Dawson's Creek"Decisions" (formerly "Breaking Away")
Season 1 Finale
Theresa - Two Cents Reviewer
theresa@thetwocentscorp.com
A contentious episode, the Season 1 finale gives Joey a tough dilemma: take the opportunity to spend a semester in France, or stay and explore a relationship with Dawson?
Dawson and Joey have a self-referential conversation about TV cliffhangers (since the finale is one). Dawson thinks they keep people interested, but Joey thinks that they trick the audience into thinking something different will happen when it won't. Just like their lives, she says, they're so predictable.
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Dawson's Creek
ReplyDelete"Decisions" (formerly "Breaking Away")
Season 1 Finale
Theresa - Two Cents Reviewer
theresa@thetwocentscorp.com
A contentious episode, the Season 1 finale gives Joey a tough dilemma: take the opportunity to spend a semester in France, or stay and explore a relationship with Dawson?
Dawson and Joey have a self-referential conversation about TV cliffhangers (since the finale is one). Dawson thinks they keep people interested, but Joey thinks that they trick the audience into thinking something different will happen when it won't. Just like their lives, she says, they're so predictable.
Jen's grandfather finally wakes up, and she wants to celebrate with Dawson, but he has plans with Joey. Joey comes by and informs them that actually, she's got some surprising plans: studying in France. The girl who was supposed to go turned it down to stay with her boyfriend, so Joey gets to go instead. Jen seems ecstatic about this development, while Dawson looks like he just got hit by a bus. Joey's still undecided, but she has two days to think about it.
One of those days, to Joey's irritation, includes a trip to prison to visit her father for his birthday. She asks Dawson to take the 4-hour bus ride down with her, but they miss visiting hours and have to stay over at a motel. Dawson's a little freaked out about it, now that he's discovered his feelings for Joey. He analyzes it to death out loud, until Joey asks him what he's so scared of and then turns around to go to sleep.
The next day, they have an awkward meeting with her father. Joey is cold and rejects all conversation before telling him she's going to France and storming out. Dawson stays and tells Mr. Potter all the great things about Joey, and he realizes he doesn't want her to leave. Later, Dawson tells Joey that she needs to deal with her anger toward her father, but Joey insists that she just wants to go to Paris and get away from everything he did to her life. She asks Dawson for one good reason why she should stay, but Dawson says nothing.
Pacey and Joey talk about their disappointing fathers. Pacey laments becoming an embarrassment to his family, and recalls a time he lost a pee-wee baseball game and his father seemed to just give up on him. Joey realizes she didn't deal with her father the way she was supposed to, and Pacey takes her back to the prison. He bribes the guard to let her in so late, and she talks to her father through a fence. She tells him that he doesn't know her at all, but she wanted him to know that she's alright despite leaving her without a father. She also asks if her father loves her, because she doesn't think anyone does. He tells her that he loves her very much, and also can see that Dawson loves her too, and then they talk about that. Pet Peeve #18: When the supporting characters are star-centric. He hasn't talked to his daughter in two years, and they talk about Dawson?
Anyway, back at the hospital, Jen's grandfather has another stroke, and Grams lectures Jen about God's plan. Jen climbs through Dawson's window and tells him she feels like she's losing everyone. She asks if she can stay over at Dawson's, as friends, "like Joey does", and Dawson agrees. In the morning, Joey climbs up the ladder and finds Jen kissing Dawson in bed. Dawson runs out to talk to her, leaving a rejected Jen. After finding out her grandfather has died, she joins Grams at church and they cry together.
After searching all day, Dawson finds Joey back in his bedroom closet. Joey tells him she's sick of all analyzing and no doing, nothing ever changing. They say that they just want to be honest with each other, and when Dawson almost chickens out, Joey goes to the window to leave. Dawson realizes he has to catch her, and they kiss. Since this is the end of my reviews, I'll tell you that Joey ends up being one of those girls who stays for her boyfriend.
So what do you think of Joey's decision? Leave your Two Cents in the comments, and thanks for reliving the Creek with me!
I love this episode, and it's one of the few I can rewatch and enjoy, even knowing how this series ends. Which is horribly.
ReplyDeleteAnd about Season 3, the producers replace all of the soundtrack with new music. They also replace the theme song, which is Dawson's Creek blasphemy.
I know! Darn legal issues. I love Jann Arden, but DC is just not DC without "I Don't Wanna Wait".
ReplyDeleteI'm a P/J shipper myself, but I always felt bad that they kind of made Dawson the uninteresting supporting character in his own show. It was nice re-watching Season 1 and temporarily forgetting Season 5 & 6 *shudder*