Fan Forum - View Single Post - Everwood Fans who are Dawson/Joey & Pacey/Andie Fans of DC #15: Even Kevin Williamson's very own mother hated the ending.

***Jerry D*** · 02-02-2018, 08:28 PM

I wanted to share something that I wrote about the character of Joey at the end of Season Three:

Quote:

In recent weeks, I’ve been reflecting on Dawson’s Creek, and I’ve tried to focus in on what has disappointed me most of all since Season One captivated me like no show ever has. After weighing everything out, what’s disappointed me most of all is what the writers have done to the character of Joey Potter. If you objectively compare the Joey Potter of Season One to the Joey Potter of Seasons Two and Three, the differences are quite astounding, and very disheartening, in my humble opinion. I myself have been guilty of castigating the actions of her character at times, and I find that quite sad. Therefore, I’d like to recall the character of Joey Potter, and how I feel she’s changed, and not for the better.

In Season One, Joey Potter was introduced to us as a young woman who, beneath her tough and seemingly cynical exterior, hid an endearing vulnerability that instantly made her the main focus of the show, and the character that everyone grew to love and root for. We saw the magic bond that she and Dawson had as friends, and we all felt bad for Joey as Dawson’s attentions focused away from her, and towards the “new girl in town,” Jen Lindley. Joey was at times very harsh to Jen, but we came to understand her harsh behavior in the context that Joey was secretly in love with Dawson, and that Jen , in Joey’s mind, represented a threat to the only part of Joey’s life where she felt safe and secure, having lost her mother to cancer, and her father to prison. In many ways, Dawson, and the Leery’s, had become Joey’s family, and the bond between them was something really unique and wonderful. My heart used to break for Joey when Dawson would prattle on about Jen, completely oblivious to the wonderful girl he had right before his eyes, and sometimes sharing his bed, but Joey found it within herself to offer him good advice about his relationship with Jen when she could have easily sabotaged things between them. Joey remained Dawson’s friend through thick and thin, even as she sacrificed her own feelings in the process. Joey had courage, like the time she stood up to that guy who harassed her, or the time she dispelled false rumors started about herself by another guy, and she had compassion, as she helped Dawson get through his breakup with Jen, and as she helped him cope with the devastating news of his mother’s infidelity. I used to enjoy the good natured banter between Joey and Dawson, as their lively exchanges underscored the deep affection that they had for one another, and I enjoyed the way Joey and Pacey would exchange barbed words, each giving as good as they got. At the time, I saw Joey and Pacey as peripheral friends, and sometimes rivals, having only their mutual friendship with Dawson in common. Even then, though, Pacey proved to be a friend to Joey, even though she barely acknowledged it, saving her from being taken advantage of while she was drunk in “Escape From New York,” and driving her to see her father in “Breaking Away.”

There were also moments of pure magic in Season One, where Joey began to slowly reveal her feelings for Dawson, and Dawson began to slowly realize his feelings for Joey. Think of the kiss in “The Breakfast Club” where Joey, on a dare, kisses Dawson with a passion that, as Abby Morgan so aptly described it, could set the Atlantic Ocean on fire. Or think of when Dawson and Pacey brought a drunken Joey home at the end of “Escape From New York,” and after Dawson tells her “This is probably the wrong time to tell you this but ummm well, maybe it's the perfect time. I realize how incredibly confusing things are between us. I can't even begin to explain our relationship. You probably can't either. But ummm, I just want you to know that umm, if you ever need me, I'll always be here for you. All you ever have to do is ask,” she reaches up and kisses Dawson with the most tender and love filled kiss that I’ve ever seen, leaving Dawson bewildered, but filled with a dawning realization that his best friend loves him. Then, finally, Dawson “took the blinders off” in “Pretty Woman”, as he truly saw Joey as a love interest for the first time, but even then, she had the courage to tell him that she wanted him to love her for who she was, and not for what she looked like, and that she wanted him to realize that what they had was so much more incredible than some passing physical attraction, and Dawson finally rejected Jen for the young woman he truly loved. Then, finally, with the threat of losing Joey, possibly for good, if she went on an exchange program to France, we all were overjoyed when Dawson finally acted on his feelings, and kissed Joey, and the look of sheer joy on her face was a delight to behold, and Season One ended on a truly joyous note, as Joey Potter finally achieved her own well deserved measure of happiness, and won the love of the boy of her dreams.

Since that magical moment, however, Joey Potter, in Seasons Two and Three, became, in my humble opinion, a completely different person, and I, for one, felt that she became a cold and harsh caricature of her former self. We got to witness Joey, after finally getting the relationship she wanted with the boy of her dreams, toss that relationship away before it even had a chance to begin, for the most flimsy of excuses, telling Dawson that she couldn’t be happy with him because she wasn’t happy with herself, and that she needed to “find her something,” alone, breaking his heart for no good reason. Somehow, though, she managed to “find her something” with Jack, dating him almost immediately after her breakup with Dawson, while Dawson wallowed in misery, and then flaunting her relationship with Jack right on the set of Dawson’s movie. I thought that Joey proved herself to be a cold hearted hypocrite by doing all this, and it especially chagrined me when she berated him for the subject of his movie, which basically told the story of his love for her, calling him “self obsessed,” as he tried, in his words, to “cling on for dear life to the one thing that was keeping him going.” I also began to notice a pattern in Joey’s behavior where she would lash out cruelly at the people closest to her, especially Dawson, going, as she so aptly put it, “for the jugular,” but she would never exhibit such cruel behavior with people who actually hurt her more than Dawson ever did, like Jack did when he revealed he was gay. Therefore, with Jack “out of the running” for her affections due to his sexual preference, Joey went literally crying back to Dawson, who willingly accepted her back, only to have her break his heart once again in an incredibly cruel and truculent manner, telling him she “didn’t want to know him” because he had the courage to take the necessary steps to protect her and her family when her father’s heedless foray into the drug world nearly cost them all their lives.

Season Three, in my humble opinion, continued the downward slide of Joey’s character, as she initially offered herself sexually to Dawson when he returned from Philadelphia, and then told him to “go to hell” when he wisely told her they needed some time apart, and that if they had another year like the year before, there would be no love left between them. Then, we got to see a continuing pattern of Joey lashing out cruelly at the people closest to her, then somewhat atoning for her harsh behavior by bringing up a reference to her deceased mother in so many instances. One of the writers on “Dawson’s Wrap” put things perfectly when they satirically commented on Joey’s constant references to her mother by writing: “Air, my mother used to breathe air when she was still alive.” I think my wife put it all in perspective for me when she said that Joey is perpetually angry, and that she no longer enjoys watching her. We also got to see Joey exhibit incredibly self absorbed behavior, proving herself an ingrate to people, like Pacey, who did his level best to help her in any way he could, especially with the Bed and Breakfast which had been “her mother’s dream,” and then treating Pacey incredibly harshly when he defended her honor against the person who had defaced her mural. We also saw, once again, what little consideration she had for the people who cared about her the most, as, in “To Green With Love,” she gave the self absorbed AJ the credit for the rally in support of Principal Green, when it was Pacey who had actually come up with the idea in the first place, and how she missed Pacey’s opening night at his play, knowing how important it was to him that she be there, to go out on a date with AJ. A lot of people faulted Pacey for constantly looking for thanks for the things he did for Joey, but I didn’t, because she never volunteered any thanks for anything he did. Then finally, we got to witness Joey shirk her responsibilities to the sister who had raised her in their parent’s absence and going off with Pacey on Captain Stupin’s “Love Boat,” leaving her sister to run their Bed and Breakfast by herself in the busiest time of year for such an establishment. Then, most insultingly for the Joey Potter we had known, we got to witness Joey become a young woman who was totally unable to make her own decisions, as first Pacey, and then Dawson, vied for her affections, and her love, and her indecision caused both Pacey and Dawson a great deal of pain. I thought it was especially selfish of Joey to sit through the joyous occasion of Mitch and Gail’s wedding looking miserable, until Dawson finally recognized the futility of trying to revive his relationship with her at this point, and he made up her mind for her and sent her towards Pacey. I think it does a real disservice to Joey’s character that she’s become such an indecisive and vacillating young woman, and that she allowed Pacey’s uninvited kiss to stir feelings of passion in her that seemingly never existed before. I also thought it was wrong for her to allow Pacey to force the issue with her under Dawson’s trusting nose at his Aunt Gwen’s house, and then to lie to Dawson and break his heart by not revealing to him that she had feelings for Pacey. Even at the end, right before she ran off to Pacey, Joey seemed to only be concerned that Dawson not hate her, instead of considering the heartbreak she was putting him through, exhibiting behavior that the Joey Potter we had come to know and love in Season One would never have exemplified. I think that the writers have lost sight of the wonderful qualities that Joey Potter had in Season One that made her such a unique and beloved character, and, like they’ve done with almost every other original character on the show with the exception of Jen, they’ve virtually destroyed her character. I truly hope that in Season Four, we get to see the “real” Joey Potter return, and that all the characters on Dawson’s Creek receive some redemption, and return to exhibiting the qualities which had made us care so much about their characters in the first place. As always, I welcome your comments. Thanks!

When I moderated the Dawson's Creek board, I used to write discussion topics, and this was one of them. Little did I know then that the character of Joey Potter would become even worse in the subsequent seasons.