“So everything was redesigned and rewritten…”
It was one of the most divisive love triangles on the small screen at the time: Was Joey going to choose Dawsonhis nice neighbor or Pacey, the handsome bad boy?
After leaving the drama at the end of season 2, the creator Kevin Williamson had returned to write the end of the series, and he clearly had in mind to end Joey with Dawson. “That was always the plan” he repeated several times in recent years. But then why was the plan changed?
Because Kate Holmes didn’t want it to end like this at all. In the new book Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson’s Creek: How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Televisionauthor Thea Glassman reveals that the young actress lobbied for her character to choose Pacey:
“Katie freaked out when she saw that Joey had to end up with Dawson. She didn’t want to end up with Dawson” remembers Tom Kapinos, who was showrunner at the time. So everything was redesigned and rewritten.”
Executive producer Paul Stupin shares the same recollection in the book, noting that Williamson wrote the first hour of the (two-part) finale, so “sIf you look at it, it leads you to think that Dawson will be the chosen one. Then I think Katie kind of pressed. She wanted it to be Pacey.”
She’s not the only one. Joshua Jackson confided last year that he also campaigned for Joey to finish the Dawson series … with Pacey.
