Previously: A super contrived trip all in order to get Pacey and Joey kisses.
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The Longest Day
Democracy Diva: We begin with a Joey voiceover: she asks if you’ve ever had a day you wanted to live all over again. Like one in which they made out with Pacey, I guess.
Kirsti: Legit, girl. Legit. I think we’d all like to live that day over and over again.
Diva: I want a life-gif of that day.
Dawson and his dad show up to Pacey’s boat with some champagne. They’re greeted by Andie, Jonathan Lipnicki (who I guess is officially part of the family now), and the rest of the gang, save for Pacephine. Dawson explains that Joey had to run some bullshit errand or something, but of course we cut to some boat-equipment-storage-room-thingy where Pacephine are making out all over the place. She reminds him that they’re supposed to be christening his boat rather than having sexy times in this shed. Joey exposits (in between kisses) that they’re still pretending to be friends in front of everyone else, and then rubbing up against each other every time they’re alone, and that’s kinda hectic. This might be kind of a Captain Obvious thing to say, but holy SHIT, do Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes have incredible chemistry. Here, have a hundred kissing gifs for evidence:
K: YUP. Every time I watch this show, it amazes me that they wasted two solid years having them hate each other and basically not interact at all.
Diva: They stop playing tonsil hockey long enough to realize that they both feel like utter garbage for not telling Dawson about their relationship. But this conversation, like all conversations, just results in more steamy make-out sessions. Pacey says he should be the one to tell Dawson. He feels that he got Joey into this situation in the first place (by being the world’s most adorable and irresistible human, I guess), and the only way to preserve his friendship with Dawson is to tell him the truth.
It sucks that BOTH of them are BFFs with Dawson – not just for obvious reasons, like the fact that Dawson’s the worst, but because no matter who tells him, Dawson’s going to feel betrayed that the OTHER person didn’t tell him. And it’s not like they can tag-team this and sit Dawson down together and be all, “so, we’re dry-humping on the regular.” Basically, there is no good outcome here, so they should probably just hire a hit man to kill Dawson and go on the run, having sexy criminal adventures. I would watch the SHIT out of that show.
K: Dear God, yes, someone make that a thing. Or maybe I’ll just rewatch Fringe, because Polivia is also my OTP.
Diva: HEY YEAH YEAH YEAH!
Doug runs over to tell Pacey that Jonathan Lipnicki’s mom Nora is stuck at work and can’t pick him up. Doug and Pacey literally toss the kid back and forth between them – it’s even more hilarious because Jonathan is squished into this big puffy life vest – arguing over who will take care of him. Pacey insists he just has one quick thing to do (murder Dawson via feelings) and bails, leaving Jonathan and Doug to bro out for the day.
Grams and Jen have a walk-and-talk. She is concerned about leaving Jen alone in the house, because even nice boys like Henry have sexual impulses. Jen sees Pacey next door at Dawson’s, staring like a creeper at the Leery Manor. She comes over and gently encourages him to actually go inside. He realizes he’s been just walking into Leery Manor unannounced, like part of the family, for over a decade.
Diva: Yes. Especially since she has gone through so many awkward hair phases on this show, this is particularly fab.
But Joey’s reciprocated feelings don’t make Pacey feel better – not when he’s trying to figure out how the hell to stab Dawson in the heart. Mitch comes out of the house and tells them that Dawson just left to go to the library.
Library. Andie looks extremely happy, as does Will, who confirms a date with Andie that evening. They may or may not have been making out in the stacks – either that, or both of their hair is a little messy for no reason. I hope they got busted by Kirsti, World’s Greatest Librarian. (K: Thank you.) Anyway, Andie’s a little nervous to tell Pacey about the date, but he’s very cool with it and goes off to look for Dawson.
K: Look, I’m not going to lie, but my notes at this point are all “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS LIBRARY? CAPESIDE IS A PODUNK TOWN I’VE SEEN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES SMALLER THAN THIS WHAT THE EFF THIS MAKES NO SENSE.” #librarianrage
Diva: I legit thought they were at some very fancy college campus for a second. I am not the Resident Snark Librarian and even I know they’re doing small town libraries wrong.
Baby-Sitting Adventures with Doug. He lectures Jonathan on breaking his answering machine. Pacey struts in, hands the kid a Gameboy, and apologizes for leaving Jonathan with Doug. He explains that he and Joey are in LUUUURVVV, and he spent all day trying to chase down Dawson to punch him in the feels. Doug warns Pacey that Dawson and Joey will stay friends, or even more, and Pacey will end up alone.
Pacey heads onto the Leery Manor porch when Joey runs up behind him in a panic. She insists that she has to be the one to tell Dawson. He says it’s okay, they’ll do whatever she wants, and he holds her sweetly. Which you shouldn’t be doing in front of Leery Manor, you friggen idiots. Pacey admits he was in the process of chickening out when she arrived, and she thinks that might be a sign. Dawson has been her family, and this betrayal will kill him (K: GOOD). Pacey gives a sad smile when he realizes she was never going to tell Dawson the truth.
Dawson suddenly appears on the porch. He knows they were fighting and wants to know why. Pacey tells him the truth – he and Joey are an “us” now, and that’s what they were fighting about. Dawson stares at them, full of betrayal feels.
K: And with a slight dose of looking like a murderer.
Diva: Now we cut back to the same voiceover and sunrise we saw when the episode started. We go back to the boat, and Dawson and Mitch arrive again. Joey and Pacey appear out of the storage shed, but coming from different directions. Jen calls Henry on a pay phone (LOL, RIP pay phones) to tell him she’ll see him this afternoon, what with Grams being away and all. Joey thanks Jen for the ride and they go for a walk. Joey word-vomits about Pacey for awhile. Jen clarifies that Joey wants to keep making out with Pacey’s face, and says that they definitely need to tell Dawson. Joey says Pacey’s going to tell Dawson today, but Joey chickened out, and she feels like she’ll be the villain no matter what. In the stories, the women are always the villains coming between two best friends. Jen reminds her that that’s because those stories were written by men, and I love this line so much that I’m considering reinstating Jen’s MVP status (K: Legit). Joey wishes she could be fearless like Jen and Pacey are. Jen reminds Joey that their hearts are just as easily broken.
(K: Totally Not a Small Town) Library. Joey sees Pacey and Andie greeting each other like friends. She researches the Watergate scandal for an assignment, and Andie comes by to tell her that she has a date tonight. He’s wonderful, and perfect… but he’s not Pacey. Andie thought she was over Pacey, but when she saw him just now, all her Pacey!feels came back. That’s how she knew she wasn’t over him. Joey has Extreme Guilty Face.
Joey runs into Dawson outside and tries to bail, but Dawson wants to have a movie night tonight. She declines and nervously stutters and then succeeds in bailing.
Joey leaves a message for Pacey from a pay phone (LOL/RIP). She tells him not to say anything to Dawson, because she has to be the one to tell him. We zoom in on the machine and I’m so sure it’s going to zoom out on Dawson listening to this message instead of Pacey, because he enters Pacey’s house unannounced just like Pacey does at his house, but I guess I don’t know the zoomy camerman as well as I thought. I feel mildly betrayed, Zoomy Camerman. I thought we were tight.
K: Jesus, Zoomy Cameraman. We have enough lying jerkwads around Traumaland without adding you to the equation. Get your shit together.
Diva: Leery Manor. Joey climbs up her ladder to Dawson’s bedroom, and I get angry all over again. THE FUCKING LADDER. The only character on this show more infuriating than Dawson Leery. (K: You forgot Mitch) (D: Truth.)
Dawson watches a movie about two men fighting over a girl. Joey enters and he stares at her strangely. She asks if Pacey has been here, but he hasn’t. He’s watching The Last Picture Show, which they watched on their first date. He says they never got to see the end. She asks how it ends. He basically tells her their own love triangle which is the same as the movie. It ends with everyone alone and hating each other. It’s clear something’s up with Dawson, and he asks what Joey wanted to talk about. She fakes an excuse about watching baby Alexander and bails again. As she leaves, she runs onto the porch and we see that same scene of her begging Pacey not to tell Dawson. Dawson hears them from his bedroom, and heads outside. (Via the front door, not the ladder.) We watch them have the same “there’s an us now” scene. Joey realizes Dawson already knows. And so does Zoomy Cameraman, my former BFF.
Sunrise, Joey voiceover, take three. This is getting really fucking tedious. (K: YUP. And yet, this is one of the top ten rated episodes on IMDB. I’m guessing it’s solely because of those Pacephine makeout scenes) Blah blah blah, people are at the boat. Pacephine makes out in the shed. Joey tells Pacey to leave first and she’ll catch up. Dawson hands Pacey the champagne and congratulates him on a momentous achievement. It’s probably the nicest he’s been to Pacey in the history of this show. Pacey feels guilty and wants to know if Dawson has plans later.
Pacey gives a speech about the boat, and his friends and loved ones who helped him build it. He christens True Love, breaking the champagne bottle on the side of the boat. The gang bursts into applause.
Library. Dawson sees Will creeping around the stacks. He’s looking for a secret “study” room, which I assume is for sex. Dawson points him in the right direction. Will awkwardly asks what he and Joey did on their first date – he doesn’t know what he should do on his first date with Andie. He suggests the Creek and all its romance. Dawson says Will can borrow the Leery boat.
Lindley House. Jen and Henry are on the porch, and she insists that Henry cannot actually enter the residence due to Grams’s rules about teenage boys with hormones. They joke and he kisses her on the neck, but she sees Dawson approaching and ushers Henry inside, Grams’s rules be damned.
K: This is because Dawson isn’t a teenage boy with hormones. He’s a perpetually butthurt Ken doll.
Diva: Jen says she was expecting Dawson and gives him the “how you doing, you all right?” that we all give to people in sick beds or dealing with heartbreak. Jen says she and Henry could use a chaperone if he wants to hang with them. Dawson says he’s going to go relive better days, and Jen says she knows how hard this must be for him – STOP TALKING, JEN – and says it’s better that Pacey told him. “Told me what?” Jen gets OH, SHIT face. She won’t answer, and he realizes it’s about Pacey and Joey. Her face changes, and her eyes fill with tears, and she apologizes. He can’t believe Jen didn’t tell him, and she insists she was trying to protect him and that it wasn’t her place to tell. Dawson storms off, insisting he’s fine. She asks what she can do, and he says, the same thing she’s been doing – keep this to herself. Dawson storms off and collapses into his bed.
K: JEN. GIRL. I’m very tempted to revoke your MVP status over this turn of events. Because NEVER ASSUME THAT CERTAIN THINGS HAVE HAPPENED HOLY SHIT.
Diva: Assumptions: they make a total bag of dicks out of you and me.
Cut to The Last Picture Show. Dawson broods over it, and then Joey enters through the window. So we have to watch that scene again, where they discuss the movie as a metaphor for their relationship. This time, we see Dawson start to cry when she leaves. We also see him watch some of her and Pacey’s argument from his front door. He storms up to them and demands to know if Joey is bored, confused, or just malicious. I’m going to give Dawson a pass for any not-sexist things he says during this fight, because he really has been betrayed. Just because I’m First Mate on HMAS Pacephine doesn’t mean I can’t recognize what a garbage situation this is for Dawson. He might be the worst, but I still feel for the circumstances, if not the character.
K: Meanwhile, over on Team Heartless Cow, I give zero fucks about Dawson’s feelings because he’s the asshole who broke up with Joey and then decided he wanted to keep her on the backburner just in case things didn’t turn out for him elsewhere and he basically brought this entire situation on himself by being the shittiest friend of ever and UGH.
Diva: Clarification: still hate Dawson. Just giving him a pass on SOME angry remarks that all human beings would have if their friends were lying to them. But he absolutely made this bed and now should lie in it, alone, and preferably somewhere where we don’t have to hear him whine.
Pacey says, get angry at me, not her. Pacey insists he’s still Dawson’s best friend. Dawson angrily asks why sex ranks above their friendship. Just like in the movie, Pacey says this isn’t about sex. Dawson scoffs, “what, are you in love? Is that what this is?” Pacey just looks at her, and Dawson tells him not to. He says he feels bad for Pacey, who will end up alone at the end of this. He starts to storm into his house, but Andie and Will show up and she sweetly asks what’s going on. Dawson angrily tells her to ask Pacey, or better yet, Joey, how long they’ve been lying to him and to Andie. Dawson successfully storms into the house.
After the not-break, they don’t make us watch the sunrise and the voice-over again, but we do see Dawson leaving Jen’s porch again, angrily insisting that he’s fine after finding out his best friends have been lying to him. This time, we see Henry come back onto the porch. He doesn’t know what just happened and she confesses she just did the most awful thing ever (K: YUP). She’s explaining what happened, and Henry just starts kissing her mid-sentence. She pulls away and says no, he’s not helping. Henry apparently does not understand the meaning of the word “no,” and insists she’s just not giving him a chance to make her feel better. She repeats, DUDE, NO. He insists he was trying to make her feel better, but she’s like, uh, no, you were trying to make YOURSELF feel better. He actually TELLS HER he doesn’t want to listen to what just happened – he wants their relationship (and by that he means, sex) to be more important than “whatever mini-drama you and your friends have whipped up this week.” Um, FUCK YOU, HENRY. You’ve already ignored Jen’s clear lack of consent to a makeout sesh, guilted her for not wanting to reciprocate, AND ignored her feelings on something that she did wrong that is clearly weighing on her. You don’t ALSO get to be condescending and acting like the mature one when you are a fucking INFANT.
K: SERIOUSLY. Dawson is the actual fucking worst, but Henry is running a very close second right now.
Diva: Jen officially regains her MVP status when, in response to Henry’s “mini-drama” line, she orders him to leave. He calls her “irrational,” that word that has been used throughout history to try to convince women to sit down and shut up instead of having human thoughts, feelings, and experiences. She says no, irrational involves violence, which will happen if he doesn’t get his “horny freshman ass” out of there. He leaves, thank God.
Zoom in on a full moon that I’m sure will be used to explain everyone’s behavior for the next dozen episodes. Andie and Will are on the creek, as per Dawson’s advice. Also, Andie is wearing a thin sweater and a skirt. What fucking season is it again? He says they should pretend they’re not on a date. She jokes that this must be Greek mythology because he’s rowing her in a boat. He tells a Greek myth about a musician who goes to the underworld and plays to them about Eurydice, who died, and how he loves her and needs her back. Andie just smiles and wants to know what happens. It worked, but there was one condition – he wasn’t allowed to look at her until they were back in the real world. When they were just about to make it out, he looked back, and she disappeared into thin air.
Then we re-watch Andie and Will arrive at Leery Manor and get screamed at by Dawson. This time, we also see Joey chase after Dawson into the house. Pacey stares after them as Andie asks if it’s true. He admits yes, and she gets teary and doesn’t know what to say. She calls him stupid and reminds him that he’s giving up his friendship with Dawson. Crying, she tells Pacey that Dawson is Joey’s first love, and she will never love anyone else like she loves him. Andie storms off, and Will just awkwardly looks at Pacey and follows her.
K: Andie, girl. It’s been a year, and you’re literally on a date with someone else. GET OVER IT.
Diva: You have a low-rent Replacement!Pacey right there. Just make out with him instead.
Inside Leery Manor, Joey tells Dawson that she didn’t mean to hurt him. He gives little fucks about her good intentions. He asks if she loves Pacey or just wants to sleep with him, which he’ll be expecting. Joey reminds him that they broke up a fucking year ago and he should probs get over it, but more nicely than that. He asks if he’s punishing her, and if Pacey is what she’s been soul-searching for. He asks her to explain how this happened, but she can’t. They both sit down, teary and stuttering. He accuses Joey of making things between them complicated. She says she doesn’t know how this happened,, but she knows she needs Pacey.
K: Jesus Christ, Dawson. I know you have a giant blonde spider on your head controlling your thought patterns, but CALM THE FUCK DOWN, NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU.
Diva: Also, ultimatums are awful. Stop it.
Jen appears in Dawson’s bedroom. He’s not in the mood to relive this terrible day, but Jen doesn’t want him to be alone, because she’s a good friend. Jen explains that no good can come of throwing yourself between the Pacey and Joey machine. Dawson asks how he’s supposed to just act like everything’s fine. Jen thinks Dawson should let this run its course and let Joey figure out what she wants.
K: That second last gif is equal parts Jen being all “Dude, you’re the worst” and Michelle Williams being all “God, I am so much better than this show…”
Diva: So accurate.
Joey broods on the creek and finds Pacey there. After a long moment of silence, she gives us the voiceover line – “Ever have one of those days you wish you could live all over again?” He says yes, and so does she. She’s not sure what she’d have done differently – they’d still end up in this confusing place they’re in now. Pacey thinks they’ve ended up right where they started. She compliments the boat but Pacey still doesn’t know if she’s seaworthy. Joey thinks she’s solid, but Pacey’s predicting stormy weather. Joey cries at this metaphor, and Pacey asks if it’s over. It is. He quietly tells her to go, and she nods and leaves. A tear slowly makes it way down Pacey’s adorable cheek.
K: Alternate title for this episode? Fuck You, Showrunners and Give Me Back My Pacephine.
Next time on Dawson’s Creek: Dawson and Pacey compete in the annual regatta in S03 E21 – Show Me Love.
I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.