Episode 35 - "Parental Discretion Advised"

Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Part 4: Part 5:

While watching "The Age of Innocence" in his room with Joey, Dawson stops the tape, and complains about love stories that end in unrequited love. Joey disagrees with him, saying that stories that lack a happy ending only show how strong love is when it goes on without ever being realized. This outlook on life worries Dawson, who questions Joey about her own love life, but she comforts him by assuring him that they will get "the happy ending."

The next morning, Dawson asks his mother in a roundabout way how to approach Joey about her dad dealing drugs again. After offering some 'fatherly' advice, Gale drops a bombshell: she tells Dawson that she is in fact going to Philadelphia to take the network job. Still a bit shaken from the news, Dawson picks up Joey and runs into Mr. Potter, who offers the Icehouse as a 'study haven' for the gang to study for finals in. Reluctantly accepting the invitation, Dawson accusingly asks Mr. Potter if he is "still legal." Over at Capeside High, Grams catches Jack and Jen walking into class, and begs Jen to come back home and start over. Jen refuses, saying that she has a home with Jack. Just after, Officer Witter drops Pacey off in front of the school. While he is getting out, Pacey overhears that The Capeside PD is staking out Mr. Potter and The Icehouse.

After school, Dawson stops by the Icehouse and, taking the advice of his mother, confronts Mr. Potter about dealing cocaine in the Icehouse. He recommends to Mr. Potter that, for the sake of Joey, he stop dealing cocaine immediately. Later that night, as Dawson, Joey, Jen, Jack and Pacey study for finals, Officer Witter stops by and questions Mr. Potter about some old friends that have been seen around The Icehouse. Concerned, Joey interrupts, but she is comforted by her father, who convinces Joey that everything is okay.

While Jen and Jack argue about Jen moving back in with Grams, and Pacey and Officer Witter argue about Pacey's recent performance on his final exams, a Molotov Cocktail flies through the stockroom window, and The Icehouse is set ablaze. Stuck in the back office, Mr. Potter tries to flush the cocaine down the toilet, while a screaming Joey is carried out the front door to safety. A dauntless Dawson and Officer Witter crash through the fire, and pull Mr. Potter from the blaze, and out onto the waterfront.

In the aftermath of the fire, Dawson pleads with Mr. Potter to confess, but his pleas are silenced when Joey appears. Meanwhile, Officer Witter suspects foul play, but Pacey stands up for Mr. Potter. When Officer Witter ridicules Pacey for his views, then belittles his relationship with Andie, Pacey lets loose and punches his father, knocking him off balance. He tells his father that Mr. Potter, even if he is involved in the Icehouse arson, Mr. Potter is still ten times the father that he is.

Dawson's parents advise him that he must tell the police everything he knows, but he hesitates, and tells them that he has one more option. Later that night he meets with Joey and tells her everything. She begs him not to go to the police, but Dawson is determined to do the right thing. The next day, they meet with Officer Witter, who asks Joey to help him catch the people who started the fire. Joey is reluctant to help, and when Joey and Dawson are left alone to talk about it, Joey tells Dawson that his resolution to always do the right thing is tearing her family apart, but it is also tearing them apart. Back by the creek, Gale reveals to Mitch that she has finally decided on taking the network job in Philadelphia, and that she wants Dawson to spend the summer there as an intern.

Back at Gram's house, Jen unexpectedly shows up, bags in hand, to move back in. Her return is conditional one however, dependent on Grams accepting and supporting Jen instead of preaching to her. Not wanting to be alone anymore, Grams tearfully accepts, but Jen has one more condition: she doesn't want Jack to be alone anymore. She wants him to move in. Grams agrees.

Later that day, Officer Witter finds Pacey alone at the docks. Having spoken to Andie over the phone, he finally knows how much Pacey has grown over the last year. He apologizes to Pacey for not being the kind of father a son would be proud of, and in a final heartfelt moment, he hugs his son, telling him how proud he is of him.

Back at the Potter's Joey returns to ask her father for the truth. He admits that he had been dealing drugs, but only because he wanted to provide for his family. He reveals that he is scared and doesn't know what to do. Joey regretfully reveals a wire tap taped to her stomach, and tells him that she has already taken care of it. Mr. Potter quietly and willingly surrenders to the police outside, telling Joey not to be sorry. As he drives off, Joey spies Dawson standing in her lawn. Dawson tries to tell her that she did the right thing, but Joey doesn't agree. She tells Dawson that she hopes she can forgive her father for what he did, and that doesn't know if she'll be able to forgive herself for what she has done, but she knows that she will never forgive him. Telling him that she doesn't want to know him anymore, she leaves Dawson alone to comprehend the consequences of 'doing the right thing.'

Originally Aired Wednesday, May 26, 1999

Great Lines

Joey: To continue loving somebody even though there's no chance of that love ever thriving... that's romance.
Dawson: That is tragedy.

Mr. Witter: Don't screw it up.
Pacey: Is there any possibility that your advice will ever take on a positive tone?
Mr.Witter: I'm positive you better not screw up.
Pacey: Gee, Dad, you know it's really great that we can have these talks every morning.

Dawson: But what good is their love if it is not strong enough to overcome the circumstances?
Joey: Because in spite of the circumstances, they never stop loving.
Dawson: So tell me Joey Potter, will you always love me no matter what the circumstances?
Joey: It doesn't matter. We get the happy ending.

Mr. Witter: What are you doing here, Pacey?
Pacey: We are signing a peace treaty. No, Pop, we are studying.

Dawson: You did the right thing, Joey.
Joey: No, Dawson. You did the right thing. What I did... the word "right" doesn't even come close to.
Dawson: We both did what we had to do.
Joey: What I have to say, you're not going to like, so I'll say it quickly. I hope one day that I'll be able to forgive my father for all of this, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself, but I know that I will never forgive you. See, Dawson, there are certain circumstances that love can not overcome and from now on... I don't want to know you.

Dawson: I'm not a hero, Joey.
Mr.Potter: Don't be modest, Dawson. You saved my life. You're a hero.
Dawson: Some situations are too tragic to have a hero. This is one of them.

Pacey: Andie did more for my life in 6 months than you did in 16 years, you rotten son of a bitch. So if you want to make fun of me, if you want to bust on me, that's fine. But if you so much as make one more even slightly disparaging comment about the woman I love, you're going to policing this town from a hospital bed, you hear me? And one more thing, even if Mr. Potter was involved in all this, he's still ten times the father you ever were.

Joey: I understand, Dawson, that in that black and white world in which you live, you didn't see any choices, but that's not my world. I see things in gray and that's what makes us different and that's what made me fall in love with you and that's what is tearing us apart.

Mr. Witter: You got another phone call today. It was Andie. We talked for a long time...she's uh...kinda chatty, that one.
Pacey: Yeah, she is.
Mr. Witter: She sounded sweet as hell, Pacey. So I'm sorry what I said yesterday, I really don't know anything about her.
Pacey: Apology accepted.
Mr.Witter: No, I'm not done. As little as I know about her, I know even less about you, my own son. I realized that as Andie was trying to fill me in on what you two had been through... I didn't know about any of that. She said you were her hero... that was nice to hear.

Goofs

• Jen says at one point, "You've come here to welcome me home but you haven't even addressed why I left." She continually says throughout the episode that she was the one that left her Grams, but didn't Grams kick her out?
• When Pacey punches his father, he hits him on his left cheek but his right lip is bleeding.
• Dawson says, "I need father/son advice," and then talks to his mom right after the first commercial.
• When you first saw Bessie and Alexander, he was a baby wrapped in a blanket Bessie could hold with one hand. The next time you saw him at the end of the episode, he was a toddler.
• Dawson is out of school while Pacey is in class about to take a final. Was this supposed to be later on in the day? Is seemed like a "meanwhile" scene to me.
• In the scene after the fire when Joey and her father reunite and Bessy runs up to her father and gives him a hug, she's holding Alexander. Any real mother would know that a baby isn't supposed to be around all that heavy smoke.
• The gang has had a heck of a lot of midterms and finals already, and they're still sophomores.
• Last episode Dawson builds the white picket fence, but in this episode when Joey and Dawson are in the front yard breaking up, the fence is nowhere to be seen.
• In the last scene when Joey and Dawson are breaking up, Dawson says,"How are you feeling?" to Joey but you never see his lips move.

Notes

• Joey's line "You see in black and white, but I see in grays" is a reference to Dawson's line in Dirty Dancing in which is says, "Everything is either high or low. Hot and cold. Black or white. It's like there's no middle ground anymore."
• On Jen and Jack's coffee cup, it said Port City. The coffee cup was froma local coffee shop called Port City Java.
• Joey's dad got put in the first time prison for selling marijuana; this time he got busted for cocaine.
• It seems convienent that Pacey's dad suddenly decides to drive Pacey to school. Usually Pacey gets to school by bike or "borrowing" his father's car.
• Mr. Potter's line, "I'm so sorry" is the same line he said in last year's finale.
• When Pacey's dad hits Pacey, you would think that he'd get in trouble because that's child abuse. Then again, maybe he can get away with it being the town sheriff.
• When Dawson tells Mr. Potter he believes that "anyone engaged in such blatant, criminal activity would put the well-being of his family ahead of his own selfishness and remove himself from the situation" is eerily reminscent of Dirty Dancing from season one when Joey confronts Gale about her affair and states that "the excitement of your affair will not measure up the everlasting damage you are doing to your family."
• When Dawson and Joey are watching the Age of Innocence in the beginning it relates to a Dawsons Desktop update in which Joey sends Dawson mail saying she is in the mood to watch it.
• Dawson talks to Gail in the first scene after the commercial. Once he sits down at the table, if you look past Gail, there's a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal. Mary-Margaret Humes, the actress who plays Gail, starred in a Cap'n Crunch commercial earlier this year.
• When Jen is talking to her grandma about the three conditions of her coming back to stay, there is a roach on the right side of where she is standing on the wall. It doesn't move and you only see it when she is talking.

Music