Dawson’s Creek 6.7, Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell: You’d Drink, Too, If You Had to Put Up With These People

September 3, 2012

Dawson’s Creek 6.7, Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell: You’d Drink, Too, If You Had to Put Up With These People

Be careful, Pacey – her vampire husband won’t like this

Summary: Eddie’s working at Hell’s Kitchen, and Joey’s about to head to campus for class. They start talking about Capeside, which Eddie isn’t surprised to hear is her hometown, since he thinks she’s a snobby rich girl. She tells him she’ll be back that night so they can flirt more. Er, I mean listen to Emma and Audrey’s band, Hell’s Belles.

Jen asks Jack how things are going with David, asking to tag along when they meet up in the cafeteria after class. She thinks C.J. will be there. Jack gently tries to convince her to give up already. Professor Freeman informs his class that his book has been published and he’ll be moving to Chicago after the semester. Jack’s surprised by the news.

Audrey looks for clothes for her gig, finally telling Joey that she and Pacey broke up on Halloween. She thought Pacey would tell Joey first, despite the fact that she and Joey live together. David casually asks Jack out, and Jack casually accepts, leading Jen to comment that gay guys are so much less dramatic than straight ones. She wants to ask C.J. to come with them to see Hell’s Belles that night. David tells her that C.J. doesn’t date.

C.J. shows up and Jen asks him to the show anyway. Freeman shows up, pulling Jack outside to gauge his reaction to Freeman’s departure. He doesn’t want to feel like he’s taken away the college experience Jack deserves. (What? Shut up, Freeman.) Freeman asks him to attend a reading he’s holding that night. Jack says he’ll think about it.

Pacey has passed his broker exam, and Rich is taking him and some other new brokers to New Orleans for the night. After some stock footage of the city, the brokers are there, and Pacey’s quickly striking out with hot women. Rich teases him about it, but Pacey says he’s not bringing his A game. He knows women like a sensitive man anyway. Rich notes that he’s done pretty well without being sensitive.

Back at Hell’s Kitchen, Joey and Eddie discuss Cheers (you know, ’cause they work in a bar) as Audrey flirts with a bunch of guys and gets ready for the show by drinking. Jack winds up at the reading, where Freeman tells him his wife isn’t moving with him to Chicago. Meanwhile, Jen and C.J. meet up at Hell’s Kitchen, but he’s more concerned about Audrey (who he thinks is depressed) than getting to know Jen. Jack calls David to tell him he’ll be late to Hell’s Kitchen.

Rich hits on a woman named Denise with some supremely cheesy lines before straight-out telling her he wants to grope her. She tells him she’d like to castrate him, so that’s awesome. Rich leaves but Pacey hangs back to try out his sensitive-guy thing. Joey tries to ask Eddie to do something after he’s off work, but they’re interrupted by Audrey looking for another drink. Eddie tells her she’s cut off, but Joey sides with Audrey, saying it’s no big deal. Eddie won’t budge.

Audrey starts yelling at Eddie, asking what it’s like for him to know his only other job option is janitor. Joey suddenly feels bad for siding with her. Audrey breaks a bottle, but before she can become even more of a mess, Emma pulls her off to start to show. Fortunately, Audrey’s one of those singers who performs perfectly fine while drunk. Unfortunately, she starts to get wild and breaks a bunch of stuff.

After the show, Audrey gets sick in the bathroom while Joey takes care of her. She wants to know how much Audrey drank, but Audrey doesn’t remember. Joey tries to get her to talk about why she drank. Audrey tells her she’s being self-righteous; she never lets loose like Audrey does. Their friends are boring, and Joey’s obviously not a very good friend if she didn’t know about Audrey and Pacey’s breakup. Audrey makes fun of Eddie, and only then does Joey object.

Freeman talks to Jack more after the reading, telling him he was right about a lot of things he said over the semester. Jack thinks it’s sad that so many students like Freeman and are inspired by him, but Freeman felt like he needed to hide his sexuality. However, Jack’s glad he’s finally gotten to the point where he can be more open. Freeman wishes he’d done so sooner, and noticed Jack sooner. Jack tells him the timing was wrong, and he needs to go meet David, since the timing with him is right.

At Hell’s Kitchen, Jen tells C.J. that she’s surprised at Audrey’s change of behavior; Audrey was always the most confident of their friends. C.J. tells her about his past as a partier with friends who didn’t care about his wellbeing. He doesn’t date because of his past screw-ups. Jen thinks he’s being too hard on himself. In New Orleans, Pacey takes Denise back to his hotel room to…play checkers, I’m sure.

Eddie cleans up Hell’s Kitchen while Joey apologizes for the way the evening went. He points out that it wasn’t her fault, telling her she’s wasting her time talking to him anyway. He’s not sure if he’s talking to his work buddy Joey or the elite college Joey. He doesn’t exactly appreciate the people she spent the evening with, or the fact that Joey didn’t defend him to Audrey. Eddie made a mistake thinking Joey was different from her classmates. The flirting needs to stop because there’s nothing there.

Denise and Pacey’s clothes start to come off, and she asks if this is his first time, since most guys don’t bother with foreplay. Also, she’d like to speed things up because Rich only paid her for a certain amount of time. That’s right: Denise is a hooker, and Rich hired her for Pacey. What a classy guy! Pacey puts the brakes on sex and runs off to confront his boss.

C.J. and Jen leave Hell’s Kitchen while David stays to wait for Jack. Jen’s happy that C.J. came out since she wasn’t sure if he would want to. She reminds him that he once told her to change her mind about herself. She thinks he should do the same for himself. She starts to kiss him, but C.J. says he can’t go out with her. Jen pretends she’s totally find with the rejection.

After Jen leaves in a cab, C.J. crosses the street to chat with Audrey, who thinks he’s going to chastise her for smoking. She notes that everything was great when she was drunk; now that she’s sober, everything sucks. He tells her that her friends are worried about her. Audrey doesn’t think her drinking is a big deal; she’s in college, after all. She only does it to keep from feeling. C.J. asks how long she plans to keep that up. Audrey says she doesn’t know.

Pacey finds Rich and yells at him for hiring Denise. Rich insults him for not closing the deal with her, especially since she was so expensive. Pacey blasts him for being so unemotional about everything. He doesn’t want to be Rich’s charity project anymore. Rich replies that Pacey owes him. Pacey attacks him, but their coworkers separate them. Rich asks when Pacey will realize that “fighting the good fight’s not worth it.”

Jack finally makes it to Hell’s Kitchen as David’s leaving. David doesn’t want to get into a relationship with someone who still has a connection to an ex. Jack assures him that he just wanted to make sure he’s not repeating past mistakes. He can’t believe David waited for him all night. David fills him in on the evening’s activities.

The next morning, Pacey walks down an empty New Orleans street alone while Joey wakes up to see that Audrey didn’t come home. Eddie comes by to return Audrey’s wallet, which she left at Hell’s Kitchen, and makes more remarks about Joey being a rich girl in a nice dorm. He apologizes for taking his “unresolved anger toward society” out on her. He also doesn’t like not pursuing her. After some more boring banter, they agree to a date.

Thoughts: Denise is played by Jaime Bergman, wife of David Boreanaz (hence the vampire reference in the photo caption).

Watch out, Eddie. With your moralizing, you’re going to turn into the Brandon Walsh of Boston.

I’m impressed: I can’t remember the lyrics to “One Way or Another” when I’m sober.

They should have sued Kerr Smith a lot more than they did on the show. He’s a pretty good actor.

Why are so many guys on this show so chivalrous and ideal? Dawson, Pacey, Jack, C.J., and David are all about protecting women and being careful of others’ feelings and all that stuff. Guys that age just…aren’t that perfect.

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