A Complete Rewatch : One Tree Hill

The twelfth episode of the first series of One Tree Hill is entitled Crash Course In Polite Conversation. In this one, Dan's parents unexpectedly turn up in Tree Hill to celebrate their son's birthday, unaware of the fact he has separated from Deb and doesn't live at home anymore. While Peyton, helped by Brooke and Lucas, is working on a surprise for her father, who is out at sea, she receives a call from a coroner's office to identify a body- who might be his.

BEHIND THE TITLE.

The episode is entitled Crash Course In Polite Conversation after a song by the band Gameface, which appeared on their album Four To Go. Just the song title in itself could sum up the family dinner part of the episode, as everyone is trying to remain as polite and on the surface as possible, without going in deep (and it doesn't end well.) It mostly appears the choice of this title for the episode doesn't necessarily lie in the lyrics, save for a passage of the second verse. The line "There's your side and there's my side / And the empty space between" sums up quite well the divides in the Scott family.

GENERAL OPINION.

We will have plenty of time to explore it, but there is something so damn special about rain episodes in One Tree Hill- they just hit differently, for some reason, though I wouldn't know how to explain it. But, despite the heavy content, I get a deeply comforting feeling from this episode. The family drama at the Scotts' house almost feels like a classic comedy play, characters around the table struggling to keep their mouths shut, trying not to say the wrong thing, spilling their secrets, and it makes for unbelievably satisfying television.

SOUNDTRACK

- Overdrive by Katy Rose

- Fools At The Table by Matt Beckler

- Maybe Tomorrow by Stereophonics

- Escape by Smith Point

I would just like to point out how much I love Maybe Tomorrow by Stereophonics, first and foremost. The song Overdrive by Katy Rose, to me, is a perfect early-00s teen fiction time capsule. It is mostly known for appearing in a classic movie of the time, Mean Girls. Katy Rose has also had music featured in Agent Cody Banks, Dawson's Creek, and Thirteen. I love that she is, basically, a 00s classic, but barely anyone knows her name.

QUOTES

- It didn't mean anything.

- It didn't?

- Of course it did.

It may seem like a simple exchange of words from the outside, but the fact that these three very ordinary lines convey so much feeling and so much meaning is everything. It's just so well executed.

There is no voiceover in this episode.

THE BEST BITS: THE RAIN & THE NIGHT.

Throughout the years, I have realised most of my favourite One Tree Hill episodes happen during storms, when there are rain showers, and a lot of my favourite scenes include rainy weather of some sort. This episode is no exception, though it is quite understated. We know there is a category three hurricane at sea, which makes Peyton worry for her father's safety, but we barely see it. The main moment when we see the rain is when Peyton and Lucas are in the motel at night, and water batters against the windows. It's such a tiny detail, but to me, it's almost central in the show- I love a good rain scene. The motel scenes exude quiet. There are no lights apart from what you can imagine is the street lights, or lights from the car park. I have also mentioned it whenever there was a party episode: I love the concept that a single night can change the course of your life as you know it. I love it when it's at a social event, I love it when our characters found themselves stranded on the same road after a basketball game, and I love it when they share memories and quietly talk in a motel room, pretending that, for a minute, nothing terrible can happen.

THE LITTLE THINGS

- On the Sunday morning, after the dramatic dinner at the Scotts', Nathan visits Haley at her house to invite her over for breakfast and informs her that it starts at nine. Who goes to their girlfriend's house before nine in the morning on a Sunday?

- At the end of the episode, when Peyton and Lucas come back from their road trip, you can see how desperately the Comet needs cleaning. Peyton is shown as someone who doesn't care for her car as much as she does everything else, and it ties in well with the second episode, The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most, where Keith was commenting on the inside of her car and saying the prettiest girls have the messiest vehicles.

- The timeline of the very end of the episode is extremely confusing. First, it shows Nathan and Haley at school after the events of the weekend, implying that it is at least Monday, but then, it goes back to Peyton and Lucas coming back to her house, which would have happened on Sunday.

- I've been holding back from this one for a couple of episodes, but can we talk about Haley's bedroom? I love that she has a printed out map of the world stuck on the wall, as well as the word wall we saw on previous episodes. She also has a bonsaï. This fits so well with who she is. There is such a nerdy vibe to having a map of the world on your wall.

THE MOST 00s MOMENT

We're going to have to talk about necklaces first. We see Brooke sporting a chain with a pendant in the shape of the letter B, and it is so evidently rhinestoned. Can we think of anything more early-00s than initial jewellery and rhinestones? I don't think so. I have always felt excluded from personalised jewellery like this. My first name is quite rare, so I never found it on jewellery or souvenir shops on holiday, but "C" is such a common initial that most places would have run out of my initial on keychains or necklaces. At the minute, astrology jewellery is all the rage, and my star sign is Cancer. I don't know about you, but I don't think it's a solid idea to walk around with a necklace that says the word "cancer" on it.

The second necklace we need to discuss is the one Brooke bought for Lucas- how early 00s. At least, it doesn't feature puka shells, but the beads, the little pendant (it looked like a shark tooth, though I cannot be sure), the colour palette, in beiges, it's all so heartthrob of the start of the century. It's the kind of jewellery you would see on photoshoots featuring famous actors such as Chad Michael Murray (I know, I know), Ben McKenzie, or the guys from Dawson's Creek.

When Nathan walks Haley back to her house at the end of the dinner, she is carrying one essential of any girl's outfit in the early 00s: the tiny handbag. I followed many, many, MANY a trend when I was a teenager, around that time, but I could never get on board with the tiny handbag- the short handles are simply not for me. I know they're trendy again, and I'll have to give them a miss for the second time.

When Peyton, Brooke, and Lucas are trying to decide who should be going to the coroner's office to check the body, Brooke offers to stay behind in case anyone calls. Bear in mind this is 2003. People did own cell phones, but they were not as reliable as they are now. Nowadays, you can take them everywhere in the world, they have generally long battery lives and come with small chargers, and considering the number of live videos we see, even in bad weather, we know they aren't as subject to the outside world as they used to. On top of it, they were not as common as they are now. Now, if a person needs to be called, the primary number that will be used is a cell number. In 2003, people called your landline first. Does anyone still have a landline number? I swear I haven't had one in at least six years. The last time I used a big landline phone was at my old job, and it wasn't even calling the outside world, just the managers' office.

FASHION REVIEW.

Rewatching Crash Course In Polite Conversation, I noticed an outfit I have been, I swear, head over heels in love with ever since I was a teenager. When Haley goes to Nathan's house for dinner with his family, she wears a thick plaid skirt paired with an orange jumper with small sleeves. How CUTE is that outfit? I could still wear that nowadays. Truly one of the best fashion moments of the show.

A BRIEF CONVERSATION: PEYTON'S LIFE.

Over these past episodes, we have touched upon the amount of trauma Peyton Sawyer has experienced. She lost her mother at a very young age, and she is not over the loss, as we have seen when she runs all the red lights, repeatedly, trying to figure out why she can do it and survive, but her mother did it once and lost her life. We have seen her been drugged and sexually assaulted. We know she lives on her own, as her father is away at sea most of the year. And now, she has to go to a coroner's office to potentially identify her father's dead body. She is seventeen, for Christ's sake. I understand that she is, technically, closest of kin, but couldn't the doctors have called her grandmother, like Brooke suggested she did?

Are the writers going to give that girl a break?

FAMILY AFFAIR.

There is something play-like in the multiple dinner scenes, in the way almost two decades' worth of secrets are being unearthed by various family members. In the space of a night, it is revealed that Nathan quit the basketball team because he couldn't take the pressure anymore, and his grandparents find out about the drugs he took and how he ended up in hospital. The family discovers Royal, Nathan's grandfather, visits Karen at the café and asks about Lucas. Deb and Dan's separation is made public. The biggest secret of all, however, is Dan's past. When he was in college and injured his knee, his father was away, and he wanted out of his basketball career, so, with his mother's help to hide it from Royal, he chose not to go through with the rehab and gave up on playing at a high level forever.

This episode, and these scenes, in particular, are a brilliant way to depict all the dynamics and the relationships in the family. May, Dan's mother, is the kind of person who always wants to smooth out sharp angles and make everyone happy. She doesn't want to hear about basketball, but she isn't strict about it and gives up when it's clear the conversation is not going away. Everyone got on a fight the night before, but she insists on making everyone breakfast and giving her son presents. (Also, can we talk about that quilt? I think it's a great example of a line I heard in a song, "the best intentions make the worst mistakes") May doesn't stand up for herself, but she wants to do what's right for everyone in her family, and even when they lead to questionable quilts, she is full of good intentions. She definitely strikes me as a woman with a big heart.

Deb is similar to May in many ways but in a more contemporary manner. She, too, wants to do what's best for her family, but she is a modern woman who understands the best might not come in the form of quilts and breakfast. It can be therapy, separation, painful conversations. She's a mover, she wants to fix things.

From Nathan's insight ("You've met my dad, just imagine where he comes from"), we understand that Royal, his grandfather, is similar to Dan in many ways. He is a competitive man, who wants the best for his son and has a tendency to be more present for the one who has the brightest future, as opposed to a quiet life. He is ambitious, proud, and doesn't believe in quitting, to a point where he has made his son lie to him for about twenty years. He doesn't seem to have an emotional connection to his son or any relationship behind sports, and there has to be a level of distrust between two people when one of them refuses to tell the other he has quit a basketball team and keeps the secret for two decades. Presumably, Dan intended to go to the grave with that one.

Dan turned out to be similar to his father in many ways, but seemingly, with different intentions. He, too, is ambitious and pushes the kid with a bright future as hard as he can. He is competitive and doesn't believe in quitting- or in having a quiet life like Keith. However, when he opens up to Nathan at the end of the episode, we see a different side of him. Yes, he has been hard on him, but his intentions were good. (Once again, the best intentions make the worst mistakes.) He wanted to save his son a lifetime of regret like he is experiencing. When you see him having a scotch in a room full of his old trophies and pictures of his glory days, his personality becomes crystal clear: Dan lives in the past.

In the middle of it all, Nathan is a lost kid. A kid who lost it because he couldn't handle the pressure from his father anymore, and a kid who starts seeing clearly for the first time. He doesn't want to end up like his father or grandfather, whether it is individually or in their relationship. And he sees that the way of fixing it is going back to the game he loves, play to the best of his ability, and beating his father, so he doesn't have any ground to belittle him anymore. We truly see Nathan's strength shine in this episode.

THE MOTEL SCENE.

The love triangle between Peyton, Brooke, and Lucas was already there, in longing stares and unsaid words, but in Crash Course In Polite Conversations, it takes on a whole new meaning and becomes something tangible, as Lucas cheats on Brooke with Peyton.

See, the first time I saw this episode, I know for a fact I hadn't watched the whole show in order. It was on TV every Saturday when I was in high school, and it must have been one of the first episodes I saw. I didn't know about the situation, and I thought the scene was kinda cool. Re-watching it as an adult with context is a different ballgame. The scene starts with Peyton crying with relief in the motel room as she finds the bracelet her father gave her, which she thinks she has lost. She hugs Lucas and, on a whim, she kisses him. If the moment had stopped there, you could have believed she had just got carried away because she was so overwhelmed with relief.

But it doesn't stop there, and what happens next is initiated by Lucas. He kisses her back, he doesn't push her away, and he's the one who starts taking her clothes off. And as a grown-up, it almost feels like taking advantage of how vulnerable she is, as if this gives them an excuse, and he could get away with it. Don't get me wrong: she is as much to blame as he is. She knew her best friend loved him. But he was in a more stable headspace and he had more clarity than she did, in that precise moment. Also, he's just told Brooke he loves her, like, five minutes ago on the phone? I wouldn't call that love.

Their making-out session would have definitely led to more if it wasn't for Peyton's hair getting caught in Lucas' necklace, and only then does it dawn on him: Brooke gave him the necklace. They shouldn't be doing this. Lucas stands up straight, which leaves us with Peyton still lying in bed, holding the necklace, and I have a feeling this moment, this detail, puts the blame on her. He's moving on with his life. She's the one who's holding on to his necklace in the bed where they've made out.

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

Obviously, the big one in this episode is Lucas and Peyton cheating on Brooke. What's going to happen next?