the set-up: flash forward five years. dawson is producing a television series about, you guessed it, their lives, entitled 'the creek'. it is season finale time and the joey character is torn between the dawson and pacey characters. of course, she is. only television's reigning king of meta could get away with this. but then, how else could this end? priceless.

the kiss: after six seasons of joshing and innuendo, dougie plants one on jack. full on the mouth. this is the first time i have ever seen two men kiss on network television. it was sexually charged yet friendly and familiar. i about spit up my sprite remix. by the way, if you haven't tried this stuff yet, it is pure liquid candy. yum! but back to the gay. seems that jack has headed back to capeside to teach at the high school and has been doing the sheriff for some time now. bravo. this show's portrayal of us gays is probably the only one i've never been apoplectic about. we're teachers and peace officers and, by the end of the evening, dads. not simply narcisstic, man-children disconnected from society at large, living in a bubble world of sex, drugs and fabulousness. thanks, kevin.

the device: jen's heart disease that by episode's end has claimed her life. dawson's creek's twist on the dramatic device has always been the characters' knowing acknowledgment and subsequent deconstruction of a particular person or situation as such. fitting that jen becomes a device within a device wrapped in a device as the bad girl/rebel transformed by both motherhood and illness into the sage, moral center that alters everyone's life. her perspicacious 'dying wish'? for joey to stop running and settle down with the person she has always known she should be with. grams kissing the dearly departed on the head and softly assuring her that she would "see her soon" was agonizing. cue the waterworks.

the choice: on 'tv', the joey character ends up with the dawson character, after climbing/stumbling into his room and blurting "i don't want to wait for my life to be over. i want to know right now, what will it be?" classic. in 'reality', joey ends up with pacey. one story, two endings. supremely satisfying.