Previously on One Tree Hill: Coach Whitey introduces Luke to the church of basketball and invites him to join the varsity team. Luke and Nathan have a showdown at the park after dark. Luke kicks Nathan's butt, bouncing all kinds of balls around his half-brother's arrogant demeanor. Luke ends up joining the team, but not before Dan shows up making him feel both unwanted and unloved. Karen yells at Dan for being such a jerk, and, oh, for ruining Luke's life while he's at it.
An old tugboat floats by on the river. This symbolizes Luke's old, safe life sailing out to sea. He stands on the Riverside court as Stinky and Tweedledum blather on in the background. This game goes on even if its star player moved up in the world. Skills says, "Time to go, baby!" Stinky announces that it's 6:30. Game time! Luke attempts to act bashful, but you can tell he's bursting, just bursting with pride: "Ah, come on guys, you don't gotta come! It's just a game, right?" For some reason we get a bit of unnecessary dialogue. After the what-happened-last-week-in-case-you-weren't-paying-attention recap, they boys go ahead and repeat it all, all over again: blah he beat Nathan, blah he joined the team, blah of course they're all going to his first game. Skills says, "This game is for all of us." Hands in the air: who's sick of hearing about how Luke's the pride of the boys who come from wrong side of the tracks?
The town erupts in a pre-game fever. Girls in a jeep drive down the main street screaming, "Ravens! Ravens! Ravens!" Keith grabs his jacket and yells, "Karen! You ready to go?" Karen replies, "Oh, I'm not going. I decided to stay open. I could use the business." She folds some napkins to assuage her guilt. Bad mommy for not supporting your son just because you're afraid of the big, bad Dan Scott. Keith asks, "Did you talk to Luke about this?" Karen says no, but she knows he'll understand. Keith starts to chastise her, but Haley butts in, "She doesn't want to go. She doesn't want to see her high school sweetheart-slash-your brother Dan-slash-the jerk who abandoned Lucas-slash-the father of Nathan the team star player-slash my wrists if I hear the story again, let's go!" Heh. Wow, she talks damn fast. She's got a Gilmore motor, but without the kick. Keith's disappointed in Karen. He walks backwards toward the door: "I think you're making a mistake." Karen doesn't say anything. She just looks at the door like it's going to sprout wings and carry her away -- and she really, really doesn't want that, now, does she? She just wants to stay in her safe, ahem, public café while the world turns around her.
The Scott Manor. Nathan's got his varsity jacket on, and he's ready to go kick some opposing-team ass. Dan's wearing an "I'm the Worst Father in the World" t-shirt. He's also dispensing advice: "Whitey can put this kid on the team. He can put him in the game, but he can't put him in your game. You've got to shut him out. You've got to shut out the opposition." Blah be ready blah. Nathan says begrudgingly, "All right." What else does a kid say when his father drones on about basketball every hour of every single stinking day he's alive? Does the man not think of anything other than pushing his kid to achieve what he didn't get to achieve in his time? It's the worst kind of pressure -- having to make up for someone else's failed dreams. Anyway, Nathan doesn't seem to mind, but it makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach every time Dan opens his mouth.
Whitey Durham Field House. I guess the Ravens play all of their games at home, but whatever. I also guess they didn't want to use two sets and make this show even more expensive. More excited extras mill about outside, wearing blue t-shirts and hopping around. Nathan wears headphones and listens to hip-hop. He slaps hands. Pinches asses. Gives Luke a dirty look. Luke looks like he might chuck his cookies. Whitey comes into the dressing room wearing his Sunday best. He barks, "Scott!" Nathan responds, but he's denied. Again. Whitey wants his brother. Poor Nathan. No one on the team makes Luke feel welcome. Jock Jerk #1 says to Nathan, "I can't believe the bastard spawn's on our team." Nathan says, "For now." ["Sars says, 'Nobody who doesn't live in the fifties refers to people whose parents weren't married as "bastards" anymore.' I mean, really. Shut up, Jock Jerk #1 and One Tree Hill writers." -- Sars]
Whitey's wearing suspenders. They're so cute. He looks like my grandfather -- rough teeth, not much hair, gruff voice, good heart. He asks Luke if he's nervous. Luke half-smiles and admits he's a bit nervous. Who wouldn't be, with half the team gunning for his failure and the whole town talking about his parentage? There must be something else here; Luke must also be a bit of a loner or a freak for all of them to be so focused on the aspect of his life that even he hates the most, his father not wanting anything to do with him. Any. Way. Whitey gives him some coach-erly advice: "Good. You ought to be. Just do what you've been doing all week." He tosses him a jersey. "You'll be fine." A Dan Scott Dealership calendar hangs on Whitey's wall. Even the minutia is against Luke. Tweedledum and Stinky catch Luke as he exits the coach's office. They want a "few words" before his debut. They've got a website: www.ravenshoops.com (and good grief, it's an actual URL with a holding page saying that the website's on its way -- please, save me now). They're going to stream the game via web cast. Except they have no camera. They've got an old-school microphone and a tape recorder. What are they going to broadcast, their measly commentary on Luke's first game? I guess the whole idea of radio is passé. What a waste of perfectly good bandwidth. Whitey comes out and yells, "What the hell is this!" You go, Whitey. Barry Corbin yells better than anyone on television. Tweedledum tries to explain that they're sports announcers. Whitey honks, "Not in here you're not, the locker room's closed. No media." Tweedledum and Stinky seem very excited about the prospect of being banned media. They run off to run their mouths off somewhere else. Luke cracks a half-smile as they leave, tosses his jersey over his shoulder, and heads off into the abyss of his destiny.
The Ravens prepare for battle. There's a lot of "do-ya-wanna-whats" and "ho-yas" and stuff. The strange before-game ritual includes a lot of shouting, hooting, and hollering. Whitey claps his hands together and shouts, "All right! Let's take to the court." The team bounces from foot to foot as the snake-like line of varsity b-ball players slithers its way into the gym. Luke drags along behind like the skin it's trying to shed. Nathan creeps up behind Luke and whispers menacingly, "You want my world. You got it." Um, I seem to remember that Luke doesn't want your "world," butt-nut -- he just wants to play ball. You're the one that keeps insisting that he wants your world.
Courtside. We've got excellent seats. The opposing team warms up by running around and passing the ball. Dan "My Dreams Will Come True" Scott comes sliding into the gym on the grease of his loins. He sees Keith sitting with Haley. "Keith! Finally come to see your nephew play, eh, big brother!" Dan doesn't sit with his brother, but moves so he can be closer to the court, and to Nathan. This man takes the definition of "vicariously" just a bit too seriously. Keith answers, "Yeah, I guess you could say that." Haley smiles knowingly at him. I'm warming up to Haley. Nathan, taking a page from his father's book, warms up by dunking a basket and then hanging off the hoop. The best thing his father ever taught him -- how to show off like a right asshole. Tweedledum and Stinky begin their commentary, but there's still no camera for this mysterious web cast. Blah the Ravens are five and oh, blah Luke's first game, blah six players have been suspended blah. Luke wears the full black warm-up suit as he shoots a warm-up three-pointer. Then he looks into the crowd and sees Dan sitting there watching him. They share a look until Nathan chucks a ball at his half-brother. Then, continuing to taunt the newest member of the team, Nathan says, "Wake up." Brat. Coach Whitey calls them into huddle up for some last-minute instructions.
Peyton and Brooke are standing courtside and holding pom-poms. Peyton looks dumbfounded, like someone just asked her a question she didn't have a clue how to answer. Brooke says, "So that's the boy that beat Nathan?" Peyton doesn't blink. Perhaps she's an android. She nods. Brooke says lasciviously, "He looks good from behind." Well, finally someone has something right.
Whitey says to Luke, "Relax. Destiny has a way of finding you." Oh, wise basketball sage, we'll call you Woda. I have such a hard time believing that Luke's had any kind of rough life. He's so pretty, and he's so cocky. His smirk is one of a boy who knows just how hot he is -- CMM doesn't ride in the Keith's Garage pick-up, he rides up on a motorcycle his parents have forbidden him to have. Any. Way. Suspension of disbelief engaged. The whistle blows, and the game starts. Ravens get the ball on the tip-off. Hey, aren't you proud I even know what a tip-off is? The ball gets passed around as the opposing team tries to get control. Dan yells, "Come on, Nathan!" Luke slips, and the ball flies out of bounds. Peyton snarks, "Nice hands." She's being sarcastic. Luke replies, "Nice legs." Only he's not being sarcastic. Ew. Spicy rock and roll music heats up, and the game continues. The other team runs the Ravens ragged. Luke can't get a basket to save his life. In fact, he totally sucks. Nathan gets nothing but net. Coach benches Luke and says, somewhat encouragingly, "Not your night, son." See, Luke, he believes in you -- that's really all you need. Nathan runs by and gloats. "Start taking notes, punk." Sheesh. It's his first game, people. Give him a break. It's a lot of pressure for the kid from Riverside Courts; you can can't just dress him up in varsity colours and expect him to dance like a Vegas showgirl. ["Although that would make this show a lot more interesting." -- Sars]
The One Tree Hill theme song goes, "I don't wanna anything other than what I've been trying to be lately." Holy crap, the theme song's as convoluted as the rest of the damn show. Couldn't they try something simple for a change? Like, "Who I'm supposed to be"? Or "I just wanna be me."
After the game, Nathan and Peyton are making out in his Stupid Useless Vehicle. Blah smooching. Blah shirts off. Blah feeling up her leg. Blah kissing blah. Nathan laughs. Peyton gives him a dirty look. He apologizes. They get back to making out. They look like they're mowing the lawn with their mouths. Or playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. See, I'll bet Lucas is the better kisser of the two brothers. Nathan starts to laugh again. And again. Peyton snots, "Unbelievable!" Okay. If she can take a shower with Nathan at his house, why do they need to be all uncomfortable and make out in his car? Nathan: "Peyton, did you see how bad he sucked?" She whines, "So?" Nathan: "He was horrible. I've never seen a guy play so bad." Peyton: "And you enjoyed that?" Nathan: "Hell yeah, didn't you?" Perhaps she doesn't get off on the shortcomings of others, dickweed. The striking similarity between father and son runs truly along a character line called "asshole." She sighs. Nathan: "What is this, Peyton, you like this guy or something?" And the quasi-abuse continues. Peyton rolls her eyes, justifiably. Then she says, "You mean, more than my boyfriend who I'm trying to make out with right now?" She leans over toward him. Hilarie's lines are so forced. She seems totally uncomfortable with speaking at all times. Nathan shuts her down: "Well, put some ice on it, did you ever think I might want to talk." Who talks like that? Peyton snits, "No. You don't. You want to celebrate a public humiliation and I'm sorry but that's a little played out." Can these two not go five minutes without fighting? Nathan: "Aw, and being with you isn't?" Wow. Nathan's moved asshole to an even higher level -- he's now an über-asshole. He's a prototypical, Plato's-cave kind of asshole. But wait, he follows up that truly horrible thing he just said with a lame-ass "oh, I was only joking." Nathan does that a lot -- says a totally hurtful thing, then laughs, and tries to cover by saying he's kidding. Hey, Nathan, did you ever notice that not one single person thinks you're funny? Especially not your girlfriend. And what teenage boy ever just wants to sit and talk, I mean really? Peyton, we're totally on your side with this one.
She gets out of the car. He rolls the window down. He doesn't get out of the car. He just shouts at her from the driver's side. Now there's a commitment to making it work. "Will you get in the car!" He sighs. Then he huffs. Then he puffs. Then he threatens to blow the whole place down. She refuses to get in the car. He says, "Fine." He throws her pom-poms out the window. "And take your lame-ass music too." He starts the car. "Have a nice walk home." You know, I never honestly knew that "jerk" was a hereditary disorder. Peyton's lip gloss has magically reappeared on her lips. She screams after him, "Dammit, Nathan! That CD was hard to find! It's an import." Yeah, that's the real issue, Peyton, you get mad about the CD -- not about the controlling, abusive, and out-and-out disturbing relationship that you have with your boyfriend.
Keith arrives back at Karen's Café. He looks through the door; she calls to him that it's open and to come on in. Karen asks, "Is he okay?" Keith shakes his head. "I don't know -- I didn't see him afterward." She gets a coffee cup. "You should have been there." Karen snits, "Well, you shouldn't have gone to Whitey." A wash of old memories of spending hours crying in her bedroom back at her parent's place, while listening to the 10,000 Maniacs' "Eat For Two" on endless repeats, bubbles beneath Karen's relatively calm demeanour as she pours the two of them a cup of coffee. Keith: "I thought you supported this." Karen retorts, "I supported Lucas, I didn't have much of a choice after you went and got him on the team, did I?" Keith smiles. "What's going on?" Karen twists her head back and forth. She pauses. "I should have been there." The tears threaten but never fall: "I thought I was over it, Keith, I really did. But maybe I've just been hiding. I just can't go back there." She looks at him. "The place knows too much."
Riverside Courts. Luke couldn't sink a basket if his life depended upon it. Peyton comes up behind him: "I guess misery really does love company." Luke asks, "What are you doing here?" She says philosophically, "Actually, I'm not here, I was never here." Ah, if a cheerleader falls in the forest, can anyone hear her whine? Poor Peyton, she keeps taking it from Nathan. Poor Peyton, she's not at all who she wants to be. Luke: "You know, I shoot the ball and it goes in, I don't ask questions, I don't think about. That's just the way it is." Peyton: "Or the way it was." He sighs, "Yeah." Blah it's just a game blah. Peyton: "Who cares if the entire school, most of your friends and half the town saw you suck." He smiles, "So you've come to cheer me up." Wait! It's self-defeating sarcasm -- this really is the WB! Whew. All the testosterone-driven basketball had me fooled there for a minute. As Peyton starts to wander away, feeling even more sorry for herself, Luke, a knight in shining sweat, asks, "You want a ride?" He's turning into her personal chauffeur.
Okay. Dan's watching game tapes. Which someone has obviously taped. But he didn't have a camera. Tweedledum and Stinky didn't have a camera. Who had the camera? Not Keith. Not Haley. Not anyone that I could see. The Ravens have their own personal videographer? Dan pauses for a second on Lucas. A glimmer of regret, perhaps? No way; this man's colder than ice in Nunavut in the heart of winter. He fast-forwards past the "bastard spawn" to the "golden boy." As Nathan walks through the front door, Dan says, "Nathan! Look at this, what did you do there?" Nathan says he was double-teamed, so he found the open man. "Wrong! You gave up a scoring opportunity at the post." Nathan protests, blah double-teamed blah. Blah he scored twenty-eight points blah. Dan: "Thirty points would have looked better to the scouts, don't you think?" He dismisses his son: "Go to sleep. You looked winded in the fourth quarter, we'll go for a run in the morning." Man, this guy's got some serious issues. Nathan mutters on the way out, "You wonder why mom extends those business trips."
Luke stops the truck in front of Peyton's house. She says, "Do you mind if I ask you a question?" He says "shoot," with no hint of irony. "Why'd you do it, join the team? 'Cause you don't exactly fit in here, do you?" Luke replies thoughtfully that it's because he loves the game. She doesn't buy it. He says, "Because I want to know if I'm good." Now, at least someone around here is being honest. Peyton: "If you ask me, we all just wasted a perfectly good evening. You, me and everybody else in there." Why does she do it? Does she really like it or not? Peyton: "If I say that I like it, then I'm just another cheerleader, but if I say that I hate it, I'm either a liar or a fraud. Either way, I lose." Oh. The. Pressures. Of. Teenage. Life. Yawn. She grabs her stuff and gets out of the car: "Do you wanna come in?" Luke: "What about Nathan?" Peyton: "What about him?" He gets out of the car after thinking about it for a millisecond, and follows Peyton to her door. She turns around as he reaches the steps: "What are you doing?" He's confused. She continues, "I didn't invite you to come in, I just asked if you wanted to. Thanks for the ride." Cheeky duck. Those buggers -- this scene was contrived so that they could cut a promo where she asks Luke in, even though she's Nathan's girlfriend. She leaves Luke's smouldering stare in the dark as off goes the porch light and click goes the lock in the door.
Luke gets home. His mom sits on the couch reading a magazine. I hate how no one on television actually watches television. Luke says, "I looked for you." Karen makes some lame-ass excuse about the café being busy. She tries to apologise, but he doesn't let her off the hook -- he just goes upstairs to mope.
Peyton's in her room, staring at her computer screen. Her website consists of her staring at her screen. Yawn. Yet another hideous waste of perfectly good bandwidth. The phone rings. She picks up the phone, sees the number, turns the music up, answers the phone, and then puts it to the speaker. Cut to Nathan holding the phone away from his ear. The phone rings again. She turns down the music and picks up the phone. She doesn't say anything. Nathan says, "I'm sorry." She pauses some more. He says he's sorry again. She says, "Peyton's not here right now. Just her lame music." Um, no offence, but imitation mall punk really is kind of lame. Nathan blames his bad behaviour on the fact that Lucas is on his team and his dad's giving him a hard time. He pauses. "But I shouldn't take it out on you." She pauses. Then turns off her web cam. She says, "Nathan, I'm tired of this." He knows. He also knows that he hasn't been very good to her lately, and he's sorry. Holy Moses! I can't believe it -- an honestly contrite moment from the "asshole" spawn. Nathan: "Just say it's okay, so that when I see you tomorrow we can start being us again, okay?" Peyton quietly says okay. But wait! Her subversive art says otherwise, as the doodle she was working on screams, in block letters no less, "It's Not Okay." Whoosh. That was an anvil just narrowly missing my head. Good thing I ducked before it smashed through the roof of the gym and shattered the backboard into tiny shards of glass meant to signify the end of the golden age of Peyton and Nathan.
Yawn. Does Luke have to ruin everything by his mere existence? TPTB forget that a love triangle only works well if the three characters involve actually care about one another. That's where the good dramatic tension comes in -- but whatever. They don't care. They just want sweaty boys to toss around some masculine auras for a while and create highly one-dimensional women for them all to be in love with. Smarten the hell up, Peyton, you're an embarrassment to us all -- get a backbone already.
Back to our regularly scheduled recap, in which Luke gets up early and goes jogging. Then he practices down at the Riverside Courts. The entire day goes by and he sinks nary a single basket.
It's Monday morning, and English class is in progress at Tree Hill High. Peyton, Luke, and Nathan are all in the same class. I'm sick of waiting for the show to explain how the two boys can be the same age, so I'm just going to do it myself. Consider this my one foray into fan fiction. Karen and Dan spend a glorious summer together before he leaves for college. She gets pregnant. A couple weeks before he's actually going to leave, she asks him to stay behind, to help her with the baby. He refuses. He goes off to college. She stays behind and has Lucas, still holding out hope that Dan will actually come home and they'll be a family. But wait! Cocky, arrogant Dan's having the time of his life playing college basketball. He picks up a girl at a frat party -- she's the daughter of one of the town's richest men, and she'd always tried to get Dan, and now she gets him. They get drunk and get it on. She too gets pregnant. Only that prospect seems far more advantageous to Dan than marrying poor Karen. They get married, have Nathan, and all move back to Tree Hill, where Lola (that's what I'm calling Nathan's mom until she actually shows up) and her father set Dan up with the dealership. The boys are only a month apart in age, and that's how they've ended up in the same grade. Whew -- now maybe I can get some sleep tonight and can actually stop thinking about it.
The Writer of the Week is Hemingway. Let the comparisons begin -- this week's paralleled author has Lucas as an alcoholic, impotent American writer who spent far too much time watching bullfights. Bah. And the lecture goes, "Early in his career Hemingway was frustrated, he was a good writer who wanted to be great, but eventually he discovered that less was more." Yeah, okay -- Hemingway sat around his writing room with pipe in hand, raging about the fact that he just wasn't great yet, until one day he made the miraculous discovery that fiction works best when you strip away everything except the bare necessities. Shut up, pretentious English teacher, with this week's moral/philosophical parallel to Luke's life. Wait, it gets worse. Pretentia-Teacher says, "Peyton, describe Lucas using just one word." Luke looks back at her -- she's sitting right behind him. Peyton says, "Choke." Now, that was mean. Nathan's so proud. The teacher asks Luke to respond. He won't sink to her level. He says, "Lonely." The whole class erupts into a collective "oo-oo-ooh." Nathan looks back, and then raises his hand. He's ready to defend his woman: "I can describe Lucas in one word. Bastard." The "oo-oo-ooohs" continue. In a split second, Lucas is out of his chair, dragging Nathan to the front of the classroom. Suddenly, Luke's on top of his half-brother with his fist cocked and a swing so straight that it resembles a cricket bat, and he punches him. A well-deserved smackdown, if you ask my opinion.
Tarzan. Heh.
Coach Whitey's mad. "I'd stand up, but every time I do somebody kicks me in the ass for putting you on the team." He throws his own fist through the air. "Sit down!" Luke sits. Woda continues, "I must be getting senile because I thought just maybe you were different. I stuck my neck out for you. Dammit!" He smacks the desk. "I trusted you." Luke says quietly, "I shouldn't have hit him. You're right." Whitey: "You're damn right, I'm right." You go, Woda! Luke cacks out all over the place: "I don't think I can do this." Whitey laughs. "Right, one bad game and you just run away." Luke leans forward: "I didn't run away. That's why I'm in your office."
Jock Jerk #1, a.k.a. Tim, slams his locker door shut: "So what happened after you tackled him?" So not only did Nathan get his ass kicked, but he's lying about it to the rest of the team? Nathan says, "Kelly broke it up." We see Jake's cool tattoo as the camera pans up his leg while Nathan fabricates: "Any longer and I might have destroyed him." Bwah. Heh. Jake says, "Or he might have beaten your ass." Nathan: "What do you know about it?" Jake: "What do any of us know about anything. But if I had to take a guess, I'd say that he tackled you first and I'm pretty sure you were at the bottom when Mr. Kelly broke it up." Tim snorts. Nathan tries to take him down with a little verbal battery of his own: "Well, you're wrong, why don't you go up for a rebound every now and again." Oh, Nathan, Jake is shaking in his basketball shoes at your verbosity. Whitey comes out screaming, "What are you, putting on makeup? Get out in the gym and start warming up." He turns to Jake: "When you find the pumps to match your skirt, you might meet us in the gym." See, Nathan, that's how you do it -- delicately, but with heart, and by relying on the age-old stereotype that woman simply can't play sports. Grrr. Luke goes to his locker. Nathan says, "Hey, this is just the start of it for you." Woda chastises, "Nathan!" Luke throws his warm-up suit over his shoulder. Aw, he's having such a hard time fitting in. We all think he should just give up, right? Wrong -- suck it up, you big baby. Get out there and show them what you're made of.
Haley plays mini-golf on the roof of Karen's Café. Luke walks dejectedly towards her as she manages to put the ball into a cow, which causes an alarm to go off. She says, "Any side effects?" From what? "Your amnesia." Blah he must be suffering from memory loss, blah or else he would have told her about the fight blah. Haley: "Are you okay, Luke?" Yes, he's fine, physically, but mentally, well, that's a whole other matter. He says, "Did you ever wake up from a really bad dream and try to get back to sleep?" He grabs a golf club. "Or you've got the flu and you promise yourself you could appreciate normal so much better if you could just get back to it?" Haley smiles. "That's the way I feel. I just want things to go back to the way they were." She says, "With basketball?" He replies, "With everything."
Peyton and Brooke are hanging out after school. Brooke's makeup is perfect, and she's wearing an off-the-shoulder sweater. She flips through a magazine. "You know, it's really too bad that Lucas is poor and he can't play, because he is fine." No truer words have ever been spoken. Poor Peyton; Rory gets Lane, and she gets this for a best friend? Brooke continues her downward spiral: "Yeah, it's a really good thing you and Nathan are fighting." Peyton: "It is?" Brooke: "Every time you do, I get to hear new music." She holds up a stack of CDs. Finally, someone to appreciate the more artistic side of Peyton. She's so robbed of understanding. They two girls giggle. Brooke asks, "Hey, did you buy the new Beyoncé?" Peyton snots, "No." Brooke continues, "You know, Peyton, I know you're all Gwen Stefani, plaid skirt, I'm a bad-ass, but we love you anyway, and you know why? Because Friday night and it is game time, there you are, one of us!" Peyton half-smiles, "P.S., Gwen Stefani's not a bad-ass." Brooke rolls her eyes. Peyton asks, "Do you ever look past it, Brooke?" Past what? "All if it, high school, basketball, and just the whole popularity drama." Oh jeepers, Hilarie's so flat when she delivers her lines that I feel like I'm watching a pancake. Brooke: "Yeah, I think about the future sometimes and it scares me, but then I think I'll go to college, I'll join the right sorority, I'll marry a rich guy -- unless I get fat." Heh. I'm fully ready to call out an "amen" to Brooke. Heh.
Keith gives Luke a pep talk in the shop. He compares Luke to Michael Jordan, only the comparison doesn't work because MJ scored sixteen points in his first pro game. And Luke couldn't find the net if it were fourteen feet wide and as big as Nathan's ego. They fiddle under the hood of a car. Luke: "What if I can't do it, Keith? What if I can't play at this level?" Keith insists that he can. Luke complains about the fact that he doesn't fit into their world and that he probably never will. See, he fixes the cars. They drive the cars. Therein lies the irony. Or not. Keith: "Even Jordan got cut from his high school varsity team, and he did okay." Keith closes the lid of Peyton's car: "What does your mom say about it?" Luke admits that he hasn't talked to her yet. Blah he should talk to her, blah she's going through it too, blah he's not the only one blah. The two of them look into the pigsty that is the backseat of Peyton's car. Keith: "It's the rule of life, the prettier the girl, the messier the car." He smiles, "It's a real turn-on, huh?" See, that's a normal father-son, sort of, conversation. Luke did all right with Keith as an uncle. Because who the hell would want Danzilla as a father? Luke sees a black portfolio in the back of the car. There's a letter inside asking the editors of Thud Magazine take a look at Peyton's comics. Luke looks through the artwork, but a caterwauling Peyton interrupts his reverie. "Those are my sketches," she screams. Luke stammers, "I wasn't looking." She yells, "This is personal. Look, I don't read your diary." Luke looks confused: "I don't have a diary." She bitches, "Dear Diary, my daddy doesn't love me, P.S., stay out of my stuff." Then she storms off in a huff of Ghost World-inspired anger. Only she's no Enid, and there's certainly no Steve Buscemi around to lighten things up a bit with talk of jazz and chicken. Luke smiles. He likes spicy women.
Dan comes home to find Nathan lifting weights. He says, "What's this about a fight?" Nathan tells him it was nothing. He asks, "Did you win?" Not "are you okay, son," not "what happened," just "did you win." Just when you think he can't be any more of an asshole. Then he starts lecturing Nathan about how a suspension or a bad reputation could ruin his prospects. This man's got a one-track mind. Nathan whines, "Dad, he's hitting on my girlfriend, what do you want me to do?" So that's how he's going to play it. Dan: "Your girlfriend? Nathan, if you're going to get into a fight, get into it over something important." No wonder Nathan treats Peyton so poorly; everything except basketball is disposable in the Scott household. Dan asks, "Did you get hurt?" Nathan says, "No. Did you?" Dan turns back around as Nathan continues, "He wasn't swinging at me, Dad; he was swinging at you." Um, no, I think he was pretty much swinging at you, Nathan, but whatever you have to tell yourself to get over the fact that it's Luke two and you zero.
Luke tries the "he had it coming" line on his mother. She doesn't buy it. Blah she was certain they had the wrong Scott when the school called, blah both Scotts, blah fighting, blah can't believe it blah. Luke yells, "The guy was being a jerk!" She responds, "And this is suddenly a surprise to you?" No, he's only always a jerk! "Why go down to his level?" Gosh, that's such a parent-knows-best line. Karen asks, "This wouldn't have anything to do with playing poorly, would it?" Luke snaps, "How would you know? You weren't even there!" Karen leaves the table. Luke tries to apologise.
Peyton stands outside Thud Magazine, but she can't go in -- instead she just drops her portfolio into the trashcan. Luke must have been back at Keith's, because he sees this and rescues it from its smelly demise. He's such a hero.
The morning, Karen sits on her porch swing with a cup of coffee. Luke comes outside, playing with his t-shirt. It's really kind of sexy. She asks, "How'd you sleep?" He sits down beside her: "Not too good, I had this really bad dream where I was a jackass to my mom." They make up. Karen confesses that she just couldn't walk into the gym without everything that she hates about the decisions in her life feeling fresh again with every drop of the basketball. The gym is where Dan told Karen he was leaving. She says, "It's where everything changed." She takes a deep breath: "I don't regret one second of one day with you, okay, I don't. But, that was a hard day in that gym. It was basketball that he chose and I'm sorry that you have to hear things like that but I don't want to lie to you either." He says, "I'm sorry you have to live it." They embrace. I do like the development of the relationship between these two; the dialogue tends towards the Gouda, but it feels more honest than the obsessive, basketball-centric one between Nathan and Dan.
Speaking of which, the two are jogging. I have no idea what time it is or what day it is -- things like that don't matter much in Tree Hill. The clock runs on game time only. They stop so that Dan can further coach his son in the art of being a complete dickweed. Dan wants to talk about the team, surprise, surprise: "I know I've been hard on you, but it's because I see the big picture here. Whitey's not going to bench this kid just because of one bad game." Nathan says, "So what? Let him humiliate himself." Dan: "It's more then that, back when I played for Whitey, his word was law, he was always right, even when he was wrong." That chip on Dan's shoulder must be heavy if he's been carrying it around for the last fifteen years. Blah Dan lost the state championship game, blah on purpose, blah to prove Whitey wrong, blah he disobeyed Whitey, he needed to know, blah he got them to the championship, blah the team doesn't matter, only Nathan matters. Because that's the point of high school sports -- never listening to the coach, playing only for yourself, and making sure that you get the best out of every situation, screwing the guy beside you. Those are good lessons, Dan; you just continue to parent that way, and when Nathan messes up and gets himself kicked off the team for being a smart-ass, then ends up addicted to crack and smacking his girlfriend around because he's lost control over his life, see how it feels. In short, Dan tells Nathan to keep the pressure on Luke, because when it comes right down to it, all that matters is father and son. Whatever you have to tell yourself, Dan.
Tree Hill High. Luke's in the library. Jake comes up behind him and says, "Hey, Lucas, tough game the other night." Luke says yeah. Jake notes, "So you read a lot, huh?" Luke says yeah again. Jake introduces himself. They shake hands. Then Jake says, "There's a lot of talk about your one-on-one with Nathan. Man, I wish I could have been there." Luke shakes his head: "Ah, it was no big deal." Jake says, "Nathan, he's a hell of a player, but he buys into all this nonsense. You've got him scared." Luke looks perplexed. Jake hands him a copy of Atlas Shrugged and says, "Fear changes everything." He tells Luke that it's a good book, and that he'll like it. Jake continues, "You'll be fine. Just remember, don't let him take it." Luke: "I don't know what that means." Jake: "Yeah, I know, but you will." Aw, at least someone will bond with him. At least it's the cool guy with the cute tattoo. Turns out Luke's not the only sensitive, book-reading basketball wizard on the block.
Back in English class, Mr. Kelly's attempts his Hemingway project again. This time he hands out a piece of paper where the kids are supposed to write one single word to describe what they want most in their lives right now.
Luke practices down by the river. He still can't sink a basket to save his life. Nathan shows up, grabs the ball, and says, "It's like this." Luke just stands in the middle of the court with his hands on his pretty little hips. Nathan walks circles around his brother. Every time they cut to Luke, his shirt is partially tucked into his pants in a different way. I guess they had to shoot numerous times until James actually sank a couple of baskets. Nathan: "It's beautiful. I always wonder about it, we all do, right, what happens when it's gone. But I've never seen anybody lose it, like really lose it, till now." He shows off with a fancy jump shot. He tosses the ball back to Luke and says, "Prove me wrong." Luke replies that he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. Nathan snits, "That's pathetic. It's too bad really. I was really looking forward to taking you down slowly, but now, hell, what's the point, you already know it's over." He starts to walk back to his car. "Now, I'd say see you at practice, but we both know you're not going to be there. Why humiliate yourself, right?" Luke whips the ball at the car; it lands just under the front wheel. Nathan cracks, "See, you missed again." Ouch.
Practice. Woda calls out for Luke. He's not there. Whitey blows the whistle.
Peyton picks up her car from Keith's garage, where Luke's working the register. She snits, "No practice today?" He hands her something to sign. Then he gives back her portfolio along with her keys. She barks, "What, are you stalking me?" He replies, "I thought someone should see them." Peyton snaps, "It's none of your business." Luke: "Right, it's none of my business, and I wouldn't know anything about it." He follows her out the door, asking her why she doesn't think her sketches are good enough. She says, "I wanna draw something that means something to someone. You know, I want to draw blind faith or a fading summer." Heh. "Just a moment of clarity, it's like when you go and see a really great band live for the first time, and nobody's saying it, but everyone's thinking we've got something to believe in again." Double heh. "I want to draw that feeling." Phew. Hilarie stinks up the joint. She picks the worst words to emphasize, like she can't decide between "acting" and "really acting." Peyton doesn't pray to the altar of basketball, she prays to the gods of rock and roll. Blah if she can't be great, blah she doesn't want to ruin it blah. Luke looks at her like he understands, well, because he kind of does. She drives away. He wants her to take the sketchbook; she won't, because the comics don't mean anything to anybody.
Dan opens the door to Whitey's office. Woda yells, "People who value their lives usually knock first." Well, we all know Dan doesn't play by the rules. Dan snarks, "It's like a time capsule in here." He steps inside: "Well, you can let it go." Woda chuckles, "That's definitely the pot calling it black, isn't it?" Dan steps forward: "If you've got a problem with me, don't take it out on Nathan." Blah what problem, blah state championship. Oh, and get this -- Whitey's humiliated "Karen's son" in a "feeble" attempt to get even with Dan. Woda snarls, "That's a very convenient way of putting it -- might interest you to know that Karen's son's taken himself off the team." Dan smiles. "Does that make you happy, Danny?" Woda continues, "Seeing the demise of a kid you fathered and then abandoned." Dan chuckles. "Oh! Move Nathan back to shooting guard and you might find a way to win that state championship." He starts to walk away from Woda, who says, "You're just destroying kids' lives left and right, aren't you?" Dan retorts, "Well, you've made a career out of it, haven't you?" Bad blood boils to the top for a second, but then Whitey realizes the futility in assuming that Dan cares about anything but himself, so he puts his glasses back on and goes back to work. Poor Woda; seems like everyone's got a past that haunts him or her in Tree Hill.
Mr. Kelly flips through the Hemingway cards. He comes to one that says, "Truth." Cut to Peyton ripping all the art down off her walls in a pale attempt to acknowledge that her true dreams might not lie within her art. I go and fetch the bucket in case my lunch decides to reappear. The card says, "Revenge," as we cut to Nathan working out yet again. Finally, he lands on "Answers," and we cut to Luke staring at the basketball hoop in the park. Whitey arrives. Luke rolls his eyes. Woda says, "Missed you at practice." Luke replies, "I can't do it." Whitey says, "Wanna know something, I have had thirty-five winning seasons, but you know what keeps me up at night? The college jobs I never took. The could-have-beens have a way of doing that." Luke nods. Woda continues, "We've got a game tomorrow night. You're on my team until tip-off. The rest is up to you." Luke takes a deep breath and nods. "Look, son, there's no shame in being afraid, hell, we're all afraid. What you've got to do is figure out what you're afraid of, because when you put a face on it, you can beat it. Better yet, you can use it. Think about it." Oh, wise Woda strikes again. Oh, I can't be so snarky -- you go, Whitey, you're one of the best things on this show.
Nathan and Peyton are in her room. He's painting her toenails. I guess they're not fighting anymore. He says, "So, I'm thinking about quitting the team." She says, "Yeah, right." He says, "No, really, Whitey can't stand me, it's never good enough for my dad." Peyton thinks this is an awesome idea. But wait, yes, that's correct, Nathan was just joking. Wow, that's one hell of a not-funny sense of humour you've got there, kid.
Luke and Haley walk home from school. She wants to know if he's ever figured out his porn name. Luke says, "What are you talking about?" She explains how you take the name of your first pet and your mother's maiden name and then you get your porn name. Only I thought it was the name of your first pet and the first street you ever lived on -- which would make mine Hector (my pet rat) Ellis (as in Avenue). It's an oddly unsexy name. Anyway. Lucas' porn name is Rocket (his first dog) and Rowe (his mother's maiden name). Luke would be Rocket Rowe. Haley's would be Bunny (her first bunny) Beaugard. Then she jokes, "Dawson Freaks, starring Rocket Rowe and Bunny Beaugard." How many references are we going to make to the Creek before the Hill can stand on its own two feet? Please, make it stop -- I can't even think about Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson as Pacey and Joey. Ew. Luke's just about to leave when Haley says, "Hey, there's a game tonight? You're not playing anymore." Luke says no. Then he explains, "No, I've never walked away from anything before, Haley, but I just can't do it -- but even worse, I don't even know why I can't do it." He walks back toward her: "It's like no matter how confusing or screwed up life got, the game always made sense. It was mine, you know." Pause. "In a lot of ways it's who I am, but I can't be that person in the gym, wearing their uniforms, being in their world." Haley smiles, "I hear you, but I know you, Luke, and I know no matter what happens you're going to be the same guy you always were. No uniform, no whatever is going to ruin that." She continues, "Call me later, we'll go get some pizza."
Luke looks through Peyton's sketches again. He finds one where a lone boy wearing an orange t-shirt stands out in a sea of suits. But wait! Luke's wearing a red sweatshirt. Could there be some sort of artistic symbolic relationship between how he sees himself and how he's seen by the world? Could he and Peyton have a connection through her art? The title of the sketch: "They Are Not You." And whiz, there goes the hammer; it just narrowly missed my head. Karen comes in. She's carrying laundry. She's always carrying laundry. She says, "Hey, I took the night off, I thought I'd take in a basketball game." He says, "Sorry, Mom." Then she apologizes. Then she reminisces. Blah he loved his first jersey, blah he wore it all the time, blah why did he quit the junior leagues? Luke: "I didn't want to see his face." Karen says, "Dan." Luke emotes as a tear forms in his pretty little eyes: "I didn't want to be like him. I was afraid that I'd become him if I played. In the gym, I felt like he had a piece of me. I never felt like that on the playground." Karen thinks a certain someone has taken enough from the two of them. She took the night off to see her son play basketball, the way he used to back when he loved the game. Now that pep talk, coupled with Peyton's sketch, has sealed the deal -- he's back in the game.
Cue up the music as Luke jogs to the gym. But before he does, he hands off Peyton's portfolio to one of the guys who works at Thud. Haley sees him run by, and she smiles.
Nathan walks past his father carrying his duffel bag. Dan's voice has an odd, hollow effect as he tells Nathan not to think about anything -- not Whitey, not his teammates, nothing except for the game. I think Nathan's starting to feel the pressure, because he leaves without his gym bag.
Peyton arrives as the rest of the cheerleaders warm up. Brooke says, "I didn't think you were going to show up." Peyton drawls, "It's game night. Where else would I be?"
Dan comes into the school carrying Nathan's bag. He sees Lucas, but doesn't recognize him. He calls out, "Son!" Luke turns around, and Dan sees what a poor choice of words he just made. They share an awkward moment, and the Ice King says, "Give this to my boy, would you." He hands Luke the bag. Luke just looks at him and takes the bag. Jake walks up and says, "Don't let him take it." He points to Dan and continues, "Your talent." He grabs the bag from Luke and pats him on the shoulder. Luke takes a deep breath and heads into the change room. He reads from what I'm assuming is Atlas Shrugged, because it certainly doesn't sound like Hemingway, but I could be wrong; it's been years now since grad school. Luke examines the name on the back of his jersey as he voices over, "Do not let the hero in your soul perish."
Karen walks into the gym. She sees Dan, but Keith calls her over and she sits with them. The team heads into the gym, but as they pass under the flailing poms, Luke stops and says to Peyton, "Hey, your art matters. It's what got me here." She tries not to feel anything, but you know that makes her happy. The Ravens' hands are all in for the one-two-three. Then the team breaks. Whitey says to Luke, "You're going to be okay." He replies, "Yeah, I am." Whitey moves away to reveal Dan sitting in his customary seat in the bleachers. They stare at each other. But when Luke turns around, you see that he's ripped the Scott off the back of his jersey. And left it behind, along with any feelings he had about becoming his father -- see, not only do they pray to altar of basketball to heal their souls, but they look towards the lights in the gym to heal their fear as well. Go Ravens go.
week: Karen tells the woman I'm assuming is Nathan's mom that she's still the "petty little bitch" she knew in high school. Brooke tells Peyton that she wants a boyfriend, then proceeds to undress in the back of Luke's truck. And Haley makes a new friend, but apparently, "Lucas can never know." Ohh, wonder who that is -- 'cause twenty bucks says it's not Nathan, no matter what the WB wants us to believe.