Dawson's Creek: Coda (4.23)

So much of senior year is about those goodbyes. Every time you do something fun, or if you had an especially great day, you get that nagging feeling of "hey, that could have been the last time I'll ever do that". It hits you like a freight train, that sense that everything you hold closest to you at that moment in time is soon going to be ruptured. That you can't just go to school the next day and see everybody again, that the sense of community you'd always had with your friends and family is all about to be thrown apart, and that you'll soon wind up pushed into a whole different environment where everybody's a stranger. Coda is all about that last night, and those awkward goodbyes that you try and stretch out for as long as possible, trying so hard to delay the inevitable.

Dawson's Creek: The Graduate (4.22)

Plot winds up a little thin on the ground this week, most of the major arcs having come to a natural close, forcing the writers to severely extend them for another episode. Surprisingly, this graduation episode didn't move me on an emotional level. There are a couple of moments of rousing sweetness, but not the same level of "aww, it's the last time we'll see them all together in high school" that most young adult shows can produce. Maybe I just wasn't as attached to Capeside High as a location as much as I was, I don't know, Sunnydale High?

Dawson's Creek: Separation Anxiety (4.21)

One of the most pleasant surprises this season has been the show's insistence on keeping things relatively peaceful and bright. Sure, there's been a ton of melancholy and angst per normal, but there's also been a real sense of a future -- that while everything is pretty complicated and pained right now, hope is right around the corner. I don't know if its because of the looming potential of college, or if there was a genuine mission statement that the writers had this year, but it's why I've never been more personally invested in a Dawson's Creek season than I have been up till now.

Dawson's Creek: Promicide (4.20)

So it happened. Joey and Pacey are no more, the event that had been quietly building for the last couple of weeks finally occurred, and a ton of angst paints the walls as a result. Like most of Dawson's Creek, I'm unsure if it totally worked or not. I remember commenting at the very start of the year that the writers would inevitably break these two up and have Joey run back into Dawson's arms, and it's debatable whether they did a great job of depicting it. While the tension has been growing for a while, it still felt like a phony leap to see Pacey treat Joey so horribly, claiming that her positivity and ambition only makes him seem more a failure. Both actors are unsurprisingly strong, but struggle to paper over all the holes.

Dawson's Creek: Late (4.19)

Is it wrong that I'm getting real tired of the gay-bashing stories? It feels like every single subplot Jack is wrapped up with eventually involves some kind of violence or homophobic gesture, like he and every other gay man he encounters are walking victims constantly at the mercy of assholes eager to attack them in some way. I'm a little ambivalent in my judgment here because it is important to teach kids about homophobia and promote that reporting assaults is absolutely the right thing to do... but the show is at that point where literally everything in Jack's life involves this kind of attack, and for once I'd like to see him date somebody or head down a new narrative road without prejudicial horror rearing its ugly head at one point or another.

Dawson's Creek: Eastern Standard Time (4.18)

This is one of Michelle Williams' finest hours. We've watched the intensity build over the last couple of episodes, Jen slowly coming to terms with her past and how it irrevocably damaged her relationship with her father. Here we discover the source of all that internal conflict, and while it's hard not to dismiss it as something of an anti-climax (it was marital infidelity, not abuse like we were lead to believe), Williams is so ridiculously powerful here that the story itself proves irrelevant. You can see her anguish slowly building during that initial dinner with her dad, before she completely comes apart when she finally confronts him. She's always been great on this show, but Eastern Standard Time allows her to fully express her abilities. It's no surprise she's one of the most acclaimed actresses today...

Dawson's Creek: Admissions (4.17)

My general happiness with the road Dawson's Creek is headed down is probably sourced from the inevitability of everything falling apart in a couple of months. This is the very end of senior year, the time when everybody's preparing to leave and move on into their adult lives. It's also the time when high school relationships generally come to their natural end, especially when you're moving across the country from one another. So while it's clear that the writers are engineering a Dawson/Joey reunion, I have no real issue because you know it'll eventually fall apart again. Not because of fights or repressed memories or whatever, but because of time, and how we all eventually move on.

Dawson's Creek: Mind Games (4.16)

Drue has one of those characteristically Dawson's Creek meta moments this week, in which he explicitly discusses the respective Dawson/Joey, Joey/Pacey couples, and explains which one he finds more interesting as an impartial member of the audience. It's a fun bit, characters literally discussing what everybody at home is talking about. But, watching Mind Games, I realized that it's no longer important which couple you 'side' with, since the most important obstacle right now is Joey's shiftiness. Gretchen describes it perfectly when she demands that Joey stop using the love triangle as some kind of excuse for her own shitty behavior, and that lying to both men in her life will only do damage in the future. It's absolutely true, and exposes where the real issue lies.

Dawson's Creek: Four Stories (4.15)

Two episodes ago I wrote about the way that Dawson's Creek has recently been exploiting dialogue, and how the writers have been using characters and their conversations to sell a story, rather than throwing together a bunch of plot devices. It's a theme exploited even further here, Four Stories essentially being four vignettes of conversation, each story anchored by two characters talking to each other about their feelings and emotions. It's one of the most frustrating episodes in a while in terms of characterization, but there was something here that really absorbed me. Maybe it was the fact that when you completely strip back a script, until it resembles just two people talking about their lives, it almost forces you to listen intently. And you get totally enraptured by it.

Dawson's Creek: A Winter's Tale (4.14)

And Dawson's Creek continues its messy relationship with sex. For most of the episode, Joey worries and pleads and bites her lip with nerves at the mere thought of having sex with Pacey, so driven by her desire to have sex "with the right person" and "at the right time" that she comes off like a crazy person. She eventually goes through with it, but I'm not sure any of this is at all believable. Sex is an amazing thing. It's huge and important and a major step in becoming an adult and being in love with somebody. But it's also something fun and casual that you don't need to obsessively over-analyze to the point where the whole idea of sex becomes stale and tired, lacking in anything remotely spontaneous. A Winter's Tale tries to walk that line, but it eventually overdoses on worrying, becoming just the kind of overly anxious PSA that I doubt it ever intended to be.

Dawson's Creek: Hopeless (4.13)

Dawson's Creek is a show so driven by dialogue rather than story, or at least this season. It's always been a series in which characters over-analyze their lives to the Nth degree and micro-manage every movement or action through exaggerated, overwritten dialogue -- but they were always carried by plot contrivance at the best of times. Particularly at the beginning, it was a frequent complaint of mine that characters were doing things purely to service a story that the writers wanted to tell, rather than doing things because it made any real sense. But season four has been different. So much of it is dialogue-driven lately, characters analyzing their emotions verbally, and deciding a course of action based on their own introspection. It makes Dawson's Creek a far smoother, relatable series.

Dawson's Creek: The Te of Pacey (4.12)

There's a moment this week in which the Witter family get together, many of them, particularly Pacey's parents, ribbing him constantly and reciting a long laundry list of embarrassing moments from his past. Thrown into this are casual insults about his future and his complete failure to do anything right. Sat at the center of it all, surrounded by nothing but dismissal, is Pacey himself. His face reads absolutely numb, struck down with this inevitable feeling of resignation. He knew that his birthday party would turn out like this, and he just radiates isolation. It's a wonderful scene, flawlessly acted by Joshua Jackson, who grabs this Pacey-driven episode by the horns and knocks it out of the park.

Dawson's Creek: The Tao of Dawson (4.11)

This is very slight as an episode, but remains nonetheless charming. It's unusual, though, to see Gretchen anchor so much of it. Most of the episode involves her character journeying back to her ex with Pacey in tow, and it seems a lot like an hour designed to elaborate on her history and grant her added dimension. Personally, it's all a little bland and forgettable as a story, but Sasha Alexander has a really absorbing presence on screen. She projects this confidence and charisma that makes her a strong TV star, so it's no surprise that she's bounced around between a bunch of successful series ever since.

Dawson's Creek: Self Reliance (4.10)

You just knew that the time would eventually come when Dawson's existence would somehow intersect with Joey and Pacey's relationship. There would be tension, harsh words, some kind of break-up, and everything will go back to that boring middleground. But this is also a series that's expressing a surprising amount of growth this season. For the first time in its four years on the air, Dawson's Creek is exploring maturity, and depicting those familiar themes (jealousy, heartbreak, romance) but through the prism of senior year. These kids are growing up, and refusing to settle on their old routines.

Dawson's Creek: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (4.9)

Dawson's film aspirations have fallen away in the last year, and he struggles to explain why. But it's all part of maturing. His work in season two was hackneyed and shallow, and deciding to abandon it entirely is a natural reaction to dismal failure, especially when you're sixteen and your romantic life generally takes precedence. But Kiss Kiss Bang Bang puts him back on the straight and narrow, his college applications forcing him to ask himself why exactly he's drawn to filmmaking. It's an essential part of understanding what drives you, and this episode does a great job of exploring that.

Dawson's Creek: The Unusual Suspects (4.8)

The Unusual Suspects is another off-kilter episode of Dawson's Creek, with Harry Shearer's stern principal interrogating Dawson, Pacey, Jack and Drue over an elaborate prank involving a stolen boat, a kidnapped dog and Capeside High's swimming pool. It's intricately plotted, features a bunch of funny lines, develops the foundation for a Pacey/Dawson reunion, and slowly builds to a twisty climax that anybody with semi-decent knowledge of these kinds of mysteries would have guessed around ten minutes into the episode. I'm not sure the episode warrants its 'series classic' tag or anything, but it's a reasonably amusing standalone piece.

Dawson's Creek: You Had Me at Goodbye (4.7)

It's hard to disagree with the belief that Andie McPhee got royally screwed by the Dawson's Creek writers. She emerged as a flawed yet sincere and relatable voice of reason in season two, somebody who helped Pacey develop into a mature young man and overcoming her own personal troubles in the process. She had a strong female presence on the show, neither the neurotic over-analyzer that is Joey, nor possessing the relaxed nonchalance of Jen. Instead she was somebody reasonably together as a person, even when her own mind was falling apart. Then season three happened, and she was sacrificed in order to engineer a relationship between two other characters, becoming this irrational nutjob in the process. She's flailed around for a while, and here she's swiftly removed from the show in an awkward, unbelievable manner. It sort of sucks.

Dawson's Creek: Great Xpectations (4.6)

Drugs are bad, mmkay? This perpetuates the PSA vibe that plagued last episode, but happily tosses that into just one small subplot, saving us from the bombardment of preachiness that could so easily drown out any of its potential merit. Andie's descent into junkiedom is hilariously speedy, but at least the writers added some vague excuse for her near-death experience, what with the ecstasy reacting badly with the medication she's already on. It's not quite 90210 territory (didn't Kelly Taylor become a coke addict in the space of, like, a day?), but there's definitely a feeling that the show is bashing you over the head with a "very important message".

Dawson's Creek: A Family Way (4.5)

Preachy, preachy, preachy. Dawson's Creek hit the zeitgeist at a time in which it was de rigueur to promote earnest life lessons for its teenage audience, sex being a major source for all kinds of finger-wagging. You could always rely on YA television to feature stories about teenage girls pledging that they're "not ready" for sex, or disguise important PSAs as part of the narrative. Here, there are condom talks, discussions of how sex can be *gasp* dangerous, and warnings about what sex really means. But A Family Way is jarring in its messages, not only because it's concerned with Joey's virginity to the point of parody, but also because of two additional subplots that bombard you with preachy statements. It's the show pushing the idea of impartiality, while being completely censored from reality by network meddling.

Dawson's Creek: Future Tense (4.4)

I think episodes like one this always strike close to home. Senior year is crazy with the intensity, not only because of your schooling itself, but because of the enormous pressure you're facing as you're headed for college in the fall. As a result, everybody has a different reaction to it. Some throw themselves into the possibility of an amazing future, grasping every opportunity and making sure you get your name out there. There are others that get paralyzed by fear, too terrified to aim high because the thought of actually going the distance seems far-fetched. Then there are folks who are so distracted by their high school existence that they can't even begin to think about the future. Each view-point is explored here, in another successful season four episode that puts character ahead of crazy plot drama.