DC S05.E06: High Anxiety

Neither Joey nor Pacey has forgotten their Big K adventure, and the possibilities it opened for their reuniting as a couple. But Joey’s not as ready as Pacey to dive back in, so it’s a good thing they’ve got other business to occupy them. Pacey is called back to Capeside following his father’s medical emergency; Pacey’s new mode of throwing money at his problems rankles Doug, particularly after John treats Pacey like the future of the Witter family and Doug like an old shoe. Dawson is also back home, invited to speak to Mr. Gold’s current film class; a keen kid who wants Dawson’s notes on his short film sends Dawson further down into his career crisis. Joey, meanwhile, has been harassed into babysitting Harley, whose attention to her homework is challenged by the boy in her closet. Here’s something you can do right now: listen to our episode on “That Was Then”!

Noel is organizing a floor party, and Felicity’s expectations for her first college party are stratospheric: she can’t wait to invite Ben, and for him to come that night, and see her, and like the way she looks, and for HER to like the way HE looks, and for them to dance all night and then go back to her room to…talk. Although, as she tells Sally, she has dared to imagine what it might be like to do more than that with “a man” for the first time — something she is so mortified to put on tape that she orders Sally to erase it immediately! Outside of Felicity’s imagination, things are not going so great. The Inorganic Chemistry prof she’s idolized since she used his textbooks in high school is disgusted that she hasn’t been able to find the text for this class. Whenever Felicity mentions Ben to Julie, Felicity can see Julie tense up, despite Julie’s repeated insistence that she and Ben are JUST FRIENDS. Hangs are happening that Felicity isn’t being invited to. Nothing a trip to Bloomingdale’s for a new party dress won’t fix! Probably! Ben is having his own scholastic issues, getting shunted into a drama class where he’s being asked to be vulnerable. It would be very cool if you listened to our episode on “Hot Objects”!

When Pacey picks up a Sure Thing at a networking banquet for which he’s enlisted Joey to be his fake date, he has to stop on the way back to her dorm to get, what else, condoms. Their refusal to respect Kmart’s practices to keep customers from entering in the moments before the store closes leads to their getting locked inside. Since their predicament is a very low priority for the police, Joey and Pacey end up bickering about their relationship history before he calls a truce so that their night doesn’t get even worse. Big box store high jinks ensue: nacho cheese! A wall of TVs! A Gillette Mach 3 threatening Pacey’s precious goatee! And more! Put on some flannel PJs (whether you pay for them is none of our business) and listen to our episode on “Castaways”!

Felicity is just trying to figure out the new normal now that Ben knows why Felicity’s there, Felicity knows Ben never had a brother who died, and Julie knows Felicity isn’t totally over Ben. When she hears that a young man has called the admissions office trying to get a copy of her application essay, she assumes it was Ben trying to get them back on equal footing, and mails him a copy. Then she bounces into a meeting with Pappaleno only to see both her parents already there, and things rapidly go downhill. While Noel is not busy trying to convince Felicity that when he said he had feelings for her he didn’t REALLY mean it, he’s navigating a roommate conflict between Larry (John Cho), who wishes Lewis wouldn’t keep talking in his sleep about buying knives to kill Larry with; and Lewis, who…seems pretty shifty, actually. The FIRST thing you should do now is listen to our episode on “The Last Stand”!

The writers’ ambivalent (if not outright confused) views about excessive drinking are inflicted on us once again as Pacey throws himself a belated housewarming party to celebrate a Best Buy shopping spree. At least one of your co-hosts is disgusted by the portrayal of female characters uniformly disdaining the new giant TV; all the dudes are firmly in favor, including Gus, Emma’s fiancé? Yep, turns out she needs an American husband, and fast, because her visa is no longer valid for reasons we should have figured out back when she was hanging around the aquarium every day. Joey is determined to drink away her heartache over Eddie’s departure; Jen is ready to be sober out of respect for CJ, so she’s horrified when she hears that Pacey offered him a drink and he took it. At the other end of the sobriety spectrum, Audrey’s still in rehab in L.A. Dawson comes to visit, not only cloddishly arriving without so much as an Us Weekly but then forgetting whom he’s there for as soon as she spots one of her fellow patients: a producer named Toni Stark. Dawson would have to be made of iron (man) not to parlay this chance sighting into a networking opportunity, right??? Join us as we get down and dirty about “Clean And Sober”!