Again With This: Dawson's, Melrose, 90210

YES, this is a new episode; the dance episode in S01 is just called "Dance," and yes, it was a terrible idea for two episodes of the same show to have nearly identical titles, but here we are. All our opening-credits cast nonconformists know, as Andie does, that the Homecoming Dance is coming up. Unlike Andie, they don't care, until she points out that dancing can be a form of foreplay and all the...

It's a full moon! Joey is pretty sure it's going to cause out-of-character behavior in the townsfolk, and she might be on to something: Mitch and Gale are so testy about one another's totally innocent visitors (Tamara in his case; some reporter colleague named Gary in hers), repeatedly making reference to THURSDAYS, that Dawson can't help noticing and demanding to know what is actually going on wi...

As we saw at the end of the last episode, Tamara somehow has the nerve to show her face back in Capeside AFTER EVERYTHING. Officially it's to sell her house and also a warehouse (???), the latter possibly to Mitch for his fake restaurant, which is why Dawson is the first credits-cast Capeside High student to see her. He does TRY to warn Pacey, but not hard enough, since as we keep saying, he's a b...

Nearly all our teen leads happen to be taking the same Econ class, in which Mr. Maddock NOT ONLY demands that students pair up for a project on household finances, complete with character briefs and backstory; he's ALSO not letting them choose their own partners, which is how Andie ends up with Pacey, Jen with Dawson, Abby with a nerd named Kenny, and Joey on her own. You'd think Joey would go str...

Dawson and Joey are settling into the new phase of their relationship in the typical teenager way: totally oblivious that other people exist, rolling straight from Mitch and Gale catching them making out all over Dawson's bed to Dawson forgetting Pacey's 16th birthday. Pacey gives Dawson multiple chances to redeem himself -- including by throwing himself a party -- but it's Andie who actually come...

We're off this week but we bring you two Again With Again With This episodes full of Canadianosity. AWAWT 149: Let’s Watch Kathleen Robertson In Maniac Mansion! We're heading back to the early nineties (again) with an episode of weird, energetic cross-border fam-com Maniac Mansion , which was loosely based on the videogame -- and starred a young Kathleen Robertson as teen brainiac Tina; Mr. Weir a...

We pick up with Dawson and Joey where we left off in the S01 finale: they kissed! They like each other! They're going to talk about it a bunch, misusing a lot of five-dollar words in the process! But...what does this mean? Are they immediately boyfriend-girlfriend? Is sex on the table? Is Jen going to be weird about it -- that is, when she's not being weird about Grams doing a bad job mourning Gra...

Deep in the background, Pacey's dad is not only still being a jerk to him but enlisting Doug to do it in his absence. But in the foreground, a lot is going on with his three best friends. Joey and Dawson are still very confused about their feelings for one another following the beauty pageant, so when Joey is offered the chance to spend the next semester in France, he doesn't want her to go but al...

Capeside is closing out tourist season with Windjammer Days, a town-wide festival of which we see absolutely nothing except the climactic Miss Windjammer pageant. Dawson thinks Jen should enter, which she takes to be a backhanded compliment about her vanity. Jen thinks Joey should enter, because her tips are drying up and she could use the $5000 prize as the start of a college fund. And Pacey thin...

The 90s Melrose Place era has come to a close on Again With This , so before we leap into Dawson's Creek with ALL our feet, we're taking some questions and comments from our hotline. Listen to find out what your fellow listeners wanted to know, like what Kimberly could have gotten up to in Seasons 6 and 7, which props we would have bid on at the show's official auction, and whomst among our three...

The rumors about what really went down the night Kent Damarr died simply cannot be contained. At first, it seems like Eve just wants the truth to come out. But pretty quickly, she changes her mind and hatches a plot for revenge that involves tying Lexi up and dropping her in the tub before stalking Amanda and Peter with murder on her mind. (Why did she have to remove Lexi's clothes first? Presumab...

For Mike White's second credited episode, it's Friday the 13th! Apparently, this is an occasion Dawson's friends have long known is one he likes to mark with scarifying pranks, and that telling him in so many words that they don't like it will not make him stop. Given her new status as Dawson's platonic friend, Jen assumes she will also be on the receiving end of some of this mischief, even though...

You might think Lexi would decide she had enough on her plate dealing with Tony's corpse while also making sure she didn't lose the business he agreed to in his final moments. But, in fact, seeing Eve rapidly unraveling psychologically just convinces her to add a new scheme to her schedule: she can certainly take advantage of Eve's instability and use it against Amanda! Mark L. Taylor manages to c...

Dawson is still being such a whiny little bitch about Jen dumping him that Pacey tells him how he could possibly lay the groundwork to get her back: take her up on her request that they be friends, and prove he means it by suggesting that they go on a double date! This involves asking out the cute and friendly Mary Beth and totally not telling her what his actual intention is. (Remember: this is a...

Now that everyone's back from the cruise, it's time for a reckoning. Peter tells Eve he wants a divorce because of the way she maneuvered him off the ship for days so that she could bone Tony, but she yells that actually Amanda did that. So Peter confronts Amanda about that, not knowing she's coming straight from seeing the film Lexi ruined and is truly in no mood. Tony refuses to shell out for a...

Dawson is being extremely annoying and maudlin about his first-ever breakup, and nothing Joey says can snap him out of it. But when Billy (somehow) hears about the split and reappears to try to get Jen back some more, she firmly shuts him down, forcing him to take the long way around: inviting Dawson to come with him to a bar in Providence where Billy knows the bouncer and thus can get his underag...

It's time for the cruise! Tony is VERY annoyed to see that his would-be girlfriend brought her husband, and orders Amanda to run interference, which Amanda is happy enough to do, both because she wants to secure his account, and because -- as WE all know -- she enjoys spending time with Peter because he is her favorite. Meanwhile, Lexi's assistant Julie has heard all the gossip about Amanda's rece...

After the extremely awkward events of "Detention," Dawson claims to Joey that things between him and Jen are just fine! Little does he know that Jen's ex Billy (Eion Bailey!) has come from New York to Capeside to try to get Jen back. It doesn't work immediately, so he contrives a reason to remain in town, but also cries poor, which leads to him getting billeted with...Dawson? Feels like a mistake....

WELL, Sarah (McBride, to be clear) is still in Los Angeles. Immediately, she determines that the true Megan is meant to be with her dad, and is compliant with everything Ryan tells her to do, starting when he's still at her boarding school on the other side of the country, yelling at Terry about challenging her custody. Sarah ends up at the beach house where the uncle she never knew she had is imp...

Four separate disciplinary incidents have, it seems, landed our four teen protagonists in all-day detention in the Capeside High library...but it wouldn't be a full Breakfast Club homage without a fifth, which is why we're meeting chaos agent Abby Morgan (Monica Keena)! What crimes did they each commit? What terrifying admissions and world-changing challenges occur in the course of Abby's game of...

Megan still loves Ryan. Michael still loves Megan. Ryan's trying to convince himself Megan is a lost cause, but he still loves her too. NO ONE loves Lexi. Yet somehow these four idiots refuse to figure out their whole situation. Michael, at least, has the excuse of bigger fish to fry: having bought in as a board member at the hospital, Dr. Shulman is still bringing the draconian cost-cutting spiri...

The more we hear everyone discussing Bessie's pregnancy due date in the relatively near future, the more we know this TV baby is coming even sooner than that, and sure enough, he chooses a day when Bodie's out of town, the Potter phone isn't connected, and the truck is likely to get stuck in mud. The upshot is that Bessie and Joey end up at Dawson's -- initially just to use the phone, but when the...

Things are going badly enough for Megan that she decides to take Amanda up on that job offer after all: if Ryan no longer has any feelings for Megan, then Megan can turn her feelings for Ryan off too. That's fine with Amanda, since it means she can wring all of Lexi's business secrets out of Megan and gain a competitive advantage -- which is probably overestimating both how much Megan retained at...

Hurricane Chris is bearing down on Capeside, but it can't really compete with the shitstorm that drama queen Dawson's been living in since he found out about his mother's affair and his girlfriend's sexual experiences. When almost everyone ends up holing up at the Leery house, it becomes impossible for Dawson to escape all the women he's mad at, so he lefts Gale know he knows , and also ices out J...

As soon as they got back together, Kyle and Amanda promised to step back from their high-pressure jobs and focus on each other. He had no problem doing that, so why can't Amanda?! And should we be worried that he and Jane -- whose back stairs he is taking forever to build -- have such an easy rapport? Peter is fighting two different wars: against Dr. Shulman's savage cuts at the hospital, and agai...