Dawson's Creek"Beauty Contest" (formerly "Pretty Woman")
Season 1
Theresa - Two Cents Reviewer
theresa@thetwocentscorp.com
A pretty classic episode in the Dawson's Creek canon, "Beauty Contest" is the episode that makes Dawson realize Joey is actually, you know, a girl. An attractive one at that. As Pacey says, "At last, the moment of truth! Well, thank god, Dawson, maybe we can all go home now."
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Dawson's Creek
ReplyDelete"Beauty Contest" (formerly "Pretty Woman")
Season 1
Theresa - Two Cents Reviewer
theresa@thetwocentscorp.com
A pretty classic episode in the Dawson's Creek canon, "Beauty Contest" is the episode that makes Dawson realize Joey is actually, you know, a girl. An attractive one at that. As Pacey says, "At last, the moment of truth! Well, thank god, Dawson, maybe we can all go home now."
The episode begins with another dialogue about human attraction, and how the media has conditioned people on what qualities are currently attractive. Dawson thinks that animal insinct has more to do with it than Joey believes. And what better way to illustrate the many aspects of beauty than the Miss Windjammer competition, Capeside's annual beauty pageant!
Joey tells Jen the pageant is pretty much an event for the wealthy families of Capeside to reward themselves. Jen tells the gang that her mother used to enter her in child pageants, and Dawson suggests, among many veiled insults, that she sign up for Miss Windjammer. Jen has a different idea: she'll coach Joey. First prize is $5000, just what Joey needs to help her get out of Capeside, so she swallows her pride and enters. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, except that Joey still doesn't understand why Jen wants to be her friend at all.
Pacey, fed up with his dad's criticism, is planning to become an emancipated minor, but doesn't know how he'd pay rent. He jokingly talks about entering the Miss Windjammer pageant to win the money, with the added bonus of pissing off his dad. He ends up finding a loophole in the rulebook: it doesn't explicitly state the contestants have to be female, so the pageant people are forced to let him in. One of Capeside's bluebloods, Hannah Von Wenning, comes by sporadically to ridicule him.
The first part of the pageant is a taped interview with Dawson, who's helping cover the pageant for his mom's TV station. When Joey's interview reveals that she wants to get as far away from Capeside as she can, Dawson realizes that she may not be around forever on his backburner. During the evening gown competition, Dawson becomes all awe-struck by Joey's beauty.
For her talent. Joey sings "On My Own" from Les Miserables, which is not so covertly about her unrequited feelings for Dawson. In the wings, Dawson is finding himself affected by Joey, while Jen is deciding that maybe she actually wants Dawson's attention back on her. Sigh.
Gail, one of the judges, tells Pacey that even though he's fantastic, the Capeside fatcats will never let him win. Angered and humiliated, he changes his magic act to a recitation of the William Wallace speech from Braveheart. His "Pacey Witter" adaptation of the speech is probably one of the best scenes of the entire series. Joey's finale has her similarly criticizing the small minds and prejudice of Capeside, and discovering her integrity. In a nice departure from the usual, Joey loses the pageant to an all-around perfect contestant named Roberta Krump. Her consolation prize? A free day of beauty at Betty's Hair Barn.
After the pageant, Dawson tells Joey how amazing and confident she was, and how she "transformed into this beautiful Joey". Nice. Thankfully, Joey doesn't melt into his arms at the first kind words. She knows that what he's seeing isn't her, and wants Dawson to see her the way she really is and like that Joey. She tells him she can't wait and walks away, living a dumbfounded Dawson who apparently thought he could have Joey whenever he wanted. Jen tries to get in under the wire of Dawson's feelings for Joey, but finds Dawson's not too willing to run into her arms again either.
What do you think of this episode? Did everyone you know use "On My Own" as an audition song after this too? Leave your Two Cents in the comments.