Coming Home

Season	Episode
4	1

INFO

Aired

4 October 2000

Written by

Greg Berlanti

Directed by

Greg Prange

EPISODES
Previous	Next
True Love SEASON 3	Failing Down

❝

You can't choose what you love; it chooses you

—Dawson

Coming Home is the premiere of Season 4 of Dawson's Creek.

Synopsis[]

Joey (Katie Holmes) and Pacey (Joshua Jackson) return home to face a barrage of questions about whether they had sex; Pacey's sister (guest star Sasha Alexander) abruptly arrives from college without a diploma; and Andie (Meredith Monroe) scopes out two potential summer flings.

Starring[]

James Van Der Beek as Dawson Leery

Katie Holmes as Joey Potter

Michelle Williams as Jen Lindley

Joshua Jackson as Pacey Witter

Meredith Monroe as Andie McPhee

Kerr Smith as Jack McPhee

Mary-Margaret Humes as Gale Leery

John Wesley Shipp as Mitch Leery

Mary Beth Peil as Evelyn Ryan

Nina Repeta as Bessie Potter

Special Guest Stars: Sasha Alexander as Gretchen Witter^[1]; Dylan Neal as Doug Witter

Guest starring: Garikayi Mutambirwa as Jean; Jason Daniel Roberts as J.J.

Quotes[]

❝

It's like 'A Wonderful Life' in reverse. Everyone seems better off without us

—Joey to Pacey

Locations[]

True Love
Dawson's House
Harry's Hardware Store
Doug's Apartment
Mrs. Hammacott's House
Potter B&B
Jen's House
Dive-In

Trivia[]

Dawson reveals he had a crush on Gretchen when he was 10.
Joey tells Dawson that she and Pacey did not have sex.
Joey gives Dawson a brick from Ernest Hemingway's house symbolizing the foundation of a friendship that she hopes to reform.
The ladder to Dawson's window is gone.
Dawson's room now predominantly features his photography.
Dawson and Jen walk in on his parents making out on the coffee table, which calls back to three years prior, only then it was with Pacey. As well as a parallel, it also serves as commentary on growing up as Dawson three years earlier would never have conceived of not hanging out with his best friend Pacey. Now, his best friends (Jen, Andie, and Jack) are all people he didn't know then.
In the final scene, Pacey and Joey are reading from Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

BROADCAST

The episode was watched by 4.98 million people upon its original airing on the WB.^[2]

ERRORS

You can see Katie Holmes's microphone pack during the first scene.

PRODUCTION NOTES

Paul Stupin provides audio commentary for this episode on the DVD for Season 4 as well in subsequent releases.
The opening scene on the True Love had to be reshot 3 times due to the camera shaking heavily. The final scene was shot on the cast and crews day off.^[3]
The red light in Dawson's dark room was added in post.^[3]