Recap: Joey and Dawson are hanging in his bedroom watching movies when Dawson gets so disgusted with the movie's car chase scene that he abruptly shuts off the TV. He complains that it's sooooo unrealistic for a woman to be most attracted to the guy who can drag race the fastest, not be the most romantic. Joey disagrees...and after playfully wrestling - mmm hmm - over the remote, Joey points out that women have every right to be just as superficial as guys and choose the one with the biggest penis. When Dawson insists that women prefer guys who know what they're doing in the romance department, Joey questions that logic by asking him why Jen has seemingly zero interest in hitting the sheets with him - ouch - and Dawson stares forlornly into space for a few seconds before sheepishly turning the TV back on. At school the next day, Joey is delivering a presentation on seventeenth century Japan...and when she makes mention of its icky practice of concubinage, a smug jock named Grant perks up and woots appreciatively at the notion of a man having a harem at his disposal and asks how much like a shogun a school stud such as himself is, aka a guy who all the girls want a piece of. Joey asks him to hold his misogynistic questions until she's done delivering her report - but Grant's like, "Nah, I wanna cackle about female subservience some more", so Joey snarls about his low I.Q. and gets no help with reining in Grant's sexist belligerence from the teacher, who's loitering uselessly at the back of the room. Dawson spots Jen at her locker giggling with Pacey and hastily marches over to ask them whassup with them laughing so hard. Jen and Pacey breezily tell him it's an inside joke and then refuse to elaborate...and after Pacey rushes off to class, Jen and Dawson stroll down the hall, hand in hand. She suggests they do something sexily wild this weekend, like river rafting or jumping out of a plane naked, and Dawson throws his usual prudish reserve to the wind and looks intrigued by the thought of doing anything naked with Jen.
While changing for gym class, Dawson grills Pacey on what he and Jen were giggling about earlier 'cause he's so worried they were trash-talking him...and Pacey confesses that he told Jen about the old nickname he (Pacey) gave him (Dawson): Oompa Loompa. He adds that Jen thought it was hilarious, and Dawson looks less than amused at being made the butt of a joke in front of a girl he's so anxious to break his hallowed cherry with. Elsewhere on campus, Mr. Pickering is leading his health class in a discussion on euthanasia...and when Jen voices her opinion, he haughtily admonishes, "I don't know what you New York barbarians do, but in Capeside we raise our hands before we speak." Jen shrugs and says she thought they were having a semi-mature discussion, then says she's pro-euthanasia when it's a dying with dignity type situation - and Mr. Pickering gasps incredulously and asks her if that's not just a euphemism for murder and suicide. Jen's like, "Uh, no" and points out that some people reach the stage where they simply want to be put out of their misery, and he gasps even more incredulously and cries, "Life is God's most precious gift!" to which Jen snidely retorts, "Life's a bitch for someone who's slowly dying." Mr. Pickering shoots her the stink-eye and nonsensically chides, "This is not Times Square, Miss Lindley" and sentences her to Saturday detention. Joey is in the cafeteria food line when Grant cuts ahead of her in line and taunts her about the dickish way he acts as if he owns the school. He then pompously refers to himself and his minions as shoguns, describes the school as "our castle...whatever we want, we get", and asks Joey how she'd prefer to serve him: as his servant or concubine? Joey responds by punching him twice and smashing her food tray into his friend's face, them looms over him and smugly says, "Neither." Pacey convinces Dawson to stay after gym class and play some one-on-one in front of the cheerleaders...and Dawson agrees, but quickly gets irked when Pacey scores a few baskets and mockingly calls him Oompa Loompa. Oompa Loompa reacts by flying into a rage and aiming the basketball at Pacey's head, hitting him squarely in the face. The horrified cheerleaders are all, "The fuck?" and rush over to Pacey's aid, while the coach storms over and angrily informs Dawson that he's being sentenced to Saturday detention. On Saturday morning, Dawson and Jen arrive at Capeside High, ready to serve their time in detention. They amble into the library, where Pacey (with his broken nose and blackened eyes) is sitting at one of the tables. A puzzled Jen asks him what on earth he did to get detention, but he just hangs his head shamefully and mumbles, "It's a long story." Resident shit-stirrer Abby Morgan arrives amid protests that she could be better spending her weekend serving the community. When she sees Pacey, Dawson, and Jen, she contorts her face into an ew expression and mockingly says, "It's Howdy Doody Time" ... and if by Howdy Doody Time she means an imminent emotional disembowelling of angsty teenage inner turmoil The Breakfast Club style, then yep, it's definitely Howdy Doody Time. Mrs. Tringle, the school authoritarian in the scenario, snaps at Abby to shut it, then informs everyone that today's detention will be about penance. She looks over her list and notes that someone is missing - just as Joey lumbers in, mumbles, "I'm here" and slumps into a chair. Mrs. Tringle warns the five that if they misbehave, she'll have no compunction about making them shelve books and sort library cards - egads! - but in the meantime is off to the Audio-Visual Room to watch her stories and will leave them completely unsupervised until she inevitably catches them when they break her don't leave the library rule.
Abby polls everyone about what they did to deserve Saturday detention...and when Pacey refuses to disclose his crime, she chuckles and says he probably made up another story about boning his English teacher. When the others demand to know what she did, she nonchalantly says it probably had something to do with taking ecstasy, then being the star attraction in the boys' locker room orgy. An hour later, everyone complains about being soooooo bored, and Dawson remarks, "This is soooooo Breakfast Club" as if the blatant we're-stuck-together-in-the-library-for-Saturday-detention rip-off could somehow have escaped viewers. As Mrs. Tringle watches Days of Our Lives in her office, Abby suggests they play Truth or Dare and targets Pacey first. He chooses truth - but when Abby asks him why he's in detention, he opts for dare...and is dared to give Jen a smooch for ten full seconds. As everyone stares at each other in fascinated wonderment as to whether or not Pacey is actually going to follow through with the dare just 'cause Abby declared that they're all playing this game now, Jen says she'll gladly abide by the rules and puckers up. The two lock lips under Dawson's disapproving gaze, and Pacey then targets Joey to reveal the truth about who she's in love with. Joey decides she'd rather not let that cat out of the bag - despite it being fully out of the bag since the pilot - and goes with dare...and not surprisingly is dared to smooch Dawson for a full fifteen seconds. The two share a slurpy smooch while Joey tenderly touches his face...and Abby, Pacey, and Jen look on with varying degrees of annoyance/glee.
After that smoochfest, Joey targets Jen, who picks truth, and bitchily asks her if she finds Dawson the most attractive guy at Capeside High. Jen's like, "Uh, define attracted to" - bwahahaha! - before dismissively calling that a stupid question...and an insulted looking Dawson asks her why it's so stupid. Jen rolls her eyes and sarcastically fibs, "Yes, I lust for Dawson", then turns her attention to Joey and snarls, "Maybe if you spent less time dwelling on me and Dawson, you might have a boyfriend of your own." Joey replies by babbling nonsensically [I can't elaborate further 'cause my brain tuned her out] until Dawson proposes they all make a jail break. The five sneak past Mrs. Tringle's office and head over to the photocopy room where they photocopy their butts, then play Guess My Butt. Jen correctly guesses Pacey's butt, which he proudly considers a turn-on for the ladies. Dawson gets visibly steamed by his buttock boasting, so Pacey accuses him of being jealous. ..and when Dawson counters that he's a laughingstock, Pacey challenges him to a one-on-one in the gym to prove who the bigger laughingstock is ['cause admittedly it's a tough call]. Joey snidely urges Jen to get her pom poms so she can cheer Dawson on, and Jen asks her whassup with her always acting such a catty bitch when all she's ever done was try to be her friend. Abby points out the obvious - Joey is in love with Dawson and fighting over him with Jen - and when Joey weakly denies it, Abby reminds her about the passionate smooch she and Dawson shared just a few scenes ago. She then excuses herself so that the two can go at it in private...and Joey chides Jen for being too nice to her, and that it'd be a lot easier to hate her if she were a total bitch. Abby glances over at the clock and screeches at everyone that they have to get back to the library right now! ... and the five flail about the halls in an attempt to reach the library before Mrs. Tringle notices they're gone, but soon encounter her standing in the middle of the hall, glaring angrily. Abby explains that they were so desperately hungry they had no choice but to scrounge for food in the gym while Pacey and Dawson played basketball, and Mrs. Tringle responds to that cheekiness by dumping a drawer of catalogue cards on the floor and ordering them to have the entire thing put back in alphabetical order by 5pm. Shortly before 5pm, the five manage to finish putting the cards in order. Abby proudly presents the drawer to Mrs. Tringle, who lets it slip that she's in detention because of her excessive number of tardies (in other words, not because of a drug-fuelled orgy). When Pacey laughs at her for the lameness of her detention crime, she demands to know what he did - but he sullenly refuses to talk about it. Dawson bickers at him about his dare kiss with Jen and tells him that being called Oompa Loompa makes him so fuckin' angry 'cause it gets to the heart of all of his insecurities: he's an obnoxiously sanctimonious virgin, not a sex stud like Pacey. Pacey laughs about being called a sex stud [and I laughed too] then decides to needlessly bare his soul and confess the reason he was sentenced to Saturday detention: the basketball coach caught him buffin' his muffin in the locker room after he got so turned by the cheerleaders sympathetically clucking over his broken nose. Abby laughingly says that that's the most embarrassing story she's ever heard - LOL - and Pacey sheepishly tells Dawson that he considers himself to be far too pathetic ever be likened to Don Juan and self-piteously calls himself a screwup. Abby concurs with a well duh nod, while a de-prickled Dawson apologizes for taking his frustrations out on him.
Dawson explains that he's been looking for reasons to explain why Jen continually avoids hitting the sheets with him, and Jen's all, "Say wuh?" and assures him that she likes him soooooo much. Dawson whines, "I want you to want me" ... and Jen natters about what a godsend he is despite her lack of belief in God, and that amid her shitty new life in Capeside, he's this great romantic guy that gets her through the bad days. Yeesh, sounds like someone really doesn't want to go to bed with Dawson. Dawson sourly retorts, "That's all well and good, but I still want to bam-bam in the ham", and Joey takes the opportunity to rail about how appalled she is that everyone [and by everyone she mostly means the Dawson's Creek writers] is so obsessed with sex. She bitterly tells Dawson he can rest easy knowing that at least one of his friends will go to her grave being a virgin...and when Dawson assures her that eventually she'll find the right person, she visibly deflates while squeaking, "I have." Dawson stares back at her in phoney puzzlement as she sobs about her feelings of loneliness and inability to bring herself to express "all these weird feelings" she's been having. Dawson urges her to come right out and say what's in her heart, but she refuses and says, "If I say these things, I can't ever take them back" and worries that "it'll change everything" ... which is so nonsensically stupid, since it's painfully obvious what these things are and so far they haven't seemed to change her platonic (or not?) friendship with Dawson in any significant way. Mrs. Tringle makes a final appearance to congratulate the group on serving their time, then dismisses them...and Pacey and Jen gaze despondently into space while Dawson continues to stare worriedly at Joey. Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!
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