Indian Summer

This episode transcript was transcribed by Ron Jones for I Hate Jen! Its contents are copyright © The Warner Brothers Television Network.
This script was taken, by permission from Ron’s episode guide

(Dawson and Pacey in his room watching B&W movie)

Pacey: (in Darth Vadar voice and holding fan) Luke, I am your father.

Dawson: Pacey, you're monopolising what's passing for a breeze.

Pacey: Oah … Dawson, this is gonna go down as one of the most abysmal movie nights ever.

Dawson: You care to elaborate?

Pacey: Well look around you my friend. We're two young happening men in the prime of our lives who can't find anything better to do than sit in some sweat box in the middle of an armpit staining Indian summer, and watch old movies. Correct me if I'm wrong Dawson, but didn't we used to have a couple of really cute girlfriends?

Dawson: That was a long time ago Pace, in a galaxy far far away. God, I can't wrap my head around this film noir stuff, which is making it really difficult to turn out a paper on it.

Pacey: Well of course you can't wrap your head around it Dawson.

Dawson: Excuse me?

Pacey: Well what we're watching here is the cinema of cynicism. No self-respecting son of Spielberg would feel comfortable in a morally ambiguous world populated with hard-boiled anti-heroes and duplicitous femme fatales.

Dawson: You know, could we just reschedule those (word?) jazz Pace, it's a little too hot for (missed words).

Pacey: Mmm, but this right here, this is celluloid a man like me can relate to. Pacey Whitter is nothing if not the walking talking embodiment of the fatherly protagonist.

Dawson: OK, Johnny anti-hero, explain to me this – how can this guy not know that this woman is setting him up for a fall of epic proportions?

Pacey: Because Dawson, not all of us are as immune to the law of sex as you are. I mean, not all of us would opt for the warm and fuzzy emotional connections over those of, let's say a more physical nature, you know what I mean? Most of us are just big dumb guys happy to sell our souls for the *slimmest* chance, of gettin' some.

Dawson: (smiling) Can I quote you on that?

Pacey: Oh yeah. Whitter. Two 't's'. Fun time's over. All this rapid fire deconstruction is making me weary Leery. I think I shall retire to cooler climes, namely the air-conditioned interior of my pops' squad car.

Dawson: Night Pace.

Pacey: Mmm-mm.

(Pacing, Dawson looks out window and sees a flashlight in the window of Jen's house – calls police)

911 Operator: Capeside police.

Dawson: Yeah, I'd like to report a possible robbery.

(Dawson goes investigating only to have the perpetrator land on him after jumping out the window - it is Eve)

Eve: Hiya Dawson.

(opening credits)

* * * * *

(Eve and Dawson in his bedroom)

Dawson: OK, explanation.

Eve: (Dawson putting a band-aid on Eve's elbow) Ouch! Thanks to your nosy neighbour antics out there Dawson, I fell down and went boom. (Holding out elbow) Kiss and make better?

Dawson: I just called the police. They're going to be here any minute.

Eve: OK, I'll spill. We didn't want you to find out this way Dawson, but me and Jen, we're having us quite the (french word). Sleepovers, late night pillow fights, brushing each other's hair and clinging to each other's arms. All that groovy stuff that girls do in pretty pink rooms behind close doors.

Dawson: Eve, there was a breaking, there was an entering and there was a flashlight. All that's missing is a ski mask.

Eve: Good God! Not even the suggestion of teen lesbianism can get you off my case. Can't we just … like, make out or something? Make (word?) your queries away.

Dawson: Eve, either you tell me your version or I tell the police mine.

Eve: Fine, do what your big bleeding heart wants Dawson, but here's a filthy four-letter word for you, and don't you dare blush … PSAT baby. Don't you remember where you were when the cataclysmic PSAT scandal of '99 went down? I for sure do.

Dawson: Is that some sort of threat Eve? Might I remind you, you're the one who actually stole the test.

Eve: And may I remind you that you that you are the one who gladly accepted my trial offer. (knock on front door) So feel free to get all boy scouty on me Dawson. But you should know, I'd get quite the perverse little thrill out of making things profoundly uncomfortable for you and the rest of the Sweet Valley High extras you call your friends.

Dawson: (opens front door) Doug. Hi. Ah, my sincerest apologies. I just … I just thought I saw someone next door, but it was actually, just ah, Jen, ah, sneaking in the window so as to not disturb Grams.

Doug: You sure about that Dawson?

Dawson: Yeah … Yeah.

Doug: OK then.

(Dawson goes back to his room to find Eve gone)

* * * * *

(Jack and Jen lying down on a blanket in a park)

Jack: I saw an article in this magazine once, where they put this thing up in the sky so that kids studying astronomy could track something during the night, and (pointing finger at stars) I think that is it ri- … or maybe that's it.

Jen: What … you expect me to believe there's some sort of giant disco ball orbiting the earth?

Jack: OK, when you put it like that it does sound kinda stupid. Maybe we should start thinking of getting out of here.

Jen: I don't think so. Not before the main event. C'mon, we got the stars … we got the moonlight … it's perfect.

Jack: Yeah, right! Lying in the grass on a hot Indian summer night with your gay best friend. That's your definition of perfect?

Jen: A girl could do a lot worse.

Jack: C'mon Jen, I know you too well. You can't tell me there's someone else you'd rather be star gazing with?

Jen: OK, you got me. Matt Damon.

Jack: (laughing) Yeah right.

Jen: What, you don't approve? OK, I'll have to go with Ben Affleck then. Well, he has that scruffy, indie-cred appeal. Well?

Jack: No comment. Besides, I was talking more about the realm of say, possible … Henry, for instance?

Jen: The freshman?

Jack: Yeah, the guy paid 500 bucks just to kiss you? Go gotta admit, that's kind of sweet.

Jen: Jack, Jack, Jack, my naïve little pet, it's the sweet ones that you have to watch out for. They'll run over you like a Mack truck.

Jack: Well Henry's harmless. Besides, he worships you.

Jen: He's a teenage boy. He'll worship anything in a wonderbra. (Jack laughs) Besides, I'm already sleeping with the best looking guy on the football team. And best friends are nothing to sneeze at. God, I remember when I first met Joey and Dawson. I was so envious of what they had, all that history.

Jack: Then that whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing kicked in.

Jen: See, that's what's so great about us. Sex will never come between you and me.

(Water sprinklers come on)

Jen: Oh God. Jack, Jack, get the quilt, get the quilt.

Jack: (They run off through the sprinklers laughing) Not so tough now are you, Homecoming Queen?

* * * * *

(Joey at work, mopping down a boat deck)

Rob: C'mon Potter, take a break. Hydrate yourself.

Joey: No thanks, I'm fine.

Rob: I insist. It would look very bad for the Logan family if you got heatstroke on me and died.

Joey: (taking the offered drink) It's nice to know you care.

Rob: (Taking off t-shirt and throwing it in Joey's lap) How can it possibly be this hot at 7:30 in the morning? Is this going to offend your delicate sensibilities?

Joey: (Throwing it back using mop handle) I'll probably swoon with excitement. But seeing as though I need this job to support my sister and nephew, I will just choose to look the other way.

Rob: So Potter, what do you say, you and me at the movies tonight?

Joey: Oh joy. Is this the part of the work day where you get inappropriate?

Rob: That depends on what your answer is.

Joey: My answer is … ask me again in two years when I am legal.

Rob: You watch Potter. Some other lucky lady is going to take me up on this offer and you're gonna be green with envy.

Joey: I think I can live with that possibility.

(Rob sprays her with water)

Joey: Stop it. Stop.

Rob: It's just water.

Joey: Stop it. Stop it.

Rob: C'mon. What, are all teenage girls as uptight as you?

Joey: No, just the ones with half a brain.

* * * * *

(School office – Dawson asking about Eve)

Office Lady: You say this girl is a very close friend?

Dawson: Yes.

Office Lady: And yet you don't have the slightest idea where she lives?

(Cut to strip club)

Club Owner: Oh, sorry kid, we're closed.

Dawson: I'm not here for the titillation sir. I'm actually looking for a girl I go to school with. She used to work here.

(cut back to school office)

Office Lady: What's the name?

Dawson: Whitman, Eve Whitman.

(Cut back to strip club)

Dawson: She's tall, leggy, blonde, genetically engineered to corrupt the male species.

Office Lady: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news young man, but someone's been playing games with you.

Dawson: What do you mean?

(Cut back to strip club)

Club Owner: How old are you? Sixteen?

Dawson: Yeah.

Club Owner: If you're sixteen, that means you're under age. And if you're under age, you would never be permitted into my establishment. And if you're going to school with one of my girls that means she would be under age as well. So, what can be take away from today's tutorial?

(Cut back to office)

Office Lady: There is not, there was not, there never has been, an Eve Whitman enrolled at Capeside High.

(Dawson looks surprised and confused)

* * * * *

(Highschool hallway)

Henry: C'mon, C'mon, let's go already.

Jack: I don't see why we have to practice in this heat. It's got to violate, like a thousand child endangerment laws.

Henry: Yeah, yeah, yeah, talk to the hand. Listen, if we're late, big bad Mitch is gonna kick our—

Jack: Our what?

Henry: Don't look. She's coming, she's coming this way. Just act normal.

Jack: Henry, when she comes over, just ask her out alright, OK, 'cause this is ridiculous.

Henry: It's not that easy. You don't know how hard it is for me to talk to her. Look at her. Look, she's like this perfect thing.

Jack: She look good in that, you should see her in a towel.

Jen: Boys, do I have good news. The ice-cream man, right outside. Wanna lick?

Jack: No thanks.

Jen: (Holding the ice-cream out to him) Henry?

(Henry starts to stutter then shakes his head)

Jen: Mm-mm no?

(Henry shakes his head again)

Jen: OK, suit yourself. (Looking at Jack) See you later?

Jack: Yeah.

Jen: Bye Henry.

Henry: You see. You see what happens to me, why I can't ask her out? She gets within three feet of me and it's like my hard drive crashes. I go pre-verbal. Probably if I asked her out, I'd hurl all over her like that little kid from Southpark.

Jack: OK. So, what if you didn't have to ask her out?

Henry: You mean like you could get her to ask me out? I'm so down with that feminist stuff.

Jack: (Laughing) Henry, I'm good, but not that good. No. What if your first date was like, um, was like kismet? You know, fate? Two people just happen to be at the exact same place at the exact same time.

* * * * *

(Cut to Dawson approaching Doug who's giving out parking tickets)

Doug: Dawson Leery. How are things that go bump in the night?

Dawson: (PD?) Whitter. I was wondering if I could pose a hypothetical?

Doug: Pose away.

Dawson: I'm working on a screenplay. It's a film noir piece with a cop protagonist and I was wondering if I could pick your brain on a few story points?

Doug: How can I help?

Dawson: Well I could use some help with procedure actually. I'm stuck at the part where the hero is trying to track down the femme fatale who's all but disappeared at this point. Now how would a law enforcement professional such as yourself go about finding someone who doesn't want to be found?

Doug: Well, that's a good question Dawson. Now, part of police work is knowing who your enemy is. So let me ask you this … who is this girl?

Dawson: She's kind of a lost soul. I mean she comes off like, sort of a wild child, but I think there's something really sweet and vulnerable underneath all the posturing.

Doug: Laundromat.

Dawson: Come again?

Doug: Laundromat.

Dawson: A laundromat?

Doug: Ah-huh.

Dawson: Really.

Doug: Yeah. You know Dawson, in a small town such as Capeside, everybody, except for those with questionable hygiene sensibilities of course, has to do their laundry at some point.

Dawson: So you're saying you'd stake out the laundromat?

Doug: Exactly.

* * * * *

(Dawson staking out laundromat. Pacey comes and sits next to him)

Pacey: Obsession is not a pretty thing my friend.

Dawson: C'mon, doesn't it bother you?

Pacey: What? That we don't know all about Eve?

Dawson: Yeah.

Pacey: Let me give you a little life lesson from the Whitter of Oz, Dawson.

Dawson: Ah, God.

Pacey: There are some women, who come onto the movie set that is your life and function solely as day players. They'll show up, they know their dialogue, they'll hit their marks, they'll occasionally steal a scene or two from you, but they will remain always and forever an impenetrable mystery.

Dawson: But Eve, barged into my life and stirred things up, for her own amusement.

Pacey: Correct me if I'm wrong Dawson, but didn't she try to go where no girl has gone before?

Dawson: Snyopsise with me. She works at a strip club, but she doesn't. Alright, she says she goes to our school, but she doesn't. She appears, she disappears. She reappears without rhyme or reason. Who the hell is this girl?

Pacey: OK, simmer down Dawson.  This girl is giving you a meltdown. (Pats him on the shoulder) God. All right, this is what I propose. You and I take a little trip down to the video store. You want film noir right? How about that one with Matt Dillon, where he has that really outstanding threesome with Neve Campbell and that chick from Starship Troopers?

(Dawson thinks about it for all of two seconds before getting up off the park bench)

Pacey: Yeah. Oh hey, one more thing. My brother, he uh, gave you the laundromat speech didn't he?

Dawson: Yeah.

(Pacey laughs – they walk off toward the video store and catch sight if Eve buying an ice-cream)

Pacey: Yo. (They hide behind a fountain) Now, Deputy Doug's laundromat theory may be all well and good, but it's a tad too (word?) bearing for my taste. Given my druthers, I'd much prefer a share of dad's dissertation on how to pin a tail on a suspect. Watch and learn my friends.

(They follow Eve) (Joey at work)

Rob: (Ringing the service bell) Ah, Miss, a little service here please.

Joey: Very funny.

Rob: I'm serious. I've got my father's C-Right cruiser over there. Can you fill it up for me, I don't want to get gas all over myself. I'm on a date here.

Joey: So I'll smell. (walking past Rob) Ah, you may have gone a little overboard on the CK-1.

Rob: Wait 'til you see her Potter, she's a real cutie. About you age too. Better dresser though. Not so uptight about showing off a little skin. I'm gonna get so lucky tonight.

Joey: Don't tell me you actually found some highschool girl so riddled with insecurities that she'd fall for your minor league Englelbert Humpernick impersonations?

Andie: (comes out from below deck) Hey Joey! Isn't this great. I was at the country club today with my dad, 'cause he's thinking about joining, and I ran into Rob.

Joey: I didn't know you two knew each other.

Andie: Oh yeah, he went to prep school with my brother Tim. (to Rob) So did you know Joey and I were friends?

Rob: Well, I had a sneaking suspicion. After all, it is a small town.

Joey: So Andie, where is moneybags taking you tonight? All the way down to the Bahamas and back?

Andie: No. You know, we're just going to the movies. It's too hot to do anything else.

Rob: Well almost anything else.

Andie: (playfully) That wasn't a sexual overture was it?

Rob: Shh, not in front of the K-I-D (pointing at Joey).

Joey: I'm all finished here.

Rob: Great. Here you go Potter, (placing money in Joey's shirt pocket) buy yourself something pretty.

Joey: (giving it back) Save it for bail money.

Rob: OK, let's see what this puppy can do.

Andie: (as the boat leaves the docks) Bye Joey.

* * * * *

(In the park Henry sets out blanket, waiting for Jen – he has words written on his hand)

Henry: (practising his lines) What a beautiful spot this is.

(Jen creeps up behind Henry)

Jen: Henry?

Henry: Ah … Ah …

Jen: Are you OK?

Henry: Ahh …

Jen: Go once for yes, twice for no.

Henry: (puts out one hand)

Jen: Once! OK. What's on your hand?

Henry: Ah, nothing. Jen?

Jen: Yeah?

Henry: You … you're awesome. You look awesome, you smell awesome, everything about you is awesome. I … I just wanted you to know that.

Jen: (trying not to laugh) Good to know. So what are you doing here?

Henry: Hanging … out. You know, same thing you are, just … just hanging, out.

Jen: Actually, I'm just waiting for Jack.

Henry: Oh, well, Jack couldn't be here tonight. 'Cause you see, he had these other plans, important plans, so … so he sent me instead.

Jen: OK, I think I know where this is going. Continue.

Henry: Um, that's it … that's it.

Jen: Out with it Henry.

Henry: Well, I guess he thought if you were here, and I were here and we were … (both speak) *here* together, that it would sort of be like a date. You know, like our first date.

Jen: You know Henry, I know you're new at this being all of uh, I don't know what … fourteen?

Henry: (indignantly) Fifteen.

Jen: OK, Fifteen. Dating is a consensual activity that usually involves some sort of pre-arrangement. Next time don't skip the part where you ask me.

(Jen walks off)

* * * * *

(Evening. It's dark and Pacey and Dawson have followed Eve to the marina where Eve gets on a boat.)

Pacey: And the plot thickens, my friend.

(They both unashamedly leer at the silhouette of Eve changing. She emerges and they hide as she walks back down the pier.)

Dawson: (as Pacey goes to leave) Where're you going?

Pacey: What, are you daft man? I'm going after her. That girl is in dire need of following.

Dawson: You go follow her. I'm gonna stay here and check out that boat.

Pacey: Sure, now you're thinking, butch.

(Dawson goes onto boat, looks around the haphazard interior and comes across a photo of a blond girl)

Doug: Hands up, you're under arrest!

(Dawson pockets the picture before turning around)

(Dawson and Doug back on pier)

Doug: Dawson Leery. Why am I not surprised? Let me guess, research for your screenplay?

Dawson: No, a friend of mine lives here.

Doug: This friend wouldn't be by any chance be your mysterious femme fatale would she?

Dawson: No. Nothing as lurid as that I'm afraid, just a friend.

Doug: Oh, funny. I never figured you to be the type to be pals with oxygenarians.

Dawson: Come again?

Doug: That boat, on which you were very much a trespasser, belongs to a Mr and Mrs Paul Stepmonk. A sweet little couple, somewhere in their late eighties.

Dawson: Oh.

Doug: Yeah, oh. The Stepmonks are big fans of Capeside, but only in the summer time. They spend the rest of their time golden year in New York City.

Dawson: I ah, must of clambered aboard the wrong boat then.

Doug: Maybe you did clamber wrong. Then again, maybe your friend is the one we've been looking for.

Dawson: What do you mean?

Doug: Couple of weeks ago somebody stole a speed boat from the marina and took it for a little joy ride.

Dawson: Speed boat. Really?

Doug: You wouldn't know anything about that, would you Dawson?

Dawson: No. I mean, why would I?

Doug: Look Dawson, I know that you're a good kid, but something is going on with you. All of a sudden, you're the boy who cried 911, you pose thinly veiled questions to an officer of the law, and all of this somehow revolves around some mysterious femme fatale. Which of course, begs the question … is there something you have to tell me, Dawson?

(Dawson looks awkward until Pacey comes walking down the pier)

Pacey: Deputy Doug in the house!

Doug: (laughing) Oh, I should have known. Wherever there's smoke, there's my imbecilic little brother.

Pacey: Doug, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times, despite his dapper gap clad appearance, my friend Dawson does not play for you team, OK?   You're just going to have to find another date to the policeman's ball.