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1. You agree with me (or at least you seem to), that the show originally had a Dawson/Joey endgame envisioned by KW. You have also pointed out that when the series looked like it was about to come to an end in Season 4, the ending written was Dawson/Joey (the much loved/hated ‘Coda’). You have also accepted that Season 5 ended with Dawson/Joey. You have agreed that Season 6 didn’t end with an explicit Dawson/Joey (because you claimed that three such season endings in a row would be a bit much), but with a heavily implied Dawson/Joey. You have also said that the writers felt compelled for reasons of loyalty to stick with Dawson/Joey endgame throughout the 4 post-KW seasons. You have also agreed that the first episode of the finale was written with a Dawson/Joey ending in mind. As is obvious, I agree with all this, 100 per cent.
2. You then maintain that somehow, from Season 3 onwards, a Pacey/Joey ending was being prepared and signalled as the best possible ending, and have now gone further and started to argue that if we look closely at Season 1, there is evidence of this ending even there.
I don’t think both of these claims can be maintained simultaneously (writers had one ending in mind yet were simultaneously undermining that ending by providing us with a much better one – from the get go). I think there is a much simpler explanation for the ending we got. Pressure.
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No. I believe that a DJo ending was planned all along but that doesn't mean they didn't build up a credible PJo relationship and that not everything about them was about Dawson. You tie every argument, every moment to Dawson.
We know there is evidence in Season 1 that they would get together. Objectively. Kevin Williamson told us so. It was seeing their chemistry in season 1 that made him want to pursue PJo later on. At the ATX festival last year he doesn't dispute it when Julie Plec says you can see it coming in the Pilot. Season 1 was where they decided to do PJo. Double Date was the moment it happened that they would go all in. As stated in Detention, there is meant to be sexual tension between the 4 of them. The kiss in Double Date is not out of nowhere, he's been grabbing her ass and trading sexy banter with Joey for the past 9 episodes. And on top of that in Season 3 they go further and say that Pacey has been chasing Joey around for years. Joshua Jackson of course adlibbed that bit in the finale. 'I have always, always loved you' because he was not happy about the PJo amnesia.
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Let me explain. Planning for Season 3 is going nowhere fast, as bad idea piles on bad idea. Berlanti comes up with the notion that a new love triangle will be introduced: not the Eve (as a Jen replacement)-Dawson-Joey triangle that everyone must have realised was ridiculous and wouldn’t work even as they were working hard on it, but Pacey-Joey-Dawson.
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I think you are confused with the timeline here. Eve-Dawson-Joey was never going to be a major thing. See the end of Season 3 episode 1 on the dock. PJo is moving forward full steam ahead from that moment. That was Berlanti's central take on where he was going. His time on the show as main story writer is summed up by the rise and fall of PJo.
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Pacey’s kissing of Joey is the kiss that saved a show, or so we are told. The difficulty for the writers with this triangle is that 1. There is no real foreshadowing of it in the first 2 seasons (in other words, I don’t for a minute buy your claim that the episode in season 1 where Pacey fancied Joey was anything other than a way the writers could get Dawson to start to face the fact that he was in love with Joey);
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No foreshadowing beyond Pacey telling Dawson he found Joey attractive and wanting to ask her out? Williamson said himself they purposely kept 'a lid on it'.
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2. Fans had been shipping ‘Pacey-Andie’ (fanatically) and ‘Dawson-Joey’ (for two seasons). Therefore they had to work hard to make the new element of Pacey-Joey in any way credible and acceptable. So, first, Pacey-Andie have to be broken up, but Pacey cannot be to blame (so, Andie – someone fans loved in Season 2 – is destroyed and made to behave in ways that are just inexplicable; and Dawson becomes a complete douchebag – though, for the long term plan of a Dawson-Joey ending the writers had to maintain the soulmate narrative). The writers are more spectacularly successful in terms of the character destructions than they could have dreamed, and by the start of Season 5 have to get rid of Andie completely. By the end of Season 3, a substantial section of the viewers have decided that they not only want Pacey/Joey but that they hate Dawson. The vitriol poured out on Dawson on fanboards and foura in this period is extraordinary in terms of a major character in a series, and despite a sizeable number remaining loyal to Dawson-Joey, the majority do seem to have switched their allegiances (though the writers remain committed to Dawson-Joey).
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I also think you are mistaken here. Pacey and Andie were for all purposes broken up in Season 2. She was going to do a Henry. Its the very fact that because she was popular she was brought back. 3 months to be 'cured' of mental instability her mother is institutionalised for? She was there to be an interim love interest for Pacey, like Jack was to be an interim love interest for Joey. Only with Jack his sexuality made for more of a story. They tried to make stories for Andie, it didn't work. Once she was not a problem for PJo there was no plot left and she went.
The problem with Dawson is the same issue they have in season 1. For all the complaining about season 3 Dawson, Season 1 Dawson with Jen is probably worse. The way he judges her, shames her, doesn't have any trust in her and feels owed because he is a 'nice guy'. I don't see Season 3 Dawson as that far off.
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Another factor that wasn’t fully counted on was the fact that the sexual chemistry between KH and JJ turns out to be fairly electric. This was because while KH genuinely likes JVDB, she actually fancied JJ (as she admitted in a recent interview, there was a ‘reality’ behind the kissing scenes with JJ that there wasn’t with JVDB). As much as I like KH, she is a limited actress, who finds it much easier to sell a scene when she personally feels it. JJ is a better actor, so can sell most things to viewers, but KH needs some help. While her scenes with JVDB are perfectly fine and good, they never match the scenes she has with JJ – but the key issue here is that the writers didn’t factor this intensity into their calculations. The gap between Pacey/Joey and JJ/KH becomes blurred for a lot of viewers in a way it never did with Dawson/Joey and JVDB/KH (where they were actually acting rather than being ‘real’). Hence the obsession with claiming that Pacey/Joey seemed ‘more real’ than Dawson/Joey: this has, I suggest, little to do with the writing, and more to do with the skill sets of the actors involved here. (on a side note, the best actors in the series were, in my opinion, in order of ability: Michelle Williams, Mary Beth Peil, Josh Jackson, Meredith Monroe, Monica Keena, and Mary-Margaret Humes).
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PJo happened entirely because of their chemistry. You often find it in shows that you can't cast chemistry. It springs up where you least expect it. So while there was meant to be a frisson between them with their back and forth it was explosive. You can't separate acting and writing as two separate things, they both combine to make the show. As much as you can write 'a kiss for the ages' if the actors can't sell it its not there. You can put as much mood music behind it as you want. What ended up happening is that PJo was in some ways accidental. Even when they got them together as planned, it was just too good. They are going to end PJo in Show me Love, its too good so keep it going. They are going to end PJo in True Love, its too good, the aftermath and potential is too great so keep it going. They are going to end PJo early in season 4, it provides great outlets for the characters, keep going. They could have probably found reasons to keep it going for even longer, like I said, Pacey and Joey living together was never shown. That banter would have been comedic gold like when Ben and Felicity moved in together for an episode.
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The Pacey-Joey-Dawson triangle was invented as a way to get ratings up and a way to keep Dawson/Joey apart for a bit longer (the Moonlighting effect in operation here – if you get the two characters who are meant to be together too soon, the dynamic of the series will die; ironically, as Dawson’s Creek is first introduced as a mid-season replacement without any certainty as to whether it would be picked up for a second season, KW had written it as self-contained, so the proper ‘ending’ had already been reached, which meant an increasingly desperate attempt to find ways to keep the soulmates apart). In other words, Pacey/Joey was designed to be a part of the Dawson/Joey journey, and that design was maintained until the last fifteen minutes of the finale.
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Last 45 minutes of the finale. And I agree with that. I just don't agree with your assertion that every bump for PJo is the death knell or that there was no set up for PJo prior to season 3.
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You say that I don’t tend to believe things that characters say about their relationships when they don’t conform to my idea of the series. This accusation is probably true to a certain extent, but it is also true of everyone. We all suffer confirmation bias, and look for evidence to confirm the theories we have already formed, and try to explain away evidence against that theory. So, for example, I certainly, completely, totally believe the characters when they try to explain themselves most of the time. I believe Joey, for example, when she says she has no problem with Pacey hooking up with Audrey. I believe her when she says she doesn’t feel it with Pacey and when she chooses Eddie over Pacey. I believe her completely when she says that the magic with Pacey faded away, but her relationship with Dawson is ‘pure magic’. I believe completely when Pacey says that being with Joey makes him feel like he is nothing. You tend to explain these things away. You put forward various reasons why you think we are not to take these statements as indicating that these characters really mean what they are saying, or that they are just too caught up in their emotions at the time. Fair enough. It is hard to know how to judge who is right in such debates. What I say is that we need to weigh up the various statements against the arc of the plot (always, always always – until the last 15 minutes – supposed to end with Dawson/Joey). When I do that, certain statements made by certain characters make more sense than others which I then contextualise as banter or evasion.
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But I don't believe the characters are necessarily lying or purposely not saying what they really feel unless we are guided to. When Joey says to Pacey that they have to deal with the people they used to love and that her future is with him, we are given no indication its a lie. When she says her future is with Pacey in Self Reliance there is no indication its a lie and the previous instance she said it supports it. Using the examples you give:
Joey has no problem with Pacey hooking up with Audrey- No one disputes that in the context of the show (the summer diaries on the website did. They had Joey write that she had to appear OK with it but that she doesn't like it and she doesn't like the idea of Pacey having an experience like their summer away with Audrey. Why not put that in the show?) We are saying that its weird and not emotionally real.
Joey 'Doesn't Feel It'- We dispute that because its contradictory to her words and actions in the previous 4 episodes. Also the fact that when she goes back to Eddie she isn't exactly delighted when her face falls as they hug. The writers also set up Joey's fear in 'That Was Then', 'Love Bites', 'Catch-22' and 'Joey Potter and the Capeside Redemption'. We are given reason to doubt she actually feels that way. That was then used to form the basis of Joey's 'Off the Hook' reply and the 'I've always known' speech.
'Pure Magic'- I don't dispute this. Magic isn't real. It doesn't really dispel my vision of Joey. Reality hit her hard at the end of Season 4 with the harsh reality that she can't live happily ever after at that time. She wants to hold on to 'magic', 'fairy dust', 'childhood' longer.
'I feel like I'm nothing'- Remember earlier in the episode Pacey says he is angry at Joey but doesn't know why? His Promicide rant is clarified in their talk after and in 'Seperation Anxiety'. He doesn't just blow up and leave it at that, there is an afterword. Which of course ends with 'If I were lucky enough to own a boat and I would ask the woman I love to come sailing with me, would she?' 'You wouldn't have to ask Pace'. PJo, not done. Which makes Season 5 even weirder but like I said, they worked very, very hard to get people back on the DJo train.
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Finally, regarding Mr. Brook’s friend (his former best friend, who married Mr. Brooks’s soulmate). It is no coincidence that he was played by Andy Griffith; it is no surprise that this speech takes place in a season in which we are watching another example of what happens when two soulmates are separated by a friend This is not an accident – it is a direct comment on the events of Season 3 and 4, and takes place in an episode where Joey decides to have sex with Pacey. Its significance is crucial to recognise (and is consistent with the arc we agree that the writers had committed to). You also miss the most significant part of what he says to Dawson: when Mr. Brooks dies ‘he'll be with her. I suppose that's the way it…should have always been.’ I had to look that one up, as I haven’t seen the episode since it was first aired, but I remembered the importance of this conversation and the parallels (sometimes clunking ones) the writers were trying to draw.
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I know the quote, hence why I said 'self defeatist'. Pacey is the same in Season 4, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Joey to leave him. That does not mean she had the intention to no matter what he thought. He left her in the end. As I said, the woman doesn't get an opinion. In the end, its less about her and more about the relationship between the two men. Griffith's character and his insecurities despite a happy life with the woman he loved, and Brooks who lost his best friend and lived as grumpy old man on the other side of the country. But these two men clearly loved each other and had regrets.
Joey chooses to follow her heart and sleep with Pacey, she mimics the decision of the woman to choose Griffith and not Brooks. She never expresses regret for this and never says sorry for it. As I said, that scene between Dawson and Joey is so much more touching to me because they don't end up together. It is a key moment in them saying goodbye. Similarly the last scene from 'Home Movies' where the Jude song plays about a woman marrying another man while she watches the video of her and Dawson as a kid. The same episode 'True Love' is revealed which starts with Pacey telling Dawson she's a heartbreaker. So much in those seasons is made richer with the ending we got.