The Dawson's Creek Episode Guide: A Perfect Wedding
Parenting is psychologically impossible, particularly for a mental weakling like myself. I constantly worry about what my son is thinking, and how he’s perceiving me and the rest of the world around him, and whether or not he’s going to grow up to be a well-adjusted human being. But there are internal struggles as well: For example, I am constantly trying to square the idea that the little guy is constantly growing and evolving. It’s been a joy watching him learn and grow, but it’s also devastating. Every time I think I have a handle on who this kid is, that version of him exits and is replaced by the updated version. Every day is a desperate attempt to hang onto something solid, but he slips through my fingers like so much beach sand. Everybody touts the inherent joy of raising a child, but nobody told me there would be so much coping on a daily basis.
So I found myself watching this episode of Dawson’s Creek and really relating to Mike Potter, Joey’s now-paroled father who came back home at the end of “Psychic Friends.” Mike has been in prison for drug trafficking, and he’s hyper-aware of how much his absence has drilled a hole into the fabric of his family. In order to avoid the glaring truth of how much he has hurt the people he loves, he goes into a state of denial and dives headlong into a series of projects, some small (making breakfast for his daughters) and some much larger (opening up a catering arm of the Icehouse and feeding 150 people at a wedding). Mike wants to skip over the painful parts of his reintroduction into family and society and get right to whatever normalcy he can hope to establish. Dude is coping.
But Joey sees through all of this and is worried that if he rushes into his return he’s going to get hurt. She fears for herself too: Mike’s parole doesn’t make him any less of a town pariah, and she doesn’t want the shame and stigma of her father’s sins to be any more amplified than they already are. The two of them dance around each other a lot during “A Perfect Wedding” but their ultimate confrontation at the dishwashing station in the kitchen is pretty note-perfect. Both Joey and Mike have convinced themselves that his return would magically (and instantaneously) right a series of wrongs, but they both come to the realization that this is going to take time. Ultimately, they realize they still love each other and will be there for one another no matter what.
In a twist, it’s Dawson who guides Joey through this particular breakdown as the stress of the catering job and her dad’s re-entry into her life threatens to overwhelm her. She had been getting clarity from Jack, who has a preternatural ability to say exactly the right thing and provide people with what they need to hear exactly when they need to hear it (a feat he pulls with the panicking bride who wants to call the whole thing off and leap out a window even though the ceremony has already begun). After witnessing his magic with the bride, Dawson interrogates Jack about his advice-giving ability and bemoans his current lack of connection with Joey. Once again, Jack offers a moment of clarity: In Joey’s present time of need, Dawson is the only one who could possibly know what she’s going through because they have such intimate history together, and if she’s keeping him at arm’s length then maybe it’s up to Dawson to re-establish that connection they have.
This all leads Joey back into Dawson’s arms, and while the two of them slow dance to Chantal Kreviazuk’s version of “Feels Like Home” they express their love for one another and kiss. It is impossible to express how much this meant to me when I first watched it in 1999. I was convinced I was in love with a girl who broke up with me in February 1998, and it took a hell of a long time for me to get over that. When I saw Dawson and Joey gloriously reunite after a period of tumult, I took it as a sign of hope that any relationship could be mended and any heartbreak could be healed. The lesson I took away from this show was that with enough tenacity, you could make a girl like you—even one who had already roundly rejected you. That’s a terrible lesson that derailed my ability to really relate to the opposite sex for the better part of a decade.
“A Perfect Wedding” is a great episode of TV, written by Mike White in his penultimate byline for the show. Not only does it deftly and realistically draw Dawson and Joey back together, but it also balances out the rest of the plots that weave through the wedding: There’s a mostly slapstick bit of b-plot wherein Pacey and Andie try to repair the cake, and there’s also some Mitch and Gail drama that I don’t hate. But the episode also acts as a crazy fulcrum point for Jen, who has been mostly adrift in the past few episodes. She opens this hour by making nice with Abby Morgan, explaining to her that despite her best efforts she still can’t shake her bad girl reputation and would like to lean into it instead. So the two of them agree to hang out and be bad together, which manifests in the two of them swilling free champagne at the fancy wedding the Potters are catering (and everybody else in the friend group is working at). After being ejected (by Andie, of all people), they continue their party at the docks, where Abby falls and hits her head and plummets to her death. I love how this episode looks like it’s going to end on the warm and fuzzy moment of Dawson and Joey’s kiss but then cuts to Abby’s cold watery corpse getting zipped into a body bag as Jen cries by herself. It’s one of the ballsiest cliffhangers this show ever did and it hit just as hard this time around as it did when it originally aired.
Also:
-This week’s cold open features Dawson screening Creek Daze for his mother, who understands her son’s frustration and tries to let him down gently. “It’s not Citizen Kane but it’s not Bride of Chucky either.” Sick burn on Bride of Chucky, a very entertaining camp horror flick from 1998 that I assume was only greenlit after Kevin Williamson’s Scream became a hit.
-Not only did “Feels Like Home” survive the transition to streaming but so did Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me,” a cornerstone track in the Dawson’s Creek experience (this was actually the second time that song had been used this season).
-Other songs were not as lucky. There’s a really distracting pop punk song that begins while Dawson is first trying to talk the bride off her ledge and then becomes the diegetic song that Jen and Abby are rocking out to in Jen’s room. The original tune was a nice little slice of late-period ska-punk by Dance Hall Crashers called “All Mine.”
-What time of year is it in Capeside? Everybody is dressed relatively warmly but Pacey and Andie still take their lunch outside. I don’t get it.
-While he attempts to reconstruct the top of the wedding cake that Andie knocked onto the ground, Pacey notes that he’s not a pastry chef. And while I don’t think he works on desserts, he will end up in a kitchen as part of a work-related plot line in season five.
-Also, how did Andie and Pacey end up fixing the cake? Just trying real hard?
-Gail tells Dawson she’s ready to try to win Mitch back, but he shows up to the wedding on the arm of Miss Kennedy.
-Abby drops some deep existential longing right before she bites it. “I don’t think I’ll ever be happy,” she tells Jen. “Wherever I am I’ll always want to be somewhere else.”
-Rachel Leigh Cook was listed as a guest star and I was disappointed when she didn’t show up, but then I realized her credit is for the little bit of footage of her rowing in Creek Daze that we see at the very beginning of the episode. I’m not familiar with SAG rules, but I’m pretty sure that means she got paid for this episode, which is a nice hustle for her.
-Next week, Capeside mourns Abby Morgan and Dark Jen fully emerges.