Pop Culture | 00s | 90s
"Dawson's Creek" Exec Reveals There Was An Alternate Ending, And His Mom "Hates Him" For Not Choosing It
There are a few decisions I've made that my mom probably isn't too proud of. But I don't think any of them have hit the level of "not ending your TV show with the finale she wanted." Unfortunately for Dawson's Creek showrunner Kevin Williamson, that's exactly what level he's at. He and fellow showrunner Paul Stupin had differing opinions on how it should all play out.
Dawson's Creek was our ultimate guilty pleasure as teens, and honestly still is. You'd be hard-pressed to find a teenager from the 80s and 90s who didn't enjoy the weekly indulgence of our version of The O.C...but with less guns and drugs.
Dawson, Pacey, Joey, and Jen were just trying to get through high school without any major disasters and hopefully with a little romance. The biggest division between fans was whether or not Joey (played by Katie Holmes) should end up with Dawson or Pacey.
The answer, of course, is Pacey. She belongs with Pacey. THANKFULLY, that's how the show ended, and my teenage heart didn't have to deal with all the emotions that would have overwhelmed me if it had been the other way around.
But I recently learned that my young, impressionable heart was almost shattered into 10 trillion pieces thanks to stupid Stupin.
Our Pacey/Joey dreams only came to fruition halfway through writing the final episode. At the ATX Television Festival, co-showrunners Kevin Williamson and Paul Stupin revealed that Joey was actually supposed to end up with Dawson, but a last minute decision turned it all around.
"It was clear to us that it was she and Dawson who would wind up together. Halfway through, Kevin calls me and says, 'I changed my mind,'" Stupin recalled.
Williamson said that as he was writing the Joey/Dawson ending, he realized it wasn't "what the show set up to be."
"Dawson seemed like the obvious answer and once I got into writing the first hour. …This isn't what the show set up to be," the writer explained. "Maybe that's where it started but it evolved and it ended up as something else."
"I wanted it to be a twist on the teen genre but also wanted it to be surprising, honest and real and say something about soul mates and what soul mates can be," he explained. "That's why we did it that way. When you left the show in that last moment, they're a family and everyone got what they wanted. There was fulfillment and they were all happy."
He also said that "all three of the characters were soulmates." But his mom didn't think that was an acceptable answer.
"Guys, my mother hates me!" Williamson confessed.
Honestly, if you had not given me Joey and Pacey, I would have hated you too.