Joey Potter
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| Josephine Potter | |
|---|---|
 |
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| First appearance | "Pilot" |
| Last appearance | "...Must Come to an End" |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Joey |
| Year of birth | 1983 |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Family | Lilian Potter (mother) Mike Potter (father) Bessie Potter (sister) Alexander Potter (nephew) |
| Relationships | Dawson Leery, Eddie Dooling, Pacey Witter |
| Portrayed by | James van der Beek |
| Created by | Kevin Williamson |
Josephine "Joey" Lynn Potter is a fictional character played by Katie Holmes in the American television drama Dawson's Creek.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Joey has been friends with Dawson Leery since they were very young and also because they live very close to each other. She lives with her sister, Bessie, Bessie's son Alexander and (sometimes) Bessie's boyfriend Bodie. Her father, Mike, was in and out of prison for drug trafficking, and her mother, Lilian, died of cancer.
[edit] Season one
In season one, Joey is the girl next door, or in this case, across the creek. She is confused by her growth into a teenager and her developing feelings for Dawson. She immediately becomes jealous when Jen Lindley arrives and steals Dawson away from her. She is intimidated by Jen, who grew up in New York, and doesn't know how to compete. She lives with her pregnant sister Bessie, and she works for her at the family restaurant. She is frustrated with having to deal with work and taking care of her sister along with significant helpings of teenage angst, but nonetheless manages to be helpful with the birth of Bessie's son Alexander. One day she is convinced to compete in the beauty Pageant, which she does so that she can win the cash prize. But instead of winning the contest, she wins Dawson's heart, as Dawson finally sees past his best friend image, and realizes that he has strong romantic feelings towards her. At the end of the season, she finds herself with the opportunity of going to Paris for the summer, but rejects it in favor of staying in Capeside with Dawson.
[edit] Season two
At the start of the season, she and Dawson fall madly in love, but Joey begins to think that she is losing her identity, as she can't see where Dawson ends and she begins. During a full moon Jack McPhee kisses her and Dawson finds out during a school dance. Joey decides after a huge argument to break up with him, even though for the first time they both say that they love each other. She says that she wants to "find herself" and so she breaks up with him. She briefly dates the new guy in town, Jack McPhee, but he realizes he is gay and they break up. Joey's father is released from prison and comes back into her life. At first this change is uneasy, but they heal the rift between them and she gets back together with Dawson. However, Dawson finds out that Joey's father is dealing cocaine. After a fire at the restaurant which was started by rivals of Joey's father, Dawson tells Joey. He convinces her to wear a wire, and get a confession from her father so that nothing like the fire will happen again. She gets the confession from her father and shows him the wire. Knowing that she had betrayed her father, she is understandably heartbroken and angry with Dawson. She breaks up with him and tells him she doesn't want to know him.
[edit] Season three
After they break up, Dawson wants Joey to have someone she can talk to. Dawson doesn't want to be the person she turns to, as it is too complicated and difficult, so he asks his best friend Pacey Witter to keep an eye on her. As the season progresses, Pacey and Joey develop a close friendship. Joey is asked to paint a mural for the school, but when she unveils her finished piece, it has been vandalized. The perpetrator, Matt Caulfield, was expelled, but after a great deal of pressure from his parents, the principal was forced to leave the school, which sparked Joey into action. She took actions by setting up petitions, etc. She had a breif friendship with college studen, A.J. Muller (Robin Dunne), for whom she develops crush. But this high school crush does not last once Joey meets A.J.'s best friend; later he confesses to Joey that he's in love with this friend. She phoned Pacey up to bring her home, and on the way home, Pacey confronted her about their feelings for one another and kissed her. Joey initially rejected the idea of Pacey as anything other than a trusted friend, however, she realized that she had feelings for him as well. After this realization, they began a secret romantic relationship. When Dawson finds out, he is furious, and the friendship between the three of them never completely heals. Joey breaks up with Pacey to try and makes things better with Dawson and to mend the friendship that she and Dawson once had. Dawson, however, sees Pacey as his enemy and opponent in winning Joey's heart. In the season finale, Joey feels torn between the two friends, but comes to realize that while she's just fearful of losing her oldest friend, Dawson, she has fallen in love with Pacey. Dawson realizes that Joey loves Pacey and that he can't stand in their way. Joey rushes off to tell Pacey that she loves him before he departs for a summer at sea. She joins Pacey on his boat and tells him that she loves him. The two then sail off into the sunset and spend a glorious summer together.
[edit] Season four
Joey and Pacey return to Capeside in the fourth season, and after a blissful summer are quickly brought back to reality when they must confront the events of the past year and the subsequent fallout. Joey is eager to mend fences, even though Dawson is still hurt by what happened. Pacey's relationship with Dawson never quite recovers, though the two are civil and acknowledge a shared history and group of friends. Dawson soon begins dating Pacey's older sister, Gretchen, who has returned to Capeside after having a miscarriage. Gretchen helps Dawson to find himself once again by helping him get over Joey and back into film making. The gang undergoes the typical senior year rights of passage- including college applications. Joey, needs to secure a scholarship in order to afford college. She is offered a place at the prestigious Worthington College (in Boston), but she cannot afford to attend. On a ski trip with the senior class Pacey and Joey sleep together for the first time, but when Dawson questions her she lies about losing her virginity. Pacey finds out about the lie from his sister and is disturbed further when Joey accepts money from Dawson to attend Worthington. Pacey, feeling insecure about Joey's success and their relationship believes that he isn't good enough for her, and that their futures are worlds apart. At the Prom Pacey breaks up with Joey. Although the breakup is painful for both, each looks to the future- Joey in Boston and Pacey at sea. At the end of the season, as Dawson is preparing to leave Capeside for Los Angeles, in a scene reminiscent of Season One's ending, Dawson and Joey share a kiss.
[edit] Season five
In season five, Joey attends Worthington College in Boston, where she meets and befriends her room mate Audrey Liddel (portrayed by Busy Philipps). Joey is studying English Literature, and for a time starts seeing her College Professor. She then joins a band as lead singer for Charlie Todd (played by Chad Michael Murray,) they have a brief relationship before she tells him to leave to pursue his dream of being a musician on tour. She has an unforgettable incident where she is mugged, but her mugger gets hit by a car and she ends up calling the ambulance to try and save his life. She feels for the mugger, as he has a daughter and his situation reminds her, of her situation with her father. At the end of the season she returns to Capeside, and Dawson confesses to her that he wants to be with her. She rejects him saying that all those feelings were in the past, but in the last episode she rushes to the airport, to declare her true feelings for Dawson, she catches him, and they kiss, she tells him to go to Los Angeles as that is his destiny, and that they'll meet up after the summer. As she goes to get a refund, she is offered the chance to go to Paris, the same opportunity arose in the 1st season, she smiles and then the series ends.
[edit] Season six
In the beginning of Season Six, it is revealed that Joey didn't end up going to Paris, but went home to Capeside. After not talking all summer, she and Dawson meet up at Hell's Kitchen---a local bar. The two make love, and spend the next day together, until it is revealed that Dawson has a girlfriend in California. Joey is deeply upset and breaks things off with him. She takes a job as a waitress at Hell's Kitchen, with the help of aspiring drummer, Emma Jones. Joey eventually falls for the bartender, Eddie Dooling (Oliver Hudson). They both have a love for writing and literature and seem like the perfect match, but it turns out that he is not officially a student at Worthington, and his family were too poor for him to get in. After an interesting Christmas spent in Capeside, Eddie disappears without telling Joey, going back to Worcester to live with his parents. In trying to find him, Joey gets some help from Harley Hetson---the fifteen-year-old daughter of her snobbish English professor. Harley lies, telling Eddie that Joey was pregnant with his child in order to lure him back to Boston. In the meantime, Joey is offered a chance to work as a secretary for Pacey, in his stock broker firm. This ultimately leads to the resurfacing of their unresolved feelings for one another. After being locked overnight in a KMart, they briefly rekindle their romance. The relationship is brief after Pacey loses his job, and he and Dawson have a big fight, because Pacey lost all of Dawson's money on a stock. They all move back to Capeside and Joey brings everyone together to help Dawson make his movie. However, Pacey refuses to take part in the project, telling Joey that he'll just screw up again. Joey doesn't believe him, and eventually after spending several weeks on his brother's couch, Pacey goes out to look for a job, and in the meantime gathers what money he can with the help of community members to pay Dawson back at least some of the money he'd lost. In the process, Pacey is reunited with Christy Livingston---the senior girl he had a crush on and followed around in high school; Pacey considers himself lucky when Christy gives him her phone number before leaving.
The final two episodes are set five years in the future, when Joey and all her friends return to Capeside for the second wedding of Dawson's mother, Gail. During this double episode, the five friends are reunited in Capeside one last time, including Jack's sister, Andie, who is finishing her residency at a nearby hospital. They all soon learn that Jen has a deadly heart condition; now the single mother of a 1-year-old daughter, Amy, Jen has been taking care of a sickly Grams, who has been battling breast cancer for the last five years (since season 6). In the meantime, Joey finally chooses, once and for all, between Dawson and Pacey. She says that while Dawson is her soulmate, the love she has for him is eternally pure and innocent, whereas she can see herself having a romantic, sexual relationship with Pacey. In the midst of their romantic entanglements, Joey, Dawson, Jack, Andie and Pacey are all brought together at the Ice House, now owned by Pacey, to say goodbye to Jen, who dies from pulminary congestion, leaving her young daughter in Jack's care. Jack, who worries about Amy having a repeat of his own childhood, reasumes his love relationship with Pacey's brother, a now admittidly gay Doug Witter. After Jen's death, Joey and Pacey watch Dawson's semi-autobiographical TV show "The Creek" in her apartment, before calling up Dawson together when they discover he is going to meet his hero, Steven Spielberg.
| Dawson's Creek |
|---|
| Characters |
| Dawson Leery | Jen Lindley | Joey Potter | Pacey Witter |
| Locations |
| Capeside | Capeside High | Worthington University |
| Other |
| Young Americans | List of Dawson's Creek episodes |
