K
A
T
I
E
H
O
L
M
E
S
:
The Girl Next
Door
katienholmes.com
Kevin Williamson looks back at the 'Dawson's Creek' series finale: The art of saying goodbye
.
Entertainment
Weekly
by Mandi Bierly
4/15/14
For Entertainment Weekly‘s “The Art of Saying
Goodbye” story, which ran in the April 11 issue, we interviewed the
masterminds behind 10 iconic TV shows to learn how they crafted their
series finales. No one’s story was quite like Dawson’s Creek creator
Kevin Williamson’s. He’d stepped away from the drama, which was originally set
to end with the season 6 episode “Joey Potter and Capeside
Redemption,” which sent Joey (Katie Holmes) off to Paris. But then the
network had an idea: “Warner Bros. called Greg Berlanti up
knowing we were friends and said, ‘See if you can talk Kevin into doing the
finale.’ I went to lunch with Jordan [Levin], president of The WB, and they had
the conceit: Why don’t we do five years in the future? They were like, ‘Let’s
push ahead and show how everyone ended up.’ I thought about it, and I went,
‘Okay. That frees me up. That allows me to tell a new story,’” Williamson says.
Below, in our extended Q&A, he details how he decided what that new
tale would be (RIP, Jen), when he changed his mind about who Joey would end
up with romantically, and why you shouldn’t hold your breath for a reunion
movie.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I spoke to Murphy
Brown creator Diane English for this feature as well, and she said
writing that series finale almost killed her. What was your experience
like?
KEVIN WILLIAMSON: It came at the world’s
worst time. … I was doing Cursed, that amazing, brilliant werewolf
movie. [Laughs] We were shooting Cursed: Part 4 — ’cause I
think we reshot it like four times — and Julie Plec [who'd also worked with
Williamson and Berlanti on Dawson's Creek] was one of the producers. So
we were just sort of sitting there on set miserable, kinda just talking it out.
And then I thought, you know, the thing about Dawson’s Creek was that
it was always supposed to be my version of a coming-of-age
story – which was all of these kids grew up on the Peach Pit. All
these kids knew 90210. Dawson was a very self-aware, movie-referencing
smart aleck. That was the style of the show. So I thought, it’s coming of
age – what was the one thing they haven’t dealt with? They dealt with
first love, first sex, first everything, but they hadn’t dealt with the
death of a core member of their group. I said, “That would be the final
coming-of-age story.”
How did you decide Jen [Michelle Williams] was the one who would
die?
I looked around at all the characters and said, “Who can it
be?” I wanted to tell the story through Jen. She always felt like the outsider,
the misfit. She was always the person who didn’t feel like she fit in. And I
thought what a beautiful way to let her be the catalyst for everyone’s turning
events. I also wanted Joey to finally make her decision between Pacey [played by
Joshua Jackson] and Dawson [played by James Van Der Beek], and I thought what
better thing to launch that life decision than the immediacy of a death. You’re
forced to dig deeper and to truly figure out what your future’s gonna be. Here
you have little Joey Potter in New York: she’s seemingly on her way up the
ladder professionally, but she’s with a guy, played by Jeremy Sisto, that’s
probably wrong for her. When I first wrote it, I was absolutely convinced it had
to end with Dawson and Joey together. It was a two-hour finale, and when I wrote
the second hour, that’s where I was headed. I wasn’t able to sleep, something
was rubbing me the wrong way. To me, Dawson and Joey are soul mates. And then I
kept thinking, one thing I’ve learned in my life is that my soul mate isn’t
necessarily my romantic love. So I was trying to put that in place with Dawson
and Joey professing their forever to each other. And then we revealed that she
chose her romantic love, which was Pacey.
Did you feel fan pressure back then?
Back in 2003, we
barely had Dawson’s Desktop, it was just new and cutting-edge on our AOL
dial-up. … Twitter sort of elevates everyone’s angst to some degree. Everyone’s
got a blog. Everyone’s hate-watching everything. Everyone’s gotten just snarky,
snarky, snarky. So you just have to go with it. That’s a part of the process
now. … It was such an interesting response when I did it then: I didn’t realize
how many people wanted Pacey and Joey together. Because I always thought
everyone was kinda like, “It’s Dawson and Joey. Everyone knows it’s gonna be
Dawson and Joey.” When I finally shifted it to Pacey and Joey, people came out
of the closet going, “Okay, I’m so glad that happened. They so belong together.”
I know it was a little polarizing; I thought it was gonna be extremely
polarizing. … [That said], so many people have come up to me like, “I can’t
believe it wasn’t Dawson and Joey.” And I go, “But it was. They sat there by the
pier and said, ‘You and me, always.’” He wrote a TV show, The Creek,
about Dawson and Joey. In his Spielbergian head, he got the girl.
How did James take the news?
I remember having to call
James and explain to him how I was gonna end the show, and he was just like,
“You know, man, you gotta do what you think is gonna be right.” He was down with
any decision. I think he really ultimately loved the idea that all of Dawson’s
dreams came true in Hollywood. That sounded right to him: If I had this big
dream and I didn’t succeed, I would be very disappointed.
How did Michelle react hearing of Jen’s death?
I remember
Michelle was a little scared and nervous. She goes, “Well, what if we do a
reunion show? What if we do a movie or something?” I’m like, “Well, then you’ll
be a ghost.” [Laughs] Once we realized that we were gonna let her die,
it freed us up to have all those scenes — that wonderful moment where Dawson is
videotaping her video letter to her daughter, the moment with Grams [Mary Beth
Peil] being there to witness her death. I just loved how it put Joey in a frame
of mind where she had to finally stop running from her personal life and really
face it head-on. It was that last bit of growth that pushed them into
adulthood.
So you never thought about a reunion movie?
We joked
about it then: “What’s gonna happen if we do the reunion movie? Jen’s dead.”
“Well, she’ll be in heaven narrating the whole story.” [Laughs] But
ultimately, I don’t want to see it. I want it to be that little piece of the
’90s that’s forever in its proper place. And it was a complete story: I know how
everyone ended up because of the five-year push in the finale. I love that there
are so many people out there that would love to see a reunion. I love that it
has a life that has gone on and on beyond its initial run. But I like how we
ended it.
So you felt satisfied with the finale?
We ran out of
time. I wrote the first hour, and then they had to start filming it while I was
writing the second hour. I’ve always regretted the first hour of the two-hour
finale. I always felt like it could have been better structured. I had three
days or less to finish the second hour. We were all hands on deck. Maggie
Friedman, Greg — we were just trying to get it done. I look back on it, and I
feel like the second hour is so much tighter. I look back and go, “God, I wish
we could’ve had another day or two.” But that’s just me as a writer. I look at
every episode I ever do and go, “God, if I had one more week.” Which is probably
the truth. [Laughs]
Tell me about ultimately getting Jack (Kerr Smith) and Pacey’s
brother Doug (Dylan Neal) together. Jack ended up taking custody of Jen’s
daughter, and Doug finally came out so they could be a family.
In
the first two seasons, I can point to every single episode and tell you what
really happened in my life that spawned that episode — or, I can point to what
happened in another writer’s life who sat in that writer’s room and poured out
their guts and we turned it into an episode. The gay storyline was always really
special to me, and to Greg. Greg and I wrote the coming-out storyline for
[episodes] 214 and 215. It was spawned out of something that happened in Greg’s
childhood, and then I took it and it was sort of my family’s reaction. We
blended our stories. I wanted a happy ending for Jack. We always joked that Doug
was gay, or at least Pacey did. [Laughs] And so we thought, well, what
if he really was? Why don’t we just go there and make sure that it’s a happy
ending? That was a nice little subplot and a way to round out Jack’s character.
In the late ’90s, non-traditional families were just becoming a normal part of
the world. We thought it was an appropriate reflection upon Jack.
What do you consider the gold standard of series
finales?
The last one I watched that I thought was spectacular, for
me personally, was Breaking Bad. That honored the show. I felt
complete. I felt satisfied. I had a smile on my face because that was a damn
good episode of television. I did love 24; I just thought that final
moment between Chloe and Jack via the satellite was a beautiful moment. I had to
instantly rewind it and watch it again. … There’s The Sopranos. When
everyone was giving [creator David Chase] criticism for that final moment, I’m
like, “I don’t know, man. That’s how he saw it.” You know, he didn’t make that
decision lightly. He thought about that, and he made that decision. And you know
what? It worked for me. I respect that. I’m being brought into someone else’s
world, so I’m gonna go along for the ride.
Is there anything you’ll do differently going into the next series
finale you do?
In terms of Vampire Diaries, you should call
Julie Plec right now and ask her how it’s gonna end. [Laughs] Because
we’ve talked. I know how we originally said it was gonna end.
Yes, Julie once told me the two of you were sitting in an Atlanta
mall early in season 2 and discussed it.
Yes, we did. Things change,
but I do know if we go with that ending — oh, I’m gonna start crying thinking
about it. [Laughs] I love that show.
Anything else you wanted to say?
I look back on my entire
career, and I look back at [Dawson's Creek] as just the most special
time of my life. I was basically living my childhood all over again. I was in
Hollywood making movies. And I had the most amazing fresh cast. They were all
excited to be down in little Wilmington, North Carolina, and it just felt
special. And then when it turned into something special, it changed my life. I
always get choked up a little when I think about it.
.