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.
I remember it being around, but I never actually saw Loveline, MTV's half-hearted teen advice show that birthed the opportunistic fame-whore that is Dr. Drew Pinsky. Based on this episode, the second commercial endorsement disguised as a regular Dawson's Creek hour this season, I'm glad it stayed off my radar. Dr. Drew is all about the inappropriate questions, fine with casually asking young women if they were abused as kids, while his unfunny co-hort, hideous Man Show relic Adam Carolla, sticks around to throw in lightweight barbs, generally involving offensive commentary that entirely undermines what is supposed to be a legit source for guidance. Ugh.
Yeah, Joey made the wrong decision. Instead or running away with Pacey and having whip-smart, endlessly charming babies with him, she decides to let him down gently and reunite with bland bland bland Oliver, who reappeared out of nowhere at the very end of last episode. It's hard to justify on an emotional level, considering Oliver has the charisma of a paint can, but you can just about understand where Joey is coming from as a character. The last couple of episodes have had this heavy past/present/future vibe, the writers specifically using Harley and her boyfriend as a reminder of the show's teenage years, which in itself has allowed Joey and Pacey to exorcise some of their own demons. And while all the teenage angst between the two of them has finally been resolved, you get why she'd want to pursue new pastures at this point, if only to see where it'll take her. It's not an all-out dismissal of Pacey himself, but instead a nice awareness of the importance taking a chance.
This is Dawson's Creek's first out-and-out comedy episode in a long time, an hour that wades through various romantic comedy cliches with considerable finesse and fun, while getting all meta and knowing like the very best of the first couple of seasons. After a year of false starts and suppressive blandness, Dawson finally stumbles into an entertaining subplot, pitching a movie about young adults growing up in a small coastal town. The only problem is the head of the studio is more interested in putting the 'adult' in 'young adult', slowly turning a Creek Daze re-run into a movie called Sunset Stripped featuring, as he so eloquently describes, "wall-to-wall boobs". This is obviously ridiculous, but admittedly funny.
One of this episode's greatest blessings is that final twist. From early on this hour, you're led to believe that Jack had murdered Irina out of malice, that ordering a hit on her was merely an excuse to get her out of the picture and make things a little less complicated between him and his daughter. Upon discovering it, the writers briefly returned to "petulant Syd" mode, in which she acts like a brat and outwardly whines about her problems to higher-ups who don't really care. It reminded me too much of early season three, where Sydney and Lauren became screechy banshees because they both loved the same dude. Ugh. So you head into Part 2 with a ton of eye-rolling, Sydney once again becoming unlikable and annoying.
All right, it's probably best to open with the obvious: the entire premise of APO is inherently silly. This is Alias frantically pushing the emergency reboot button, reverting so many of the twists and turns of the last two seasons and returning the show to its initial roots. It's a change-up that tosses a lot of strong work out of the window, and seems only there to attract more eyeballs. Sloane in charge again, try as they might to rationalize it, is insanely precarious a turn of events. Dixon happily working under the man who brutally murdered his wife even more so. And you can only sort of sigh at the sight of a show that was once beautifully complex and masterful get rapidly streamlined and simplified.
And the intimacy continues. Whether its Oliver's turtle or April's project, or Mia's general presence, Paul is still allowing his patients to linger long after they've left his practice. It was a theme that ran through most of this week's episodes, that constant blurring between appropriate conduct and personal friendship. Like last season, it's never just a patient who anchors their own episode. Every action somehow bounces back at Paul, and I don't know if it's a personal weakness of his that he winds up so rattled by every movement they make. More than ever, this season seems to be about Paul's faults as a therapist as well as a man, and the unearthing of where that comes from.
Week Two lacked the immediacy of last week's premiere episodes, but you can already see certain ideas and themes that are being generated through each session. There's a harsher, meaner vibe to the stories this year, and it's arguably far more incestuous than the already frantic bending of confidentiality last season, with Paul intimately involved with the far majority of his patients. Whether its Mia and their history, his connection with April or the turtle hanging around in his office, he's allowing himself to be far more attached to these people than is probably good.
