Posted by: haro1d
Last night wasn’t the biggest night of the OTH season, though last week’s throwdown would have been tough to beat in either the comedy or drama departments. Here’s the rundown on this week’s fun:
The episode opens at the scene of last week’s crime. Jack is on his own … because despite all of the nonstop sex in Tree Hill, there are very few actual parents left in Tree Hill. He stands outside and stares at the house, reluctant or afraid to go back in.
Julian comes to Brooke’s house to schedule a meeting to review her costumes for the movie, and brings a copy of the recent Enquirer with Brooke on the cover. Brooke berates herself for not calling the police on her attacker — feeling that if she had, maybe Quentin would still be alive — Julian assuages her anxieties, assuring her that given he wore a mask, he very likely would not have been caught, and that she should stop blaming herself. After Julian leaves, Sam gives Brooke a bad time about Julian crushing on her, and plants the seed in Brooke’s head that he’s “totally” into her. Brooke goes into denial mode, and as they argue the point, in comes Peyton and tells Brooke that she’s pregnant. Brooke nearly cries because she’s redesigned and fabricated Peyton’s wedding dress with a tight corset, and now she has to start all over again. (This is getting to be a nice ’60s-sitcom-style plotline. How many more times is Brooke going to have to remake the dress by the time the wedding happens? And do you think Peyton is going to end up wearing it? We’ll see …)
Mouth is obviously still smarting after Millie’s drunken giveaway of her virginity. “Have fun telling Brooke you slept with Owen,” he says. When Millie does go to tell Brooke, Brooke is in a hysterical fit about Julian, panicking because, as she tells Millie, “You don’t do stuff with someone’s ex — you just don’t,” setting the stage perfectly for Millie to tell her about Owen. When Millie breaks the news, Brooke’s initial reaction is a violent “Get out” — but just as quickly, she recovers and goes into mothering mode, taking Millie in her arms and telling her that everything is going to be OK.
Chase gets up the courage to go to the recording studio where Mia is working on new material with Haley and a gruff engineer. Chase asks her out, she agrees, and suddenly, they’re meeting at Tric at 8. Of course, Mia being only 18 and having been on the road for the last year, has no date clothes or any idea of how to date properly, so Haley volunteers herself and Nathan to double date with the two of them. Haley goes to Lucas’ to trick him into babysitting, and also manages to get the truth about Peyton and Lucas being in the family way.
Meanwhile, Peyton and Sam are at the coffee shop, where they gang up on Julian about his interest in Brooke, and Sam blabs that Peyton is preggers, creating a supreme awkward moment that Peyton finesses, assuring him that, with regards to Brooke, “You break her heart, I break your face.”
Brooke goes to visit Mouth, who has a dartboard with a picture of Owen on it that’s quickly becoming perforated all over. She chastises him for not doing more to discourage Gigi, and to try to work him over about taking back Millie, assuring him that everything will be just fine. (She’s using that line a lot. Somehow, I’m not sure it’s always true.)
Millie eventually comes along and more or less offers herself to Mouth in a drunken stupor. He barely gets a word in when she says she needs the bathroom, turns and runs in time to hurl. Later, she wakes up and Mouth is right there with a glass of water and some meds for her. She tells him that Brooke needs a buyer in New York for costumes, and suggests that maybe she should take the job. Mouth says, “I think that might be best,” and walks out as Millie looks at him, stunned.
Lucas and Peyton fail miserably at the babysitting game. Jamie and Andre are in no mood for kiddie movies and macaroni crafts, and instead skunk tons of chocolate coins out of them playing poker. Later, they get into karaoke mode, at about the same time Mia and Haley have signed up Nathan and Chase for karaoke at the club where they’re hanging out. (Because there’s never enough embarrassment on OTH.) After a while, Lucas and Peyton have had enough — Peyton wants ice cream and Lucas goes to get it for her, coming back with a set of walkie-talkies for the kids to play with, and for them to use to hear what the kids are up to.
Still out on the town, Nathan offers some advice to Chase about dating a rock star: “If she ever meets a guy named Chris Keller, punch first and ask questions later.” At the end of the night, Chase takes Mia back to the studio, where she says she’s going to stay and work on some new material. When he leaves, he chickens out and hugs her, and walks out … but he hits the talk button in the control room and says that he probably should have asked her out again, and that he probably should have kissed her, so he walks back in and plants one on her.
Brooke is back at home, waiting for Julian to show up, and isn’t sure what to wear — is it a date, or is it just work? Julian brings work and wine, and the whole evening, they never really know. As they talk about their difficult relationships with their parents, they skirt the issue until Julian is getting ready to leave and they ask, “What was this?” They agree that it should remain business, or it would get weird. So of course, this being OTH, it gets weird right away, as they bury their faces in each other’s.
Sam brings some fast food to Jack, who’s out and about and not at home — because he doesn’t want Family Services coming to look for him. She takes his hand and assures him that she’s there for him, and maybe she can take him home with her. He doesn’t want to intrude on her good thing, so she tries to convince him that not all foster situations are bad, and commiserates with him about knowing what it’s like to be alone and having nowhere to go. He takes off.
Lucas and Peyton have fallen asleep on the couch, and when Nathan picks up the kids, he doesn’t get riled or ask what the hell (which is really surprising). He takes the kids home, and calls Lucas, telling him that he’s going to be a great father, and that Peyton will be a superhero. (That Nathan — America’s dad, in spite of how Dan Scott raised him.)
And that’s more or less the story from OTH last night. Except that I have to say something about all of the pregnancy test ads during the breaks. I guess target marketing will never go away, will it?
But still, I have to say that Dan Scott has to be back soon. It’s been way too long since we had an episode featuring that guy, and I don’t think the writers of OTH are ready to plant him just yet. Last week was full of trickery and shiggity, but last night brought us closer to the desert of filler episodes, which I sense are right around the corner. So that brings up the perennial question when things start to slow down on OTH: Where are you, Dan Scott?
