Decisions!

Mark here... Laurel and I have settled in for another bit of TV Night.  It's Holiday time and usually I host a brunch, but I wasn't together with it enough this year.  Instead we've made a holiday brunch for dinner.  Laurel made a bread pudding with spinach and ham topped with a hollandaise sauce and I made potato latkes with a chive and sour cream topping and smoked salmon.

So we've made it to the Season 1 finale, "Decisions", and...meh.  It's a really dramatic episode. Joey gets the opportunity to go to Paris for either summer or the next year, neither of us can remember.  In any case, this leads Dawson to realize he is in love with Joey.  This comes across  as totally unrealistic since he's spent the season being completely oblivious to Joey being in love with him.  All episode we are treated to talk of cliffhangers to remind us how self-aware this show is, and let us know what to expect...

Meanwhile Jen's grandfather, who has been in a coma all season, briefly revives, only to pass away by the end.  As dramatic as this sounds, its frankly more interesting than the Joey-Dawson drama.  I know that the Joey-Dawson love is supposed to be the big story, but the reality of the two of them comes across as so stilted and awkward. Also, Joey visits her jailbird Dad in the big house.  The only interesting part here is Pacey's role and how just being with Pacey manages to make Joey more interesting...

Laurel here..I agree that the brief parts of this episode with Pacey and Jen are somehow way more interesting than the stuff between Dawson and Joey which is supposed to be the big deal.  who cares?

Poor Jen really gets the short end of the stick this episode.  She loses Dawson to Joey AND her grandpa dies.  At one point we got really frustrated with her because she gives her grams sort of a lecture about how her religion is a crock while her grandpa is in the hospital and her grams is trying to be positive about her faith and the power of prayer (which Mark and I agreed we both believe is real, at least as a form of self reflection, regardless of which religion it's attached to).  But in the end Jen comes around and joins her grams at church at the end of the episode after they lose grandpa.

I really hope that Joey decides to go to Paris but I know that she won't because she is super boring and always seems to make the opposite choice of what you hope she will do.  I'm sort of dreading next season when I'm sure she and Dawson will talk us to death about being together the same way they talked us to death about their friendship this season....