Posted by: haro1d
Wow, what a night. Everything tightened up a bit in Tree Hill last night, and nearly all of it went down at Tric. Carrie the Nanny got drunk and bold in her flirtation with Nathan — who still hasn’t told his wife anything about it. Brooke initiated her own flirtfest with the bartender, while her mom showed up in a slutty outfit and tried to embarrass her daughter with her lewd and lascivious behavior. Fists flew once again, as Quentin socked Jason (K-Fed) to the floor after Haley stopped Nathan from doing so when Jason grabbed her tush. Mouth, on a surprise date with Millicent, was ambushed by his boss, who threatened to fire him if he gave his date a smooch. (He finally stood up to her and likely is going to lose his job. But will he have the nerve to file a sexual harassment suit?) And the Lucas/Peyton/Lindsey triangle got ratcheted up all the way to a marriage proposal for Lindsey. (Using, I believe, the same ring that he’d intended for Peyton all those years ago.) And the episode featured more music shilling than most, including the ongoing performance by the Honorary Title in the background, and Mia’s (Kate Voegele) first solo performance. It’s episodes like this one that make me think about the early days of this series, when my wife had only just started insisting on watching it, and we both were just getting hooked on the hilarious high jinks. Back then, it was all high school, grudges on and off the basketball court, sibling rivalry, loads of mean girls, and lots of underage drinking and sex. Now, everyone’s legal, and it’s just not as much fun. Sure, everyone’s still emotionally intertwined, and no one seems to have met very many new people in the intervening years since high school ended, but there’s just something different going on now. I think it’s Dan Scott. For the first few years, it seemed like Dan Scott, onetime record scorer for the Tree Hill Ravens, successful car dealer, tyrannical father and emotionally abusive husband, was always about to get his. Every week, he upped his EQ (Evil Quotient) and further destroyed the lives of everyone in his proximity. His ex-wife dreaded him whenever she saw him — which was rather often, considering that they were divorced and he wasn’t exactly involved in Lucas’ upbringing, except to occasionally step in and pull his, “Lucas, I am your father” schtick. Deb, his current wife and Nathan’s mom, tried to kill him with a combination of booze and arson, and ended up a narcotized mess. Then there’s that whole business with Keith, the little brother he killed. Dan Scott was at the center of all the action. Everyone hated the guy, and it was fun to see, every week, just how he was going to turn that knife just once more in the backs of everyone in town. He became mayor, for crying out loud — how hilarious was that? — and was able to REALLY screw with the citizenry of Tree Hill. But then he went to prison and it all ended. Or did it? Am I wrong, or isn’t it the case that so far as any of us knows, Dan is still in prison for confessing to the murder of that point-shaver extortion guy, Daunte? It seems weird that loads of people are walking around Tree Hill fully aware that he killed his brother, but haven’t said boo about it to the authorities, content that Dan is already behind bars for murder. Especially since, well, Nathan was the one who pummeled Daunte into oblivion, in reality — though I doubt under the circumstances (Daunte having just run over his pregnant wife with his car) any judge and jury would have handed him anything other than a suspended sentence and maybe some anger management classes. It’s hard to say what Dan Scott’s fate will be, but since he’s been effectively gone, almost the entire adult cast has disappeared from the series. Lucas’ mom is off in Scotland with his 4-year-old half brother, Deb is who knows where — maybe in a rehab facility, maybe working in Hollywood doing sweepstakes commercial voiceovers, or maybe even deceased. Even coach has only had a single appearance, in a flashback sequence earlier this season. A lot of the nuttier people have gone, come to think of it. Rachel has been out of sight for a while. Not exactly insane, but not quite stable, either. Then there was that truly sociopathic Nicki girl that it took until AFTER all the guys had bedded her to have figured out that she was bats. Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing. Not enough total insanity. Come on, OTH — don’t let me down!
