We’re rewatching all of Dawson’s Creek in honor of its twentieth anniversary. Will require some mind-numbing. Drinking game rules can be found here.

Season 6, Episode 7 “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell”

By Nerdy Spice

Audrey’s Downward Spiral continues in spectacular fashion in this episode.

What also continues is Joey and Eddie’s never-ending melodrama. Joey is being weirdly “tactful” (read: condescendingly coy) about Hetson’s class, worried that it’ll upset Eddie, but now that they’re all hot and heavy he doesn’t take offense. I guess the making out put him in a better mood. Which is good. Joey, for her part, claims she feels smart now that she’s free of Eddie’s “snarky feedback.” Yes, Joey. It’s called “negging” and it’s designed to make you feel like shit so you’ll make out with him, and it worked, so why bother coming to class anymore?

When Joey does deign to come back to her dorm room, she’s shocked to find out that Audrey had dumped Pacey. Audrey’s a wee bit bitter about the fact that Joey’s been too obsessed with her back-and-forth with Eddie, but by the time they run into each other at the bar for a Hell’s Belles performance Audrey is in a GREAT mood. She buys shots for everyone (the “future boyfriends of America!”) and it takes CJ, who’s staring at her a little too closely for Jen’s taste, to point out that she’s clearly trying to drown out some kind of feelings.

Audrey proceeds to get sloppy, and when Eddie tries to cut her off, she rudely calls him “Suckaa” for some reason. Joey, who is too busy trying to make everyone happy to do the right thing, just smiles uncomfortably while her friend acts like an asshole. Even when Audrey ends the fight by yelling “What’s it like looking down the barrel of a gun and seeing a janitor’s uniform and a bus pass?” Joey just says, “I’m not her keeper.” Oh my GOD, VOM. You don’t have to be someone’s keeper to stand up for a fellow human being that you’re also dating when your friend acts like a classist jerk. Eddie is equally disgusted, and he’s proven right about not serving Audrey when she puts on a wild show and makes a giant mess in the bar.

Joey ends up in the bathroom holding Audrey’s hair and says gently that this doesn’t seem like Audrey. Audrey gets defensive and says, “I feel like I don’t want to have a soulful exchange about how I’m bad and you’re good.” It’s kind of fair. Finally Audrey clinches it, telling Joey, “And don’t feed me a bunch of crap about how you don’t need to drink or do drugs to have fun, because I’ve given it some thought, and you know what? I’ve never seen you have fun a day in my life!” And if you weren’t squealing with shock (and a little glee) from that, Audrey finishes up with, “Except that whole singing thing and even then you were just imitating me.” WOW. Game, set, match to Audrey. Finally, she calls Joey out on not noticing Audrey was depressed “until I upset your little boyfriend from Southie.” Joey, like an idiot, responds with, “Eddie is not my boyfriend,” and Audrey bitterly–and VERY TRULY–calls her out on how “pathetic” it is that that was the only part Joey had a response to. (She wins the scene for sure, so, take a shot!)

Eddie loses a few points in my book, too, though, because at the end of the night he remarks snottily that you can “learn a lot about a person when you see them with their friends.” For some reason I feel like he’s just judging Joey for having a sloppy friend, not for the real problem which was her total lack of spine when Audrey insulted him. I dunno. I’m mostly just down on Eddie because I feel like he is SUCH a drama queen, always deciding he hates Joey and then reeling her back in by giving her puppy eyes from under his giant hair. In fact, he calls things off while they’re fighting at the bar, saying that “the dance we do” is only a flirtation and shouldn’t continue, then like a day later shows up at her dorm to take it all back. See? He’s such a drama queen!

Joey shows a hint of having self-preservation instincts when she points out that their little thing is more trouble than perhaps it’s worth, but finally they decide to go on a date… and then Eddie negs her AGAIN! (Another shot!) He tells her he thinks he was wrong with her, that he thought she was everything he hated but she might be “everything he’s missing.” That sounds sweet, but… nope. Run away, Joey. Run away right now. That was beyond a neg and straight into “I’m going to spend our entire relationship asking you to apologize for your beauty and your privilege” territory. (Even though I think she actually should have apologized for not standing up to him in front of Audrey.)

For his part, Jack is still entwined in his awkward flirtation with his Dreamy Closeted Professor.  Supposedly, he is kind of dating CJ’s cute friend David. Jen makes it weird by desperately plotting to bring CJ along, and Jack, who found out from CJ that he’s not interested in Jen, is too much of a weenie to actually TELL Jen that. And Jen does not seem to believe David’s assertion that CJ doesn’t date at all. I feel kind of bad for CJ here. He thinks Jen’s been made clear on his stance when actually she has no idea because Jack is a wuss and Jen can’t take a hint. CJ confesses to her that he’s an alcoholic to explain why he doesn’t date, and she just takes it as a reason to keep hitting on him. It’s so uncomfortable. She tells him to change his mind about himself, and then while he pauses in silence, she leans in to kiss him!

Ugh, so rapey! Hello!! He said he doesn’t date, Jen! And I think the saddest part is that she seems to be really fixated on him because he thinks highly of her (because he liked her radio show, I guess?) and so few men have ever even been nice to her that she’s completely obsessed with him despite their palpable lack of chemistry (and his palpable lack of interest).

The other sad part, of course, is that Jen finally found a guy to fall for who’s not in love with Joey, and he proceeded to fall in love with her other best friend instead. She’s cursed.

Once CJ bundles Jen off, he finds Audrey sitting on the curb, bitter, and sits companionably beside her. She insists that she’s not a drunk, and when he asks if drinking helps, she tells him that she feels nothing when she drinks. He offers to talk, but she asks to just sit in silence. She also mentions that she’s sober, which will be important to remember later, when Joey wakes up the next morning and finds that Audrey’s not in her bed.

But meanwhile, Jack can’t even be bothered to show up on his own date. Because Jack’s gross professor is leaving to teach at Chicago, and he seeks out Jack specifically to beg Jack to go to his book signing–after telling Jack he hopes that his inappropriateness didn’t crush Jack’s dreams of not being an academic failure. Um… maybe don’t be weirdly emotionally demanding of your STUDENT right after apologizing for your previous inappropriateness? Just a thought. Jack, too young to realize this, still goes to the signing–and within thirty seconds the professor drops the word “stimulating.” What a creeper.

Jack hangs out with him instead of meeting up with David, but at the end of a series of increasingly creepy come-ons from the professor, Jack finally declares that he doesn’t want to keep making the same mistakes he always maks, which… what? I guess treating nice boys like David like garbage is kind of a repeat, but being hot for inappropriate men isn’t really Jack’s usual problem. Anyway, he finds David outside the bar and David is shockingly nice about it.

Pacey’s gross boss Rich takes him and all his greasy-haired colleagues on some kind of overnight trip to go scam on drunk women in New Orleans. Pacey is luckily kind of bad at hitting on women because he keeps talking about Audrey. Then he and Rich pair off and Rich literally HOOTS while approaching a classy-looking blonde woman. He hoots. I’m not joking. Pacey seems to swoop in and get the girl by being marginally less disgusting than Rich, but figures out later that she’s actually a sex worker who was paid by Rich to go home with him, and he goes off and punches Rich in the face. Toxic masculinity is toxic. Whatever.

• Eddie makes a Hemingway reference (“a clean well-lighted place”) without bragging about it. It’s not an obscure one or anything, and of course the guy likes Hemingway, but I appreciate him not namedropping. Shot for the reference!
• Joey claims Hell’s Belles is going to “thoroughly rock the house down.” “Thoroughly rock”? That is so cute. It’s like if Grams was about to go see a metal band.
• Jack’s inappropriate professor claims that “The publication of my critical essays has secured my academic visitation in Chicago.” LOLWAT. That’s not how academia works. I mean, maybe it kind of is, but only if an alien from outer space (or, you know, Hollywood) was describing it.
• Audrey claims to normally be “low-maintenance.” That’s a hilarious joke. She wins the scene. Shot!
• Jen sees Jack and his adorable potential boyfriend acting like adults and claims that “gays have it so easy.” Take a shot for Jen’s fake, hilariously straightwashed feminism! –Janes
• Professor Hetson has not yet been IN this episode and yet he’s negging Joey — take a shot! Joey reports a second-hand neg: he spent five minutes of class telling her that she will apparently never understand Pynchon. Seriously, I know I’ve said this before, don’t all the other students feel weird sitting around watching Hetson bully one person all the damn time?
• Wow, Joey’s dancing in the bar is so adorably dorky. There’s lip biting, awkwardly holding hands behind head, nodding up and down… basically all of my own signature moves! And she’s wearing a thick fuzzy sweater in a bar! Although of course when Katie Holmes does all this, it looks coltishly graceful by virtue of her being, you know, Katie Holmes.
• Eddie: “You just  just learn a lot about someone when you see them with their friends.” That’s a neg. Shot! But, he’s right that she didn’t defend him and that she didn’t “mentally show up.”
• Joey says she doesn’t want to sound like “an afterschool special,” and then promptly implies that people only drink when they “feel awful about something.” Audrey’s right, this isn’t a good look on her. –Janes
• It’s funny to watch CJ giving Audrey his gloves while they sit outside, because like, they’re clearly filming in North Carolina where it’s warm, and no one looks cold. Even when Joey swans around in her winter coats, she has no hat, which, if they were actually in Boston any time between October and April, could easily result in the loss of an earlobe to frostbite.
• I really don’t like that CJ sleeps with Audrey at this particular moment. I know she says she’s sober, so it not nonconsensual or anything, but for him to sleep with her right after she tells him that she’s dangerously vulnerable still seems–gross. –Janes
• “I really appreciate your moral outrage but there’s no need to get violent,’ Rich says hilariously when Pacey punches him.
• David talks about “baggage,” but who the hell cares about the hot professor? His and Jack’s only interactions have been awkward and usually also unprofessional! That doesn’t count as Jack’s “baggage.” Hi, what about his mean homophobic dad and his dead brother and his troubled mother and sister?
• The song playing in the background at the end is “Orange Sky,” which was later used on The OC. It’s a good one, and I didn’t realize it was also on this show!

Highlight:

Um… it’s probably gotta be Audrey telling Joey she “never had fun a day in [her] life.” BURN!

Most Cringeworthy Moment:

It’s actually earned this time, when Audrey makes a drunken ass out of herself at the bar.

Drunkenness Rating:

Eight shots, including one for Pacey creeping on a bunch of women in New Orleans, so approximately a third as drunk as Audrey.

Season 6, Episode 8 “Spiderwebs”

By Janes

This is a super weird episode. Basically, all of the characters go to the same No Doubt concert, which could have been the making of a holiday-esque episode where all the simmering tensions in the group boil over. But instead, all the characters go in different groups, so it feels just like any other season 5-6 episode (namely, fractured, low-stakes, and with way too much emphasis on annoying tangential characters). [You’re so right! It’s basically three loosely connected No Doubt commercials. –Nerdy Spice] Joey goes with Eddie, but forgets her tickets so they have to sneak in. Dawson takes Natasha, but his tickets are for the wrong night so he, weirdly, also has to sneak in. Jack, Jen, Audrey, and Pacey go together, but the drama is pretty much taken over by the whole Audrey/CJ debacle, which is an improvement over Jen/CJ but still manages to be pretty boring.

Honestly, the most interesting thing about this episode is how much effort all of the characters are making to go to a No Doubt concert. Joey insists she and Eddie keep trying to get into the concert because she “loves this band,” Dawson tries to wrap production early so he can impress Natasha with backstage passes (which are kind of cool, I guess, but it’s still No Doubt), and Jen, Jen, who just last season was pretentiously complaining that “no one rocks anymore,” positively squeals when Dawson gives her the tickets. I know the writers need to show a little love to their high-profile musical guest, but this is a little over-the-top, even in 2002.

Anyway, as Joey and Eddie are sneaking into the concert, Joey sees Dawson and Natasha, and makes Eddie hide from them. From that, he deduces that she must have “trust issues,” or something (shot!). Then, he gets them in by pulling a favor with his father, who just so happens to work at the arena. He tells Joey that he has daddy issues–shocker–and that his father “isn’t big on higher education,” which is why he dropped out after one semester. WHAT??? So after all this time that he’s been torturing her about being “fancy” because she had the opportunity to go to college, he could have gone to college this whole time? So he’s not some underprivileged poor kid, he’s just a privileged white dude who thinks he’s too “real” for academia? (I’m not surprised, just annoyed.)

For once, this actually doesn’t devolve into some sort of class conflict, but instead leads to a nice, vulnerable moment where Joey tells Eddie about her complicated relationship with her dad, who was more encouraging than Eddie’s but less present. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re cute together, but this conversation at least provides some clue as to what their relationship is based on. He even gives her a nice compliment and says her dad “must have done something right”… and then promptly ruins it by negging her about walking these “hallowed halls.” Shot!

Meanwhile, Jen continues to pull the Nice Guy routine with CJ. CJ tells her very politely that he’s interested in someone else, which is already more than he owes her at this point, and she flips the f out because he said he “wasn’t ready to date.” Like, Jen, maybe be a little less selfish while this guy that you barely know is in recovery from alcoholism? And then CJ admits that he slept with this other woman–again, none of Jen’s business–and Jen gets all up in his grill about his “moral code.” Seriously, is she a man??

Then CJ innocently mentions Audrey, and she immediately deduces that he slept with her. She gets all mad, and tells Audrey that she thought Audrey was “messed up,” but really she’s just “sad.” This is, at least, a little more legit than getting mad at CJ, who owes Jen nothing. But still, Jen should get over herself. Audrey is clearly messed up right now, and even if she wasn’t, CJ isn’t Jen’s boyfriend. In the immortal words of Stockard Channing, there are worse things she could do.

Sidebar: We’re supposed to think that Jen suspected CJ of having a thing for Audrey last week, right? Because she jumped on the idea that Audrey was the mystery woman super quickly, almost like she was waiting for it. That would explain why she was so gung-ho about getting Pacey and Audrey back together, when their relationship is so clearly over. That’s super manipulative behavior, but considering how she generally behaves around CJ, it makes way more sense than Jen just trying to do something nice for Audrey.

Speaking of which, both Pacey and Audrey act like there’s a real chance that they’re getting back together, which is a little confusing to me. I guess every long-term couple has that moment where they consider backsliding, but they’re acting like there’s a possibility that their breakup was just a bad fight. Pacey apologizes for being a “swine” and flirts with her, while Audrey doesn’t correct CJ when he accuses her of “having a boyfriend.” Maybe she’s just trying to shake CJ off, but considering how perfectly brutal and definitive their breakup was, it all strikes me as a little odd.

Anyway, she and Pacey both admit that they “miss” each other (which even they don’t seem to believe), and then CJ takes Audrey aside for his own moment of male entitlement. He insists that she shouldn’t be with Pacey because he “makes her miserable,” while CJ made her super happy the other night. You would think he’d understand depression a little better than that, considering everything he’s been through, but whatever. Also, SHE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU. Maybe CJ and Jen really do belong together, because they’re both having a lot of trouble grasping this concept.

CJ keeps trying to claim that it’s been a long time since he felt about someone the way he feels about Audrey, whom he barely knows, and she drops a bunch of truth bombs on him: “It’s been a long time since you had sex, and you’re incredibly grateful because you’re incredibly messed up.” And re: their night together, she says: “This is the way the world works. Pretty much all the time, girls run around and feel bad about themselves. They’re either too weak or too stupid to go home alone. So, sometimes guys just win the lottery. That’s it. It doesn’t mean anything.” Aside from the “weak and stupid” part, she’s on point. If you sleep with someone who’s clearly vulnerable and trying to forget things, you can’t really complain when they don’t want to get a milkshake with you afterwards.

Pacey overhears enough of this conversation to glean what happened, and punches CJ in the face. UGH. She doesn’t belong to you! Either of you! Neither of you are her boyfriends! Jeez.

Also, Dawson and Natasha don’t get into the concert, even with her boobs’ best efforts, and then they get hauled to a police station for loitering and making out on a car. It’s pretty pointless, but I guess it’s supposed to show that she’s Just Fun, like all women with big boobs and a healthy sex drive.

• I didn’t even realize that Dawson wasn’t in the previous episode until he popped up in the teaser, asking everyone to catch him up. It’s kind of sad.
• Eddie jokes that he’s not sure driving to Worcester is worth it if he’s only going to get a “measly little good night kiss” at the end. Um, GROSS. Why is everything about him so gross except for his face?
• OMG Jen actually says that “Joey broke up with Pacey.” WTF!! She was there when it happened, and there was literally no interpretation of events that could lead someone to that conclusion. Audrey has to set Jen straight, and she wasn’t even there. (Two shots for rewriting history and for Audrey’s awesomeness!)
• This extended concert sequence is hilarious. Not only is all the Dawson’s Creek characters attending a No Doubt concert the most 2002 thing that’s ever happened, but the scenes are terribly edited and it’s super obvious that No Doubt isn’t actually in the same room with the actors. At first I thought they just used old footage, which would be pretty ballsy, but Gwen Stefani does say “Worcester” at some point, so they must have filmed it on a soundstage.
• I love the exasperated “ughhhh” noise that Natasha makes as she and Dawson are pushed out by the backstage crew. —Nerdy Spice
• Ugh, I hate how Jen totally Nice-Guys CJ. She tried to kiss him knowing he doesn’t date, then makes “casual” “jokes” about how they hang out so much even though they’re not dating, and then when he actually tries to be upfront that he’s interested in someone else she ASKS IF HE SLEPT WITH HER, which is so inappropriate it fucking boggles my mind. If she were a guy, she’d be… well, Dawson. Maybe those two really should’ve ended up together. —Nerdy Spice
• And honestly, I don’t even feel like what Audrey did is that pathetic. So Jen liked CJ. Big deal! Jen knew Joey liked Dawson when she slept with him! You don’t own a guy just because you like him… especially in college, when everyone knows the same people. —Nerdy Spice
• I hate how Joey points out that they’re moving farther away from the music and Eddie accuses her of not trusting him. Basically she’s supposed to let him navigate and ignore the evidence of her senses because… he’s the man, I guess? So condescending. —Nerdy Spice
• OMG, is that Emma rocking out to No Doubt? THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.
• “My inner drama queen respects her refusal to come out of the bathroom till Jen and Pacey leave,” David quips of Audrey. Hee! —Nerdy Spice

Highlight:

Unexpectedly, this one goes to Emma, who finally calls Pacey on his crap. She points out the obvious, that Audrey is not his girlfriend, and punching people is not generally acceptable even if she were. Then she drops this on him: “Is it so difficult for you just to admit that she hurt you? Or that you might feel a little guilty about the way things ended, or that possibly, despite all your protestations to the contrary, that you still want to save this girl?” Emma: 3, Pacey: 0.

Most cringeworthy moment:

Jen says she’s not going to get mad at CJ for sleeping with Audrey and “apply some ridiculous double standard to the situation just because my feelings got a little bit hurt,” and then proceeds to get mad at him and basically tells him that choosing Audrey means that he’s probably going to relapse. Real nice.

Drunkenness level:

Six, half for Audrey’s awesomeness and the other half for Eddie negs.

Season 6, Episode 9 “Everything Put Together Falls Apart”

By Nerdy Spice

Over on set, Dawson and Todd have landed a big fish: Max Winter is the name of a very made-up movie star who’s coming to the set to shoot a bit part that’s going to be worked into the sequel or something. Todd’s very excited and insists that “he could do for this project what Drew Barrymore did for Scream.” (Ten shots for an open Kevin Williamson movie reference!) When Dawson makes fun of Todd for being nervous, Todd parries with, “I seem to remember a certain assistant getting all hot and bothered simply transferring a call from a [high and breathy voice] ‘Mr. Spielberg’?” Hee! Max shows up, and he’s played by the dude that played Rachel’s hot assistant Tag on Friends. He creepily demands “a word” with his costar. Natasha’s a little too starstruck for Dawson’s taste. “I’m going to kiss Max Winter!” she squeals, to which Dawson makes this amusing little “I don’t know what ot say to that” expression:

Worse yet, Max shows up to Natasha’s trailer to “rehearse” and makes Dawson leave because he’s so “vulnerable” while he’s acting. It’s actually pretty funny because he’s so skeezy. Of course, Natasha is completely weak at the knees for him, and Dawson overhears her telling Max that there’s nothing between her and Dawson: “God no, he’s the PA!” She proceeds to ditch Dawson that night to get drinks with Max.

You’d think I’d feel bad for Dawson here, but he promptly ruins it: he and Todd get drinks that night and commiserate. Dawson complains that when he looks at her he only thinks of sex, and Todd agrees, “And they know that. And that’s how they walk all over us.” Ugh, gross. Women aren’t just hanging out thinking of ways to use our feminine wiles to ruin people’s lives! That night, Dawson sees Natasha coming home late from drinks with Max, but she lies that she’s been watching TV for hours. With a little effort on her part, she gets him into bed. And of course we’re supposed to see this as Dawson being “trampled on” instead of Dawson choosing sex over the difficult conversation. Ugh.

Joey goes to the bar to study for Hetson’s exam because, according to her, the library is too full of people studying (including in the bathroom for lack of space) and the dorms are too full of partiers since almost everyone is done with finals. So … who’s studying in the library bathroom then? But whatever, we all know that it’s just a reason to get Joey over to Eddie’s place. Sure enough, Eddie promptly offers up so that Joey can have a quiet place to study. He finds her passed out in his bed when he gets off work that night, and sweetly tucks her in.

I had a college professor who once spent awhile explaining to us that of course everyone loves their partner the most when they’re asleep–because when they’re not conscious they can’t have their own thoughts and personalities to get in the way of the romanticized image of them we have in our heads. I forget which post-modernist author he was paraphrasing and it is of course very cynical, but it always stuck with me, and it really applies here; when you’re only able to be nice to each other when one of you is unconscious, BREAK UP.

The next morning Eddie wakes Joey up at the crack of dawn with coffee. She has three hours till her exam at that point, which is apparently the perfect time for her to start a major relationship discussion. She describes at great length her pattern of freaking out about sex and tell him she can’t find a reason to freak out this time. Oh really? Because I am as sex-positive as they come, and I’m pretty sure I can think of about ten reasons NOT to sleep with someone who’s constantly accusing you of being a horrible person and kind-of-sort-of breaking up with you. But who’s listening to me, anyway? No one, especially not Joey, who takes Eddie to her (well, his) bed and ends up sleeping right through the first two hours of Hetson’s exam. WHOOPS.

Joey’s first response is to blame Eddie, which… dude was feeding you COFFEE when you decided now was the time to overcome your sex hangups. The only thing that he contributed to this situation was the fact that he’s super handsome and it got you all thirsty, and even there you could argue he was born that way and couldn’t really help it. Joey’s next response is to seek out Hetson and accuse him of being ‘vindictive” for not letting her take a makeup exam on a test that she missed through her own irresponsible choices.

It’s not like I don’t know how Joey feels, OK. The first week that I had a boyfriend in college, I also slept through a midterm. I showed up forty minutes into a one-hour exam, in my PJs (dude wasn’t even in my room that night — I was just sleepy from all the unaccustomed socializing!). Anyway, but the point is, I didn’t go to my TA and whine that I slept through the exam and accuse her of being a jerk for giving me a D. I took the D and accepted it as the natural consequence of my own actions. Joey apparently has not learned this life skill. She’s such a narcissist that she just assumes she deserves a retest because Reasons, and actually thinks Hetson’s only saying no due to a grudge! For once I agree with Eddie: “That’s how people grow up, Jo. They learn from their mistakes!” Yeah, it’s called SETTING REDUNDANT ALARMS. Look into it. Sigh.

The only thing I got out of this episode was realizing that it’s unjust to put grade requirements on scholarships that aren’t in place for people paying their own way. In that sense I do feel for Joey — but the way she’s going about it is bratty AF.

It all comes to a head that night when Joey shows up to work. She basically tells poor Eddie it was a mistake to sleep with him (which I actually agree with, mostly because he spends the whole evening lecturing her about not knowing what matters in life like a big jerk — shot for him negging her yet again) and then when Hetson himself happens to show up to her place of business to order a meal, she gets all pissy with him again. Hetson, having completely freaked Joey out by blithely declining to care about her misfortunes, turns his sights to bullying the slightly tougher Eddie. He asks Eddie what’s it like to know that he’s going nowhere and Joey is going places, and Eddie hauls off and punches him. Joey, whose judgment has gone right out the window, actually enjoys this and promptly makes up with Eddie, because one guy punching another guy really proves anything!

Speaking of other people you shouldn’t sleep with, Emma and Pacey have developed a certain tendresse for each other. It starts with Emma in a righteous temper because Pacey hasn’t cleaned the toilet since he moved in, and Pacey making a deal to clean the bathroom in exchange for her accompanying him to his firm holiday party. He buys her a three-hundred dollar dress even though the holiday party takes place in the office, which… just goes to show you that at this point in Dawson’s Creek history, they had such a small production budget that it was actually smaller than the average self-respecting hedge fund’s budget for a holiday party. This firm would TOTALLY be shelling out to rent a trashy club if not a full-on ballroom at a swanky hotel. SO unrealistic.

We later find out the reason for the dress: there’s a thousand-dollar pool for the guy with the hottest date. Unfortunately for Pacey, Emma has cut up her three-hundred-dollar dress and made it into a punk-princess masterpiece, complete with safety-pin straps and a choker. Rich spends his night snottily making fun of Emma in that way that only hot people on TV ever do. Finally she stands up to him, and then learns the truth about the night in the ladies’ room. But when Pacey finds her stewing at home, all he has to do is lean in and tell her that she was the most beautiful girl in the room and, like every other girl on this show who’s been the subject of one of Pacey’s adorable little speeches, she melts. They’re five seconds into a hot makeout sesh when Jack shows up and plops down between them on the couch to eat some Drunk Burritos.

Honestly, I don’t care about Emma at all, but as a self-respecting modern woman she definitely deserves better than a guy who would participate in this stupid pool and can’t even be bothered to clean his own toilet unless he gets a date out of it. Season six Pacey (or at least, first-half-of-season-six Pacey) is NOT my cup of tea.

• I don’t care about Emma either, but I definitely laughed out loud when she said trying to find Pacey at his office party was like “trying to find one cow in a whole field of them.” Hee! –Janes
• Hetson asks Joey if she was late because she was “staring into the abyss of her future.” Shot!
• Joey gets all mad at Hetson for showing up at the bar and ordering food from her as if “nothing happened.” Hetson responds snottily, “From my perspective, nothing much did happen.” And I have to admit I can’t blame him for taking a little gleeful pleasure in this statement, since Joey is being so utterly unreasonable here.
• Pacey acts like he’s above the rest of his misogynist coworkers, but at least they told their dates about the contest, so they knew what they were getting themselves into. Season 6 Pacey is the worst. –Janes
• After #MeToo, Todd’s comment that Natasha is inevitably going to sleep with other people because Dawson “doesn’t affect her next movie offer” is… off-color at best. –Janes
• The closed captions tell me that when Max drops Natasha in her room, he says, “She has 1/16th of the sexual presence you have.” What a specific fraction and awkward compliment. –Janes
• There’s something about ice skating where Joey finds Eddie’s figure skates and he gets all weird and they both joke about his “masculine grace.” Yay, nineties-style gay panic? But at the end, Joey and Eddie have a romantic skate on an ice hockey rink thanks to his blue-collar dad, so that’s nice, I guess.

Highlight

Gotta say I really just love the evil smirk Hetson gets when Joey accidentally lets slip that she wasn’t even in her own room:

He’s all, “Wasn’t even in your… what?” even though he knows the answer. It’s evil and hilarious.

Most cringeworthy moment:

It’s so super cringeworthy when Joey accuses Hetson of having a grudge against her because he doesn’t bend the rules for her utterly inadequate excuse, that it even beats out Pacey’s stupid office pool or Todd and Dawson’s idiotic discussions of feminine treachery.

Drunkenness rating:

Fourteen shots, mostly for the Scream reference, but also including one for Pacey’s newfound misogyny and one for Dawson blaming women for his problems.

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