A significant improvement over the previous episode, which - while still OK - was Dawson's Creek on autopilot. This episode offers insight into both Dawson and Joey's mind with some help from a new character, who has both a positive and a negative effect on the show in general.
The negative: Abby vanishes from existence (although one could say she's standing *just* outside the frame) for three consecutive episodes, like a ghost. Granted, this is necessary in order to make room for Devon, but it also just proves that at this point the show already had too many main characters, whether they were included in the opening credit sequence (back in the 1990s they still had those!) or were listed, week after week, as "Special Guest Stars". The fact that Devon displays Abby-like character traits (her bluntness), does not help.
The positive: The plot actually *demands* a new character - something which was not the case with The McPhees. And Rachael Leigh Cook makes most out of the first of her only three episodes. Interestingly, Devon and Abby share only one episode, #2.18 - I wonder which of the many characters gets sidelined then. Watching Rachael Leigh Cook at already the fifth year of her career when she was only 20 here in Dawson's Creek also makes me wonder why she too, like Monica Keena, never *really* made it big time. When one's most visible roles in the decade after turning 20 are a short recurring role stint in Las Vegas and half a dozen episodes in both Robot Chicken and Psych, something is not right. She may not have been the New Jodie Foster, but when a woman who is beautiful like a doll and *can* act unlike the endless talentless blondes does not succeed in Hollywood, we can only lament on that place's obsession with blonde women.
Regardless, this 7/10 episode proves there is still something left to explore in the Dawson - Joey love story, but one cannot forget what Devon observes about the nature of that relationship.
The negative: Abby vanishes from existence (although one could say she's standing *just* outside the frame) for three consecutive episodes, like a ghost. Granted, this is necessary in order to make room for Devon, but it also just proves that at this point the show already had too many main characters, whether they were included in the opening credit sequence (back in the 1990s they still had those!) or were listed, week after week, as "Special Guest Stars". The fact that Devon displays Abby-like character traits (her bluntness), does not help.
The positive: The plot actually *demands* a new character - something which was not the case with The McPhees. And Rachael Leigh Cook makes most out of the first of her only three episodes. Interestingly, Devon and Abby share only one episode, #2.18 - I wonder which of the many characters gets sidelined then. Watching Rachael Leigh Cook at already the fifth year of her career when she was only 20 here in Dawson's Creek also makes me wonder why she too, like Monica Keena, never *really* made it big time. When one's most visible roles in the decade after turning 20 are a short recurring role stint in Las Vegas and half a dozen episodes in both Robot Chicken and Psych, something is not right. She may not have been the New Jodie Foster, but when a woman who is beautiful like a doll and *can* act unlike the endless talentless blondes does not succeed in Hollywood, we can only lament on that place's obsession with blonde women.
Regardless, this 7/10 episode proves there is still something left to explore in the Dawson - Joey love story, but one cannot forget what Devon observes about the nature of that relationship.
