Posted by: haro1d
Well, that was interesting.
In one of the most comical episodes of OTH in the series’ entire run:
1) Lucas’ mom returned — with Andy, the multi-gazillionaire (Knew he would show up again.) and Lucas’ little sister.
2) It was the big day. Lucas’ and Lindsey’s wedding. A lot of fretting went on beforehand, a lot of talking to Peyton, hoping she wouldn’t flip out. (And naturally, they showed the version of the wedding WITH Peyton flipping out, then showed that it was only going on in Peyton’s mind.) And after all of that hubbub — and after Lucas said “I do” — Lindsey called it off and ditched Lucas at the altar. (Come on, like you didn’t know that was going to happen.) After reading Lucas’ new novel about the scientist waiting for the “comet” to come back into his life, Lindsey discovered that Peyton’s car is a vintage Comet. (Ooooh — tricky, eh?)
3) Nanny Carrie showed up at the wedding and hid out in the choir loft, where she waited for just the right moment to kidnap little James, then took off with him. She checked into a hotel room and tried to dye James’ hair, but then …
4) Dan Scott, Tree Hill’s version of Satan incarnate, followed Carrie to the hotel, waited for her to leave, then talked James into letting him into the room. When Carrie returned — boo! Up jumped the devil, threatening to kill her if she ever showed up again. Then, while the entire gang waited with the police at Nathan and Haley’s place, thinking that Dan had done the kidnapping, in comes James, with Dan in tow, safely delivering the little guy back to his parents. (Yep. Dan Scott is back in their lives, which means we can get back to the fun.)
When I think about all of the nutty stuff that goes on in a show like this, I have to imagine the creators and writers of OTH sitting around a table, cracking each other up about how far they think they can stretch their credibility without losing their target audience of young people. I know that’s what I’d be doing in their place. (Really, for me, the whole fun of a show like this — any soap-type show that ropes you in with endless drama amid a tableaux of two-dimensional characters — is the speculation about what kind of stunts the writers are going to try to pull next.) Last night’s OTH episode marked the series’ 100th, a feat that, frankly, I never would have thought its creators could have pulled off. Not necessarily because I didn’t think they’d be capable of it — I just would have thought that the network would have pulled the plug a long time ago.
What’s most incredible, though, is that I’ve been watching the series pretty much the whole time. It all started because my wife watched “Gilmore Girls” every whatever-night-it-was-on back then, and OTH followed it. And even though it was laughably bad, my wife would insist on watching it. Pretty soon it just became part of the weekly ritual, as things like this do. I’m not addicted to the show, myself — plenty of episodes in past seasons went by without my noticing — though at this point I obviously still find it entertainingly preposterous, and now that I’m posting on it every week, I definitely make time for it.
As much as I like to pick on OTH, its writing, its characters and its actors, I have to say that it’s been an interesting experience to follow a show like this. It’s a little like looking at the comics page of the newspaper and reading and vaguely following the plots of strips that might not be your favorite, but you read them anyway because they’re there. They suck you in, in spite of yourself. So far, this accidental obsession has kept us laughing and speculating — but still watching — for 100 episodes (minus the dozen or so I may have missed along the way), and we’re still hanging in, waiting for the hilarious denouement before its demise. Until then, we’ll just continue enjoying it in the perverse way that we do.
Cheers to 100 episodes of agony and hilarity!