On the bus home from Philadelphia (where he was staying with his mother), Dawson meets an old lady.

She tells him that drool is “saliva from sleep”, because she is helpful.

He steals his father’s boat, and the old lady almost gives him a blowjob.

But then he crashes the boat before she even gets his pants open. To pay for the damage, she gets her co-workers at the strip club to take up a collection, and when Dawson won’t accept the money, Pacey suggests having the strippers dance at a $20 a head party at Dawson’s house. They agree, because if there’s one thing strippers like to do more than give up their hard-earned money to a 15-year-old tool who doesn’t even know how to receive a blow job, it’s take off from a paying job to work for free at a party attended by a bunch of gropey teenage boys.

Joey, who hasn’t seen Dawson since they fought about her father being sent to prison, sneaks up to his bedroom during the party because she’s figured out that the only way to get Dawson back is to put out. So, she makes a series of completely uncomfortable faces to entice him.

Then she shows off her scoliosis. And then she whispers in a baby voice, “I can be sexual, Dawson.” It doesn’t work, because Dawson only has two boxes in his brain, one which says VIRGIN and one which says SEDUCTIVE OLD LADY WHORE and Joey and the old lady can’t both fit in one box at the same time, so until the old lady goes away, he can’t possibly think of Joey as anything other than a big giant doll with her underwear glued on. She leaves and acts like she was just playing him with the whole “let’s have sex act”, and then he tells Pacey that Joey is an emotion retard and is going to need somebody to guide her through the next few traumatic days without him.

Which sets into motion, of course, the only acceptable relationship that has ever occurred on this show, and it’s all Dawson’s fault.

Then, Pacey goes to the mental hospital to pick up his gf Andie (who is a mental patient, btw), but he finds out that she made a special friend in that short mental patient next to her and they were also probably just about to do it when Pacey walked in to take her home.

Andie makes a bunch of pained faces, but Pacey still dumps her.

Joey, Pacey’s new bff, tells him that he should give Andie a second chance, and also that somehow Andie sleeping with another guy while Pacey waited anxiously for her to come back home from the mental hospital hurt Andie more than it hurt him? Which makes Pacey sad, but still unwilling to forgive Andie.

In other news, Jack joined the football team, due to his body-contortion skills.

And Joey still refused to wear a bra or sit up straight.

And the PSATs (THE PSATS!) became such an important thing that authors of those PSAT study guide books were featured on the local news.

That old lady Dawson had been hanging out with stole the PSAT (how?) and gave it to Dawson, who then gathered all of his friends and was like, “I’m going to put this stolen test, for which we will a) gain approximately nothing and b) go to jail if anyone finds out, in the middle of the table and then we’re all gonna close our eyes and someone will take it.” Then when it’s gone, he gets really angry at everyone for it. Meanwhile, Andie tells Pacey that she’s purging him from her life, so Pacey gets drunk and goes to Joey’s work to commiserate. Dawson comes looking for him and assumes that he’s drunk because he’s guilty because he stole the PSAT.

Look at Dawson’s stupid clothes. Anyway, they get in a fight because Dawson refuses to believe Pacey, and then Pacey tells Dawson that he’s a jerk who only sees things in black and white so of course he would think that the screw up who gets bad grades would steal a test, and then Dawson randomly accuses Pacey of making Andie go nuts in the first place, and then this happens:

Which is something I could watch all day long.

I was just talking to my friend Mike the other day about why we still haven’t gotten over our thing about guys being a little beat up looking.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Joey comes out to break up the fight and acts as the voice of reason for the first and only time ever on this show when she tells Pacey that if Dawson wants to believe he stole the stupid test, let him believe it, because who cares what Dawson thinks anyway. And besides, it turns out that it’s basketcase Andie who stole the test anyway. Boo.

Then, Dawson decides to make a news piece for his mother’s local news station about Jack being a big gay football player.

Mitch, the high school football coach, puts on his glasses to scold Dawson. He doesn’t want the whole team being thrown off focus because of Dawson’s stupid movie ambition which has now, for today, morphed into a journalism ambition. He ends up running the piece anyway, because he’s a baby, and the football team ends up being fine (they all wear makeup so none of the rival team members can target the gay guy, although I doubt that would have worked because Jack plays a specific position and also wears a specific number and I think football players notice those things, but I guess the lesson was everyone in the world is homophobic but Dawson, no homo).

Then Dawson and Mitch have another fight, because Dawson thinks that Mitch would be more supportive of him if Dawson was a football player like Jack and not an ARTIST with an AMBITION and Mitch is like, “You stupid asshole, you only wanted to make movies because you always saw me filming everything with MY video camera, and I’ve bought you thousands of dollars worth of film equipment and I’m going to go to my grave one day having just entered your stupid documentary into a film festival, so eff you.” Then Dawson apologizes without ever really saying he’s sorry and he and Mitch gingerly toss a football back and forth from 5 feet.

Meanwhile, Pacey bought a boat and makes Joey play hooky with him to pick up a part for it, and they possibly get high.

Also, Dawson digs out some old home movies which he didn’t film, but somehow are what made him want to be a filmmaker? Hey, isn’t it great that not only did Mitch just happen to capture the exact moment that soul mates Joey and Dawson met each other, but that he had three separate angles on the event? He was a planner. Also, RUN JOEY!

Then, Capeside is hit with a heatwave and everybody

is

sweaty. Dawson is attempting to understand film noir so he can write a paper about it, and Pacey’s like, “You can’t understand film noir because film noir features people doing amoral things and you’re a morality robot.” So, that old lady Dawson’s involved with is sneaking around town and Dawson finds her sneaking into Jen’s house, and he follows her around. It’s so boring.

He follows her to a boat she’s been squatting in, and his investigation skills involve finding unopened candy and pizza in the boat he just watched her leave from and being like, “I think she was in here??” He also finds a picture of Jen’s mother in there and I don’t think it’s ever brought up again, and this is also the last we ever see of the old lady, so.

Elsewhere, Andie goes out with Joey’s pervy boss, and Joey crashes their date to make sure that her pervy boss doesn’t try anything pervy on Andie. The only reason I’m mentioning this is because Andie tells Joey at the movie theater that she’s not embarrassed that the pervy boss is checking her out because, “Some people like to be looked at as sexual objects, Joe.” Um, what? Nice chaste sundress and pigtails, btw, Andie.

And speaking of quotable quotes… There’s a “special feature” on this disc which is, like, a big interactive map and when you click on a place (Dawson’s house, the high school, etc.), a little scene that took place in that particular location pops up. But, first, a quote from that scene sort of fades in and out over a watercolor picture while tinkly music plays in the background. These were my favorites:

EDIT: I redid it, less well than I did it the first time. But, redid nonetheless.

Oh, speaking of big hips. Sally and I were watching the Full House episode where DJ starts junior high, and it’s this big joke because she’s wearing this outfit that happens to match one that a much-hated lunchroom monitor/teacher is wearing, and then all the kids laugh at her, and she locks herself in a phone booth and calls that number where it tells you what time it is and she pretends she’s talking to a friend the whole time. Which, she’s obviously not, because she makes this big show of going, “Hi! How are you?” and then closes the doors, but then she just stands there with this sour look on her face, obviously not speaking anymore. Everyone was laughing at her! You know they could see her in that booth and they could tell she was totally faking it. DJ is such a loser. Oh, anyway, but her outfit was this beige-y oversized shirt and a patterned vest, and this pair of giant clown pants. They matched the shirt, and they were real cinched at the waist and then EXPLODED out in this 10-yard mess of fabric that was all gathered at the tightly tapered ankles. And big giant white sneakers. It was awesome. But, she didn’t really learn her lesson all that much after she put on a bunch of makeup (which made her look like a “baby hooker”, according to Sal) and this cha-cha dress (which we want to know where it came from anyway) and a pair of cowboy boots and was made to go back upstairs and change by Danny, and then got makeup tips from Rebecca on how to look a little bit more subtle. She ended up going to school the next day in a neon green short and tee shirt set with a big orange jacket over it.
I mean, no wonder she became anorexic that one time. They were always putting her in these HUGE oversized shirts to make her look fatter than she was. She was one of those chubby-but-not-chubby girls, which is pretty common at 12. She had a round face and she was a little thick, but she wasn’t really fat at all. Or even chubby. If they hadn’t used so many flowing fabrics on her, she probably wouldn’t have developed an eating disorder! For that one day! I’m just sayin’.
That episode’s awesome. Especially when you can fast forward through the whole “Joey teaches Jesse golf” scenes.
Don’t judge us for having episodes of Full House on tape.
Because we only have a couple.