Dawson's Creek: Catch-22 (6.20)

This is an episode designed to bring everything to a close. With time running out and the writers seemingly intending to make the last run of episodes more intimate, anchored by the regulars we know and love, it makes sense to shut down all the assy subplots that have bugged for most of the year. So, goodbye Oliver. Goodbye Dana Ashbrook and all your money. Goodbye Sarah Shahi. Bye Professor Hetson, who had more personalities than Raising Cain. Bye sweet, confident David, presumably about to run into the arms of a guy who isn't bogged down by angst and sexual dysfunction. But damn you Jensen Ackles for not departing the show this week and insisting on sticking around long after your presence became a huge drag! Gah.

Despite all those goodbyes, it's annoying to discover that Catch-22 is a real chore to get through. Joey's story is constantly building towards that ending, in which she decides to embark for Paris and suddenly gets that Oliver's letter, all about how he can't be with her and needs to move on, and blah. These two were always a crapshoot, so I'm pretty uncaring about how it all goes down in the end.

Pacey's stockbroker thing came to an end, and introduced the one element that was missing all along: high stakes! Granted, having Dawson's finances at risk for the last couple of weeks instead of about five minutes on screen probably wouldn't have made this entire story arc any less of a disaster, but it at least grants this episode some semblance of drama. I can't help but feel the show never knew what to do with any of this, though. Ray Wise came and went, Sarah Shahi wound up being less interesting than was initially implied, and Pacey's transformation into flashy egomaniac with an evil goatee wasn't ballsy enough to ever really work. Snore.

Finally, Jack and David really did break-up, and ugh. Jack eventually confides in Jen that he was only ever with David because he wanted to prove to himself that he can actually date somebody long-term, and that is pretty gross of you, Jack. Way to make somebody fall for you when there was never really anything there on your end, dude. This whole story seemed so promising at one point, only for the writers to flake out just when things were getting heated.

All in all, this was pretty boring. I'm happy that all those horrible season six stories have finally been wrapped up, but I wish the resolutions weren't so underwhelming. Then again, I should at least give Dawson's Creek credit for consistency. C-

Credits
Guest stars Oliver Hudson (Eddie Doling); Roger Howarth (Professor Greg Hetson); Dana Ashbrook (Rich Rinaldi); Sarah Shahi (Sadia Shaw); Greg Rikaart (David)
Writer Laura Glasser Director Robert Duncan McNeill