Episode Report Card Ragdoll: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Death of the Cliffhanger
By Ragdoll | Season 1 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.19.2004
Haley lies in bed that night, thinking.
Luke lies in bed that night, thinking.
Luke gets up and goes into the kitchen, only to find his mother there making some tea. He's surprised to see her; she's worried she woke him up. Blah she can't sleep, blah she's worried blah. He asks what she's worried about. She gives a pat answer about how she's a mother and therefore she worries about everything. And we all know where this is going -- TPTB just wanted to heave on the guilt before the real fireworks started. So, Luke says he needs to tell her something and that she should probably sit down. She prefers to stand. His face falls. He says, "This is going to hurt you, Mom, and I'm sorry." What happened? He says, "Brooke's pregnant." Karen's first response? To slap him hard across the face. Oh, boy. Looks like it's going to hurt Luke a lot more than Karen. She quickly apologizes. He half-cries, "I guess I deserved that!" Then he runs away. Heh. Oh, The Chad, The Chad, The Chad is just so bad, so bad, so bad, so bad! Karen races after him. Luke holds his face as he walks into his room, moaning. Karen says, "Oh, Lucas, I didn't mean it!" He says, "I'm pretty sure you did." She cries, "No! Do you understand? This is exactly what I didn't want for you! Have I been talking to myself the last few years? You have so much left to do in life, so does Brooke." She embraces her son and moans, "Oh god! You're both just too young for this!" Luke tells her not to cry. Karen sits down and cries out: "I cannot believe this is happening?" He sits beside her and says, "How close was I not to existing?" If I could turn back time? Wait, that's not nice, this isn't an issue to joke about -- but wait, if they're making such a mockery out of it, why can't I? Because I should rise above this melodrama and make a good, solid point about how accidents happen and the results are tragic, but good grief, where's the birth control? And why wasn't that the first question out of Karen's mouth? So, Karen sighs and tells Lucas that she decided she really wanted him in her life, in her future. She whisper-cries, "What does Brooke want?" Luke mutter-cries, "I don't know." Then he shoves his hands between his legs and starts rocking. Oh, The Chad can't handle the emotion too well. He screws up his face and starts blubbering. Karen embraces him and he emits a painful "What am I going to do?"
The next evening, Haley makes Luke some "super-sized" dinner. He says he's not too hungry. Haley jokes, "All right, more for me." She continues, "So, I've got to ask you a sort of personal question." She leans in: "How many times per minute do guys think about sex?" Huh? Luke leans forward: "Per minute?" She says quietly, "Yeah, Elle magazine said that guys think about it every thirty seconds." Luke leans on his elbows and says angrily, "You're thinking about having sex with him!" Haley shushes him and then whispers, "It just keeps coming up." Then she sort of laughs and says, "Oops, wrong words." Luke gives her some good advice: he's not going to tell her how to live her life, but for what it's worth, he wishes he'd waited. Luke says honestly, "All I'm saying is just look past the moment, if you're not ready, then just wait, okay?"
Nathan's at Deb's house looking through some papers when she discovers him there. She says, "I didn't hear you come in." Nathan admits he didn't make any noise. Deb tells him that Dan stopped by and that she didn't give him Nate's address. Deb comes into the room and says, "Nathan, you can come home any time. You know that, right?" He finds what he needs and then makes his move to leave while Deb says, "I'm still here." He tells her that he doesn't want to come home. She continues, "You know, I walk around this empty house and it doesn't seem real. I wish I could go back and do things differently." Nathan seems to be having a different conversation: "I need to ask you a question." Okay. "Why did you do it?" What? "Cheat on Dad?" She was confused. They got married very young, and suddenly she was a wife and a mother before she was her own person. Deb explains, "And when we grew up, we grew apart." Why? Why did they grow apart? Deb: "I wish I knew, Nathan. But none of that makes what I did right." He says, "Because you were married?" Deb: "Because I had a commitment to him, and to you. Those moments of what I mistook for happiness weren't worth the cost of hurting someone I loved, and losing you over it now." Oh! The betrayal of an extra-marital affair coming back to haunt her! Oh! The shock and horror of it all! Oh! The audacious son whose morals have left him all alone! Now, there's the drama for you. Yawn.