Valentine's Day Massacre - S3-E14
Factual error: This episode is set on Valentine's Day, but there is a shot of the front of the school where a girl is wearing shorts. It snows in Massachusetts in February, where Capeside is set.
Valentine's Day Massacre - S3-E14
Revealing mistake: When Jen goes to visit Henry at the hospital, he is eating a small individual-sized Jello. There is another identical Jello on the same tray, in front of Jen when she sits down to talk to Henry. You can see that the corner of the Jello lid has already been pulled up rather noticeably. This is probably to make it easier for Michelle Williams, the actress to be able to open the Jello quickly during her scene.
Factual error: When Jack and Andie are talking at the dinner table about her cheating on the PSAT, Jack says, "Do you really want to get kicked out of school for cheating on something that has the world 'Practice' in front of it?" PSAT actually stands for Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, not Practice SAT. This is the same mistake that Pacey made in an earlier episode.
Continuity mistake: When Pacey is nursing his black eye with a raw steak, Joey comes into Doug's apartment to talk to Pacey. Just when Pacey says, "Looking out for ya," there is a frontal shot of Joey. Her hair is bunched up considerably in the back, near her right ear. As Pacey says, "To look after said girl," the next shot of Joey shows the bunched up hair in the back suddenly gone, and her hair is smooth.
Continuity mistake: At the end of the episode, Joey and Pacey are repainting over the ruined mural with light blue paint. Joey starts to paint a small section of the wall with her roller. Dawson then comes out of a room, and glances down the hallway to see them both painting. But Joey's patch of light blue paint at this point is suddenly much larger. It doesn't seem realistic that Joey would have been able to paint that much more of the wall, in the short amount of time elapsed.
Continuity mistake: When Pacey is driving Joey back from Boston in the morning, they start talking about what happened. Every shot of Pacey or Joey from either side shows a heavily wooded forest (mostly pine trees it looks like) in the background. But when Pacey abruptly veers off the road to the right and parks; suddenly the landscape on Joey's side is barren with a huge lake, and no forest or trees except a few they just passed on the curve. The pine tree footage was probably added in to make Wilmington, NC look more like Capeside, Mass.
Revealing mistake: When Joey and Pacey are talking in the car as Pacey drives them to the Train Station, you can see at least 3 lanes full of cars and a great deal of traffic behind them. But when Pacey suddenly turns right, off the main road and into the entrance to the Train Station; you can see that suddenly the main road he has just turned off of is almost completely empty of any traffic in either direction, except a truck that drives by at the last minute. It also appears to be a smaller road. Apparently the scenes with their dialogue in the car were shot with background video that wasn't the actual location.
Continuity mistake: When Andie and Jack are discussing Ethan's visit while sitting outside eating breakfast, Andie pours milk over her cereal, puts down the milk, takes her spoon in her right hand, then into her left hand. The immediate next camera angle shows Andie holding the milk again, closing it and putting it down, again. (00:06:22)
Continuity mistake: When Aunt Gwen is talking to Dawson and Joey in the store, just after she says, "General all around cuddliness between the two of you"; Joey is facing her and Dawson is turned the other way, with his back to her. But the next shot of Dawson is a close-up, and he is suddenly facing Aunt Gwen as he says, "OK, I'll tell you the long soap opera short". The transition was too fast to be realistic, or to have given Dawson enough time to turn completely around to face Aunt Gwen.
Factual error: In the second segment of this episode, there is a scene where Joey bumps into Dawson on a street corner after she has just left the library. As they are talking, there suddenly appears in front of them a large square stone monument which describes the 'North Carolina' battleship. The 'North Carolina' is a large battleship that is permanently stationed at the pier in Wilmington, NC where the show is really filmed. They had to shoot around this large ship constantly, being careful not to let it show as they are supposed to be in Capeside, MA. However in this scene, they accidentally filmed right in front of the large square monument which shows several lines of writing. On screen you can read: "On the west side of the river a little south of the causeway was Beery's Shipyard, where the Confederate ironclad North Carolina." This is apparently in reference to the battle ship 'North Carolina' which is stationed nearby in their location of Wilmington, NC not MA. Oops. (00:16:25)
Visible crew/equipment: When Joey is in Dawson's room, trying to tell him about her relationship with Pacey, she can't find the words and turns to leave. As she bends over to climb back out of his bedroom window, you can suddenly see a microphone wire protruding from the back of her white shirt. It's a visible vertical line, and as she continues to climb out the window, you can see that there is no mike pack on her lower back. (00:19:05)
Plot hole: At the beginning of the episode, when Joey and Pacey are kissing in the boathouse on the dock; he lifts her up and puts her on a counter right in front of a window. This window appears to look directly out over the nearby boats and dock, meaning they would have been in full view of all their friends waiting to christen Pacey's boat. Not very logical to be kissing on the sly, right in front of a window where everyone could see them.
Continuity mistake: This episode shows a full day's events repeatedly in 4 separate segments, and it appears they reused the same scenes and dialogues. But there are noticable differences between Act 3 and Act 4. At the end of Act 3, when Dawson confronts Joey and Pacey about their relationship; he says to William and Andie, "Better yet, ask Joey. Ask her how long [she's] been lying to me and to you." During this same scene in Act 4, Dawsons varies it slightly: "Better yet, Ask Joey. Ask her how long [the two of them] have been lying to you and to me." He also switches 'you and me' interchangeably. Act 3, Dawson further says, "Go ahead ask them, because I can't [stand to look at them]." But in Act 4, he changes it to "Go ahead ask them, because I can't [even stand to look at them anymore]." The way these two scenes were shot varies also. During Act 3, when Dawson is finished talking he storms back into his house, and makes it inside the inner front door alone. But in Act 4, Dawson starts running back into his house with Joey following close behind him, so that she is in the frame when he reaches the inner front door.
Continuity mistake: When Joey meets Dawson before The Anti-Prom, he loans her his mother's diamond earrings. Just as Bessie says "Put them on, and then I'll get one more picture"; there is a close-up of Joey as she puts an earring in her right ear. It appears that she has just started putting the earrings on; but then she turns to face forward for the photo with Dawson, and you can see both earrings already on her ears. Joey started putting the right earring in just after Dawson told her to put the earrings on, so how did the left ear get done?
Factual error: When Joey is driving the light blue pick-up truck, Doug pulls her over to tell her Pacey is leaving town. Right before she pulls over, in her close-up there is a sticker on the lower corner of the driver's side windshield, which looks like it could be the North Carolina State Safety Inspection sticker (small square decal with a yellow emblem in the center, and blue writing along the top and down both sides of the decal), as opposed to a Massachusetts inspection sticker (which would be on the passenger side). (00:07:25)
Revealing mistake: During this scene Joey is running from the wedding to find Pacey. There is a young couple dressed in light blue, standing on the left side of the scene. The man appears to turn his head and see Katie Holmes running towards them, and puts his arm around the woman next to him and directs her across the grass over to the right. They both sort of suddenly run over to the right in order to clear the way for Katie to keep running straight through the area. It's obvious they moved intentionally so as to get out of her way, knowing the actress was about to run by them. (00:34:20)
Plot hole: During this ending scene, Joey runs frantically to find Pacey and asks to go with him on his sailing trip all Summer. She is carrying absolutely nothing with her, not even a purse or wallet. Her pockets are completely flat, and she doesn't even appear to have ID. Joey's lack of luggage or clothing is explained in her dialogue, as she jokes about the next change of clothing. She probably assumed she could buy what she needed along the way, and was in a hurry not to miss Pacey's departure. But it doesn't seem logical that she would take off for an entire Summer without any type of purse, wallet, money, credit cards, ID, etc. as she would have no way to pay for anything. She would also need her ID in order to work the odd jobs she mentions in Season 4. (00:39:10)
Visible crew/equipment: When Joey is walking out to the pier to talk to Dawson, right after the wedding; the wind is blowing her dress back and you can see a prominent, solid line going up the front of her dress from about the waist up to the neck. I assume this is probably a microphone wire of some kind and not just a wrinkle, as the line is solid and protruding through the material.
Continuity mistake: At the very end of the episode, when Joey and Pacey are sailing out into the sunset the sky keeps changing between shots. When they are first setting off, it's earlier in the day with bright sun and a cloudless sky. The sun appears at a high angle. The next shot, as they sail further the sky is suddenly full of clouds and it's almost sunset, with the sun lower in the sky. The final shot after that, the sky is still cloudy and in sunset hues as the sun appears just over the horizon about to set. Obviously these shots were taken at different times of the day, although they appear to be right after each other in the show.
Answer: It's only explained once in the series. Jack says to Andie "I tried to start kindergarten without you", meaning Andie was smart enough to start school early.