Dawson’s Creek remains a watershed moment for a certain era of millennials who spent their formative years glued to The WB. But more than 20 years later, the series continues to find a new audience (it’s out on Netflix as of October 3) who gravitate toward the heart on its sleeve and its dramatic (and memeable) moments. Audiences also continue to fall in love with the relationship that came to define the series, and it doesn’t involve its titular aspiring filmmaker, Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek). No, the cornerstone romance of the Capeside-set series was the pioneering frenemies-to-lovers story between Joey (Katie Holmes) and Pacey (Joshua Jackson).
Initially introduced as the best friends of Dawson’s who bickered like siblings, Pacey and Joey orbited each other for the first two seasons before falling headlong into a romance that some diehard fans have been trying to replicate in real life ever since.