James Van Der Beek has died at 48, leaving a Dawson-shaped hole in the heart of many a millennial TV fanatic. A role model to all of a certain age, Dawson Leery taught us how to break and enter, how to be a bad friend and, most importantly, how to yearn. His years-long pursuit of the girl next door is still, for some of us, the reason we keep sending late-night texts to people who absolutely do not want to hear from us.
So, as we grieve the floppy-haired man who became the less-hot lead as the series went on, let’s look back at some of the most iconic moments spent in Capeside.
10. Every time the theme song played
From its rousing piano intro to its stirring snare drum climax, Paula Cole’s I Don’t Want to Wait became the anthem of 90s romantics everywhere. We felt those lyrics deep in our teenaged hearts – we’re 15, we’ll be dead before we know it, there’s no time to waste. I thought about walking down the aisle to this song, but my literal wedding somehow didn’t seem romantic enough to justify it.
9. Jen’s arrival
In my memory, Jen Lindley’s taxi pulled up much later in the show’s run, but she actually arrives in the pilot episode. NYC transplant and love interest Jen is everything Dawson’s childhood pal and longstanding flame Joey isn’t: blonde, cosmopolitan, and blonde. Sent to live with her Grams after a life of sex and drugs (rarely mentioned), Jen throws back her shiny hair, swishes her summer dress, and drives an immediate wedge between Joey, Dawson and his best friend Pacey, setting the next six seasons in motion.
8. Jack coming out through a poem
The 90s was a peak time for poems as plot devices (“I don’t hate you, not even a little bit, not even at all”) but the outing of shy Capeside high schooler Jack by his English teacher was one of the more memorable. Having found the words to begin to express his sexuality, Jack finds himself forced to read his feelings aloud in front of his whole class. Weeping through his (beautiful) verse, Jack finally flees the classroom. Pacey’s fiery and heroic defence of his friend was unusual for the 90s, when other shows were still using queerness as a punchline.
7. Mitch’s death
We can surely all agree that in early seasons, Dawson was a garbage human with a habit of being absolutely disgraceful to the people who loved him – especially his hot dad. In season five, after a heated argument about Dawson dropping out of film school, Mitch Leery just wants an icecream. Unfortunately, like all hot dads, he rocks out too hard in the car, drops his icecream on the floor, and goes headlong into an oncoming truck, which kills him instantly. Justice for Mitch, sorry about your shitty son.
6. Dawson crying at the dock
Was this scene made better or worse by becoming an overexposed meme? Hard to say. But the moment Dawson chose to set Joey free was, by anyone’s measure, heart-wrenching. He had loved her (a version of her he had invented while alone in his bedroom) his whole short life. As he tearfully tells Joey she should turn around and go back to Pacey, we see the first glimpse of a new Dawson, one who knows other people exist and who occasionally acts in their best interests.
5. Jen’s goodbye for her daughter
Now, I maintain that killing off Jen Lindley in the final episode is a decision that should be tried in the International Court of Justice – and her recorded message to her daughter admitted as evidence. “Well,” she says, as Sarah McLachlan’s Angel plays, “by the time you see this, I won’t be here anymore, and I know how much that sucks for both of us.” This devastating monologue cemented Michelle Williams as a true thespian, even under the direction of a mid-at-best filmmaker like Dawson.
4. Joey and Dawson’s first kiss
Joey’s second-best first kiss finally came at the start of season two. As they wander under fairy lights on a perfect Capeside night, talking about how Joey has sacrificed her own ambition and happiness in case they are soulmates, they come upon nature’s most romantic of settings – a swing set. The rest, as they say, is an unconvincing tongue lashing.
3. Joey and Pacey’s first kiss
Everyone born before 1995 knows Joey and Pacey were endgame. All any red-blooded teenager wanted was for a surly young man with a car to berate her, drive dangerously, shout at her, and then grab her face while teary-eyed and practically bleeding testosterone and kiss her until her eyes watered. Or so I’m told.
2. ‘You and me, always’
The two-part series finale takes place five years into the future. In a wonderful twist that defied 90s romcoms, Dawson and Joey have not ended up together. I know! But as they reminisce about their wild, stalkerish, often one-sided love story, Dawson realises they’re just a different kind of soulmate. Not the kind you live with, or start a family with, or come home to after a bad day at the office, but the kind that occasionally has a sleepover for old time’s sake. And I think that’s beautiful.
1. ‘I remember everything’
Season three – the best season – includes the greatest line in the show’s entire run. It’s Anti-Prom, and Joey and Pacey are sharing a dance. How come, he demands, this feels so right? He manhandles her bracelet, explaining it’s just like Joey: elegant, simple, beautiful. It’s her mum’s bracelet, she says – but he already knows. “You remember that?” Joey asks, and Pacey – the greatest human man in all of literature – whispers, “I remember everything.”
BE. STILL. MY. HEART.
In many ways, Joey was never going to be enough for Pacey. I could have been, obviously, but as the sun sets on Dawson and his creek, I guess we will never know for sure.
