'Dawson' reveals all in sweeps, part two

It's time for the second week of "Dawson's Creek" sweeps fun, kids. That means twice the angst, twice the tension and without a doubt, twice the vocabularic gymnastics by everyone's favorite adolescent pop psychologist creeps. So it was with great anticipation and excitement that I sat down to view the second episode of the "Is Jack gay?" sweeps circus in my effort to bring all of you the very best in "Creek" freak reporting.

Faithful readers will recall that I made several predictions in last week's review. Was I correct? Was I out in left field? Is Dawson blond? Is Dawson brunette? Like James Van Der Beek's dye job, my prognostications were a bit hit or miss, and again like his dye job, it's up to you to decide by watching if it's the massive noggin or the eyebrows that lie, so to speak.

The is-he-or-isn't-he Jack McPhee situation quickly comes to a head tonight when the school counselor, who last week plied the young lad with gay-is-okay pamphlets, calls in the MIA McPhee patriarch. Mr. McPhee shows up at Capeside High and quickly establishes why we've never seen him before: He is a responsibility-shirking, hard man who avoids his familial obligations by claiming he needs to be away from home to be a successful breadwinner. No wonder his wife is half-way to the looney bin.

Jack is extremely displeased (to put it lightly) to see his father again. But Andie immediately jumps into lapdog mode where she turns into an obsequious daddy's girl. Jack is disgusted by her actions but is unable to slap any sense into her - once Andie gets going on a jag, she's like a high speed freight train, unstoppable until she plunges off the trestle.

And plunge she does, into a reckoning between the remaining McPhee kids (their older brother was killed several years ago, which set off the family's disintegration) and their father from which only one of the actors will emerge unscathed but neither offspring will emotionally survive. This week's advice is to leave the crying to Kerr Smith, because Meredith Monroe is sorely lacking in the effective tears department.

Back in (relative) normalsville, Eddie the 13th apostle continues dragging Jen all around town to seedy bars where he plays bad backup piano to a crummy lounge singer. This time out, Dawson and Joey are forced to join them since Jack and Andie are busy with problems of their own. Could a rekindling of the old Dawson/Joey flame be in the offing? That question is probably best left unanswered until May sweeps.

Pacey is occupied mounting a bylaw-fueled smear campaign against the nasty English teacher who kicked the whole McPhee melodrama into high gear last week. It's nice to see the "DC" writers giving Pacey something constructive to do while his girlfriend is busy having an emotional breakdown. Guys need that sort of morale-booster from time to time.

This not-so-touching conclusion to last week's "Dawson's Creek" heinously boring offering is a marked improvement after the hysterical, melodramatic crap to which we sinners were recently subjected. It's not in the virtually empty "DC" pantheon, but it's close. And it's worth it if only for the wonderful, wordless final scene of the evening.

02-17-99