Pacey. Andie. They both dig Dumbo. Pacey says "pantheon of all-time favourites." Pantheon. "Let's go walk around downtown." "Might as well...You're not going to throw me in front of a bus, are you?" No, but I may throw myself.

Then we're at "the art thing" opening on a piece of abstract expressionist art as Charlie's aggressively unmaternal careerist girlfriend from Party of Five is lecturing about art stuff as Dawson looks dubious and Joey in her reddish-brown spaghetti-strapped dress (which she evidently changed into after school) looks intent and then the lecture is over and everyone claps and then everyone is filing out and Joey is all impressed and excited and looks to Dawson to share her enthusiasm for the foregoing, but all he can say is that it "was certainly prolonged" like I heard that, Senor Shredded Wheat. And Joey deflates because she can tell: "You hated it." And he says he didn't, but that abstract expressionism isn't "really [his] thing" because it's so "unresolved" and is just "a blob of paint that offers up more questions than answers." And Joey is getting increasingly annoyed by his philistinism and answers, "A blob of paint, Dawson?" And Dawson addresses the last painting in the lecture and asks what's the ultimate emotion it expresses, and Joey points out that just because a painting doesn't have a beginning, middle and an end "like some assembly-line, summer-release popcorn movie does not mean that it's not charged with emotion, okay?" and Dawson says that he likes his "art with a verdict" and as far as I can see, Dawson Leery wouldn't know art if it took hold of his limp billy-club and gave it a squeeze, but anyway, he goes on to give as an example of the art he doesn't know, but that he knows that he likes, "Romanticism. I could totally get into Romanticism. If you know what I mean." And Joey replies to his single entendre that she knows exactly what he means, and before I can get all Art Theory on their asses and explain why "Romanticism" is not the same as "Romance" as in Harlequin or as in "Romantic Comedy" or the kinds of behaviours that are commonly described as "Romantic", Laura comes along to say hi and Dawson is all completely phony, "Great lecture!" And Laura tells them she's teaching an art class tomorrow and they can audit if they want, but Dawson has to work, and Joey has to deprecate herself and her artistic talents (which she says "peaked in the third grade") because she is a girl, and moreover is in the presence of Dawson and his tiny penis, and Laura says it's for people who are willing, and Joey starts to warm up to the idea...