Iron Jawed Angels: Review and Commentary

How do you do,

   I don't consider myself a feminist given that the feminist movement in recent decades has become, to a greater extent, a three ring circus (which is something for another blog entry). Yet, I was involved in the later years of my undergrad days with a few feminists who were part of a pro-life movement. These people invited me one night to watch a movie about women getting the right to vote. This was the film Iron Jawed Angels. 

   The best way to summarize the movie would be a group of actress most people have never heard of portray an event in US history that most people know how it ends and Angelica Houston is in the movie. It is not an old film, though old by today's standards. It came out in 2004, though most might not have heard of it. Maybe most of the advertising of the movie was not as great as, say, The Notebook or The Cinderella Story, both of which are watched by women on both sides of the political spectrum the past decade, yet Iron Jawed Angels passed under everyone's radar. No doubt, the same can be said to many of such movies of similar themes. So, this may have to go deeper than summarize it.

   Actress Hilary Swank plays Alice Paul and Frances O'Conner plays Lucy Burns. The two women played by these actresses were suffragettes who formed the National Woman's Party a century ago. The film has them returning from England (in September 1912, so they missed the Titanic) and meet with leaders from the National American Woman's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to push for women's rights. Of course, the women in this group will support them if it's done on their terms, so the two eventually part from them and set up their own group. 

  If one was expecting the US Government, especially the recently elected President Woodrow Wilson, to simply hand women the right to vote after a few simple actions, then you are naive. What happens in the film's conflict is that Miss Paul and Miss Burns meet opposition from every corner. Not only do they face men who are refusing to give them the rights but they also must fight off misogyny of the times as well as their fellow suffragettes. Wilson is portrayed, in the movie, as a silver tongue politician (perhaps the closest to the truth from most portrayals) who is almost always isolated from their cries of freedom, and yet is willing to give freedom to others. So, the NWP then goes out to oppose him in the reelection and any who doesn't move on the Suffrage. Then America goes to war and suddenly the actions are considered treasonous.
    First time viewers may be amazed at how things went differently back in the 1910s. None of the Suffragettes had to go through security check points to see the president (though it was no longer simply walking up to the White House, ring the door bell, present a card to the butler, and then be led to the Oval Office), yet they also unimpeded on Capital Hill. When they picket the White House, only city policemen are called, not a Swat team, the Secret Service, or the Homeland Security. One would even be amazed that people use to cut into parades and throw things and not get arrested for it (unless the people in the parade were important people). Then there are moments that many feminists might be shocked to discover in the movement. The women seen marching are all white. The one African American woman who wishes to march is told she and her fellow black women must be in the back. Many of the suffragettes, including our heroes, are depicted looking down their noses at black women also, forcing that one to sneak into the line during the march. Those who may not know much about history of US presidential inaugurations may find it odd that Wilson is shown heading to the White House for the first time as president in what looks like a spring day. This is before the date of the inauguration was changed from March 5 to January. In 1913, people smoked -- not as much as they did in the fifties and sixties due to cigarettes not as mass produced -- and this time period marked a start in the more common instances of women smoking. So, it's no surprise to see Miss Paul and Miss Burns smoking, even after brushing her teeth. While sex is not openly discussed among most people (in some places, not even among married couples), the word "sex" is used frequently to mean male or female (something that should have stayed on in more places than Jurassic Park -- where Dr. Grant says "Some West African frogs have been known to spontaneously change sex from male to female in a single sex environment" -- as opposed to gender). I am cataloging all this to illustrate how history films present the past, which is a world quite different from the one you and I are occupying. No doubt, a century from now, people may find our habits very strange (i.e., renaming locations for the sake of political correctness, make protests and riots over tragedies, make a fuss about a minority in a place of power, be very judgmental to others, et cetera et cetera et cetera).  I admit, there were a few things that surprised me right away. In the Senate scenes, the US flag is displayed with the blue field on viewer's right, instead of the left as the Flag Code dictates. Looking into the Flag Code, I was amazed to discover that the Flag Code in question wasn't enforced because it wasn't around during Wilson's administration. According to USFlag.org, the code was first set up on June 14, 1923 when "there were no federal or state regulations governing display of the United States Flag" (USFlag.org). So, until then, there wasn't a defining rule on how the flag would have been displayed, either horizontal or vertical, in the Senate. But, I am positive, and I don't know how many historians would agree, that flag would have had the blue field in the north-west corner regardless as far back as 1777.

     While Iron Jawed Angels was good enough to presenting the way people behaved in 1913 to 1919, it doesn't get all of the historical inaccuracies down. Miss Paul and her fictional lover are seen eating sandwiches on a fire escape in one scene. The bread appears to have been sliced industrially, which is odd because sliced bread wasn't on the market until 1928. If they were eating sandwiches, they would have had to cut from the loaf directly (and there was a scene of something that looked like a loaf or cake on the table in another). This seems picky compared to a few other things. I mentioned the smoking habits in the time period. Yet, the film doesn't pick up on the drinking habits of the time and of the suffragettes who fought also for prohibition. It is mentioned in one scene when some man complains about what the women are marching for (though the film refrains from going into the common cliche of men claiming the women seeking equality are going to make them effeminate, even though there was a wide cultural hysteria over masculinity at the time). The one thing the film can really get to is the dialogue. As with Hollywood films, Iron Jawed Angels has everyone talk as common, and as earthly, as the audience as opposed to the methods people normally talked. Many reviewers have noted the way Miss Paul and Miss Burns have interacted with eachother, as opposed to the more in the times portrayal of Missus Carrie Chapman Catt (played by Angelica Houston), who exhibits the stiff, formalized, and sometimes condescending type of oration that is commonly attributed to Victorians, along with the older suffragettes. This can actually make viewers think they were from today and were trapped in the early 20th Century.

      This can make me add about the music, which is actually more in tune to the 2010s instead of the 1910s. While the clothing seems accurate, a few things like the bonnets and cars seem to be in advance years instead of in times. The film does present the rivalry between Miss Paul and Missus Catt, yet it has them reconciling, which never happened. There were times I considered Hilary Swank too pretty to be Alice Paul and the Australian actress, Frances O'Conner, doesn't really know how to hide her accent in playing Lucy Burn (I am also noting with sadness that we have American characters played by foreign actors in greater numbers).

     One reviewer called it "a 1912 version of Sex in the City", which is justified. The footage of the film is jagged in some scenes, with an MTV style editing that gets the viewer confused. Miss Burns and Miss Paul discuss the latter's lover in manner of school girls talking about some guy, mostly for the sake of adding romance into the story. The character Ben Weissmann is fictional, only added to make Miss Burns more relatable by giving her a boyfriend. Yet, the romance seems cliched or forced, depending on the scene, which is interesting as neither Miss Paul nor Miss Burns ever married (it wasn't unusual at the time for two women to live together without a man in their lives). To handle the spirit of feminism, the film doesn't allow them to do the old fashioned (read, "sexist) courtship that was common at the time to the more relaxed type of dating that was common in the Twenties. Fortunately, there's no sex scene, yet one scene has Alice Paul taking a bath and based on her hands and leg position, the implication is that Miss Alice Paul is having, as TV Tropes calls it, a "date with Rosie palms." As awkward as the romance is, the moment is completely unnecessary because it causes the film to confirm what critics of feminists tend to believe: that feminists reject virtue and chastity in favor of sleeping around, for the sake of advancement, then disregard the men they slept with to cling to their sisters, considering another woman as the only man in their life. I may not be a feminist, but if I was I would find the portrayal too generalizing. I know a feminist who is planning on becoming a nun and she is not straying from that path with sex, drugs, and rock n roll. I know another who is in a chaste relationship with her boyfriend. Not only that, both are pro-life, which clashes the common stereotype that feminists support abortions (by the way, they told me of when the Feminists for Life started, one of its members actually met Miss Paul who told them that, with a few exceptions, the suffragettes were opposed to abortions). I am positive if Miss Paul, Miss Burns, or any of the suffragettes of the times saw this film, they would have protested their portrayal. 

     Yet, the darker side of the picketing is not something portrayed lightly. During the time the US was at war with Germany, Miss Paul and the others picket the White House, with signs that compare Wilson to the Kaiser, as the Silent Sentinels and are arrested on trumped up charges. When Miss Burns was arrested, she and the others refuse to pay the fine all because it "would be admitting guilt." They are sent to a workhouse in a set up that appears like something you'd hear in the Holocaust (the women are stripped of their clothes in one scene and shows their nudity, largely to cater to the male audience). In real life, the women were given only one bar of soap to wash with upon entry, after being stripped, so they refused to use it. Some of the other horrors of the Occoquan Workhouse are kept out of the film, however. The conditions were unsanitary and the prisoners shared things with others who were sick (there is a moment where maggots are found in soup). The film also doesn't include the day when the wards brought in black sex workers to humiliate the suffragettes with anything imaginable (show the racism in the parade, but not have white women resist a horny black man from rape?). President Wilson did pardon the prisoners, though they refused and had to be forced out. This gives us the Night of Terror where Miss Paul goes on a hunger strike, happening in November. Miss Paul is shown being forced fed raw eggs and milk by the wardens, something that is appalling, even for the time. 

     The film merges the two events together, has a fictional senator attempt to rescue his wife (who he was about to divorce for joining the Suffrage movement), the news of the mistreatment is announced and the women are released. What the film excluded was one of the women actually died of a heart attack during her time. It is in this that Wilson is further pressured into moving for the 19th Amendment. This is shown to pass in 1920, with Tennessee making the deciding vote of the necessary 36 votes to pass. Thus, the film has the times right when white men were making and passing laws to be the ones who pass this amendment and allow women to vote (just in time for Warren Harding's election). However, the fact that it records the deciding vote done because the man who voted was told to by his mother does give the results an anti-climatic feel (as opposed to the idea that he grew a back bone and voted "aye"). The film doesn't include the days when President Wilson suffered a stroke and his wife operated the White House (which one could conclude was the one time we had a woman running the country in a time when women were attempt to get the right to vote nationwide). 

    Iron Jawed Angels barely passes the Benschel Test on most occasions. Ben Weissman, the senator, and his wife, are fictional characters added to give the audience suppose this happened sort of characters. These are the things that make it hard to see how good the film is, along with the MTV style editing, the Sex in the City moments on a view occasions, the sight of a few anachronisms, and the music score that doesn't fit. It's a secular film, for the most part, despite it taking place in a time when Christianity (specifically Protestantism) was ingrained in the American society. Alice Paul's faith as a Quaker is hardly explored, which is sad because there are plenty of times to explore how she felt of her community's (and her mother's) stance on suffrage. In the matter, the discussion outside of the film is all too brief: non-Christians fire off specific passages in the Bible that are deemed sexist by today's standards (Genesis 3:16, 1 Timothy 2:11-5, etc.) while Christians offer essays explaining a passage and allow it to be timeless instead of archaic (Bible Reference). Of course, neither has their views brought up or examined by anyone in the film. It's also noteworthy that none of the Quaker wisdom is issued forth in the film (only something to be referenced by Miss Paul on the matter of her background). The course language that arises is questionable and the inaccuracies of history are kept down, but not completely. So, Iron Jawed Angels does make for a mediocre film. If there is any lessons from it, it's that there really was a struggle for women to acquire the right to vote and it shows as an example of how far our nation is from its ancient inspirations (Athens and Rome). As I mentioned in "Food for Thought: Republic vs Democracy", suffrage is universal today, with only a few exceptions given to minors and incarcerated citizens. However, when the 19th Amendment was passed, African American women had to deal with the Grandfather clause and other restrictions to vote while the younger women couldn't vote until the 1970s. Also, as history shows, getting the right to vote was not the end of feminism or sexism (and to some, the battle for sex equality is still being fought on today). Yet, it is nice to see what our fore-mothers went through to make what came after possible.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail: Review and Commentary

How do you do.

    Here Comes Peter Cottontail gets its title from a song of the same name and is based on the story "The Easter Bunny Who Slept." It is a Raskin / Bass production with stop motion animation to tell the story of Peter Cottontail, an Easter bunny from April Valley, who is destined to become Chief Easter Bunny.

   The film is narrated by Seymour S. Sassafras, proprietor of the Seymour S. Sassafras and Company, voiced by Danny Kaye. Mr. Sassafras is treated as being like the mailman in Santa Claus is Coming to Town, only funnier, and ultimately more involved. After introducing himself and showing off his colorful talents, he gives a tour of April Valley and tells us what the film is about. It's like the old chorus in a play who introduces the story before we see the action (like in A Mid-Summer Night's Dream where the Rude Machanics' play is summarized by a speaker before the program starts). He makes it easy for the little ones: the film's hero is Peter Cottontail "who almost lost the job" to the wicked January Q. Irontail, who is voiced by Vincent Price. 

   Sassafras starts the story by saying Colonel Wellington B. Bunny (also voiced by Kaye) has decided to retire and appoint a new successor. He speaks highly of Peter but an aide to his tells us a few things of Peter: "he is boastful, he has no sense of responsibility, and sometimes, sometimes he fibs!" This is demonstrated in his first scene where Peter tells a fib (lie) and his left ear drooples (a trumpet in the orchestra orchestrates the move). Colonel Bunny is apparently not a military officer from his appearances. My guess is that among Easter Bunnies, there is no need of an army as they don't fight wars. So, Colonel is just an honorary title, just as it is done in the South. Yet, he does reprimand Peter on his fibbing and admonishes him in a song called "The Easter Bunny Never Sleeps".

    For some reason, the Colonel's aid is also in an interview with Irontail. Irontail says he doesn't want Peter to become Chief Easter Bunny. In fact, he hates the whole Easter Season, just as the Grinch once hated Christmas, only he has a reason. In the past, Irontail once had a fluffy tail just like everyone else until a child rollerskated over it. This action, which would warrant the PETA to fine the child's parents for animal abuse, results in him losing his real tail and has instead an artificial one made of iron (hence his name) that twitches up and down with a clank when shown (yet is often silent). In a sense, Irontail is like Captain Hook, a character who is robbed of the thing that made him whole and has to use a fake replacement and this becomes a source of his wickedness. Irontail says he now despises children and is determined to have Easter cancelled forever. Most of the villains in movies of the Raskin / Bass production tend to be cartoonish, often evil for no reason at all (a mayor who hates children and toys), or just mean because of some misfortune (living alone in a palace full of machines) or need to grow up and get over it (Miser brothers). Irontail is more sympathetic because of the injury.

    The first thing Irontail does is to interrupt the Colonel rehearsing the appointing of Peter as Chief Easter Bunny. Irontail pulls out the April Valley Constitution with all the smug of a lawyer, which proves that the Colonel cannot just appoint anyone as Chief Easter Bunny if he wants to. Of course, Irontail is not satisfied at knowing he has the law on his side. He challenges Peter to a contest on "who delivers the most eggs on Easter". Peter takes up the challenge, though Colonel Bunny is not too happy about it. Yet, he gives his word and the contest is on. 

   As one would expect, Irontail cheats in this contest by sabotaging Peter's alarm clock. To make matters worse, Peter, we are told, stayed up late in a party before going to bed. Of course, Irontail is shown being able to give away only one egg and because Peter overslept, that one egg made the difference. Peter had eggs ready and could have given more than Irontail, but he overslept and thus that one egg beat him. Irontail then sings a reprise he now calls "The Easter Bunny Always Sleeps", which now called for bending of tulips, rotting of jellybeans, butchering of hens, eggs being given ugly colors, chocolate bunnies and chicks replaced by tarantulas and octopuses, and Easter goulashes instead of bonnets.

    Having failed everyone, the best Peter can do is go into exile. But, the story doesn't end there. No, he runs into Sassafras who gives him a time machine called "Yestermorrow mobile" (Willy Wonka called and said he wants his puns back). It comes with an unusual pilot: a French caterpillar named Antoine (once again, Kaye). The machine has a device to take them back to Easter, but Irontail sends a spider to sabotage the gadgets (if it were made today, he would have sent a worm into its computer) and thus it lands in Mother's Day. From this, Here Comes Peter Cottontail goes on a journey across the holidays of the year instead of just Easter, leading me to believe this was intended to be a swan song of the holiday themed movies.

   The plot of the journey features many things Americans see in holidays. The first stop in Mother's Day has a boy and a girl having fun with their mom, Independence Day has boys watching fire works, Halloween has ghouls and witches, and Christmas has Santa Claus (voiced by Raskin / Bass favorite, Paul Frees). Same is with lesser holidays, like Thanksgiving having a banquet, Valentine's with romance, and Irishism in St. Patrick's, while Peter dresses up in costumes to match the themes of them all (he puts on diapers for New Years and a wig for George Washington's Birthday). Not all of the holidays are mentioned or seen in the special. The machine has a button for Arbor Day but we don't get to see it, nor is Father's Day visited (I'd like for feminists who take pop shots at Mothers' Day to note how Fathers' Day is considered less important to most compared to Mother's Day) as well as Columbus Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Labor Day, or Hanukkah. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day wasn't around at the time, which is why he doesn't visit it either (though one wonders how would Peter dress up on that date without appearing racist). One thing to note is what the special doesn't show.

    Except for Mothers' Day, the real meaning of the holidays is not dwelt upon. Independence Day is more than just fire works and flag waving, Halloween is more than just ghosts, Christmas is not about Santa Claus, and St. Patrick's day is not just Ireland. Above all, Easter is not really about the bunny, the chick, or the egg. Easter and Christmas are actually about Jesus Christ: with Christmas centering on His birth and Easter on His Resurrection (with death happening during Passion Week), thus the two holidays give us the beginning and end of His life on earth. Both holidays are on older holidays: Christmas over Saturnalia and Easter over Passover, respectively, and have incorporated elements of other holidays into them. Easter was intended to celebrate Jesus' resurrection after Passion Week, which was where the Jewish Feast of the Passover happened, yet the Easter Bunny and the eggs are not of Judeo-Christian origin. The Easter Bunny is a Northern European concept of an intelligent hare (the renaming of him as a bunny is an American adaptation) who visits children with gifts. In short, he's Santa Claus in form of a hare and moved into the Spring. Like Santa, the Easter Bunny, or Osterhase, is said to give good treats to good children and punishing bad children (he was to judge children on Eastertide, after all). Not everyone uses the rabbit for egg giving as they have a wizard for that in Sweden, where girls can dress up as witches on Easter!

    Most have interpreted the image with Christianity, however, arguing that the bunny, being able to not lose its virginity in reproduction make it associated with the Virgin Mary, making the baskets be the manger that Christ was laid in, and the egg is Christ. This could be supported as the egg shell of a chicken egg (the preferred egg of Easter) is white, for the purity of Christ, the hardness of the shell for the strength of His love for us, the breaking of it forms lines like the stripes of the scourge while the peeling away the shell can be the opening of the tomb. Because it use to be a practice to not eat eggs during Lent, they would be hard boiled so they could last longer, as this was long before refrigerators were invented. Coloring the eggs is a German tradition, which used red for the Blood of Christ, however some places used green for the foliage of Spring grass. While the egg giving was done in Eastern Europe (and, coincidentally, Easter and East share the same root word, from the Germanic "Oster" which is said to come from the goddess Ostara, who is the Anglo-Saxon variant of Dawn and had a festival of her own in April), the egg is seen to have been traditional as far back as Ancient Mesopotamia.
   Here Comes Peter Cottontail excludes the Christian traditions of Easter as well as the purpose behind the images of it for three reasons: one it's a secular special which explains the lack of a mention of Christ in April Valley. There is not even a church in April Valley, which can either mean the Easter Bunnies don't have a religion or April Valley is suppose to be Earthly paradise as described in the Book of Revelations (the latter is questionable due to the presence of an evil bunny). Even though most religions can take a secular story and translate it to their faiths, the lack of crosses (except for what looks like a chocolate cross carved by one of the chocolate candy carvers) and churches or the meaning removes all purpose of the Easter Bunny's job. Two, the special wasn't produced to promote anything except the commercial aspects of Easter. In a sense, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, like Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, is a commercial for the card and candy companies, and despite it being an Easter special it does the same in the other holidays. Most people don't see the connection but secularism and commercialism walk hand in hand in popular conception of holidays. If it's about the bunny and the basket of eggs, the sales are good while, apparently, "He Is Risen" doesn't sale anything (though candy companies have compensated that with chocolate crosses). The third and most obvious reason is because the special is supposedly geared to children. Yeah, the children are the ones most likely to respond to talking rabbits. Children are reared to treat the Easter Bunny as they do with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, an invisible entity who gives them treats that they believe is real until they grow up and become bitter adults who believe they are being lied to. Despite any interpretations that are listed before, the usage of the Easter Bunny detracts the real meaning of Easter.
    We celebrate Easter for the Resurrection of Christ, which conquered death and has allowed us life. He is the way to Heaven and not the bunny. There was once a time this was spoon fed to Christian children, but in recent years we have the notion that children won't grasp the concept or will be traumatized at the fact that the greatest hero of all time had to be killed for our sins, that all has to be shielded from children and replaced by a fluffy image of the Easter Bunny and the egg basket. The last can understood because growing up I found Passion of the Lord section of Holy Week to be unbearable and longed to be in Easter all ready. Now that I am grown up, I understand now the importance of its inclusion, especially since Christians, especially Catholics, don't merely celebrate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ on Easter. We do it all the time in the Mass when we take communion, as say say "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again" or "When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again."

   Even though it's secular, a few Christian themes are present in the special. Peter is named after Simon Peter, the head and spokesman of the disciples, and he embodies the concept of Everyman. He has his flaws in his pride and his habit of lying. His pride makes his undoing in the early part of the movie as he gets over cocky and celebrates a party instead of sleeping. Peter is humbled by his failure and goes through the special to deliver his eggs. However, his constant fibbing keeps getting in the way. Thus the theme of being honest as well as humble is present.
   While the meaning of Easter is excluded from the special, there is a slight reference to it that is easy to miss. During the Christmas sequence, Peter accidentally leaves Antoine behind. This happens while he picks up a bonnet who is left in a Christmas store. Since Peter has no money, he barters the eggs, but since Irontail was stealing them, he left nothing behind but his Santa suit and Antoine (symbolic of the disciples forsaking Jesus at the Garden as well as His death on the cross) yet the bonnet is saved (like we were from Satan's power). Off screen, Antoine wraps himself up in cocoon (symbolic of the tomb) and wakens as a butterfly (the Resurrection). The process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly seems ordinary but it's the one action in the whole special that actually tells children what Easter is about, without getting into the theological side or the trauma of the crucifixion (still wish the special actually mentioned the meaning, anyway). Love and forgiveness is even mentioned in the Valentine's sequence where Peter meets a girl bunny who doesn't blast him for his oversleeping.
   Faith, Hope, and Love, the Fruits of the Holy Spirit, are also a theme in Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Peter has faith in himself, mostly, and it fails frequently. When he puts faith in the help of others (Sassafras' time machine, Antoine's skills, and the Bonnie's guide), even if it is not a faith in a higher power. Love in this is not romantic love, even if a bunny romance is suggested in the Valentine's sequence. It's Peter trading an eggs to get a bonnet out of a store so she can feel appreciated. Hope is most obvious of all.

    So, during this, Peter improves as he goes through the holidays. Irontail goes through life and limb to destroy the eggs, yet in Valentine's day he decides to improvise and turn the eggs green. At first it works, as green eggs aren't liked in Valentine's Day or George Washington's Birthday, yet when St. Patrick's Day comes, Peter wins through. One wonders if by turning the eggs green that Irontail shot himself in the foot (there are plenty of people who like green eggs, unless Sam I Am is offering them with ham). So, because Peter gives away the eggs on St. Patrick's Day, he wins the right to be Chief Easter Bunny and Irontail is reduced to janitor. As Peter hops away, another chorus of "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" is sung with the entire cast joining in and wishing the viewer "Happy Easter Day."
   Here Comes Peter Cottontail maybe a fifty one minute holiday commercial for candy and card companies as it ignores the meaning of Easter, and the holidays included in the special, it does have some good morals (though one wonders if the ghouls and the store clerk felt about not getting their eggs) and it's enjoyable to watch.

The Breakfast Club: Review and Commentary

How do you do.

   With the thirtieth anniversary of the release of The Breakfast Club being nigh, I decided to make one for it. 

   The premise of The Breakfast Club is five teenagers, from different cliques in high school, are sent to detention one Saturday and they spend the day getting to know each other. Throw in some angst and a few anti-authoritarian sentiments into the mix and mix them in with thought provoking challenges to perceptions and first impression, and that is what The Breakfast Club is all about. The movie stars a pretty Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall as two of the teenagers. 

   The teenager part is a misnamer as Hollywood tends to cast young adults as teenagers, often twenty or twenty-two year olds, sometimes as old thirty (the oldest actor I have seen to play a teenager is the woman playing Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter, at 37). Ringwald and Hall were the only teenage actors on the cast list, according Story Notes of the film on AMC. They were 16 when the movie was being filmed. Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy were both 22 at the time while Judd Nelson was 25. The characters they play match the age: it's easier to have an adult play a jock and the character Nelson played required an older actor. Rounding out the cast is Paul Gleeson as the principal, Mr. Vernon, and John Kapelos as Janitor Carl, the only adult characters who are not extras. 

   Since the plot is so easy to describe in a few sentences, there is hardly a reason to go through it scene by scene. Instead, let's look at the movie in the themes and the characters. We are introduced to the characters as stereotypical teenagers summed up in the film as "a brain, an athlete, a basket-case, a princess, and a criminal."

  The brain is shown to be Brian Johnson, played by Anthony Michael Hall. Brian does away with some of the nerdish cliches: the glasses, the bad teeth, the creepy smirk, etc. Instead, Brian is thin, tall, and bookish. He is also shown to be a perfectionism, not really use to failure, though he is not really confrontational. The athlete is Andrew Carke, played by Emilio Estevez, shown to be a wrestler with an attitude. The basket-case is Allison Reynolds, played by Ally Sheedy, a shy and unpredictable girl. The princess is Claire Standish, played by Molly Ringwald, who has all the traits of a rich girl sort as well as a brat. Finally there's John Bender, the criminal, played by Judd Nelson, who looks like a bigger version of Shawn Hunter yet twice as mean. 

   This thing plays out when they enter. Bender clowns around and talks sarcastically when Vernon is handing out papers, then he harasses the others. Allison withdraws from the group for most of the movie while Brian tries to focus on his paper, while annoying the others with a few facts. Claire and Andy are implied to be in a relationship, another popular trait among jocks and popular girls. The reason for this is that Andy asks Claire if she's grounded at one point. Later, he tells Bender "you don't talk to her, you don't look at her, and you don't even think about her!" The entire line and the way he says it are exactly what a boyfriend would say. On Andy, he is the only one of the teenagers to actually stand up to Bender, be it telling him to lay off of Brian and Claire or pulling a wrestling move on Bender. When they get into a face off, Andy has Bender down and in a lock in a few seconds, which it turns out Bender wasn't even resisting because he would have killed him. "It's real simple," he says. "I kill you and you f**king parents would sue me and it'd be a big mess and I don't even care enough about you to bother." He even pulls out a knife and stabs a chair to show he means business. 

    Of course, Bender uses the bad boy image and his tough approach to hide something, or it seems. Seeing how Bender likes to lie on a few things it's very hard to tell when he's lying and when he's honest. The thing he is hiding is brought up when he makes impressions of what goes on in houses (which is the favorite moment of mine). When asked to do his, he finds it easy, and then demonstrates a scene of verbal and physical abuse in his house. Apparently, his father goes in and calls him names, his mother adds in (though one can't help but think she is secretly insulting her husband) and his father then goes abusive on her too. Then he shows a cigar sized burn on his arm he got for "spilling paint in the garage." Of course, Bender doesn't invite any sympathy. All he does is knock things over and insult people. The trauma of it is more than Bender having an uncaring attitude of others but cowardliness. The main example of this comes when Vernon pulls him away to the closet and challenges him to a fight and offers his chin for the first punch. Bender doesn't take it and Vernon proves what he suspects by faking a punch. 

    The dynamics between Vernon and Bender make up the conflict of the movie. In fact, it's the main outlet to the battle of the ages. The age gap has become a trope in Hollywood, practically a byproduct of the Sixties, though some cases of it can be found before then. However, since the Sixties, this has gone up a notch where we actually see full blown arguments and fights between young and old. Much of it is to show some hidden strains of ageism to some while promoting ageism in others (in this case, we are encouraged to side with the teenagers). The Breakfast Club, like most of the teen movies of the Eighties is anti-authority when it comes to age gap. The adults, on screen and off, are shown as the figures of authority. The film shows them all as tyrants who expect more from the teenagers while limiting their abilities to move. They are shown to have set up a horrible world and a set of rules to follow while in that horrible world, and when they get out of line with those rules, or don't live up to those rules, they are punished in unfair matters, which the school detention is shown to represent.

   As an example of how Vernon is in the movie, the script has his first lines described as "with such disrespect it makes you wonder how he ever got the job."As children, we are taught to respect our elders, something common in societies (or at least it ought to). Critics of this notion consider respect for elders to be ageist, implying they get respect simply for being old. Ageism aside, respect is something that is to go both ways, though most people tend to be, also, that respect is earned, not given. Most societies only do this with younger people, yet Western countries have recently decided that the respect being earned, not given, can also go both ways. The philosophy in today's society is that if one gives disrespect than he can only get disrespect in return. It's an "eye for an eye" approach, at most. What the teenagers in the film do, and what Vernon does to them, goes against what Paul said when he said "Treat everyone with respect." Paul wrote the passage in a time when respect was given to higher ups, so the implications of the line meant kings should respect slaves as well. Clearly, Vernon doesn't heed Paul's message, thus the movie justifies it. Even when one of the teens calls for respect of Vernon, it's veiled insult. From the opening scene of Brian with his mom and Andy and Bender's stories of their dads, we see that there is little respect at home either. Claire has the worst as she speaks of the break down in her parents' marriage as each parent use her as a tool in their petty squabble, rather than keeping it to themselves as adults are expected to do (if you see The Best Years of Our Lives, you'd see Fredric March and Dana Andrews' characters keep their arguments to themselves and not get anyone else involved, not even their younger friend in the Navy who lost his hands).

   Of course, not all of the adults are this way. The one grown up who relates to the teens is the janitor. This shows an interesting image of the older white male who is in a place of power has no sympathies with the teenagers while the other older white male who occupies a blue collar job and slightly younger than the first is more willing to have sympathy, if one uses the biased lens. If the janitor were black, which is common where I am from, most people would think of him as the "magic Negro" who passes words of wisdom to younger white characters while showing to have more integrity than the white adults, all while supposedly keeping up the racism in society. Thankfully, they did not make him black, but one could interpret Carl as a black man in the scene where he talks to Vernon.
  The few times that Principal Vernon and Janitor Carl are together have the former let out the frustration on the behavior of the teens while Carl, being younger, tries to reason him. Contrast to The Trouble With Angels, which has similar themes to The Breakfast Club, we don't have a case of the school master and the rebellious student coming to an understanding. Vernon doesn't come to think there is anything good with Bender, whereas the Mother Superior saw plenty in Mary Clancy. Instead, Vernon pulls up the old "me, myself, and I" move when asked about how he feels of the teens. He admits to Janitor Carl the worst possible thing to him is what happens when the teens are adults and he's an old man, "Now this sort of thing wakes me up in the middle of the night: when I get older, these kids are going to take care of me." He doesn't trust them one bit and he thinks that when he becomes old and requires help and the only help will come in form of his former students, he is afraid that they will not really help him. I, myself, am still too young to understand what he is afraid of but I can think that being unable to take care of yourself to be something to dread. Most people try to avoid that by committing suicide and thus be able to die young. Unfortunately, suicide is not the answer. At any rate, Vernon could have taken a hint of those dreams and change. However, he does not seem to want to. Janitor Carl, who I think was only working as a janitor to pay for college, gives an excellent report on why Vernon is like this: "The kids haven't changed, you have. You took a teaching position, 'cause you thought it would be fun, right? Thought you would have summer vacations off and then you found out it was actually work and that really bummed you out." This, and the fact that Carl and Vernon believe that based on the way he treats teens would mean they won't take care of him when he gets older. Even with these abuses in authority, Vernon has been seen sighing in relief when he leaves the library the second time, builds weird object with a cup and pencils, and appears to regret threatening Bender. All that suggests that Vernon is less of a stock of a disciplinarian and more of an easy to sympathize character. Unfortunately, the man never changes his ways at the end of the film.
   The Breakfast Club is a teen flick, coming out in a time that people call a hey-day of teen flicks. It shares the same themes as the two other Molly Ringwald films: Sixteen Candles and Pretty In Pink, along with other films like Back to the Future, Farris Bueller's Day Off, Footloose, and Fast Times At Ridgecrest High, being teen flicks about teenage rebellion and anti-authority themed. The themes are handed down from the Sixties, where the themes of a generational gap were common, as well as the Seventies, but in the Eighties the anti-authority and teenage rebellion are common. If there is a theme to the usage of anti-authority and teenage rebellion being used in these films it would be that in the end, the teenage spirit of rebellion is never defeated. It doesn't matter how hard the adults come down on them, no matter what life lesson comes along to humble them, they are never truly defeated. Best examples of this in The Breakfast Club come with the teens interacting with themselves when Vernon is out of the room (disregarding all the rules he sets up in the beginning), subvert his directions of writing an essay by having Brian write it and sign their names upon it, and their dancing to hard rock near the end of the movie. Then there are other moments that are more subtle. Bender shouts out an obscenity when Vernon leaves after finding the door closed and he sneaks into the library after he is taken away. He even gives Janitor Carl a "see ya next Saturday" in such a matter of fact tone that you'd think he wanted to live in detention. Then there's the others who are willing to not rat him out when he returns to the library (even when Bender is peaking under Claire's skirt).
    So, this theme that the teenagers are never defeated resonates well in this movie as it does in other teen flicks of the time, and practically even today. At the end of Footloose, the teens are still going to dance to rock music, Fast Times... has them always doing things on their own and not heeding the adults, and Mean Girls' girls will always be plotting to ruin each other. Just as it is with The Breakfast Club. Those five teenagers will not have gained any respect for adults in authority even after their day in detention or of their parents in their homes. One additional way they are not defeated is the fact that they realize how they could become like their parents, while being controlled by their own peers, and chose to follow their own destinies.
    First impression is also the theme of The Breakfast Club. The teens enter as stock characters from each clique, yet the pivotable scene has them unfold how it feels to be each. Besides Bender becoming unfeeling toward others because of his blue collar back ground, we see Brian being such a perfectionist (he even corrects Mr. Vernon on one occasion) and yet doesn't want to be seen as a brain, Andrew feeling that he can never live up to his father's ideals no matter how hard he trains, Claire always being under pressure to be popular, and Allison withdraws from everyone and comes in when it seems people are having fun (she even claims she did nothing to get into detention). Among the things that happen due to this is one of the most common of nerd cliches being brought up (that Brian is a virgin). Brian lies of his love life at first but when pressured at the thought of being a pig in Claire's eyes, Brian admits to being a virgin (considering it a private matter). In a subversion of the stereotype, Claire says that it's okay for guys to be virgins. This is contrast to her case where she has to be pressured into it but not before we hear from Allison that girls live with a double-edged sword pointing at them ("If you want it, you're a slut; if you don't, you're a tease.") I do not put stock in the Madonna-Whore Complex but if there is one place to find it it'd be in high school, especially in the movies, where it seems girls are either Madonna like prudes or whores whom every boy wants to nail. One thing movies tend to show is while Madonnas can become whores through corruption, they never seem to have it the other way around (unless it's a teen flick I missed). This I find to be demeaning to girls who stay virgins through high school (as well as guys). Say all you want about recognizing sex as a healthy and normal part of life but just as people chose to do it, they can also chose not to do it and no one should be demeaned just for staying virgins.
   The teens soon learn that they are all alike even if they are in different social groups. This last proves to be the film's ultimate moral: that if you strip aside the glasses, the fingerless gloves, the gym pants, the hot clothes, and the tics, all you have left are five people who are frustrated at the way life turned out, angry at those they consider to be holding them back, and afraid of the transition they are facing. From this knowledge, they gradually begin to form a comradidy and form themselves a group they call "the Breakfast Club." One can dream that after the film's events, they are different to each other than before (Bender might defend Brian from other bullies, Claire will consider non-popular people to humans, Andrew will have a motive in life, etc.). The fact we see Claire decide to date Bender in the end (though it may be for selfish reasons and doomed to fail) and that Andrew is willing to date Allison are a step in the right direction. One may wonder why Brian doesn't get a girl in the end, but that part becomes less important. He gets something even better: respect. The other three ask him to write out the paper, seeing as he can sum it up better than they can, and he does so. Not only that, there is a chance that Claire and Andrew will both do something for him in return, even if the film doesn't dwell on it. But they see him as human and that is enough for him. Same with Claire and Bender. At the beginning, they hate each other with the standard blue collared boy and rich girl gig, but in the end, there is hints of them of pursuing a romance as Claire sees Bender as someone honest enough to treat her as a human instead of some idol to admired while Bender learns that one doesn't have to hold up a tough facade to get love.

   To wrap things up, The Breakfast Club is what people consider the ultimate teen movie. It's completely secular (practically reducing God to a name used in vain) and the references and talking of sex, plus a scene where the teens get high on Bender's dope, are questionable. The language is coarse, but some what accurate to high school standards in some places. Even with such, the morals of the movie are the redeeming qualities. Imagine if we could be like the five teens in the end of the movie and learn to not see each other as something form our impressions, look past stereotypes, past tropes, and see the person inside, come to an understanding with others, and learn to see each other as people, with all of us being sinners, and to know that there is someone who loves us all, than perhaps, we just may have peace on earth and good will toward men.

Dawson's Creek: Review and Commentary part 5

How do you do.

   So, the characters have graduated from high school, thus the show is now at a cross roads. Will they wrap things up and bring up a spin off series in their college years, stop the whole thing right there, or would they continue? There were matters that needed to be settled once and for all and even the end of Season Four left a few things unsettled. So, the college seasons are brought in. 

  In this part, I'll review both seasons instead of going one at a time.

Season Five (A season of a new direction in the same old song)

  The college seasons begin where we see Joey in Worthington, Jen and Jack at Boston Bay, Pacey on the dock in Boston harbor, and Dawson at the gates of a film studio in Los Angeles. In "The Bostonians", Dawson enters an internship with a rough, Australian sounding director named Todd, doesn't stand well with his attics, and then gets fired. Joey is invited out to a party with Jen and Jack, plus her roommate, Audrey Liddell, who all want her to move on from Dawson and get away from books. Joey has fun and sends a drunken message to Dawson on her cellphone. Meanwhile, Pacey finds out that his currently girlfriend, Melanie, is heading away and he is in need of a job. He finds one on Dougie's suggestion as a cook. From this springs the new plot lines.
   Dawson finds Joey's message in "Lost Weekend", is flirted with by Audrey, and almost goes by to L.A. but Joey catches up to him in the airport and he decides to stay in Boston. Joey doesn't know Pacey is in town, however, until "Capeside Revisited" where she goes to his restaurant and finds him slicing potatoes for practice. One thing no one ever does is reference The Karate Kid. It takes awhile but Joey and Pacey meet up again and they talk. There is some awkwardness in it, however. At the same time, Dawson goes home, tells his parents the news, and they are not happy about it. Mitch now has gotten hard on Dawson and is practically pushing Dawson out the door as he buys airplane tickets and tells Dawson to seize the day. Dawson decides not to, to everyone's disappointment. The episode ends with Mitch going on a shopping trip and while driving down the road and eating ice cream (something I don't support) he is shown stopping while lights flood the windshield.
   We don't see what happens next until "The Long Goodbye" as a group of people visit Leery's Fresh Fish and find a notice on the door that says "Closed. Death in the family." We are then shown a somewhat deserted Leery house that almost seems haunted until we see Dawson washing a few bottles. From all this we find out that Mitch Leery is dead. The death of Mitch Leery is an unexpected moment in the history of Dawson's Creek and something that catches everyone off guard. It is also different from with Art Brooks where we have plenty of time before the character dies, thus allowing death to be a theme in the last season. With Mitch, the sudden departure hardly allows one to prepare, which reflects in real life as death can happen without warning. As to why this happened is anyone's guess. My guess is John Wesley Shipp wanted to move on to other projects and didn't want to be known as Dawson's dad. So he agreed to appearing in two episodes and then his character is killed off. "The Long Goodbye" has moments where Mitch Leery appears and speaks with everyone, mostly meant to be a memory of him they are having. So, Dawson in his current age wasn't getting the present, Joey in her current age wasn't seeing the famous ladder being set up, and Pacey in his current age wasn't learning how to drive. The final moments of the episode show the Leerys posing for a picture, which is shown in the opening moments. Dawson then goes to his friends while Gail goes inside with Lily. Mitch lingers to retrieve the camera and then we have a moment of him looking around while the camera goes around him, as though he were noticing his ending coming. One can see that Mitch is now a lonely spirit standing over the world he once enjoyed. The grin he puts up before making a final exit must be from the way things are turning out in the future. Why they did not include similar moments in the rest of the season is anyone's guess, mostly to keep it secular. I also am positive that with the 9/11 Attacks still fresh on everyone's minds (as it happened a few weeks prior), the loss of husbands and fathers would have struck a cord to much of the female audience.
   "The Long Goodbye" is also one of two episodes that does not feature "I Don't Want To Wait" being sung by Paulie Cole. The song is instead performed by a solo piano though the credit montage just doesn't fit. The DVDs are a disappointment in not preserving this opening, however.
    Dawson gets depressed over Mitch's death and accuses himself of it happening as well as Joey for giving him the break up message that lead to it. Joey tries to help him but can't seem to. Jack and his frat buddies then take him partying where he gets drunk. Ultimately, it is Jen who helps him out the most. She hangs with him, offering a hug at the funeral, and in "Hotel New Hampshire", accompanies him to a film festival where his documentary on Brooks wins. Out of a state of happiness, Dawson thanks Jen while calling her his girlfriend, confirming what may people suspect. Dawson and Jen were accidentally given the honeymoon suite and after thirty minutes of hesitation, they for-fill what was intended in Season One. With that, there aren't any virgins on the show anymore, which is sad, really.
    Before Dawson hooks up with Jen, Jen had a small affair with Charlie, a young radio disc jock. Their affair also leads to Jen landing a job in the radio as well. Their affair mostly falls apart as the only thing they have in common is they like to have sex. I always find it interesting how the lack of anything else is why it falls apart, whereas most shows try to force the couple to remain together. It finally ends when Jen spies another girl with Charlie, the latter claims was his sister, catches them about to do it in his dorm, and joins up with the girl to humiliate him. It turns out that they wanted to bring Drue Valentine into the mix, since it seemed near the end of Season Four that he was improving, as was his relationship with Jen. However, the Peter Gallaghan look-a-like decided to not show up for the new season and so they had to come up with a new character, which explains some of the manners of Charlie having with Drue.
    Drue may not return but another alumnus of Season Four, Toby, shows up and calls on Jack in "Use Your Disillusion". Toby has transformed when he arrives: gone is the militant gay teen who belittled Jack. Now he seems naive and less militant. He does, however, call Jack the "Uncle Tom" of gay guys for joining a Fraternity. Jack also acts like a jerk around him and it breaks Toby's heart. Toby leaves and is never seen or heard again. In the meantime, Jack rides high as a frat boy and goes a character transformation. Once, he was a scared boy who just wanted to be accepted and to be normal, now he has become a gay jerk who indulges his brothers with girls (he hooks one up with Audrey on the grounds of being nice and easy). He considers being a frat boy a new image after being known as "the gay guy" in high school while still remaining in his sexuality. He also gets into some feelings for another frat brother named Eric and loses a roommate who feels uncomfortable around him. Eventually, Jack's partying with the frat boys leads to his grades to suffer and he is put on academic probation. The frat boys, out of concern for their house, tell Jack to hit the books, which irritates him. He picks a fight in Civilization and is kicked out of the frat house, essentially showing his brothers to be nothing but fair weather friends. He struggles the remainder of the semester, almost commits suicide on a Spring Break trip, gets help from another frat brother, and gets into a relationship with the recently out of the closet Eric.
    Meanwhile, Pacey becomes a cook in Civilization, as stated. He dates a waitress named Karen, which I believe was making up for the missed opportunity with Dawson and Niki. Karen is also supposedly having an affair with their boss, Danny, even though he is married. Eventually, Karen disappears all together while Pacey is promoted to chef. Pacey has before been a poor cook and now is an expert at culinary arts. In "Appetite For Destruction", he cooks up a dinner for his friends at Grams' house and refuses to allow people to have snacks in between courses. Another thing goes his way when he hears how his family is proud of him. It does show a nice contrast between him and his college friends, who are yet to thrive while he is already making a way in the world.
    A new character is introduced as Joey's roommate, Audrey Lidell, played by Busy Philips. Audrey is introduced as a foil to Joey: Joey is concerned about the grades while Audrey is worried about partying, Joey prefers one guy while bearing the scars of the love triangle whereas Audrey goes from guy to guy, and Joey lost her mom years ago and has found memories of her where Audrey's mom is alive but is a source of tension. One could argue that Audrey is what Joey would have been if none of the problems she faced earlier happened, if she came from a rich family, her mom was alive, and she never became a corner in the love triangle. Even though she is not on the main character slot in this season, she undergoes the same process of developing that Andie and Jack went through in Season Two. Audrey is not as perky as Andie. At most she provides some sex appeal that had vanished after Season Three while having the wit and humor to prove her worth. She is more than just an object of lust, she is her own character, auditioning for Ibiza and helping Dawson out with his movie.
   The gang find out about Dawson and Jen in "Appetite For Destruction", where Pacey and Jack are surprised that Dawson goes all the way with her while neither of them even go so far as first base, Joey seems happy while Audrey is fussing about it. This moment provides a repeat of Season One where Dawson is with Jen while Joey is left pinning for him, while also providing a role reversal of Season Four with Dawson being in relationship of another, and losing his virginity, while Joey is left settling for another. Of course, Joey keeps herself occupied by studying and then have a fling with Professor Wilder. Joey Potter has also had a development in Season Five. Once, she was the fourth character of introduction and the sidekick to Dawson, now she has become the main protagonist while Dawson's status has decreased. In fact, "Four Scary Stories" doesn't even feature Dawson. Suddenly, the entire show is revolving around Joey instead of Dawson, something that was different from Season One, and makes one wonder why it wasn't retitled.
   As to Dawson and Jen, they return to Capeside over the holidays and meet up with Gail. Dawson lacks direction yet is able to rise to the occasion when the Leery's Fresh Fish needed help. He and Jen then discuss what to do next and decide to head back to Grams. I find it strange that Jen's religious grandmother would approve of them cohabiting, since it is that. However, Grams's attempts at bringing God into things appears to have decreased in Season Five (she even says she and God were not on speaking terms in "The Long Goodbye"). The episodes "Sleeping Arrangements", "Something Wilder", and "Highway to Hell", which deal with them cohabiting, show a realistic portrayal of it: they face the issue of toothbrushes, toilet seat placement, and getting on everyone's nerves. Of course, Dawson tells Jen that he'll not be like her other boyfriends when he hears her on radio. In "Something Wilder", their happiness nearly ruins Jen's image on the radio and she tries to fix it by finding some provocation and gets it when Dawson and Oliver ignore her while talking about a script. Oliver wants Dawson to direct a movie he has in mind and Dawson doesn't. Eventually, Dawson decides to do so. The relationship with its ups and downs, and concerns of being caught by Grams, comes to a conclusion for some odd reason in "Highway to Hell". Jen had heard some talk while interviewing rock stars about being passionate about people and decided to break up with Dawson. This happens on Lily's first birthday. Interestingly, Dawson takes it well. I do wish the Dawson and Jen relationship had develop more but it seems it too was built on sex. Now that they finally did it, it actually makes it less for-filling. However, the chemistry they have is a plus and one would think they were married already.
    Dawson films a movie that Oliver wrote and originally starred in in "Guerrilla Filmmaking" but Dawson had Charlie come back to play the leading role and altered the ending of it. The film is then presented to an audience in "Cigarette Burns", though we never actually get to see it ourselves. Quite frankly, the lack of results is what makes "Cigarette Burns" mediocre, though we actually see Grams date a black man (a far cry from the disapproving old woman who didn't like Bodie and Bessie). Even as Jen and Dawson's relationship ends, another begins in form of Pacey and Audrey. Like Dawson and Jen, their relationship is all about the flesh, which is sad after the pure love we saw between him and Joey. As to his ex, Melanie, she appears only once in the mid-season and then leaves, but not before doing one more night in the sack with him. Apparently, Pacey has gone into some kind of gigolo around girls, basically getting into relationships only to wind up in their pants. Yet, as the relationship continues, Pacey's job gets a new boss, a female, and it creates tension. The woman, Alex, hits on Pacey who doesn't notice it, but it's enough to drive Audrey away from him. In "The Abbey", the new boss attempts to transform Civilization in an unjust manner and Pacey then leads a revolt with the other cooks, resulting in his being fired. Of course, Alex is also fired. Pacey returns to Capeside in "Swan Song" where he becomes a cop sort while he is out of a job, and we are spared of hearing Doug and Sheriff Witter talk bad about him.
    One of the better episodes is the second part to "Guerrilla Filmmaking", "Downtown Crossing". Here, Joey returns from aiding in Dawson's film and gets mugged at gun point, but not raped. Instead, the man takes away much of Joey's money and then gets hit by a car in a classic Deus ex Machina. Joey calls for an ambulance and chats with him while they wait, where she faints when they arrive. She wakes up in the hospital, meets a little girl who reminds her of herself, and decides to lie about the event after learning from the girl's mother that the girl's father is the man who mugged her. This Joey centric episode shows how far the show has come in having Joey stand in someone's shadow or be a love interest: now she is the protagonist of the episode and the only one at that. The episode also marks a turning point as Joey was previously seeing her professor, something that is illegal. After the episode, Wilder decides to call it off, which opens Joey to dating someone else. It also brings in the remaining episodes to have a role reversal where once it was Joey wanting Dawson back, now Dawson is deciding to give Joey a try while the latter has someone else: Charlie. "Highway to Hell" has this where Pacey doesn't approve of them because Charlie hurt Jen. I have been in something like this and it usually results in one of the girls thinking you are jealous and end their friendship with you even if you turn out right. Thankfully, Audrey is present to cool the guys down while we get to see Joey perform in a bar.
    "100 Light Years From Home" has Dawson and Oliver on a road to meet a producer but Dawson keeps thinking of Joey. After some debate, Dawson goes down to Florida and runs into Jack and Pacey, the latter tells Dawson that Joey has moved on. The same episode has Pacey, Jack, Jen, Joey, and Audrey head to a family home in Florida for Spring Break, with most of the stereotypes of it on the beach along with guest appearance of M2M, a Norwegian based girls band. During this, Charlie tracks down Joey and they sleep together. Apparently, the thing is one guy tracks Joey down and gets to sleep with her while another does the same thing and doesn't get her. It leads to "Separate Ways" where they return to Boston while Dawson goes to New York. Their attempt to wow the man fail and Dawson and Oliver nearly end their friendship. Joey and Charlie eventually drift apart and then it's the guessing if Dawson and Joey are going to go back together.
   "Swan Song" concludes this with Dawson having a dream of meeting her in an airport and it turns out she is engaged to another. The rest of the episode then has the characters parting ways and Joey and Dawson still not together. Jack meets up with Eric at the airport and Jen is diverted from a Costa Rica trip to be with her parents. Grams goes to Las Vegas with her boyfriend, presumably to condemn the city, while Dawson and Audrey head to L.A., leaving Joey and Pacey in Capeside. Of course, Pacey and Joey race to the airport and speak with their others. Pacey and Audrey then depart on a road trip to L.A. while Joey encourages Dawson to board the airplane, something that had been resisted all season, and lets him know of her love. The episode shows what the first two did not which was how the 9/11 Attacks have affected airport security. In "The Lost Weekend", Joey accompanied Dawson to the gate while in "Swan Song" she has to buy a ticket first, which shows that some of the episodes of Season Five were filmed after the attacks happened.
    So now, Joey and Dawson are a couple again but are going to be thousands of miles apart, for now. The last image of the season has Joey pondering on the ticket to Paris, the place she has always wanted to see since Season One and then smiling as though she made a decision.
   Season Five is not the best season but it's not the worst. Most fans put it somewhere near the bottom while others put it near the top. The new setting into college provides a fresh look to the show and the adventures are brand new, thus different from what was experienced earlier. The removal of the setting from fictional Capeside to real life Boston is a big risk, as it removes the story from the world we have known. I'm sure the actual Bostonians didn't mind. Besides, it's supplemented by the visits to Capeside. The dialogue is improved and the acting is best (people have pointed out there is more smiling involved than before). It's almost like the show was being renewed or something. Audrey Lidell is a nice edition to the show, mostly to replace Andie. There are a few bad points, such as the show suddenly taking a re-interest in sex after pushing it into the background, Jack's transformation, the romantic portrayal of Joey with Professor Wilder as a couple, and the character of Charlie. I also find the climax too much like the romantic soap operas where the lovers meet up somewhere and exchange the final words of love, something that has gotten too cliche.
   Then again, compared to the next season, things were not as bad as previously thought.
   The theme of Season Five is definitely change, with the setting placed in Boston, and the characters moving to college or the work place. Change is shown to be a good thing and a bad thing, as exemplified by Jack in the fraternity. Another theme would be getting over a tragedy. Dawson's dealing with his dad's death radiates in the season and it nearly makes him give up on film making all together. Taking a step in the right direction is another theme, since nothing will happen if one just sits there. One could say, Season Five is about a man who has to board a flight to start his dream and he spends awhile trying to board the plane, then finally gets in on the end. These themes make the season very relative in wake of the 9/11 Attacks. The final dream fulfillment is in Joey to Paris which proves the cliffhanger in the season.

Season Six (A season of loss and of gain before we say goodbye)

   Since Season Five wasn't going to end the show, TriStar Pictures and WB allowed an additional season of Dawson's Creek. Season Six begins where Season Five left off, with Joey at the airport hearing about the ticket. We then hear that she decided to not go to Paris after all and spent summer in Capeside. Joey narrates the summer sequences and sets up the season as well as explain how things are going to look. We are then sent into "The Kids Are Alright", an overused title in my opinion. Pacey and Audrey return from a sex filled road trip, Jen and Jack begin another semester at Boston Bay and each have new partners (Jack's boyfriend broke up with him for someone else according to Joey), Grams takes up a class with Jen, and Joey enters a literature class with a hard nosed professor. Dawson does not show up until the episode is almost over, further making Joey the protagonist of the show. When he does, he talks with Joey in a bar called Hell's Kitchen, brings a present for her birthday, and they have sex after years of waiting.
   They wake up in "The Song Remains the Same" and Joey's birthday is filled with Dawson bringing her to the set of a film he and Todd are filming. Dawson has gone from intern to Assistant Director under Todd while Oliver had left the lot. They return to Joey's dorm where it turns out Dawson had just broken up with a girlfriend that morning. Joey and Dawson then have a fight that ends their relationship and ruins the birthday celebration. They break up after so much build up in Season Five to their reunion all because Dawson did as the Hollywooders do. This becomes the start of many bad things to plague the season.
   Pacey decides to not become a cook again (I guess there would be bad references after Civilization) and takes a job assigned by Audrey's dad, to be a stockbroker. Pacey has greased his hair and grown a beard in the meantime, dresses up in a suit, and goes into his job with more grit than he did as a cook. His job introduces us to Richard Rinaldi who shows him the parts and parcel of being a stockbroker. Not being one myself, I cannot comment on how real the job is in the show. However, I will say that Rinaldi is not a nice person to hang around with, as he tells Pacey everything that contradicts everything I have been taught. He gets Pacey to do more makeover: buy a new car, change ties, etc. As though it rubs off, Pacey spends time on his job which comes between him and Audrey. Audrey is shown to be a spoiled rich girl who prefers to party while Pacey is the blue collared boyfriend who knows better, which leads to differences to spill over. It boils down to "Instant Karma" where they argue on the facts of life with Pacey saying "if I don't want to live on mac and cheese and ramen noodles for the rest of my life, I have to bust my ass and play by their rules." Most people would commend Pacey for it but the show paints it out to be that he has gone to the dark, misogynist side. The loving Pacey who slacked in high school is gone now and replaced, practically, by someone who sold his soul.
   By this point, Season Six has become a season of people out of character. Besides Grams in college, we have Joey trying to keep up in class and technology, Dawson hooking up with the leading lady of his boss' movie, and Pacey becoming a slave to corporate America. In "The Importance of Not Being Too Earnest", Joey writes an email that winds up read by the entire campus and leaves her a subject of ridicule in her class. This was 2002, after all. There wasn't much social media around to post nude pictures of herself for all the pervs on campus. Joey also befriends Eddie Doling, who has the mannerisms of John Bender of The Breakfast Club. They share a love of writing and literature and eventually hook up -- on the day of her exam! Joey winds up taking the class twice. Of course, she is also taking a job as a waitress in Hell's Kitchen, which becomes the meeting place in the season (hence the nickname "Joey's Bar"). The bar also introduces Emma, a British girl living in the States, partially a counter balance to Todd as a foreigner.
   Jen and Jack remain in character, though both fawn over a professor in Pop Culture (I don't think they have that on the curriculum) while befriending a guy named C.J.. The professor hangs around a few episodes and then departs while C.J. remains. Audrey goes into a spiral following her break up with Pacey. She hooks up with C.J. and gets drunk at a party. In "Ego Tripping At the Gates of Hell", she becomes part of a girl's band with Emma and gets really drunk and rebels against bar rules. In the next episode, "Merry Mayhem", Audrey's further transformation shows a difference from "Appetite for Destruction" where instead of saying how lucky the gang is, she spews out all the bad things of Joey and Eddie while bad mouthing Pacey.
    The gang unites this way in "Merry Mayhem", the first Christmas episode since Season Four. The episode is notable for the moment a drunken Todd uses prayer to air out dirty laundry about Dawson and all, and Audrey adds a few before crashing into the Leery house. Pacey and Doug have a spat as the latter thinks he is doing something illegal in his job and Pacey considers that an attack. Dawson and Natasha, the actress, cool it in the relationship. Mike Potter got out of prison in Season Five and is present in the episode. He disapproves of Eddie (and for a good reason) which leads to the latter to disappear for a few episodes later. Meanwhile, Jen becomes a peer councilor with C. J.'s help. As the season progresses, they get into a relationship which seems just about normal for Jen. The same cannot be said for Grams, whose boyfriend never shows up. Eventually, they write the character out all together by having them breaking up all because he wanted her to convert. C.J. decides to pair her up with his Uncle Bill, who is just a stock character of the embarrassing uncle. In the past, when people say the things he said near Grams, she would bite their heads off. Here, she just laughs.
   As to Audrey, gets drunk and high in a concert, alienates her friends and band mates, and has to go into rehab over the course of a few episodes. Of course, Joey and Eddie have to take her there because she won't go willingly, leading to the road trip episode "Rock Bottom." She goes to rehab in L.A. and improves there after. However, the damage to the character is evident. Meanwhile, Dawson is assigned to direct a few re-shoots. He tries to do it his way and finds his authority questioned. He adopts Todd's manner and gets them done. After that, Dawson goes to Capeside in "That Was Then" where he sees a new generation of aspiring film makers in Mr. Gold's class and comes up with an idea of a film about a few friends. Yet, it turns out to be recycled plots from his high school film "Creek Daze." He pitches the idea to the producers, one of who is played by Paul Gleeson.
   Pacey and Emma have chemistry and appear to date in "Day of Days". That ends in "Clean and Sober" where she starts to marry a stoner to keep her green card, even asking Jack to marry her. After this episode, she disappears with no explanation. "Clean and Sober" also brings back the Pacey and Joey plot and it's further explored in "Castaways" where they are trapped in a K-Mart (which looks more like Wal-Mart compared to my home town's). I don't know what the story behind the episode was or if it improved sales in the store, but all I do know is allowed Pacey and Joey to reconnect and think of the love they once had. Eventually, they become a couple again, with Pacey chaperoning a prom with her while Joey babysits a teen girl named Harley. The dating is stalled not just by Joey's babysitting but by Pacey rushing home to see his father who had a heart attack. Gretchen never shows up, nor do we see the other Witters. All we see are Sheriff Witter and Doug. Here again, we are treated to the rehashed daddy issues Doug and Pacey feel and the problem Pacey has with his family.
    From "That Was Then", we start to see better episodes with more human qualities. One of the ways human qualities comes is when Jen finds out Grams has breast cancer. Yet, of course, we have the filler episode "Lovelines" which has Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla appearing in a made up speaking at Boston. Jen goes in to host and it ends in disaster for her relationship with C.J.. The sober Audrey takes over and Carolla gives Eddie some pieces of advise about having girlfriends (after reading his book, I am glad the writers kept his language clean). Joey and Eddie briefly reunite but break up by "Catch-22." In there, he departs from Dawson's Creek for good. Meanwhile, Pacey is riding high. In "Castaways" we saw Joey shave off Pacey's beard, which seems to have approval from his female fans. He also helps to finance Dawson's film when Hollywood does not. However, the problem with the Stock Market rears itself when the stocks fall and the money is wiped out. Pacey goes to his boss for help but gets fired instead. Penniless, Pacey returns to Capeside in "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" just as Dawson and Joey do. The episode has Pacey eventually coming clean on the money loss and Dawson gets mad. As you would expect, the argument causes them to pull out all the bad things that had happened in the past out and make things worse. The greatest part is how they point at each other when Dawson critiques Pacey for being a successful businessman and then demands to know if Pacey was so good at his job why is he broke, to which Pacey cries "That's life! I didn't make that choice! I have lost everything! Does that make you happy? That you are back on top?" Dawson then claims that he and Pacey were never friends during the past two years, saying that Pacey turned his back on him long ago, to which Pacey points out is revisionism. They part and leave Joey to conspire her next move. Jen brings Helen Lindley (who divorced Mr. Lindley earlier and is now played by Mimi Rogers) over to convince Grams to get treatment. Grams almost becomes the stereotype religious fanatic who feels her cancer is God's will and will decline all medicine and help to see it through. However, Grams learns that she is given a gift and accepts it. Finally, we come to "Joey Potter and the Capeside Redemption", which really shows Joey's standing because her name is in the title. Joey has gone from the girl at Dawson's side to having her own episode, narrate the new season, and now she gets her name in the title of an episode. As to the episode, Joey spends the episode gathering everyone together to help Dawson film his movie. Eventually, it succeeds. Dawson films what turns out to be scenes from "Pilot" and has Patrick and Harley play him and Joey. Pacey is redeemed and he and Dawson come to an understanding and repair their friendship. Jen, Jack, and Grams leave Capeside again to get treatment for Grams while Audrey helps and then prepares for a summer semester. Before she does that, she gives Todd a shoulder rub and then goes to Gail's room to sleep with him, making this their final appearance. Last image of Season Six proper has Joey in Paris, concluding a dream from the start.

   The two part epilogue.

   Of course, it's not really the end. On May 14, 2003, we are given "All Good Things Must Come To an End", a two part series finale to Dawson's Creek. The episode takes place five years into the then future 2008. Dawson Leery is now a high time director and producer of a show called "The Creek", Joey Potter is a book editor living with her new boyfriend in New York, Pacey Witter is the maitre d'hotel of the new Ice House, Jack McPhee is a high school teacher in Capeside, and Jen Lindley is a single mother in New York who runs an art gallery in Soho. The five reunite in Capeside where other changes have come. Gail has finally decided to remarry, Bessie is still a single mom and running the Potter Bed and Breakfast, Grams is still alive with her cancer, Sheriff Witter has either retired or died and so Deputy Doug has taken his place and has at some point come out of the closet, making him Capeside's first gay sheriff. Of course, this progress comes with a few things remaining the same. Pacey has kept afloat through extra-marital affairs, one of which is done with Virginia Madison, which results in him getting beaten up by a bunch of husbands in one scenes. Fortunately, Pacey survives. Like I said, Pacey has become somewhat a gigolo in this season and when Kevin Williamson returned he decided to have Pacey sleep with a few wives.
   Gail is married and everyone dances and it's alright until Jen collapses. It turns out, Jen, at the same time she gave birth to Amy, had developed a medical condition in her heart, an abnormal pulmonary artery, and has been supporting herself with medication. It got worse in Gail's wedding and the bad news comes that she is dying. Death hangs over Jen like a cloud for the remainder of the special and we see the gang attempt to keep her happy (sort of "keep a stiff upper lip"). Jack brings Andie back and she has a talk with Pacey, suggesting a reunion. However, because Meredith Monroe wasn't staying long, the thread is abandoned (they even cut her scenes out when it aired). Dawson films a video with her for her daughter to see in a few years. In this video, Jen gives a few words of advice to Amy. One thing I took note of was the advice concerning God. Jen doesn't say it but I believe she finally found God, thus bringing her a long way from the atheist who first arrived in Capeside. She also requests that Amy believe in Him, something that every mother hopes for in their children. Then Jen talks with Jack who calls her his soul mate. The last is ironic that after so many relationships with guys, both consider the other to be a soul mate. After a sad montage, and a video of the opening credits in Season One being replayed on a VCR, Jen dies with Grams watching.
   With Jen gone, Jack takes over in raising Amy (though why Jen's parents weren't called over is a mystery) and helps his new boyfriend come to terms. The man Jack is with turns out from the start to be Doug. Considering that Doug was in his twenties when Jack was still a teenager, I find it strange that he hasn't aged a bit in this special. At the same time, Lily and Alexander have gotten big and are friends. As though to complete the circle of life, we see Alexander climb the ladder to Lily's bedroom with Dawson and Joey watching. There is now one last thread to tie. Joey broke up with her boyfriend when she discovered a ring and freaked out. Then she discovers the chemistry between her and Pacey and Dawson. Eventually, there's a few scenes of them talking (plus a scene that turns out a dream with Joey and Dawson getting married) before Joey tells Dawson that they are soul mates. The final scene is the most debated part in Dawson's Creek. Joey sees the ending that Dawson had been laboring on and enjoys it. She then turns to her partner who turns out to be Pacey Witter. They kiss and then call up Dawson who announces that he is meeting Steven Spielberg. We are then given a montage of all the events leading up to that point with "Say Goodnight, Not Goodbye" playing in the background. Thus ends Dawson's Creek.
    The final scene is ambiguous in more than the final choice Joey made. Is it possible the tears Pacey weeps are symbolic tears of joy at the final decision, and possibly sadness at the show ending? Then there's the choice. Does Joey choosing Pacey in the end mean an end to all the drama and the two will get married and live happily ever after? Or will it be, as history shows, a doomed relationship and eventually, Joey will go back to Dawson and Pacey will reunite with Andie? Such questions may never be answered as this was the series finale after all.

  Conclusion.

  Season Six is sometimes considered an improvement over Season Five, as well as a disappointment. Through out the season, the Creek gang are separated and thus a network of friends is set up with each one as a center. This does reflect the real world. There are, of course, episodes where they reunite again and it's like seeing a high school reunion. One thing I have noted in the seasons where Williamson had little control over there are episodes where they meet and have dinner. I always find those dinner scenes special as it allows for characters to develop and say a few things of themselves. Holiday themed episodes seems cliche but it is an improvement. Those things are more common in Seasons Three to Six than with One and Two. As to the content of Season Six, it's cringe worthy. "The Kids Are Alright" goes Jerry Springer with the censors in one scene, involving the bleep sound, which makes the scene funny instead of important. As though M2M was not enough, they also had an episode revolving around the concert of No Doubt, another pop band that was riding high in popularity at the time. Yet, where M2M interacted with one of the characters and provided a song that matches the them of the season, No Doubt is kept away (it's just footage of them spliced with the show) and episode's conflict just cuts around it. I never liked Eddie when I saw this and still don't. Either Pacey or Dawson, I wish someone would just push the guy away from Joey.
   On that matter, the thing of the Joey, Pacey, and Dawson love triangle is non-existent in the season, despite what fans say. When Dawson was with Joey, Pacey was happy with Audrey. Then for the longest time, we had Pacey with who ever came onto his lap, Joey with Eddie, and Dawson with Natasha. When Joey gets with Pacey, that's when a triangle comes, which is actually Joey, Eddie, and Pacey. The only time we see Joey weigh in between Pacey and Dawson is in "All Good Things Must Come To An End". I can say that as a teenager and younger college student, I wanted Dawson to get Joey in the end: given the soul mate talk and it seemed they had the most obstacles to face. As I got older, I now believe Pacey was the better guy for Joey. One way to look at it is compare the two with Joey. With the good things, Dawson accompanied Joey to see her father, wrote a good letter of reference, and gave her some money for tuition, plus the mentioned good deeds from when her mother died. Pacey, on the other hand, he rescued her from a drunk guy (and Dawson took credit for it), gave Joey space when asked, stood up for her then boyfriend when he came out, gave Joey a shoulder to cry on when Dawson rejected her, helped out with Bed and Breakfast, found the guy who defaced Joey's mural, rallied her protest rally, picked her up from her trip to her college boyfriend, got her a wall to paint on, respected her decision to not do it when they were on the boat, went with her to see college people, took her to prom, be protective of her against an ex-boyfriend of a friend of theirs, got her to the airport to see Dawson, gave her a job with his, made up for his parading her around when they were locked up in K-Mart, went with her to chaperon a prom, and he helped help Dawson. At the bad, Dawson ignored Joey for the most, laughed her inspirations, forced her to choose between him and Pacey, almost kill Pacey to win her heart, used the date at a prom to rub in another guy's face, close himself off from her when his father died, even accusing her of murdering him, and he slept with another woman. Meanwhile, Pacey only joked about Joey, did things she disapproved of, picked a fight with a guy, break up in the middle of prom, and treat her as something to parade around work. Clearly, Pacey is the better mate, though there were times in the show's run that I wonder if Joey is right for either one of them.
   There is another reason why I say Joey has progressed to being the protagonist in the later episodes. If you noticed, she is the only character to appear in every single episode of the show, be it the main protagonist or have one or two scenes.  This compared to Dawson, who was once the protagonist, is absent in four of the twenty-two (plus series finale) episode run of Season Six, which combined with two in Season Five give him a total of six episodes of no-show. However, because it was Dawson's Creek, after all, they did not swap the locations of Katie Holmes and James Van Der Beek in the opening credits.
    Since "All Good Things Must Come to An End" takes place five years in the future (2008), we can look over the episode and see what it got right and wrong. Some of the things not shown or mentioned were because none of it was known to happen in 2003. No one knew that Massachusetts would become the first US state to legalize gay marriage which explains why Jack and Doug are not married. This also explains why there is no mention of the 2008 election (in fact, nothing was said of the 2000 election either). Social media was coming on its own in the year Dawson's Creek ended, but The Facebook wouldn't be launched for another year (hence the lack of characters maintaining contact with it) nor do we see Joey and Pacey contacting Dawson via videochat. However, a few "predictions" did come out right: the increase in same-sex couples adopting children, lack of antipathy in car drivers, and television, soap opera, dramas with teen angst and love triangles involved becoming the rage on television (like the ones that are airing on ABC Family).
   Seasons Five and Six cover college and the real world, some of which is done well. One would want another season or two, however the actor's contracts were about to expire and they would want to move to other projects. Not only that, the show was never high in the ratings and by Season Six they had sunk very low that another season wouldn't work. Yet one can dream. I believe if the show went on and had a Season Seven, it would feature the Creek Gang turning 21, with some snarking on how hypocritical it is to make booze legal to them now after they had already tasted it, Grams going through chemo therapy, Joey applying to an internship, Pacey going back into cooking and running into Danny, Dawson getting into another project, and Jen and Jack taking a break from college while in New York and possibly entering an LGTB group. It's possible more outside events would come in to the mix, like the War in Iraq and flying in the Concorde Airlines before it closed down. If prompted, a Season Eight would see conclusion of college for Joey and some reflection, Audrey turns over a new leaf and becomes more buckled down since we first saw her, and we see how Jack gets into a position of teaching and dealing with the image of child molesters. That could leave Season Nine to handle the Creek Gang as adults on their own with very few times of them seeing each other but the new social media being on the rice makes it possible for them to connect and send email and video mails to each other. In the tradition of bringing outside world events, we could see them reacting to the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, Massachusetts legalizing gay marriage, and even the 2004 Olympics in Greece. At some point, we would have seen Joey get together with Pacey, or Dawson, and see Jen in a relationship that actually works (possibly lasting three seasons). Those are just thoughts on how such seasons would have happened if they started with Season Seven.
   Then again, it was best they stopped at six. With Season Six, the innocence that made Dawson's Creek so popular and work so well in the Nineties is gone. In it's place is something else. We see the characters completely out of character, supporting characters who are just not sympathetic, and it seems everyone is getting into relationships just to get into someone's bed. In the previous seasons, sex was known and treated as a goal, but the characters focused on the relationships as they matured. The season tosses that out the window and makes sex just as part of the relationship as dating. Seasons Five and Six feature Dawson, Pacey, and Joey getting into a relationship with people that often leads to sex (except for Alex, Emma, Sadie, and Professor Wilder). Jen has also gone into having sex a lot, after two seasons of her being more chaste. Even Jack is implied to get into bed with lovers (though gay sex is not depicted in any form in comparison to hetero sex). In short, it has become Friends and Sex and the City as a result. I am quite frankly surprised no one has caught AIDS but at least they have Jen getting pregnant in the end, which brings realism to the mix. I also find the whole people frowning and talking down to everyone at anyone who has a shred of morals (or smirking at it) as well as the attitudes people give to one another to be unpleasant. Given the way Season Six is, I am sure Season Seven would be worse.
   As to the possibility of Dawson's Creek having a spin-off, a sort of "Dawson's Creek: The Next Generation", that is depending on the people involved. So far, that can only be the dream of the fans.
   That will wrap things up with Dawson's Creek: Review and Commentary. 

Dawson's Creek: Review and Commentary part 4

How do you do.

Season Four (A season of beginnings and endings of an era)

  Remember the classic Rocky films where after going through the first three films of simply Sylvester Stallone boxing with giant black men for the sake of respect, alot of people wanted to see more of Rocky in something that could pay off. This led to Rocky IV where Stallone is pitted against a Russian boxer and the climax takes place in the Soviet Union. That proved to be the big pay off in the series because it showed American spirit during the waning days of the Cold War and the possibility of everyone settling their differences. 

   The same can be said for Dawson's Creek. After three years of watching the Creek gang experience puberty we finally get the pay off as they go through their senior year and graduate from high school. As with Rocky, there is also showing of a possibility of differences being settled during this sort of miniature cold war.
   Season Four begins with Joey and Pacey on the True Love, just returning from their summer trip. In a unique way, the two returning by boat is the metaphor for our return to Capeside after traveling the seas of being away. The two plunging into the water is us plunging into the season. In fact, Pacey even takes the time to tell us what is in store for the characters in the new season (without spoiling anything). Then they enter Capeside and experience a Rip Van Wrinkle effect: Joey finds the Potter Bed and Breakfast thriving in her absence, Dawson has taken up photography, and is working on painting houses with Jack. Pacey finds out that his until now unmentioned sister Gretchen has arrived. Gretchen is revealed to be taking a break from college and is living with Doug. A subplot for "Coming Home" has Andie fawning over two French dudes on the beach. Of course, the one thing that is not being fawned is the friendship of Dawson, Joey, and Pacey, who all come together in a boat filled movie outing with Jaws as the show of the night. This sort of thing continues in "Failing Down" where we see the Senior Syndrome being demonstrated: Pacey has flunked a few classes and is technically a junior, Joey has the marks but needs a job. Meanwhile, Dawson has met Gretchen and told Jack of his crush on her. This part would be awkward as he and Pacey are not speaking to one another. Yet Dawson tells Joey what he heard about Pacey and she argues with Pacey about it. "The Two Gentlemen of Capeside", which gets its title from the Shakespearean play Joey and Dawson are debating on, resolves the awkwardness when Pacey gets an A. The episode contradicts Season Two where Pacey got a few As and claims this as his first. He celebrates by taking Jen with him on a boat trip that Joey turned down. Jen got an email from Henry, stating that he was calling it quits (my guess, Michael Pitt decided to not return for this season), which sends Jen down into a spiral that will last the season. She goes on this boat trip to get her mind off it. However, just as they are out, they encounter a storm of near hurricane proportions (might be a nor'easter). Joey becomes concerned and rallies Dawson to rescue them. The only possible way is by taking a boat in the club and braving the storm. The effects may seem dated now but the scene is still tense. Pacey is rescued but True Love is lost at sea, possibly sunk.  It's implied that Pacey and Dawson come to an understanding at this point.
   This episode introduces Art Brooks, the owner of the boat, who accuses Dawson of stealing his boat for no reason and dented a side. There is a funny moment where he demands payment in his college money and Grams tells him not to and threatens to kick his shriveled old butt if she found out Dawson payed with his money. Instead, Dawson agrees to paying if off by painting fences. Other characters who enter are Drue Valentine and his mother. Drue, it turns out, knows Jen, as they once dated. This will lead to more drama in the season as Drue goes through being the new antagonist at times.
   "Future Tense" is a filler with everyone thinking about the future. The same is with "A Family Way" where Gail discovers she is pregnant. During this, Joey visits the doctor for advise should she and Pacey have sex. Yeah, it turns out they did not do it on the boat, as she said in the first episode. The visit does lead to the awkward moments of hearing those person questions followed by the same "sex can be exciting" from the nurse before Joey is given some condoms and pills. Of course, Bessie finds out by finding them and the two have an argument about responsibilities and consequences. Meanwhile, Jack is hurt in a football practice and is thus benched. He then takes up being coach to a children's soccer team. A girl hits on him and finds out he's gay. Word reaches out but the show points out that by law, the parents cannot remove him based on his orientation. So they wait for an excuse, which comes in "The Unusual Suspects" where he puts a girl on the place of goalie and the soccer dads disapprove and use her mistakes (that we don't see) against him. Jack is fired after winning a game and is apparently exiled from coaching children's teams.
   Andie, meanwhile, finds out she has the credits to go to Harvard. In "Great Xpectations", she decides to go to a rave in order to feel happy. During this, she and Jen bond and she takes some of Jen's ecstasy, which came to her through Drue, and becomes very happy during the rave, until she goes into shock. Andie is sent to the hospital and Jen is blamed for the accident by Jack. It gets worse for Jen in "You Had Me At Goodbye" when Drue comes clean to the school on the drugs, which upsets everyone and turns them on Jen. Even Grams is disappointed in her. Meanwhile, Andie learns she has the credits to graduate and doesn't need to go through the rest of school. This so she can head to Italy and be with an aunt. Andie uses this bring everyone together and get everyone to reconcile. Andie gets her wish and everyone reconciles. Then she says a few things with Pacey, just like with old times, and then she departs, technically leaving the show.
    Meredith Monroe, it seems, was wanting to leave the show at some point and was willing to agree to a number of episodes and return at the finale before she could written out. That's a guess on why Andie McPhee was written out of the series. However, I cannot find an excuse for Meredith Monroe to still be in the opening credits of episodes where she is not in. Another departure was the death of David Dukes, in 2000. This caused Joseph McPhee to also be written out. The sad thing is this happened after his character had become nicer and more lovable, too.
   With Andie gone, life goes on as usual. Dawson serves out his debt to Art Brooks and learns that the latter was once a film maker. Brooks critiques his photos, bad mouths his mannerisms, acts grouchy around him, but gradually warms up. In "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", Brooks suggest he go back into directing and the two begin a project on Brooks. Not only does this make Dawson go back into making movies but it also makes Dawson a much better character, a nice reparation from the way he was in Season Three. His friendship with Pacey improves and they are hanging out again in "Tao of Dawson". It takes awhile but by then, he accepts that Dawson and Gretchen are together and approves of it. Dawson and Gretchen share their first kiss in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", largely as they were under the mistletoe.
   Both "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and "Self-Reliance" can be considered Christmas episodes, as they both feature decorations and wishing of "happy holidays" (the PC variant of Merry Christmas). I would say that this has been long over due for Dawson's Creek, after having a Thanksgiving episode in the last season and neither in the first two. It seems the one positive of Williamson's departure is the inclusion of holiday themed episodes.
   Jack's love life takes another turn with the introduction of Toby, head of a "Gay-Straight Teen Coalition" set up in Capeside. For the first time since Season Three, we find out there are other gay people in Capeside and not all are men. Toby and Jack take an instant dislike of each other, with the former being something of a Malcolm X and Dr. King sort of gay while Jack is just the silent majority when it comes to gay guys. However, Jen exposes underlying feelings between the two. By "Hopeless", the two become a couple. It has some ups and downs but in "Late", the relationship is further defined when Toby takes the bus and gets beaten up by thugs. Jack has to find out about this and he brings in the police while Toby has pride issues faced before telling the story. This cements the relationship for the remainder of the season.
   Of the relationships in the season, the longest lasting among the Creek gang is Pacey and Joey's. Joey and Pacey under go the normal teenage coupling during the season with hang outs with friends, celebrating each other's birthdays, babysitting, having a double date, and going on trips. The question of if they are going to do it is brought up a few times, like with "The Family Way" but sex doesn't really take center of any episode until "A Winter's Tale". In "A Winter's Tale", the Capeside students go to a ski resort (this is a similar set up to "Heartbreak Cory" in Boy Meets World) where everyone plans on getting laid. Drue makes it possible by giving Pacey and Joey a room, along with Jack and Jen in another. Joey watches as many girls go by and Pacey doesn't partake in the rituals. During one night, Joey insists that not all guys carry condoms in their wallets and is proven wrong when the guys in the restaurant pull them out of theirs. When Pacey is asked outside, he reveals he has one too. About the scene, the sexism is brought up when Drue says "girls have it way easier than guys...when they want to, all they have to do is ask." I don't believe either sex has it easy and girls are already having their own type of condoms as well as the pill. Drue's statement implies only boys do and they shouldn't have to. I'll also add that if I was in the scene, I would have been the only guy to not have a condom in his wallet because one, I don't do premarital sex, and two, as a Catholic I am morally opposed to contraceptives. Those are also the reasons why I find it awkward to share the series with friends or family because hardly anyone in the show saves it for marriage. Of course, after a phone call with Dawson, Joey weighs all the choices, sees Pacey refuse to get action, and rewards him by giving herself to him. Yup, after so many episodes of teasing us and then telling us nothing happened, Joey finally loses her virginity in this episode. During the moments that end the episode (and they forgot to shut the blinds, also) Joey lists all the reasons she loves Pacey and why she is giving this gift to him. They kind of sound like the things she would say when they are getting married or being said on a wedding night. Even while I object, it is far better than most occasions of teens doing it in television or movies.
   Of course, sex causes Joey and Pacey to oversleep and miss the bus ride home. So they have to go home the hard way in "Four Stories."
   As to Dawson, the one remaining virgin on the show, he continues his relationship with Gretchen and study under Brooks. Brooks softens and even goes on a date with Grams. In "The Tao of Dawson", Brooks is revealed to be terminally ill and spends his time now in a wheel chair. He makes Dawson sign some papers, which are revealed to be a legal waver to end his life. Aside from the fact that a minor is given this responsibility, I am aghast that Dawson's parents wouldn't bring up the moral side of it and Grams doesn't speak in the scene. Ultimately, they don't do euthanasia (thank God for the writer being pro-life enough to avoid that) and Brooks instead dies naturally in "A Winter's Tale." More important than this, and Joey's deflowering, is the cameo of the late Andy Griffith, who seemed to have worked with Brooks and may have been the guy who took his girl. The theme of death is done well in Brooks, as it hangs over him like a cloud. He keeps looking tough but is slowly being eaten away by it. He softens up and passes on wisdom to the younger generation before he finally dies. This is different when Gramps and Abby died. On both occasions, we saw a person we hardly knew pass away and another person who was a thorn in our sides. Their deaths just happened without warning, however. Yet, with Brooks, we see a character we had grown love die in a matter of episodes. Thus it makes it more tragic.
   Dawson handles his death in "Four Stories", which has Pacey and Joey return home, Dawson and Joey reuniting at a movie, and Jen's therapy sessions, also. The last is because Jen was found in a compromising position with Jack in "A Winter's Tale" and everyone believes something is wrong with Jen. Jen's troubles have there from the start yet in efforts to focus on Dawson, Joey, and Pacey, as well as Andie and Jack, Jen's drama got put on the shelf for awhile. By now, it was decided they should take it off the shelf, blow off the dust, and resolve it. Her sessions reveal a troubled past concerning her father (despite her mother causing the most trouble). It is finally revealed in "Eastern Standard Time", where she takes Joey with her on a trip to New York City, that she saw her father have sex with another woman, an under aged woman. So, this makes her father to be a hypocrite for sending her off to Capeside after catching her in bed with a boy. But, it seems it is what scarred Jen, made her lose her faith, lead to her losing her virginity, get into a fast girl's style, and all before she is sent to Grams. Once Jen confronts her father, she seems to get better, though she still has a few episodes with the bottle and with Drue, who seems to become more caring since "A Winter's Tale." Pacey, meanwhile, takes exams while everyone ditches school, in "Eastern..." and then goes on a road trip with Drue to Rhode Island where he gets drunk and picks a fight with someone. When Doug picks him up, Pacey is devastated to learn that he failed his exams. Doug decides to take him out for a heart to heart in "Late" which is also around the time a change comes over Pacey. He starts to feel inadequate since he doesn't have the marks to go into college or the motivation and since Joey is going to college, that makes their relationship doomed to fail. Thus, one could argue that the main turning point in their relationship was when Pacey and Joey did the deed.
   Joey feels she is pregnant in "Late" as her period is, well, late. Of course, it turns out false. Plot wise, this is a close call because if Joey got pregnant than she is following in her sister's footsteps and it would open Dawson's Creek to another season where Joey is a single mom. By this point, most people want to see Joey go to college, not become a single mom. It is also against her character to have a child out of wedlock. Also, this is the episode we see the birth of Dawson's new sister, Lily.
   Finally, the rites of senior high swing through. Senior ditch day happens in "Eastern Standard Time". Then we have prom in "Promicide". Dawson goes with Gretchen, Pacey with Joey, Jack with Toby, and Jen with Drue. The prom goes well until Pacey and Joey have a little spat on their future that signals the end of their relationship. This sort makes "Promicide" an inverse of "Anti-Prom" where Dawson saw Joey dancing with Pacey and argued with her, now it's Dawson dancing with Joey and Pacey does the arguing. Gretchen feels conscious of the semester ending and of her age and it puts her relationship with Dawson on the rocks. Jack and Toby make it through while Jen and Drue go through an awkward date. Of course, no one does any after prom sex. "Separation Anxiety" follows where everyone starts to fade away. Gretchen goes back to college and gives Dawson a well wish in his yearbook, Pacey is offered a job, and Jen gets to go to college, though that means Grams will be moving from her home. Finally, we come to graduation in "The Graduate". All but Pacey qualify and it's tense to see Pacey go through the episode wondering if he will. It turns out he does graduate but he decided to not attend the ceremony. "The Graduate" has the feel of a season finale, if not a series finale, as it has everyone returning, especially Andie McPhee. When the series airs on television, this episode is the last of Season Four to be aired instead of the following "Coda". A good reason because "Coda" is hardly much but just Jack, Jen, Joey, and Dawson debating their final night together, with no plot development except for Joey and Dawson kissing at the end. It even returns to the standard plot formula of starting and ending the episode in Dawson's bedroom with Dawson and Joey inside.
   Season Four may not be the best season but it is my favorite. The acting is better than ever, the dialogue is more intelligent, the stories are better, and the characters are more human and loveable. It doesn't try to be a social commentary like Season Three, which is a relief. One apparent cause is in the executive producers: Paul Stupin is sharing reign with Greg Prange and Tom Kapinos, the latter would even direct a few episodes. The season is also the season for Pacey / Joey team as out of the twenty-three episodes in the season, only in three of them are they not a couple. From this number, their relationship has lasted longer than anyone else on the show, with Bessie and Bodie's relationship being longer as well as Mitch and Gail. Sex and the talk of is decreased more, practically brought up in one episode, with another having issues of responsibilities that come with it. The show is still secular but there is a scene in "A Winter's Tale" where Dawson joins Grams in the hospital chapel. One could argue that Dawson's faith in films is symbolism of his faith in a higher power and it makes it a journey to find God. Another reason why it's my favorite, is it gives me nostalgia for my senior year.
   There is a theme of an end to an era in the season. This is the last time we see the Creek gang as teenagers and the last time Capeside takes up as the center setting of the series. Examples of the end of an era feel happen as Grams sales her home to pay for Jen's college tuition (her parents decide not to pay). Her home has had such a feel of an old fashioned home and one could feel like visiting that sort of home every time we have a scene there. To see it sold and its occupants moving now removes its essence. The break up of Joey and Pacey can also end an era: their relationship which has lasted long, enough to make Season Four, and the later parts of Season Three, be edited into a television movie called "The Love Affair of Pacey and Joey." One could liken it to Zack and Kelly, or Cory and Topanga. With its ending, Pacey / Joey fans have now nothing to look forward to until they reunite, which will take a long time before happening. At least the friendship between him and Dawson has recovered and it seemed that the love triangle thing has been buried in the sand by "Tao of Dawson." So basically, Brooks and Gretchen are a God-send in making Dawson a better character if you couldn't stand him before.
    Another way it ended an era is noticed in the start and end dates. It began in 2000 and ended in 2001, essentially making the end of the 20th Century and the start of the 21st. This I can see why it resulted in the first three seasons placed in one section of the Complete Series box while the last three take up the other. It separates what I can call "90's Creek era" from "2000's Creek era". The fact the season ended in the spring before September 11, 2001, is another reason it seems like the end of an era.