So, the gurls asked me to do a little recap on Season Six for you wonderful readers out there, a little companion piece to the wrap up I did on the first five. This was, originally, not a good plan, since I stopped watching and just taped the whole season after about episode four because it sucked.
So. Bad.
And I’m the girl who has watched all of the episodes. At least twice. Even the ones where Dawson has sex. That should tell you the level of suck. So I suffered through it and, after watching the finale tonight, I decided to try something different.
Instead of talking about the sixth season (summed up: Joey – bad hair, orange skin, bad choices, boyfriend with worse skin tone/hair than her. Dawson – actually amusing most of the time, hardly on. Pacey – a career that made no sense, hot like lava. Jack – who? Jen – beautiful, amazing, and has no self-esteem, but managed to find a boy who treats her marginally well…eventually), I thought I’d talk about what was wrong and what was right with the Creek this year (and in some cases, years past).
**
Let’s get the Bad, Bad, Bad and Wrong out of the way first:
Dawson and Joey – Not the relationship. Well, yeah, but the dynamic. They always tell. They never show. We’re told all the time that these two are best friends, soulmates, they love on a higher plane. Whatever. But we’re never shown that. Not once does Dawson or Joey do something for the other that would, in any way, indicate that they actually have these deep feelings for one another. Not only that, the actors have little-to-no chemistry together, so even their most emotional scenes fall flat.
They also spend much of their time rehashing the same old arguments and same old excuses over and over until they’re just so much noise in the background. They don’t make sense, they don’t mean anything because, as much as they say they’re growing up and moving on, they’re not.
Jack – They give him nothing to do. They have a main (supposedly) gay character who doesn’t have another gay main character to interact with, so he has these tertiary scenes that have nothing to do with anyone else and there’s no reason for them, other than to remind us that, yes, Jack is gay and yes, Kerr Smith is the most un-gay gay-character-playing man in America. Heh. A second thought – they actually had Jack with a crush on a teacher who ended up being gay. I had to go back and read my first commentary and the spoilers contained there-in to even remember. That can’t be good.
Jen – There is nothing for Jen to do either. Since Season Two when she got kicked out of the Triangle (her spot claimed immediately by Pacey), she’s had nothing to do. It’s good in some ways, because she stopped being the personification of all that is evil because she wanted what Joey wanted, and had a chance to be something more (yes, we would have liked to see Jen/Pacey, why do you ask?) but they screwed that up by, I don’t know, not actually giving her anything to do. She is, as my friend Amy said, probably the most nuanced character on the show, the one who has grown the most in her relationships (with Grams mostly) and yet she’s lucky if she gets seven minutes of screen time.
Dawson – Hmmm. I actually didn’t hate Dawson too much this season. He was an ass sometimes. He was inappropriate sometimes. He was self-obsessed and whiny sometimes. He got way too many chances that were completely undeserved and he should have had to apologize to Pacey at the end of “Joey Potter and the Capeside Redemption” (I don’t make these titles up, people), but for the most part…gah…Dawson was perhaps an enjoyable thing this year.
I feel dirty now.
Joey – Oh, Joey. How we used to love you. We used to root for you and want what you wanted and hope that you got it. We used to cheer you on for your lunch-tray wielding powers. Your pretending to be pregnant to show some guy not to mess with your powers. Your coolness of being pretty but not knowing it and wanting the guy next door and wanting to be as cool as the slut next door and not realizing that you were all those things. And then you realized it and you started sliding. And then you (we’ve recently been informed) got scared and started screwing up your life. And your hair. (*Side note to Katie Holmes: you did commercials for a hair dye product. I don’t care what they did to you or what they didn’t do, but you’re the one who looks like a freak-haired ass for having roots down to your ears that are several shades darker than the rest of your hair.)
Pacey – I’m just kidding. There’s nothing wrong with Pacey.
[Amy: Well, there was that ridiculous Pacey-as-stockbroker storyline that came and went in the blink of an eye.]
The Writing – It was uneven. It wasn’t arced. It often didn’t make sense. People came and went for no reason. Characters existed to be clever but weren’t (see: Harley). It meandered and spent time on stuff no one cared about and refused to develop stories where they were presented (as much as I love Audrey, they showed real potential with her and Dawson – even in Season Five – and never did anything with it). It shunned continuity. It often shunned proper use of the English language. It was contrived.
The Tertiary Characters – Many were actually pretty wonderful this season: Todd, Natasha and Audrey, even Professor Hetson (anyone who is not taken in by Joey is okeydokey in my book). Many sucked hard: Eddie, Harley, Patrick, Rich, Emma. However, this was the last season and they KNEW it from the get-go and they spent all this time on these people. We want the core four/five people. That’s what we signed up for in the beginning and, dammit, we wanted you to give it to us.
And you didn’t.
Now onto The Good:
Pacey/Joey – No matter the reason, be it budding romance or just friendship, when these two are on screen, there’s a chemistry that offsets any bad acting Katie Holmes might contribute. For some reason (be it real-life relationships or what-have-you) these two actors work their best together. Josh brings it in his husky, whispery, orgasm-inducing voice and Katie manages to rise above her generic level of phoning it in. She even looks prettier when she’s with him most of the time, which might just be a reflection of his stunning hotness.
There were some really touching moments this season – in “Clean and Sober” when he confessed to not getting over her in that voice. In “Castaways” when they were (inconceivably) trapped in the K-Mart and actually dealt with stuff they should have dealt with… oh TWO YEARS AGO, the shaving scene (swoon), and the sleeping bag scene. They have the banter down to a science and it was most sweet. In “That Was Then” when they’re in his apartment and he leans in to kiss her and she moves away just enough to avoid it and the stomachs of many a woman fell to her knees and they all shouted at their TVs “Are you made of STONE, woman?” And, of course, in “Love Bites” when she rips his heart out and hands it to him – still beating. And when he still comes back and gives her the dance they never had, leaving her knowing that he still loves her, even if she’s an evil, evil, evil, inhuman monster.
Ahem. Not that, you know, I have feelings on this issue.
Jack – He had a boyfriend! He kissed him! He got tested for AIDS! He was a gay whore during his summer that we didn’t see! He slept with boys! And yet he still seems to be the LEAST gay man alive. But I didn’t hate him. And he looked truly heartbroken when he found out about Grams’ cancer in “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”
Jen – The girl has self-esteem issues, but she managed to find herself a boyfriend who treated her right. Admittedly, after he had slept with one of her friends, but still. She tried to put her own issues aside and help people, she tried matchmaking for her Grams and, as usual, Michelle Williams did her best with what they gave her. The scenes when she finds out about Grams’ cancer are amazing and truly, she can sell me anything. She’s adorable and cute and sexy and the most underused character ever.
Dawson – He was amusing! He had sex for sex’s sake! He had a platonic gay affair with Todd! He was belittled repeatedly! He got his ass shown to the door after sex with his “soulmate!” Sniff. Good times.
Joey – Honestly? For being the character most of us identified with when this whole thing started? I can safely say there is nothing good about Joey.
Pacey – Conversely, there is everything good about Pacey. His job was inconceivable (I keep using that word), he was somewhat shitty to Audrey and Emma and he had bad hair/goatee for much of the season, but when he was on, he was ON. And he looks gooooooood.
The Writing – There were a few amusing moments this season, a few good heart-warming and appealing moments. Most were brought to life by the acting so there’s really not much to say here. Except it didn’t always suck. And there were only a marginal number of “subtle” things that happened. Okay, I’m totally kidding. It was bad, pretty much all around.
The Tertiary Characters – Todd was funny, especially in his drunken giving of thanks during Christmas dinner in “Merry Mayhem.” Hee. Baby Jesus. Natasha was mean to Dawson. She also had sex with him but she cheated on him and used him and I have to appreciate that about her. Audrey, while not officially a tertiary character, was lost after she broke up with Pacey (thus removing her from the “spotlight”) so they gave her a random downward spiral, a few random scenes and they let her sing in short skirts. None of this is bad. And, as my friend Amy would say, she also had a very torrid off-screen love affair with Jen so she was having a fine time. Professor Hetson amused me for no other reason than the fact that he made fun of Joey. A lot. He was rude to her, he was crude to her. He insulted her and he did not give in to her stupid having-sex-through-the-exam-so-please-cut-me-a-break, crap-ass begging. Admittedly, he had the most annoying child alive, but everyone has a flaw or two. Except, as noted above, Pacey.
So as you can see, not a stellar season by any stretch of the imagination.
2003-05-16