James Van Der Beek Made Me a Dawson and Joey Believer

It's uncomfortable, reaching that certain age when the cultural touchstones that helped shape you start to pass away. Luke Perry (2019). Shannen Doherty (2024). Julian McMahon (2025). They were all formative figures in turning me into the television lover and romance enthusiast that I am today. (Brenda and Dylan should have ended up together on Beverly Hills 90210! Phoebe belonged with Cole on Charmed!) And now, James Van Der Beek has died at just 48 years of age. (Fuck cancer.)

Star of teen drama Dawson's Creek, Van Der Beek became a phenomenon in the early aughts thanks to his turn as titular hero Dawson Leery, aspiring filmmaker, cinephile, and general nice guy who went on to become a third of one of television's most iconic love triangles. His death is an emotional gut-punch for many TV fans of a certain age, who essentially grew up in the trenches of the Dawson/Joey/Pacey triangle (with a dash of Andie on the side). Because that story — no matter which side you fell on — genuinely helped redefine the concept of teen television, what these kinds of stories could be and do, and the impact that they could have on audiences watching at home.

In honor of everything that both Dawson Leery and the man who played him have meant to me over the years, it's time to come clean about one of my most controversial television opinions: I was a Dawson and Joey shipper. There, I said it. Technically, I probably still am a Dawson and Joey shipper. To be clear: It's not like I don't recognize that Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes had gangbusters chemistry, and I can certainly see why Pacey and Joey's story became the right path for the series to follow, if only from a production perspective. (The success of that triangle, no joke, saved the show.)

But in my heart of hearts, I was always #TeamDawson.

Look, I realize this take is slightly unorthodox. It was fairly apparent, even as it was happening, that the series' narrative energy was fully moving in Pacey and Joey's direction. Dawson often felt like an afterthought on the series that bore his name, particularly as Dawson's Creek aged. Heck, the show itself essentially gave up on Dawson and Joey, and well before the final season wrapped. And yet, I and presumably some number of other fans out there somewhere — surely, there are dozens of us! —just couldn't let the relationship go.

A big part of the reason for that (at least for me) was James Van Der Beek. Yes, Dawson Leery was often annoying. He could be painfully self-involved, tone deaf, and incredibly cringe. He sounded like a forty-five-year-old more often than he ever did a teen. And I'm not sure I ever really bought his taste in cinema. (His enthusiasm for Steven Spielberg aside.) But what I did believe in? That Dawson loved Joey more than anything else. Their relationship was the bedrock of the Creek for me, no matter what their romantic status was at any given moment.

Best friends from childhood — and opposite sides of the waterway that gave the show its name — the two grew up together, both literally and figuratively. They were best friends, practically from before either of them understood the concept of friends, and as such, couldn't imagine their lives without one another. (Until, of course, they had to. Being a teenager is hard.) Friends-to-lovers is a super popular trope in the world of romance for a reason, and it felt natural to hope that these two might find their way together in that aspect of their lives, as they were in every other.

It's true, Van Der Beek often got the short end of the stick as a performer. Dawson was a vaguely snobby try-hard with a control streak who wasn't always as interesting as his more bad-boy-coded friend Pacey, who got all the best one-liners. He could be — and often was — really irritating. But Dawson was also incredibly earnest, and it's that unapologetic sincerity that ultimately made his character so beloved. Earnestness was his whole brand, and he wore his heart on his sleeve in a way that few male leads on television are really allowed to do, and certainly not back in the early 2000s.

He wasn't afraid to be vulnerable (as the infamous Dawson Crying Face GIF can attest), and that was a big part of his character's appeal. Everything about him was sincere, from his film opinions to his feelings for his BFF — and that's how you knew you could trust them. Dwson loved Joey, and while that ultimately wasn't enough for them to make a relationship work, it remained the bedrock on which the rest of the show was built.

To its credit, the show also never sacrificed Dawson and Joey's relationship on the altar of her love affair with someone else, not in the way many shows that essentially relitigated their own version of this infamous triangle one day would. They didn't speak. They drifted apart. But they also came back together. They found a way to move forward despite the hurt and heartbreak, and that reconnection felt both genuine and earned. (This is especially notable given that Dawson and Pacey's relationship never fully recovered post-Season 3.)

It's a credit to Van Der Beek's talent that he managed to keep Dawson Leery so warm and likable through all this, as his role within the world of the show was diminished, but his character's all too genuine feelings weren't. It felt important (maybe even groundbreaking) that the show always made sure to acknowledge – to respect — the importance of Dawson in Joey's life, even if he wasn't the man she wanted to be with romantically. She might have loved Pacey, but Dawson was her soulmate, and she ultimately wasn't asked to make either bond smaller in favor of the other.

In the end, Dawson and Joey still got their own kind of forever, even if it looks a little different from what some fans might have hoped for back during the earliest seasons of the show. Was Dawson's trying to have it both ways — at least a bit —with that kind of reading? Probably. Does it matter all that much? Not really. It was somehow enough for me. And Van Der Beek's performance — which somehow sold getting friend-zoned as something almost cosmic — was what made it all work.