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Democracy Diva: Shrine O’Spielberg. Dawson and Joey are watching yet another movie together, but he gets frustrated with it and shuts it off just before the end. He finds it unbelievable that a girl would decide which guy she wants to be with based on a drag race. Joey wisely points out that someone whose favorite movie is E.T. should not have such a problem with unrealistic films, but like everything else on this show, this is really about SEX.
Kirsti: Also, whose favourite movie is E.T.?! I was terrified of it when I was six, and I’m still terrified of it. Don’t let that thing in your house, Elliott.
Diva: That’s adorable. I like it, but mostly because Baby Drew Barrymore is the best.
Joey tickle-tackles Dawson for the remote control, and then things are awkward for a bit. She decides that the movie threatens him because it proves women are as superficial as men, and will pick the guy with the bigger dick over the guy with the bigger heart. Dawson tells her that “Girls are more attracted to romance than anything else,” as if he actually knows anything at all about the subject. He says he and Pacey don’t arm-wrestle over girls, and Joey tells him that’s because he doesn’t like to lose. SICK BURN, JO. She says Pacey has bigger biceps and I’m not sure if we’re actually talking about biceps anymore. Joey’s curious as to why Jen won’t have sex with him if she’s so into romance, and Dawson’s all, SHE TOTES WANTS TO I SWEAR.
K: EW. With a side of LOL NOPE. Also, Pacey would totally beat Dawson in all categories.
Diva: Post-credits, we’re at Capeside High and ska music is playing because it’s the 90s. A preppy looking girl named Abby Morgan drops her bag in the hallway and is late for class. She runs in and makes a big show of apologizing to the teacher while giving flirty smiles to the jocks. Joey’s trying to give a presentation, and a douchey football player named Grant won’t stop marveling over shoguns having 600 concubines. He thinks the shogun must have been like the high school quarterback, and all the bitches wanted him. In response, Joey tells Grant he has a low IQ. I retract my previous “SICK BURN, JO.”
Pacey and Jen are giggling in the hall together, but won’t tell Dawson what’s so funny. I wouldn’t either, just because he’s being such a little brat about it. Pacey jokes about Dawson being less than athletic; Jen laughs and Dawson broods. She tells Dawson she wants to do something wild with him this weekend, like jump out of a plane naked, which does not sound safe or fun. In Jen’s class, a small-town-minded teacher has religious views about euthanasia. Jen tries to disagree with him and ends up accidentally saying that life’s a bitch for the dying. She gets detention, because, as the teacher says, “This isn’t Times Square!” Uh, yeah, buddy. We noticed.
K: But seriously. You can’t have a classroom debate when the teacher is all “We can only debate one side of it because Jesus said so.” I went to a religious school and we still had debates that impartially covered both sides of issues like that…
Diva: Impartially covering both sides of the issue? Yeah, we definitely don’t do that in America.
Anyway, in the Capeside Cafeteria of Sexism, Douchebag Grant cuts the lunch line and harasses Joey. He claims to be the school shogun – Capeside is his castle, and Joey can either be his servant or his concubine. While I’m throwing up all over my laptop, Joey punches him IN THE FACE. (K: AMAZING. A definite contender for next year’s Traumaland Awards) Completely justified, and totally awesome, so of course, she too gets detention.
Capeside Gym of Dick-Measuring. Pacey kicks Dawson’s ass at basketball in front of the cheerleaders so he can get a little attention.
Dawson gets so unreasonably worked up over this and Pacey’s “oompa loompa” taunts, that he chucks the ball right in Pacey’s face, breaking his nose.
Now he has detention too. Can you see where this is going yet?
Library of Poorly Executed John Hughes References. It’s Saturday detention, and the lazy Breakfast Club homage is already getting tired. The whole gang is there, including Pacey, for an unknown reason.
Dawson tells Jen he doesn’t deserve to be there, even though he fucking broke Pacey’s nose. Everyone thinks they’re in for a boring Saturday afternoon until known supervillain Abby Morgan shows up. She might as well be wearing a coat made out of dalmatians for how subtle this character is. She is virtually incapable of shutting the fuck up, and her voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Librarian tells them all to be good or they’ll be shelving books all day, and also if they kill each other, don’t bleed on the books. Giles should have had this rule too. #RIPwigginslibrary
K: If Giles had had that rule, he would have broken it all the time on account of he was constantly getting knocked unconscious in the Wiggins Library. But also? I would TOTALLY take shelving books over sitting around doing nothing all fucking day. Even Teenage!Kirsti would have taken shelving books all day. But mostly I’m confused because if you get Saturday detention in Australia? YOU DO YOUR FUCKING HOMEWORK IN DETENTION. Not sit around doing nothing.
Diva: Same. What is the point of locking all these kids in a room for the day if you’re not even going to use them for free labor?
Abby goes from person to person, asking them why they’re here. And I mean that literally – for some reason, she is actually getting up and walking over to each person and crouching down next to them to physically get in their face and extract information from them instead of just like, sitting at the table and talking like a normal human person. There is no motivation for any of this whatsoever, besides the fact that the Powers that Be Contriving really needed someone to force this whole Breakfast Club everyone-reveal-something-secret-about-yourself thing. Sense: this character does not make any. Anyway, things escalate when Jen mentions her teacher’s small-town mentality. Joey takes that comment personally, because everything is always about Joey. Abby makes a stupid joke about Joey’s incarcerated father, and Jen calls Abby a bitch. Because Jen is the kind of cool person who defends Joey even when she’s being a brat. Joey confesses that she’s in detention because her fist somehow magically ended up in Grant’s face. Abby won’t admit her crime at first, but when everyone begs to hear the story, she alludes to an ecstasy-fueled orgy in the boys’ locker room. That sounds very unhygienic.
Now comes the part where the characters actually have to talk about how much like The Breakfast Club this is, and it’s painful. The only good part of this conversation is when they discuss the careers of the film’s actors, and Pacey says, “Emilio Estevez, he was in those Duck movies, remember? God, those were classics. So funny.” And everyone just stares at him, because baby Joshua Jackson was actually in those movies, and he was the cutest, and it was awesome.
K: Seriously, Pacey’s Mighty Duck references were my favourite thing about this episode.
Diva: BY FAR.
And now it’s time for the scene where they all have to use the bathroom! Abby accuses the girls of having crazy sexual tension with the boys, which they basically admit to by flushing toilets instead of answering. Back in the library, Abby decides a game of Truth or Dare is just the thing to contrive a whole lot of drama, which is Abby’s sole purpose on this earth. Her over-the-top acting makes her seem like a vampire in Season 1 of Buffy, when everything was more B-movie comical than actually scary. Anyway, Pacey is up first and chooses Truth.
K: I have never understood why Truth or Dare is such a big fucking deal. JUST SAY NO, PEOPLE. “Want to play Truth or Dare and inevitably fuck up all your friendships?” “Hmm, I think I’ll pass and go shelve books.” See? It’s that simple.
Diva: A bit of Snark Squad advice for the ages!
When Pacey refuses to answer why he’s in detention, Abby dares him to kiss Jen on the lips. He hesitates, but Joey’s all DO IT! and so they kiss, much to Dawson’s displeasure. (K: It’s also weird because Pacey looks at Dawson while he’s kissing Jen…) Pacey then turns on Joey.
Joey asks Jen if Dawson is the guy in Capeside she’s most attracted to. Jen says he likes him the most, but she won’t answer that she’s the most physically attracted to him. Finally she says it’s a stupid question because the answer is obviously yes, and that Joey would probably have a boyfriend by now if she weren’t so obsessed with Dawson and Jen’s relationship. Joey says she’s more than happy to avoid dating high school boys (smart girl), and tells Jen to get over herself. Dawson decides this is the best time for a jailbreak, so now we have to watch them do all the Breakfast Club running through the school shit. I wish I were just actually watching The Breakfast Club. (K: SAME OMG) An innocent, hilarious game of “Guess My Butt” (pairing Xeroxed buttcheeks with their owners) turns ugly when Dawson calls Pacey pathetic for talking about how much girls like his butt.
Pacey says Dawson is just jealous of his sex life; Dawson replies that Pacey is a laughingstock who sucks at everything. That was way harsh, Tai. They decide they need a rematch of their basketball game, because something has to get them into the gymnasium because that also happened in Breakfast Club. Isn’t anyone going to smoke weed and dance on a bookshelf?
Abby continues to be the worst person in the universe with no discernible motivations other than causing chaos by saying that Joey and Jen can never be friends, because Joey’s in love with Dawson. LET’S ALL ACT LIKE WE’RE SHOCKED NOW. Joey doesn’t want to talk about it, because everything’s even harder because Jen is actually a nice person. But this talk is cut short, because it’s time for the obligatory running-back-to-the-library-before-we-get-caught scene.
Librarian catches them and punishes them by dumping a zillion cards on the floor and demanding that they be organized by 5:00, or they’ll be back in detention next Saturday.
K: Okay, but like that is NOT how catalogue cards work. And no self respecting librarian would actually do that. #librarianproblems
Diva: I found that to be total bullshit as well, but I wanted to let the actual librarian among us yell about that. And K did, because she’s awesome.
Anyway, Abby refuses to help because she’s a total cunt. But when Librarian comes back, she pretends to be a total team player and asks Librarian if she’s ever considered contact lenses. Because Librarian is not just the principal from Breakfast Club, she’s also Miss Geist from Clueless. LEAVE ALL MY FAVORITE MOVIES ALONE. Librarian then reveals that Abby is only in detention for being late to class. There was no ecstasy orgy, because Ally Sheedy did not really have sex with her therapist.
THE ORGY WAS A LIE.
Dawson finally explains that he’s super insecure about the oompa loompa comments Pacey keeps making, and he’s afraid Pacey’s going to steal Jen away from him because of his like, uncontrollable desire for sex, or something. Dawson then says “I’m a virgin,” which everyone already knows, but he had to say it out loud because Breakfast Club.
Pacey at long last reveals why he’s in detention – when the cheerleaders were taking care of his broken nose, he got overly excited and went into the locker room to “relieve the tension.” And got caught jerking off by the coach. OOPS! Pacey basically uses this as evidence that he is not the stud Dawson thinks he is, and he is not about to steal Jen away. Dawson apologizes for taking his frustrations out on Pacey, but he’s trying to figure out why Jen doesn’t want him. Isn’t this a conversation you and Jen could maybe have in private, please? Jen says she likes him, but that’s not enough, because Dawson has hormones. He thinks about having sex with her 1,000 times a day (Joey and I both look like we’re about to throw up when Dawson says this.) (K: I think Joey was meant to look like she was going to cry? But it definitely looks more pukey than sad.) He doesn’t actually apologize to Jen for assuming that she’d leave him for Pacey, or that he’s putting a lot of sex-related pressure on her, but he does apologize to Pacey for breaking his nose and all that shit.
“When did everyone become so obsessed with sex?” Joey of course wants to know. Dawson condescendingly tells her it’s just a matter of time before she finds the right person, but she confesses, “I have.” She starts to cry and admits to having all these feelings that she can’t talk about. And she hates that she can’t talk about them, because they’re supposed to be best friends and it makes her feel so lonely. He says he’ll still be there no matter what, and if she says what she feels, maybe she can be free of it. But Joey can’t, because everything will change. Joey looks miserable, Dawson looks lost, Jen looks nauseous, Pacey looks hungry, and Abby looks like a character that absolutely did not need to exist at all. The librarian tells them they’re free, and the episode ends.
K: Now is the time where I admit to having a weird soft spot for Abby Morgan. She may be kind of a pointless, bitchy character. But at least when she turns up, you know there’ll be less long-winded speeches filled with SAT words and more shit hitting the fan. So, you know, that’s fun.
Diva: I vaguely remember enjoying her at some point, so I’m hoping she gets better with time. But in this episode, she basically just existed to poke the sleeping bear that was everyone’s secret feels.
I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
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