Posted by: haro1d
That was severely ridiculous. If you didn’t see last night’s OTH, I’m not sure I can even explain it, except to say that it was another “it was only a dream” episode. (They’ve done this once or twice before, but not for quite a while.) Here’s the rundown:
The episode starts with Lucas watching “Casablanca” and talking to Peyton on the phone about trying to work on the screen adaptation of his book. He fades out and we enter his dream world, complete with an all-Tree Hill cast, as follows:
Lucas: The suave, debonair owner of Karen’s Cafe — essentially Bogey, in white suit and all.
Nathan: The man at the bar whose fortune runs in hearts … and spades.
Haley: The singer, sultry in the spotlight with apple-pie values offstage.
Skills: Lucas’ loyal piano man with the requisite wicked left hand.
Mouth: Tree Hill City’s Walter Winchell.
Brooke: The femme fatale … trouble in a red dress. (But she designed it herself!)
Dan Scott: The dastardly fiend — and his moustache.
Julian: Dan’s right-hand man with a triphammer fist and a perennially dyspeptic disposition.
It’s 1940s Tree Hill City, and we’re in Karen’s Cafe, and the joint is jumpin’ just like it would have been during that anemic swing revival you remember from the ’90s. Lucas is milling about the room, greeting guests and managing his people. Mouth, playing Walter Winchell, is a little drunky-johns, but not too drunk to tell Lucas that he’s on to something big. BIGGER than big. Brooke Davis has troubles with men and with money — and she’d like Lucas to fix both of them, but he’s not buyin’ what she’s offering. (No, I don’t wonder how scenes like that play out in Sophia Bush’s and Chad Michael Murray’s heads, given that they were married in real life. Do you?) Dan Scott appears backstage to ruffle Haley’s feathers. She apparently used to work for him at his club, the Comet, before defecting to Lucas’ joint. (You get one of the best Ewwww! scenes in all of OTH history when Dan grabs Haley and essentially sticks his tongue down her throat — sort of like Rod Steiger did to Julie Christie way back when in “Doctor Zhivago.” You OTH kids are down with Dr. Z, right?) Dan goes out in the house and creates a stir in the room, goading Lucas until things are about to get physical, with Julian brandishing a broken bottle in his direction and all. Lucas tells Dan to leave — and everybody in all of Tree Hill City awes at his gesture of defiance. Dan has Peyton in tow, keeping a tight leash on her, with Julian’s help. After taking her home and sending her to bed, he goes off to take care of other business … because Brooke Davis owes him money for starting her new clothing line, and he wants his money back. He gives her 24 hours. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do — until she sees Peyton, who has tiptoed out on her own and spent the night on the town with Lucas, and spies the two of them sharing a big kiss. Armed with this info, she goes to Dan to work out a deal — her information on Peyton and Lucas for the cancellation of her debt. Dan, eating a plate of cold spaghetti like a slob, or like Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood,” tells her that it’s not enough — he wants her to do one more dastardly deed for him. (And no, it’s not of a sexual nature, kids.) Mouth, ever the bloodhound in search of a story, witnesses all of this from a hiding place, but he’s been spied by Julian, who lets him have it in the teeth. Dan, Julian and assorted henchmen bring Mouth to the river, his feet set in concrete, and threaten to throw him over unless he promises to keep his Mouth shut. But Mouth won’t have it, and over he goes, into the drink.
Meanwhile, during all of this, bartender Nathan and Haley have met, had a date at Karen’s Cafe (what a cheapskate, eh?), gotten married and planned a family with a little son or daughter named Jamie. But Nathan got called up to go to war, so off he goes into the wild blue yonder, and Haley promises to wait for him. (Sorry for the brief summation, but it was so predictably saccharine, as a plot line, it barely warrants the mention.)
The inevitable denouement arrives and Dan and Lucas square off with handguns drawn. Dan has Brooke take the gun to shoot Lucas, but she turns it on Dan — and of course, the gun is empty. He pulls out his second gun when Skills (who, shortly before, had his hand crushed in a car door by Julian for refusing to work at Dan’s club) decks Dan so that he misses Lucas. Lucas is OK, but Peyton has bought it in the belly. She collapses in Lucas’ arms, tells him she loves him and dies as it starts to rain. Then his cellphone goes off, and of course, we get the it’s-only-a-dream moment, and Lucas tells Peyton he had this bizarre dream, and he’ll tell her all about it when she gets home. They hang up, and as lightning strikes outside, she doubles over in pain — for real.
Did Lucas have a romantic premonition or did Peyton just eat some bad Thai food? Frankly, I’d rather have had the bad Thai than this particular OTH episode. Written by Chad Michael Murray, this episode seems so unnecessary and spectacularly unsexy in its attempt to ape swing-era America that I have to say that I hope the producers of OTH never do another one of these “dream” episodes. It’s too painful to sit through Lucas’ waking hours, let alone through his overly romanticized subconscious …
What season and episode is this?? I really want to watch it