I’ve got your back too, Eric.
Actually, I believe there
is a good approach to any sort of love triangle. I think that the Season One Love Triangle between Dawson, Joey, and Jen was handled in a
much better way than the Season Three Love Triangle between Dawson, Pacey, and Joey. In Season One, Jen was presented as a very sweet and appealing character, and you could completely understand why Dawson would be so infatuated with her, and Joey was presented as the tough but vulnerable underdog who was secretly in love with her best friend, and while most of the audience, including me, was waiting for Dawson to “take off the blinders” and see what he had in Joey, and I was glad when he finally did, but I also liked and felt a great deal of sympathy for Jen in those final episodes, as she realized, too late, that she hadn’t really given her relationship with Dawson a chance, and by the time she realized that she loved Dawson, she had lost him to Joey.
Granted, Jen was vilified in certain circles as, and I quote, “the mini-skirted wedge between Dawson and Joey’s true feelings for one another,” but she was always presented in a positive light in Season One, and Michelle Williams did a wonderful job in making Jen’s character vulnerable and endearing in that season (and in the seasons to come). Jen was shown to be very patient with Dawson as he ardently tried to win her heart, and she was
always nice to Joey, even though Joey was a complete bitch to her, so in that case, neither contender for Dawson’s heart was purposely put in a bad light like Dawson was purposely put in a bad light in Season Three.