Dawson's Creek - 506 - High Anxiety

 Original air date: November 14, 2001

It's been a while. When we last left off, Dawson started having panic attacks over his dad's death and Joey agonized over being perfect while he visited. Jen also discovered that Charlie is seeing another woman who turns out to be his sister but then oops, he's seeing another another woman so he was a cheater all along. Jack is part of a cult now that made him dump poor Tobey and Pacey also discovered that his awesome boss is actually a douche who is cheating on his wife. Let's see where the drama takes us this week.

We open in a doctor's office where Dawson is getting an exam. He's perfectly fine so Dawson brings up the attacks he's been having because he's confused there wasn't anything physically wrong with him. The doctor thinks this is due to the loss of his father but they never actually name them for what they are, at least not yet. Mental health awareness is not great but it was piss poor back then. It's interesting that this show does at least try to tackle the subject in a mostly honest way. The doctor even recommends therapy but, for plot convenience, they're in Boston.

Dawson doesn't look all that happy to be heading to Boston

Speaking of Boston, Joey enters her dorm to find Audrey cleaning and asks if she needs to see a doctor since this is abnormal behaviour for Audrey. She explains that her mother is coming and Joey thinks that will be fun. Audrey tells her that it will be decidedly un-fun since her mother is the worst. Apparently she's not like other moms, she's a cool mom. You know, dresses in her daughter's clothes and hits on her boyfriends to pretend she still has her youth type of mother. Audrey says that her self-esteem is going to plummet when her mother arrives and Joey's response is to ask if Dawson has called. He hasn't. 

Pacey is cleaning up his boat after his boss' sexcapades that were decidedly not with his wife the other night while Jen complains about how awful Charlie is. She's not wrong. Pacey can't even disagree with Jen's assessment that men are dogs and he looks dejected because he looked up to his boss. Pacey asks her about Jack but she hasn't spoken to him in forever because of the whole frat bro thing and I'm sad because they're soulmates and they need to be besties. Pacey then tells Jen that she can either be mad or get even.

Pacey comes into the restaurant and banters a bit with Karen until Brecker shows up with his paycheque. Pacey hands him some jewelry and asks if his wife left it on the boat and Brecker simply takes it and then immediately asks to borrow Pacey's boat again. Pacey is not in the mood to facilitate affairs and tells him no. When Brecker pushes, Pacey says he's throwing a party for a friend. Karen announces this fact to everyone in the restaurant so I guess he's throwing a bigger party than he thought. 

Dawson hesitates before calling Joey and is about to hang up before she answers. They have an awkward conversation where he tells her he's going to be in Boston but when she offers him to stay with her, he says he's staying with Jack and Jen instead. He tells her he'll call when he's in town though. We then cut to him waiting in the counsellor's office where he clearly looks uncomfortable. He bails before the appointment has even begun.

Joey enters her dorm to find Audrey and her mother having a mild argument. Audrey's mother is cartoonishly catty. She made Audrey stand on a scale because she thinks she gained weight. I need to go on an entire rant about the pressure we put on skinny perfectly healthy young women about being fat. Audrey is FINE. She's not a stick like Joey but she's not fat. She is a healthy weight and looks great. I could go on so many rants about how unfair it is that tv shows call certain body types fat when they're not which leads to young girls thinking they're fat and unnecessarily dieting. I had such weight complexes because of this. I look at pictures of my young self and I get so angry because the skinny girl looking back at me thought she was fat because everyone around her kept telling her that. It's nuts, it's damaging, it's rage-inducing. Stop policing girls bodies, for the love of god. Teach them to love themselves. I want to give Audrey extra hugs. Then this woman, Kay, asks Joey if she looks like Audrey's mother or her sister. Joey freezes in anxiety which, same. There is obviously only one correct answer so it's like being forced to give a compliment. Joey obliges and says sister but we all know she doesn't think that. And the thing is, the woman looks fine, she looks great. Why does that  have to be reaffirmed by looking her daughter's age? She doesn't look that young anymore and that's fine. There are so many things that make me mad about how society judges women because obviously Kay has some damage too if she's that worried about looking young. Kay looks great, that should be enough. 

Kay invites Joey to dinner which she politely declines before Audrey drags her into the bathroom to beg her to join them. Honestly, I would bail too. That is too much drama to want to be awkwardly thrust into but Joey relents and agrees to go with her. 

Dawson comes into Jen's house to find Jen looking absolutely stunning as always but drama! Jen didn't realize Dawson was coming and he only just now asked to crash there so he lied to Joey. Or at least, he avoided Joey because he wanted to stay at Jen's instead and thought just showing up was the ideal way to achieve this. Either way, kind of garbage but just wait. We've got some real bullshit coming. Jen says they'll talk later because she's about to go out but is cagey about where. Jack says he's heading out too and invites Dawson along to hang out with his frat bros. Dawson wants to and so off they go.

Seriously, Jen has never looked better than in this season

Jen has gone to Charlie's and is eager to hook up with him while he seems very suspicious. He tries to keep her out but she charges right into his apartment and makes herself comfortable, much to his own discomfort. He's trying to get her to go but she insists she won't go until she gets a sweater that she left here. Charlie claims he took it to the dry cleaners because he's so good. Then the other girl, Nora walks out of the bathroom. Both she and Jen claim to be Charlie's girlfriend before looking at him accusingly. 

We get a brief scene of Dawson, Jack, and all the frat bros chugging beer because that's what you do when you're cool and manly and young or something. Dawson is having a great time which is in stark contrast to the time he went out with Joey last episode. 

At dinner, Kay is making a lot of snide comments about Audrey's weight, what she's eating, and how her speaking voice essentially makes her sound like a bimbo. In other words, she's the worst. Audrey looks like she wants to die and Joey nopes out of the situation to check her cell phone to see if Dawson called her. She tries to call him and we cut to Dawson, who ignores the call and continues bro-ing out because he's kind of the worst too, in case you're new here. 

Jen and Nora are waiting for Charlie to explain himself but he's got nothing. He claims they never had the commitment talk but I call BS because that's literally what Jen and him did that whole episode they abstained from sex, she was trying to make a connection. Anyway, Charlie is terrible at explaining his actions, claiming that it's just how it is in college, it is not, and that they should be happy to meet new people. Then in a bizarre turn of events that I can't exactly figure out, Charlie reads the room so badly that he tries to set up a threesome between them. The girls do not look amused and I'm kind of baffled. It came out of nowhere and given that I've seen the show before and know Charlie comes back, I don't know why they'd write this in for him because he's clearly awful here, in a comical fashion, they are trying to make him the worst. I don't know why they thought they could then bring him back as a solid guy but I'm thinking it's because they had to shift things unexpectedly. That's for future discussions though.

Kay and Audrey have now moved on to discussing their past acting careers. It almost sounds like it's going to lead to a nice moment of bonding between them but it quickly devolves into Kay telling Joey that Audrey lacked focus and flitted from everything, including between schools. Audrey begs her mom to stop because she's embarrassed and Kay says she doesn't even know what embarrassing is and lets drop that the only reason Audrey is at Worthington is because their loaded and Kay dropped six figures to get them to consider her. Remember the college acceptance scandal with Aunt Becky from Full House? Yeah, this shit's been going on way longer than that scandal and was widely acknowledged but ignored. It's so casual here that it was clearly thought of as an unspoken norm. Is it any wonder that the rich became so blatant about it that it had to be taken more seriously? Honestly, donations in exchange for prestigious educations is gross and should not be legal in any way but I digress.

Joey is finally sick of hearing her friend get dragged through the coals by her own mother and she calls Kay out. She sticks up for Audrey and then peace's out of the dinner, inviting Audrey to go with her to the party at Pacey's boat.

Jen and Nora have decided that they want to go through with the threesome but before you guys get too weirded out, they urge Charlie to get naked first. Then they get him to close his eyes before they back him out into his hallway and lock his door behind them. They walk away laughing as Charlie is stuck naked in his hallway with all his dormmates gawking at him. So, vengeance is served. Was that really their plan all along? How did they plan for this to go? Or did they just take advantage of his out of nowhere proposal?

The girls then bond a bit over the things they took from his apartment, an autographed Weezer CD (Pinkerton), some notes for a class, and a t-shirt of his. Jen invites Nora to the party but she politely declines because she wants to be alone. Jen says they should totally hang out and Nora agrees. I'm betting we never ever see her again. 

At the party, Pacey and Audrey finally meet and seem to hit it off. Pacey even teases her about hitting on him. Joey pulls him aside to ask if he's heard from Dawson but neither of them have. Just as Joey starts to fret, Dawson barrels in with Jack and a bunch of the frat bros, they're all clearly drunk. Pacey thought they were supposed to make Dawson feel better sober but Jack thought they should just make him feel better period. Dawson is gushing over how much he likes Audrey when Joey comes up and he realizes he was supposed to call her. Brace yourselves because this gets ugly. 

He decides to drunkenly leave a message for her, it's rambly and silly at first but quickly devolves into a bitter diatribe about how she left him a drunken message and if she hadn't, he'd have gone back to LA and he'd still be there now and maybe his dad would be alive. He then goes off to party with the frat bros again, leaving Joey dumbfounded. 

How blackout drunk are you that you don't notice
you just crushed your supposed best friend's heart?

Ok, so what is with guys absolutely demolishing Joey in public and then just ditching her? I hated it when Pacey did it and I hate it even more now that Dawson is doing it and even worse? I don't think either Pacey or Dawson are held accountable enough for the shit they unloaded onto her and it's not healthy that she just swallows their garbage to make them feel better. 

Dawson wakes up the next morning feeling awful and I have no sympathy for him. Pacey gives him a gross drink that's supposed to help the hangover but Dawson can't bring himself to drink it. He wonders if he said something awful to Joey and I think this is supposed to help us forgive him but it's not working on me. I get that people can say weird things when they're drunk but it doesn't absolve them of consequences of saying those things, it's not an excuse and alcohol doesn't invent things for you to say, it usually loosens your lips. He said things he's very obviously been thinking and I don't think that should be swept under the rug because he "was drunk" and "didn't mean it". That's bs. Pacey says that Joey will forgive him quicker than he forgives himself and I know he's right and it sucks. She really shouldn't forgive this. That was a lot of BS to lay on her shoulders and it's cases like this where I really miss season 1 Joey, as much as I found her insufferable. At least she wouldn't let Dawson talk to her like he did the night before. 

Audrey and Kay make amends with each other as she's heading back to LA. Audrey says they should both be better to each other and they hug it out. She's relieved when her mom is gone though. Joey is happy that Audrey is in one piece and Audrey thanks her. Joey thinks what she did was nothing but Audrey tells her it was everything to her because Joey stood up for her and made her feel good about herself. They hug and I'm so happy that they're writing a friend for Joey. I mean, it sucks they don't seem to want to write scenes like this between her and Jen that much but at least there is some friendship between women on this show.

Dawson makes it back to Jack and Jen's to find Jen stuffing her face in the kitchen. She offers him some but he is too sick to want to eat. They talk a bit about Charlie and why she didn't make it to Pacey's party, I guess she really did like Nora's idea of chilling alone after the whole experience. Jen asks how his frat experience went and Dawson says it was freeing because no one was walking on egg shells around him. Jen acknowledges how much his life sucks but says that they're all trying their best and not trying to make him feel worse. Dawson actually acknowledges that he has some great friends.

Pacey is at work when he sees Karen roll in. She's super tired because of working but she asks how his party went. Pacey, smooth talker that he is, tells her it wasn't as good as it could have been if she'd shown up. He loses his carefree happy attitude when he spots the necklace that he returned to his boss earlier in the episode around her neck. He asks her about it and she says it was her grandmothers and that it is not new and that she thought she'd lost it the other day. Oops, Karen is the one having the affair with Brecker, the married man. Pacey is not happy.

We cut to Joey and Dawson and I just get irrationally angry. If I was a bit underwhelmed at the way the writers handled the Pacey/Joey break up where it seemed like they wanted us to desperately forget how much Pacey humiliated her and that she should be the angry one, they gave Dawson an even lighter pass for this which I almost consider worse. Ok, so the prom was more crowded, it was all people who knew them all from childhood (presumably being that they were all students and Capeside is a smalltown), Joey and Pacey were in a relationship and he demolished her, accusing her of making him feel like nothing but hear me out. Dawson put the entire weight, the entire fault of his father's death on Joey's shoulders. I get him feeling guilt over it, it was his dumb decision that led to his fight with his father but in his drunken stupor he very clearly unloaded all of that onto Joey, who had done nothing but try her damnedest to be supportive of him. He flat out blamed her for his father's death in front of her friends and her roommate and she gives him a pass because she figures he already feels stupid. No. I'm sorry, that is not how humans work. She should be feeling some type of way about that and if the writers didn't want to address that, they shouldn't have written Dawson doing that. This is beyond me thinking Dawson sucks, this is just lazy. They could have milked that for some intrigue and they instead they just...undid it with the character who had every right to be mad say it's all good. For unknown reasons. I don't care how long they've been friends, you could not forgive that type of accusation this quickly with practically no talking. It just doesn't happen and I hate it and again, I want sassy Joey back.

To put extra salt in my wound, Dawson then confesses that when he first made his dumb decision all he could do was fantasize about finally being with Joey again but that when his dad died that just went away. He was yanked out of his daydream and he doesn't know if he's ever going to get back to it. So, after blaming her for his father's death, then telling her that he's stopped having feelings for her because of it, you know what she does? Rewards him with a kiss and says that he'll get back there and until then, she'll daydream for the both of them. Ugh. I don't like this version of Joey. I think it's almost worse than Season 1 Joey who, at least, had a personality. This Joey is just perpetually understanding comfort robot. She's a Stepford Joey, there to just smile and make Dawson feel better. I want them to stop this and get back to the Joey that drunkenly called Dawson on the phone to dump his ass and pursue other guys. Let's go back to that!! Please? We end the episode with Dawson heading back to Capeside, having avoided grief counselling, gotten drunk, and blamed his friend for his father's death. Good riddance, please don't come back. But of course...he's not gone.

He just keeps coming back to ruin my day

That was this week's episode and I'm still counting down the days until we can get to the scary episode because it's hilarious. I said what I said. Unfortunately, it might not be for a while. I will be out of commission for about a month due to some health stuff. I'm really sorry for the delays, I just want to keep blogging this stuff but life just keeps coming at me, keeping me from the things that make me happy, it seems. Until we can venture into the Creek again, Dear Readers.