The Dawson's Creek Episode Guide: Reunited

The thing that strikes me most about this episode, which moves a lot of chess pieces in place for our second season finale of Dawson’s Creek, is the jarring tone juggling it manages to pull off. There are essentially two A-plots: On one side of town at a romantic French restaurant, a sextet engages in some high-concept sitcom-level shenanigans; at the same time, a deeply intense kitchen sink drama unfolds. It’s not always smooth, but I admire the balancing act.

Let’s begin with the goofball stuff first. Dawson and Joey have been back together a month, a she’s a little concerned that they have fallen back into the old habits of hanging out in Dawson’s room and watching whatever he rented on VHS (this week, the film discussed in the cold open is St. Elmo’s Fire). But Dawson has a trick or two up his sleeve, and he intended on surprising Joey with reservations to Entre Nous, a fancy bistro with live music and dancing, to celebrate their one month anniversary. There’s just one problem: Mitch not only also made reservations for a date with Nicole at that same restaurant on that same night, but Entre Nous messed up the arrangements because they were unaware there were two separate Leery parties. So Dawson, Joey, Mitch and Nicole all end up scrunched into one table together, which is a totally contrived scenario that leads to a bunch of inevitable outcomes: Dawson and Mitch clash over his extra-marital romantic life (Mitch is, of course, still legally married to Dawson’s mother), Dawson and Nicole go at it over her adjudication of his latest film, and Joey bristles over the various conflicts eclipsing what was supposed to be a romantic night out with her boyfriend.

But I like how everything plays out in this otherwise pleasant powder keg, and I especially dig the jolt of escalation when Gail and Jen take a seat in the same restaurant (they start at the bar, but one of the hosts recognizes Gail from her TV news gig and makes space for a local celebrity). Jen is currently living at Dawson’s house following the falling out with Grams after Abby’s funeral, and the two of them commiserate over their shared existence in liminal spaces—Jen is homeless-adjacent and unwilling to break bread with her grandmother (who still lives just next door) while Gail still has the job offer that would move her to Philadelphia and away from her family. As the evening continues to unravel, Joey and Jen—still a delightful pair capable of really causing a stir when they put their differences aside for a common goal—concoct an elaborate scenario to manipulate Mitch and Gail back together in a sequence that ends with the two of them dancing to “their song” (which is apparently Peaches & Herb’s “Reunited,” which is a terrible tune but does give the episode its name). Everything seems to be set up for Mitch coming home, but he still makes apologizes profusely to Nicole and kisses her on the docks after dinner, which may be the sign that Gail was waiting for with regards to taking the job elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Joey goes from being mildly put out by the whole dinner scenario to fiercely defending Dawson and his work to conniving with Jen as part of the Mitch and Gail plot, and it’s a great showcase for Katie Holmes (who is far more dynamic a performer and a presence than I think anybody ever gave her credit for). It leads to a deeply sweet scene at the end of the episode which finds Joey lightly interrogating Dawson about his master plan for the night and whether or not his intention was for the romantic dinner to lead to sex. “The night is young, Joey,” Dawson says. “And so are we,” she responds, in the gentlest and wisest way possible, acknowledging her desires but still letting poor dopey Dawson down easy. In that moment in the boat (where it’s hard to make out, by the way), they briefly stand as the best couple on this show.

Elsewhere, things are not so copacetic. While the sitcom nonsense is unfolding at Entre Nous, the McPhee house is falling apart. Andie, last seen spotting Abby’s ghost (or whatever) in her room is now changing her hairstyle and talking to a guy we’ve never met before. (The mystery guy ends up being her oft-discussed dead brother Tim, and I can’t tell if that’s something I remembered from this show or if there were enough really obvious clues along the way that I figured it out fresh this time around.) The always-patient Pacey is trying to confront her about her slightly off behavior, but Andie just reacts defensively and storms out of rooms in her own house. When Pacey finally catches her talking to someone who isn’t there, he’s worried it’s one of two things: Either she’s having some sort of affair or she’s having a psychotic break. Jack gets home just in time to find Andie locked in the bathroom with Pacey frantically trying to negotiate her out. The whole thing is shot in a very immediate, almost too-intimate verité style that gives the sequence some real intense emotional stakes, and Joshua Jackson absolutely drains buckets from all over the floor as he attempts to coax Andie out of the bathroom. It’s a testament to the sharp script (penned by future King of the CW Greg Berlanti) that makes Pacey just competent enough to keep Andie on the hook but still a teenager and still clearly in over his head. Andie finally calms down but Jack admits that it’s time to call their absent father for fear that they’ll lose Andie like they lost her mother.

Is Dawson’s Creek a quirky rom-com or is it seriously soapy melodrama? Cue the “Why not both?” meme. Everybody kind of nails this episode perfectly, and neither the silly side nor the serious side feel over-the-top or ill-advised. Not a whole lot of shows—particularly teen shows, particularly shows from that era, particularly shows on the WB—could pull off a tonal juggling act, but Dawson’s Creek once again punches way above its weight and “Reunited” stands as a low-key favorite in a great run.

Also:

-Lots of bad replacement music cues in this one. The track that plays over the end sequence sounds like a terrible Toad the Wet Sprocket rip-off but was originally a song by PJ Olsson called “Ready for a Fall,” which was a highlight of the first Dawson’s Creek soundtrack album that landed in stores only a few weeks before this episode aired.

-The other song that I really remember showing up in this episode is Barenaked Ladies’ “This Is Where It Ends,” from 1996’s Born on a Pirate Ship. The Ladies’ primary legacy is “One Week” and their penchant for novelty improv but they have a bunch of low key romantic heartbreakers in their catalog and “This Is Where It Ends” is one of the best.

-During one of her conversations with her dead brother, I noticed that Andie drove a Saab, which feels like an extremely ‘90s detail (possibly because when I was in high school I knew a dude named Tony who drove a Saab; since I knew no other details about him I always referred to him as Tony Saab).

-The episode opens in media res with Jen already living in the Leery house, but I kind of wish we had gotten some scenes of Jen negotiating her way into that arrangement. Also is she sleeping in Dawson’s room or do they have a spare bedroom? And Joey is fine with all this? It’s just kind of glossed over and I weirdly wanted more details.