One Tree Hill – Episodes 7-3 Review

Sorry these reviews are coming in a little late guys. My financial situation left me without cable and internet for a little bit. It’s crazy how much we rely on them! Anyway, let’s get into the episodes!

OK, so I was WAY happy with the second episode after being disappointed with the first. It’s going to take us all a few episodes to get used to the “new” One Tree Hill and its characters, but things are starting to fall into place.

Some crazed girl named Renee is claiming she is 3-months pregnant with Nathan’s baby! Wow. That’s a good way to start off. They are trying to prevent this all from going public as Nathan denies ever sleeping with her, but she wants $200,000 for her silence. Clay is pushing towards paying her off as he knows it will destroy Nathan’s public persona as a nice family man, but after finding out, Haley does not want to go that route. Neither does Nathan. To them, paying her off is somehow saying that the whole thing is true. I agree.

Haley is being a good wife and tells Nathan she will stick by him regardless of his decision, and he ultimately chooses to not pay her off. Clay shows up to dinner with Renee with an empty envelope and calls her a “lying bitch.” Haha. But from the looks of next week’s previews, the scandal gets worse as it goes public while Nathan and Haley try to tell Jamie. There’s a lot of speculation that Clay is somehow involved, so we’ll see!

Haley got the music executives to hold onto Red Bedroom Records with the help of Mia, the company’s biggest selling artist. Smart move. I was a little happy to see Mia again. She’s not my favorite character, but at least she’s familiar to us viewers.

Quinn is still having marriage problems and refuses to take calls from her estranged husband. This whole thing is a little mysterious to me. Brooke decides to have a photoshoot for her new line and Quinn shoots it. I’m warming up to her a little bit. I still can’t stand her calling Haley “Haley Bob,” but whatever. I think her flirtation with the promiscuous Clay is cute and I have a feeling she will end up being the girl that gets him to settle down. By the end of episode 3, Quinn’s husband shows up in Tree Hill demanding that she talk to him. Uh oh.

Brooke is trying to deal with the guilt of taking away from Julian’s work while dealing with the prissy annoying model Alex whom she hired to be the face of her new line. Alex is a spoiled brat and I feel bad for Millie that she has to deal with that irritating trainwreck. Meanwhile, the shoot goes great and Alex has her eye on Julian. We all know Julian would never cheat on Brooke so this storyline is bothering me. How many adulterous storylines do we need?!? Personally, I hope that the Julian/Brooke flame heats up some more because thus far they have been…well, boring.

And I guess I have to throw in the pointlessness that is the Mouth and Skillz storyline. They are fighting over the apartment and Skillz enlists Jamie for help. The two roommates have a heart-to-heart at the advice of little Jamie and they agree to remain living together until Skillz is ready to move out and move in with Lauren (that boring teacher lady).

All in all, episode 2 was a lot better, but episode 3 went downhill slightly. We seem to get one episode packed with plot development and the next with none. I don’t know. I’m still mixed on my feelings toward the show. Yes, I miss Peyton and Lucas (Can they please tell us where they went off to by the way!?!), but I am warming up to the new characters a little. We will have to see how the rest of the season pans out. See you next week!

Sharon Tharp is a freelance writer who has contributed to a variety of publications including Hamptons magazine and the Web sites of both Marie Claire and CosmoGIRL!.