jen was either a total snooze (Dawson/Gail) or wildly offensive and problematic (every decision they had Andie make in this episode). Feminist rant time: pop culture would have us believe that stupid, vindictive, or downright “crazy” women falsely accuse men of rape all the time, just for funzies, or just because they regret having sex. But, despite the amount of time your devoted Snark Ladies spend analyzing it, pop culture is NOT real life. The number of falsely-reported rapes is unknown and probably unknowable, but the FBI estimates that in the U.S., people aren’t more likely to falsely report rape than any other crime. And, of course, less than half of all rapes are actually reported to the police at all. So it’s dangerous to have a plotline like this and not deal with it extremely carefully, since it promotes a “the crazy bitch made it all up for her own selfish purposes” stereotype that hurts a lot of people and keeps a lot of rape survivors, male and female, from coming forward. Worse yet, the show looped this in with Andie’s mental illness without actually considering the implications of that move. Was that “tunnel vision” conversation just an exaggeration, or can Andie truly not see right from wrong when it comes to certain things in her life? Yes, she has a history of mental health issues, but panic attacks, depression, anxiety, and even hallucinations do not add up to this seemingly-newfound inability to determine right from wrong. If the moral of this episode isn’t “Andie decided to falsely cry rape because that’s what girls do,” is it “Andie decided to falsely cry rape because that’s what crazy girls do”? Either way:
K: What she said. I actually watched this episode back in November and immediately after watching it, I sent an email to Diva apologising for sticking her with this episode and ranting about all my feels in rot13 in case she wanted to wait until she’d watched the episode before seeing my rant. And all I can say is that while I’m sorry Diva had to recap this bullshit episode, her level of feminist rage about it pleases me greatly. Now let’s all pretend this episode never happened. Agreed? Good.
Diva: I totally forgot about that email (because Kirsti is like 8,000 episodes ahead of me in these recaps, because I’m the worst), so thank you for reminding me to read all your rot13-ed rage. I’m ready to be angry all over again! And then to brain-bleach this entire storyline out of my memory.
Next time on Dawson’s Creek: Dawson basically rips off the Blair Witch Project in S03 E07 – Escape from Witch Island.
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