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I’ll be Albee if you decide not to go to France and join us for Season 1 Episode 13: Decisions, also known as Breaking Away.
A Dawson's Creek Rewatch Podcast for those who missed the boat!
Freaks & Creeks: a Dawson's Creek Podcast dives into each episode of the hit '90s TV show Dawson's Creek with a fresh perspective. Join Cody, Stella, Mal and James as they set sail through turbulent waters determined to understand this iconic teen drama’s place in the modern television zeitgeist.
Cody: Welcome to Freaks and Creeks, a Dawson's Creek Podcast, the show where four millennials who missed the boat 25 years ago take the dive for the first time. Join us as we experience the series with a fresh perspective week to week, and see if our adolescent experiences match up with Dawson and the gang. My name is Cody.
Stella: I'm Stella.
Mallory: I'm Mallory.
James: And I am James. And this week we are going to be talking about season one, episode 13 Decisions, also known as Breaking Away. But before we do that, we have some capeside correspondence, Stella.
Stella: Indeed we do. We received a really wonderful sweet review. Um, the following was written I've listened to every Dawson's Creek podcast available and this is my favorite so far. I like how all four podcasters bring something different to the table. They all have great radio voices, too. No small thing when you're using AirPods. The podcast is just super enjoyable and makes my long commute bearable. One more thing. The screenplay under about on the website cracked me up. I teach screenwriting and I'm always hoping one of my students will crank out a silly parody. A plus. Okay, so if you're not familiar with our website, there is an about section where Cody Dean wrote a very fun, silly little script. You should check it out. It will make you laugh out loud.
Cody: Those who know me best know that my favorite artist in the history of music, in the history of entertainment, it is Weird Al Jankovic not our Kelly. Uh, and for, uh, someone to give me kudos for a parody script, I feel like I've opened the door for collaboration with Weird Al Yankovic, and I wish that I had worked on his new film, which will be premiering on Roku next month.
Stella: Very exciting.
Cody: Very exciting stuff. Also, all of us on our radio voices, so sweet.
Stella: Really appreciate this review. Gen X prophecy. Quick, um, question. So we've received, um, a number of reviews and emails from people we don't know, which is so incredible and sweet, and we're wondering how you found us. If you want to write us or comment on our Instagram posts and tell us how you found us, we would love to know. And please tell your friends. Thank you so much.
James: Or just shout it in the wind. We'll hear it eventually. It'll eventually get to our ears.
Stella: It'll go through the creeks.
James: Exactly.
Stella: And make our way.
James: All messages go through the creeks and.
Mallory: Put a message in a bottle and drop it in, uh, your local creek.
Cody: I wish everyone that had a problem with a Black Little Mermaid would instead of writing about it on Twitter, reddit Four Chan, a chan, or whatever other install platform that they're using. I wish they would just scream it in the wind or put it in a bottle and throw it into a creek.
James: Yeah, if only. Not that easy though, unfortunately. Um, but I really do want people to go read that screenplay you wrote, Cody. It's very, very funny. Uh, it's been our secret little, our secret little, um m. Spoiler. Nope.
Cody: Easter egg.
James: There we go. That's the one that, uh, we've had, uh, hidden for too long, frankly. So go read it, go laugh and then um, I don't know, tell your friends to go read it as well. That would be great.
Cody: Not to suit my own horn, but it is very funny. Uh, I uh, laughed out loud while writing it.
Stella: Or if you wanted to like, you and some of your friends could act it out, read the script and then send it to us. That would be really fun.
James: That would be incredible. All right, well, like I said this week we're talking about season one, episode 13, which is the season finale of Dawson's Creek. Season one. Holy shit, we made it. Oh, first season. And what an episode. This was, um, released May 19, 1998. The synopsis straight out of HBO Max is an offer for Joey to study abroad, forces her and Dawson to reconsider their feelings for each other. Jen's grandfather suddenly awakes from his coma. Story by John Harmon Feldman, written by Dana Barrada and directed by David Semel. This episode kind of has uh, a little bit of everything. It's got a foiled attempt at deprogramming where these characters suddenly have a moment of realization and try to buck their little robotic programmings they find themselves in. We got lots of white people crying in this one and then we have a ton of shoehorned religiosity just kind of thrown on top. So I don't know what could possibly go wrong with this episode. What did you guys think about this climactic season finale that we got?
Stella: Uh, wasn't also, uh, Mike White a writer on it too?
Cody: Not this episode. He's in the writers room that's for sure.
Stella: It was by both him and Dina.
James: I think it was last episode. M.
Stella: Well I thought it was an okay season finale.
James: Um.
Stella: I don't know, I didn't love it and was kind of disappointed. Um, I would have liked to see more from Jen and Joey, like more of their relationship. Um, I still feel like, I don't know, Pacey, um, wondering if we're ever going to meet his family.
James: Um, seems like just through exposition is really the way that we're going to get to experience Pacey's story.
Cody: Yeah.
Mallory: Ah, it was kind of like you blink and you missed Pacey in this episode. He was barely there.
James: I know.
Mallory: But a couple of scenes but yeah.
James: I think not to uh. Bury the lead on the review or anything but I think Joshua Jackson did a hell of a fucking performance in this episode because while he may kind of have just a few moments. The moments he brings are very emotionally charged and I think he really does a lot with what little screen time he gets.
Mallory: Uh, yeah, I totally agree. Yeah.
James: But I think that that's kind of my critique of this episode is it's like it's a downer from fucking start to finish. This is the season finale of season one of Dawson's Creek. And honestly, yes. If you ask me, was it emotionally powerful? Definitely. Did it make me, like, think and feel things? Yes. Did it make me excited to watch more? Fuck no.
Mallory: Yeah, it was heavy as hell.
James: Just like dragged on from start to finish too.
Mallory: Just like I kind of appreciated seeing new locations. Ah, that was one upside. I think we got several new locations.
Cody: Do we think the problem guard is going to be a new character?
James: I don't hope so.
Mallory: We met joey's dad.
James: Yeah.
Cody: Not played by John Lorry, who I really wanted from nine episodes ago.
James: You called it, but it was wrong. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I think this episode did a lot to kind of give us a little bit more detail in our world, but it ultimately didn't introduce a whole lot more, which made it feel kind of like we're just treading water, which is how I've really felt for like, the last three episodes of this season. It's just felt like they're treading water trying to get to the end of it to see what's going to happen.
Cody: I completely agree. I mean, there is meta commentary from Joey in this episode about what is the purpose of a hanger. How do you draw an audience in to watch something? And it's funny because I imagine if I was an audience back then watching this show and the only thing I really cared about was Joey and Dawson's relationship, I would have thought this episode is perfect because I completely built up to them and the relationship and it's finally consummated with a smooch. Yeah. Uh, but for everyone else, the show has forgotten that there are side characters that are just as important. We have top billing for Jen and Pacey, but the characters amounted to nothing in this episode, at least. Like you said, Pacey had these really great moments of talking. I mean, it's frustrating that the only notes that we really got for Pacey, uh, has either been horny boy or sad boy. And we got a lot of sad boy this episode. Did he do a fucking great job? Yeah, he knocked it out of the ballpark. But again, it's just one note and then he disappears in the third act. Jen has been gone for quite some time in the show in general and the only beats that she gets are involved with Gramps in this episode and there's not really anything with her relationship with the other characters aside from just like the awkwardness with Dawson in that smooch. So it's like no one else really exists in this world and, um, it's the slipsism of Dawson in general. This is all for him. He's the son and everything revolves around at him basically.
Mallory: And even like half of the visit to Joey, to her dad was like about Dawson which we'll talk about later.
Cody: I am so excited to get into that because it is frankly absurd. I know we talk about David Lynch a lot on the show uh. But uh. My favorite lynch is Mohole and Drive and the majority of that is taking place within the main characters mind and it's uh a way for that character to kind of deal with occurrences in life and how they view it and you're really getting. It's such great characterization because you're getting character development through someone subconscious and how they experience life versus the reality that you're shown later in that movie and all I can think about is that with Dawson's Creek. With Dawson if this show ended and Dawson woke up and it was a dream. That would actually make sense and totally would make for an interesting show because everything is about him. Everything is about Dawson in the show and it's truly hilarious. I uh, cannot believe some of these character beats and how they just turn around to just be about Dawson. Mind blowing.
James: It really is. Um, does anybody have any other top level thoughts before I think we should just get into this. There's a lot in this episode so uh, take us away. Coddles.
Cody: Joey climbs through Dawson's window to declare that she will not be attending movie night. As the two marinade and the overall bad awkward vibes between them dawson tries to win her over by letting her know the TV show he's watching is good due to having a cliffhanger but Joey jumps into a metacometry about how cliffhangers are predictable and nothing ever changes the status quo of uh, a TV show giving the audience a metaphorical wink as she calls cliffhangers a tease.
Stella: I kind of wondered about if it was kind of saying like yeah, what we've been doing with the same kind of story every episode has been purposeful.
Mallory: I noticed uh that Dawson was holding his grasshopper which normally he's holding Et or something else but I thought that this symbolizes this leaping forward or travel or just like uncertainty about what's going to happen. That's interesting cause he was kind of looking at it with like, you know he was nervous so the way he was handling it was different than how he would be holding him. Like the et.
James: Totally. I read it as a reference to our last episode where we were watching the grasshopper, uh, that torn in the beginning to kind of like set up uh, the will they want, they from Joey so it's kind of like yes it's a little bit of both. I like that. I thought when we're watching this episode and Joey starts kind of going off on like we're not going to do more of this shit, we're not going to sit here. Actually I have this clip here I'm going to play it really quick but um, after she says this line challenging Dawson on what they've basically been doing all along. What are you talking about?
Mallory: Every night it's the same. We hang out in your Spielberg eyes bedroom and watch obscure movies and TV reruns. It's so predictable.
James: After she says that, Dawson ignores it completely and he goes, right. He turns the TV on and sits down and for a moment there it reminded me of the TV show Wanda Vision. Uh, that whole premise is there's a mutant, a superhero, Wanda Maximov, who has kind of cast an entire town under a charm spell where they are living through this fantasy of Wanda's life. And in that TV show when occasionally people are challenged with things that go beyond what they've been essentially dictated to do, you see them have this existential moment where they're like, oh God, what am I supposed to do? If I do the wrong thing, Wanda's going to kill me. Dawson has that same look on his face when Joey is challenging him. And Cody, to your point, it felt like we're seeing a, uh, robot be challenged with their programming and this is not what Dawson dreamed about. He could in a moment, like if this were a different show it would like cut to him waking up and that's the end of his dream, right? He's like, that was weird. But instead we're just like, yeah, let's keep going. Uh, no, we have to watch TV. Joey, how dare you try to break program.
Cody: It works.
Mallory: Yeah, that's how this works, right?
James: Very straight.
Cody: Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I think it's a really good reading. Uh, the one thing I want to question in Joey's little speech there is that she says that they watch obscure movies.
James: Yeah, so obscure. I don't know. Have you ever heard of a movie.
Cody: Called E-T-A very small film that no one ever heard of. Jerry McGuire.
Mallory: Uh, when Joey said producers putting characters in contrived situations I love this because I thought of The Bachelor.
James: Totally.
Mallory: Like you mean the bachelor?
James: This episode actually has a number of dialogue moments where I'm like, are we on the beach in paradise? Yeah.
Cody: I feel like it's very pointed that they're writing about the show itself and I wonder if there is, ah, listeners, if, you know, if there's, uh, some interesting production gossip about the production of season one versus the rest of the series. Because as we've said numerous times, people have told us this show gets way better after season one. And I wonder if the writers and the producers of Dustin Street at the time felt pressured to doing what we have complained about this entire time. Hitting the restart button every episode we're watching the exact same plot unfold in numerous different ways but at the end of the day it's the exact same thing. I wonder if they're told you cannot change these characters, we're uh, going to use the exact same TS every episode to get you back. Uh, so I wonder if this is their way of being like, fuck you Warner Brothers. We're going to write this into the show and talk about how stupid Cliffhangers are because nothing ever changes.
James: Yeah.
Mallory: Mhm.
Stella: Do we know when they were renewed for season two?
James: That's a good question. I do not know. Listeners let us know.
Cody: Yeah, for real. We want to provide these answers. But again, we've talked about it. We don't want to research anything about the show because as soon as you type in Dawson's Creek, anything into Google, it is spoiler territory.
James: That moment when Dawson marries Jen and they pump out six kids on season four, episode two, it's like, uh, I just wanted to know something else.
Cody: Truly hope that is a plot.
James: Yeah, they'd be like 19. We're getting like a middle America. Anyway, uh, that would be a different TV show entirely. I don't know, I thought that I did like this notion that we're getting some selfawareness from the TV show that they're teasing us with. The idea that they know what they're doing is kind of hacky, uh, or cliche. Um, but maybe hopefully they're setting up that season two is going to be different. Right. Like to your point though, they were doing this intentionally all along. This is something that we are supposed to feel sick of by the end of the season so that we could feel it break away, uh, from, um, this mold that they've established. Once we move into season two, hopefully that's what we see.
Cody: The next day, Graham's is gabbing to a comatose. Graham on all the hot capeside gossip as well as catching him up on her relationship with Jen as well as her breakup with Dawson. As Jen takes off for school, she says goodbye to sleepy Gramps and moments later he awakens through the divine intervention of Christ in the clouds and proclaims Goodbye Jen. And Jen rushes back to see Lazarus 2.0 has risen.
James: I don't even know what to say. We waited. Okay, I guess I'll wait until we actually get there. But it's just one. This scene is so transparent from the beginning. Why are we finally seeing Grahams again? Even if we didn't know from the plot synopsis that we just read and that we read at the end of our last episode, um, anybody would know that he's about to wake up, right? And it happens. And we don't get any more than him just fucking waking up. He's just like, goodbye. And then the scene cuts.
Mallory: It's basically a foreshadow for the end. I also think it's a way of showing us his relationship to Jen because in this entire episode we never get an interaction. Graham wakes up, right? But we never get an interaction with Grahams and Gramps. The only thing we ever hear, the only line we ever get from gramps is him saying goodbye to Jen. So there we go.
Cody: Just realized that his last words to her was, goodbye Jen. That's kind of sad.
Mallory: Yeah. And we never see him and Graham's interact. It's literally only goodbye, Jen. That's it.
Stella: If I was Grahams, I'd be Ellen.
Mallory: Right?
Cody: You heathen child.
Mallory: Well, of course we assume that she's talking to him behind scenes, but the only thing we actually hear is him saying so I thought that was interesting.
Cody: And who knows about their relationship anyways, between Grams and Grahams? Because they were probably married as teenagers in 1910s from a Shocking Wedding. Do they love each other or do they love each other because God told them to? Who knows?
James: I don't know. I did think it was sweet that Graham's last words are goodbye to Jen. That is the one saving grace here. But it just feels like, um, what I have been really worried about with this show and specifically Jen's plotline throughout it has been that we are getting all these details just so that they can subvert them in the end. Right. She's an atheist. Well, but her grandmother is so religious, so she's going to come around in the end. And she loves her relationship with her grandfather. That's the one thing that's really keeping her here. So he's going to die in the end. It's all so transparent and so predictable. And what happens? Well, exactly that. Then why did we watch season one if everything that we could have sworn was going to happen in episode one that I think we even predicted when they first introduced her happens? Why did we watch 13 fucking episodes of her story?
Cody: I 100% agree. It's disgusting. And the thing that I'm hung up on, and I don't know if this is just like my selfish viewpoint, uh, as an audience that likes Jen is her trajectory by the end of this episode where she's in the church with Grahams and says, like, take care of them, God. For me too, whatever the fuck. Um, is that just a humor, Graham's? Is that her arc of maturity, of being like because like, when you're a kid and you have differing viewpoints than your parents or family or whatever, you can get to screaming matches. But I think it's like a note of maturity to just grow up and just let it go. To be like, I'm not going to win this argument, so I'm just going to put up with it. Which sucks. And like, no one should ever feel like they have to do that. But sometimes it is better to just let it happen instead of even trying anymore. So I'm hoping that's what this means.
James: Yes. I'm curious what you all think when we get there. Because it's just like, yeah, there's just so much, uh, around Jen and her storyline that is really completely in the shadows of this entire episode. But for me, it's like the only thing I want to talk about especially.
Cody: I get really frustrated with her relationship with Grants and that there's no evidence of the strong relationship that they do have.
Mallory: I think the evidence is her kind of confiding in him. I mean, it just comes from her.
James: But that's like exposition hell don't show, right?
Mallory: Yeah, I know.
Stella: I really did love that line where she says, um, I m miss it when you magically uncomplicate my life. I felt like that was like a really sweet way of kind of putting that relationship you have with a grandparent, at least.
James: Totally.
Mallory: Yeah, but we're talking about that.
James: Yeah, we're only a C two.
Cody: This is the trajectory of this narrative arc for her in this episode. And the thing, I mean, I did like that line. It's like, okay, so it adds to their relationship that he would uncomplicate things for her in her life. But again, it's just another exposition dump. But for a show that loves exposition dumps, where people are just constantly saying how they feel and what happened and why those things are happening, at least give us a fucking example of how he's uncomplicated her life at some point. Even with Jen's, uh, there were at least 200, maybe 300 monologues of her talking about her past in New York and how she had to go from New York to Massachusetts to live in Capeside and why, like, why not tell a story about how Grants helped with that transition for her? Or, uh, talk about how before she was in New York, gramps always told her a life lesson and she stayed true to that while she was in New York and that's why she came back to Cape's. Like, give me something. But instead it's just yeah, Graham's is great cause he uncomplicated things once.
Mallory: Yeah, like not once have we ever heard her say anything else about him. So yeah, that would have been nice.
Cody: Truly basic in the halls of Capeside, Jen tells Dawson about that morning's miracle. She tells him it's put a pep in her step and that she wants to do something fun that night. When she incites Dawson to hang, he declines having set plans already with Joey. Speak of the devil. Joe Joe rounds the corner and lets the gang know that she's received the opportunity to go to France for a study abroad program and has to decide in two days, stating that if she were to go, she'd be off in two weeks. While Jen thinks it's a great opportunity, dawson isn't so sure.
Stella: I like, uh, when Jen says Speak of the devil and Joey's wearing red.
Mallory: And Jen also looked super jealous when she said that. It wasn't like Speak of the devil. It was like Speak of the devil.
James: So we've had quite a bit of back and forth on this one. You probably all know what I'm about to say, but it's Mrs. Tringle now, right? Because it's been Ms. Tringle. It's been Mrs. Tringle. It's been Mrs. Tingle. So are there two different people or does this show just not know the fucking names of its own characters? Because I swear, just last episode it was Tingle.
Mallory: Yeah, she called her Tingle again. This time.
Cody: In the Kevin Williamson movie.
James: Is Tingle?
Mallory: Yes.
James: Did anybody do foreign exchange like in high school?
Stella: Not really. I did like a summer abroad. Um, in high school.
James: Where did you go?
Stella: I went to Italy.
Cody: Mama mia ah.
James: Mama mia, uh, mia ah.
Stella: Yeah, it was pretty sick. Um, and then my host sister came to Oregon, but she didn't stay with us. She went to Albany, Oregon.
James: Anybody who's not from Oregon, just say it sucks. I mean, Albany specifically. Oregon is cool, but just say Albany sucks. We had a lot of foreign exchange students at my school. It was like a hub.
Mallory: Yeah, we had a lot too. I never did it.
James: Russian kids college. But yeah, I always wanted to.
Stella: I was confused because I think at one point Joey says it's a semester and then later she's a year. She tells her sister it's a year.
Cody: Yeah.
Mallory: Ah, I thought that was interesting too. Later when they're at the Ice House, um, she references a year.
Cody: So I don't know, just, um, like, tingle or trinkle. Ah, this show does not know what it's talking about.
Mallory: So I have a question for everyone. Um, what do we think about Jen's opinion on Joey going to France? Does she selfishly want Joey to go to France so that she can reconnect with Dawson or is she happy for Joey? Because uh, last episode we see Jen kind of boosting Joey up, right? Uh, it was hard to tell.
Stella: Yeah, I feel like it could be both in this context with Dawson talking about their plans. It does feel like she wants to get closer to Dawson.
Mallory: Um, and then Dawson selfishly doesn't want Joey to go to France in this same moment.
Cody: I think. Yeah, it's uh, not mutually exclusive. I think all evidence points to Jen being an altruistic person. Even when they were talking about a serial killer. Jen is, ah, empathetic enough to say he just had poor guy. So even if Jen wants Joey to leave, she's probably like but this is also a great opportunity for Joey. She has a wonderful life and career.
James: I'd like to say that it's like the beauty of this show that they are so capable of showing the realities of life where two things can be true at the same time. Right. That, uh, she is both happy. For Joey to be going out on this potentially life changing adventure definitely will give her a lot of experience as well as, uh, she gets to get closer with Dawson. That said though, I don't think that's what they're doing here necessarily. Because if they really wanted us to see that beautiful moment of everything's coming together, we would get any kind of hint at that whatsoever. So I think it's more just a show still. It isn't quite sure what it wants from his characters or we're just supposed to be like, you decide, what is she? Uh, it's always good to make your own decisions on media but would love a little bit more direction with the ambiguity that this show often creates around its characters motivations.
Cody: Yeah I know I've talked about Dawson being a blank slate but it's getting to the point where these characters are so lifeless that they're all blank slate. They're all just whoever you want them to be.
James: They're gumbies. They're all just little gumbies running around.
Mallory: You just imagine them all walking around gumby in their outfits.
Cody: Far too easy to imagine. They're awesome. Creek action figures.
James: Oh, God, I bet. I hope so.
Stella: Um, I feel like we'll probably get into this more later but I guess I was left wondering when Joey brings this trip up, like why would she not go? And you know, I think we see her finding reasons to go and not go that seem very um, superficial maybe, right? Um, but yeah, I wish we could see her kind of think through that more.
James: Mhm. Yeah so that was my thought as well because I was going to do study abroad when I was in college. I was going to do a semester abroad and the reason I didn't do it wasn't because like OOH daddy loved me or OOH best friend love me. It wasn't any of that. Right. It was big money to do this. Don't have a lot of money. So there's absolutely no practical discussion of what this could be and especially with what we know about Joey and the Potter specifically that they are kind of stringing things together. That they're very much like living a tight life. Why was that not even mentioned? Because that would have been a great thing for Bessie to say. Oh my god that is such an amazing thing. How are we going to pay for this? But instead it's like that's just like let Joey decide if she's going to go.
Cody: This is all further evidence. This is all taking place in Dawson's mind because in his mind his projection of Joey is that the only reason that she might stay home is because of him and she's just waiting for him to make that first move because it's the only thing that they ever kind of aim towards in this entire episode. It's always her being like, okay Dawson, give me one good reason. Give me just one good reason and I'll do it. And then instead he uh, stares off into the clouds like data from Star Trek The Next Generation.
James: He's still processing that data.
Cody: Over at the Ice House, Joey tells Bessy some um, silly pros and cons regarding the big trip to France. But when Bessie mentions how their dad will be excited to hear. Of the opportunity, all hell breaks loose as Bessie reminds her that they're on an annual swap of visiting the prison to wish Daddy Potter a happy birthday. And it's Joey's.
James: Her visit this week on dad Swap. It felt like a, uh, strange little agreement that we have, you know, every we alternate years on who's going to go visit Daddy in prison.
Mallory: Our father who aren't in prison. You know what, Joey? He's still our father. Our father who aren't in prison. Um, and this is also where she mentioned the year. Yes. Confusing. Why?
James: What do you mean the year?
Mallory: Sorry, I'm not sure if you got this line, but she says, I don't think I could spend a year in any country that worships Mickey Rourke.
James: Right? Yes, I did capture that.
Stella: But in the previous scene, she had set a semester.
Mallory: M.
Cody: So just hate this writing. I mean. Not just for them fucking up if it's a year. A semester. Or ten years or 100. But the fact that no one would ever talk like this if they already know their agreement for their annual swap. Figure out a better way to show us that they have to do this instead of just being like. Well. Joey. You know that we do our annual swap for Daddy Potter and it is your turn now.
James: Have a 1 second shot of a calendar with the date that says Dad's Bday in prison. And then both of them walking by, it going, you want your own home? Yeah. That immediately improves us, but that's just too good. We just need to have characters talking about things rather than actually doing things. That's the number one rule of storytelling. Right, Cody?
Cody: Yes. Uh, question for all of you. I don't know if we've discussed this. Have we watched other Kevin Williamson properties besides scream? And I know you did last summer.
James: Not really. I don't think so.
Cody: Because I think those two movies, I feel like Scream um, being the better of the two, they're so similar. But definitely those are both good things. Uh, that people just like it's all, um, action not action sequences. But I mean, everyone is doing what they need to do to move the story forward. No one is ever really saying anything. The only time the dialogue is used is, um, for character development. And there's no fat exposition pieces of them being like, well, if we do this, this will happen. And that is why we have to do it. It seems so strange to me that Kevin Williamson, being the showrunner of the show at the time, would see these scripts and just be like, yeah, that's all right. I know they were, um, under such a tight deadline that he was just like, fucking who cares? I don't care about the audience. Let's just let this happen. If I was the showrunner of the show, I would not want this to be associated with my name as a writer because it'd be like especially if.
James: You had made a career on such like you're saying like Scream having such a focused storytelling angle. It would be like having Ghost Face call Sydney and be like, hello, Sydney. Do you know what a knife can do?
Cody: It can cut you.
James: And if it cuts you enough, you might die. I might want to do that to you later. If you don't answer my questions, what do you do?
Cody: I'm picking you off one by one. The reason.
James: I, uh, wish that was maybe that's the original script.
Cody: Yeah, that's just a bit. It's been a really long time, but I watched the first season of The Vampire Diaries, which was an underrated show. A lot of people didn't watch it because they thought it was going to be like a Twilight thing or whatever. But it was fun. It's campy and a, uh, good time. But I have no recollection of any parts of that show ever being people just sitting around and talking. Um, even though the show had a lot of vampire lore, no one's being like, well, because of the Vampire Council.
James: And before you say it's, that, uh, like, Dawson's Creek is dated. Scream. And I know what you did last summer. Both came out before Dawson's Creek. So don't give me that shit.
Cody: Yeah. And other shows, like in the were like around the same time. There were a lot of bad shows during that time.
James: But they're doing it intentionally. And I wonder I know, like a big part of Dawson's Creek was the fact that we had kids talking like adults. So maybe they're just like, let's have these kids talking as much as possible because that's the angle that we've got. They're not saying dude Rad. They're saying big words or whatever the fuck.
Cody: Yeah. And the stylization of these characters, too, has changed so much since the beginning of this that it's like it used to be kind of like noirish where everyone's talking in these like allegories and quick witty liners. And now then it kind of like Veered in like more neorealism. But now I don't really know what it is. I don't know.
James: It's like almost soapy.
Mallory: Yeah.
Cody: As Pacey rushes to work on his bicycle, brother deputy Dougie pulls him over to let him know that Daddy Witter is upset over Pace failed midterms. When Pacey lets him know he more or less doesn't give a shit, doug gives him an earful on how he's an embarrassing clown and will one day regret being such a fucking loser.
Mallory: We are once again reminded that his family hates him again.
James: Yeah. What's, uh, the point of showing us this scene is? It just to set up the later scene, the ice house. And I guess maybe it's because it could be anybody's first episode also. But it's annoying. This scene is annoying to me because what does it really do? Nothing besides speak to that first time audience, which I guess you have to prepare for that. But god damn it, it's your season fucking finale. Do we need to have just scenes to pad the time?
Cody: Right? I wonder if that is the ticket there that this is the season finale. So maybe there was an expectation at the time that people probably fell off a little bit but they are going to tune in for the finale to see like, oh yeah, I haven't watched the last four episodes because the show kind of sucks but I still kind of want to see what happens with Dawson.
Mallory: And by the way, Peace family still hates him.
James: Uh, also Graham's died. He, uh, woke up. Sorry listeners, if you haven't watched the episode and know that he dies later.
Cody: Also, uh, maybe this is to also show that Dougie, uh, abuses his power as a police officer to do whatever he wants. Maybe that will come into play later on in the show because so far it's just like him being a bad cop. Like that's all he is.
James: Yeah, I felt bad for Pacey though. I mean, poor guy, he's just trying to live his goddamn life.
Stella: Yeah, I wish we could have a scene of seeing his dad yell m at him or something. It's just like, why not? Why are we seeing everyone's families except his?
Mallory: It makes me wonder if next season we're going to see like a big blowout between him and his dad or I don't know, I hope we get more like such a choice.
Cody: It's especially weird because the show is doing a few things where, uh, the only thing that I could say in its defense is when you're in high school, your experience is your own and you experience your friends live through what they tell you about their lives. And the show is following Dawson. It is his creak after all. But at the same time, if this show were to do that, then we wouldn't get scenes that are outside of Dawson. Like for instance, this episode, we see scenes that are just Joey and Pacey. There's no Dawson in that scene. So if the show is willing to give us glimpses into other realities that are not just Dawson focused, then it should at least lean into the fact that Pacey is one of the main characters of the show and we should see his home life. I don't know why they're not showing us this.
James: This isn't a good reason. But the only thing that I can think of I've been trying to rack my brain about possible explanations for this. The only thing I can think of is they didn't have more budget. It's a shot on location, right? That obviously is going to cost a certain amount of money. They've had to pad this out with a bunch of locals for like broll shots and background stuff. They do have a pretty trim cast if you actually think about it, it's kind of just the same for actors plus or minus a few featured actors in the background, like Hannah from last episode or whatever. Right. So maybe they're just like, yeah, we can't get some series regulars in Paisy's family as well. So maybe season two we will because they won't have that constraint. Hopefully. That's literally the only thing I can think of. It's just like purely from the fiscal standpoint. They've already put in so much money.
Mallory: Right? Yeah. And they'd also have to have another location if his house, so that's more budget. Right, so yeah, that makes sense.
Cody: And a season two renewal. That's more money. You're getting more money.
James: Totally. Hopefully that's all it is because I'm getting sick and tired of the one character. I think we all relate with every character to a certain, at a certain point, but I feel like Pacey is the one character who kind of has a little bit of everything, if that makes sense. Almost every episode since, uh, Ms. Jacobs has left, I've found myself relating more with Pacey than anybody else on the show. Um, so I just want to see him actually be explored as treated like a real character instead of like the funny guy, sad boy, horny boy.
Cody: Yes. At, uh, this point in the show, I feel like him and Joey are the most authentic characters because they have a very fleshed out real world problems. And, um, Jen, I felt like that for a little bit, but her story so one note that there's nothing to be there anymore and Dawson is a cyborg, so this is what we're getting. I don't know. Also, we've, uh, in the past talked about who, you know, fan casting. Who do you think is going to play Joey's dad? Turns out it's nobody but here. Who do you imagine when Pacey talks about his dad? Like, who would you like to see play his dad?
James: Oh, sam Neil. Oh, that would be great for all of you who don't know he is. If you think of cowboy in your head, you just thought of Sam Neil. He got a big, uh, mustache, white mustache, almost always as a cowboy or a sheriff. Oh, wait, what do you mean? I'm thinking of the wrong samuel, uh, is a New Zealand guy from okay. If you think of cowboy in your head no, that's not who I met, but I actually like that better. I was thinking of I feel like.
Stella: They kind of look they have a similar look.
Mallory: Kind of sandy sounds. Got to be like a meaning. Looked so nice.
Cody: Oh no. Have you seen his horror movies? Possession or in the mouth of madness. He is terrifying.
James: Oh, event.
Cody: Uh, horizon. Oh my God.
James: M. I was thinking of Sam Elliott. Sorry everybody.
Mallory: Oh, totally. Yeah. I do not see that Pacey's dad. Yeah, I don't.
Stella: I see Sam Neil, though.
Cody: Paisley son of a bitch.
James: I'm glad I got you.
Stella: Samuel looks kind of like a copy.
Mallory: The mustache.
James: Mhm.
Stella: Well I like that. That's fun.
James: Yeah. I'm going to say my accidental casting is better than my race. I also like the idea that Sandy is a cowboy. I want to see tombstone but with sandilo.
Cody: You were saying that. I was like, I haven't seen any Sam Neil cowboy movies. It's interesting.
James: That'd be great.
Cody: My fan casting in my mind is uh, what's his name? Brian Cox, the figure head of succession. Especially like uh, you and Fox.
Mallory: Totally.
Cody: When he played Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter um, in the 80s. Because that would be kind of like within ten years. And he's like chubby but still kind of young and stuff. Just like I just imagine him with uh, the tan sheriff button, uh, up shirt that's tucked in his guts hanging out and he's sitting at a kitchen tablespoon like oh you fucking piece of shit Pacey. Like it's so easy to imagine in my mind. Elsewhere, Dawson and Joy grab some bus tickets to go visit her daddy in prison. She uses this as an opportune time to remind Austin and the audience that it was two years ago in which she had last seen her dad. And that ah, this is when she learned he had been cheating on her mom when she had cancer. Switching gears, Frances once again brought up when asked how Dawson would feel if she were to leave. He says what any 15 year old white suburban boy would say and states that he would kill himself. He backtracks and says he would be happy as long as she was happy.
James: Oh, uh, I longed for a time when we would just make casual suicide jokes on national television. Prime time.
Cody: It caught me off guard. The gear had switched for me. I went, excuse me sir. Yeah.
James: It took me a second. I was like, I didn't just hear that did I? It was like uh, some kind of weird psychotic thing in my own brain where I replaced dialogue with that. That wasn't what he actually said. Right.
Cody: Good response though. He didn't even crack a smile. No.
James: God damn.
Cody: We should do a reedit where he just goes I'd kill myself. And then just smashed, uh, the credits again. Also, uh, just timing wise of this show doesn't make any sense. Uh, was talking about she's going to be gone for a year, maybe it's a semester. Who knows how long semesters are in Dust Creek. Um, another thing too is they talk about the timing of her learning about the daddy cheating, uh, with the mom with cancer. It doesn't make sense that she would have learned about it uh, only two years ago if she had known about it before leading up to it.
Mallory: Because my read was a year ago Bessie visited her dad. So two years ago would have been when Joey visited him. Right?
Cody: Yeah. But I thought she might when it was happening.
Stella: My thought was that he got arrested two years ago. That's how she found out about everything.
Mallory: Yeah. Okay.
James: It must, uh, have been something that was going on before then. Because if we go back to when she discovers the cheating and she's talking to Mrs. Leary about it, she definitely makes it seem like it was, like.
Cody: Happening within the now of that time. And, uh, then the way that she.
James: Talks about it in general is like, this has ruined my life. Everybody knows me as this character, but it's only been two years.
Mallory: Middle school.
Stella: That's prime years.
James: But then again, just surprising it's only been two years. I guess it really shocked me.
Cody: Yeah. And also, like, Bessie talks about their daddy swap, uh, on an annual basis, but it's only happened twice. It's like, oh, of course. Joe, you know the deal that we've set in Stone only two years ago when you started it.
James: This is the second cycle of, um.
Mallory: I guess my read was maybe that's when she learned it. I don't know. So you're saying that she would have known when it was happening? I thought maybe she learned it two years ago. When? During her visit with her dad. Her dad was arrested, like, prior to two years ago.
James: I think that's what we're kind of figuring out now is that, uh, she only found out about it two years ago. Not like we thought much longer.
Cody: But the thing that it's so strange to me that two things are being associated as being on the same level, which is, uh, her dad being a drug dealer. And also they are cheating on her mom when, uh, she was dying. And I don't understand why both of those would have been revealed with the arrest. It's like sir drug dealing and also cheating.
Mallory: Yeah, I think he was arrested prior to two years ago. It was just maybe the last time.
James: But it's only happened twice. Yeah, it's only happened twice. That's what Becky is saying in that last scene you did.
Mallory: Oh, I missed that. I thought, uh, she just said that she visited him last year, not that it was just the second time.
Cody: Interesting.
Mallory: Okay.
James: I can't remember confusing you. I know that the number two years has been dropped, whether it's last seen or the scene.
Cody: This is so confusing.
Mallory: Yeah. This scene joey says she found out two years ago. Just that she found out.
Cody: Yeah, that's it.
James: Which I guess he could have been involved. We're doing the labor of this show.
Mallory: That would mean that Bessie told her. Oh, yeah, she found out from Bessie. But like, her dad had been in prison for a couple of years. Like four years. Who knows?
James: Do we ever know when our mom died? Maybe when they decided to tell us when that was, that we can fill this picture in a little bit more. But until then, I have no idea. And it sounds like he's only been in prison for two years.
Mallory: Yeah, I just heard the found out.
Cody: That's why I desperately want to see a flashback sequence where Joey's at home with her dad. And, um, the doors burst open, joey screams, her dad's getting tackled by the cop. And he turns to her and says, by the way, she did all your mom too.
Mallory: Yes. Maybe Beth was protecting her for a couple of years when she was too young to know and she found out two years ago at the same time she last had to visit her dad or something like that. And so she doesn't want to visit him again.
James: What a visit that would be. It's like, Happy birthday, Daddy. Thanks, baby. Um, I got something I got to tell you. It's actually a gift, if you think about it. Um, it's the gift of the truth. I cheated on Mommy.
Cody: Okay, bye. Also, the show loving exposition. I wonder if, um, too in my mind, it just all seems so absurd to me, but it almost sounds like that's when I learned everything. And, like, he was arrested. Joe. He's like, why was dad arrested? I got to ask him.
James: Some guy.
Cody: And then on that first visit, he's like, honey, I'm here for drugs. And also cheers, mom. Bye.
James: Bye.
Cody: Happy birthday, Me. When Dawson and Joe arrive at the prison, they're bummed to learn that visiting hours are over. As a means to make their four hour trip worth it, they decide to stay the night at a hotel in prison town to see Daddy Potter. The next day at the hotel, things become awkward when it's sleepy time and Dawson feels the beans that he's going to miss Joey a lot if she decides to go to France. He then monologues about failing at his own introspection and not knowing what's going on between them. Joey asks him what he's so scared of before turning over and Dawson lets us know that he does not know.
James: The only thing I wanted to play here, I got this clip. It plays back to what you were saying earlier, Cody, about, uh, the whole prison sequence being very lynchian. The guard gives me like, this speech could have been out of Twin Peak firewalk with Me or season two. Let's take a listen to what the guard says in response to Joey. Look, miss, I know you think your.
Cody: Problem is very important, and I'm sure to you it is, but here at.
James: A prison housing over 800 felons, it's not even a blip on the radar. Now, can I ask you, are we done here yet? That feels like it's one of the police officers at the shitty police sheriff's, uh, office in Firewalk with Me that they go there and they're always getting laughed at, like, totally. Is this conversation done yet? I love that guy.
Cody: Ah, I love firewall with me. Those two people that are just like, laughing at, like, a magazine article.
Mallory: Speaking of Twin Peaks, this hotel was very m much rememy of Twin Peaks. Um, the name of the motel is the Loveless Cafe and Motel. It is a real place. Um, it's in Nashville, Tennessee. So that's where I think the scene was filmed there at the hotel. Um, apparently it originally opened in 1951. They, uh, have a website that looks a little bit of history and it still exists. And I think it's just a cafe now. Um, but yeah, it's kind of cute.
Cody: We've got to treat ourselves and fly over, have a coffee.
James: I'm just looking at the map here.
Mallory: Uh, it's quite a Google love list. You can see that that sign. They still have that same sign there.
James: I guess the question for me is, do they actually film it on location or did they just take an establishing shot from the location and then do an interior on like, a sound stage or just any other motel? Because that's quite a ways away from where they're in Massachusetts.
Mallory: I think it was establishing because, uh, it's not actually a motel. Uh, it might have been a motel.
Cody: Back in the day, but yeah, you're right, though.
James: Super twin PC.
Mallory: Yeah. Motel room inside, too.
Cody: I wonder why that establishing shot is even in the public domain for other people to use, if you can do that. I would imagine every, like, Ma and Paw business would be selling the rights of being using their location for anything.
James: Right.
Cody: Cool.
James: How strange. When we first watched this episode and they get in the bed, um, I had this weird funhouse effect where they get in bed and it's like, well, they show the room normal looking bed. They get in bed, normal looking bed. Everything was fine. And then after Joey gives Dawson the cold shoulder and turns away and Dawson's just kind of like, staring up, the bed looks like it's so big. It has gotten so large. It looks like you could fit like, ten people in this bed all of a sudden.
Mallory: Yes.
James: It's not it's the same bed the entire time.
Mallory: And I think that was intentional. Yeah, because, like, if you look so we watched at the same time to begin with and we were both like, did the bed just get bigger? Because if you look, she, uh, when they originally lay down, she's her head's on the middle pillow because there's three pillows. And then when she turns, she rolls over to the pillow that's farther away from Dawson and the camera spans up and it's like this gigantic space between them.
James: So alone.
Cody: It is a good visual metaphor, the distance between them in that moment.
James: Total poor Dawson.
Stella: I also like when Joey says the bed is lumpy and then Dawson, like, eyes Joey's yellows.
James: Yeah, right.
Mallory: He said a foreign bed, which, uh, kind of goes back to her traveling to a foreign country. Uh, I also noticed that Joey this time Joey's the one commenting on the awkwardness of sleeping in the same bed. In the first episode it was Dawson actually. Sorry, it was reversed. Uh, in the first episode, Joey was the one commenting about the awkwardness in this episode, dawson's feeling weird about it, so there's a little swap there.
Cody: This whole moment would have been so much better if they had never established that they have sleepovers in the same bed all the time because there shouldn't be any awkwardness to this scene. And Dawson saying it's like, oh, it's a foreign bed or whatever. That doesn't really add anything to this. They should have put them in m I don't know, like they have to shower together. Yeah, something else that's not a bed.
James: Exactly. Some kind of heightening tool should have been implemented here. Like they should have been walking back from the cafe and they got poured on so they had to take all their clothes off and get dry. And that's what's making it awkward because to your point, they've been in beds a billion d times.
Mallory: I thought it was effective because it goes back to the first episode where like, Dawson didn't feel awkward and Joey did. This time Joey feels awkward and Dawson does and it's like that same level of like it's like a swap but it's still like there's still that tension, right? I don't know, I guess it could have been heightened more but, um yeah.
Cody: I agree that there is a throughline there with the connectivity of a bed as a symbol for the relationship. Um, I just wish it was like, uh, they could have forced it a little more. There needed to be a reason for Dobson to make it feel awkward. Yes. Or this combined James'idea here is they get rained on so now they have to sleep in the same bed naked or in their underwear or something. So now it's like being forced to be sexual or something, uh, between them. Not that I want to see.
Mallory: And Joey with the swatch.
James: The honeymoon suite is the only room available and it's like a heartshaped bed.
Cody: Thank you. Question.
Mallory: Um, everyone favorite TV shows or movies to watch in a hotel room?
James: Baby. I love watching ghost TV shows like.
Mallory: Ghost Hunters unsolved Mysteries, that's always on. But Ghost Hunters? Yeah.
Cody: This is fun and cute because when Stella and I first met, we were staying at a hotel and I said, do you want to watch? Because my favorite thing at being, uh, in a hotel is watching local television. Wherever you're at. Just seeing local ads because they crack me up because you get so used to your own if you have cable, but when you're staying somewhere else, it's like, I don't know what I'm about to see. Their used car dealership ads are always insane stuff, um, like that. So that's what I like to watch.
Stella: I like Forensic Files and Law and Order.
Cody: But you just like that in general.
Stella: I know, but I don't know, it's fun when you're at a hotel. It feels cozy.
Mallory: M. I feel like, uh, one other one that's always on when I'm at a hotel is my cousin Vinny. Like that movie is always on. I feel like, I don't know, it's just like one of those that's always on repeat. And I never watch live TV at home, so it's like when I'm at a hotel, that's like a fun one to watch.
James: There is something very special about those local commercials though. You're totally right. I have very vivid memories of visiting New Mexico as a kid with my family and just the difference in commercials, uh, in the Albuquerque area versus where we grew up was just like, it's culture shock is what it is. You're like, whoa, this is the culture of Albuquerque TV ads. It's just very different. You know, like you're saying the crazy car dealership ads, they get away with so much in a local market that you don't see in your, like, little small neck of the woods.
Cody: I always think about people, uh, that were visiting Portland maybe in the late nineties, early 2000s, if they happen to be watching television in their hotel room late at night. And they caught the very Portland local ad for that stereo man that screams at the TV if you remember him. Until they're gone. CD changer for your car. I get it. Until they're gone. That looks insane. Uh, let's seriously do it from Portland Google. Until they're gone. Portland stereo ad and you will get a glimpse into our world.
James: Uh, well, speaking of glimpses into our world and specifically glimpses at commercials, it is time for our very first commercial break, so we'll see you on the other side. Hey everybody, its James here just thanking you for listening. We don't have any sponsors, we don't have any paid promotions or anything like that, so we're thanking you. But I'm going to actually ask one more thing of you while I'm at it. Could you go ahead and subscribe to this show? Do it right now while you're listening. It's not going to take you any time at all and that way you'll get every episode in the future. And while you're at it, go ahead and give us a review as well. Um, it'll really help us grow. The algorithm will love it, people will see it and maybe they'll think, hey, I think this sounds like something I'm going to like and that's really what we need as a new show. So help us grow. Give us a rating, subscribe, and keep on listening. Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of the episode.
Cody: And we're back at the hospital. Grahams tells Jen that the tests for Graham's are going well and blessed be the Lord for his intervention. Jen is quick to deny that faith or spiritual guidance had. Anything to do with Gramps bringing up the classic examples of when God took a nap on war, famine, and AIDS. Grahams basically says the Lord works in mysterious ways, but Jennan says that they should just enjoy Graham's recovery in their own ways.
James: Yeah, I mean, if anybody was considering taking a philosophy of religions course, you don't have to anymore because you just heard all of the arguments kind of summarized between this exchange between Jen and Graham's. It's like, does God exist? No. Because of all this bad stuff. Well, but God still exists. Because I think God exists. Okay, well, there we go.
Cody: Classic, uh, every argument that I ever hear. It's like, well, God just has a plan for all of us. And sometimes the plan for people that are tortured their entire lives and die a cruel, seemingly, uh, pointless, uh, death is for our benefit, to use as an example of God working in mysterious ways.
James: Exactly. All according to plan.
Cody: I love. Okay, so let's, um, dial it back a little bit. So God, um, in hellboy, he's chilling and he puts Cramps into a coma and he goes, they're going to think it's so crazy when I wake him up for a good 25 minutes before killing him.
James: Yes.
Cody: What a twist. And, uh, just testing the waters for poor Grahams and Gen and their faith.
James: Why? Well, obviously because this is what brings Jen into the fold, as we see later. Right. Losing Gramps ultimately serves the greater good, which is we got to convert everybody to Christianity. So let's get Jen in there. We got one more soldier in God's army. That's Jen.
Cody: As Bob Dilmer put it upon in his game. I love, uh, that. I love that Grants'life ends up being a complete meaningless, uh, drag out just to get Jen back into that church, baby.
James: That's all it's really for.
Cody: I hope one day God uses me in the same way.
James: Me too. I hope that I'm upon. I hope that he kills me so that somebody else decides to be religious.
Cody: It's funny that the same group of people that believe in this, uh, say life is so precious and, uh, it's so worth living when at the same time you could just be an example later on, used after you've been shot, killed, murdered, ward, famined, diseased, et cetera.
James: Yeah, but I mean, at least granted, has got to be on TV for a little while.
Cody: That is extremely true. And he got a cool scar on his chest.
James: True.
Cody: Inside the prison visitation room, dawson is about to dip for the Potters to have some private time. But Joey insists on him staying put. When Daddy Potter comes in, he cracks a few jokes to Joey's chagrin. She puts on a cold front until he brings up their family. And Joey gives him flack lest we forget his wrongdoings. When he asks how she truly feels, she tells him she's moving to France and that their family is over. When she leaves Daddy Potter asks Dawson to stick around to tell him about her, allowing Dawson to list some of his favorite adjectives. Great, smart, beautiful, funny, scared, honest, uh, stubborn, and a good friend. He tells him he doesn't know what he's going to do if she leaves saying that she's not only his best friend, but that she is quite literally everything.
Mallory: And we meet Joey's dad finally.
James: Yeah, I mean, I just feel sorry for him in this scene the entire time. I mean, I get he has done crimes or whatever, to quote unquote, earn being here, but in this scene all we see is that he really wants to connect with his daughter and rightfully she is very unable or unwilling to connect. It's just a painful scene, kind of from start to finish. And, uh, yeah, I'm glad that we met him but at the same time.
Mallory: Well, yes, because this whole scene was for Dawson, not for Joey and her dad, it was for Dawson.
James: Further evidence that this is all just Dawson's dream.
Cody: Imagine my disappointment when walking through the door is not John Lori, just some guy.
James: John Draper.
Mallory: Anyone?
Cody: He got a strong jaw, he had a tan face.
Mallory: He reminded me of Don Ham.
James: I think he m looked a lot like the lady killer. You take the lady killer's glasses off, he looks a bit like Daddy. In my memory.
Mallory: Anyway, um, when her dad tells her she's beautiful, her reaction reminded me of the previous episode, jen telling her she's beautiful and she just absolutely hates that. That's not what she wants to hear. I thought that was interesting.
Stella: Throughout this episode, Joey's poutiness and, um, I don't know what the word is, just like being so just like a teenager of being like, no, I'm not.
Mallory: It felt kind of faked, like predictable, like, okay, we're just seeing Joey being the teen, the angsty have that predictable reaction of like, I'm going to cross. This whole thing was for Dawson. It wasn't for the relationship of Joey and her dad. That comes later.
James: So yeah, it felt like a continuation of what we got from Joey last episode where she was just like rolling her eyes and looking through her eyebrows at things. Now this time, instead of being coy, she's being sassy. It's the exact same acting though and I'm tired of it. Sorry.
Cody: It's like every writer and director, as they were watching this and going along, they're just like, oh, she's pretty good at doing that so we're just going to pull that poll string over and over again on this Joey doll. That's all we get.
James: She's young, but I feel like they're doing her a disservice by not just unless they did, of course, who knows, maybe they did, but unless they're asking her for a different performance and she's just giving this over and over again. Why are we just going for this one thing.
Cody: Yeah. It just makes me think that they're looking at the show Bible and it just said like, joey assassin has her eyes law. And they're like, okay, well, I guess that's what we're going to do.
James: Let's just copy and paste that into every read of every line.
Mallory: So it was really annoying that when her dad's asking Dawson to tell him about her, all he does is throws out like random descriptive words. Just like vague, like the most vague words that describe a person. He told him nothing about Joe.
Cody: He doesn't know anything about her. It's just like surface level bullshit. Easy ways to describe a human being that you could use for basically anyone.
James: Right, yeah.
Stella: That, um, part of the scene felt very soap opera like with the music and the way Dawson was talking, it.
Mallory: Was just like, this is so over the top. Yeah.
Cody: Important to note also that the only time that he actually elaborates on something is when he describes her as a scaredy cat and then he just interjects himself being the person that can instigate that behavior out of her, which is also scary. That the one thing that he likes a lot is he's like, yeah, I get to control her emotions when I stare at her.
Mallory: So he can manipulate her.
James: Yeah, I do. Since we're talking about this, I'm just going to play this clip really quick.
Cody: I should go with her. I'm sorry, Mr. Pyrr. Good luck. And wait, please tell me about her.
James: Tell me about my daughter. What do you want? I just had to play that because that line from the dad, uh, I just feel so sorry for him. M. He just sounds so sad. He sounds like he didn't know how this is going to go, obviously, but he didn't think it would go this way and he just wants to know something, anything about his daughter and I can't help but feel, you know, like, sad for him. This poor guy. And then even worse, he's talking to Dawson.
Cody: It is. I mean, I like that they hit this beat and I genuinely do like the stuff in this episode between Joey and her dad minus the Dawson stuff. Like, it actually feels good. There's like some meat there to chew on. It's strong. And Daddy Potter, sorry, um, that I forgot the actor's name, but he did a great job with the material.
Mallory: Yeah. Gareth Williams. I thought he did a great job. Oh yeah, solid performance.
James: He felt believable as a dad who is having who is estranged from his daughter for whatever reason, let alone the fact that he's in prison. I thought he did an amazing job. And I think it's interesting to kind of juxtapose what we see from this scene where Dawson brings Joey to the prison to talk to her dad versus what we get with the later visit to the prison where Pacey brings her to the prison because we are rightfully calling out how Dawson kind of uh, centers himself in this experience. It's really about, uh, the whole scene is really Dawson watching Joey interact with her dad and then him contextualizing her life through him. But then what does Pacey do? Well, we'll talk about it when we get there, but it's definitely not that.
Cody: Back in Capeside, on an isolated dock, joey berates Dawson for being awkwardly silent the entire fourhour bus ride home. Dawson tells her that she shouldn't have left as her dad was curious about her life and that she needs to tell him m, exactly how she feels as she's carrying a lot of emotional baggage. Digressing, she reveals she's decided to go to France. When Dawson says running away isn't the right answer, she begs for him to give her one good darn reason to stay. As always, our titular hero remains silent and Joey gives him that's. Uh, what I thought before getting in her little canoe and rowing away.
James: Remember when we first started watching the show and we were like, god, I hope we just get Katie Holmes rowing in her little boat all the time. This is like the third time I think it's happened in the entire series, but it still tickles me every time we get it.
Stella: It happened a few times in this episode.
Cody: The later rowing sequence is my favorite scene probably in all of the show so far.
James: Uh, um, I really like this little picturesque dock that is, or whatever it is. I was trying to figure out is this little footbridge just exist, it uh, just crosses this little creek and that's just the way it is. Or is this a dock? Because if it's a dock oh, she's getting on her boat. That's right. In my head I'm thinking of it as like a footbridge that goes across town but then when we cut to the scene, it's very strange. It's a very strange little feature and I just got really fixated on what it is and what it serves.
Cody: It's weird when they use it's an establishing shot without an establishing shot. They show they were at a dock. Cool. Where is this? Because I couldn't tell. Is this Dawson's house? We're just getting like a really obscure view because it shows house in the background, mhm, because all you're seeing is the little wooden planks.
James: Or is it like a public facility? Yeah, well, you know what, Dawson's Creek, fuck you.
Cody: Oh my God, I said it. Sorry Kevin. Uh, okay, so it seems as though the reaction that Dawson had after his experience with Daddy Potter is that he's so sad over the relationship that he silently sat on that bus the entire way back. I mean, she doesn't literally say you were quiet or you were silent the entire time, but, uh, he is quiet. She hints at it, it's very affected by it.
James: And we know it's a four hour bus ride too, because that's what she said on the way there, right? That they spent 4 hours a day late. What? So he just sold for 4 hours because she said that she's going to France because clearly she's going through some shit. Dude, what is wrong with you?
Cody: Dawson, we've, uh, complained about it so many times, but it's a rightful criticism that it's like he is suffering from main character syndrome. He is the main character show, but everything has to involve him and everything is like he just cannot get it out of his mind that maybe she would just go to France because this is a really good opportunity for education. She wants to go to college. If they had ever had a conversation like she does with Pacey about this, you would know. Uh, maybe I should not make myself the main goal of everything in every other person's life instead. No, of course not. Like, it is about him and it sucks that that gets paid off at the end of this episode. That it is literally about him.
Mallory: Sorry. In the scene, he tells her that running away is not the answer. But he's saying that because selfishly, he doesn't want to run away. Not because he's telling her, you should talk to your dad. That's not where the meaning is. It's because he's being selfish, ironically.
James: He's saying running away isn't the answer. And that's what he's doing from Jen. He's running away from any kind of any kind of closure with Jen and instead he's just running towards Joey. So clearly it's just the self motivation that he's talking about. And I guess my question is, is this idea of main character syndrome and what we rightfully see. Now to your point, Cody, like, why can't he just remove himself from being the center of everything? Is that just too modern of a thought? Were there shows in the didn't have main characters being the sun in the solar system of media? Like the whole point of the show is this just a response to shows like Dawson's Creek where Dawson has to be at the fucking center of everything. That we get those kinds of shows that eventually relate to other characters.
Cody: This is going to be, um, me playing armchair psychologist here. But the way that this keeps progressing with Dawson as a character just makes me feel that Kevin Williamson himself is just like, this is him without criticism, viewing his life through this lens again. And it's very gross. If this is supposed to be autobiographical, he should have been like, I don't know. But then again, you're getting these scenes where Dawson is saying that he doesn't want to be introspective about anything and he wants to click that off. So is this show actually Kevin Williamson saying, look how immature I was, uh, when I would I don't know. Am I getting the show to the benefit of the doubt? Thinking that it's way smarter than I think because shows in the 90s were complicated. This is in the same time that we're getting The Sopranos at least like a year after it. So it's like things are complicated. Like media is complicated. Films, uh, have existed for 80 years at this point.
James: Right? In a way it feels very authentic. If what you're saying is this is Kevin Williamson's kind of like exorcism of his childhood demons in a way, the fact that he was so focused in on his own life, is this his way of kind of showing, uh, the folly in that by being like, yeah, the only person who gets a say in this TV show is Dawson. And isn't that fucked up that we don't actually look at any of these other characters and give them merit? That's what we do as teenage boys. Is that really the commentary that he's making? Is this all intentional? Because like we talked about, kevin Williamson is a very capable storyteller. I don't believe that he is capable of making just a bad show. You know what I mean? It feels like it has to be intentional. So, to your question, are you giving it too much credit?
Cody: I don't think so. But I don't know. But then again, my only hang up with thinking that this show is smart enough to be what we think it is, is that, uh, later on we get that horrific scene with Joey and her dad and they just changed the subject to talk about Dawson. So this is either like some smart molehole and drive meta commentary on the thoughts of a 15 year old boy and thinking like, uh, him projecting on how he thinks other people are reacting to his life being the center of attention, or this is just shitty writing.
James: Maybe just like we talked about in the beginning, both things are true.
Cody: Yeah.
James: Well, we're going to go contemplate that on our second commercial break. So, uh yeah, bye.
Mallory: Hello there. Jumping in on the commercial break to remind you to find us online. We are on social media at Freaksandcreekspod, where we post all sorts of great content. So come and join the conversation. We'd love to have you. We also have a website, Freaksandcreeks.com. It has a really sleek web player, which means you can listen from anywhere or share episodes directly with your friends and family. Thanks for listening and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody: Um, and we're back at, ah, the hospital that is Jen Chicks on Grahams and learns that Graham's had another stroke.
James: And is in the ICU.
Cody: Jen is befuddled as the last she heard, things were really turning around. Grahams argues that, uh, what they need the most right now is prayer. But when Jen says it won't change God's mind, graham says prayer isn't for God, but for her.
James: Let's take a listen to that.
Mallory: Yeah.
Cody: Sometimes we don't understand it, we can't see it. But this is when prayer is most important.
Stella: How can you have so much faith in prayer?
Mallory: Just because you pray doesn't mean it can change God.
Cody: Oh, child, you've got it backwards.
Mallory: Prayer doesn't change God.
James: Prayer changes me.
Stella: Cool, child.
Cody: This just reminds me of all the fucking horrible Christian media I had to watch as a kid. And it just gets so triggering because that's always like the end of every single movie or TV show. That was Christian theme that I had to watch is like, well, we may not know what God wants, but if we pray, things will happen. Whether they're good or bad, God knows.
Stella: Okay, it felt like that the message that was being sent was that because Jen dissed prayer earlier in the episode, this happened. This led to Graham's having another strokes.
James: Why is Kevin Williamson secretly like evangelical or really religious? Or is this something that he is just I just don't understand why this has to be in the show. I don't get it. I know that Satanic panic and all that stuff, the Christian values being under threat, quote, unquote, that was very much a thing in the still today. So it feels like we're not too far off from it. But like I said earlier in the episode, as soon as Jen steps on the screen and tells Graham, I'm not going to church, I'm an atheist, or whatever it was she said, I feel like I may have even said it then, but I called it. This is going to end with her becoming religious. And this scene is when I knew it was happening. When we got this, I was like, guarantee you by the end of this episode, we're going to be in a church and she's going to be praying. And what the fuck do we get?
Mallory: For me, I think one of the cliffhangers is like, uh, okay, so we end with Jen in the church. Is she playing along for Grahams or not? Will she become religious next season? We'll find out.
James: Yes.
Mallory: I don't know. Are they putting this in here too, so that teens can relate? Teens that are questioning their religion?
James: I wonder. Look, I also want to say I get it. Just because you are an atheist doesn't mean you can never pray. That's not necessarily true. Sure, there are moments of when prayer seems like the right thing to do. And this seems like a time when even if you were atheist, anything could help. So sure, why not? Um, but yeah, just I really, really think that we could have done without this entire plotline in this episode, in this season, in the show, and we'd be better off for it. And instead, let's find those minutes that we lost and make Jen a better character because this is fucking not it for me.
Cody: Yeah, absolutely not. And I also think it's important. I would say that I speak for all of us here, where, uh, I wouldn't say that, uh, we hate Christianity. I would say it's more of like we hate evangelical modern Christianity and how it's twisted a religion into being this fucking bizarro ritualistic, uh, strangeness, where there is actually no answers and everything is just as vague. Whatever. I'm just going to just submit basically to bullshit that I'm learning from an establishment instead of actually having a, um, journey of spiritualism that benefits your life and the lives of others. Instead it's whatever, um, we got now, I would call it Dick Cheney Christianity or Ronald Reagan Christianity. Um, and the fact that Jen is getting twisted into being a victim based on this is very reminiscent of like a 90s message of evangelical Christianity. This is focused on the family bullshit and it's uh, really disgusting.
James: It is. And to your point, Cody, I'm not a Christian hater fucking, like, let's end Christianity. It's more that I would much rather see a balanced message of what religion is. Let's see the Jewish family in here and let's have them represented as well. Let's have multiple religious perspectives represented and not just have the one JudeoChristian perspective represented as the one and singular way forward.
Cody: And to that point, it's so funny when people now, uh, say that there's a war on Christmas, they're trying to take away Christianity all in the States. So your example is like back in the 1998, we used to have episodes of TV shows like Dustin's Creek where Christianity would be a major theme and now it's no longer there. That's your war on Christianity. By representing other cultures or religions or.
James: Just choosing, just recognizing that by only recognizing one or representing one, it's actually not good. So maybe we just don't represent any that is a better choices. Um, uh, and freaks. No. Pews and m pews and pals. Pews and pals. Yeah, Pews. Tune into Pews and Pals to hear more of our religious thought cause uh, I think we have quite a bit of it.
Cody: Pacey finds Joey closing up at the ice house and vents a little bit about his family, making him feel like an embarrassment. He tells an extremely depressing story about a baseball game where he struck out with two outs in the bottom of the nights and overheard his dad tell brother Dougie that he at least was him and not the other. When Joey suggests Pacey talks with his father, she realizes she needs to take her own advice and get to the prison as soon as possible to talk to Daddy Potter. She asks Pacey to give her a ride and he offers to steal his family's car to get her there. Pacey very sad.
James: Very sad.
Stella: Very, very sad. Yeah, I think this was another piece where I felt frustrated because we get to see Joey confront her dad and then we don't get to see any follow up with Pacey and what he's going through.
Mallory: Um.
James: I think we all know somebody who kind of deals with their own stuff through helping others. But um, clearly Pacey needs somebody here. That's why he's here. That's literally what he is talking about is he just can't be at home anymore. And through him telling this story, which I'll play in just a moment, he needs somebody and we don't get it. In a way we get that same kind of like taking advantage of the people around you that Dawson does, but now through Joey.
Stella: Yeah, that was the guy. I kind of felt that it was.
Mallory: More of a way of getting Joey back to her dad because him having a strained relationship with his dad relates to her and then causes her to realize that she needs to be honest with her dad.
James: Yeah, that's great. I think the most, um, egregious thing about all that is that as we've already talked about turns into talking about Dawson. All of it eventually culminates with talking about Dawson and how he loves her too. She's not alone. Yeah, Daddy might be in prison with the big bad men but you've got a very nice, sweet boy out there named Dawson who also loves you.
Stella: I'm imagining, ah, creating a meme or something for us where you know that, um, it's always sunny, that famous image. I can't remember the character who has like the web of everything and conspiracy theater. I think we should do one of those and then it's just like Dawson.
Mallory: The middle that are so good.
James: Everything connects to Dawson. Uh, yeah, I'm going to play this really quick. Um, this is Pacey's heartbreaker. Next one I go down to breakfast.
Cody: And I over here.
James: My dad relaying the events of the game to my brother. I heard him say to him, at.
Cody: Least I have you.
James: Um, I never told anybody this but I wish I never heard him say that.
Cody: So sad, dude, get this guy in therapy.
James: He needs therapy. Needs therapy bad. I know we kind of joked about it in the beginning about how this episode is really dark and heavy but this scene kind of epitomizes that for me. Like, there's not much funny, there's not much fun in that conversation. There's not much to take out of that that you're like, I can't wait.
Cody: To watch next week.
James: It's like, God damn, that's hard. Not that everything needs to be candy and bubblegum. I don't think it has to be.
Mallory: But usually from Pacey we're hearing something funny to your point and then even.
James: Beyond that, usually in a season finale we at least get something that's like optimistic and we don't get a lot of that in this episode.
Cody: It would have been good if there was like an actual I'll save this thought for our next sequence because there was a trajectory that I thought the show was going to go into that I was like, this is it baby, I'm feeling good but I'll save it.
James: I think on that note. Might as well just move on.
Cody: Back of the hospital, Jen visits a sleepy gramps and tells him that she wishes that there was something she could do to bring him back, stating that she needs him back in her life too uncomplicated like he used to.
James: I have that clip. Let's take a listen. Poor Jen.
Mallory: I want you to help me. I want you to smile at me and I want you to listen to me and I want you to magically uncomplicate my life the way he used to.
Cody: I wish we had an example of him uncomplicating your life.
Mallory: Yes.
Cody: Like you used to.
James: So melodramatic.
Cody: I hate that piano.
Stella: Oh, I love it.
Mallory: I love it.
Cody: Oh, I mean, I love it for how dogshit is. It reminds me of Robert, um, Pattinson's piano playing in Twilight.
James: Yeah, everything comes back to Twilight in the end.
Cody: It really does. There was probably a deleted scene where Jen was writing on Graham's back through the woods.
Mallory: This makes me wonder if maybe Graham's is more like open and understanding of different viewpoints possibly than Graham's is. It's got to be part of part of it the reason why she feels like she can find him more than Graham's. But, um yeah, I wish we had an example. Be so nice.
James: Yeah. I think I can relate to Jen in this moment for a couple of reasons because. Uh. On one side of my family. I won't say which just in case my family does listen to this. But I definitely felt like I could relate more to my grandfather than my grandmother who was not quite as understanding. Who didn't have that same kind of like empathetic response that my grandfather did. Ostensibly, they were both people that, uh, I would not necessarily agree with growing up. Come to find out very different values from myself and my grandparents and our families. But all that to say. I feel what Jen is feeling in a way through this and I also kind of like admire her ability to still get this conversation in with her grandfather even if he can't hear it because I lost all my grandparents and I never got to have that kind of conversation with them to really say goodbye either because I was too young or just too scared of death. Granted, she doesn't really know he's about to die, but still, she's kind of having these closing conversations so I don't know. I'm glad we see this scene but it also feels overly melodramatic and overly emotional for no. Well, we know the reason because we're about to get the pay off of he's dead.
Cody: But I don't know what a payoff it is.
James: What a payoff?
Cody: Presumably. Fourish hours later at the prison, joey and Pacey are once again told that visiting hours are closed. Pacey, uh, takes the guard aside for some sweet talk and the guard gives Joey the green light. When prodded pacey reveals he. Had slipped that guard $20.
Mallory: Big 20.
James: Yeah, $20 seems so cheap to be bribing a guard with, but I guess.
Cody: You know, it's the that's like $20. Probably like 40 or $50. I looked it up.
Mallory: It's like close to 40. Wow, it's even quite 40.
Cody: Losing your job right now. I would literally do anything for 40 off. Uh, okay, so this is what I wanted to get into at this point. We were already seeing a mirror of her trip with Dawson and this is when I was like, fuck yeah, dude, you know what we're going to do here? What's going to happen is they're going to have to go back to the same hotel, they're going to have to get into the bed together and then the fireworks are going to happen. She's going to realize that it's not awkward when she's a paces. Things are getting really good. And then what the trajectory of the show is she comes home, she has to then confront Dasu, is finally willing to tell her how he feels for her to only then be like, I'm not into you anymore. Me and Pacey really hit off when we were in prison town or prison land. I forgot the exact, uh, name of the city.
James: Prisonville.
Cody: And then that would have been the fucking Cliffhanger.
James: Maybe.
Mallory: It'S better than the mirror of Jen being Joey in Dawson's bed. And that awkwardness. Yeah.
Cody: And it's so strange too, because this is basically, I think was this the final time that we see Pacey for the rest of the episode?
Mallory: Yes.
James: He's a better fit.
Mallory: I know that's what he's gone and.
James: It'S the season fucking finale and he plays in some I think he plays a critical role in this whole episode, but they're just like, okay, well, he served his plot function, so fuck him, I guess. Let's just not have him in anymore.
Cody: And I mean, like, as you were saying earlier, this show doesn't always have to be rainbows and butterflies. This show is melodramatic for a reason. There is drama in this show, but for him to have this big scene where he has a very large monologue talking about the story about a family and it really hammers home the fact that he is the black sheep in this family. Everyone hates him. He's very alone. He has nobody for them to him twist that and turn it around and help Joey out of just sheer kindness even though he's the one who's been struggling. And then that's his scene. It's like, oh, he did that nice thing. That's it. This show could have ended if this show did not get picked up for a second season. That's the last time you see Pacey Whitter. Are you kidding? That's his character. That's his arc.
James: Yeah.
Cody: It's insane.
James: Yeah, absolutely insane.
Cody: I'm passionate. Stella and I will be laying in bed. She's fast asleep and I'm just staring at the scene at 03:00 a.m. Going pacify. What the fuck happened?
James: Yeah, m. I mean, why didn't we at least get a conversation in the car ride home? As we're now watching Joey process what just happened, where she is told by her dad that Dawson loves you and all of these conflicting emotions that she now probably, potentially, maybe has. We see those when she's then trying to row furiously over to Dawson's house. Why couldn't we see the beginning of that in this charged conversation where Pacey is like, hey, I did something great for you, I got you this climactic moment with your dad and hopefully this is me earning some ground towards a relationship with you. But you're just thinking about Dawson. That would have been such an incredible scene or sequence to not get.
Cody: Using Joey's ladder, Jen makes her way into Dawson's bedroom, telling him that Gramps isn't doing so hot and she feels like she's losing everyone these days, reiterating that she blew it with Dawson. She then asks Dawson if she can sleep over like the way Joey does. And as they lay in bed together, she begins to sob as, uh, Sarah McLaughlin's Angel begins to play nondiagonically.
James: Uh, does anybody else have a emotional, visceral reaction to this song?
Cody: Oh, 100%, since uh, I'm adopted and my parents adopted me late, which uh, means all my family members are old, which means they're all dying constantly. And uh, with that, between funerals, uh, with friends, I feel like I've heard Sarah McLaughlin's Angel at least 15 times for 15 separate funerals. Not to mention the commercial where it shows sad dogs and cats in cages and Sara McLaughlin is telling us that we're bad people because we're not adopting them. Yeah, that's a commercial. Yes.
James: Yeah. Uh, every morning before going to school I would be watching TV and Sarah McLaughlin's dog commercial would come on and I love doggies, so I can't help but watch it and feel sad about how bad of a person I am. So glad to see it here where I feel just like a bad person for watching this fucking TV show. At least now I chose to be a bad person. I deserve to listen to this.
Cody: Yeah, the song flows in a little bit. It kind of roller coasters up and down with the volume on the track but it goes into the next scene too.
James: Kind of like the roller coaster of life if you think about it.
Cody: Oh my God, that is true. And I still, to this moment right now, cannot tell if I am emotionally connected to what's happening on screen within this gen sequence and the Joey sequence or if I'm just being manipulated by Sarah McLaughlin. Yeah, Sarah ah, McLaughlin, write us, tell us about what it's like to have this much power over an entire generation of people.
James: I think that this scene with Jen and Dawson is absolutely heartbreaking. I um, think the emotion in Jen's voice when she is talking about how she's losing everybody. I have this clip here really quick. I'm going to play it, but this is I don't know, I really just appreciate Jennifer sorry, Michelle Williams performance here as Jen. Let's take a listen.
Cody: How's your grandfather?
Mallory: Doesn't really look too good. I think I'm losing him. I feel like I'm losing everybody.
James: God, I'm really sorry, Jen. One. What about Dawson's? Flat. Flat. Uh, line read there. How's your grandfather doing? Really good. Man. Jen, I'm so sorry, but Jen, how lonely and isolated does she feel? She's in a completely foreign area, right? She's in fucking Dawson's capeside. That's the name of the town.
Cody: It should be called Dawson Town.
James: She, uh, left New York. Big city. I'm walking here where all of her friends are and now she's here. And the only person that she really wants some comfort from besides her grandfather is Dawson. And wow, what a poor choice that could be because he is completely emotionally vacant. He's not here.
Mallory: And like she said, she feels like.
Cody: He'S half here, he's not even half there.
James: Yeah, I think he is mentally completely elsewhere. He might as well literally just be an AI.
Mallory: Especially like when they're laying in the bed, he looks so not there. Like he looks so uncomfortable and just like uninterested.
Cody: Yeah, well, at least that makes sense because he's in love with Joey or whatever to this point. The fact that she's like, yeah, I'm having a really hard time here. And he's like, just a full data response. Wow, it seems like you are going through a love of Bushel trial. The fuck? Yeah. Duh, dude. Again, Michelle Williams is so good and so poorly used. Like, you're giving her like two beats. I can't imagine what it's been like to direct her to do this too. Uh, what's going on in her mind? She's like, I can do this in my sleep at this point. And it's like, oh, Jen. Okay, so what this scene is, is you're going to be really sad. And she goes, yep, I know, I've been doing that for 13 episodes. Okay, but this time you're sad because Graham is dead and you really care about Grace and you care about Dawson. Remember how much you love Dawson. Remember how much you love Dawson. Okay, and action. OK, Michelle, now we'll just throw on.
Mallory: Sarah Mccollkinson over this.
James: Now imagine that you're about to get the biggest ice cream cone you've ever seen. Okay. You got that? What flavor is it? Okay.
Cody: No, no, don't tell me.
James: Just think about it. Okay, great. Now somebody just took it away.
Cody: So sad. You'd be a really good director.
James: Yeah, thank you. I like to play these games in my head.
Cody: Also, how symbolic is it that Jen is using Joey's ladder?
Mallory: Yeah, she becomes Joey for an evening. She's using the ladder. She's in bed, like cuddling or whatever.
Cody: Episode should be called Joey for an Evening. Um.
Stella: This scene made me sad, but I felt like Jen throughout the episode, the way that she's expressing her sadness felt very like one note to me. And, um, I didn't feel very like, convinced.
Cody: Yeah, because it's the only note that she's allowed to have.
Mallory: Yeah.
James: I think it also is a bit of the i, uh, was going to say poor writing. I'm sorry, but I think this episode just has poor writing. Because think about from Jen's perspective, what does she know about her grandfather's condition? Basically fucking nothing. Like, all we've seen is like, oh, he's awake, but he's getting tests done and he was asleep. Still. Probably in this moment, they're like, yeah, we know he's going to die. So we, as the characters and as the production team, we know that you have to be very sad. What do we know from the script standpoint?
Cody: Not a lot.
James: So just pretend that he's dying and everything's bad. Why should that be my motivation? Well, because that's where it ends, but that's not enough. So it just ends up with this very confusing performance where we're like, why are you actually sad? Are you actually sad? Because even in that scene that I just played, it's almost like she's excited. She's got that giddy nervous laughter which reads as excitement. But then she's sad, which is, I think, to your point. The one note she has is this like nervous anticipation. Yeah.
Mallory: Kind of like earlier when she's like, I feel like I want to sit down party. But she wasn't really excited. She was that middle ground of like, trepidation.
James: I think we need to be a four person production team on Dawson's Creek reboot.
Cody: All my favorite shows only have four people behind the scenes.
James: Yeah. And three of those people have absolutely no experience doing it. Right. There's only one person who has any kind of experience doing anything like that.
Cody: I was just talking about American Movie oven. Sounds like oven. In between the prison yard fence, joey confronts her dad for not ever really knowing her. Through tears, she says she turned out pretty good and that she'll be okay without him. As her vulnerability catches up with her, she asks if he loves her and if he ever thinks about her, to which he says, more than you'll ever know. As he begins to cry, she wants him to elaborate as, uh she admits to feeling as though no one in the world loves or cares about her. In a truly bizarre left turn that spoils this genuinely moving sequence, daddy Potter says that he's not the only one he loves her and brings up, you guessed it, Dawson Leary, saying that he knows he loves her because he looks at her the same way Joey's mom used to look at him. He, um, tells her that she needs to tell Dawson she loves him before it's too late. As Sarah McLaughlin's Angel cuts in once again, Joey touches her dad's hands through the fence and tells him that she loves him.
Stella: When we watched this, I think we had to pause it because we are both laughing so hard for a really long time. It's like unbelievable.
Mallory: Unbelievable.
James: Nice.
Cody: Uh, this is the first time that this show has actually genuinely moved me in. And again, Katie Holmes gets a lot of flack for being not a great actor. I thought up until the point that they were talking about Dawson, I thought she did a very good job at delivering these not very good lines about what it feels like to be a kid and not feel like you're being seen or love.
James: Totally.
Cody: I thought she was fucking killing it and I thought Daddy Potter was doing a great job, too. And then for whatever fucking reason, the rug is pulled out beneath all of us and we have to talk about Dawson. Larry, out of everyone on Earth.
James: Yeah. I was so, uh, emotionally confused because I definitely cried in the first part of the scene. Like, Joey talking to her dad and kind of finally breaking through this tough girl persona and finally being vulnerable felt very like i, uh, have a great relationship with my dad now, but I did not have a great relationship with my dad growing up. And there was a long period of time where I was like, kind of the way Joey thinks about her dad and talks about her dad. So this felt like conversations I had had with my dad. I felt like I was there. But then when they turn it to Dawson, I'm, like, still weeping. And then like, wait, what?
Cody: How did we get here?
James: And then I feel fucking sick. And I'm like, Why?
Mallory: You haven't talked to your daughter in how many years? And you want to talk about Dawson. Yeah, you don't want to know about her.
Cody: The only tour line that I can see is that it's like, uh, daughter, you do not want to make the same mistakes that I made with sucking up on love. That's the only thing. But to use that goddamn moment after all of this. Yeah, you don't want to suck up.
James: Romantically and make all these mistakes with the people you love. Which is exactly why you need to go tell this high school boy that you've known since you were a little person that you love them, that they are the person for you. You are, what, 14? No, 15. Yeah, this is definitely the person for you, Joey. Go fucking pour your heart out. Don't make a mistake like I did. Are you fucking serious?
Cody: And to this point, the fact that they're 15 year olds and I'm sure that a majority of our listener base is going to be older, but for the maybe 1% of people that are younger that are actually listening to this show, if you are 15 years old, uh, it's okay. Yeah, this is not going to last. But that's okay. Have fun.
James: And it might last.
Cody: And if it does, that's great. Yeah.
James: But don't treat it like it has to last. Because that's the one way to guarantee it's not going to last.
Cody: This is not 1820 and you are not going to get married next month.
Mallory: Also, I love how unrealistic this whole thing was with like, this would never fly. Like meeting through a fence at a prison for $20. For $20. What? Why couldn't they just never have to go to the next visitor's time?
James: Two Cody's points. Let's get a carbon copy. We're already fucking copying every goddamn thing we do anyway.
Cody: We didn't mention earlier, but this prison is the size of a, um, small apartment condition.
Mallory: Yeah. Summer camp.
James: You don't want to be dealing with your wife and kids anymore. Well, let's go to prison.
Cody: Uh, the prison yard. Like there was no like there was like one fence with some barbed wire on it. And they're like, yep. And then it was like a one floor building.
Mallory: Your dad looks super healthy. And he's kind of glowing. Like, what?
James: Yeah, he's a glow up for sure. He's thriving emotional king in prison. He's just like, you know what? I don't want to get out. I actually really like it here. I've got some friends. People love me. I don't have to sell drugs to survive.
Cody: Maybe it's a resort. And everyone's just been lying to Joey and Bethy.
James: Oh, it's terrible. You don't want to go there. Yeah. Only bad people go to prison.
Stella: Um, the only other thing that I felt a little bit confused about is that like her asking if he loves her. And he's like, yeah, I think about you all the time. Does he not write letters? Does he not have any phone calls where he's like, I don't know, I just have a hard time. Or where Bessie is like top.
James: Right.
Mallory: Well, tell like, Joey's been closed off. I guess even if he were to write letters or have a phone call, maybe Joey's been turned off to that or something.
Cody: Yeah.
Stella: Um, possibly.
James: I think it's before the 1800 collect commercials. I had a baby eats a boy. It just doesn't exist yet. So daddy can't figure out she's so.
Cody: Close off from daddy.
Mallory: M no, that makes sense.
Stella: But I just would at least imagine dad writing letters, like missing you, thinking of you. There being some communication from his end. So Joey is not just like, do you even know I exist?
Cody: But also to that point that even if he is writing those things, you're not feeling it when you read it on a piece of paper. You need to hear him say those things.
Mallory: Right. It could be best to be like, here, dad wrote us a letter. And she's like, uh, throw that out or whatever.
James: Joey, did you hear? Dad got his hairbrained and he got a space painted yesterday. He got a tiger painted his face. Joey, look. He concluded a little turkey with his hand. Happy Thanksgiving, dad.
Cody: I'd love to go to that prison.
James: All right, well, I think that just got a little too emotional and we need to go dry some tears so hard. One more commercial break here before we close out the episode.
Cody: Bye.
Stella: Hey everyone, I just wanted to thank you for listening. It really means a lot to us. If you're enjoying the show, consider subscribing so you never miss an episode. Or if you've already subscribed, go ahead and give us a rating. It only takes a few seconds and it can make a huge difference for our show. So thanks in advance.
Cody: Back to the show to the tune of every millennials favorite slow song at a 6th grade dance. Edwin McCain's I'll be Joey canoes her way to Dawson's dock just as inside his room, he and Jen awake. As Joey climbs through the window. Jen is giving a very uncomfortable looking Dawson a kiss. Joey jumps away, flying down the ladder and back to the canoe. Dawson rushes to put his shoes on to chase after her, telling Jen he doesn't want her to have the wrong idea. When Jen asks if he loves Joey, he says he doesn't know. When he finally makes it down the ladder and to the end of the dock, joey is nowhere to be found. First thing, I am not one to ever criticize something for not being too realistic cause guys, we're watching a TV show. It's not, you know, uh, whatever. Joey. Okay, if you're standing at the end of the dock and you look to your left, you look to your right, you get at least like half a mile of visibility either way. Which means that in those like 30 seconds that Dawson ran, slid down that ladder, ran down the boardwalk or whatever the fuck, to look for her she canewed with the biggest arm on planet Earth flying through. That creepy.
Stella: Oh no.
Mallory: What?
Cody: Are you exciting?
Stella: No, he's exciting. No, I have a theory. I have a theory.
Cody: She's water.
Mallory: She's a mermaid.
James: Oh, okay. I like it.
Stella: That's the only explanation.
James: Well, that could explain why she's not soaking wet all the time. Because she just absorbs all that water.
Cody: Yeah.
James: M. I was thinking this is a good evidence of what we were talking about. Well, I was just pointing at you, Cody, but I think I was actually the person who was talking about how this is all a, uh, wand vision simulation, but this could just be a simulation. She actually gets in the canoe, she rose just conveniently out of frame and then just like on a TV set, she just drops down just out of view. Right. It's like The Truman Show, ironically, which was released right around the release of this episode. It was rising in popularity around this time. So maybe this is all a Truman show. But I think actually she's probably just a mermaid. That seems to me thank you. Way more realistic.
Stella: I know.
James: Especially with what we know about all these fucking vampires and things.
Cody: Absolutely. I just wish she had like, the arms of a pro wrestler. I just want to see her huge shoulders and biceps and just gets in that canoe.
Mallory: Just rode like 20ft with her.
Cody: First row.
James: Takes flight.
Cody: Question, uh, for you all. Have you ever slowed down? I'll be by it.
James: Do you mean this song?
Mallory: I don't think so.
James: That takes me back so hard to being a kid. Immediately, I feel like that was everywhere, even if it wasn't in my memory. That is what's playing on every radio or every car stereo. You know what I mean? It's just like that's everywhere.
Cody: Like, uh, I've said a million times before rock and roll in the 90s died after Kirkobaine died. And afterwards we just got bad music. And I would say Edward McCain's, I'll be his. That is the bottom of the barrel for rock and roll.
James: Um, I don't know if you've heard of a song called Iris by the Goo Doll. It's been a similar vein of just like pure candycoated trash.
Cody: Yeah, there's something about having a string section with the peak, like the crescendo of these big rock songs that are so corny and also beautiful.
James: So beautiful.
Cody: I've been singing this song all week or the last two or three weeks since we watch this episode. And, uh, my version of it is from the perspective of someone named Albie. They go.
Mallory: Albie.
Cody: Albie. And I cannot get out of my head. Uh, on my deathbed, I talked about how, uh, Joey's song, uh, from Lame is would be in battling around in my empty skull while I'm drifting off to the ether. But I think I'll be albie in there.
James: I really like that. It's like a dabi kind of character in my head. He's a little house from Harry Potter.
Cody: Oh, Potter.
James: Maybe maybe Albie is the Potter family house.
Cody: Elbow. There we go.
James: Uh, yes.
Cody: Albie just as racist as, uh, probably oh, no, I'm getting my house elf mixed up. Sorry, guys. It's a creature, right?
James: Harry Potter.
Cody: That's like the racist elf HP heads. Don't tweet us, please. Um the malfoys. Yes.
James: Right.
Cody: No, it's a serious black house. In the black house, they have a house named Creature who's like mudblood. This mud blood, uh, disgusting. Creature. Creature.
James: We hate you.
Cody: Albie album.
James: Albie is he's woke.
Cody: Welcome to our new podcast, Woke Elf. Woke up.
Mallory: Woke Albi.
James: Oh, god, that's great.
Cody: Second, uh, piece, uh, of merch for freezing creeks. It just says woke. Alf.
James: What is Edwin McCain? People that are listening to us in the commercial break, we were talking about Maya Hawk and how she looks exactly like uma, Thurman and Ethan Hawk mixed together. So what I need to know is what does the mix of edwin McCain and Dabi the house elf look like because that's what Albie looks like and that's what we need on the back of this tshirt.
Cody: Uh, um I don't know if I've ever seen Edwin McCain. In my mind, in my mind, I imagine that he has the exact same haircut as Nicole Kidman's, country musician husband.
James: Uh oh my God.
Cody: No, he doesn't at all. He has a long, long hair. Beautiful locks.
James: Wow. And then later on, he grows a soul patch and loses the long, beautiful locks.
Cody: Oh my God. You got to throw some ears on that photo. And you got yourself a house album. Yeah.
James: I think we're going to need to pause this episode for like, 20 minutes while we get this figured out because I am very interested in what this is going to look like. Uh, I can't stop. Oh, Edwin McCain.
Cody: Good song, though.
James: Yeah, great song.
Cody: Great song.
James: Really captures the emotion that we are going for in this episode, or that I feel the writers were going for. Sappy dripping with emotion. Um, it's like saccharin, right? It's just like absolutely so fucking emotional.
Cody: If I'll be Alby and Iris, the TV show versions of those songs is Dawson streak. It's sappy, has these big emotional moments that aren't earned. It's, uh, lyrically. Just like dialogue. Uh, tremendously. Not good.
James: Yeah.
Cody: Um, Dawson's face when Jen is kissing him on the cheek.
James: Oh, my God.
Cody: Frozen in fear.
James: He's terrified. Which really harkens back to that first episode when, uh, Creekheads, you'll know, I called this out, he looked terrified when he finally got to have his hug, uh, dance with Jen in that first episode. And he has that terrified look on his face here, albeit for different reasons. So I don't know what that means, but something albeit, albeit Albie, albie will be oh, man. Albeit going to be in the rest of our podcast.
Cody: Um, Edward McCain, if you're like.
Stella: Um, I feel, let's see, I don't know, um, confused by Jen's actions. She seems pretty aware that Dawson is developing strong feelings for Joey. And for her to kind of like, insert herself like that and give him a smooch seems maybe out of character for her. Feels weird.
Cody: Mhm. Jenna's supposed to be a smart character. How could she not read his body language? Frozen fear, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling.
James: It feels like a complete and total act of desperation. Like she can read, like, to our points, she can read this written on his face that he is so not here. And if we were to project this kind of 90s idea of what being a sexually promiscuous teen is, um, that she is just throwing herself at Dawson to try to win him over, to win him back, maybe that she thinks this might work, that's it it's either that or it's albie is here and he is like, please kiss him.
Cody: Well, m demonic health.
Stella: You saying that james. I don't know. Maybe think like, we know that she has this past where she's had potentially a lot of relationships and maybe that's just how she's dealt with feelings. When she's sad or having a hard time, she just kind of maybe throws herself at someone, like sexually or romantically. Um, so I wonder if she just kind of doesn't really know how to deal with all her feelings.
James: Well, and she's definitely in a vulnerable state right now where she's looking for somebody to comfort her and yeah, we can easily project that to being physical, not emotional comfort, but physical comfort as well. Um, so I think it's definitely within reason that that's what she's doing, but it looks really uncomfy and she is smarter than this than to know. I don't know, it just doesn't feel right.
Stella: Yeah. And then when Dawson tries to go after Joey, Jennife, she kind of discourages she'll be okay. Yeah.
James: Yet again, the show fucking forgets about the shit that it does because just last episode, Jen, you were blowing Joey up, trying to build her into like this neck, the future Joey that's going to like rule the world and now you're just like, yeah, fucker, who cares?
Cody: It's also another way of forgetting what it is. It was two episodes. We were talking about how it must have been weird for, uh, Jen when Cliff kissed her after asking for her consent and then just go for it anyways. I mean, that was a big thing. Now we're having Jen doing the exact same thing even without asking permission, going.
James: In for it, assuming that he wants this.
Mallory: Awkward.
James: I don't think I have felt a moment of anxiety or dread born from a TV show quite like I have when Joey is fucking rowing her boat up the creek to come to Dawson's house and Dawson is in bed with Jen.
Cody: Oh, yeah.
James: I was having a I was so sweaty feeling and so like, oh my God, this is going to be bad. It's going to be bad. Oh my God. Oh my God.
Mallory: It was like one of those moments where like, don't do it. Yeah, that's how it felt.
Cody: It's the first time I feel like in this season too, that we've actually gotten a moment like this where it's like, OOH, this feels like Breaking Bad.
James: Yeah.
Cody: This is very intense.
James: Yeah. I was impressed that I had that kind of, uh, response to this.
Cody: Albia.
James: Albia.
Cody: That's what I got to say.
Mallory: And poor Joey, she was so excited to tell Dawson that she was finally honest with her dad and that, uh, she realizes that the feelings and then.
Cody: Uh, that moment heartbreaking.
James: And I'm glad that they did that and they didn't do what I was half expecting them to do, which was perfectly timed in the nick of time. Jen gets out of bed and walks into the hall bathroom just as Joey pops in her head and. Dawson's like, oh, let's, um, talk later. I have to shit or something. And then she leaves.
Cody: Oh, I kind of actually want that. You want that, but not really. What I would want is Jen gets up, leaves the room for a little bit, joey comes in, they have a conversation the entire time. Dawson is trying to be like, oh, yeah, Joey, do you want to have a conversation outside, maybe?
James: Yeah.
Cody: And then Jen comes in and Joy.
James: Goes, that would actually make that scene the same payoff.
Mallory: And then they better.
Cody: Uh, I'm trying to remember, I felt a lot of stress with that moment building up, but I also felt a lot of stress for the stunt of Joey having to go down those wet ass ladder little rails going down because it looks like it's pouring rain when they shot that.
James: What if she did the cool fireman slide down, though?
Cody: That would have been sick as hell.
James: Anybody remember soap shoes?
Cody: Oh, yeah. Where you could grind with your shoes? Yes.
James: Okay, people go Google soap shoes. I think they still exist. They were shoes that had a rigid insole, so that they were kind of like, stiff. And then in the mid part of the foot, right where the arch of your foot is, there was a little plastic plate and you could jump on things and then grind them, except without a skateboard or rollerblades.
Mallory: Were they like, early those, like, roller skate shoes they have nowadays? They were processed like that.
Cody: It was a healing without and people.
James: Did DIY mods to put soap inserts on Healys. And then I think either soap or Healy acquired the opposite. And now there is a new product, I believe, or it might be just whatever the modern heely soap is that is both together. Also Healys fucking sick.
Cody: Very cool.
James: We all need healeys.
Cody: Uh, there was a kid in my elementary school that had soaps, and I to this day, nothing has made me laugh harder than watching jump on these tiny little rails for maybe less than half a second. Just go. And then you're done. Like, great. Cool. Can't believe that even was a thing.
James: I had a pair of soaps because they were very cool.
Cody: Oh, yeah.
James: And the little plastic insert lasted maybe like five to ten grinds. And then you just have a sticky piece of plastic on your shoe. So they were removal, which is great, but, uh, the investment was just not there.
Cody: On three. Do you want to name what character in the show would have soaps if he could?
James: Oh, yeah, definitely.
Cody: One, two, three. Clancy. Cliff.
Stella: Did you two both say Cliff?
Mallory: Noisy.
Cody: I said Paisley.
Stella: You two said paisley.
James: You two also the band.
Cody: You, too. I saw you two doing their Joshua Tree tour. And let me tell you, the entire time they were ringing. So Bono was grinding that entire bowl.
James: Maybe he just had one little rail on the stage and he just kept going up and grinding the end of.
Cody: It, and then they covered.
James: Albie, should we talk about Dawson screen? No.
Mallory: We just get the next one.
Cody: Scene. Jen goes home to find Graham's on the front porch, who had just witnessed the entire doc chase. When she asks how Graham's is doing, graham says she was with him all night and we'll be going to church later. When she asks a, uh, very shaken gen what's wrong? Jen holds back to which Graham's once again prize and tells Jen to come to church with her for comfort, Jen goes into the house, where she finds a framed photo of Gramps and hugs it while contorting her body into the fetal position of sadness. Has anyone here ever spooned a framed picture of someone that they loved?
Stella: I don't think so.
Mallory: That I have.
James: No. Don't think so.
Cody: Not yet.
Stella: What are you doing later?
Cody: Very, uh, frustrating. Very, very frustrating. As, uh, someone who's been in yes, in Genes position of being like, I have a serious problem on my hands, and everyone's advice being like, well, have you prayed about it? Do you want to go to church about it? Do you want to pray about it? There are only so many suggestions of going to church and praying about it that one can take. Very frustrating.
James: I think part of me is very frustrated by things like this. Where, to your point, let's go pray about it. Let's go to church, or whatever. Um, because I think Graham, they're just trying to do something, something that they think is going to help each other, whatever the situation. Um, but when you're grieving and they're grieving something that hasn't happened yet, but, like, what's more important isn't, like, just being present, but being there. You know what I mean? Like being emotionally present, not just physically present. And to me, that has what has always bothered me about that kind of thing is, hey, do you want to go be in the same room together somewhere else and with guilt? And also where we're not actually we're focusing on something else that's taking us out of the moment. Doesn't that sound great?
Cody: Instead of, uh, processing our emotions together and realizing how this is affecting both of us and how it's a shared experience, do you want to just deflect?
James: Yeah, exactly. So I'm going to give a quick shout out to a very popular podcast that needs no, uh, shout out from us. But this conversation feels very relevant to the conversation that was just happening on Unspooled, where they were talking about the movie Midsummer, in which they were talking about Midsummer being a film really about processing grief and how in this tribe, that the film is all about the Scandinavian tribe. They actively process grief with the people there, that's what they're doing is they're embracing death and reflecting the emotions back at the main character versus the american culture, which is all just about being there but not being with you. And this feels kind of relevant to what we're talking about now. So go listen to that podcast episode because it's really, really good and they do a much better way of talking.
Mallory: About it than they did their newest episode. Really?
James: As of the recording of this, uh.
Mallory: As a recording of this.
Stella: Right.
Cody: That's very cool. I know they did that love, uh, already after. But that sequence where Florence Pew, her character, realizes that, um, her partner has cheated on her and she goes and everyone cries with her and they're like matching her vocal pitch and her screams is like one of the most profoundly interesting things I've seen on the silver screen. Yes, very cool.
James: And apparently it's a real moment, not a real emotional roller coaster that all of those actresses went through together. Not like, let's put this on and make it seem like we're crying, but let's actually get ourselves there. Which makes it even more raw and.
Cody: Real, unlike what we're seeing. I wish we were just talking about Midsummer. We just do an episode of A Midsummer. Why are we talking about all, uh, Midsummer? Especially compared to that earlier sequence when Christian is holding her while she's screaming and he's just like staring off into the corner of the room while she's like grieving.
James: Feels very much like Dawson holding ah, Jenny into bed in that last scene. Sorry, we're just getting back into Dawson's Creek here, baby. We're there, uh.
Cody: In a hectic montage set to, um, Melody Kristenden's not great cover of Broken Road. We cut back and forth between Joey and Dawson continuously missing each other as they hop around various Capeside locations. Joey in deep contemplation, dawson in search for her. And sandwiched between the sequences, jen getting the call from the hospital informing her that Gramps has left this earthly realm. Could not fucking believe that in this stupid montage of just missing each other by mere seconds, we just happened. Like if you weren't paying that close enough of attention, you would have completely missed the fact that they call up Jen and say, yeah, Graham's is gone. Like it was uh, blank and you'll miss a sequence.
Mallory: Yeah, I did think in that moment it was interesting that, uh, Jen is the one to answer the phone and find out first that Grams has passed. Uh, because earlier, of course, we heard him actually say goodbye to Jen. And rather than Graham's being the one to answer the phone until Jen the news.
Cody: So and it's just another play to this like whole even jockey thing is like a very upsetting thing, at least from my viewpoint, is I've seen Christians, they'll lose people in their life and their response is not as affected by it because they just go, well, I'm just going to see them again in heaven.
James: Right?
Cody: So it's like very subdued. There's a sadness there, obviously, for losing someone. But a lot of the responses, well, I'm comforted in knowing that I'll see them in probably, I don't know, a couple decades and everything's fine. So the fact that Jen is the one to get the call, at least to this point, we are still to believe that she's agnostic or atheist or what have you. So it's for her to process more than Graham. If Graham were to get that call, she'd be like, well, okay, right, yeah, sounds good, thank you.
Mallory: And then she would have to pass that news on a gen with her filter of like the religion.
James: Well, see, alright, look, here is where I think you guys are making a big mistake because you all are saying he's dead, right? She gets a call. Uh, no, Gramps, we don't actually see him.
Mallory: He's I right.
James: What does she say? He's gone. Gone. You're gone. Gone is not dead. Dead is not gone. Gone is gone. He has escaped the hospital. Not because he's dead, but because he is a zombie. Um, undead. Yeah. So I believe that the reason that Jen is the one who gets a call is because she can't handle that. Because she is not a spiritual person. However, Graham's is a spiritual person. She hears he's gone and she's like, I'm going to see him later.
Mallory: I could just imagine the montage then including Graham to the background.
Cody: That's the same like secluded doc sitting.
James: On a bench somewhere.
Cody: I kind of wish that they had turned us into an arrested development joke. Like when they go to the hospital and they're like, George is no longer with us. Do you mean that he's no longer in the hospital? Or he did.
Mallory: Uh, something funny about the montage that I noticed. Um, right after Jen says he's gone, we go back to Dawson running around right at the side of the scene. Right after we see Jen, you can see Jen and Pacey walking on the boardwalk, like on the right side of the screen just before because it's like going by Dawson as he looks, uh, they're kind of in the distance, blurred a little, but they were there. Yeah.
Cody: Weird.
James: There must have been a deleted scene from the episode.
Mallory: Yes, it wasn't supposed to be obvious. I think they were just supposed to be background bodies.
James: Yeah, but you noticed that and then that makes us notice that. And then that makes me say Jen and Pacey, I'll take it also background bodies. Good.
Cody: Doom metal band. Jen walks into a mostly empty church, overcome by the religious iconography to find Graham silently praying to herself. When Jen sits next to her, Graham prays out loud for God to keep Graham safe. And Jen pipes in with uh, and for me too at that. Graham begins to sob, saying how much she misses him. And Jen takes her into her arms. And there you have it folks, the religious, emotional catharsis that, uh, nobody asked for.
Stella: In, like, a large, nice church for capeside.
Mallory: Yes.
Cody: Yeah, true.
James: Very Catholic.
Mallory: Yeah, it was Catholic, right? Because that iconography is very it reminded me of my grandparents, my family's Italian Catholic talons. My grandparents were like, Catholic Italians. And this, like, the gen, seeing the iconography and becoming that, uh, moment of it actually reminded me of going into my grandparents house and seeing some of that iconography because it's almost, like, haunting.
James: Yeah. Um, when my parents divorced, we moved back to Texas for a little while and I went to a Catholic school in that interim time. And I have so many weird, visceral memories of being and we'd have to go to church service as a part of Catholic school. And looking up at those statues and they all just have those terrifying expressions on her face of just this, like, vacant dread. Generally, you know, it's like, I'm dying. It's just the expression that kiss off. It's terrifying. And that's what Jen's she's like, he's dead. They're all dead.
Cody: Well, I imagine this church is pretty nice looking, but, uh, their tax is exempt, so they can use all their money to put in these horrifying statues and pointless stained glass art. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Mallory: Uh.
James: I hate this. And again, I don't hate it because of the religious content. I just hate it because of how predictable it is about how it makes to me what it does is it makes a joke out of Jen's lack of belief, I guess. I guess in the beginning right in the beginning, she is so clear throughout the entire series. Really, she is very clear about her lack of belief and about how she believes not only that it's not important, but that it just doesn't matter at all to her or to anybody. So then to have this, it's like, okay, cool.
Mallory: Is she playing along?
James: It's hard to think she is. I really don't yeah, it's hard to say.
Mallory: I don't know. It's hard to say because I almost feel like she just wants to comfort Graham's because, uh, clearly Graham's is just, like, torn. I mean, she's wailing, so this is not the moment for Jen to insert her.
Cody: Yeah, I know what you mean. It's not appropriate for her to be like, God is dead.
Mallory: Yeah.
Cody: Uh, just feel like, okay, whatever. Sorry.
James: Okay, look. Yeah, you're right.
Mallory: That's what I was saying earlier about, like, the kind of clipping for Jen here is like, uh, what's her trajectory next season? Is it going to be like her becoming closer to Grahams with religion, or are they going to resolve their differences? I don't know.
James: And to what I said earlier as well, one time in a church does not make you religious. One time praying. And even in that same line, she didn't really pray, she just was and me too.
Cody: Right.
James: So it's not necessarily that she had the full on conversion, but I do think in media it is effectively a conversion.
Cody: Sure, yeah, I mean, uh, if they didn't have to get the second season renewal. This is the final scene of Jen, so there is a through line from the first episode where the check ops gun plot point for her is going, I am definitely never going to believe in God. And then the last scene with her is going, well, I'm going to figuratively say that God is real by acknowledging it through this way. And, uh, that's a good point.
James: If you don't think that that is strange, just think about it this way. What if Graham's, in the final episode of this show, was like, you know what we really need? We got to go to synagogue. And they went to a synagogue and prayed. That's what it is. That's to me, why it feels strange to suddenly have Jen go to church and take place in prayer. Uh, we don't need to have a whole discussion on religion, but it just feels very strange to me. And that's why I think it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Cody: Yeah, we already talked about it. The only way that I can see it making sense for Jen is to be like, I'm going to put my shit aside just to come from Grandma. I'm going to tell her what she wants to hear and then next week I can tell her that God is dead and the earth is not 6000 years old. That's hopefully where the show goes, I don't know.
James: And I can also see it as I need comfort in this moment too. And I'm willing to try anything even if I don't believe in this because I have been there myself as a non believing atheist who has been varying levels of very non believing over my years. Like, there have definitely been times where I'm like, I feel absolutely horrible. Maybe prayer will make me feel better and then it didn't. But it doesn't mean that I didn't try. It authentically in that moment.
Cody: And like you said earlier, Jen is extremely vulnerable and lonely in this moment because the only person that she could turn to was Dawson, who, uh, became an android when she tried to kiss him. So she's like, wow, I literally have no one except for Graham's, who is, uh, a nutcase. So I guess this is what I got and I have to work with what I got.
Mallory: Yeah, and even Grahams isn't comforting her, she's comforting Graham. So even then, I'm sure she feels alone.
James: And not only did Dawson not be there for her in that moment, he said that he doesn't want Joey to have the wrong idea about us. So our entire relationship into this point has been romantic. Suddenly that's the wrong idea about our relationship, throwing it back in her face. So yeah, I mean, I think that this is kind of an origin story for a lot of people finding religion in their lives. They go through something really challenging, something really hard. They lose connections with a lot of people and the people that are there for them are people in the church and that's what gives them comfort and there's nothing wrong with that. Take comfort in whatever you need to in your life. So hey, Jen, if you were real and if you were listening to the show, I would say good for you. I'm happy that you found it, but don't take me to church. Like the song says, don't take me to church, I'll be obvious.
Cody: Dawson rushes into his bedroom where he finds Joey sitting in the closet once again, I saw her face, the ringgirl pose when he tries to explain the whole gen stitch from that morning. She plays a call by saying that they're just friends, there's no reason to explain. They get into their relationship status and Joy makes it clear that they're stuck in the same everyday loop that they've always been in. And France is starting to look like a great outlet for her to finally grow up. They dig deeper and she says she's tired of them beating around the bush and he agrees. But when she brings up honesty, complicating their situation, he's tight lit. She turns to leave through his window, but Dawson grabs her and kisses her and in turn she kisses back, evolving into a passionate smooch from which we fade to zooming out from the outside of Dawson's window to the full Larry household mirroring. The establishing shot from the pilot, all set to say Goodnight by Beth Nielsen Chapman.
James: Closing to credits m I'll be Albe how romantic, right?
Cody: Uh, this is the most romantic thing I've ever seen.
Mallory: Romantic.
Cody: I almost thought for a second there while we're watching this, said Dalson wasn't going to say anything, Joe. He's going to go out that window and that's how it end.
James: I wouldn't put it past the show kind of at this point in time to just be like, uh, yeah, all right, that seems right. Let's just have him just stand there just staring in the middle of a distance as she is pouring her heart out of him.
Cody: I don't know when this show got renewed, but if they had ended season one with her just going out the window and then him just standing there, this show would have been dumped. Yeah, absolutely.
James: Okay, so we talked about how this show, Dawson's Creek, uses teen dialogue in a way that's different, right? They speak in a way that kids typically are not speaking and here is Dawson calling that out. In the fiction we spend all of.
Mallory: Our time analyzing our sad little adolescent lives.
James: I know we know too many big words, but it's a good thing to analyze.
Mallory: But it doesn't get us anywhere. It doesn't move us forward.
James: Yeah, I agree with what Joey is saying in that point. It's not getting them anywhere to use all these big words, which is exactly how I feel about this show. Why do we have all this crazy dialogue that does fucking nothing for us if all we're doing is the same thing over and over and over again?
Mallory: Yeah, and I think she continues to say as much as our perception is dead on, our honesty is severely lacking. So words, just lots of words and no honesty.
Cody: There no being around the bush maybe.
James: Which I think is a through line for the archetype that Dawson has created that I think exists. I don't know if it existed then, probably, but it definitely exists now. This like, full of nothing. Says all the right things but doesn't actually do anything person in the world.
Cody: All bark and no bite.
James: I m see what you're saying there, Albie.
Cody: I'll be.
Stella: Um I feel like we see the same kind of beat, um, get hit on four or five times in this episode of just like, give me one good reason why I shouldn't go, or blah, blah, blah. And then Dawson not doing anything. It's just like over and over again. Which felt exhausting. And then I don't know.
Cody: Yeah.
James: Why do you think they did that? Is that like, Kevin Williamson's romantic idea is like, uh, he really wanted to have that moment, like, give me one reason why I should stay. And then whoever he's talking to kisses him. Is that like, what he wanted in life? And he never got it, so he put it here because why else are we seeing this played out so many times?
Mallory: And also the framing of growing up. Growing up. The kisses. We've grown up.
James: Right. This whole it symbolizes commitment.
Mallory: Yeah.
James: Commitment without commitment.
Stella: Without talking about our, um because as.
James: We know, they kiss. And then what? Well, nothing. So what?
Cody: It's the passage of childhood to adulthood finally consummating a relationship that had been building for years.
James: So you're saying a kiss is the pubic hair of pubic hair?
Cody: Yeah.
Mallory: Okay.
Cody: Uh, is Kevin trying to tell the audience that is supposed to find themselves within Dawson, like they see Dawson as themselves? Is he saying be confident, make decisions like act on your beliefs, don't be vague, be true. Which I guess is like, okay, I guess that's a message. But at the same time, Dawson's been a little shit. We still don't know if it's such a muddled message HM. When we already have all these other points of Kevin Williamson maybe trying to say that Dawson is a shit character. Uh, because it's an honest caricature of what it means to be a 15 year old boy in the United States in 1998, of being a self centered prick. But then for him to grow up as him just basically saying like, I do love you, Joey, but that doesn't really solve any of those issues from beforehand and it's still self centered. And his self actualization isn't actualization, it's just getting what he wanted the whole time and just admitting it.
Mallory: Yeah, because when he tells Joey we are going to grow up, the look on his face kind of changes. You can tell he's just like in his mind it's like, I'm going to kiss you. And that's like us growing up and we're, you know.
Cody: Yeah.
Mallory: And it's confusing.
Cody: Especially when it's kind of I mean it is gross that Joey is saying it's time for me to grow up and going to France is that opportunity for me and Dawson kissing her negates that by saying, well, my version of growing up is more important than what your version of growing up is. And I'm the main character of the story. It's my crease.
Mallory: Uh, yeah.
James: And also if we get back just uh, a second a little bit in that moment Joey says something is lacking. Honesty is lacking. That's what's lacking from this relationship that we analyze and we use all these big words but our ability to be honest with each other is lacking. Dawson's response is something is lacking. He doesn't actually think that the lack of honesty is a problem. He thinks it's the lack of physical intimacy. That, that is what's really lacking here. Because we're best friends, we're good. So I'm going to kiss her and then that's going to show her that this is what really is missing from this picture. So yet again, even when they're able to finally quote, unquote, get on the same page by doing something towards a romantic relationship, they're still completely on the wrong page. Like Dawson does not actually hear what she's saying.
Cody: This would have all made so much more sense if Joey was a boy.
James: Yeah.
Cody: Like if this whole thing was Dawson. Because it makes so much more sense for Dawson to be like, oh, it's 1998, I'm a boy. It's really hard to be a gay kid. So him finally admitting to his best friend that he loves them and that would have been a build up. That's something that changes from childhood to adulthood of being like, I'm going to be true to myself and honest about our relationship. Who know who we are. That's a fucking plot. That's a really good idea. But here it's just, it doesn't make any sense for Joey to be trying to live her own life and then it just gets swallowed up by Dawson's.
James: I think it would.
Mallory: I just had an epiphany about the silhouette. Um, originally I'm like, okay, smooching silhouette. Like, okay, maybe it's from Jen's perspective and she's seeing them. But in Peter Pan, peter is always chasing his shadow. So the last thing we see is their shadows. They have not grown up.
Cody: I like that, I like that hook poster.
Mallory: Yes. And earlier part of that whole scene is that hook poster. Them actually talking about Peter Pans.
Stella: In this episode they talk about the.
Mallory: In this scene they're talking about the, uh, Peter Pans, the Peter Pan syndrome. And she says even Spielberg dawson says even Spielberg outgrew his Peter Pan syndrome. And then Joey says, I could have told you that months ago. And he says, you did. So.
James: Whoa.
Cody: Just a side note. Something that's absolutely bonkers to me is Stevens. Uh, have you seen Hook? We've always had ideas. The set design in that movie is so beautiful because it's like actual sets and it's like really interesting and pretty. Like that movie is not great, but at least it looks really cool. Uh, Spielberg has said that his biggest regret isn't waiting longer to make that movie because he would have done it all with CG. Now what? Which is insane. Can you imagine how horrible that movie would have been if it was all CG to be like Avatar?
Mallory: No thanks.
James: Okay, I just need to step back because I do think that this this really Joey, this scene, I really fuck.
Cody: Um, I'm speechless too.
Mallory: Come on, you can do it.
James: Early on, we had talked about how Kevin Williamson as a gay male, this show, as an autobiographical show, it was just so strange that Joey is a female character. We then Cody, as you found out, you got semi concrete confirmation, right, that they fixed that they changed that.
Cody: I don't think it was necessarily changed. It was like Kevin Williamson purposely, like, had clear coded that character because it was autobiographical to his life. I don't know if it was ever initially written as a boy, but it was very much purposeful for reflecting his own experiences.
Mallory: Um, I haven't talked about fashion much this episode, but Joey is wearing a similar dumb jacket. I don't know if it's the same one, but as in the first episode, it could mean that's an interesting meaning around in the beginning.
James: I do really like the, um, silhouette end of the episode. Then kissing. It made me think of a Christmas story.
Cody: There you go.
James: M. Oh no. Well, yes, actually, it did make me think of that, but it made me think of Home Alone with the party scene, what's going on in the house. Um, and I wish that's what was happening.
Cody: I went on michael Jordan cardboards.
Mallory: They did have statues for that. They cut out cutouts for that shot.
James: I think it's puppets.
Mallory: I don't think it's yeah, you have.
James: A wonderful well, actually, in my memory of that scene, the silhouettes of these people are too personlike, which you wouldn't get with real people just in the window. So you'd have to put miniatures in front of a light source to shine on that curtain to get that to look in my head. Maybe that's giving them way too much.
Cody: Credit, but I don't know. I would like to experiment with a key light in a bedroom with a, uh, shade.
James: That must be very fucking creep.
Cody: I'll be ally.
James: Uh, is this it?
Cody: Is this over.
James: I think so.
Mallory: One more note. Maybe Dawson set up the lights so that there would be a silhouette.
James: Yeah.
Mallory: That's cool because M manipulative nature.
Cody: That is true. I hope Chen sees this. It's crazy.
James: Yes. I guess. What do we think that is supposed to get across to us? The viewer of us, uh, seeing that silhouette, right? No, I love that read. So that's your read?
Mallory: I love that my read just now. But yes, initially I was like, is Jen seeing this? And what does she think? Because that's like from the perspective of her house or whatever, right? Yeah.
Cody: At this point, I don't think the show smart enough to think it means anything. This is beautiful and that's how it's going to end.
Mallory: Right. It's like a cool shot.
Cody: It's romantic.
James: You're probably right. They probably weren't like, well, that's them projecting their future, like we're saying. It's probably just like, well, that would be cool. Mhm, I saw that on Home Alone and it was really cool.
Cody: Really thought you were talking about that leg lamp. Brady a must be Italian.
James: Well, I guess it's time for us to talk about ratings and recommendations.
Cody: Certainly.
James: Oh, all right, well, let's move on.
Cody: Uh, 2.5. The only good thing I can really talk about is I like Joey's Beats with her dad. I like that, uh, there was a catharsis with that relationship and it had been built up throughout this entire season to that moment and it felt earned, uh, up until they started talking about Dawson. Um, uh, to that we've already talked about it. I just fucking hate that pacey doesn't, uh, really exist in this show. Up to this point, we don't really know that much about him and they confirmed that with him just disappearing in the third act. Same, um, thing with Jen. There's nothing really in this episode that gave me anything other than the sad fact that we don't really know if she's an evangelical Christian. Now. Gramps, um, was a pawn in the game of God, died for no reason and that's where we're left off. I'd, um, say it's a pretty weak finale. Unless like I said earlier, if the only thing you gave a shit about in this show is Dawson and Joy and will they, won't they? Well, guess what? They did. And baby, did it pay off. 2.5.
Mallory: Yeah, I'm going to go with two five as well. Um, it was pretty middle of the road. Wasn't, uh, as fun as some of the previous episodes. It was pretty heavy. Um, it was kind of interesting watching some of the characters interact in different environments. Uh, I think it was evident some budget went toward that. Um, the contrast between Joy's trip to the prison with Dawson vs. Trip to the prison pacey was interesting. Um, but then again ended with back to Dawson focusing on Dawson. So that was annoying. Um, I felt sad for Jen, but there wasn't really much else happening there. Um, Dawson kiss Joy, so that happened and then we linked him Miss Pacey, so I don't know, it was just kind of middle of the road.
Stella: I'm going to give it a 2.25. Boy. Overall felt like it was extremely underwhelming. Basically everything that Malan Cody have already said. I agree with, um, some positive things. I liked a lot of the music. Um, I liked, uh, Joey interacting with her dad and kind of like seeing some resolution there. I am excited for the next chapter. I'm hoping now that Joey and Dawson have kissed, I'm hoping we can move right along and get into some other facets of these characters. And I'm excited for that. But, yeah, I was really disappointed, honestly, and was sad about it.
James: Yeah, I have to agree. Um, in my opinion, as somebody who has watched a decent amount of television, seen quite a few season finales, this is one of the worst season finales I've ever seen in my entire life. Um, if I wasn't committed to watching the let's see, there's about six seasons of Dawson's Creek, and five more of these seasons have 26 episodes. So the rough math on that is like two, 3400,000 more episodes to go. If I wasn't committed to watching those 400,000 episodes, I would not continue watching after this finale because it's that bad. Why the fuck did I watch this? It makes me, like I've said multiple times, it makes me question, why did I watch this show? It's because of all you lovely people and because of the love for my fellow co hosts here. But if I, uh, had to rate this, it would be a 1.88. That's, uh, my highly signed rating of this episode. And it is because there is just such a downer from start to finish. There are a few things that I like about it. There are some things that really did touch me. It did make me cry. And I definitely give it a bit of love just because it did get an emotional response out of me. I think any kind of media that can get a true, authentic emotional response out of a viewer is something that should be applauded. But at the same time, I think, um, the shoehorned religiosity of this episode, the really lacking storytelling, and the very basic just writing in general for the season finale, and ultimately the fact that this just is such a fucking stinker, uh, of an end, it just makes me have to mark it down. So 1.88 out of five ratings time.
Stella: Recommendations?
James: No, I think we should rate it again.
Cody: My rating is a two five.
James: Okay, you're right. Recommendations.
Cody: Uh, it's spooky season for us right now and I've been recommending a lot of movies lately. So I want to recommend a comic book series. Uh, the comic is Gideon Falls from Image comics written by Jeff Lemur and Arc from Andreas Sarantino. The synopsis, the lives of a reclusive young man obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash and a washedup Catholic priest arriving in a small town full of dark secrets become intertwined around a mysterious legend in the Black Barn, an otherworldly building that has alleged to have appeared in both the city and small town throughout history, bringing death and madness in its wake. Rural mystery and urban horror collide in this character driven meditation on obsession, mental illness, and faith. The, uh, series finished at 27 issues, having ended in December of 2020. It's scary, complex, and confounding in a really great way without being inaccessible. Um, if you haven't read Lamar He's in General, one of my favorite working writers today, having done Black Hammer, Sweet Tooth, Essex County and more, andreas art is like otherworldly. If you're someone who likes David Lynch. Twelve Monkeys. Jacob's ladder perfect blue enemy men, this is for you. It is a wild time. I cannot sing this praises of this comic enough. It is amazing.
James: I love that.
Cody: Cool.
Mallory: Okay, I'm going to recommend a food item. Well, more like multiple food items. Here we go. So, in the spirit of Spooky season, my recommendation is a candy company called Chomp Chocolate, spelled C-H-O-M pump. Um, their instagram is Chomp Chocolate, and they have a website at ah chompchocolate.com. Um, it is a vegan milk chocolate and dark chocolate company. Uh, and for the season, they have some fun new Halloween bars. I have yet to try them, but we will be ordering some, um, ones in Matcha Bar Dipton Raspberry. Uh, they have a Graveyard bar with cookies, marshmallows, and pretzels. They've got a white chocolate bar with peanut butter. And none of these taste like they're vegan. They're, like, better than some of the best milk chocolate or some of the bigger milk chocolate companies around. Um, they also have some chocolate tea that's super yummy. James um, and I took a tour of their factory in Salem, uh, about a month ago, and, um, they have plans to expand and make it like a Willy Wonka factory experience in the future. So, yeah, check it out.
Cody: I would love to get stuck in the chocolate tube and thinking about it for years.
Mallory: And this is also a friend of James from yeah, what's up, Ben?
James: I miss you. But, yeah, Ben has created an incredible factory and company with a mission over there at Chomp. But what I would love to just.
Mallory: Add to that so you can find them for locals. You can find them at Fred Meyer, but also online.
James: Yeah, go to your local Freddy's. You can probably find them in the candy aisle. What they have tried to do at Chomp is not make, like, vegan chocolate. That is like, you know, like chocolate Snob. It's basically imagine imagine just your normal, regular run of the mill coffee sorry, regular run of mill chocolate bar. Like a Hershey's bar, except instead of it being full of shit. It's natural, it's tasty, it's vegan. There's no animal byproducts. There's nothing in there that's strange. And it's great. It's very wonderful.
Mallory: When we did the tour, uh, we got to kind of learn how they make the chocolate. And it's a super cool process that they have made with a lot of love.
James: Go check them out. You'll enjoy it. And it's very affordable, very tasty into that.
Stella: All right, my recommendation this week is the movie Do Revenge. It is on Netflix. It came out, um, a few weeks ago and, um, I was really excited to watch it. Did not disappoint. Um, one of the plot, uh, summaries, is that popular Dreaa wants revenge on her boyfriend for publishing her sex tape. In exchange, student Eleanor is haunted by a rumor that two teenagers team up to take action against their tormentors. Um, it's really fun. It's, um, really just like one of your classic high school team movies, which I love. Um, the soundtrack is great. There's a fun little couple twists in there. Um, definitely gave me some vibes of like, Mean Girls and Clueless. I felt like it was like a really fun homage to like, some of those 90s, early 2000 teen movies. Um, Camilla Mendes is in it. Maya Hawke, austin Abrams who is in Euphoria. Alicia Bow, who is in 13 reasons why. Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones has a small role. Sarah Michelle Geller makes an appearance. It is just overall super fun. I laughed out loud a lot. Highly recommend. I m second that soundtrack is so good.
James: Costuming.
Mallory: I mean, everything is just great. Still the thing, a lot of, uh, references to that's fun.
James: It's very relevant to what we're talking about here at Dawson's Creek. And looking back 25 years into the past, this movie feels like looking back into the past, ah at a format that was very popular then, that has kind of fallen out of favor now, but that has done very well. I thought it was very fun. All right, well, my recommendation this week is something a little bit different. Um, I am going to recommend a album that is soon to be released. It's probably been released by the time this episode is out, and it is not King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard, believe it or not. Um, I'm going to be recommending an album from a band called Cataldo out of Seattle, Washington. They are releasing an album, Dumber and Older, on October 14. So I guess you can't get your preorders in now as of the recording, but go ahead and get them when you hear this, you'll love it. Cataldo is a band, um, that I have been following for a number of years. I happened to have met Eric, the front man of this band, many, uh, many years ago. And he's just an incredible person. It's worth listening to. If you are a fan of music in general. But especially if you are somebody who likes Death Cap for Cutie, for example, or any of the music that has kind of spawned out of Ben Gibbert, if that is an inspiration that you find interesting, give Cataldo a listen. This new album, Dumber and Older, really, uh, hits me at a personal level because it's really just about kind of growing up. Uh, I'm 32 now, so I'm an old man. And the things that I am starting to think about and go through at this phase in my life just feel so different than a lot of the things that I've been kind of going through and experiencing in my life up until now. And having an album like this that speaks to it. Um, really just it's nice to feel like, uh, I've always felt a certain connection to this artist. But especially now, it feels like we're going through some things very similar. I'm, um, going to play a brief snippet from a song called Matter of Trust off of Dumber and Older because it feels particularly relevant to the episode that we just listened or just that we just watched. So take a listen to this. It's just a matter of trust uh.
Cody: I'm trying to tell you the truth overhead at me on the other side.
James: It'S hard to sing you lose when.
Cody: You hear me square in the eyes but I'm never windy.
James: It'S just a meme so that is Cataldo Matter of Trust. It's an incredible act out of Seattle. I think it'll make you feel happy, even if the songs are dark for albums outside of Dumber and Older, the album that really got me into the band is an album called Gilded Oldies out of 2014. It's got a very kind of r amp, b pop vibe that I think will be very interesting to a lot of people. But their most recent release, literally Main Street out of 2019, is a banger. I think just about every album, every song off that album will find a home in your heart. Go take a listen.
Mallory: M. We saw cataldo live.
James: Yes, we did.
Mallory: Several years ago.
James: Several years ago now, too.
Mallory: Met him and he's very nice.
James: Yeah. Eric, if you're listening, go see him.
Mallory: Live if you can.
James: Yeah. Come on the show. I bet you've watched Dawson's Creek at some point in your life.
Stella: So next time on Freaks and Creeks, we will be doing a season one retrospective. We'll look back and talk about our thoughts, feelings, uh, impressions. Season one. Talk about predictions.
Cody: We're not going to do impressions of characters, are we?
James: Yes, I am.
Mallory: Absolutely. Another segment, didn't you know, mhm?
James: Yeah.
Cody: Jennifer?
Mallory: Jennifer, you're going to play some clips?
James: Oh, baby, are we? We are walking here.
Cody: You'll hear me? Do an impression of Grants in three, two, one.
James: Great. One good. Okay. I think you need to stay after we finish the recording of this so that we can record. I'll be. I'll be we're doing it.
Cody: Um, well, number two over here.
James: Uh, are we done with this?
Mallory: Goodbye, Jen.
James: Okay, well, I guess until next time. Thank you so much for listening to our little podcast called freaks and creeks. If you've enjoyed the episode, please go ahead and subscribe to our show and join us each week as we continue to set sail through dawson's creek one episode at a time. And if you want more of our wonderful content, go ahead and find us at our website. You can find it@freaksandcreeks.com. If you want to see that screenplay, it's at freaksandcreeks.com about if you want to go to instagram, we're at freaks and creeks pod. And if you want to, go ahead and send us an email right to us at show at freaksandcreeks.com. Otherwise, until next time, bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.
Mallory: Bye.