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 10 “Merry Mayhem”

By Janes

Yay, it’s a Christmas episode! Holiday episodes are always fun, not to mention criminally underused on this show, considering how much built-in drama they provide. And on that front, this episode does not disappoint. Everyone’s families are crazy, their relationships are falling apart at the seams, Audrey is in the middle of a spectacular mental breakdown, and it all devolves into not one, but two truth-telling speeches and massive destruction of property. So, basically it’s Christmas.

We start with Joey and Eddie–or, more accurately, we start with this insanely weird, A Cinderella Story-esque voiceover about how Joey is just a “simple” girl who finally found her happy ending, confirming that the writers honestly believe Joey is a fairy tale princess. I can’t even describe how tonally strange this moment is.

Anyway, Joey and Eddie have some of the most offensive dialogue in the entire series. Joey pretends she doesn’t want Eddie to come home with her for Christmas, but then admits that she totally does. She makes herself totally vulnerable, even accidentally referring to Eddie as her “boyfriend,” and Eddie just mumbles something about “the juncture of too much too soon,” which doesn’t even make any sense. Joey apologizes for asking and, instead of acting like a human being and saying she doesn’t need to apologize, he actually replies, “I accept your apology.” What an asshat. Then, he and Joey grossly joke about how he’s acting like a “typical guy” and she’s acting like a “typical girl,” just in case the sexism was too subtle for any of us.

And Joey uses the “r” word for no discernible reason! They are actually the worst this episode. The only redeemable things about them are Eddie’s face and Joey’s cute Christmas braids:

After getting snubbed by Eddie, Joey invites her back-up, Audrey, to come home for Christmas with her after Audrey misses her flight home. It seems like a nice gesture at first, but then Audrey mentions drinking in the airport and Joey just sort of widens her eyes and goes, “Isn’t it a little early to be knocking ‘em back, Audrey?” and then makes a “lighthearted” joke about Audrey going to rehab. Is she NEW HERE? Did she not hear Audrey yell at her like, three episodes ago for not noticing her alcoholic downward spiral and generally being a terrible friend? Jeez.

Audrey and Joey go home to Capeside, where Mr. Potter is just sort of hanging out, hugging everyone and being all grandfatherly towards Alexander. It’s a little jarring, but I kind of love that there’s no drama about his criminal history. It’s no longer an active source of drama, it just sort of informs Joey’s character, which is unusually restrained for this show.

Instead, as usual, the drama centers around Eddie. After making such a nauseatingly huge deal about it being “too much too soon,” Eddie surprises Joey for Christmas. I’m fully aware that there’s no way for this to be cute after the way he behaved, but I have to admit, it’s hard to resist Oliver Hudson in a winter hat.

Mr. Potter gives Eddie the third degree about how he doesn’t go to school or have a job. I like that he’s suspicious of Eddie, since he’s probably trying to make up for lost time with Joey, but it’s super annoying (and realistic) that he would worry about whether Eddie can support his Fake-Harvard-educated daughter before worrying about whether he treats her the way she should be treated. Because let’s be real, if the worst thing about Eddie were that he’s unemployed, we’d be in great shape.

In other family drama, Pacey returns with expensive gifts for everyone, and the dynamic between him and Doug has noticeably shifted. Where before, it was always just a given that Pacey was the screw-up and Doug was the respectable son, now things have changed, and neither of them know how to deal with it. Doug immediately becomes jealous and suspicious of Pacey’s job, and Pacey starts over-performing his wealth to show that he’s changed. Even Pacey’s homophobic jokes about Doug, which he’s been making since season one, take on a totally different tone here. They were always unacceptable, but where before they were passed off as impish and immature, now they’re bro-y and more openly a way to demonstrate his power. It’s really interesting to watch.

In less interesting news, Dawson brings Natasha and Todd home for Christmas. Todd makes sense, since I’m sure he doesn’t have anyone to go home to, but doesn’t Natasha have a family? And isn’t celebrating Christmas with Dawson’s mother way, way too serious for a casual sex arrangement? If it’s too serious for Joey and Eddie, it’s definitely too serious for these two.

Dawson basically points this out when Natasha tries to have sex with him in his childhood bedroom, but in the most toxic way possible. He tries to call her out and vaguely slut-shame her about Max Winter, even though they never said they were exclusive. She rightly response, “So what’s your point?”, and he demands to know the nature of their relationship. I mean, he could have just asked her like a normal human instead of picking a fight, but this works too. She tells him that they’re having fun, and he gets all Puritanical about that, even though just a few episodes he said that when he looks at her, “all [he] see[s] is sex.” She points out his hypocrisy: “You say these incredibly noble, incredibly self-aggrandizing things, when you can’t tell me you don’t get a perverse thrill out of showing me off to your friends and family.” BURN.

All of these tensions come to a head at a horrendously awkward Christmas dinner at Dawson’s house. (Why Joey and Eddie would even go to this event is a mystery, but it’s juicy drama so we’ll just go with it.) Audrey and Todd are already trashed when the dinner begins, but where Todd is a hilarious drunk–when he’s not sexually harassing Gail–Audrey is decidedly an angry drunk. Just look at the face she’s making at everyone, before anyone has even said anything objectionable:

After Todd gives an unhinged and inappropriate toast, Mr. Potter goes on and on about how proud he is of Dawson’s work, and then says, “Maybe you guys have an opening for Eddie here.” Yikes. I guess we know whose team Mr. Potter is on. Audrey goes on the offensive and asks Mr. Potter why he doesn’t think Eddie is “good enough” for Joey. When Pacey tells her she’s out of line, she viciously turns on him, “Anyone messes with ‘the one that got away’ and you get all up on your high horse.”

Then she just starts dropping truth bombs, as is her way. She says this dinner is “hypocritical” because they pretty much all hate each other, which–true. She says Pacey and Dawson have never mended the rift in their friendship, that Joey and Dawson “finally slept together and never really dealt with it,” and that Pacey couldn’t commit to a relationship because he never got over “Audrey Hepburn over there breaking your heart all those years ago.” Um, once again, HE BROKE UP WITH HER. (Shot!) But still, true enough.

She leaves, no one thinks to check if she took the car keys, and she drives Pacey’s car into poor Gail’s living room. “I think I zagged when I should have zigged,” she says drunkenly. Hee.

While Audrey sleeps it off, Eddie abandons Joey, and renegs on his invitation to bring her back home with him. Classy. He gets on her case about how it was all “too much,” just like he thought it would be–um, no one forced you to come!–and how he “shouldn’t have to deal with her disapproving father or the Ghosts of Relationships Past”–um, what is she supposed to do, not have a family or a romantic history? THEN, he says that if she came home with him, his family would wonder why she’s with him because she’s so beautiful and accomplished and it would be a disaster. Because those things are clearly her fault and she should apologize for them.

Then, because Dawson and Joey’s lives always need to run in parallel, Natasha breaks up with Dawson. She very maturely tells him she slept with Max Winter, because she didn’t think this was supposed to be serious. He’s a total dick about it, but she still goes on and on about what a sweet guy he is and how he’s “going to make some girl’s dreams come true someday in a big way.” (Shot for unnecessary Dawson compliments!) 

In the end, Joey and Dawson finally deal with their issues the only way they know how: talking endlessly about something without talking about it at all. Joey comes up to him on the docks, jokes, “Didn’t I sleep with you once and never talk to you again?” (heh), and then admits that Audrey was right, they never dealt with “what happened.” But then they still don’t actually talk about “what happened,” they just talk in circles about how they can pretend to hate each other because they know they’ll always be there for each other. Joey says, “If that’s true, then why do we only end up hurting each other?” Dawson answers, “Because we should only ever have been friends” “We’re not hurting each other right now. They call a truce, and agree to “go back to hating each other in the morning.” Aw.

• Fairy Tale Voiceover tells us that Joey’s life has “always been something of a disaster” because boys “fell too hard, too fast, or not at all.” Is she serious with this? Who fell “not at all”? WHO??
• Audrey tells Joey that she missed her flight, which “to her knowledge, only happens in the movies.” Ha! That’s exactly how my partner reacted when his family missed their flight. Shot for Audrey’s awesomeness!
• Audrey eventually agrees to go to Joey’s family Christmas because she gets to ask Mr. Potter questions about prison. Hee!
• What’s with all these kids inviting their significant others to Christmas? I was engaged before I ever missed my family Christmas. And Joey assuming that Eddie’s only options are Christmas with her or Christmas alone in his apartment is just offensive, given how carefully he has explained to her that his father is blue-collar and “solid,” aka not likely to leave his child alone on Christmas. The one time you can truly accuse Joey of rampant snobbery (or inexplicable narcissism) and Eddie doesn’t even make a peep. Guess getting laid has improved his temper. —Nerdy Spice
• Audrey calls Eddie the “T-1000 of love interests” [I thought this might be a calculator (yeah… I’m a nerd!) but it’s actually a Terminator reference apparently. —Nerdy Spice] because he “combines all of Dawson and Pacey’s best qualities.” Um, sure, if Dawson’s best qualities were his misogyny and condescension and Pacey’s best qualities were his insecurity and tendency to lash out whenever she achieves something.
• Audrey drunkenly asks Jen where Jack is, Jen asks Audrey if she’s drunk in this scandalized voice, and Audrey replies, “Yes I am, but that does not explain where Jack is.” Hee! (shot!)
• Where does Joey’s dad who burned down their restaurant after a drug deal gone bad, get off torturing Eddie in a man-to-man fashion? Eddie’s not the best but he’s better than you, dude!  —Nerdy Spice
• But I like that Joey is ready to stand up for Eddie against her dad, even if she failed to do that with Audrey.  —Nerdy Spice
• Jen is still mad at Audrey about CJ? OMG get over it already!
• Wait this episode is amazing. Audrey: “Mr. Potter, can I ask you another question about prison?” is already a GREAT opening, and when she follows it up with “Yeah, so, why is it that you don’t think Eddie is good enough for your daughter?” I giggled like I was being actually tickled. And then when Jen asked what Audrey was doing here and she said “I missed my flight, bitch!” I laughed so hard I literally had tears running down my cheeks.  —Nerdy Spice
• My other favorite parts of this scene are Doug’s rather magnificent side-eye and Natasha not even trying to hide her gleeful laughter. —Nerdy Spice
• Audrey uses the word “respectively” correctly while on a vodka and painkillers-fueled rampage. That is so Fake Harvard of her.
• As far as we see, Joey doesn’t even check on Audrey after the accident. As Audrey says, “With friends like these, who needs enemas?” (Shot!)
• Joey says “I kind of put it all into a… little box and pushed it far far away.” Really? I thought you put it all into a little email and sent it to your entire campus. BA DUM BUMP  —Nerdy Spice

Highlight:

Audrey has so many amazing lines in this episode, but Todd’s unhinged rant edges her out ever-so-slightly. My favorite part by far is when he says he’s thankful for Gail’s “progeny, Dawson,” and then keeps repeating the word “progeny.” “Progeny. Progeny. Her progeny, Dawson.” I crack up every time, I can’t explain it.

Most cringeworthy moment:

This one actually goes to Todd, too. At the end of his rant, he says he slept with an actress on his first film, “except she was what we call ‘underage,’ so we don’t talk about that.” I hate when 90s shows make me like characters that are definitely rapists.

Drunkenness level:

13. Audrey’s awesomeness is getting us almost as drunk as her.

Season 6, Episode 11 “Day Out of Days”

By Nerdy Spice

So, given that we start with title cards telling us what day of the week it is, and the word occurs twice in the title, I take it the theme of this episode is… days.

Good one?

Filming has supposedly wrapped up on Todd’s film, and Natasha and Dawson have an awkward goodbye… but it’s not going to last long. When Todd meets up with the studio execs, for some reason towing Dawson along, they tell him the footage stinks and he needs to do reshoots. Todd obviously throws a giant hissyfit.  Dawson plays the angel by following him out to say, “Maybe I’m naive… but I want this to be good, as good as it possibly can be, and I don’t think I would’ve stuck it out working for you this whole time if you didn’t want the same thing.” Translation: “My willingness to work for you means that you’re great.” I love how Dawson thinks that his approval is like the most important judge of anyone’s worth and artistic merit. Only-child-till-you-were-sixteen syndrome much?

Anyway, Dawson tries to talk Todd out of shooting himself in the foot, but Todd throws a giant hissyfit and refuses to do it, so the studio hires Dawson instead. Dawson finally finds Todd hanging out at a beach surfing (they couldn’t have come up with a slightly less cliched way to show that he’s carefree now?) and sort of apologizes, but Todd insists that he go do it–and that he’ll enjoy seeing Natasha’s face when she finds out Dawson’s her new director.

You know, I love how they let Dawson get off so easy where he gets this opportunity shoved in his lap without asking or even hinting for it. Even though he totally was going over Todd’s head. Not that Todd doesn’t deserve a comeuppance. It’s just that like, they let Dawson look so angelic here that it just annoys me more. But when he shows up to pick up Audrey my heart melts towards him. He actually IS quite nice to people who don’t mess with his sense of entitlement towards Joey.

Meanwhile, Eddie is in the process of brutally ghosting Joey. She calls him and tells him she should have pride but she doesn’t. (Um, you can call your own boyfriend without losing your pride. What you CANNOT do is call him and TELL him that you should have pride like you’re some idiot regurgitating chapter three of The Game, and retain your pride.) Then she calls him again, telling him she’s worried.

Since Harley, Professor Hetson’s horrible teenaged spawn, has shown up to pester her in the bar, Harley accompanies Joey and Joey’s fetching brown velvet bucket hat to look for Eddie at his apartment, only to find it totally empty. Yup! He ghosted Joey and moved out of town! Because Joey is way too good to get ghosted in the normal way where the dude just keeps living his life and banging other girls.

Speaking of dead-end relationships, Pacey and Emma have resumed their tepid flirtation. For some reason in this episode–and this episode only–they both turn out to be obsessed with aquariums. There’s a backstory, at least for Emma, but you won’t care, trust me. The point is, they start meeting up at the aquarium every day on Pacey’s lunch break, and Emma tries to Manic Pixie Dream Girl him into wearing a Hawaiian shirt to their final lunch that week, but he gets a big stack of work from Rich and flakes on her. The weird thing is, this story is sort of hastily done and not particularly emotional, yet for some reason it’s almost the only thing I remembered from the first half of season 6. I had even forgotten Audrey’s AMAZING dinner table shenanigans! I was a weird teenager.

Side note: The first time they see each other, Emma reminds him that it’s 12:46, one minute past the time he needs to leave, Very Significantly at the end of their conversation. I feel like we’re supposed to take that as a sign that he likes her so much he can’t tear himself away, but this happens about half a minute after Pacey sits down with Emma. They’ve exchanged like ten words! That’s hardly a can’t-tear-myself-away level of conversation!

Audrey has disappeared to … the beach to hang out with Jack Osborne for some reason. She has apparently not shown up for school and been partying this whole time. (She says to Jack, “I don’t suppose we ever figured out what day it is.” WOW, SO ON-THEME. DAYS. GET IT?) The only person she can call to come get her is Dawson, who shows up to give her and the horrible Jack Osborne a ride. (The saddest part, by far, is that she agrees to sit on the little perve’s lap in exchange for him behaving, and let’s not forget we already discovered he had peeped on her during childhood–this guy is an actual creeper and Audrey doesn’t even care. So gross.) Audrey begs him not to be mad at her and he totally forgives her with just the mildest note that going to a party with a bunch of people she doesn’t know is kind of dangerous. Awww.

So Jen is still in training at the help line and she shows up all cranky because CJ won’t date her (not cool), and refuses to accept his training because she can’t handle feedback. On his part, he calls her “hostile” with a condescending smile (not cool, though he’s really the victim here). Jen basically loses her shit as soon as she’s forced to talk to other humans, but eventually steps up when CJ goes out to get coffee. CJ gives a proud smile.

Don’t do it, CJ. Don’t reward her bad behavior!

One momentary woke spot in this episode is that Jack and David go together to get tested, which is a rare (for this season) acknowledgement that it’s still not a walk in the park to be a gay man in this world. Then they totally ruin it by having a massively offensive conversation, as follows: Jack admits that he’s slept with a lot of guys and ghosted them. “We’re guys, aren’t we?” David says casually. Ugh. Gross! Then Jack complains, “If a straight guy did it, it would be rakishly charming.” Yeah… No? I mean, you’re not obligated to call people back after a single hookup, but that’s not charming, it’s just… the rules of an uncommitted relationship. But I feel like they’re also kind of talking about Eddie, and what Eddie’s doing is NOT CHARMING. It’s evil, and it sucks.

Also, Jack and David kiss, but now I am mad at them for being bio-essentialist so I don’t care.

• “Sincerity, warmth, and a hint of something bittersweet. Or is it just bitter?” Natasha says of the speech Dawson writes for Todd, once again proving that she knows Dawson better than anyone else.
• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf reference from Joey, re: the dinner party from hell. Shot!
• Joey calls herself “the typical girl” again re: calling Eddie incessantly. This, more than anything else, is why I hate Eddie, because the show uncritically presents his douchebaggery and Joey’s pushover-ness as normal gender dynamics. –Janes
• Wait, so the new bar introduced in season 6 is Hell’s Kitchen and the new band introduced in season 6 is Hell’s Belles?  I just realized this! Do they not know other words?
• Jen slutshames CJ, upping the slut factor to a couple of blonde girls. Ummm you never got it in with him, OK, so it was actually just one blonde girl, and she was NOT you! Ugh. She’s the worst.
• Kierkegaard reference from CJ. Shot! Though later it turns out CJ only referenced Kierkegaard because he’s reading the dude right now (presumably for school).
• Pacey complains that the part Emma loves at the aquarium — where one big fish eats another little fish — is boring. “If it was big company eating little company, you’d love it,” Emma says. Heh! Love a good burn on corporate types.
• When Heather says Dawson doesn’t have an agent, Random Hollywood Dude says, “Well, then don’t call his agent. Call his mother and get her to sign a permission slip.” Hee!
• Pacey describes himself as “chasing after things he knew he was never going to get.” Ummm you DID get her, Pace. And then you DUMPED her. UGHHHHHH. DOES NO ONE REMEMBER SEASON 4 BUT ME AND JANES?! Shot for rewriting history.
• Emma’s nod when Pacey coughs on the phone with Rich, is so funny.
  
• Joey does a rather gloriously dorky callback to herself in the pilot, teasing that Harley must have lost her virginity “years ago, to a trucker named Bubba.”
• Emma suggests Pacey “get rid of the goatee.” Shot for the goatee reference!
• I love when Emma thinks she sees Pacey but it’s just some other twerp in a Hawaiian shirt!
• Joey calls Hetson a “scuzzbucket,” indicating that she’s learned new insults other than “dickhead.”
• Speaking of whom, Hetson is the absolute worst in this episode. First he references Barthelme, beloved of so many mid-century male literati, and of course, he rudely sits on Joey’s desk with his ass basically in her face while talking about him. Actually though that’s a fairly obscure reference for this show. Even I haven’t read Barthelme. So I’m unwillingly impressed. And he follows it up with Saul Bellow! This guy is basically a sixty-year-old man masquerading as a forty-year-old professor. But of course, the worst one is the first one–when he quotes Mailers saying that “all female writers are unreadable.” Yeah, sure, guy who stabs his wife is probably a great authority on women.
• So Dawson finds two separate people hanging out at the beach in this episode. Do you get the feeling the show was like, “Hmm, we already flew James out here, let’s write TWO scenes with him at this location!”
• Oh there’s a really on-the-nose literary reference (as far as I can tell having not read this story, anyway) where Joey explains the concept of loss to her classmates while clearly thinking of Eddie. Shot!

Highlight:

The friendship between Dawson and Audrey–quiet and supportive with no hint of real romantic interest–continues to be one of my favorite things. I actually really like Dawson when he’s actually being nice — aka, when he’s not hanging out with women who he thinks he owns.

Most cringeworthy moment:

SO hard to pick, but I think that Jen’s behavior at the hotline has to win out. Especially the part where she slutshames him, and the part where she accuses him of “acting superior” when he gives her constructive feedback in his capacity as the person who’s training her to work at the help line. Jack and David’s Theory of Male Behavior, Hetson’s rampant misogyny, Audrey’s sad lap-sitting bargain, all lose mostly because they were shorter. Watching Jen and CJ’s “romantic tension” progress is like watching someone pull a tapeworm out of their leg. Painful, gross, and SLOW.

Drunkenness rating:

Five — we’re more at Drunk Joey level than Drunk Audrey level here.

Season 6, Episode 12 “All the Right Moves”

By Janes

I forgot how many truly bizarre turns the Joey/Eddie relationship takes. After Joey’s extremely depressing (if understandable) stalking last week, it somehow gets even sadder. She finds a manuscript (along with a rejection letter) in his locker, a collection of short stories that’s called, “Greetings from Worcester” because OF COURSE IT IS. She then tells Harley, a 15-year-old girl, that his parents’ phone number is on the manuscript, and Harley supports her decision to call them and “make sure he’s alive.” Oh, Joey. We’ve all been there, and he is most definitely alive. She calls his home, and then panics and hangs up when Eddie himself answers (God, it was so much easier to do crazy, stalkerish things in the days before caller ID). 

Then Harley goes missing from school, and it turns out that she went to Worcester and brought Eddie back to talk to Joey. At first, I was like, “Okay, it’s super shitty that he needed a 15-year-old girl to tell him that he shouldn’t ghost people,” but at least he came to his senses. But then, he starts talking to Joey about how this is “his problem too” and that he’s “there for her,” and my notes devolve into “OMG HE THINKS SHE’S PREGNANT.”Harley is devious.

Joey tries to maintain some dignity and brush him off, and he actually has the gall to complain that she’s “ignoring” him. Oh, now you want to talk, Eddie? Really?? She rightly calls him out for ghosting on her, and he says, “Did you ever think I was doing that for you?” UGHHHHHHHHHH. Joey gets some good swings in, though, and asks, “Are you dying, Eddie?” Hee! “Because otherwise, the only person you did it for was yourself.” PREACH. 

They go on like that for a while, with Eddie waxing self-pity about how he doesn’t have a job and he isn’t good enough for her, blah blah blah. He says she “can have anything she wants in this life” (which, in context, counts as a neg. Shot!), and she says sadly, “I wanted you.” No, Joey! Bad Joey! Resist his beautiful face!

I know I make fun of Joey’s supposed terrible luck with men, but in all seriousness, it must be annoying to have guys constantly leaving you or dumping you while telling you you deserve better. Her whole life is like that one funny scene in He’s Just Not That Into You:

Then it gets even weirder. After all that terribleness, Joey’s first thought is to show Hetson Eddie’s short stories so he can help his literary career. Hetson actually thinks Eddie’s pretensions have “promise,” and agrees to help him get into a fancy writers’ workshop in California. Joey tells Eddie, and he is, of course, supremely ungrateful. She tries to be all cold and distant, but ends up yelling at him about how he’s a coward, about both his life and their relationship. She then tells him that his whole schtick about “really living life” is hypocritical, which I love. He thinks this is an opening to make out with her, because he’s an idiot, and she says it’s “too late.” Yay, go Joey!

Nope, but wait, the triumphant moment doesn’t last long. He actually says, “I love you” to try to win her back, even though it took a fake pregnancy to even get him to talk to her. And even crazier, she says it back! No. Just no.

Meanwhile, Pacey goes to some big-time party. It’s supposedly great for his career, for some reason that is just as boring and unmemorable as it would be in real life. Some bigwig pulls him into a room with Rich and offers him a promotion in a needlessly sketchy way. And just in case we didn’t get that this is a sketchy backroom deal, there’s a beautiful woman who won’t tell him her name and says, “You should ask yourself why this has all been so easy. Or whether it’s a little too good to be true.” It’s like the beginning of a very bad noir movie.

Also, Audrey does the inevitable apology tour. First, she apologizes to Joey and friends, and tells them that they’re not the problem, she is. (I mean, they’re a little bit the problem, aren’t they?) Then, she begs the band to take her back, promising that she’s quit alcohol, but then gets drunk right before a big gig and destroys everything again. The episode ends on a sobering note, no pun intended, with Joey finding Audrey passed out in her bed with alcohol poisoning.

• Oh no. Jen’s true season 6 hair has appeared. And it was actually looking so cute last episode with that messy bun! —Nerdy Spice
• I have never liked Emma more than when she and Joey are bonding over their sexual fantasies about the new bartender.
• Joey claiming her thing with Eddie was “nothing” is so sad and so transparent.  —Nerdy Spice
• Joey asks if pursuing Eddie is “desperate and pathetic,” but Harley says its’ “romantic and heartfelt.”  I would personally say it’s “doomed and mildly inappropriate.” —Nerdy Spice
• It is SO SAD when Joey tells Harley they’re friends. Literally her entire social life since college is one roommate, one coworker, two professors, and one professor’s daughter. That is TRAGIC. —Nerdy Spice
• These kids like to leave that bar unattended, don’t they? —Nerdy Spice
• Eddie says that people always say that you have promise when they reject your manuscript and ummm I can say for a FACT that is not true. —Nerdy Spice
• Dear Pacey, maybe don’t point directly at women you’re trying to holler at when you’re at fancy parties? —Nerdy Spice
• I love how Joey is begging Hetson to help Eddie because of his potential and is then shocked when Hetson thinks he could get into a “kind of… prestigious?” program. Basically she apparently DOES think he’s a loser and was only begging Hetson out of pure pity. —Nerdy Spice
• Has an “I love you” ever rung less true than Eddie and Joey randomly declaring it after like three dates?! —Nerdy Spice

Highlight:

Audrey’s downward spiral is very sad, but it’s pretty funny when she keeps desperately talking about her “moment of clarity on a beach in Malibu.” (Shot!)

Most cringeworthy moment:

Honestly, it’s probably when Joey says “I love you” back to Eddie. Eddie seems like the kind of guy to say “I love you” right after ghosting on someone (plus, it’s physically impossible for men not to fall in love with Joey), but for her to call him out on all of his bullshit, refuse to get back together with him, but then cave and say “I love you” anyway, was depressingly cringey.

Drunkenness level:

Five, including two for Hetson’s sexist literary neg about “crushing [Joey’s] Sylvia Plath ambitions into oblivion.”

---

Next installment here.

Previous installment here.