Dawson’s Creek S02 E18 – And then she dies.

Previously: The new film teacher told Dawson his movie sucked. Hahaha.
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The Perfect Wedding

Democracy Diva: Shrine O’Spielberg. We immediately know Dawson is depressed/lonely because he’s hanging out with his mom. They’re watching his movie, and we still have only seen the Rachel Leigh Cook-as-Joey rows-on-the-creek part of the film. I would not be surprised if that were the entire movie. Anyway, Gail raves about how moving and beautiful it is.

Kirsti: She insists she’s not saying any of this because she’s his mother, but she totally is. 

Diva: For sure. Dawson says he had a clear vision, but he couldn’t bring it to life on film. (I personally don’t think that’s his problem. I think it’s his vision that probably sucked.) Gail tells him that he shouldn’t let minor downfalls interfere with his vision. Dawson wants to try to re-edit it, but mopes about what Hollywood Sabbatical said about it in his last episode. Namely, that it sucks. Gail uses this as an excuse to ask how Mitch is doing with his new job. Dawson notes that she really misses him, and says maybe she should take her own advice and be tenacious. She says “maybe.” 

I DON’T WANNA WAIT.

Potter House. Mr. Potter is making breakfast and Joey is freaked out but also can’t stop smiling. I don’t think the smiling part is on purpose, though. I think Katie Holmes is just not always excellent at conveying emotions. Mr. Potter says he’s here to stay, as Bessie shows up with the baby who I kind of forgot existed. Also, where the fuck is Bodie?

K: An excellent question. Poor Bodie. Not only did he get recast after the pilot, but they basically wrote him out altogether after a couple of episodes. SIGH.

Diva: Anyway, Bessie’s friend is getting married and she needs Joey to get the gang together so that the Ice House can cater the wedding. Joey’s all, uh, we don’t actually know how to do that, but Bessie insists that Dad’s here so everything will be fine! He tells Joey he’s back and it’s his job to worry, and they hug.

K: Okay, a) why had this woman not organised her caterer more than a few days before the wedding? And b) catering a wedding when you have no idea what you’re doing is a TERRIBLE IDEA. I made the desserts for my cousin’s engagement party at the start of the year and that was enough to have me in stressed out tears.

Diva: That’s only because you didn’t have the Powers That Be Contriving on your side, ensuring that completely nonsensical catering arrangements work out totally fine.

Capeside High. Joey drops the bomb on Jack that her dad got paroled and is now happily turning the Ice House into a catering company, or something. Jack says she must be so happy. Joey admits that she is, but she’s also freaked out. Serious moody music plays as Joey confesses that she’s terrified and anxious and they have to go out in public amongst all these rich bastards to cater this wedding. Jack says, well, maybe tell your dad that the catering thing is not the awesomest idea, and maybe work on your relationship with your father without the public watching. I personally don’t think literally anyone will be focused on the family drama of the catering company – it is a WEDDING, and not everything is about you guys – but “use your words” is always good advice. But Joey can’t bring herself to do that when Bessie looks so damn happy. Jack says he’ll be there to help in any case.

Cut to Dawson and Pacey in the halls. Dawson mentions that he might re-edit the movie. He sees his father talking to Hollywood Sabbatical, and is PISSED. Pacey’s “well, she IS bangin'” comment doesn’t make him feel any better. Jack shows up and tells them about how they’re all going to cater this wedding together because of contrivance. Pacey’s in it for the money – “For sixty bucks, I’d cater your ass!” Jack giggles nervously and says, “That won’t be necessary.” He might even be blushing, and it’s adorable.

K: I honestly don’t know which I love more – Pacey’s ridiculous line or Jack’s adorable reaction to it. 

Diva: Both are the absolute best. Jack says that it was Mr. Potter’s idea… and then realizes Joey hasn’t told Dawson yet. Jack explains that Mr. Potter was paroled, and the bell rings.

Girls’ room. Abby is wearing a feathered boa coat thing that I think Cher Horowitz might have worn to that party in the Valley.

K: I dunno. I’m pretty sure Cher Horowitz would have declared it too tacky. Amber, on the other hand…

Diva: A+, because I first wrote that it looks like something Amber would wear, but Amber just wears knock-offs of Cher’s outfits anyway.

Anyway, Jen tries to talk, but Abby’s being a bitch, because, you know, she is one. But when Jen gives up on their convo, Abby follows her out of the bathroom. Jen confesses how frustrated and bored she is. Abby helpfully points out that rats without stimulation gnaw off their own feet. Jen doesn’t know why she’s doing this pristine, boring shit if no one sees her any differently. I’m more curious as to why they’re having the same conversation they’ve had a trillion times before. Jen admits that best times she’s had this year were with Abby, which gives Abby feels, so they agree to hang out this weekend. Then the dulcet tones of Sixpence None The Richer start to play, and I could not be happier.

Pacey and Andie chat about what they’ll spend their $120 on after they rake in all the cash as caterers. He wants to do a big night in New York but lol, that’s expensive. Andie confesses that she hates weddings – they’re antiquated, and schmaltzy, and too sentimental. And they set people up for failure. Pacey insists he’s fun to go to a wedding with, and if Andie doesn’t think weddings are beautiful and magical by the end of the night, she gets his $60 as well as her own. I’m pretty sure weddings are less magical when you have to work the entire time, but whatevs.

K: I’ve come to the conclusion that weddings are only fun when you know more people there than just the bride and groom. And when you’re not forced to slow dance with a total stranger. And when no one objects when you hide in the bathroom during the bouquet toss… But maybe if I went to a wedding with Intern Pacey, I’d change my mind.

Diva: I have never participated in a bouquet toss, nor will I ever. Unless I just stare at it bitterly as it falls at my feet, like on Sex and the City.

Ice House. Dawson greets Mr. Potter and exposits that his parents are attending the wedding they’re all catering. Mr. P walks away, and Dawson asks how Joey’s doing with all this. She admits that she was a mess, but Jack talked her down. Nearby, two grown-ass women are loudly gossiping about how horrible Mr. Potter is and how he should have never been allowed to come back to Capeside, because they’re the worst human beings alive. THEY OWN THIS RESTAURANT, DICKWADS. EAT SOMEWHERE ELSE. (K: My notes say the exact same thing) Anyway, Joey looks crushed and pretends she has to go help in the kitchen.

After the not-break, it’s Fancy Wedding Time. Joey is giving everyone tasks and working hard and Dawson just wants to talk about those gossip-y bitches. I get that he’s trying to help, but she is at work. Stop trying to make her bare her soul to you just because you feel inadequate now that Jack is her confidante. Joey again insists she’s fine and those gossipy bitches are idiots, and that she just needs to feed this wedding full of rich hungry people.

Dawson serves champagne and sees his mother. She’s in a slinky, sexy dress and admits that she’s going to try to win Mitch back. Dawson tells her she looks beautiful and it’s sweet. But the moment is ruined when Mitch walks in with Hollywood Sabbatical on his arm.

K: This scene created two questions for me: 1. HOW THE FUCK ARE TEENAGERS LEGALLY SERVING ALCOHOL AT THIS WEDDING? And 2. How the hell does Mitch have a +1 to this wedding when he met Hollywood Sabbatical like a red hot second ago? I know weddings where partners of several YEARS haven’t been invited if the bride and groom haven’t met them more than a handful of times. 

Diva: I had the same question re: #1. 16 year olds definitely cannot serve alcohol. (But I think 18-year-olds can, even where the drinking age is 21. Don’t quote me on that, though.) And I guess we’re just supposed to assume that the couple getting married is so stupid rich that everybody gets invited with an “and guest” option. Whatever; stupid wedding is still stupid.

Behind the scenes of the fancy wedding, Pacey and Andie are dealing with the cake. As he’s putting the layers of the cake together, Pacey wishes for money so he could afford to make big life moments like this perfect. Andie replies that it might look perfect, but there’s disfunction just under the surface. Her family is proof – they try to keep up the perfect facade, but they’re a mess. Pacey tries to get her to lighten up and Andie starts yelling and predictably knocks the top layer off the cake. Clumsiness runs in the McPhee family, I guess.

K: And that’s what happens (when you let a sixteen year old assemble your wedding cake).

Diva: A sixteen-year-old with no pastry experience, no less.

Dawson walks into a room and finds the bride, having a panic attack. She’s going to leave her fiancé at the altar, because television. She sobs and says she doesn’t know if she loves him. Dawson doesn’t know what to say and it’s awkward. Mostly because she doesn’t question who this random sixteen-year-old cater-waiter is and what he’s doing in her dressing room/staging area/place where a cater-waiters does not need to be.

Jen’s bedroom. Jen and Abby are blasting music and dancing, and Abby does an impression of Grams that is so spot-on and hilarious, I can’t believe they haven’t used this sooner. Abby longs for booze and boys, and Jen says the Ice House is catering a fancy wedding and failed to invite them to help out. Abby decides they should crash it, of course, because she’s Abby.

Back at the wedding, Dawson talking to the sobbing bride and telling her she kinda needs to make up her mind because this wedding is starting like NOW. Jack knocks on the door, and Dawson fills him in on the cold feet drama. Jack offers to talk to the bride, but of course, Dawson insists he can’t help. When they go back into the room to talk to her, she’s disappeared. (JK, she’s just in the bathroom. Stupid misleading cameraman is stupid.)

Hectic Ice House-Turned-Wedding-Catering Kitchen. Joey tells Bessie that everything is falling apart and she can’t find their dad.

K: Meanwhile, I’m distracted by Bessie’s hair, which is a thousand kinds of insane: 

Diva: It’s clear that this is Bessie’s “serious business woman” hair, which only makes it more hilarious. Because I cannot even begin to take her seriously with that mop on her head. Anyway, Bessie tries to be calming, but Joey rightly points out that none of them know what the fuck they’re doing. They’re going to ruin this wedding, and make a public embarrassment out of their family again. Joey yells that their dad is the one who tore their family apart, and he can’t just put it back together in a day. Of course, he’s standing behind her when she says this, because television.

After the not!break, everyone is way past ready for the bride to show up already. Jack and Dawson are outside the bride’s bathroom. Jack threatens to go get her mother if she doesn’t open the door. That works like a charm. She opens the door and tells Jack that she doesn’t know if her fiancé is really her soul mate. Jack tells her she’ll never find her perfect love – not because she’s a mess, but because no love is perfect. But her love with her fiancé that he’s never met or seen or spoken to is real, and beautiful, and worth fighting for, or something inspirational like that. Jack tells her wedding day jitters are tradition. He says all the right things about how magical and beautiful and wonderful today is going to be, and of course she walks down the aisle. Dude, where the fuck was her maid of honor during all of this? I saw girls in matching dresses up there, so don’t even try and tell me she didn’t have bridesmaids to help a bitch out during a panic attack. She should not have had to rely on a couple of strangers. (K: A+ and 1430) During the ceremony, Gail exchanges serious!glances with Mitch, and Dawson does the same with Joey.

Reception. The bride thanks Jack for saving her life and her wedding and being the world’s nicest stranger. Dawson is all, HOW DID YOU EVEN DO THAT? Jack says he just happened to say the right things. Dawson is upset that Joey now tells all her feels to Jack instead of to him.

K: To be honest, anyone in their right mind would. Jack’s likely to offer decent advice and thoughtful nods and generally an air of I’m-actually-listening while Dawson’s more likely to laugh at you or get butthurt when everything doesn’t revolve around him or imply that you’re a slut. #justsaying

Diva: 100% agreed.

Jack insists that Dawson has nothing to worry about – Jack and Joey might be friends, but she and Dawson are soul mates. Jack says she needs him and he’s the only one who’s been there through the whole thing with her dad. Dawson has tried to reach out, but he can’t connect. Jack thinks maybe what she needs is for Dawson to force a connection. Oof, I really hate the sound of that.

Andie and Pacey are still trying to make this cake work, even though they have no clue what the fuck is happening. The bride comes back to see the cake, but Andie won’t let her, and makes up some shit about bad luck. The bride explains that the top layer of the cake represents the marriage and they have to eat it on their anniversary. When the bride leaves, Andie yammers about how she ruined the wedding and everything is all her fault. She pouts about the little groom covered in frosting. When Pacey sees how upset she is over ruining it, he realizes that she really does care about weddings and all the silliness that goes along with them. So he refuses to help finish putting the cake back together until she admits that she loves weddings too.

K: Pacey, honey, THIS IS NOT THE TIME. (Also, just make the middle level of cake the new top level and claim the bakery screwed up. Problem solved.)

Diva: Back in the kitchen, Joey awkwardly approaches her dad. Mr. Potter says he never even considered how hard it would be when he came back home. Joey says she didn’t mean what she said, about tearing their family apart, but he says she was right. He feels like Joey and Bessie have done amazing without him, and now he’s back bringing shame and scandal upon the family again. Joey doesn’t want him to expect everything to go back to normal. They need to deal with their family shit before they invite scrutiny. (Again, IT’S A WEDDING. NO ONE BUT YOU CARES ABOUT YOUR FAMILY DRAMA. EVEN THOSE GOSSIP-Y BITCHES STOPPED TALKING ABOUT IT YESTERDAY.) Mr. Potter notes that she’s protecting him from the world instead of the other way around. He thinks he’s a failure as a dad, and his voice cracks as he walks away.

K: We should introduce him to the rest of the parents in Traumaland. On our books, he’s at least a C+ parent. Maybe even a B-.

Diva: For real. He’s no Sandy Cohen/Keith Mars, but considering he hasn’t been able to be a part of Joey’s life until now, he certainly is trying. Which is more than we can say for most Traumaland parents. Any-segue, Dawson greets Gail and says the Hollywood Sabbatical lady dancing with Mitch is his film teacher. Mitch and HS walk over and he introduces her to Gail. I cheer as Gail gives her a serious death stare, because it’s hilarious, and then she bails. Dawson pulls his father aside for a private chat. Mitch says that he likes Hollywood Sabbatical, and he has to keep living his life. He doesn’t want to put Dawson in the middle, and Dawson is all, THEN DON’T DATE MY TEACHER. Which, you know. Fair.

Abby and Jen have successfully crashed the party. Abby thinks they should hit on older guys because television loves statutory rape. Andie marches over to them and tries to kick them out before they can ruin the world’s most perfect wedding. Abby tells her to up her meds, because Abby desperately needs to attend some sort of sensitivity training about mental illness. Or just about people in general. Jen says it’s fine, they’ll just go hang out on the boardwalk and come back when everyone’s drunk. Abby steals a bottle of champagne on their way out, like a boss.

K: An already opened bottle, incidentally. I mention this only because it will prove relevant shortly. 

Diva: Dawson heads back into the kitchen and asks Joey what’s wrong. He can tell she’s been crying, and he just stares at her until she starts to talk. (Oh, if that’s what “forcing a connection” is, I guess that’s okay. He mostly just waited.) She’s scared her dad is going to break her heart, and she can’t go through that again. Dawson points out that all the Potters thought that everything would be perfect when Mr. Potter got home, but he can’t fix everything. They can’t set such high expectations. They have to deal with their feels, and that’s okay. Dawson tells Joey how incredibly strong she’s been since her father has been in prison. She’s always been able to ignore the stupid bitches in this town, and she needs to keep doing that. And this time, she won’t have to do it alone, because her father is there too. And she’ll always have Dawson, because that’s obviously what this and every conversation is really about. Joey thanks him, and pulls him in for a long, teary hug. (There are a lot of those in this episode.)

After the not!break, Joey and her dad are in the kitchen. She asks if he remembers an old friend of hers named Melissa. The day Mr. Potter was arrested, Joey overheard Melissa talking about him being a drug dealer. She was laughing at Joey for living in a crack house. Joey went home and cried until Dawson came and cheered her up. The next day, she walked up to Melissa, smiled at her, and walked away like nothing happened. Joey tells her father that people will always talk, and we’ll always be too tough for them to crush. She’s proud of him, but she doesn’t want to have to pretend to be strong around him, and vice versa. They say I love you, and hug, and maybe I get a little hay fever when Mr. Potter bursts into tears. (K: Right there with you.) She wants to show him off at the wedding and celebrate, but he’s not ready to face the world yet. His voice breaks, and he walks away.

Pacey wheels in the cake. He somehow made it work and it’s perfect even though it was literally a hot mess a second ago and this makes no sense at all. Pacey and Andie are cute as usual, so I forgive the cake contrivance.

Boardwalk. Jen and Abby stumble up the steps by the water. (K: Having gotten shitfaced on less than one bottle of champagne that was already open when they took it…) They talk about getting old and married and boring. Suddenly Abby says she’ll probably never be happy; she’ll always want something more. Jen feels the same way. Abby doesn’t want to be boring or a cliche, she just wants to drink. So she chugs the champagne bottle, falls, and hits her head on the bench. Hard. Jen laughs because physical injuries are HILARIOUS, but Abby calls her a bitch, because she probs has a concussion. She suddenly rolls backwards and falls like two stories down into the water. Jen screams, and jumps in after her like a superhero, because once again, Jen is the best.

K: YUP. (Also, I feel the need to mention that this is far from the most ridiculous accident we’ll see on this show…)

Diva: Back at the wedding, Pacey asks Andie to dance. I’m pretty sure caterers are discouraged from taking to the dance floor, but whatever, let’s just pretend this is a thing, and count it as another effing dance. Andie says that when they get married, they should do so in Venice. He says Venice will be underwater by the time they’re thirty. Mitch dances with Hollywood Sabbatical and Gail broods. Dawson asks her to dance and she agrees. He repeats her wisdom about staying tenacious and going after what you want. She thanks him, and it’s actually a pretty cute mother/son moment.

Jack congratulates Joey on somehow making this wedding work. She is just so relieved it’s over. Suddenly Mr. Potter walks in, freshly groomed, slicked-back hair, in a suit. She calls him Daddy and I have feels. He hands her a rose and asks her to dance.

Dawson sees them and smiles, Bessie sees them and smiles, and, fuck it, I see them and smile. (K: I have hayfever.) We cut across all the happy couples. Mr. Potter tells Joey to dance with Dawson instead. Gail welcomes Mr. Potter home, and he asks her to dance. They dance, and Joey and Dawson hold each other way closer than friends do. She thanks him for being her friend. She says she loves him, and he says he loves her too. Then they kiss, and this is the first time in this show’s history that I don’t hate it. Then they kiss more, and I’m already bored and vaguely nauseous. (K: Pass the brain bleach, please) Gail and Mr. Potter and Jack look over approvingly at these two playing tonsil-hockey at a stranger’s wedding. That they’re WORKING at.

Back to the Boardwalk of Sadness. The unforgiving cameraman zooms in on Abby’s bluish, swollen face, which was really unnecessary. She’s in a body bag. We know she’s dead. Jen just sobs with a blanket wrapped around her as the ambulance takes Abby away. There are paramedics and cops milling around her, but Jen just cries, alone.

K: Really, they should just title season 2 “In which Jen is sad and alone and mostly friendless”… 

 

Next time on Dawson’s Creek: Everyone deals with the aftermath of Abby’s death, some better than others in S02 E19 – Abby Morgan, Rest in Peace.