Previously on Dawson’s Creek…

It was Thanksgiving and everyone felt like this about it.

Jen’s mean mother showed up and it turns out that that old lady who was hanging out with Dawson a while back was her long-lost daughter, which Jen interpreted as, “My mother’s a slut.” Zing!

And Dawson got angry with his divorced parents for eating pie at the same table.

Then, Dawson’s news piece about Jack being a big gay football player has gotten him some slurry responses as well as some sultry responses, so he asks Andie for help in how to respond to a booty call from a stranger.

I would say that I remember when the internet was so slow that you had to watch jpegs being literally drawn layer-by-layer in front of you, but I can’t because I have never seen that happen in my life. Anyway, Jack decides to go out with Ben.

But then he cries a lot about it and stands Ben up.

Meanwhile, Pacey and Jen are still trying desperately to have sex and they decide to use Dawson’s room in the middle of a school day. Which, I mean… Ew. Ew. Don’t sneak into your friends’ bedrooms to have sex with people who are not your friends. When they hear Dawson coming home, Jen jumps out the window and Pacey dives to the floor to pretend he was playing video games.

And if you run that scene backwards, Pacey looks like he’s starring in a(nother) bad J-Horror.

Dawson later discovers a mysterious package in his room and wonders what in the world could be inside.

Meanwhile, Pacey and Joey are also sneaking around, making good on their mutual pact of math tutoring for Pacey and a dance partner for Joey so she can get a scholarship from a local dance studio. The dance instructor thinks that they’re such bad dancers because they’re into each other, which makes them hysterical.

It does not, however, amuse that old lady back there.

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And none of this amuses Jen – who is wondering if Pacey is fake-cheating on their fake relationship – or Dawson – who’s just a nosy busybody and wants to know why Joey and Pacey haven’t returned the 15 voicemails he’s left for them in the past 13 minutes. I don’t think they have enough popcorn in that video store, btw.

Anyway, they look out the window and see Joey and Pacey meeting up and walking into a building together, and Jen and Dawson decide to angrily follow them as if either one of them is in any semblance of a romantic relationship with either J or P. Of course, they discover that it’s a dance class and decide to leave, but the instructor grabs them and makes them dance with people in the room.

I like that Dawson is the lady in this situation. So, anyway, he thinks that Pacey’s unused condom was used on Joey and gets a little snippy and then Pacey’s like, “Yeah, not really,” and then Dawson’s like, “Good, because I don’t want anyone to go out with Joey ever for as long as I live and move onto other girls because I don’t really want to go out with her either,” and then Pacey’s like, “You’re the worst person in the world. In spite of her clunky shoes, oversized sweater, stupid skirt, awful hairstyle, and lack of control over her goofy faces, other guys probably find her attractive, so get over it already.”

After the dance class is over Jen and Pacey go into the coat room and start making out, only to be discovered by Dawson and Joey, who screeches at them about the mistake they’re making.

Dawson acts very world-weary about the whole thing, telling Joey that Jen and Pacey are lonely and just want someone to be with and that’s not a bad thing, even after Joey explains that she thinks their casual sex pact was very wrong. Dawson says it’s not for him, but he can understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, but he really can’t. It’s really just because Jen is his slutty ex-gf and not his pure virginal ex-gf so he won’t feel emasculated if she wants to sleep with someone else after having not slept with him.

Jen eventually tells Pacey that they shouldn’t bother anymore, because clearly he wants to be having sex with Joey and not her and even though it’s meant to be casual, she still wants the guy she wants to sleep with to not want someone else instead. And then she gets into a whole, “Why is it always Joey?” thing, but that doesn’t last long, thankfully, because honestly it could last forever since there’s absolutely no answer to that question. They part ways amicably, and then Joey comes back to non-apologize for being a lunatic the end.

Then, the whole gang goes up to Harvard to check out the college and they all make a bunch of excited college faces. It’s odd, though, because none of them appear to have sleeping arrangements except for Joey, who will be bunking with an assigned college student, but they all arrive and leave together, so I guess they were in some sort of strange time-space continuum where Joey got to spend a full 24 hours on campus but everyone else only got to spend, like, 5 hours on campus.

Dawson’s there because he entered his idiotic documentary about Witch Island in a film fest, but it turns out that everyone there hates it.

He’s forced to do a q&a, which almost everyone in the audience bails on, and then is scared by these mean lesbians and their lesbian interest in Joey.

And then he encounters an old hag who tells him that his movie sucked and that she could help him, and he doesn’t believe her until he goes and watches her movie which makes everyone in the audience cry and for which she gets a standing ovation and which we never get to see but it sounds like it was probably, like, a time-lapse of a flower blooming and then dying and some sad piano music playing over it. It also turns out that she’s the daughter of the new principal at Capeside High. Boo.

Meanwhile, Joey goes to meet her roommate, who was misasigned to her based on their “ambiguous first names.” Although, I feel like a school like HARVARD probably wouldn’t have this guy’s name officially listed as “AJ” and Joey, who’s such a stickler-for-rules stick-in-the-mud, would have almost certainly written her name down on her application as “Josephine”, so right off the bat, this is completely wrong. Also wrong is everything about this guy. He’s like a faux-Pacey. Like the guy that she’s supposed to date who would be Pacey if he applied himself (smart alecky, big eyebrows, etc) so that she can eventually see that she really just wants the Pacey who doesn’t apply himself. Except, he’s the worst. He’s the worst! After he berates her for being understandably confused about this mix-up, he tells her to go away so he can write his big important college paper. Plus, he’s proudly displaying what is probably Prince’s worst album. And! He signed up for the goddamn program to let a high school student crash in his dorm and then treats her like garbage once she gets there!

When Joey goes to audit a class (English 101, like I’m so sure), it turns out that he is the student teacher. The student teacher! He’s, like,a  sophomore! Undergrad! And not only is he student teaching, but he’s LECTURING! WHAT??? NOT ENOUGH EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!! He tells the class that he wants to continue their “great books discussion” and then asks the class what their “favorite books”. So, he picks on Joey, who says that her favorite book is Little Women. Then a bunch of snobby college kids are like, “Little Women sucks.” So, AJ looks condescendingly at Joey and announces that, as he’s said before, “Just because we identify with the main character, it doesn’t make a book truly great.” Yeah, valid and all (and valid about LW sucking), but you asked her for her favorite book, you stupid d-bag. And, meanwhile, “great books discussion?” WTF is that? I went to college (I know, right?) and I was an English minor, and in every single English class I ever took, I never once had a discussion of great books. I never even had a professor who referred to anything we read as a great book. I mean, I did have a poetry professor who couldn’t mention the Whitman poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” without prefacing it as, “The the most beautiful poem in the English language,” but that doesn’t really count. You know why? Because in college English classes, you read what the professor deems great because it’s what’s assigned and then you discuss it. You don’t arbitrarily pick great/favorite books to talk about. Doesn’t this guy have a syllabus???

Anyway, he ends up feeling bad for treating her like crap and blames it on the fact that he’s, like, really really smart and it’s hard for him to talk to pretty girls or something. To make up for his bad behavior, he brings her to the special collections library so that she can read from Louisa May Alcott’s very own copy of Little Women. Okay. Okay.

Just give me a second.

Okay. FIRST OF ALL, a university like Harvard is not going to have one small classroom dedicated to special collections. Second of all, no way is ANYONE getting in there with no librarians present. Third, who gave this idiot a key to the special collections library AT HARVARD? Fourth, she wouldn’t even be able to touch that book without white gloves on. URG! Also, he tells her all of this trivia about the book and how it was written and published and how he knows all about this particular copy and then he’s like, “So, why don’t you show me what this favorite book of yours has to offer?” like he’s never even heard of it. And then she starts reading to him. And then HE starts reading to HER! These people are creeps! I mean, worst date ever!

Meanwhile, Jack checks out the pink pages or whatever and finds a gay bar, which is hopping at, like, 3:00 in the afternoon, and then when a guy hits on him, he cries and runs out of the bar. I’m not making that up.

Then, now that Dawson’s old hag friend from Boston has officially started school in Capeside, he discovers that she’s already checked out a camera that he wanted to use. Dejected. He goes to her house and meets her father and then she tells him that if he’s not super passionate about film, he should just find something else he likes to do. Dejected.

He goes home and discovers that his mother has stripped the house bare of furniture so she can furnish her apartment. Dejected. (At least she left that strange colonial woman statue for him?)

So he puts on his biggest clothes and takes down all of his movie posters. Idiot.

Meanwhile, Jen and Jack go to this two-day music festival being held in a park, like, five minutes from their houses, but they decide to do a whole bunch of food shopping so they’ll have stuff to eat. If it were me, I would forget camping out and just walk down to the festival the next morning. But, I also wouldn’t tell Jack that appropriate cereal choices for a music festival are not Captain Crunch and Cocoa Pebbles, but rather Grape Nuts and Grape Nuts.

Also, Jack met this gay guy, Ethan, on the train back from Harvard who was like, “If you ever have any questions about being gay, I will be here for you 24/7.” And then Ethan ended up being at the music festival and was like, “Why don’t you sleep in my tent with me? I’m here for you.” And then Jack was like, “So, can we talk for a while?” And then Ethan was like, “I’m sleepy. Maybe some other time.”