u/amara90

Let us never forget that Jen's plot for the very special 100th episode was catching a cold while not one, but TWO of her extremely recent exes stalked Joey all the way to Miami to try to win her heart. Oh, and having Joey slut shame her for sleeping with Dawson.

Meanwhile, Pacey gets stuck having to commit to a girl who seems to love throwing his past romantic failure in his face, while being gaslit by another who still can't admit that his insecurities about her feelings for him were ALWAYS valid and correct.

Only Pacey's return to "voice of the audience" as he tells Dawson he needs to just move on already manages to keep this from being unwatchable.

I feel like there's been plenty of discussion of the kiss and debates about Joey's motivations for it. But can I just say that I think for me the bigger problem is just the overall lack of respect for Pacey?

First, we've got Pacey being completely irrelevant to the episode as a whole. And this is not only a season finale, but the final episode of the high school years and even an episode a lot of fans think should've been the series finale. And it's like the writers have zero interest in him as a character. Much like most of S4, apparently none of these people were ever friends with him. The group dynamic doesn't involve him at all. Any iconic friend moments only work if he's removed from the equation, I guess.

Then we have nearly every character pushing Joey to Dawson, as if her quite serious relationship didn't JUST end. In fact, most of them act as if it never happened at all. Again, the vibe is very much as if Pacey was some guy none of them knew and they're just happy Joey's back where she belongs.

And finally, the phone call. Where after more than a full season of this friendship not existing, we're expected to think THIS is the most important connection Pacey has to the group and we're meant to "awwww" over Dawson saying he's proud. I just find it so condescending, towards both Pacey as a character and towards us in the audience.

Can we just talk about how after all the drama around the Coda kiss, S5 opens 4 months later, with them seemingly NEVER talking about it, never deciding if it was just a fluke or if it meant something, never talking about if they want to try dating, nothing. Apparently, they just mutually decide to never mention it.

THEN Dawson decides to drop out of USC and move to Boston, with it being heavily implied that this is because he wants to be with Joey. And yet, when Joey talks to Pacey about it later, she explicitly says she did NOT ask him to move there and there seems to STILL be uncertainty about if they'll even try to be together romantically. So we never truly know what the hell they talked about or agreed to in order for him to make such a huge life decision.

I don't think I truly paid attention to any of this before because I was so fixated on my frustration with the Pacey/Joey amnesia, but man, for being considered a Dawson/Joey season, they are a MESS, even before Dawson pulls away from her after Mitch's death.