A Complete Rewatch: One Tree Hill

We move on to the fourth episode of the show, entitled Crash Into You. In this one, the Ravens win another basketball game, and Nathan and Dan are pissed off because Lucas scored the winning basket, again. Nathan invites Lucas to a party at the Scotts' beach house after the game, which is an eventful social gathering to say the least, including Peyton's first-ever published strip in thud, a questionable game of Never Have I Ever, and Nathan breaking the law, again. Deb, Nathan's mother, comes back to Tree Hill after being away on a professional trip, and Lucas confronts Karen about why she never asked Dan for financial support.

BEHIND THE TITLE

The episode is named Crash Into You after a song by The Dave Matthews Band. I have personally never listened to them, but I know of them for being every celebrity's favourite band when I was a kid. I would read these teeny bopper magazines, and every famous person, such as the Olsen twins, would list them as their favourite artist. Before we look closely at the lyrics, I feel like the producers and writers may have chosen this song because of its name. We have a car crash in this episode, and the title is Crash Into You. Pretty straightforward? The song reads like a complicated and toxic love story, but at the same time, it is evidently sexual, as show lyrics such as "hike up your skirt a little more and show your world to me." All are topics discussed in the episode.

GENERAL OPINION.

This is the first episode of the show with a big party, and I adore a good party episode- not only in One Tree Hill but in teen shows in general. I love the house party trope, often the fashion involved, and the idea that a single night can change everything and disrupt the course of one's life. I love Crash Into You because it does just that. The bulk of the episode is spent at the Scotts' beach house for a post-basketball game bash, and everything changes. Lucas discovers the life he has been denied for the past sixteen years, Peyton and Nathan break up, Haley and Lucas argue for the first time, Nathan crashes Peyton's car, and Haley lies to Lucas. Everything becomes muddled and complicated, messy and almost scary, and it all starts with a simple house party.

SOUNDTRACK

- Free Time by Kenna

- Hopes And Dreams by Buva

- Whatcha Gonna Do by Sprung Monkey

- Taken For A Ride by AM Radio

- Shake It Down by Bosshouse

- Empty Apartment by Yellowcard

- Return To Me by Matthew Ryan.

I started listening to Yellowcard a few years after first watching One Tree Hill, and every one of my rewatches reminds me just how much of their music has been used in the show. Empty Apartment is my favourite song of theirs and holds a special place in my heart, and it's always emotional hearing it all over again.

QUOTES

In this episode, Nathan crashes Peyton's car while under the influence of alcohol, and he tries to hide it underneath an ocean of lies. His lying so blatantly reawakens Peyton's sour, sassy side, which I love, especially in this exchange.

- I went on a beer run.

- To where, Canada?

I ADORE drunk Peyton. I think she is realistic and her portrayal of drunkenness is different from a lot of others that we see on teenage shows. She doesn't become completely uninhibited, she doesn't start chasing boys or shifting out of character. She simply turns into a more introspective and quiet version of herself, which is where the excellent "I guess I'm just a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a bitch" comes from. What a line! She's a lot better at analysing herself than Lucas is at deciphering her personality and what she does in regards to her art, and this line sounds like all the things she has heard about herself rolled into one. She is shown as complicated, moody, a little dark, impenetrable, and not excessively friendly- a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a bitch.

This is the first episode of the show not to have a closing voiceover.

THE BEST BITS: KAREN AND DEB.

As much as I love a high school bash in a TV show, my favourite moment of Crash Into You is the short scene during which Karen is about to close her café for the night, but Deb walks in to buy a cup of coffee and introduce herself. The fourth episode of the series is Deb's first-ever appearance, and she is such a great asset to the show. She is Nathan's mother and Dan's wife, but most importantly, she brings a sense of calm and rationality to town with her. She is the one who questions all of Dan's decisions and Nathan's supposed happiness, and she is the first person who thinks about Karen as something more than an inconvenience, a pebble in everyone's pretty shoe.

She knows who she is, and she can only imagine how she must be feeling, being propelled into a world where she is not sure she belongs and having to face her past every weekend. I adore that Deb reaches out instead of shutting Karen out like the other mothers did.

One of the reasons why I love Deb's move towards Karen is that she doesn't do so at the end of the game like Shari previously did, and she doesn't do it in a school-related context. She does it on Karen's turf, just the two of them, and it's evident it is her own decision. She comes in to order a coffee and a biscotti, her patronage an offering of peace and friendship that surprises Karen. The scene is quiet, understated, and simple, and it works beautifully. It doesn't keep you at the edge of your seat, it doesn't play with your feelings, but it does one of the things One Tree Hill does best: it makes your heart feel warm and fuzzy.

THE LITTLE THINGS

After seeing Brooke sport some very noughties, extremely dashing flipped out layered ends in the last episode, she seems to have moved towards a sleeker hairstyle.

Speaking of Brooke, the subject of her active sexuality is once again being pushed onto the table when the gang plays Never Have I Ever at the house party. She is shown struggling to find a question to ask her friends because...she has done everything she can think of. She is in junior year, so, sixteen years old, seventeen at a push. On one hand, it's fantastic to see a female character so in touch and comfortable with her own sexuality, but I'd rather it doesn't come from a sixteen-year-old girl. Again, I am not implying teenagers don't have sex, but I doubt the vast majority of them have had so many experiences that they cannot come up with a question for a game of Never Have I Ever.

This is the second time in the space of four episodes that Peyton's car ends up with some sort of problem and at Keith's body shop. Can someone leave the Comet alone?

Towards the end of the episode, Lucas is shown looking at Peyton's comic strip in a copy of thud magazine, and he seems emotionally invested in the process, as if he is analysing every detail. However, it's worth pointing out that he has seen those drawings before- they were in the folder he found in the bin in front of the thud offices, the ones he gave to an employee. I know he is a sixteen-year-old boy with a crush on a girl, a crush big enough to follow her car in the street and try to decipher every layer of her personality, but...come on! What's there to be so emotional about? He's seen those before!

Speaking of Peyton's comic strip in thud... They bring newspapers and magazines to parties?

THE MOST AMERICAN MOMENT

This week, this category should be called the most American details, as no scene struck me as violently American. The first of those details is Nathan constantly living in his letterman jacket. As previously mentioned, I have grown aware of the important presence of high school and college sports in the United States, and I guess permanently wearing the item of clothing that claims your local superstar status to the world, even when you're out of school, feels typical of the United States to me. When I was a teenager and shows like One Tree Hill were all the rage, what we French people called the "American" style of clothing rose to popularity. Fake leatherman jackets as well as football and basketball jerseys became staples of all the cool boys' closets. We even had a French artist writing a song about those American boys she saw in TV shows, films, and music videos and loved. (Sadly, there was no mention of One Tree Hill.)

The second detail I associate with the United States in Crash Into You, I do because it is not a thing I have ever experienced in France or anywhere else I lived, and it's Karen's Café being open late at night. Deb visits her while the boys are at the party, while it is dark outside, which qualifies as late to me, and orders a cup of coffee. Where I live, you'd have a hard time finding a food joint open past eleven in the evening, let alone one that serves coffee. You'd have more luck with an automated machine.

THE MOST 2000s MOMENT

Two details struck me as evident remnants of the early days of the twenty-first century. The first one, again, takes place in Karen's Café, and Karen is looking for a plumber to fix her water main. The Internet was not as widely used as it is now, let alone on smartphones, which were not even a thing, so she looks for phone numbers in the Yellow Pages. When is the last time anyone has even used the Yellow Pages to find a tradesman? I don't even know when is the last time I saw a Yellow Pages book! We used to have them delivered as a free service, and they completely moved online when the world did.

The second early-noughties moment happens at Nathan's house party. For this one, we are completely going to ignore Tim asking his best friends if his parents had "any decent porn" (WHO asks that?) and his drastic change from Nathan's minion and keeper of the team spirit to the cliché guy who's not the brightest tool in the shed - think Stifler from American Pie. In this scene, Tim is looking for acceptable entertainment among a pile of VHS tapes. Now that's a great reminder that this show premiered in 2003. I was already playing DVDs on my brother's PlayStation 2 (I have never owned a DVD player), but I still had mountains of VHS tapes back home. I had Sabrina, The Teenage Witch episodes and films, footage from my school trip to Spain, Star Academy live shows (it was vaguely similar to shows like The Voice or American Idol, but the candidates performed with famous artists), and Deal Or No Deal episodes. Don't ask me why I was obsessed.

HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES.

One of the very first scenes of the episode shows Lucas getting in the shower, and the water abruptly stopping while he is washing his hair. He asks his mother if she has forgotten to pay the bill, but as it turns out, their water main is broken and they are now out of running water.

Then, at the end of the basketball game, Nathan invites Lucas to a party at his parents' beach house, and Lucas discovers how the other half lives. It's near impossible to not feel for Lucas at this moment. Karen has made a great life for herself- she is a successful business owner, a driven single mother, and fiercely independent. But she's still struggling when she has to fix the water main, and they have to do work around the house themselves. It's beyond understandable feeling frustrated when walking into your stepbrother's beach house (meaning they own two homes) and realising how made of money they are. It's a natural reaction, at this age, to be bitter about the things you never had, and wondering what it could have been like to be wealthy, to never have to worry about tradesmen costing you money, to not have to work a part-time job after school to get a little bit of extra cash, maybe to never have to wonder if you can afford college, a car, or any big expense, without bankrupting the family.

Again, understandably, Lucas confronts his mother about it and why she has never accepted any money from Dan. Karen's answer was everything to me. If Dan had even only financially contributed to Lucas' upbringing, he would have felt entitled to make decisions and have opinions, which he didn't deserve. You don't get to just throw money at a child and think you have a say in their education if you're not here for it, and Karen was undoubtedly right about her decision. As someone who grew up with a mother who made a similar choice to Karen's, it makes me love her and respect her even more.

ROCKING THE BOAT.

This episode is the first appearance of Deb, Nathan's mother, and Dan's wife. She works in a foundation, a job that takes her away from home approximately ten days a month, and when she comes back home, she is decided to shake things.

Her arrival brings a sense of clarity about her family that Dan simply does not have, all too engrossed by basketball that he is. Deb, who stands both on the inside and the fringes, sees it all. In two interactions, she can tell her son is unhappy, and she is adamant she has to do something about it. The way she tells Dan "I'm asking how he is, not how he is playing" is brilliant. At the end of the game, she compliments Nathan on his playing and, from his dejected "try telling that to dad," you can tell that boy is not used to hearing compliments, even for something he is exceptionally talented at. He has grown used to his father taking it out on him when things don't go the way he has planned in the fantasy he wants for Nathan. Deb's arrival breaks the status quo in the family. She turns the television off when Dan is overanalysing Nathan's game videotape, and she insists on having a conversation about their son's happiness. She questions everything around the house, from the decor in Nathan's bedroom to Dan's decision of letting their son stay out all night. She makes the decision to cut down her working hours and professional trips to take care of her family and fix the problems she sees around the home. She is not here to be the distant mother figure Dan makes her out to be every time he sarcastically mentions her being away. She comes across as a caring woman who truly loves her family, especially her only son, and I love that about her.

TURNING POINT.

Crash Into You is a real turning point in Nathan's life. His attitude at the party seems to reach its peak, and he channels his inner mean boy to the max. When the gang plays Never Have I Ever, he provokes Lucas by saying "I never had a father who wished I was a stain on the bedsheet." Later on, he gets irrationally annoyed by Lucas and Peyton chatting on the back porch and decides to play Karen and Dan's high school prom video, only to humiliate him. In this, he is extremely similar to his father. They both turn tiny problems and frustrations into huge mountains worthy of the biggest punishments and clap backs. Dan has instilled into his son a sense of entitlement to everything he desires as well as the idea that if someone doesn't go his way, they become an enemy, someone to be taken down.

After he "reinvented cruel" and stole her car, crashed it, and tried to lie his way out of it, Nathan and Peyton break up, putting an end to a dysfunctional relationship. His response to getting dumped, "I'll call you when you're not so PMS," again, shows a great lack of self-awareness and tries to find an almost scientific reason why Peyton is angry with him because it couldn't possibly be anything he did. She gives him things he left in her room and things he gave her, including a necklace she calls a "leash." I find the shot of Nathan being brooding in his bedroom, turning the necklace in his hands, to be quite interesting. In its essence, that necklace is so early-2000s, in all its beaded glory, the kind of jewellery I tried to make when I was twelve or thirteen and briefly obsessed with beaded everything until I realised I didn't have the patience for it and I couldn't afford the fancier beads. On top of being adorable and slightly childish-looking, that necklace is a far cry from anything Peyton would possibly wear. He's always very present to make fun of her music taste, her "loser rock," but he doesn't think about it enough to realise his girlfriend has an alternative style and wouldn't wear the kind of beaded necklace a ten-year-old would make during the summer holidays. No wonder she gives it back. It's a last testament to how Nathan never really paid attention to Peyton, or only to make fun of her, but not enough to care about the art on her bedroom walls or her clothing style.

At first glance, Nathan's attitude towards Haley seems to be different than it is towards anyone else. He seems quieter around her, more honest, almost vulnerable, and ashamed by the fact he has to be tutored- that's the part we are sure he isn't lying about. But with all the plotting and mischieving he has done this far, it's not far-fetched to wonder if he is sincere or if he is just messing with her, using her as a pawn in yet another revenge scheme against Lucas.

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.

The last scene of the episode shows Lucas going to his mother's café and having a conversation with Haley on whether things have changed and how she would tell him if they did, if anything particular or different happened in her life. He then gives her back the hat she left in Peyton's car, and from the look on his face, it's obvious he has figured out she was in there with Nathan and just lied to him. It's interesting to see how this will go for our two best friends, and how far Nathan can get in between them.