February 13, 2023 • 64 mins
Looking back at this episode, certain things from the past come into new light...which may explain some of the lingering feelings the girls share.
Plus, find out what was wrong with Mouth and Shelly’s breakthrough scene and the girls break down the real life traits of Dan’s narcissism.
Get your wine ready…we’re going in!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
First of all, you don't know me. Were all about
that high school drama, girl drama girl, all about them
high school queens. We'll take you for a rod in
our comic girl cheering for the right drama queens up
girl fashion. But you'll tough, girl. You could sit with
us Girl drama, Queens, drama, Queen's drawn, mc queen's drama,
(00:20):
John McQueen's drama, Queen's So if you tell them what
episode we just watched, friends, family, even foes at home,
We've just watched for all of you hate listening to
all of you who hate it, We've watched Season four,
episode fourteen, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. The irony that
(00:45):
this episode aired on freaking Valentine's Day in two thousand
seven is not lost on me. Oh this was Valentine's Day? Yes,
how is that? Alright? Alright? Valentine's Days and seven. Hailey
confronts Brooke regarding the stolen calculus test. Lucas and Peyton
(01:07):
considered taking their relationship to the next level. Peyton and
Brook finally finally grow closer, thanking God uh, and then,
in Deb's absence, Nathan throws a senior party at the
Scott House where a sex tape from Nathan's past surfaces.
Our director was Janice Cook. She was beam old director
(01:28):
on the show that we were very fond of. She
was good at parties. I feel like she really like
handled this. She did a great job. High school party. Man,
it did God. I don't even know where to start.
I mean, I guess, well, here's what I want to know.
What did you do to piss the writers off? Because
between Brooks stealing the test and then like boldly just
(01:52):
lying about it to her best friend Um, and then
Brooke with this doozy of a sex tape. I mean,
no spoilers here, we all know what happened. What you do?
They made you the bad guy in this episode. I
don't know, man. You know it's interesting because the the
stealing of the test, and you know, having everything you
(02:13):
want so close that you can almost touch it, and
then having something threatened. I like the dramatic foil and
I like I like in a way that as Brooke
is trying to be a better version of herself, Rachel
kind of pushes her into you know, three years ago
Brooke Like, I like the push and pull of it.
I like that she feels stuck between a rock and
(02:34):
a hard place. I've certainly been there when when you're
a part of something and you don't really know. I mean,
this is granted her being fully you know of the
guilt here, like they stole that test together. But I've
witnessed people that I love do things that aren't great
and not known where it's my place to speak up
(02:55):
or not. And so I guess in that way where
you kind of go like, I don't know if I
should say anything. Maybe maybe I should just stay on
the periphery, which at this stage in my life I
don't think is the best course of action. But in
our early twenties, I mean, God, we got really trained
to be such people pleasers, to always be good on set,
to never have a problem, to never you know, never,
(03:16):
never be the squeaky wheel. And so I think those
were the ways I really related to Brooke in this
position of I don't want to hurt Haley and I
don't want to get Rachel in trouble, and I don't
want to lose my future and and maybe if I
can just white knuckle it over the line, it'll all
be okay. Is it really a big deal? Anyway, you know,
all the lies you tell yourself and then so it's
(03:37):
like that that I can kind of get. But man,
when I read that tape, see, I was like, I'm
not doing it, and they were like, you're doing it,
and I was like, I'm not doing this. I will
not do this. James had to talk me off alledge
and like we've talked a lot y'all about how this
was sort of the year that like our baby James
grew up and he was like, it's all gonna be okay,
(03:58):
I'm gonna take care of you, don't worry. So like
he really came in like a boy scout, and I
was like, I don't want to do this. Man, I
was so upset. I thought it was so unforgivable. And
then no spoiler alert exactly. But the thing is that
for the fans at home who know what episodes coming next,
there's the flashback to the night that this happens between
(04:19):
Brooke and Nathan and the episode opens on you know,
sophomore year or whenever this was supposed to be junior
year with Peyton being in such a mood. And I
don't know if you remember, but you say two of
the meanest things I've ever heard of humans say, first
to Nathan and then to Brooke and basically they're like her,
(04:41):
and they like drunkenly have sex as revenge even though
she's broken up with him. And when episode four fifteen aired,
they cut it all out, so it just looks like
what I don't remember this. Yes, they cut the awful
things that Peyton says to Broke, which I'll tell everyone
abou next week. They caught him and it, and I
(05:03):
remember watching the episode on TV and crying and I
was like, you've made her. Yeah, I was like, you've
made her unforgivable. It does a little like character assassination.
It's episode, man, I don't know. Our boss was probably
pissed because he tried to grab my ass again and
I told him to go himself, so he made me
pretend to have sex with Nathan instead. I mean, not
(05:23):
a bad trade, my dude. Honestly, James Lafferty is a gentleman,
So you know, if you had to pick one, you'd
always go to that side. If you're going to go
down swinging cool. This episode gave be tremors. I've got
my kids, you know, like we're hiding out here in
North Carolina. I'm at the scene of the crime. I'm
back Carolina and it's just cham and I rolling around
(05:47):
the whole episode and You're like getting out for my
kids walk in and I'm like, be cool, be cool,
calm down, babies. There was so much talk in this
episode about out sex, like let's do the damn thing between,
you know, between Brooke and not Chase and Brooke and
(06:08):
Nathan and Peyton and Lucas and Mouth and Shelley and
who else is having sex not having I mean, Dan's
coming on to Karen, pushing that button, and so we
talk about love. All I could think it was like
when I was a seer in high school. I was like,
I'm getting the out of here. I don't love anybody,
like a different person every weekend. So this idea that
(06:31):
like teenagers are so fixated on finding like the great, big,
huge love of their life was like funny for me
this episode. I enjoyed the novelty of I have to
be with someone. I think I get that, And maybe
it's because I went to an all girls school, so
I didn't I didn't really have the luxury of like, oh,
(06:52):
everybody's just kissing everybody. It was like, who's your person?
Because we were just watching ron coms and you know,
so I think that I think that we were much
more um in the world of TV fantasy and oh man,
senior problem was such a big deal, and what was
going to happen when we go off to college. We're
(07:12):
going to stay together? Right? Like everybody really was in
this heightened sort of sense of reality that you see
in our show, which is probably because we had no reality.
We were just copying what we were watching on TV. Yeah,
I mean, I feel like I talked a lot about
our show created a new normal, uh, in certain effects
(07:32):
for the generation of girls that were watching it when
they were in high school. Um, do you know anyone
from your pack of friends that married or is still
with the person that they were with when you were
you know, going to problem? I have three, but not
from my school lunch but you know yourself, man, it's
(07:53):
a different deal. Yeah, not from my school. My girlfriend Amanda,
who lives in Chicago is with her middle fool sweetheart.
One of my best friends, Alicia, who you've hung out
with in New York, is married to her I mean
junior high sweetheart. You know at thirteen. He carved their
initials in a tree at summer camp. That's really cute.
And then yeah, I've got one other girlfriend who was
(08:16):
so in love with this boy she went to church
with and they were together, and then in college they weren't,
and then they wound up getting back together and getting married. Um.
And then my baby cousin, my cousin Shelby is married
to her her high school sweetheart. But they're all from
like one Pasadena, one Texas, one Chicago, won New York. Like, yeah,
they're all over the place. I love when I go
(08:40):
home that so many of my classmates are still with
the person that they went to prom with or you
know that they were dating during football season, you know,
and their weddings were all super super fun because it
was a high school reunion. Um. Yeah, I just I
don't know why I can accept in real life. But
then when I see it on TV to love these
(09:01):
kids love, it's likest to me. Maybe it's because I'm
in a parental situation now where I'm like, honey, don't
lock yourself in, go be free, explore. Yeah, they're like,
it's all ridiculous, And the thing is, in most of
the world sort of statistically it is, but I do
(09:21):
think you're You're in that really interesting moment right where
you're desperate to leave the nest, but you've also known
nothing else. You think you're an adult, but really you're
a child, and you know you you want to adultify yourself,
and being in love, being independent when you're about to
go to college feels like a big way to, you know,
(09:42):
mark the territory of your identity. I'm an adult. No
one embodied that better than Leonora's in this episode. God,
it's so in love with Shelley after having dated Gigi
for the last couple of months, and just and I
appreciated that because it was real. That was real, like
that boy wants to be love, he wants to lose
(10:05):
his V card, he wants to go to college and
be able to, you know, be a man. I'm a man,
you know what I have to say? Though, made me
sad because to your point, Lee acted this episode beautifully.
He put real emotion into what he was given, the
(10:27):
words on the page, he made them real. And something
that I appreciated watching it now that I don't think
I appreciated when the episode aired was that this was
really the first time you were seeing a boy say
I'm crazy about you and I don't know what to
do about it, and I I, I'm not pushing you away,
You're pushing me away. And I don't understand. Yes, I
(10:48):
want to be with you. Am I not supposed to?
You know? But but he's not saying in those sentences,
you know, I want to be with you, So why
do you care? He's not doing that gross trope. But
but I have this real letdown, And I can tell
in the way that some of those scenes jump that
(11:08):
they were edited down, so I know there's dialogue missing,
which I think does a real disservice to the conversation
Mouth and Shelly are having. And I think they really
made Mouth and Shelley's story in this episode. They put
it firmly in the B storyline space when it should
have had an A storyline. Yeah, absolute clarly because it
(11:29):
makes it by by shrinking the amount of time they're
on screen together. They have conflated uh, desire and confusion.
They've conflated Mouth believing he's being rejected because he's not enough,
which is his core wound, with Shelly not knowing how
to communicate that she her core wound is that she's
(11:50):
afraid that if she has sex again, everything will come
crashing down. So instead of having this really interesting experience
where he could get vulnerable about feeling like he's never
chose in and she could say, all I want to
do is choose you, but I don't think I can
choose you without choosing myself, and they could get somewhere
really kind, the they rushed it, and and they made
(12:14):
his expressions of his own vulnerability read as being completely
manipulative of her. And all too often we see boys
pressure girls into sex. And I've seen that scene a
million times. I don't feel like that's what was on
the page here, but they kind of edited something that
felt vulnerable into something that felt manipulative, and it kind
(12:37):
of has a foot in each world, and I really
don't like the result. Well, I mean that probably is reality,
you know, Like I appreciate that we saw a boy
crying about sex, That's what I mean. Like his vulnerability
is beautiful. American Pie came out when we were in
high school, dude, and like I remember being at parties
(12:58):
where people wanted to watch it and just be you
so kind of creeped out because I was like, I'm
still a virgin? Is this the way you boys talk
behind our backs? And really weird it out because all
my guy friends were laughing at it, and they were like, yeah,
you know whatever. Well, yeah, I had just the summer
before season four, I'd gone up to Canada to shoot
John Tucker Must Die. And the scene where we watch
(13:20):
all the boys in that movie talking about you know,
the lead girl, Kate Brittany Snow, They're like chanting on
Corker and porker Corker and like it's disgusting, and and
that was, to your point, all of our representations of
how the virginity. Yeah, and and so I guess that's
(13:40):
why I feel bummed, because this was like, this was
a boy really saying like, I don't know if I'm
attractive to you. I don't know if you feel the
way about me at that I feel about you, and
I'm I'm I have all these emotions and all these feelings,
and of course I wanted to be you, but they
like they cut it off, and I wanted more of
(14:01):
that honesty for both of them, and what I what
I feel like we wound up with with something where
a lot of people watched this and when I feel
like he pressured her into sex and that that really
feel it feel guilty? Man, Yeah, it felt guilty, And
that's not what Lee was performing, No, Like, yeah, is
(14:22):
he the first male character on our show that we're
seeing lose his virginity? Yeah? Like, I mean I love
that he played it as emotional as he did, because
had he been any other dude, he would have been
like firm with her, like you've led me on and
blah blah blah. And Insteadily does it with tears in
(14:43):
his eyes and it's like legitimately confused. So kudos to
him for nail on it. But um, it did feel
like a guilt thing, like, fine, I gave you the
thing that you wanted. Can you leave me alone now?
And by the way, I've done that in real life
in my youth, just like, fine, you've pressured me of
giving you the thing that you wanted. Can we stop? Like,
(15:04):
can you just stop calling me? And it's the I
threw up, you know, like it's the grossest feeling as
a woman to be pressured into that. And God, I
just like, thank god we got Liz to do it,
I know, because she's so good and she's just so,
and I protect her. I think what made it hard
(15:27):
is because they were both so good, they put so
much into it, they gave it a nuance. But I
think I just I had the real feeling that some
of that nuance wound up on the cutting room floor
because the episodes have to be cut for time. And
what was odd to me was that it wasn't a
(15:48):
clear cut case of like he guilt tripped her. She
was like, I want it. I want it so bad.
I want it so bad I can't be around you.
And look, if i'm around you, I'm going to have
sex with you, and then I have to run away
from you because sex is shameful, you know, she said.
He says, I know you're a clean teen, and she says,
I'm the clean teen. So what we're getting at is
that Shelley has built an identity for herself that she's
(16:08):
afraid to lose. And that's interesting, but we don't go
past one quick reference to it, and and it's like
it's like she's a secret. Basically, they made this whole
thing like he thinks she isn't attracted to him, and
she's in fact a secret infomaniac who has to run
away because sex is bad and it's like, what the
(16:30):
what is this? And I can't even look at you.
I can't even look at you, I can't be next
to you. It just made me feel sad because they're
both such talented actors, and I wanted more of the vulnerability.
I wanted more of him thinking he knew what she
was saying, and her not being able to say what
she needed to say, and then having a tete a
(16:52):
tete in that manner until they got to a point
where they both got vulnerable and got to say, no,
that's not it. It's that I am um fill in
the blank. Yeah, Like I wanted that. Well to your point,
I I loved the line at the beginning of the
episode where Mouth literally says it's about them, the clean teens,
(17:12):
and then it cuts to a shot of all the
kids in their T shirts. But that that's very real.
Like my identity was so wrapped up in my virginity
in high school because I was like, I'm the good girl,
I'm the girl that like follows all the rules. That
when I went away to college and came home and
was not a virgin anymore, I felt like everyone was
(17:32):
going to judge me and I completely lost my sense
of self. And so that feeling of trial by the
jury of your peers when you're forming your identity is
there's so much there. And we made a snack instead
of a meal. Yeah, I've been a delicious meal. Yeah,
(17:54):
I just I really wanted that storyline to be given
its due rather than to be just in the slide
show of scenes at a party. Mm hm. You know,
speaking of other b storylines that should have been A storylines.
We have to dissect Dan and Karen because why am
(18:14):
I nostalgic for their high school years? Like I know,
also I love well two things. As soon as you
said nostalgic for their high school years, I'm like, God, yeah,
that shot at them in the yearbook, Gorge. I want
more of that. I wanted to actually see like a
flashback to their prom I wonder if we're going to
get it. But why does Dan just walk into Karen's house?
(18:38):
I just pulled up my notes and at the top
of my what is that? Why does he constantly just
walk into her house? Trial is weird? Man? No, he's
got lucks and like all these women have had terrible
things happened to them. And they're just like whatever, doors,
we don't even have doors, we just have like tent
flaps at the front of our house them all. Um,
(19:02):
he does just walk into her house. And maybe that's
to illustrate his level of comfort with her at this point,
because since Keith died, he's really been playing that card
of does we see oh he says it when they're
on there not a date, date, not date. She says,
I'm pregnant with your brother's child, and he says, but
(19:25):
you're also alone. I want to be the man you
turned to. That's an right after that. But also here's
what I was thinking about a little bit though. Um,
they're only thirty six years old. Yeah, thirty six or
thirty seven? Wait, no, are they even that old, because
they're thirty six when the show starts, but every season
(19:48):
of the show is every two seasons of the show
is one year. But if they were eighteen when they
had Lucas and Lucas is now eighteen, that's thirty six.
Oh yeah, so they must have been God so they
were like thirty five and season one God bless him.
So they're like thirty six years old, and that's still
(20:08):
very young. And Karen hasn't. I mean, I guessed what
she stated Andy, she stated, Keith, I don't know. There's
still um I can understand her level of optimism where
this man has hurt her for eighteen years, could it
(20:29):
be that she there's redemption there. It's like, if he
ends up being a good guy, yeah, absolves her of
the poor decision making she made when she was a teenager.
And there's a little bit of like hero complex where
it's like a good guy, you know, like not anybody else,
(20:50):
you know, nobody else in your life could make you
a good guy, but I did. And we all have egos.
If I if I was dealing with like a huge
attall and I got to behave I'd be really proud
of myself. And so I could fully understand why Karen
is like okay. It's also one of the number one
ways that manipulators and narcissists do what they do is
(21:15):
they look at you and they say, yeah, I know
I've I know I've been a bad guy, but you
make me want to be different. Yeah, listen, I'm as
I'm a sucker for that, Sophia, I love it. I'm like,
tell me more. The entire decade of I've had phases
in all my decades of that. Let's just let's leave
it at that. But that's the thing is is someone
who says, I've behaved badly because I've never felt safe.
(21:39):
I've behaved badly because no one's ever really loved me.
I've behaved badly because I grew up in a terrible environment.
You make me feel safe, you make me want to change,
you make me realize I can be the man I
want to be. That is seductive as hell. Yeah, I
get it. If I'm Karen and handsome Dan is buying
(22:00):
my son tuxedos and like he is showing up with consistency.
This isn't once in a while. It is this man
walking into her house every other day. And we watched
it over the course of the last what six episodes. Um,
he is consistently like, you're great, I'm here, I'm saying
the right words. I totally understand. But I'm frustrated with
(22:25):
myself as a viewer that I'm falling for it. I know.
But it's also really interesting because you realize how easy
it is. In a moment, you forget your memories, you
forget the past. You know, It's like what so many
of my girlfriends you included, have talked about with having kids,
(22:47):
where you're like, yeah, childbirths insane. If you remembered it,
you'd never do it again. You block it out. Like
Karen has all these terrible memories with Dan, But here
he is, day after day, we after weeks, showing up
being the best version of himself. But but hold on,
let's pause there for a second. Does she have terrible
(23:08):
memories with Dan because it seems like there was a vacuum.
It seems like there was an absence, right, So rather
than her interacting with him on a regular basis like
Deb did over the course of the last eighteen years,
Dad's had an eye fall, Right, Karen just had sixteen
years of nothing and had to hypothesize what he might
(23:32):
be up to or what kind of parent he might be.
And so maybe that absence is actually working in his
favor right now because she doesn't have all of the
experience the Deb has, who has clearly still struggling. That's
a great point. That's a really great point because Karen's
pain points with Dan are a long time ago, and yeah,
(23:54):
there have been things, you know, him trying to get
in the way when Lucas joined the team. I'm sure
there were times when Lucas was a kid and Dan
would refuse to pay for things. You know, there was
that whole thing about how she never took any child
support from him. But I would imagine that there was
some sort of battle that got them there. Maybe maybe
(24:15):
maybe not. I mean, he's one of those chicks that
was like, you know what, you I'll figure it out.
It might have been nature abhors a vacuum, it will
fill it. Well, if there's a vacuum. What a what
an empathetic person does is say, oh god, I made
all these assumptions over sixteen years. I didn't approach Dan,
(24:39):
and look how wonderful he's been right now? Did did
I rob my son of an opportunity? Did I rob
my son of this relationship? And so, yeah, he's just working.
That is, he's working. The way has never been more charming,
has never been more charming, has never been more magnetic.
(25:03):
And not only does she witness the way he's being
with Lucas in front of her, she sees him giving
Lucas advice and a person to confide in. I guess
doesn't see him. Rather, I should say here's She hears
it through the door. She hears them forming their own relationship,
(25:24):
Dan saying, hey, I see you like no one else
can see you. It'll be our secret. He's creating a
sort of avenue where Lucas can confide in him and
where he can have a parental male figure in his life.
And Karen is listening to that. And then in they
come with the door and dad bought his kid a
(25:44):
tucks and it's all it's very sweeping, lee romantic. Oh god.
When he's asked her to prom and she's like, are
you asking me to prom? And like flustered, she's pumped, pumped.
It feels good. We can feel Karen's relief almost because
(26:05):
if you fall for an assult, it makes you second
guess every decision you make, whether it's personal or professional.
But if that ends up coming around and you can
write it off as like that was a bad chapter
for him, but what was real, what I saw was real.
I was right. There's just a relief because it means
(26:27):
you're not crazy. It means you weren't duped, that you
saw something that actually existed. And I feel so bad
for mm hmm, deb deb it is it is a
(26:50):
wild thing, and you know, I have to say, there
are things that just don't age well. The way that
Nathan speaks to Debb about her alcoholism, which again was
written for the character to say, is so upsetting to me.
Him calling it a weakness and saying it is not
a disease when we literally know that addiction is a disease.
(27:15):
It's so dismissive and cruel, and it's like, why did
he even hager to visit her that day? Well, and
by the way, maybe it's all to set up that
he says to Haley, I think I was too hard
on my mom, so Haley can say, well, why don't
we move in with her, Let's be the martyrs, let's
be the heroes, let's help. You know. Maybe they thought, well,
(27:35):
he's really got to be terrible to Debb if he
if he's going to vent about it to Haley. But man,
that that was hard. Yeah, Yeah, that was really difficult
to watch because it's not like it's not like he
showed up and he was dismissive of her excuses. It's
not like she was like I'm so sorry, so sorry,
(27:56):
and he was just like, uh, you know, which is
probably more what a teen boy would do. He showed
up with like things he wanted to say, and they
cut to the quick, like he said hurtful things. Hayton's
mom had an illness. You're just weak, yeah, you said it.
You were like, that's Dan Scott's son. Yeah, that's some
(28:18):
Dan Scott level manipulation. And it was very I was
very taken aback to see it from Nathan, and I
think it was hard. You know, as we were talking
about it when the episode was on, you also said,
because I expressed my frustration that he was demeaning the
severity of what alcoholism is, and you said, he's also
(28:39):
demeaning the abuse she has survived. Yeah, because she's an
abuse survivor. It goes it goes back and forth with
Nathan a lot, where like one minute he's team Mommy,
where he's like, Mommy, we've survived Dan and his wrath
and the reign of terror, and then the next minute
he like letely forgets and it's like, oh, is your
(29:02):
life so hard living in that big, expensive house with
you know, like whatever, I don't believe that came out
of that kid's mouth. No, it's wild and and the irony,
I mean, I know, there's a lot of time between
two thousand and seven and now, but the irony of
all the things we've learned. Do you remember that study
that came out that said, yeah, look, money can buy
you safe right now that I don't because you're the
(29:25):
data nerd. Oh my god, Okay, I'm sorry, but this
is actually really interesting. There's a study that came out
a couple of years ago that talked about, like, you know,
everyone always says money can't buy happiness, and it's like, well, yeah,
but money can buy you security, it can buy you experience,
as it can buy you healthcare, and those things are
all great. But they've actually proven that money makes an
incremental difference in your year, in your life up to
(29:47):
the threshold where you take home seventy grand a year,
Like the difference between taking home forty grand a year
and seventy grand a year is a big, big difference.
Past seventy grand a year into multimillions. They they've proven
that money doesn't make you any happier, which I find
really interesting. And there's a you know, it's like cliches
(30:10):
or cliches because they're True's why we say them all
of time. And so if money can't buy you happiness.
How interesting to look at someone like Deb and even
someone like Nathan, who have every privilege human beings could
possibly be afforded, and they're both suffering, and mother and
son are both suicidal, and you can have this conversation
(30:33):
about abusive relationships and how success is the illusion and
what's really going on behind the scenes. And here is
a kid we've talked about this all season. Nathan is
on suicide watch. He's been crying out for help, and
then his mother has a suicide attempt and he walks
in and goes, really, mom, suicide. Thanks for the note.
(30:55):
It felt so out of character for Nathan's journey that
I almost feel like in an early version of the script,
it was a dance scene and then they decided, because
they wanted Haley and Nathan to move in with Deb,
that Nathan should go instead, and they just didn't really
rewrite the scene. Well, whoever wrote Nathan this episode hasn't
(31:17):
been watching all of season four, because yes, he also
goes to Lucas when Lucas is at the party, hiding
out in the bedroom looking at the picture of Keith,
and he's like, you gotta get over it. Man Keith
has gone I meanwhile, he's the one that was haunted
by Keith for Infinity episodes. Yes, it's so bizarre. Again,
(31:38):
there's there's great stuff in this episode, and I love
the we're getting close to graduating and we just one
stayed and there's a lot of nostalgia. I love that
they threw a party. I love that they threw a party.
But but the actual scenes between the characters Molt and Shelley,
Nathan and Deb, Nathan and Lucas, they kind of feel
(31:59):
like they don't make any sense. I'm like, who are
these people? Has anybody been watching our show? The kids
who are not economically well off are significantly happier than
the kids who are because Rachel, as you know, she's
in a bad place to Peter life, is dealing with
(32:19):
a bunch of badge Nathan, You've got Deb, and then
like the happy go lucky ones or skills, you know,
Karen's having a great time living at a little house,
you know, and Peyton is finally happy. Like the kids
who um were part of the river Court scene are,
with the exception of Mouths, are seemingly doing much better.
(32:44):
And maybe because there's not as much pressure on them,
you know what I mean. When you're from a wealthy
family and it's like, okay, well what do I do
once I'm kicked out of the nest? You know that
can be frightening. Yeah, I'm I'm very curious with it,
in particular for Rachel because you see what she's doing.
(33:04):
And I love the scene between me and Danille when
Brooke chases her out of the party and asks what's
been going on and Rachel explains and there's nothing that
Brooke can say but thank you, and she means it. Oh,
look at you just clutching your chesty cutie. That really
got you. It really when Rachel said you're my friend, Brooke,
(33:29):
I felt betch and my bones and it was like
for Brooke, who is in a battle with her best
friend Peyton, and who has just lied to her other
best friend's face, right, and so that feels bad. That
feels bad when you're fighting with your friends. You know,
nobody likes that to have this girl say to her,
(33:51):
I'm willing to sacrifice my future because yours is so bright.
You're my friend, Brook, Like, I love them that That
was probably my favorite moment of the episode. That was
my favorite especially for Brooke, who doesn't feel like people
bet on her. Yeah, well she also feels like it's
really easy for people to remove Brooke, you know, and
(34:14):
and that can feel bad when it's like, oh, Peyton
seems fine without me, and my parents are fine without me,
and my ex boyfriend is fine without me, and I
moved out of Haley's apartment so Nathan could move back
in fine without me, you know, to have someone prioritize
you the way Rachel is done. I wish you two
had ended up together. What a cute. Oh my god,
(34:34):
I know it would not have been so fun, but
it's it's again. It it reinforces the ways that especially
I think those two girls are stuck. Brooke is stuck.
She doesn't want to hurt Haley, but she doesn't want
to hurt Rachel. Rachel knows she got Brooke in trouble,
but realizes how much worse it's going to be if
(34:56):
Brooke gets caught. Now wants to be Brook's friend and
has finally found a place where she fits in. And
you realize the magnitude of this, you know, expulsion when
she's putting away her little box from tree Hill High
and you see it lined up against all the rest
of the schools, and you realize that nobody bets on
(35:17):
Rachel either. It happens again and again and again, even
if she is self sabotaging, even if she's doing it
so that it can't be done to her. It's oh,
it's just heartbreaking. She's always like with the exception, I'm
trying to hook up with Nathan. She's always on the
moral up and up. Like. I love the character of
(35:39):
Rachel because I love an anti hero, you know, little
Taylor Swift reference for the kids. I was just gonna ask.
I was gonna be like, oh, somebody listened to Midnight?
Um do the kids say Bob anymore? I don't kind
I like the word. I appreciate an anti hero, and
Rachel is, you know, the perfect example of that. And
(36:02):
she doesn't try to defend herself to Haley. She takes
the hit. She leaves when she's told to leave like
that takes a big person to do the walk away.
And I don't I don't think she gets enough credit.
You know, great, you guys have your fun. I served
my purpose here, I'm out. Yeah. This isn't the end
(36:27):
of Rachel, though, is it? Like why should I go.
Did they say she's expelled. I thought that's what the
principle threatened, but maybe not. I don't know. He like
when he's passing out that time, just staring at the
back of your head. I was like, So we had
some like when I was in high school, and they
(36:48):
don't really do anything about it. Kids, Just so you know,
they don't really do anything about it. You can remember, listen,
I didn't eat high school. I definitely cheated in college
because remember at the beginning of the internet when you
could buy papers, Oh my god, I would never what Hillary,
(37:10):
I was a v J. I was busy. I was
working forty hours a week. I mean, I know you
were busy. I just would never. I wasn't. There was
one paper. There was one paper on Gulliver's travels, and
I could not do it, and so I bought it online.
But it was like at the beginning of the internet,
so teachers weren't savvy to just like searching for sentences, right.
(37:34):
I definitely bought one paper. Um, and I'm not even
embarrassed about it because that's a dumb book. I just
loved writing so much that my senior year in high school,
I decided I wanted to take two AP English classes
instead of one AP English class and an AP math.
I was like, I don't need calculus. This is dumb.
I'm going to go to theater by um. So they
let me do it. So by the time I got
(37:56):
to college, all the seniors were coming to me to
be like, will you edit my paper for fill in
the blank class? And I was like, yeah, maybe I
bought of your papers. And what I realized, No, I
never sold my papers. I edited other people's. But I
was like, God, it should have been charging for that.
That is like valuable help. I legitimately paid fifty dollars
(38:18):
for a paper travel Oh my god. So when I
see about Brook cheeting on the test, I just don't care.
I don't even care a little bit. I'm like, they graduate,
get out of there, very great. I just I wish
there was like more emphasis put rather than on your
paper or on your mid term. I wish we put
more emphasis on actually learning the information, on the ability
(38:42):
to digest complex ideas and think critically and engage in
conversation and debate with people. Could you imagine where our
political system would be if we could actually just talk
to each other instead of being like the answer is
B No, it's B man, like it's so dumb. Well,
also the fact that you were totally reliant. Brooke was
(39:03):
totally reliant on other kids to help her pass this class.
Like where's the teacher my calculus teachers senior year in
high school, I did well in the class, but I
wasn't an a student and he heard that I wasn't
going to take the AP exam at the end of
the year because I was taking all these other AP
(39:24):
exams and I just didn't feel like failing it. I
knew I was going to fail it, and he was like, Hillary,
you have to take it. I'm doing after school tutoring sessions.
I will personally help you. And Bruce Snyder, God bless
that math teacher. Um made sure that I passed that
AP exam, and I felt so good about myself after
(39:46):
the fact. But it's the only reason I passed it
is because an adult intervened and had Brooke had that
experience or instead of being the boy that she's kissing,
it's like an adult that sees this kid doesn't have
a lot of parental interaction. She's trying, really are she's
the president of this club. You know, if an adult
had showed up and been like, baby, I believe in you,
(40:06):
and you had to lie to that adult about that,
would that would have been That would have been nice. Yeah,
Like we had so many good teachers in real life.
I wish we'd had good teachers on the show too.
And it's weird because every once in a while we
had a great experience and then they would disappear. Even
Principal Turner, he's so militant in this episode, and you know,
(40:29):
him firing Haley felt so it just felt so unfair.
He knows her character. It felt like Haley was a
student he'd met for the first time, and for her
to be able to say I had a feeling and
I checked for my keys and whatever else, it all
just felt like a device that I didn't love. I
(40:52):
will say the device of joy bitch slapping Danil worked great.
God whoever coordinated that She's done lamb in the key
down on the table and wanted it back. And then
yeah at Rachel it was so funny, and I loved
watching the boys kind of be like damn, Haley. That
was a great That was a really great fun and
(41:14):
I love the way Antoine dismissed Rachel from the party
because it wasn't it wasn't like you belong here. It
was just like time to go, mama, you know, like
it was firm and safe. And I love the way
that that was all handled, and I get why Haley
slapped her. Haley is getting a different set of information
(41:37):
than the viewer, and so it's hard to be like, Haley,
light up because the first set of information is like
this chick is problematic at E three turn. Yeah, well,
and she's coming for all of my stability, my husband,
my job, my school, my best friend. Yeah, all the things,
all the things. I want to talk about Peyton and
(42:08):
Lucas because I I mean, I say this all the time,
like the fan base is like you never addressed it,
Like we're finally in a great place. I don't love
like Peyton Lucas when they're sneaking around, you know, but
Peyton Lucas like in a decided relationship, we're going to
be together. I love his interactions with Glenda in this episode.
(42:33):
I love that Peyton wasn't jealous but was like, what
did you get that girl? But that's a little bit
of just like, oh do you wanna tell me about it. Yeah,
She's like, well, what don't what don't I know he
knows that he's lying and doesn't call him out. Yeah,
what I love about it? You know what? It really
reminded me of. Um remember early on when Brooke and
(42:56):
Lucas are dating and Peyton says give him the CD
and Brooke does and she's like, oh, yeah, I track
thirteen and he he comes to you and says, there
is no track thirteen on this record. Like, I know
this is you gave her this. It's a call back
to that for me. And the nostalgia is so sweet,
and I can see how much fun you're having. Like
(43:18):
I actually made a note about how you know Lucas
gave his book to Glenda but didn't tell Peyton it
was done, Like what And instead of being upset, she
she plays with him. She thinks it's cute. She wants
to get in there in a way that is fun.
It's not threatened or threatening, and and it goes back
(43:43):
in every direction with you two. It feels nostalgic, it
feels sweet, it feels pure. I liked it because, to
your point, so many of the relationships on our show
are based in threat. It's like someone's gonna find out online.
Someone's gonna find out I did this thing. Someone's gonna
find out, find out, find out. And Peyton and Lucas,
(44:04):
because they were in the friend zone for a long time,
have developed this rapport of like I could find out
whatever about you. I'm still unto you, you know, like
tell me the worst thing you did. I know, you know,
thanks for telling me, but I already know. Um. And
there was so much physicality between our characters, you know,
(44:26):
like that we've had years of like are they are not?
Are they aren't they? You know, stolen kisses, all that
kind of bulsh. Once the floodgates were opened, they were
just like you two were just gonna sub face like
all episode and the fans are gonna love it, so
do that. And I said to you when when Peyton
(44:50):
Lucas go upstairs to the bedroom at Nathan's house, I
was like, why did they not have sex at Lucas's
house where there was like some level of privacy. They're
the only to people in the house. He's like, my
mom's not coming home. Why did they go to a
house party with a people downstairs at her ex boyfriend's
house where she used to have sex with him. Yeah,
(45:11):
to finally hook up is just embarrassing. But shooting that
scene with my boyfriend and my brother and my boyfriend's
dad and his uncle, and like the entire crew that
I was related to it for one way or another
watching was such a god cringe e. And so Chad
(45:33):
was a great sport about it. He knew how weird
it was for me to have the people yelling rolling
and cut be the people that I like lived with
and so and your actual boyfriend and you're shooting a
scene with your TV boyfriend and your actual boyfriend is watching.
Oh my god, he's the one yelling rolling. It's a nightmare.
(45:57):
I'm so uncomfortable. So they and yell cut. But this
is an embarrassing story. I hope Chad doesn't get upset.
I tell the story. There was one point where his
beard hair got caught on my brawl and it pulled
my bra away a little bit, and Chad freaked out
and was just like so sorry, and it ruined the tape.
(46:21):
And I was like, look, hey, I don't think anyone
saw it, but he was worried that other people saw
it and didn't want to play it off, Like I'm like,
who saw that? Did anyone's It was so uncomfortable, and
he was trying so hard to be like above board,
and I'm like, you're making it a big deal, making
it oh my god. Yeah, this is why we have
(46:44):
intimacy coordinators now because back then they were just like
and go um. But yeah, he was very he was
very courteous and yeah, we're just gonna kiss for the
next six seasons. But when I liked about it, I
liked the tenderness between the two of you in the
(47:05):
scene in Lucas's room, and that he is being a
bit of a teenage boy who's like, well why not
now nobody's coming, And obviously you lean into it because
the mister act is that Brooks going to interrupt. But later,
what I really liked that I didn't expect was what
they gave to you for Peyton. I loved hearing a
(47:27):
girl say I'm glad we waited you know back then,
like look at that time, yeah I wanted to hook
up with you, and now I'm in love with you
now I want all the things you said you wanted.
Like it's such a beautiful moment where these two people
who couldn't quite get on the same level in their
(47:49):
growth are finally right there on the same page. And
I loved it. I thought that it was so I
don't know, it was just lovely. Like when we were
watching the scene, I went, oh my god, that was
so nice. I really like that for you two together. Well,
our scene, listen, we knew what was coming at the
(48:12):
end of the episode. Your anxiety spoiled, spoiled the surprise.
But the scene that we had when Brooke comes into
Lucas's room and interrupts them hooking up, Like, God, how
uncomfortable her and Peyton get to connect again. God, it's
(48:37):
exactly what you want to see between two teen girls,
where it's grace and it's like, I love you. Basically,
what that scene is is these two girls saying I
love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
It's hard, but I love you. And that's the subtext
for every single line that scene. Yes, I mean Brooks
saying tell me what I have to do so you're comfortable.
(48:59):
Isn't I love you? And Peyton saying they're just my drawings?
You made them into something. Isn't I love you? And
they they're giving each other these gifts of I want
you to have whatever you want, and it's so it's
so nice. Well, and Peyton's addressing like there's no beating
(49:19):
around the bush. She's like, I love him, and I
don't want me loving him to hurt you, you know, like,
let's just be grown ups and talk about it. We
don't even do that. No, these girls had it all
figured out well. But what's so what I loved about
it and what felt really honest about it, even though
their teens, is because they've been in this tumult. I
(49:45):
got the sense that Peyton's said that to herself over
and over again, you saying, yes, Brooke, I love him,
but I never wanted my love for him to hurt you.
You have, you have distilled all your complicated feelings into
that sentence. You've gone, you know what it is, and
it's like you've been waiting to give it to me.
(50:05):
She practices it in the car. Do you practice conversations
in the car? Uh? I'm more as like a as
a quirky, anxious person. I'm more re refight so like
I had a fight, you know, I had an argument
like six years ago with some like idiot I was dating,
and and now I'm like, oh, what I should and said, like,
(50:27):
after all these years of therapy and all the books
I've read, I have the perfect answer. And then I'm like,
well that felt fun, and then it's over, Like I
don't really practice before I probably should. I didn't know
that they were who didn't practice before. I didn't know
that there were people that like don't talk it out
(50:48):
with themselves before they talk it out with other people.
And I'm driving in the car with my daughter having
a conversation in the rear view mirror and George should
who are you talking to? Oh my god? And I
got called out by my kids. I was like, damn it,
that's embarrassing. Now I love that, but I love that
(51:09):
you're having fights from six years ago. I'm like, oh,
what I should have said? Can you call me next
time that happens? Oh? Absolutely, I've even done it with
Like you know you know this because you were a VJ,
Like you get caught live on the air and someone
asked you something really shitty and you're live, there's nothing
(51:31):
you can do about it. Like what I want to
do to you, I can't do to you live on
the air. Oh, disrespectful idiot, you know whatever. Like you
can't say that, so you try to like crack a
joke or like deflect and oh, I have come up
with some singers then I wish I had on hand
at the time, but I just I didn't. I will say, well,
(51:52):
my palms are sweaty. I feel like I've just admitted
like a team. I know. I'm like, oh god, but
I do think. I do think it's really helpful to
like to practice certain things ahead of time. That is
something I've been learning more like in coaching, I'm like, oh, right,
(52:13):
I'm allowed to do this. Like my coach literally said
to me. She goes, you're an actor. You guys practice
your lines before you do the scene. And I was like, yeah,
what's your point that somebody wrote those? And she's like,
you can write whatever you want. And I was like, oh, interesting,
I've never given myself that permission. Slip in your car
and they call you out. Oh my god. These girls,
(52:36):
Heyton and Brooke have practiced their conversation the most beautiful
reunion and then it's destroyed. Destroying. Also, why why is
Nathan in the crowd on looking and broke it up
by the TV, like it's all her fault. He did this. Everybody,
(52:58):
she's that did this, and he's the one that did
it and recorded it and kept it. Yeah. And by
the way, Peyton runs out of bed with Lucas going,
oh no, they're watching my sex tape. Like, clearly Nathan
has a weird kink and suddenly it's the girls that
are bad, wasn't I don't like porn on his computer? Yes, yeah,
(53:23):
there's a pattern, man, there's a pattern. Little freak, little
dirty boy, I will say before we before his freakiness
is revealed. I loved I loved that sequence with Brooke
and Nathan outside. Yeah. I love those two being friends.
I love the glimpse into their childhood friendship, wrestling in
(53:46):
the sprinklers and laughing like their friendship. They're so similar
in a world of people who don't understand them. I
love I love seeing it. Of all the characters, they
are the similar. You know, they have the same parental issues,
They have the same money issues. They have the same
(54:06):
I don't have money any more issues, have the same
expectation at school issues. They are mirror images of each other,
and I love the camaraderie between these two um too.
I hope I don't. I mean I don't remember the
next episode. I remember like punching you, but not you,
(54:27):
like just punching the camera. Um, but I don't know
what Haley's reaction is going to be. Like, that's a
weird thing to find out that someone that's been your
very dear friend and made your wedding dress to your husband.
Like that's but so many years before you knew each other.
It's bro Like, it's not that far. Oh god. We
(54:56):
have a listener question from some man. She says, can
you walk us through the filming process a little more?
How much is the script or the director saying you'll
enter here, pick up this cup, across the room, etcetera
versus you getting to make those choices as an actor
once you have the script. Can you play with the
lines at all? I mean, here's what I'm gonna say.
(55:18):
For the big crowd stuff like the party, the pro
actor move is to walk onto set and be like,
what does camera need? How can I make it work? Yeah?
Because it's not just about you. It's about you and
fifty other people. Um. In the crowd scenes at the party,
my little brother is standing over my shoulder, when the
(55:41):
sex tape stuff is happening, and that's all I can
see is my brother John just being like whoa, whoa.
So yeah, it's not about you in the big crowd scenes,
when it's a scene between you and one other person,
those feel like the opportunities to me where you can
collaborate with the director and be like, I feel like
I get up right now. You know, um, I don't know,
(56:02):
what do you think? Yeah? I fully agree. I mean
I think A great way to illustrate that is there's
the scene where Mouth and Skills are facing each other
and Shelly walks in the door and back behind them
by the doorway. You know, she walks between their two
heads on camera and they decide to split, and then
camera follows Mouth and then he goes one way, and
(56:25):
cameras following Shelley, and then they run into each other.
That's choreography from the director. That's the director saying this
is how I'm going to get into this party. So
as an actor you have to say, yep, I can
do that. Great love it. And then in other aspects,
you know, sometimes to your point, Samantha, yes, the script says,
(56:47):
you know, Broke walks into the room and picks up
a coffee mug because she's supposed to throw the coffee
mug at Rachel or something like that will be scripted,
but very often if it's just a scene in the kitchen,
props are not scripted and you get to figure it out.
So it really is a case by case basis. You know,
if something is so specific um that it needs to
(57:10):
happen by the end of the scene, it will be
on the page, and if it doesn't, it won't and
you can figure it out. But it's not only um
direct or dependent how much you get to collaborate, but
it's also very often decided scene by scene. I can
always tell a scene that's scheduled for the end of
(57:30):
the day because a one shot of us sitting next
to each other. You do it all the time, all
the time. Do you just want us to sit next
to each other and like talk out into the room
so we can do this in a water Uh? And
not everybody, Not every actor goes for that. Some actors
are like, no, I need my coverage. I need to
(57:50):
get up at this point and walk across the room.
And you know that's there's a difference between performance and
being production friendly, and you want to find like a
good middle ground where it's like this is authentic to
the character, but it's also production friendly, so we can
shoot this in an hour and get everybody home. Um,
(58:11):
so yeah, it becomes TV wi is very, very different
from movie work because it becomes about like technicalities and
being able to do eight or nine pages a day,
every single day and get people home on time so
that the union rules are followed well and so that
you can survive it. Because if you're doing a you know,
(58:33):
you're doing a movie for four or six or maybe
eight weeks, and that's like a crazy long movie. A
TV show you're shooting for ten months a year. Yeah,
and you're working sixteen or seventeen hours a day. You
do not have time to add an extra hour to
the day. You just don't have it. I love the
director that has storyboarded there and knows exactly what shots
(58:55):
they want, and I'm just like, it feels like I'm like,
to me, I can I can make that show? Like, Oh,
you're so frofared to me? I love who do you
feel like? Is our honorable mention in this episode. I
loved Rachel saying Brook, you're my friend. That was it
for me because I feel that way about my girlfriends
(59:19):
from high school, like things can be really really really
bad and I can share a text with one of
them and be like you're my friend and that fixes everything,
you know, Yeah, I love that. It's perfect. Is that yours?
What's yours? Well? Yes, that that was on my mind.
(59:40):
And now I feel like I have to crack a
joke and say, are we sure it's not Nathan Scott's
nipple ring in the fushbag video? You know how like
in time it's like like a D and BC, like
before Christ and after death and there's like before nipple
(01:00:00):
ring and then post nipple ring, Oh my god, and
Scott that's how we measured time. It's just so funny,
like it being in the close up when he's setting
up the cam quarter, You're just like, oh, yeah, this
is this is early Tree Hill days. Gross, grosser, awesome
one or the other. I don't know, Poor James. Can
you imagine getting like a piece of metal just spirit
(01:00:23):
gummed to your It's a hard note for me and
no one's ever asked me to do that. Maybe the
next year, and I don't want it. I don't want it.
I just talked to my son about getting thing about
in his ear ap pierced, and I told Jeff I
was going to go with him, and he's like, what
are you going to get pierced? And I was like,
I don't know, Like what does a grown woman get
(01:00:45):
pierced at this? Get another hole in your ear? I
might get another hole in my ear. I think he's
excited that I was going to get a Nathan Scott
nipple ring. I mean, god, could you imagine? Oh my god,
If I do, you'll get the picture of it, Like, okay,
that feels fair. It'll be you are we gonna spin
a wheel? Let's spin a wheel? Bad? The wine kicked in.
(01:01:10):
I'm having a great time, Sophia. I know. I just
finished my little baby glass and I'm like, maybe I
want another father. I'm like a cook dinner now. Most
likely to skip school. Well, on our show, it seems
like all the kids are skipping school. Nathan seems old
to go see deb uh, Lucas skip school to go
(01:01:31):
buy a tucks. It's like they don't even bother going anymore?
Do they just have free periods? What's going on? Yeah,
that's weird. Um. Most likely to skip school. I feel
like Nathan, He's always like doing something weird in real life.
Not you, not me, not you will say. The first
(01:01:55):
time I like legitimately skipped school, it was senior year.
Blair Witch Project came out and I skipped school and
I skipped schooled my best friend, Erika, and my brother
and his best friend, and we're like in my cutlass
and we drive to the movie theater and we're like, God,
I hope no one sees this. It's the middle of
the day, and we watched Blair Witch Project, fully believing
(01:02:17):
that it's real because it was marketed as a documentary
and not a fake movie. And we leave and we're
so unsettled because we live in northern Virginia and it's
very close to the Maryland Woods where that takes place,
and we're so creeped out. But then we have to
pretend with our parents like we're fine, we had a
totally normal day and we're not creeped out. That was
(01:02:39):
my school skipping experience. I mean, Joyce skipped school a
lot to do her soap opera. That's her. She's a skipper. Yeah,
you're right. She was like goodbye. She was like I'm
working and going to the fancy bar to drink champagne.
I'm fabulous, Page she was out. It was all right, oh,
(01:03:01):
honorary school skipper. Next episode is season four, episode fifteen,
prom Knight at Hat High. I might dress up. We
probably should. This is going to be a gnarly one.
It's almost like the next episode to me is two episodes.
There's like the flashback to the Brook and Nathan mess,
(01:03:23):
there's the big Peyton and Brooke fight that we know
is coming, and then prom Knight means Derek is back,
which feels like a full episode all in its own.
We might have to do too. We might have to
split this up. Guys at home, we can't. We make
no promises. She just got for Christmas here, so I'm
probably gonna get chancy. Oh my god. Yes, let's get
(01:03:46):
antsy okay, friends, get far with us next week. I
love y'all. Hey, thanks for listening. Don't forget to leave
us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram
at drama Queens O t H or email us at
drama Queens at I heart radio dot com. See you
next time. We are all about that high school drama girl.
(01:04:09):
Drama Girl all about them high school queens. We'll take
you for a ride in our comic Girl Cheering for
the Right Drama Queens draws my girl up girl fashion,
but your tough girl, you could sit with us. Girl
Drama Queens, Drama, Queens, Drama, Queen's Drama, Drama, Queen's Drama,
Queens
First of all, you don't know me. Were all about
that high school drama, girl drama girl, all about them
high school queens. We'll take you for a rod in
our comic girl cheering for the right drama queens up
girl fashion. But you'll tough, girl. You could sit with
us Girl drama, Queens, drama, Queen's drawn, mc queen's drama,
(00:20):
John McQueen's drama, Queen's So if you tell them what
episode we just watched, friends, family, even foes at home,
We've just watched for all of you hate listening to
all of you who hate it, We've watched Season four,
episode fourteen, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. The irony that
(00:45):
this episode aired on freaking Valentine's Day in two thousand
seven is not lost on me. Oh this was Valentine's Day? Yes,
how is that? Alright? Alright? Valentine's Days and seven. Hailey
confronts Brooke regarding the stolen calculus test. Lucas and Peyton
(01:07):
considered taking their relationship to the next level. Peyton and
Brook finally finally grow closer, thanking God uh, and then,
in Deb's absence, Nathan throws a senior party at the
Scott House where a sex tape from Nathan's past surfaces.
Our director was Janice Cook. She was beam old director
(01:28):
on the show that we were very fond of. She
was good at parties. I feel like she really like
handled this. She did a great job. High school party. Man,
it did God. I don't even know where to start.
I mean, I guess, well, here's what I want to know.
What did you do to piss the writers off? Because
between Brooks stealing the test and then like boldly just
(01:52):
lying about it to her best friend Um, and then
Brooke with this doozy of a sex tape. I mean,
no spoilers here, we all know what happened. What you do?
They made you the bad guy in this episode. I
don't know, man. You know it's interesting because the the
stealing of the test, and you know, having everything you
(02:13):
want so close that you can almost touch it, and
then having something threatened. I like the dramatic foil and
I like I like in a way that as Brooke
is trying to be a better version of herself, Rachel
kind of pushes her into you know, three years ago
Brooke Like, I like the push and pull of it.
I like that she feels stuck between a rock and
(02:34):
a hard place. I've certainly been there when when you're
a part of something and you don't really know. I mean,
this is granted her being fully you know of the
guilt here, like they stole that test together. But I've
witnessed people that I love do things that aren't great
and not known where it's my place to speak up
(02:55):
or not. And so I guess in that way where
you kind of go like, I don't know if I
should say anything. Maybe maybe I should just stay on
the periphery, which at this stage in my life I
don't think is the best course of action. But in
our early twenties, I mean, God, we got really trained
to be such people pleasers, to always be good on set,
to never have a problem, to never you know, never,
(03:16):
never be the squeaky wheel. And so I think those
were the ways I really related to Brooke in this
position of I don't want to hurt Haley and I
don't want to get Rachel in trouble, and I don't
want to lose my future and and maybe if I
can just white knuckle it over the line, it'll all
be okay. Is it really a big deal? Anyway, you know,
all the lies you tell yourself and then so it's
(03:37):
like that that I can kind of get. But man,
when I read that tape, see, I was like, I'm
not doing it, and they were like, you're doing it,
and I was like, I'm not doing this. I will
not do this. James had to talk me off alledge
and like we've talked a lot y'all about how this
was sort of the year that like our baby James
grew up and he was like, it's all gonna be okay,
(03:58):
I'm gonna take care of you, don't worry. So like
he really came in like a boy scout, and I
was like, I don't want to do this. Man, I
was so upset. I thought it was so unforgivable. And
then no spoiler alert exactly. But the thing is that
for the fans at home who know what episodes coming next,
there's the flashback to the night that this happens between
(04:19):
Brooke and Nathan and the episode opens on you know,
sophomore year or whenever this was supposed to be junior
year with Peyton being in such a mood. And I
don't know if you remember, but you say two of
the meanest things I've ever heard of humans say, first
to Nathan and then to Brooke and basically they're like her,
(04:41):
and they like drunkenly have sex as revenge even though
she's broken up with him. And when episode four fifteen aired,
they cut it all out, so it just looks like
what I don't remember this. Yes, they cut the awful
things that Peyton says to Broke, which I'll tell everyone
abou next week. They caught him and it, and I
(05:03):
remember watching the episode on TV and crying and I
was like, you've made her. Yeah, I was like, you've
made her unforgivable. It does a little like character assassination.
It's episode, man, I don't know. Our boss was probably
pissed because he tried to grab my ass again and
I told him to go himself, so he made me
pretend to have sex with Nathan instead. I mean, not
(05:23):
a bad trade, my dude. Honestly, James Lafferty is a gentleman,
So you know, if you had to pick one, you'd
always go to that side. If you're going to go
down swinging cool. This episode gave be tremors. I've got
my kids, you know, like we're hiding out here in
North Carolina. I'm at the scene of the crime. I'm
back Carolina and it's just cham and I rolling around
(05:47):
the whole episode and You're like getting out for my
kids walk in and I'm like, be cool, be cool,
calm down, babies. There was so much talk in this
episode about out sex, like let's do the damn thing between,
you know, between Brooke and not Chase and Brooke and
(06:08):
Nathan and Peyton and Lucas and Mouth and Shelley and
who else is having sex not having I mean, Dan's
coming on to Karen, pushing that button, and so we
talk about love. All I could think it was like
when I was a seer in high school. I was like,
I'm getting the out of here. I don't love anybody,
like a different person every weekend. So this idea that
(06:31):
like teenagers are so fixated on finding like the great, big,
huge love of their life was like funny for me
this episode. I enjoyed the novelty of I have to
be with someone. I think I get that, And maybe
it's because I went to an all girls school, so
I didn't I didn't really have the luxury of like, oh,
(06:52):
everybody's just kissing everybody. It was like, who's your person?
Because we were just watching ron coms and you know,
so I think that I think that we were much
more um in the world of TV fantasy and oh man,
senior problem was such a big deal, and what was
going to happen when we go off to college. We're
(07:12):
going to stay together? Right? Like everybody really was in
this heightened sort of sense of reality that you see
in our show, which is probably because we had no reality.
We were just copying what we were watching on TV. Yeah,
I mean, I feel like I talked a lot about
our show created a new normal, uh, in certain effects
(07:32):
for the generation of girls that were watching it when
they were in high school. Um, do you know anyone
from your pack of friends that married or is still
with the person that they were with when you were
you know, going to problem? I have three, but not
from my school lunch but you know yourself, man, it's
(07:53):
a different deal. Yeah, not from my school. My girlfriend Amanda,
who lives in Chicago is with her middle fool sweetheart.
One of my best friends, Alicia, who you've hung out
with in New York, is married to her I mean
junior high sweetheart. You know at thirteen. He carved their
initials in a tree at summer camp. That's really cute.
And then yeah, I've got one other girlfriend who was
(08:16):
so in love with this boy she went to church
with and they were together, and then in college they weren't,
and then they wound up getting back together and getting married. Um.
And then my baby cousin, my cousin Shelby is married
to her her high school sweetheart. But they're all from
like one Pasadena, one Texas, one Chicago, won New York. Like, yeah,
they're all over the place. I love when I go
(08:40):
home that so many of my classmates are still with
the person that they went to prom with or you
know that they were dating during football season, you know,
and their weddings were all super super fun because it
was a high school reunion. Um. Yeah, I just I
don't know why I can accept in real life. But
then when I see it on TV to love these
(09:01):
kids love, it's likest to me. Maybe it's because I'm
in a parental situation now where I'm like, honey, don't
lock yourself in, go be free, explore. Yeah, they're like,
it's all ridiculous, And the thing is, in most of
the world sort of statistically it is, but I do
(09:21):
think you're You're in that really interesting moment right where
you're desperate to leave the nest, but you've also known
nothing else. You think you're an adult, but really you're
a child, and you know you you want to adultify yourself,
and being in love, being independent when you're about to
go to college feels like a big way to, you know,
(09:42):
mark the territory of your identity. I'm an adult. No
one embodied that better than Leonora's in this episode. God,
it's so in love with Shelley after having dated Gigi
for the last couple of months, and just and I
appreciated that because it was real. That was real, like
that boy wants to be love, he wants to lose
(10:05):
his V card, he wants to go to college and
be able to, you know, be a man. I'm a man,
you know what I have to say? Though, made me
sad because to your point, Lee acted this episode beautifully.
He put real emotion into what he was given, the
(10:27):
words on the page, he made them real. And something
that I appreciated watching it now that I don't think
I appreciated when the episode aired was that this was
really the first time you were seeing a boy say
I'm crazy about you and I don't know what to
do about it, and I I, I'm not pushing you away,
You're pushing me away. And I don't understand. Yes, I
(10:48):
want to be with you. Am I not supposed to?
You know? But but he's not saying in those sentences,
you know, I want to be with you, So why
do you care? He's not doing that gross trope. But
but I have this real letdown, And I can tell
in the way that some of those scenes jump that
(11:08):
they were edited down, so I know there's dialogue missing,
which I think does a real disservice to the conversation
Mouth and Shelly are having. And I think they really
made Mouth and Shelley's story in this episode. They put
it firmly in the B storyline space when it should
have had an A storyline. Yeah, absolute clarly because it
(11:29):
makes it by by shrinking the amount of time they're
on screen together. They have conflated uh, desire and confusion.
They've conflated Mouth believing he's being rejected because he's not enough,
which is his core wound, with Shelly not knowing how
to communicate that she her core wound is that she's
(11:50):
afraid that if she has sex again, everything will come
crashing down. So instead of having this really interesting experience
where he could get vulnerable about feeling like he's never
chose in and she could say, all I want to
do is choose you, but I don't think I can
choose you without choosing myself, and they could get somewhere
really kind, the they rushed it, and and they made
(12:14):
his expressions of his own vulnerability read as being completely
manipulative of her. And all too often we see boys
pressure girls into sex. And I've seen that scene a
million times. I don't feel like that's what was on
the page here, but they kind of edited something that
felt vulnerable into something that felt manipulative, and it kind
(12:37):
of has a foot in each world, and I really
don't like the result. Well, I mean that probably is reality,
you know, Like I appreciate that we saw a boy
crying about sex, That's what I mean. Like his vulnerability
is beautiful. American Pie came out when we were in
high school, dude, and like I remember being at parties
(12:58):
where people wanted to watch it and just be you
so kind of creeped out because I was like, I'm
still a virgin? Is this the way you boys talk
behind our backs? And really weird it out because all
my guy friends were laughing at it, and they were like, yeah,
you know whatever. Well, yeah, I had just the summer
before season four, I'd gone up to Canada to shoot
John Tucker Must Die. And the scene where we watch
(13:20):
all the boys in that movie talking about you know,
the lead girl, Kate Brittany Snow, They're like chanting on
Corker and porker Corker and like it's disgusting, and and
that was, to your point, all of our representations of
how the virginity. Yeah, and and so I guess that's
(13:40):
why I feel bummed, because this was like, this was
a boy really saying like, I don't know if I'm
attractive to you. I don't know if you feel the
way about me at that I feel about you, and
I'm I'm I have all these emotions and all these feelings,
and of course I wanted to be you, but they
like they cut it off, and I wanted more of
(14:01):
that honesty for both of them, and what I what
I feel like we wound up with with something where
a lot of people watched this and when I feel
like he pressured her into sex and that that really
feel it feel guilty? Man, Yeah, it felt guilty, And
that's not what Lee was performing, No, Like, yeah, is
(14:22):
he the first male character on our show that we're
seeing lose his virginity? Yeah? Like, I mean I love
that he played it as emotional as he did, because
had he been any other dude, he would have been
like firm with her, like you've led me on and
blah blah blah. And Insteadily does it with tears in
(14:43):
his eyes and it's like legitimately confused. So kudos to
him for nail on it. But um, it did feel
like a guilt thing, like, fine, I gave you the
thing that you wanted. Can you leave me alone now?
And by the way, I've done that in real life
in my youth, just like, fine, you've pressured me of
giving you the thing that you wanted. Can we stop? Like,
(15:04):
can you just stop calling me? And it's the I
threw up, you know, like it's the grossest feeling as
a woman to be pressured into that. And God, I
just like, thank god we got Liz to do it,
I know, because she's so good and she's just so,
and I protect her. I think what made it hard
(15:27):
is because they were both so good, they put so
much into it, they gave it a nuance. But I
think I just I had the real feeling that some
of that nuance wound up on the cutting room floor
because the episodes have to be cut for time. And
what was odd to me was that it wasn't a
(15:48):
clear cut case of like he guilt tripped her. She
was like, I want it. I want it so bad.
I want it so bad I can't be around you.
And look, if i'm around you, I'm going to have
sex with you, and then I have to run away
from you because sex is shameful, you know, she said.
He says, I know you're a clean teen, and she says,
I'm the clean teen. So what we're getting at is
that Shelley has built an identity for herself that she's
(16:08):
afraid to lose. And that's interesting, but we don't go
past one quick reference to it, and and it's like
it's like she's a secret. Basically, they made this whole
thing like he thinks she isn't attracted to him, and
she's in fact a secret infomaniac who has to run
away because sex is bad and it's like, what the
(16:30):
what is this? And I can't even look at you.
I can't even look at you, I can't be next
to you. It just made me feel sad because they're
both such talented actors, and I wanted more of the vulnerability.
I wanted more of him thinking he knew what she
was saying, and her not being able to say what
she needed to say, and then having a tete a
(16:52):
tete in that manner until they got to a point
where they both got vulnerable and got to say, no,
that's not it. It's that I am um fill in
the blank. Yeah, Like I wanted that. Well to your point,
I I loved the line at the beginning of the
episode where Mouth literally says it's about them, the clean teens,
(17:12):
and then it cuts to a shot of all the
kids in their T shirts. But that that's very real.
Like my identity was so wrapped up in my virginity
in high school because I was like, I'm the good girl,
I'm the girl that like follows all the rules. That
when I went away to college and came home and
was not a virgin anymore, I felt like everyone was
(17:32):
going to judge me and I completely lost my sense
of self. And so that feeling of trial by the
jury of your peers when you're forming your identity is
there's so much there. And we made a snack instead
of a meal. Yeah, I've been a delicious meal. Yeah,
(17:54):
I just I really wanted that storyline to be given
its due rather than to be just in the slide
show of scenes at a party. Mm hm. You know,
speaking of other b storylines that should have been A storylines.
We have to dissect Dan and Karen because why am
(18:14):
I nostalgic for their high school years? Like I know,
also I love well two things. As soon as you
said nostalgic for their high school years, I'm like, God, yeah,
that shot at them in the yearbook, Gorge. I want
more of that. I wanted to actually see like a
flashback to their prom I wonder if we're going to
get it. But why does Dan just walk into Karen's house?
(18:38):
I just pulled up my notes and at the top
of my what is that? Why does he constantly just
walk into her house? Trial is weird? Man? No, he's
got lucks and like all these women have had terrible
things happened to them. And they're just like whatever, doors,
we don't even have doors, we just have like tent
flaps at the front of our house them all. Um,
(19:02):
he does just walk into her house. And maybe that's
to illustrate his level of comfort with her at this point,
because since Keith died, he's really been playing that card
of does we see oh he says it when they're
on there not a date, date, not date. She says,
I'm pregnant with your brother's child, and he says, but
(19:25):
you're also alone. I want to be the man you
turned to. That's an right after that. But also here's
what I was thinking about a little bit though. Um,
they're only thirty six years old. Yeah, thirty six or
thirty seven? Wait, no, are they even that old, because
they're thirty six when the show starts, but every season
(19:48):
of the show is every two seasons of the show
is one year. But if they were eighteen when they
had Lucas and Lucas is now eighteen, that's thirty six.
Oh yeah, so they must have been God so they
were like thirty five and season one God bless him.
So they're like thirty six years old, and that's still
(20:08):
very young. And Karen hasn't. I mean, I guessed what
she stated Andy, she stated, Keith, I don't know. There's
still um I can understand her level of optimism where
this man has hurt her for eighteen years, could it
(20:29):
be that she there's redemption there. It's like, if he
ends up being a good guy, yeah, absolves her of
the poor decision making she made when she was a teenager.
And there's a little bit of like hero complex where
it's like a good guy, you know, like not anybody else,
(20:50):
you know, nobody else in your life could make you
a good guy, but I did. And we all have egos.
If I if I was dealing with like a huge
attall and I got to behave I'd be really proud
of myself. And so I could fully understand why Karen
is like okay. It's also one of the number one
ways that manipulators and narcissists do what they do is
(21:15):
they look at you and they say, yeah, I know
I've I know I've been a bad guy, but you
make me want to be different. Yeah, listen, I'm as
I'm a sucker for that, Sophia, I love it. I'm like,
tell me more. The entire decade of I've had phases
in all my decades of that. Let's just let's leave
it at that. But that's the thing is is someone
who says, I've behaved badly because I've never felt safe.
(21:39):
I've behaved badly because no one's ever really loved me.
I've behaved badly because I grew up in a terrible environment.
You make me feel safe, you make me want to change,
you make me realize I can be the man I
want to be. That is seductive as hell. Yeah, I
get it. If I'm Karen and handsome Dan is buying
(22:00):
my son tuxedos and like he is showing up with consistency.
This isn't once in a while. It is this man
walking into her house every other day. And we watched
it over the course of the last what six episodes. Um,
he is consistently like, you're great, I'm here, I'm saying
the right words. I totally understand. But I'm frustrated with
(22:25):
myself as a viewer that I'm falling for it. I know.
But it's also really interesting because you realize how easy
it is. In a moment, you forget your memories, you
forget the past. You know, It's like what so many
of my girlfriends you included, have talked about with having kids,
(22:47):
where you're like, yeah, childbirths insane. If you remembered it,
you'd never do it again. You block it out. Like
Karen has all these terrible memories with Dan, But here
he is, day after day, we after weeks, showing up
being the best version of himself. But but hold on,
let's pause there for a second. Does she have terrible
(23:08):
memories with Dan because it seems like there was a vacuum.
It seems like there was an absence, right, So rather
than her interacting with him on a regular basis like
Deb did over the course of the last eighteen years,
Dad's had an eye fall, Right, Karen just had sixteen
years of nothing and had to hypothesize what he might
(23:32):
be up to or what kind of parent he might be.
And so maybe that absence is actually working in his
favor right now because she doesn't have all of the
experience the Deb has, who has clearly still struggling. That's
a great point. That's a really great point because Karen's
pain points with Dan are a long time ago, and yeah,
(23:54):
there have been things, you know, him trying to get
in the way when Lucas joined the team. I'm sure
there were times when Lucas was a kid and Dan
would refuse to pay for things. You know, there was
that whole thing about how she never took any child
support from him. But I would imagine that there was
some sort of battle that got them there. Maybe maybe
(24:15):
maybe not. I mean, he's one of those chicks that
was like, you know what, you I'll figure it out.
It might have been nature abhors a vacuum, it will
fill it. Well, if there's a vacuum. What a what
an empathetic person does is say, oh god, I made
all these assumptions over sixteen years. I didn't approach Dan,
(24:39):
and look how wonderful he's been right now? Did did
I rob my son of an opportunity? Did I rob
my son of this relationship? And so, yeah, he's just working.
That is, he's working. The way has never been more charming,
has never been more charming, has never been more magnetic.
(25:03):
And not only does she witness the way he's being
with Lucas in front of her, she sees him giving
Lucas advice and a person to confide in. I guess
doesn't see him. Rather, I should say here's She hears
it through the door. She hears them forming their own relationship,
(25:24):
Dan saying, hey, I see you like no one else
can see you. It'll be our secret. He's creating a
sort of avenue where Lucas can confide in him and
where he can have a parental male figure in his life.
And Karen is listening to that. And then in they
come with the door and dad bought his kid a
(25:44):
tucks and it's all it's very sweeping, lee romantic. Oh god.
When he's asked her to prom and she's like, are
you asking me to prom? And like flustered, she's pumped, pumped.
It feels good. We can feel Karen's relief almost because
(26:05):
if you fall for an assult, it makes you second
guess every decision you make, whether it's personal or professional.
But if that ends up coming around and you can
write it off as like that was a bad chapter
for him, but what was real, what I saw was real.
I was right. There's just a relief because it means
(26:27):
you're not crazy. It means you weren't duped, that you
saw something that actually existed. And I feel so bad
for mm hmm, deb deb it is it is a
(26:50):
wild thing, and you know, I have to say, there
are things that just don't age well. The way that
Nathan speaks to Debb about her alcoholism, which again was
written for the character to say, is so upsetting to me.
Him calling it a weakness and saying it is not
a disease when we literally know that addiction is a disease.
(27:15):
It's so dismissive and cruel, and it's like, why did
he even hager to visit her that day? Well, and
by the way, maybe it's all to set up that
he says to Haley, I think I was too hard
on my mom, so Haley can say, well, why don't
we move in with her, Let's be the martyrs, let's
be the heroes, let's help. You know. Maybe they thought, well,
(27:35):
he's really got to be terrible to Debb if he
if he's going to vent about it to Haley. But man,
that that was hard. Yeah, Yeah, that was really difficult
to watch because it's not like it's not like he
showed up and he was dismissive of her excuses. It's
not like she was like I'm so sorry, so sorry,
(27:56):
and he was just like, uh, you know, which is
probably more what a teen boy would do. He showed
up with like things he wanted to say, and they
cut to the quick, like he said hurtful things. Hayton's
mom had an illness. You're just weak, yeah, you said it.
You were like, that's Dan Scott's son. Yeah, that's some
(28:18):
Dan Scott level manipulation. And it was very I was
very taken aback to see it from Nathan, and I
think it was hard. You know, as we were talking
about it when the episode was on, you also said,
because I expressed my frustration that he was demeaning the
severity of what alcoholism is, and you said, he's also
(28:39):
demeaning the abuse she has survived. Yeah, because she's an
abuse survivor. It goes it goes back and forth with
Nathan a lot, where like one minute he's team Mommy,
where he's like, Mommy, we've survived Dan and his wrath
and the reign of terror, and then the next minute
he like letely forgets and it's like, oh, is your
(29:02):
life so hard living in that big, expensive house with
you know, like whatever, I don't believe that came out
of that kid's mouth. No, it's wild and and the irony,
I mean, I know, there's a lot of time between
two thousand and seven and now, but the irony of
all the things we've learned. Do you remember that study
that came out that said, yeah, look, money can buy
you safe right now that I don't because you're the
(29:25):
data nerd. Oh my god, Okay, I'm sorry, but this
is actually really interesting. There's a study that came out
a couple of years ago that talked about, like, you know,
everyone always says money can't buy happiness, and it's like, well, yeah,
but money can buy you security, it can buy you experience,
as it can buy you healthcare, and those things are
all great. But they've actually proven that money makes an
incremental difference in your year, in your life up to
(29:47):
the threshold where you take home seventy grand a year,
Like the difference between taking home forty grand a year
and seventy grand a year is a big, big difference.
Past seventy grand a year into multimillions. They they've proven
that money doesn't make you any happier, which I find
really interesting. And there's a you know, it's like cliches
(30:10):
or cliches because they're True's why we say them all
of time. And so if money can't buy you happiness.
How interesting to look at someone like Deb and even
someone like Nathan, who have every privilege human beings could
possibly be afforded, and they're both suffering, and mother and
son are both suicidal, and you can have this conversation
(30:33):
about abusive relationships and how success is the illusion and
what's really going on behind the scenes. And here is
a kid we've talked about this all season. Nathan is
on suicide watch. He's been crying out for help, and
then his mother has a suicide attempt and he walks
in and goes, really, mom, suicide. Thanks for the note.
(30:55):
It felt so out of character for Nathan's journey that
I almost feel like in an early version of the script,
it was a dance scene and then they decided, because
they wanted Haley and Nathan to move in with Deb,
that Nathan should go instead, and they just didn't really
rewrite the scene. Well, whoever wrote Nathan this episode hasn't
(31:17):
been watching all of season four, because yes, he also
goes to Lucas when Lucas is at the party, hiding
out in the bedroom looking at the picture of Keith,
and he's like, you gotta get over it. Man Keith
has gone I meanwhile, he's the one that was haunted
by Keith for Infinity episodes. Yes, it's so bizarre. Again,
(31:38):
there's there's great stuff in this episode, and I love
the we're getting close to graduating and we just one
stayed and there's a lot of nostalgia. I love that
they threw a party. I love that they threw a party.
But but the actual scenes between the characters Molt and Shelley,
Nathan and Deb, Nathan and Lucas, they kind of feel
(31:59):
like they don't make any sense. I'm like, who are
these people? Has anybody been watching our show? The kids
who are not economically well off are significantly happier than
the kids who are because Rachel, as you know, she's
in a bad place to Peter life, is dealing with
(32:19):
a bunch of badge Nathan, You've got Deb, and then
like the happy go lucky ones or skills, you know,
Karen's having a great time living at a little house,
you know, and Peyton is finally happy. Like the kids
who um were part of the river Court scene are,
with the exception of Mouths, are seemingly doing much better.
(32:44):
And maybe because there's not as much pressure on them,
you know what I mean. When you're from a wealthy
family and it's like, okay, well what do I do
once I'm kicked out of the nest? You know that
can be frightening. Yeah, I'm I'm very curious with it,
in particular for Rachel because you see what she's doing.
(33:04):
And I love the scene between me and Danille when
Brooke chases her out of the party and asks what's
been going on and Rachel explains and there's nothing that
Brooke can say but thank you, and she means it. Oh,
look at you just clutching your chesty cutie. That really
got you. It really when Rachel said you're my friend, Brooke,
(33:29):
I felt betch and my bones and it was like
for Brooke, who is in a battle with her best
friend Peyton, and who has just lied to her other
best friend's face, right, and so that feels bad. That
feels bad when you're fighting with your friends. You know,
nobody likes that to have this girl say to her,
(33:51):
I'm willing to sacrifice my future because yours is so bright.
You're my friend, Brook, Like, I love them that That
was probably my favorite moment of the episode. That was
my favorite especially for Brooke, who doesn't feel like people
bet on her. Yeah, well she also feels like it's
really easy for people to remove Brooke, you know, and
(34:14):
and that can feel bad when it's like, oh, Peyton
seems fine without me, and my parents are fine without me,
and my ex boyfriend is fine without me, and I
moved out of Haley's apartment so Nathan could move back
in fine without me, you know, to have someone prioritize
you the way Rachel is done. I wish you two
had ended up together. What a cute. Oh my god,
(34:34):
I know it would not have been so fun, but
it's it's again. It it reinforces the ways that especially
I think those two girls are stuck. Brooke is stuck.
She doesn't want to hurt Haley, but she doesn't want
to hurt Rachel. Rachel knows she got Brooke in trouble,
but realizes how much worse it's going to be if
(34:56):
Brooke gets caught. Now wants to be Brook's friend and
has finally found a place where she fits in. And
you realize the magnitude of this, you know, expulsion when
she's putting away her little box from tree Hill High
and you see it lined up against all the rest
of the schools, and you realize that nobody bets on
(35:17):
Rachel either. It happens again and again and again, even
if she is self sabotaging, even if she's doing it
so that it can't be done to her. It's oh,
it's just heartbreaking. She's always like with the exception, I'm
trying to hook up with Nathan. She's always on the
moral up and up. Like. I love the character of
(35:39):
Rachel because I love an anti hero, you know, little
Taylor Swift reference for the kids. I was just gonna ask.
I was gonna be like, oh, somebody listened to Midnight?
Um do the kids say Bob anymore? I don't kind
I like the word. I appreciate an anti hero, and
Rachel is, you know, the perfect example of that. And
(36:02):
she doesn't try to defend herself to Haley. She takes
the hit. She leaves when she's told to leave like
that takes a big person to do the walk away.
And I don't I don't think she gets enough credit.
You know, great, you guys have your fun. I served
my purpose here, I'm out. Yeah. This isn't the end
(36:27):
of Rachel, though, is it? Like why should I go.
Did they say she's expelled. I thought that's what the
principle threatened, but maybe not. I don't know. He like
when he's passing out that time, just staring at the
back of your head. I was like, So we had
some like when I was in high school, and they
(36:48):
don't really do anything about it. Kids, Just so you know,
they don't really do anything about it. You can remember, listen,
I didn't eat high school. I definitely cheated in college
because remember at the beginning of the internet when you
could buy papers, Oh my god, I would never what Hillary,
(37:10):
I was a v J. I was busy. I was
working forty hours a week. I mean, I know you
were busy. I just would never. I wasn't. There was
one paper. There was one paper on Gulliver's travels, and
I could not do it, and so I bought it online.
But it was like at the beginning of the internet,
so teachers weren't savvy to just like searching for sentences, right.
(37:34):
I definitely bought one paper. Um, and I'm not even
embarrassed about it because that's a dumb book. I just
loved writing so much that my senior year in high school,
I decided I wanted to take two AP English classes
instead of one AP English class and an AP math.
I was like, I don't need calculus. This is dumb.
I'm going to go to theater by um. So they
let me do it. So by the time I got
(37:56):
to college, all the seniors were coming to me to
be like, will you edit my paper for fill in
the blank class? And I was like, yeah, maybe I
bought of your papers. And what I realized, No, I
never sold my papers. I edited other people's. But I
was like, God, it should have been charging for that.
That is like valuable help. I legitimately paid fifty dollars
(38:18):
for a paper travel Oh my god. So when I
see about Brook cheeting on the test, I just don't care.
I don't even care a little bit. I'm like, they graduate,
get out of there, very great. I just I wish
there was like more emphasis put rather than on your
paper or on your mid term. I wish we put
more emphasis on actually learning the information, on the ability
(38:42):
to digest complex ideas and think critically and engage in
conversation and debate with people. Could you imagine where our
political system would be if we could actually just talk
to each other instead of being like the answer is
B No, it's B man, like it's so dumb. Well,
also the fact that you were totally reliant. Brooke was
(39:03):
totally reliant on other kids to help her pass this class.
Like where's the teacher my calculus teachers senior year in
high school, I did well in the class, but I
wasn't an a student and he heard that I wasn't
going to take the AP exam at the end of
the year because I was taking all these other AP
(39:24):
exams and I just didn't feel like failing it. I
knew I was going to fail it, and he was like, Hillary,
you have to take it. I'm doing after school tutoring sessions.
I will personally help you. And Bruce Snyder, God bless
that math teacher. Um made sure that I passed that
AP exam, and I felt so good about myself after
(39:46):
the fact. But it's the only reason I passed it
is because an adult intervened and had Brooke had that
experience or instead of being the boy that she's kissing,
it's like an adult that sees this kid doesn't have
a lot of parental interaction. She's trying, really are she's
the president of this club. You know, if an adult
had showed up and been like, baby, I believe in you,
(40:06):
and you had to lie to that adult about that,
would that would have been That would have been nice. Yeah,
Like we had so many good teachers in real life.
I wish we'd had good teachers on the show too.
And it's weird because every once in a while we
had a great experience and then they would disappear. Even
Principal Turner, he's so militant in this episode, and you know,
(40:29):
him firing Haley felt so it just felt so unfair.
He knows her character. It felt like Haley was a
student he'd met for the first time, and for her
to be able to say I had a feeling and
I checked for my keys and whatever else, it all
just felt like a device that I didn't love. I
(40:52):
will say the device of joy bitch slapping Danil worked great.
God whoever coordinated that She's done lamb in the key
down on the table and wanted it back. And then
yeah at Rachel it was so funny, and I loved
watching the boys kind of be like damn, Haley. That
was a great That was a really great fun and
(41:14):
I love the way Antoine dismissed Rachel from the party
because it wasn't it wasn't like you belong here. It
was just like time to go, mama, you know, like
it was firm and safe. And I love the way
that that was all handled, and I get why Haley
slapped her. Haley is getting a different set of information
(41:37):
than the viewer, and so it's hard to be like, Haley,
light up because the first set of information is like
this chick is problematic at E three turn. Yeah, well,
and she's coming for all of my stability, my husband,
my job, my school, my best friend. Yeah, all the things,
all the things. I want to talk about Peyton and
(42:08):
Lucas because I I mean, I say this all the time,
like the fan base is like you never addressed it,
Like we're finally in a great place. I don't love
like Peyton Lucas when they're sneaking around, you know, but
Peyton Lucas like in a decided relationship, we're going to
be together. I love his interactions with Glenda in this episode.
(42:33):
I love that Peyton wasn't jealous but was like, what
did you get that girl? But that's a little bit
of just like, oh do you wanna tell me about it. Yeah,
She's like, well, what don't what don't I know he
knows that he's lying and doesn't call him out. Yeah,
what I love about it? You know what? It really
reminded me of. Um remember early on when Brooke and
(42:56):
Lucas are dating and Peyton says give him the CD
and Brooke does and she's like, oh, yeah, I track
thirteen and he he comes to you and says, there
is no track thirteen on this record. Like, I know
this is you gave her this. It's a call back
to that for me. And the nostalgia is so sweet,
and I can see how much fun you're having. Like
(43:18):
I actually made a note about how you know Lucas
gave his book to Glenda but didn't tell Peyton it
was done, Like what And instead of being upset, she
she plays with him. She thinks it's cute. She wants
to get in there in a way that is fun.
It's not threatened or threatening, and and it goes back
(43:43):
in every direction with you two. It feels nostalgic, it
feels sweet, it feels pure. I liked it because, to
your point, so many of the relationships on our show
are based in threat. It's like someone's gonna find out online.
Someone's gonna find out I did this thing. Someone's gonna
find out, find out, find out. And Peyton and Lucas,
(44:04):
because they were in the friend zone for a long time,
have developed this rapport of like I could find out
whatever about you. I'm still unto you, you know, like
tell me the worst thing you did. I know, you know,
thanks for telling me, but I already know. Um. And
there was so much physicality between our characters, you know,
(44:26):
like that we've had years of like are they are not?
Are they aren't they? You know, stolen kisses, all that
kind of bulsh. Once the floodgates were opened, they were
just like you two were just gonna sub face like
all episode and the fans are gonna love it, so
do that. And I said to you when when Peyton
(44:50):
Lucas go upstairs to the bedroom at Nathan's house, I
was like, why did they not have sex at Lucas's
house where there was like some level of privacy. They're
the only to people in the house. He's like, my
mom's not coming home. Why did they go to a
house party with a people downstairs at her ex boyfriend's
house where she used to have sex with him. Yeah,
(45:11):
to finally hook up is just embarrassing. But shooting that
scene with my boyfriend and my brother and my boyfriend's
dad and his uncle, and like the entire crew that
I was related to it for one way or another
watching was such a god cringe e. And so Chad
(45:33):
was a great sport about it. He knew how weird
it was for me to have the people yelling rolling
and cut be the people that I like lived with
and so and your actual boyfriend and you're shooting a
scene with your TV boyfriend and your actual boyfriend is watching.
Oh my god, he's the one yelling rolling. It's a nightmare.
(45:57):
I'm so uncomfortable. So they and yell cut. But this
is an embarrassing story. I hope Chad doesn't get upset.
I tell the story. There was one point where his
beard hair got caught on my brawl and it pulled
my bra away a little bit, and Chad freaked out
and was just like so sorry, and it ruined the tape.
(46:21):
And I was like, look, hey, I don't think anyone
saw it, but he was worried that other people saw
it and didn't want to play it off, Like I'm like,
who saw that? Did anyone's It was so uncomfortable, and
he was trying so hard to be like above board,
and I'm like, you're making it a big deal, making
it oh my god. Yeah, this is why we have
(46:44):
intimacy coordinators now because back then they were just like
and go um. But yeah, he was very he was
very courteous and yeah, we're just gonna kiss for the
next six seasons. But when I liked about it, I
liked the tenderness between the two of you in the
(47:05):
scene in Lucas's room, and that he is being a
bit of a teenage boy who's like, well why not
now nobody's coming, And obviously you lean into it because
the mister act is that Brooks going to interrupt. But later,
what I really liked that I didn't expect was what
they gave to you for Peyton. I loved hearing a
(47:27):
girl say I'm glad we waited you know back then,
like look at that time, yeah I wanted to hook
up with you, and now I'm in love with you
now I want all the things you said you wanted.
Like it's such a beautiful moment where these two people
who couldn't quite get on the same level in their
(47:49):
growth are finally right there on the same page. And
I loved it. I thought that it was so I
don't know, it was just lovely. Like when we were
watching the scene, I went, oh my god, that was
so nice. I really like that for you two together. Well,
our scene, listen, we knew what was coming at the
(48:12):
end of the episode. Your anxiety spoiled, spoiled the surprise.
But the scene that we had when Brooke comes into
Lucas's room and interrupts them hooking up, Like, God, how
uncomfortable her and Peyton get to connect again. God, it's
(48:37):
exactly what you want to see between two teen girls,
where it's grace and it's like, I love you. Basically,
what that scene is is these two girls saying I
love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
It's hard, but I love you. And that's the subtext
for every single line that scene. Yes, I mean Brooks
saying tell me what I have to do so you're comfortable.
(48:59):
Isn't I love you? And Peyton saying they're just my drawings?
You made them into something. Isn't I love you? And
they they're giving each other these gifts of I want
you to have whatever you want, and it's so it's
so nice. Well, and Peyton's addressing like there's no beating
(49:19):
around the bush. She's like, I love him, and I
don't want me loving him to hurt you, you know, like,
let's just be grown ups and talk about it. We
don't even do that. No, these girls had it all
figured out well. But what's so what I loved about
it and what felt really honest about it, even though
their teens, is because they've been in this tumult. I
(49:45):
got the sense that Peyton's said that to herself over
and over again, you saying, yes, Brooke, I love him,
but I never wanted my love for him to hurt you.
You have, you have distilled all your complicated feelings into
that sentence. You've gone, you know what it is, and
it's like you've been waiting to give it to me.
(50:05):
She practices it in the car. Do you practice conversations
in the car? Uh? I'm more as like a as
a quirky, anxious person. I'm more re refight so like
I had a fight, you know, I had an argument
like six years ago with some like idiot I was dating,
and and now I'm like, oh, what I should and said, like,
(50:27):
after all these years of therapy and all the books
I've read, I have the perfect answer. And then I'm like,
well that felt fun, and then it's over, Like I
don't really practice before I probably should. I didn't know
that they were who didn't practice before. I didn't know
that there were people that like don't talk it out
(50:48):
with themselves before they talk it out with other people.
And I'm driving in the car with my daughter having
a conversation in the rear view mirror and George should
who are you talking to? Oh my god? And I
got called out by my kids. I was like, damn it,
that's embarrassing. Now I love that, but I love that
(51:09):
you're having fights from six years ago. I'm like, oh,
what I should have said? Can you call me next
time that happens? Oh? Absolutely, I've even done it with
Like you know you know this because you were a VJ,
Like you get caught live on the air and someone
asked you something really shitty and you're live, there's nothing
(51:31):
you can do about it. Like what I want to
do to you, I can't do to you live on
the air. Oh, disrespectful idiot, you know whatever. Like you
can't say that, so you try to like crack a
joke or like deflect and oh, I have come up
with some singers then I wish I had on hand
at the time, but I just I didn't. I will say, well,
(51:52):
my palms are sweaty. I feel like I've just admitted
like a team. I know. I'm like, oh god, but
I do think. I do think it's really helpful to
like to practice certain things ahead of time. That is
something I've been learning more like in coaching, I'm like, oh, right,
(52:13):
I'm allowed to do this. Like my coach literally said
to me. She goes, you're an actor. You guys practice
your lines before you do the scene. And I was like, yeah,
what's your point that somebody wrote those? And she's like,
you can write whatever you want. And I was like, oh, interesting,
I've never given myself that permission. Slip in your car
and they call you out. Oh my god. These girls,
(52:36):
Heyton and Brooke have practiced their conversation the most beautiful
reunion and then it's destroyed. Destroying. Also, why why is
Nathan in the crowd on looking and broke it up
by the TV, like it's all her fault. He did this. Everybody,
(52:58):
she's that did this, and he's the one that did
it and recorded it and kept it. Yeah. And by
the way, Peyton runs out of bed with Lucas going,
oh no, they're watching my sex tape. Like, clearly Nathan
has a weird kink and suddenly it's the girls that
are bad, wasn't I don't like porn on his computer? Yes, yeah,
(53:23):
there's a pattern, man, there's a pattern. Little freak, little
dirty boy, I will say before we before his freakiness
is revealed. I loved I loved that sequence with Brooke
and Nathan outside. Yeah. I love those two being friends.
I love the glimpse into their childhood friendship, wrestling in
(53:46):
the sprinklers and laughing like their friendship. They're so similar
in a world of people who don't understand them. I
love I love seeing it. Of all the characters, they
are the similar. You know, they have the same parental issues,
They have the same money issues. They have the same
(54:06):
I don't have money any more issues, have the same
expectation at school issues. They are mirror images of each other,
and I love the camaraderie between these two um too.
I hope I don't. I mean I don't remember the
next episode. I remember like punching you, but not you,
(54:27):
like just punching the camera. Um, but I don't know
what Haley's reaction is going to be. Like, that's a
weird thing to find out that someone that's been your
very dear friend and made your wedding dress to your husband.
Like that's but so many years before you knew each other.
It's bro Like, it's not that far. Oh god. We
(54:56):
have a listener question from some man. She says, can
you walk us through the filming process a little more?
How much is the script or the director saying you'll
enter here, pick up this cup, across the room, etcetera
versus you getting to make those choices as an actor
once you have the script. Can you play with the
lines at all? I mean, here's what I'm gonna say.
(55:18):
For the big crowd stuff like the party, the pro
actor move is to walk onto set and be like,
what does camera need? How can I make it work? Yeah?
Because it's not just about you. It's about you and
fifty other people. Um. In the crowd scenes at the party,
my little brother is standing over my shoulder, when the
(55:41):
sex tape stuff is happening, and that's all I can
see is my brother John just being like whoa, whoa.
So yeah, it's not about you in the big crowd scenes,
when it's a scene between you and one other person,
those feel like the opportunities to me where you can
collaborate with the director and be like, I feel like
I get up right now. You know, um, I don't know,
(56:02):
what do you think? Yeah? I fully agree. I mean
I think A great way to illustrate that is there's
the scene where Mouth and Skills are facing each other
and Shelly walks in the door and back behind them
by the doorway. You know, she walks between their two
heads on camera and they decide to split, and then
camera follows Mouth and then he goes one way, and
(56:25):
cameras following Shelley, and then they run into each other.
That's choreography from the director. That's the director saying this
is how I'm going to get into this party. So
as an actor you have to say, yep, I can
do that. Great love it. And then in other aspects,
you know, sometimes to your point, Samantha, yes, the script says,
(56:47):
you know, Broke walks into the room and picks up
a coffee mug because she's supposed to throw the coffee
mug at Rachel or something like that will be scripted,
but very often if it's just a scene in the kitchen,
props are not scripted and you get to figure it out.
So it really is a case by case basis. You know,
if something is so specific um that it needs to
(57:10):
happen by the end of the scene, it will be
on the page, and if it doesn't, it won't and
you can figure it out. But it's not only um
direct or dependent how much you get to collaborate, but
it's also very often decided scene by scene. I can
always tell a scene that's scheduled for the end of
(57:30):
the day because a one shot of us sitting next
to each other. You do it all the time, all
the time. Do you just want us to sit next
to each other and like talk out into the room
so we can do this in a water Uh? And
not everybody, Not every actor goes for that. Some actors
are like, no, I need my coverage. I need to
(57:50):
get up at this point and walk across the room.
And you know that's there's a difference between performance and
being production friendly, and you want to find like a
good middle ground where it's like this is authentic to
the character, but it's also production friendly, so we can
shoot this in an hour and get everybody home. Um,
(58:11):
so yeah, it becomes TV wi is very, very different
from movie work because it becomes about like technicalities and
being able to do eight or nine pages a day,
every single day and get people home on time so
that the union rules are followed well and so that
you can survive it. Because if you're doing a you know,
(58:33):
you're doing a movie for four or six or maybe
eight weeks, and that's like a crazy long movie. A
TV show you're shooting for ten months a year. Yeah,
and you're working sixteen or seventeen hours a day. You
do not have time to add an extra hour to
the day. You just don't have it. I love the
director that has storyboarded there and knows exactly what shots
(58:55):
they want, and I'm just like, it feels like I'm like,
to me, I can I can make that show? Like, Oh,
you're so frofared to me? I love who do you
feel like? Is our honorable mention in this episode. I
loved Rachel saying Brook, you're my friend. That was it
for me because I feel that way about my girlfriends
(59:19):
from high school, like things can be really really really
bad and I can share a text with one of
them and be like you're my friend and that fixes everything,
you know, Yeah, I love that. It's perfect. Is that yours?
What's yours? Well? Yes, that that was on my mind.
(59:40):
And now I feel like I have to crack a
joke and say, are we sure it's not Nathan Scott's
nipple ring in the fushbag video? You know how like
in time it's like like a D and BC, like
before Christ and after death and there's like before nipple
(01:00:00):
ring and then post nipple ring, Oh my god, and
Scott that's how we measured time. It's just so funny,
like it being in the close up when he's setting
up the cam quarter, You're just like, oh, yeah, this
is this is early Tree Hill days. Gross, grosser, awesome
one or the other. I don't know, Poor James. Can
you imagine getting like a piece of metal just spirit
(01:00:23):
gummed to your It's a hard note for me and
no one's ever asked me to do that. Maybe the
next year, and I don't want it. I don't want it.
I just talked to my son about getting thing about
in his ear ap pierced, and I told Jeff I
was going to go with him, and he's like, what
are you going to get pierced? And I was like,
I don't know, Like what does a grown woman get
(01:00:45):
pierced at this? Get another hole in your ear? I
might get another hole in my ear. I think he's
excited that I was going to get a Nathan Scott
nipple ring. I mean, god, could you imagine? Oh my god,
If I do, you'll get the picture of it, Like, okay,
that feels fair. It'll be you are we gonna spin
a wheel? Let's spin a wheel? Bad? The wine kicked in.
(01:01:10):
I'm having a great time, Sophia. I know. I just
finished my little baby glass and I'm like, maybe I
want another father. I'm like a cook dinner now. Most
likely to skip school. Well, on our show, it seems
like all the kids are skipping school. Nathan seems old
to go see deb uh, Lucas skip school to go
(01:01:31):
buy a tucks. It's like they don't even bother going anymore?
Do they just have free periods? What's going on? Yeah,
that's weird. Um. Most likely to skip school. I feel
like Nathan, He's always like doing something weird in real life.
Not you, not me, not you will say. The first
(01:01:55):
time I like legitimately skipped school, it was senior year.
Blair Witch Project came out and I skipped school and
I skipped schooled my best friend, Erika, and my brother
and his best friend, and we're like in my cutlass
and we drive to the movie theater and we're like, God,
I hope no one sees this. It's the middle of
the day, and we watched Blair Witch Project, fully believing
(01:02:17):
that it's real because it was marketed as a documentary
and not a fake movie. And we leave and we're
so unsettled because we live in northern Virginia and it's
very close to the Maryland Woods where that takes place,
and we're so creeped out. But then we have to
pretend with our parents like we're fine, we had a
totally normal day and we're not creeped out. That was
(01:02:39):
my school skipping experience. I mean, Joyce skipped school a
lot to do her soap opera. That's her. She's a skipper. Yeah,
you're right. She was like goodbye. She was like I'm
working and going to the fancy bar to drink champagne.
I'm fabulous, Page she was out. It was all right, oh,
(01:03:01):
honorary school skipper. Next episode is season four, episode fifteen,
prom Knight at Hat High. I might dress up. We
probably should. This is going to be a gnarly one.
It's almost like the next episode to me is two episodes.
There's like the flashback to the Brook and Nathan mess,
(01:03:23):
there's the big Peyton and Brooke fight that we know
is coming, and then prom Knight means Derek is back,
which feels like a full episode all in its own.
We might have to do too. We might have to
split this up. Guys at home, we can't. We make
no promises. She just got for Christmas here, so I'm
probably gonna get chancy. Oh my god. Yes, let's get
(01:03:46):
antsy okay, friends, get far with us next week. I
love y'all. Hey, thanks for listening. Don't forget to leave
us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram
at drama Queens O t H or email us at
drama Queens at I heart radio dot com. See you
next time. We are all about that high school drama girl.
(01:04:09):
Drama Girl all about them high school queens. We'll take
you for a ride in our comic Girl Cheering for
the Right Drama Queens draws my girl up girl fashion,
but your tough girl, you could sit with us. Girl
Drama Queens, Drama, Queens, Drama, Queen's Drama, Drama, Queen's Drama,
Queens
Hosts And Creators
Bethany Joy Lenz
Sophia Bush
Robert Buckley
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