Props to Liz, for hooking us up with the first-season tapes, and to Sars, for rocking the house all night long, and to everyone on the forums for being so patient as I FINALLY get around to delivering these last three first-season recaps.

Previously on Dawson's Creek: Pacey told Joey she had a crush on Dawson, and she scowled and said, "Bite me." Dawson moped over Jen's having dumped his sorry ass. Jen asked Joey if they could ever be friends, and informed her (in somewhat oblique terms) that Dawson was in love with Joey, and was only infatuated with Jen.

The camera glides over the back of the TV in the Sanctum Dawsonorum; evidently said TV is showing a horror movie, judging by the sounds (stifled shrieks, ponderous music) and by the anxious expressions on the faces of Dawson "Sam Lame-y" Leery and Joey "Help for the Lovelorn" Potter, who are watching on the bed. Oh lord, they're watching I Know What You Did Last Summer, and have come to the part where Sarah Michelle Gellar is fleeing from the fish-hook-wielding killer. Joey is gripping Dawson's hand and looking very distressed and, when Gellar turns and sees how close the killer is, Joey gasps and buries her head in what appears to be Dawson's armpit. To be frank, I can't decide which would be the less pleasant sensory experience. Dawson laughs at Joey's skittishness and calls her "such a wuss." She calls him a "rat" and pounces on the remote, announcing that "it's over." They wrestle over it for a while in a passable burlesque of sublimated sexual tension, ending with her decisively turning the TV off. Dawson protests, "That movie rules! And I'm not just saying that because the man who wrote it gave birth to me, Zeus-like, fully-formed, from his massive forehead!" Except for the Zeus/forehead part. Joey counters that she has better things to do with her time than watch "stupid horror movies that are loaded with Cheez Whiz." Dawson calls her "Roger Ebert" (whaaat?) as part of his argument that "in honour of Friday the 13th tomorrow, a little horror marathon was mandatory." Joey says that the movies are weak, and that Dawson has a "fascination with the dark side" (which does not extend to his highlights, as far as I can tell) that causes him to "enjoy scaring people -- in particular" her. Again, Dawson's hair also scares me, but that's neither here nor there. Dawson says that he loves the "adrenaline rush" horror movies cause, and that movies in the genre "provide positive examples of ordinary people overcoming their worst fears and conquering evil." Uh. They're not documentaries, Errol Snore-is. Joey tells him to "save it for Film class," concluding by saying that horror movies are unnecessarily violent and exploitative and that they provide no benefit to society. Dawson has no further pat replies and is reduced to calling Joey a "prude."