Spoilers ahead for Episode 5 of The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2, called “Love Fool,” and six seasons of Dawson’s Creek.
Prime Video brought back the summer love triangle drama in the 2023 TV schedule with Season 2 of The Summer I Turned Pretty, which arrived with fewer waltzes and a whole lot of complications that weren’t in play in Season 1. Unlike many other fans, I didn’t have to suffer through a hiatus of waiting to see what would happen next, as it was only recently that I finally got around to binge-watching all the available episodes. Now, after the events of the “Love Fool” episode that shifted the narration over to Jeremiah, I’m flashing all the way back to Dawson’s Creek, and in my book, good old Jere is definitely the Pacey of TSITP for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Now, I admit that Dawson’s Creek fans could point out that Conrad and Belly breaking up at prom in Season 2 has more than one parallel to Pacey and Joey breaking up at their prom, and Jeremiah/Belly are closer to the Dawson/Joey childhood best friend dynamic than Conrad/Belly. I can cop to Jeremiah having his Dawson moments, but I still see more of Pacey in Jeremiah and Dawson in Conrad than vice versa, and it goes deeper than the fact that I was Team Pacey then and am Team Jeremiah now. If you’re not a Dawson’s Creek expert, however, let’s start with some background!
Why I’m Flashing Back To Dawson’s Creek In 2023
Dawson’s Creek was a teen drama that ran for six seasons on The WB from 1998 - 2003, and starred James Van Der Beek as aspiring filmmaker Dawson Leery, Katie Holmes as Dawson’s tomboy best friend Joey, Joshua Jackson as the underachieving Pacey, and Michelle Williams as the ill-fated Jen Lindley. I actually didn’t watch the show while it was on, but caught up via DVD box sets years after the finale aired.
Still, I knew enough about Dawson’s Creek before I popped that first Season 1 disk into the DVD player – yes, this was more than a few years ago – that I was aware that a love triangle would brew between leading man Dawson, leading lady Joey, and the other guy played by that actor from Mighty Ducks who definitely wasn’t going to come out on top over the literal title character.
Imagine my surprise when I found myself getting as invested in Pacey as the other two right off the bat, and not just because I grew up on the Mighty Ducks films! Admittedly, I technically became Team Not Dawson For Joey before I stepped firmly over to Team Pacey, and the whole Dawson’s Creek triangle was messy enough that of course the very messy current season of The Summer I Turned Pretty jogged my memory… and drew parallels between Pacey and Jeremiah.
I Feel Like I’m Rooting For The Wrong Team
One of my first impressions after starting The Summer I Turned Pretty was that I was rooting for the losing team right away. Despite the dreamy slow motion, the sweet flashbacks, and the Taylor Swift all seemingly designed to make me favor Conrad Fisher, the friendly and fun Jeremiah won my allegiance early on. Belly established pretty quickly that she’d loved Conrad for years and Jeremiah was just her summer best friend, so surely Team Conrad was bound to win in the end. I know this, and yet I was (and am) still pulling for Jeremiah.
And that couldn’t be any more similar to how I felt when I realized that I was just not invested in Dawson and Joey on Dawson’s Creek and was instead all-in on Pacey getting more stories. At the time, I still didn’t know how the show would end even though the finale had aired a few years before. My head said that the guy whose name is in the title of the show was going to get the happiest ending, but my TV-loving heart sided with Pacey.
Now, Dawson’s Creek actually came very close to ending with Dawson and Joey together instead of Pacey and Joey, and I’m not really expecting lightning to strike a second time for the same to happen with The Summer I Turned Pretty. I just find Pacey and Jeremiah more interesting as characters than Dawson and Conrad, respectively. None of the four guys is a paragon of virtue, but I’m fairly certain that “Love Fool” would have even made me switch to Team Jeremiah if I hadn’t already been there! Win or lose, what's not to love about an underdog story?
Pacey And Jeremiah’s Love Stories Are Shown And Not Told
A big reason why I ended up invested in Team Pacey and Team Jeremiah goes all the way back to the fact that the foundations of Dawson/Joey and Conrad/Belly were set before the respective series picked up. Joey already had a crush on Dawson, Belly already had a crush on Conrad, and Pacey and Jeremiah were… also there.
And I was much more hooked on a potential love story that actually unfolded on screen from the start instead of one that had to be established via references, flashbacks, and exposition. I wasn’t inclined to become a fan of Conrad as a love interest when he wasn’t treating Belly well in Season 1, no matter how many times the narration told me that she loved him.
If a relationship is going to be at the emotional center of a story or an arc, then I want to see it from the beginning rather than be told that it’s epic already. Again, I liked Pacey and Jeremiah separately before I started to root for their romance with the leading lady, and I almost immediately preferred Jeremiah’s friendship with Belly to her yearning for the guy who was giving mixed signals. Pacey and Joey were great as friends before sparks flew as well.
Plus, sometimes it’s more fun to see one character shoot their shot than watch a slow burn that I’ve been told to be invested in, and both Pacey and Jeremiah did indeed shoot their shot pretty early on once they were motivated. Belly encouraged Jeremiah a whole lot faster than Joey was on board with Pacey after their very first kiss in Season 1, but they made their moves... and let's not forget that Belly gave Jeremiah every reason to think that they were together.
Why I’m Not Leaving Team Jeremiah In Season 2
The result of the Summer I Turned Pretty/Dawson's Creek comparisons is that I’m totally cool with knowing that I may have boarded a sinking ship from the very beginning, because the Paceys and the Jeremiahs make stories more interesting and unpredictable than the Dawsons and Conrads being set up as the winners from the start. Dawson’s Creek swerved to give Pacey and Joey the endgame; could the same happen with TSITP?
Only time will tell on that front, but Jeremiah seems to get a lot of flak in certain corners of the The Summer I Turned Pretty fandom for reasons that just don’t track with what has been shown on screen; if that hasn’t changed after his point-of-view episode gave context to what he always tries to hide behind a smile, then I’ll just keep… well, flashing back to Dawson’s Creek and writing features in his defense, probably! Can we all just cut him some slack after "Love Fool," please?
You can find the full first season and first five episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty’s second season streaming with a Prime Video subscription. If you now want to give Dawson’s Creek a shot, you can find all six seasons of the iconic teen drama streaming with a Hulu subscription.
