The Dawson's Creek Episode Guide: To Be Or Not To Be...
For all its elevated conversations and teen angst, Dawson’s Creek never really fell into the “very special episode” trap. It was not a show that was particularly socially conscious or ever political. Perhaps to their detriment, the characters on the show were always so impossibly insular in their thinking that there was never really room for whatever issues the real world might have presented. There was no time for Dawson to fret about Y2K or for Jen to suddenly get invested in the fate of the Kosovo—the kids on Dawson’s Creek had feelings to feel and intense chats to have about them.
But here we are, more than halfway through the second season, and we have the closest thing Dawson’s Creek got to an issue-based episode. But in a strange move, it kind of sidelines the story’s protagonist Jack, who writes a poem he is forced to read in front of his English class by tyrannical teacher Mr. Peterson (the same teacher with the backbreaking mid-term in “The All-Nighter”). Jack hesitates repeatedly throughout his piece, and just as he lands on some imagery that suggests Jack might be struggling with his own sexuality, he starts crying and runs out of class. Pacey, incensed that Peterson made Jack recite his poem when he clearly didn’t want to, tries to run after him but is stopped, thus beginning an episode-long feud between the two of them that takes up most of the air. In fact, the main thrust of both Andie and Joey’s narratives in this hour is how they aren’t talking to Jack. He’ll get his time in the sun in the second half of this unofficial two-parter, but this is a Pacey episode through and through.
“To Be Or Not To Be…” is also a pretty good distillation of what it might have been like in an American high school in 1999 when a student was emerging from the closet. Because I was at a New England suburban high school at that time, I recognized a lot of the rumor-mongering and casual gay-bashing that went around the Capeside cafeteria in the wake of Jack’s poem incident. Though Jack continuously denies the rumor he is gay, insisting that there was nothing sexual about the masculine imagery in his poem, he still gets victimized in ways both passive (guidance counselor Mr. Milo gives him a bunch of human sexuality pamphlets) and extremely aggressive (somebody spray paints the word “fag” on his locker). That word was tossed around extremely casually back in ’99, and I feel like it’s only been in the past 10 years when it’s been elevated to an epithet as hateful and unspeakable as the n-word. I have convinced myself such a thing wouldn’t happen today, but I have also not been in high school for 20 years and don’t really know how much more evolved those same types of kids tend to be.
I know how much TV has evolved, though. In ’99, having a gay character—particularly on a teen show—was revolutionary; now it’s almost refreshingly expected. So it’s an extra bummer that we don’t spend as much time with Jack as we do with Pacey in this hour, which climaxes with a stand-off between Peterson and Pacey that ends in Pacey spitting in his teacher’s face. He’s left with an ultimatum: Unless he formally apologizes to Peterson, he’ll be suspended, which will throw a huge monkey wrench into his reinvention as a good student.
Though Pacey isn’t the one confronting his own homosexuality, he does bring up a much more low-stakes issue: What do you do when those in charge do something you know is wrong? Late in the episode, Pacey confronts Peterson in the principal’s office and notes that while he is ashamed for losing his temper and spitting, he does not apologize for the intent of that action because he recognizes the moral failing in Peterson’s actions. In an inspired monologue that I very much took to heart as a wannabe-rebellious teen, he explains that the student-teacher dynamic is too often rooted in fear, and that fear can be exploited in the form of tyranny. As he explained to Andie earlier, part of what has made him a good student is his willingness to trust his instincts, and everything in his body told him that what Peterson did—forcing a kid to reveal himself in class, making him cry—went far beyond the pale. Pacey is self-assured in a way that best friend Dawson can only dream of. There’s a scene of the two of them sitting outside the principal’s office just before Pacey makes his speech, and Pacey asks Dawson if he thinks what he did was right and if he would have done the same thing in his shoes. Dawson says he would not, and that is because he is a coward.
Everyone else is left to deal with the fallout of Pacey’s attempted act of heroism. Joey worries about confronting Jack about being gay because she doesn’t want to give the rumors any credence (but as his girlfriend is still obviously curious), while Andie finds herself in denial about the whole thing (in a confession to Pacey, she admits she initially resented Jack for even writing the poem and could only think that it would mean yet another thing for her delicate psyche to carry). The latter eventually comes to terms with her brother, but Joey keeps prodding and finally just asks Jack directly if he is gay. Jack says no, but while the two of them embrace as Hootie & the Blowfish’s “Only Lonely” swells on the soundtrack, neither of them look awfully convinced of that sentiment.
Also
-This episode was written by Greg Berlanti, who now produces like 64% of all television. I don’t know if he’s the one who penned Jack’s poem, but it’s the best and most crucial part of this episode. It really captures the that mix of brutal honesty with an amateurish attempt at profundity that makes up the bulk of teenage poetry. It just works.
-Jen might as well be on a different show at this point, as her b-plot with Ty doesn’t intersect with the main story at all, even though she’s more connected than ever to Jack thanks to his work on the movie she’s producing. She was turned off by Ty’s Bible study date from last week, but he’s determined to be persistent and basically harasses her into going on another date with him. He declares that he’s not just “some Bible-banging Dorkus McForkus” (the other great bit of writing from Berlanti’s script) and takes Jen to a jazz club where he requests “something romantic” from the singer he knows and orders a pair of martinis. It’s fun to see Jen navigate any sort of relationship because Michelle Williams is fundamentally interesting in that role. Eddie Mills, who plays Ty, is not nearly as compelling and comes off a little flat.
-There’s a sequence early in the episode where Pacey receives some good news from Mr. Milo and he bounds through the hallway to embrace Andie. The song on the soundtrack is clearly a replacement, and it sounds like bargain basement Goo Goo Dolls. The original song that was in that spot? “Slide” by the actual Goo Goo Dolls!
-Andie’s case against Jack being gay is that he’s crazy about Joey and he also hates Madonna.
-Pacey does end up getting suspended, though that’s not the end of the war between he and Mr. Peterson.
-While we’re on the subject of Peterson: I know I’m being pedantic, but in “The All-Nighter,” Pacey, Andie, Dawson and Joey are all in the same English class together and studying for the same midterm. But now later in the school year Pacey and Jack are in the same class, sans Joey or Dawson? I suppose Jack and Pacey could be taking some sort of creative writing elective that only lasts for half the semester, but it seems hinky.
-Kerr Smith does a really nice job of working through the various ways he’s compartmentalizing what is happening to him (and in not a whole lot of scenes), but I got distracted by the way he pronounced the word “poem.” Does the Pennsylvania-born Smith have the faintest murder durdur accent?