Rock Bottom:
Written by: Tom Kapinos
Directed by: Robert McNeill
Original airdate: January 29, 2003
Synopsis:
Audrey complains about not wanting to go to rehab, but Joey gets her out the door and heading for a flight to LA. Later, Eddie comes to the dorm room to say goodbye, as he is headed to California for the school that Hetson recommended him for, along with a possible scholarship. However, Joey is all business and thoroughly finished with him, when Audrey’s mother calls to tell her that Audrey never made it to LA. With Eddie’s help, they find Audrey in a hotel room, shacked up with a guy named Bob and obvious signs of alcohol and drug use.
Joey and Eddie decide to drive Audrey to LA themselves with Bob tagging along at Audrey’s insistence.
In LA, Dawson begins the reshoots for the movie, but is met with resistance by the DP who continually argues and shoots down Dawson’s ideas. Natasha also refuses to follow the new scenes, showing gratuitous nudity and a long winded speech written for her character. At his wits end, Dawson tries to get in touch with Todd to no avail, which leaves him feeling sick to his stomach, his dreams so close to becoming dashed.
As Joey and crew begin their trip westward, we are treated to literal fart jokes and various montages of the foursome mugging for a camera that none of the occupants actually seem to have. When they stop, Audrey stands on Eddie’s car and argues with him before insulting Joey, and then driving off and ripping out the hose from the gas pump. Eddie and Joey try hitching for a ride, and talk about how Audrey doesn’t seem to want her help with her problem. Eddie tells her he is along for this ride because it lets him spend more time with her, and that he loves her and is sorry for his big screw up. Joey says that she is having a hard time letting Eddie go, but still can’t reconcile the fact that he took off without telling her.
CJ and Jen hatch a plan to hook Grams up with CJ’s Uncle Bill, due to the fact that Clifton and Grams broke up after he wanted her to convert to his religion. The date begins with Bill showing off his arrogant side by calling Grams a broad, and then proclaiming loudly that he sees a pubic hair in his soup. He then tells Grams she’s a downer, and should go see her doctor to remove the icecap wedged up her butt. Jen thinks Grams is hurt, but she actually starts laughing. Later, Bill asks Grams if she would like to take a walk and the two head off. Jen comments on how she wishes she could handle her own love life this well, and CJ tells her if he had known her weeks ago like he knows her now, he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her. He goes to kiss her but Jen pulls away. She then says PSYCH and kisses him deeply.
Dawson appears to get sick, and is confronted by Natasha who takes a small bit of pity and tells him he needs to take charge and not let people walk all over him, advice he takes to heart when he sees Heather, who admonished him earlier for falling behind schedule. Dawson quickly steps up and fires the argumentative DP, and tells Natasha to read the lines the way they are scripted. He suggests if anyone else doesn’t want to follow his instructions, they should leave now. Heather approaches, telling Dawson that he has no idea how close he was to being fired. Later, Natasha confesses she actually got turned on by his attitude, and the two end up spending the night together. Dawson reveals that he is fine with the occasional tryst, not letting himself be wrapped up in his head, and they agree to see each other again someday.
Meanwhile, Audrey and Bob are drunk at a bar when another patron starts hitting on her. She jokes with him for a while before he asks to show her his truck outside. She goes, but then wants to go back inside when he starts to press her for kisses, sex, and starts getting aggressive. Audrey hauls off and kicks in his ol bait and tackle, and starts to beat on him until Joey and Eddie show up and pull her away. Audrey decides that she is finally ready to go to rehab.
As they drop Audrey and Bob off, Audrey tells Eddie that he will go down in the books as one of Joey’s great loves. She promises Joey she’ll get herself under control, and try to figure out why she’s so unhappy. Joey tells Eddie that as much as she wants him to come back to Boston, he deserves to explore this new world that is opening up to him. He tells her that he doesn’t want to say goodbye, and that they should make a plan to meet again sometime, perhaps even in Paris. She leaves him, saying that he just might be the sweetest and nicest surprise that has ever happened to her, and that she loves him too, and will continue doing so as long as she can. The two hug and then passionately kiss for a good long while, perhaps too long for two people breaking up.
Dawson’s Trivia:
Character actor Geoffrey Lewis played Uncle Bill. His career started back in the 70’s on shows like Bonanza, Mannix, and Mission Impossible, and movies like The Culpepper Cattle Company (a young farm boy who always wanted to be a cowhand talks a tough trail boss into hiring him on a cattle drive), Macon County Line (a vengeful Southern sheriff is out for blood after his wife is brutally killed by a pair of drifters), Every Which Way But Loose (the San Fernando Valley adventures of trucker turned prize-fighter Philo Beddoe and his pet orangutan Clyde), and the sequel Any Which Way You Can. He was in Little House on the Prairie, The A-Team, Magnum PI, The Golden Girls, Fletch Lives, Maverick, Walker: Texas Ranger, Webster, Murder, She Wrote, and The X-Files. The last thing he did was playing Len Harding in High & Outside: A Baseball Memoir about a baseball player who refuses to believe his career is over and takes desperate measures to keep it alive. It also stars Ernie Hudson. He died of a heart attack in 2015.
Seth Rogen played Bob, or in other words, himself. He got his start in Freaks & Geeks, with Busy Phillips, and also began his friendship with James Franco there. He worked on the Ali G Show with Sasha Baron Cohen as a writer. A few of his hit movies are The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, and Pineapple Express. He did star as a superhero in the Green Hornet, and has done a number of voice acting roles such as Invincible, Horton Hears A Who and Kung Fu Panda. More recently he was the voice of Pumba on the live action Lion King, guested in a few episodes of The Boys as @Sir-Cums-A-Lot779, and was in the Pam and Tommy Hulu series playing the lead antagonist, Rand.
DP Frank was Jon Stafford. He’s best known for playing Doc Jay in Full Metal Jacket, although he’s not at the top of the supporting cast list (all his IMDB pics are from that movie). He was a lead in Crossing Line with Rick Hearst (a rich kid, with a fondness for fast bikes, is blamed when a motorcycle accident puts his best friend in a coma), and a supporting cast member in Pieces of Talent (David, a local filmmaker, becomes obsessed with Charlotte, an aspiring actress working as a waitress, and begins filming a gory masterpiece). Most of his roles are in single episodes of shows or below the fold roles in movies. He did appear in Surface as a bar patron and Krienke.
Dueling Overs may be impossible to light, but in my many years of film school and in depth analysis of films and filmmaking, I can safely tell you that there is no such thing.
When Joey and Eddie discuss their relationship while hitchhiking, I believe they slip in a soft instrumental version of Just Like a Pill by P!nk
Clean and Sober:
Written by: Anna Fricke
Directed by: Michael Lange
Original airdate: February 5, 2003
Synopsis:
As Pacey purchases a new big screen TV in preparation for a party he’s hosting, he and Joey share a moment where she commends him on how far he has come since high school. Back at the apartment, Jen tells the gang that she’s bringing CJ to the party and asks Pacey to play nice. Emma returns, and like Joey and Jen, is seemingly unimpressed by the huge purchase. Emma however reveals her own new acquisition, a fiancé by the name of Gus.
At the rehab center in LA, Dawson visits Audrey, who seems to be doing well. He then notices Toni Stark, who is a well known Hollywood producer with a connection to Spielberg. Audrey and Dawson catch up on things, but she encourages him to go and approach Toni, which he does, however he gets his butt handed to him as she snaps at him for trying to talk business with someone who is currently out of said business.
Jen invites CJ to attend Pacey’s party with her and he is rightfully nervous about it, given their past interaction. David notes that Jen seems nervous too, but she just says she’s playing the clean and sober role tonight, while David says it’s ok with CJ if people drink around him. Jen thanks Pacey for being okay with CJ, and he says that once he offered CJ a drink they seemed to be good. Jen begins to worry that CJ has started to drink.
Meanwhile, Joey has decided to let her hair down and starts having some drinks like there’s no tomorrow. Getting drunk quickly, she starts to spread personal stories from her friends’ lives, including the death of Abby Morgan and Jack’s moment of arousal when Joey was drawing him years ago. Pacey apologizes for not knowing about CJ’s former alcoholism, and pulls Joey away. She laments on how everyone is seemingly working out a romance except her. Pacey suggests that maybe she’s just so amazing, that she makes guys want to be better men.
Jack and Emma discuss her predicament in where she stopped attending school because the band was starting to take off. This means that she doesn’t have a visa to stay in the country anymore, hence the need to get married to Gus, a lazy, oblivious, and rude slob.
Meanwhile, Audrey pulls Dawson into a therapy session that Toni went into, hoping that it’ll give him a chance to talk with her more. The counselor however starts in on them, asking about why they’re here. Audrey comes up with a cliche story told in a terrible accent, which Dawson plays along with. During her story, Audrey does actually reveal things that have affected her, and she starts to see where she may need help. Toni calls them out on the ruse, saying that she is all for making fun of therapy, but would like to get the meeting over with, resulting in the counselor sending Dawson and Audrey out.
CJ and Jen argue over the drink situation as he reveals he hasn’t actually had a drink, but has been considering it for an hour, saying that maybe he has been too hard on himself. They end up letting it go for the moment, and start playing spin the bottle with Drunk Joey and friends. When the bottle ends up landing on them, they kiss but begin full on making out and heading to a bedroom to lay some pipe amidst everyone’s coats. After they’re finished, he tells her he just wanted to seem normal tonight, and she tells him that she just wanted to do the same and not drink too, and after a good discussion they decide to get up and get wasted.
The spin the bottle game continues with the bottle landing on Joey during Pacey’s turn, but before they can kiss, Gus stands on top of Pacey’s TV and destroys it. A disgusted Emma takes the moment to break off the engagement, and kicks Gus out. David and Jack talk about the situation, with David saying that there isn’t much Jack can do to help without marrying her himself. Jack actually proposes to Emma later, stating how he could be the ultimate husband and wingman for her. She considers it, but decides that she couldn’t do that to an actual friend and will figure out the mess herself.
Back at rehab, Dawson prepares to leave and Audrey thanks him for coming. She admits she actually did get some help from the session.
Pacey carries Joey to his bed and mentions that as she had surmised earlier, he never did get over her. In her drunken state, she remembers they never kissed during the game of spin the bottle. She kisses him before falling asleep, and Pacey sits down on a nearby chair.
Dawson’s Trivia:
Jane was an American magazine created to appeal to the women who grew up reading Sassy magazine; Jane Pratt was the founding editor of each. Its original target audience (pitched to advertisers) was aged 18–34, and was designed to appeal to women who did not like the typical women's magazine format. Pratt originally intended the magazine to be named Betty, but she was voted down by everyone else.
There is no Toni Stark that I could find, associated with Spielberg. Difficult to research with the name Tony Stark and Spielberg together.
Alicia Coppola was Toni Stark. She has played recurring characters in many shows, such as Why Women Kill, Empire, Blood & Treasure, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Young and the Restless, Another World (127 episodes), Jericho (a small town in Kansas is literally left in the dark after seeing a mushroom cloud over nearby Denver, Colorado. The townspeople struggle to find answers about the blast and solutions on how to survive), and American Dreams (60’s drama). She led the series Bull, which was about stockbrokers and starred Ian Kahn (Danny the cook). She did appear in episode 1 of Star Trek Voyager, but died quickly and was replaced by Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeil who directed many Dawson’s Creek episodes). There are many movies under her belt as well, such as The Perfect Getaway (a lady hires a guy to fly her in a helicopter but she forces him to land in a prison and break someone out of it, causing them to go on the run as the guys girlfriend tries to find him), Velocity Trap (a cop framed for murder is the only one not in cryosleep when a team of thieves boards the armored treasury spaceship he's on to steal its load), National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and Black Widow (TV movie; a photo journalist begins to suspect her best friend Danny's new love interest could be linked to the murders of wealthy men, with Elizabeth Berkeley of Saved by the Bell fame).
Gus was played by Esteban Powell. He got his start in Dazed and Confused, but it wasn’t until Bone Chillers that he got his lead role. Bone Chillers was a series about the spooky, sometimes even funny, misadventures of a gang of schoolchildren who encounter any number of strange happenings in their school and hometown. Later he would lead the movie Random Acts of Violence (a young man new in town is drawn into the super wealthy scene of Los Angeles and the Russian Mafia, finding that his wealth cannot protect him and his friends from the retribution coming their way), Hitman’s Run (a hit man double crosses the crime family he worked for and goes into witness protection), Paper Cut (three friends launch an indie newspaper but enter into a love triangle and the issues it results in), Bunny Whipped (a quirky romantic comedy that follows the interweaving story of a sports writer and a rap star) and Shiloh Falls (a western tale good vs evil). He also played Phil Collen in the Def Leppard biopic. He was the lead in the series The Cleaner (a guy transforms his life by taking control over his addictions and using his story to help others), and was involved in four episodes of Simian Undercover Detective Squad.
The front desk lady was Elaine Nalee. We’ve seen her in Dawson’s Creek before as Mr. Brookes nurse and PTA Board Member #2 with Mr. Green. Other than various bit roles, she was a little higher up in Find Love (story of two strangers who aren't looking for love but find it anyway). She does have a part in Surface as Teacher #2. She was also The Mashed Potato Lady in Muppets From Space. Her latest role was Jane the helpful neighbor in Halloween Kills.
R. Keith Harris was the counselor. He was in Surface as Dr. Meyers. Most of his roles have him just below the fold, but he was just above it in Fall Down Dead (a movie about the Picasso Killer terrorizing a city), and Lost Stallion (a Mickey Rooney film about a family that goes to a special treatment ranch to deal with the death of the husband and father of their family). He was a lead in the movie Wesley (1700’s self righteous Oxford instructor goes to Georgia to preach to Indians, last mentioned in the episode True Love). He was also Harlan Carson in 7 episodes of The Walking Dead. He’s still working today, appearing in 5 of the 8 episodes of Dopesick.
Sardines is an active game that is played like hide and go seek — only in reverse! One person hides, and everyone else searches for the hidden person. Whenever a person finds the hidden person, they quietly join them in their hiding spot. Soon, the hidden group starts to look like a bunch of sardines!
Essential Playlist:
Classic Creek Critiques:
There was a post from tachyon reporting that Variety announced the 2-hour finale and he said that he was glad. The finale is said to do a time jump leaving the door open for just about anything. The only response was someone lamenting not seeing more of Amy the critic.
In a separate but related post Boss5sr posted: I am seriously a little surprised that Dawson's Creek is ending after this season. I mean, I saw it coming a while ago, but I thought that maybe the WB try and save the show for atleast another year by offering more money.
It's a sad, sad day. I'm highly upset. I've been watching the show since I was a Senior in high school. I'm now 22. I have every episode and SOOOO many interviews with the cast. God, I can't believe it's been six years.
I'm going to miss watching the show and going to North Carolina to be an extra. My friends and I are going to try and have a little party when the show is over. I'm so sad now... IT MUST BE SAVED!
No one responded.
Vince said in a separate post: Katie at Sundance, during the press chat about The Singing Detective: Also chatting was the beautiful Katie Holmes, at Sundance with both Singing Detective and the delightful Pieces of April which I’ll get to later. Surprisingly, Holmes did admit that this may not be the final season of Dawson’s Creek after all. “No decisions have been made.”
tachyon responded: I believe that this is just Katie following orders. Until the network makes up their mind on whether to cancel, they're kind of obligated to say that the show might return. BUT...All of the actor's contract's expire at the end of the season and they've all said that they don't want to return. So unless the network seriously puts up their salaries, I can't imagine that they'd sign another year of their lives away to a sinking show. I *personally* think that the show should end at the end of this season. Because if they keep going, it's only going to get worse, not better. End it while they still have a little bit of dignity left, rather than none
Alberich says: You forgot to say end it on Pacey shippers Pacey/Joey into the sunset
TXHorns79 says: Well given that the WB is now advertising the remaining episodes this season, I would say Dawson's Creek is pretty much done for.
In ANOTHER separate post Mandy Lee says: I was a little disappointed about Dawson's Creek ending this season, but at the same time, I feel that the show has had alot of great seasons and the actors and actresses are probably ready to move onto bigger things..I think it's time to let it go.
Jolene says: I totally agree with you. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I just starting watch during season 3 and I really enjoy the show.
chgodon says: Fans, I also think it's time to end the show. I enjoy the music in the show; however; the Joey & Pacey, Joey & Dawson thing is really getting old. I have read on this group that the final episode is on May 14. Why do I hear on the ending credits.....just 10 episodes left?
cree...@thewb.com says: We're down to 9 now. They'll either be doing some repeats, or fill in another show in the spaces. Was it me, or did last weeks episode have a little bit of something that I've been missing?
Melissa says: I agree with you :) It was nice seeing Joey and Pacey together again.
The article they talked about was released in February 2003 in Variety and is at The Washington post right now: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/02/03/dawsons-creek-to-end-successful-5-year-wb-run/d2b7f93f-babc-413f-9321-dc8f7b278e96/
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DaleMurph1 says : Jen’s hair. If she curls her hair, it will look better I think. She needs to grow her hair out.
Iksnip says: she does have a pretty face but frankly the hair is awful
