All American: Homecoming Boss Reveals The Dawson's Creek Episode That Inspired The Final Season, And Now I Want To Rewatch

Spoilers ahead for the final season of All American: Homecoming.

The All American: Homecoming era has ended on The CW in the 2024 TV schedule , with the series finale airing just months after the original series' sixth season closed on an episode that really felt like an ending . Although showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll didn't know that Homecoming's third season would be the last when planning it out, the finale tied up some loose threads anyway and gave Simone and Lando a happy ending. And as it turns out, that happy ending might not have hit as hard if not for an episode earlier in the season that was actually inspired by one of Dawson's Creek 's best installments. Who knew?!

In the wake of the series finale, All American: Homecoming showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll spoke with Deadline about the final season, including the very special episode that was almost entirely about Simone and Lando. She shared that the inspiration behind the episode came from a show that aired on the same network decades earlier , before The WB became The CW. Carroll said:

The Dawson's Creek episode that Nkechi Okoro Carroll is referring to is called "Castaways" and aired in the latter half of the sixth and final season. It also ranks as CinemaBlend's picks for the best Dawson's Creek episodes and is definitely a classic... as long as you're Team Pacey/Joey and not Team Dawson/Joey, anyway! As somebody who qualifies, I'm now ready to rewatch "Castaways," with Dawson's Creek fortunately available streaming both with a Hulu subscription and an Amazon Prime Video subscription . Nkechi Okoro Carroll continued:

If Simone and Lando were indeed going to be endgame of All American: Homecoming, there needed to be a point of the two getting back on the same page... or at least the same chapter of the same book. Co-showrunner Marqui Jackson came up with the idea of an episode that plays out similarly to "Castaways" on Dawson's Creek, to the surprise and delight of Carroll. She concluded:

If you want to revisit the first two seasons of All American: Homecoming in the wake of the finale, you can do so now with a Netflix subscription . Season 3 will be arriving on the streamer soon as well. All six seasons of All American so far are available on Netflix as well.