Dawson took his three preppy friends on an amusing journey in last week's episode of Dawson's Creek. As Joey eloquently stated at the show's outset, "basically, you're ripping off The Blair Witch Project." Couldn't have said it better, because that's exactly what he did. Of course, the show never tried to score points in originality.
Instead of writing a paper on The Crucible, Dawson convinces his teacher to let him make a documentary on Capeside's own witch legends. Clearly someone didn't do his homework.
However, the ever-mature Jen was not afraid. "There are no such thing as witches. Witch is just a buzz word for a girl who chooses to follow her completely natural and totally healthy urges and explore her sexuality, but you can't do that in the swinging 1690s without getting the townspeople up in arms... I would've been so burned at the stake by now," she says. Hopefully she will get burned at the steak since she never stops whining. With all the cosmetics she wears, all you'd have to do is strike a match and she'd light up like the Fourth of July.
Dawson recruits his cracak professional film crew/actors - Pacey, Jen, and Joey - and heads off to shoot his documentary on an island where supposedly 13 witches died in the 19th century. Even though Joey and he both have their own boats, and the island is only a couple hundred yards off shore, Captain D decides to hire some nutcase to ferry them out. I believe this is where the "suspension of disbelief" switch flickers on.
As soon as the team arrives at their touristy destination, Pacey and Jen head into the gift shop, where she attempts to make him fall in love with her using a spell from an ancient witchcraft manual. And so she confirms our suspicions: Jen indeed is a bitch - excuse me, witch. Immediately the two begin flirting shamelessly and complaining about how it is so difficult to have sex without worrying about emotional baggage. Problems, problems, problems. Wait till college.
"Sex good, love bad," the monosyllabic Pacey elucidates. "Sex is nice. Maybe casual sex is the way to go." The two horny teenyboppers painstakingly work out a "pre-gettin' busy agreement," as Pacey calls it. "This may be the witch's brew talking, but you're starting to look all kinds of cute," he tells her. I guess I'm not the only one who noticed that Jen is looking much better these days.
Meanwhile, Joey and Dawson are employing a paper-thin analogy to bicker about the status of their relationship.
"We're friends, why can't you just leave it at that?" he asks her. "If you take away everything else that we are, then that's what we are: friends." Put your hands together for Dawson Leary, ladies and gentlemen! If you take away everything BUT being friends, then of course you're friends, dumbass. My goodness, and this kid wants to go to college.
Returning to the "documentary," according to legend, the Capeside witches were young girls deemed too promiscuous for their Puritan settlement and exiled to the island. One of them, Mary, was in love with a young man on the mainland who broke off the relationship after her exile. Like he couldn't just row out there for a quickie.
Joey looked up from the book with big puppy dog eyes and read the passage aloud to Dawson. "She offered herself to the boy she loved, the boy she thought loved her back, and he rejected her," she whines. Downright pathetic. Three hundred years and chicks still just don't get it. When you're trying to seduce him and you take your shirt off, don't have a bra on underneath! Especially when you're dealing with Dawson. That kid couldn't get a bra off if he had four hands and a mirror. Mary probably made the same damn mistake back in the 1690s, it's just that she was wearing a colonial dress instead of an Abercombie T-shirt. It's all the same when it's in a pile on the floor.
Darkness falls, and the gang fails to make it back to the boat before it leaves. Stuck on the island for the night, they take refuge in the old church. Pacey and Jen waste no time getting comfy.
"What should we do now?" he asks. "Should I just take my pants off?" She, of course, says they have to kiss first. Typical. Just when you think that some serious booty knockin' is about to go down, the church gets attacked from the outside by what sounds like a band of colonials. A huge fireball whisks through the building, and the four screaming teenagers find themselves trapped inside. Instead of taking advantage of the romantic atmosphere, they decide to escape.
When they get home, Pacey and Jen decide to continue their agreement to have no-strings-attached sex, while Joey and Dawson, true to custom, completely waste a perfect opportunity to get it on. Times change, but the chicks stay the same.
