4. The Long Goodbye

Complete story — includes the ending

The main characters assemble in Capeside to bury Mitch Leery. Dawson and Gail are devastated that Lilly will never remember her father. Dawson is convinced that he is at fault, as his father would have been driving him to the airport instead of going to the store if he had taken Mitch's advice about film school. Pacey takes him to the scene of the accident and shows him how the other driver - who had worked a double shift - was at fault. But Dawson does not allow himself to cry until he visits the store for milk and speaks to the proprietor -- the last person to see Mitch alive -- and is reminded how much his father loved him. Finally, the episode is littered with flashbacks in which the characters (played by their present-day actors) remember moments with Mitch: Dawson, on his 12th birthday, receiving his first video camera; Joey watching Mitch put up the ladder that she used to get into Dawson's room; Pacey, being taught to drive by him; and Gail, in 1983, agreeing they'll teach their soon-to-be-born son Dawson to become a good man.