First of all, you don't know me.
We all about that high school drama, Girl Drama, Girl, all about them.
High school queens. We'll take you for a ride.
And our comic girl Cheering for the right Teams.
Drama, Queens up Girl Fashion, which your tough girl, you could sit with us, Girl Drama, Queens Drama, Queens Drama, Queens Drama, Drama, Queens Drama, Queens.
Welcome back, friends, and welcome back to the States.
Joy, Thanks so much.
Thanks.
I'm glad you guys held down the fort. Well, I was gone. I missed you, but I'm glad to be back. And what an episode to come back to.
What an episode to come home to. And also you poor thing to be so jat lagged for.
Yeah, I'm okay, I'm gonna survive. But yeah, it's the second day. I took that flight from London to Nashville, the direct flight yesterday, and it's the one you really try and stay awake on because you land at seven pm and you want to be able to actually fall asleep at night. So it was it was fine, but it got me. It got me the next day.
Yeah, the second day hit. Yeah, your body's like, what do you mean sleep, we're supposed to be awake right now, and then vice versa.
So if I don't make a lot of sense today, y'all just can forgive me. Okay.
So when this episode opened on the SIMS, did you think you were hallucinating or were you I clicked the wrong show for a second.
What is this?
Why are we?
Oh?
Wait, it's Tree Hill characters. Okay, this is definitely something there was. I can't even as soon as I saw the hospital, yeah, it opened on the SIMS. But as soon as I saw the hospital and then Dan's heart the little beeper thing, I went, oh my god.
I know you knew what the episodes guys, this is the episode we get talked about. Well, I won't say talked about the most, for I will say made fun the most.
Ye.
Yeah, that's accurate.
It is none other than season six, episode eighteen, Searching for a Former Clarity. The episode aired March twenty third, two thousand and nine. Lucas and Julian hit a setback with the production of the film when Julian's dad gets fired. Peyton and Haley helped me out with her new single. Brook must intervene when Sam is arrested for stealing. Not sure she does it appropriately, but we'll get to that, and Jamie discovers the truth about Dan and Uncle Keith.
This episode, there are such sweet moments in it, and it's also such a doozy and yeah, dog eats a heart and everything is insane. But first and foremost, I have to say when it started on the SIMS, I literally, out loud said why are we starting on the Sims? And then I said why is Andy here? And then I realized it wasn't Andy, it was Dan.
Oh my gosh, that's funny.
But Dan's Sims animation to me looks like Karen's husband Andy.
Yeah, yeah, that's right he did. Oh that's so funny. Yeah, I'm glad it was only briefly though, the yeah the Sims thing, but it was cute. I like the idea of seeing things through Jamie's eyes, which they seemed to do a lot of in this episode, just taking a look at you know. Yeah, you're right. So there were a lot of really poignant, meaningful moments, and then there were just bizarre dog eating hearts moments.
But I liked it.
I think overall, I'm just thinking about this now, like if the dog eating the heart in the hospital was not in this episode. Do I like this episode? And I do? I do.
Yeah, here's the thing. There has to be a way for Dan to not get the heart.
Yeah.
The extreme choice of having a dog that's eaten pounds of weed so it's high and hungry eat the heart is, you know, a choice that was made choice. I just it was so silly to me, let's just get it over with it, like pulled me out because I was like, why is it in a lunch box? A lunchbox?
Why is it sealed?
It should be hermetically sealed or whatever the term is for, you know, so it doesn't get contaminated, and like all of the little things where I was like, it's so far fetched that I can't Yeah, I can't stop asking questions instead of actually watching the scene. But then I did have to wonder, is that because we've been ridiculed for this for a decade and a half and so we're just ready to hate it. I don't know.
No, I think you're right. I think they The mistake that they made, in my opinion, was not building it up enough, not taking the time to show, like instead of starting on the sims, which I appreciate the sentimentality of seeing things through Jamie's eyes. However, if we had started on the medic who was whatever coming in from a bender of the night before and didn't seal the thing up properly, and we follow the case and it's like, why is it? I have no idea why it was in a.
Lunchbox lunch fuck. I was like, what's happening?
I don't know why. But if we if they had actually come up with plausible explanations for just you know, when it rains, it poors, when everything goes wrong. There are days when it's the perfect storm. If we saw why the heart falling out was the perfect storm, then it really would have actually paid off. I think, yeah, that you've been following it the whole time, like here it comes, here, it comes, here, it comes and then and then it doesn't. Then the dog eats the heart
like that would have been interesting. But yeah, to have it suddenly just be there and then gone, well, it didn't quite And why.
Did the man whose dog ate his drugs take the dog to the er and not to the vet because he was high too. And the nurse said it.
She was like, I'm gonna sit your ass down. I'm gonna call a veterinarian. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. There were ways, there were ways that could have improved that, but it didn't happen. Nevertheless, that setting that to the side, I did really there were so many things about this episode that I really did love, enjoy, appreciate. Yeah, so, I don't know, let's get started. What was the first Okay, I didn't write my notes in order because I'm brain dead right now.
I've got mine in order. I will say I loved just getting to watch Kate sing and how it sets us up later for the arc for Mia and Hayley and Peyton, and I really like that there was this sort of mirroring thing happening with the boys with Julian and Lucas and Vanderbeek. I don't know why I can't call him by his character's name because he just makes
me giggle. But it's like, I like seeing these creative teams, and in a way, it gives me that sort of nostalgia for the high school years of the show, because it's like the girls are off on an adventure and the boys are off on an adventure, and then you actually see skills with all the little kids playing basketball, and I don't know, there's something really sweet happening, and it's fun to get to watch those groups. I really enjoyed all.
Of that me too. It was there were a lot of moments of transition. I did love seeing the groups of Hayley, Mia and Peyton. Was nice to see them back together. It did remind me a bit of, Yeah, the high school stuff when we would go off and we had scavenger hunt night, or when we had stuck in a car siphoning gas night inside of the road stuff, all those little moments. They really were good. That Writer's room was good at bringing back that feeling recalling those moments for the audience.
Yeah, and there was something happening in this episode too, where we were using our locations really well. I loved seeing all the boys on the river court over and over again, and not just the three making the movie, but also you know, Nathan and Lucas at the end. I loved you know you guys all over you were home and at school and at trick and like everything just felt so full, even that scene with all of us lined up at the bar kind of drowning our
sorrows together. And then beak comes highly upy like it just a lot of it felt fun. There was a lot of really good motion and blocking. Yeah, and it was nice.
I'm gonna give up my honorable mention early because James Vanderbeek is electric in this episode. I mean he's great. I feel like he always comes in. He had a lot of energy, but it was as though he he's the anti Dawson in this in this space, which must have been interesting for him as an actor to come back work on the same stages with this whole new crew of actors that took over the the crew in the stages that they had been on for so long.
And I love that he made this choice to come in and play this wild, loud, over the top character and he did it so sincerely. It didn't feel it was over the top, but it didn't feel implausible again like that. There was something about the way he did the performance that was like, Yeah, I'm like, I mean, he's a douche, but I kind of know this guy.
He kind of met.
This guy so much energy. Every single scene that he walked into he just soaked up sucked all the energy, not sucked, but I guess he he absorbed all of it. I'm saying it wrong. Help jet Lag.
I know what you mean. It's like he he really gave it all.
I don't know.
Yeah, it's like he would he would take whatever was thrown at him and then throw it back twice the size in a good way. Like he was making so much more out of what was happening in the room. And it was really fun by the way, I even I wrote this down in his first scene. You know that he's so gross, this man sitting saying, you have to get me a helicopter so I can have sex in it. But he's so funny. I was like, he
is even charming to me. While by the way, literally that whole scene revolving around the fact that this director is rewarding the casting couch, Like it's so gross and it's such a clear, so gross, icky thing that our boss like wrote into this episode and it's oh, it's just gross, and yet watching James Vanderbeek do it, I absolutely love it. He's a douche and I love him. It's like the guy you love to hate.
Yeah, well, in the context he's making fun of it, but he's doing it in a way where you can enjoy the experience, but you're aware of how absolutely disgusting and ridiculous it is.
It was great.
It was the very masterful performance.
I really it's really fun when you get a charming villain. Yeah, you know, it's someone who's fun to think the worst about. That's really enjoyable, rather than having to be terrified or you know, traumatized or whatever that we're all just exhausted by. I really like being able to laugh at the bad guy.
Yeah, I do too, because we used to be able to do that with Dan early on, but he went dark, so fat, But now it's so dark so fast. Now it feels a lot like he's I mean, he's going through a very dramatic transition.
Yeah, this is a gnarly time for Dan. I did love the little jab that Lucas gets in when Lucas and Peyton come in for their checkup and see Dan and he says I'm getting a heart and Luke goes, it's about time.
I was like, that's so good. Yeah, I did a little double take on that one.
It's so on the nose, but like it's funny about time.
Yeah, it's so interesting to be in a small town. You got your heart transplant coming in, and everybody he knows that is around him. It's so funny actually, how everybody is dealing with his impending death. The everybody's pretty casual about it, I guess by now because they're like they're like, just die already.
It's so dark, Like the fact goes this is where I say goodbye and then just like turns around to keep doing whatever she's doing in the kitchen. I was like, I mean, I know you hate him more than anyone, but woman, you were married to this man, Like that's it.
That's it.
Yeah, that was that was gnarly. Poor little Jamie's the only one who cares. And then finally he says, you shot Keith. I gotta get out of here, take me home.
Yeah, there's something very It almost feels very plaintive, you know, in Paul's performance, the the wanting a second chance so badly and then realizing you're not going to get it, and having to see that everyone is okay with that. Everyone in your life and family is like, good, you didn't deserve a second chance. That has to be so heavy.
Yeah, how would you deal with that? I mean, that's like him going out into the ocean. I guess that's it, right, just I really did love that scene him in the water.
I did.
Yeah, Yeah, I loved it. I loved so much about it. I loved because I've been there. I've been in that in the pain of feeling like, hey, God, you like, I'm how dare you? How dare you allow this abency to happen to me? And I you know, I'd love that He's like, I'm not going to pray and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna cower whatever. If you you're you come get me, because that's that's the best you got, you know. I love it because it's so funny because
he is praying, that's what he's doing. That's what he's exactly what he's doing by even just acknowledging the presence of something bigger than him that is.
Watching. I don't know, involved.
Doesn't care, well, whatever, whatever the perspective is, he still is acknowledging that and having this dialogue that keeps him from being lonely.
Well, and he has no one else left to talk to.
He has no one else left.
And what a big statement, right, you know, he's in the ocean screaming I give up.
Yeah, yeah, I give up.
It's like more than surrender. Yeah, because he's, you know, potentially attempting to end his life. And it's so it's interesting that someone like Dan, who has always exhibited that he thinks he's in control like a real narcissist does, to say I give up is like, oh boy, and I don't think it's an accident. Then afterward, the next meaningful interaction he has with the only person who's still interested in speaking to him, who's Jamie, is when he tells the truth about Keith.
Yeah, he just gave up. He's like, I'm actually just done. Yeah, what's left? Trying to manipulate, organize what I'm true now, but now knowing kind of what comes in the next few seasons with Dan that he did he actually give up or did he just become the same person all over again.
I don't know. He's heavy.
But I thought Paul did such a great job that I really did, and it was moving. M deb I was happy to see the two of them in this episode too, because it's been a minute. Yeah, they were on camera together and back in the same room. Barb, I mean, she had a lot to do in this episode between dealing with all the emotional stuff. Okay, my ex husband is, who has tortured me and destroyed relationships all over this town and destroyed so many things in my life, is about to die. I feel good about that.
And I've got this hot young snack who is all about me, wants to have kids with me, he wants to do this whole life, and she's trying to let him down easy. I mean, this woman has a lot going on.
She's really she's really on the roller coaster of the highs and lows. But I have to say I just loved that when Skills does the thing where he, you know, flirts with her about how they could have some kids eventually and she says, no, no, and he's like, oh, you know, baby, you could have more kids, like you're not that old whatever that means, and she just very simply says, yes, I could, but I don't want to. Yeah, like, no, sir,
that's not going to be my journey. And I I loved that, and I love that we did that in two thousand and nine, like it's not this year, by the way, where Sophia Vergara talks about her marriage to our friend ending because he wanted to have kids, and she was like, I've done that, like my son is post college. No, sir, that's not my journey.
Oh is that what happened? Yeah, she talked.
About it like publicly recently, and I thought, how just how cool to be able to be so honest, you know. And I think people are just getting honest about so many more things, like whether it's you know, saying no, I'm done, or fertility or whatever it is. Like, you know, I feel like more and more people are just getting a little more pragmatic about it. And maybe that's because we realize that not being pragmatic about women and our health and our bodies leads to people with no medical
expertise making laws about them. So like, we better talk about it.
I guess we should start talking.
Yeah. I just thought that was so refreshing. It was like, it's not drama, it's not anything. It's just these two people are at very different stages in their lives, which means their relationship can't continue. And it was really interesting to see that modeled on our show by this woman who just stood in her power and just went own.
No.
I know, but that's that's not for me. I was like, Oh, it really I was so taken aback by it in a good way.
Yeah, and also that that she had the it's a sacrifice. It's not just standing in her she is for sure standing in her power, but there has to there's a real humility and sacrifice to putting what someone else, what's best for someone else, in front of what you want. Because I'm sure like nothing would have made her feel better than to hunker down with skills.
That they had a good thing going.
It was fun, they made each other feel really good and really safe, and it was I really have enjoyed the trajectory of their relationship me too. It was a surprise and I loved it. But putting like she could see his future, that he was not old enough to understand what it is that he would be sacrificing, and she was man. When I was I don't know, nineteen or twenty living in New York City, somebody invited me to this slam poetry thing, and slam poetry was not
a It wasn't popular back then. Nobody I'd never heard of it, nobody was really doing much of it. But it was at CBGB's which is now closed.
So now it's a John Varvados, not that I don't like John Varvados, but it does break my heart. Oh God, I'm like, your leather jackets are great, but this place needs to be really cool epic.
So I got invited to this thing and I went, and it was super cool. I mean just hearing all of these artists get up and share poetry, sometimes with music, like they might have somebody with them playing music where they would just kind of wrap it out or whatever. And this woman gets up and she doesn't have music, and she's not rapping or anything, and she just has this story to tell, and she told a story of this beautiful it was probably like a five minute story.
This beautiful romance that she had with this younger man who is ten years younger than her I think she was maybe thirty five, was so it made her feel so alive. She had so many bad relationships before and it was so healthy and beautiful. And they got engaged and she realized that the one thing he really wanted with kids, and she.
Didn't.
She just did not. She just didn't want to have them, and she had to. She told this really heartbreaking story about how she let him go, and it was it was a major sacrifice, and it broke her heart and it broke his heart, and so many people in their life were like, are you sure. I mean, like, come on, is that you guys love each other? You only get one life. She just said, I cannot do that to him. He doesn't know what he's losing, he doesn't know what
he's sacrificing. But I promise I am helping him with his future. This is the best thing I could do for him anyway, she said. At the end of the story. Fast forward three years later, she runs into him on the street and got a two year old on his shoulders and his new wife had a baby in her arms, and he just gave her a big hug and said, thank you, thank you so much. And I have never forgotten that story.
It is.
It's so powerful to think about how difficult it is sometimes for us to let things that we really want go for the sake of someone else. Is good.
Yeah, And you know what I think about that too, is like when you can see the writing on the wall, it doesn't matter how much love there's been between you, or what the history is, or how hard you wanted to try, Like you just know and somebody has to be brave first. Yeah, But if you're willing to be
brave first, you can set the both of you free. Yeah, Because to your point, someone might be like, no, I don't want it to be over, and it's like, yeah, but you're not going to get what you ultimately want here, and neither am I, And so one of us has to be brave.
It's just gonna it's gonna rot. Like you've got to You got to get to it before it starts to turn. Oh, which doesn't negate all the time you've spent, or all of the investment or all of it doesn't. Because something ends, it doesn't mean that it was a waste of time. But you cannot keep wasting time once you know where you're at M.
Once you see it, you just can't unsee it. Yeah, And I think I actually think that's something we should start celebrating, because what we like to do is celebrate the surface and be like, oh, look at this thing that looks picture perfect or that thing that looks whatever fill in the blank. But it's like, yeah, I think we should start to celebrate each other when we say, you know what it's it's not what I thought I've
learned the lesson. Okay, Like it's a really it's a really brave thing and I like it and I like that Nanny Debb is sorry cool.
So if what would that look like celebrating sacrifice, it's.
Not even necessarily the sacrifice. I just think we should celebrate people when they make the best decision for them, whether that's saying or leaving, whether that's deb honkering down with skills or saying, I know this part of you because by the way, we would all be healthier. And to bring it back to the show, it's such a healthy thing. She's modeling and she sees him and she's
just like, listen, I see this about you. And it's a smart device in the writing that we get to watch him coaching the kids because it's so cute and it is so sweet, and we see Andre and Jamie together and we love that their friendship is continuing. And you know, the best three name we've ever heard is coach uncle Skill and it just does it like melts
your heart. You know. He he sits those kids down and he gives them these compliments and he tells them why they're great even though they're small and no one's in actually no one's actually a skilled athlete yet you know, and you really do get to see that he has an innate goodness with them, and that's what she mirrors back to him. And she doesn't make it personal and she doesn't make it emotional, and she's not cold, but
she's not sobbing. It's not this big thing. It's just like, this is the end of the line for us because we both want two very different outcomes. And that's okay, I agree.
Another testament to Antoine's abilities to I don't know that he was given not I don't know. He definitely wasn't utilized to the best of his abilities on the show.
I mean, he got some moments, but man, I really wish he had been integrated more heavily into a lot of the storylines because he's just so capable, so capable as an actor, going from fun and playful immediately into dropping it and realizing how difficult this is going to be, and just watching him go from being even playing a teenager to being a really a strong young man who's now growing up into a full grown man to figure
out what he wants with his life. He gave his character such a such an arc that the writers didn't give him. He took care of it himself. He just was like, I got this, let me. You're not gonna give it to me, let me just do it myself. So talented.
Yeah, he always did. And it's so it's just so much fun, I know, you know, And it's like you sort of wonder, is it the chicken or the egg right where you're like, well, he was always so good at making a meal out of anything they gave him. Did that make them a little lazier with him? Or were they just, you know, folks based on the quote unquote core five storylines more and then putting him in where it felt like it made sense. I don't know, but I agree, I just want more.
Yeah. I think that happens on a lot of TV shows though, when you've got a character who's really charismatic and an actor you can just trust to run with something. Yeah, I think they do. At the end of the day, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The ones that are like you can rely on are just kind of okay, well, we can trust him, He'll take care of this. But yeah, I mean I can't. I would love to see more of him. I love seeing more of antoine and anything. Honestly, yeah, I.
Do want to. I'm just gonna say it now, because perhaps that's that musing or questioning I just did. It is going to be viewed as a criticism of the writers. I didn't mean it to be, but I actually do have a major criticism. I hate hate that they made me use the R word in that scene with Sam. I hated it then, I hate it now. I think the idea that like a foster parent would say that to a kid, I don't know. I just I hated it so much, but it was a battle that I lost.
They wanted the fight to be like explosive and whatever, and it makes me feel so cringey.
Now, wait, but she didn't say that Sam was. She was saying that she told the store owner as that, like as an excuse. It was meant as a comedic moment, right, And I'm not saying it's okay, I'm just clarifying, like what the.
Yes, I think it was meant as a comedic moment, but I just think it's like, I think it's so ugly. I think like, if you have to punch down to tell a joke, you're just not that good at telling jokes. Yeah, and oh boy, I hate it so much. But I will say in the like mediate like, oh I remember this day and like the fights about it. I also remember something that I like, which is they were like, this has to be like an explosive fight, and I was like, I can't just like scream at her because I am like.
I was expecting Unfixable to be the thing that you fought on.
Yeah, well, I mean I did love that either, but the idea where the idea that it had to be so explosive for everything to change later, for her to go to Julian on my behalf, for Julian to come to me on her behalf, for us to make up over Jack, like all the stuff that I loved so much. It was actually a moment that I was really grateful to be pushed because the conversation was if it's not something you feel so bad about doing, the payoff won't be as big for the audience when you feel bad
about yep. And And it's really interesting because sometimes it made me think like, yeah, sometimes I have this instinct where I don't want I don't want my character to be an asshole, especially six years in I love Brooke Davis, and I am like, I think she knows better than this by now, But the reality is that human beings made mistakes. And by the time I got to the end of the episode, I was like, they were right. Having me really flip out and really raise my voice
was right. It was the right call. I needed to really go overboard so I could apologize for going overboard, okay, And it was so funny to me to be watching it at you know, in twenty year twenty four and be like, I remember how upset I was about this in two thousand and nine, and I'm glad. I I'm glad I was pushed.
That's great. No, I'm glad you were too. Yeah, and I'm glad you.
You brain is shutting down.
I have no vocabulary words.
When you give in whatever, there's a better word for that, when you when you go yes, I thought I was a C word, but I can figure it out. Thank you when you And I'm glad that you did, because I agree. It was a total It was a payoff, totally worth experiencing. It really was, and it was great for Sam's character too, to be able to go through that arc of walking through the whole episode and feeling like I really am unfixable, and then to have that mirrored back to her, Actually, I was wrong.
I'm sorry.
There's so many great things that happen when a adult admits they were wrong to a child. Yes, it's so powerful. I've seen it happen in my own life with my daughter. It's been powerful for me even in my adult life when one of my parents has apologized for something. It's really powerful. I loved seeing that.
And I think, what's cool about it? You know, it's really interesting right having this perspective twenty years after the show came out, Because one of the words we use on this podcast a lot is modeling, Like what are we modeling for our audience? What are we you know? What were we modeling then? That we can see now?
And I really think it's important. What you're talking about is, especially when kids are young and adults are willing to admit that they were wrong or apologize for mistakes, or say they're sorry for raising their voice or hurting their feelings or whatever it might have been. It also teaches kids that they are allowed to make mistakes and that the mistakes are not catastrophic. Yes, they are allowed to
be imperfect and it's totally human and okay. And as a person who does a lot of therapy for this, cut to the ad JK, I know how transformative it's been to begin to have that with my own family, even as an adult, because I didn't.
Yeah, do you think the reason you were fighting back on it so much when you were younger is because, like, did you have trouble admitting when you feel like you had made a mistake in real life?
You didn't know where to put it, like was it?
Did it feel like there was shame and so you didn't know where to put it and you didn't want Brooke to feel that way.
Yeah, I think anything that pushes like on the shame button is hard for me because there there was just no room for mistakes like that didn't That just was
not a thing that was allowed. And the irony is like perfectionism is when you are ingrained to be or become a perfectionist, you are consciously or unconsciously signing yourself up to be a constant failure because perfection doesn't exist, So it just like keeps you living in a shame spol And I think what's really powerful about what you're saying,
like modeling with your kid. Now, what I've been able to see shift in my family as an adult with my own you know parents, and what I see with so many of the parents in my life is the space you know for fallibility and for mistake and having it be something you don't have to be ashamed at all is such a big deal. And the interesting thing is that I can see how much shame Sam carries and how that's one of the things that Brooke wants
her not to feel. But in a way Brooke has to make her feel ashamed in this episode for them to both learn.
That's a great point.
I love when I see that happen in stories like these or just in real life, when the thing that you're going through or the mistake that like the mistake that I make and feel horrible about and then I have to go back and apologize or whatever, and then seeing how the other person actually needed that, Like Maria for example, if I do something, I yell or I whatever, whatever, whatever it is all the many millions of mistakes that I have made as a parent, and going back and
then it does it gives her the permission. And when you kind of pull back for a bird's eye view and look at the cosmic meanings of things like this, and you go, oh, so, in a way, my mistake was always meant to happen because it's providing the sense of mercy and space for another person to realize, Oh, it's okay to make mistakes, and we're all just doing that for each other, like handing off the permissions to be human.
It's lovely.
Yeah, yeah, it really is. And it's like, I think, the interesting thing about what I see in Brooke and Sam's dynamic from this vantage point is they both really see the best in each other, and they both see the way the other gets in their own way. Like you can see where Sam gets in her own way, and Sam fully calls Brooke out on how she's getting in her own way and calls Joy.
And she the message on the machine.
So good, and her grabbing the phone and being like, yeah, she's right here, and forcing the adult in the room to talk to the other adult because they're the ones being children and they won't do it. Like, I love the dynamics so much, and I love I love that because someone is advocating for her in this new way, it really does force Brook to confront the fact that she is terrified to be in love with someone again. You know, she's just like, I don't know if I was.
Doing you by the way that opening sequence with you and Austin with the I don't do that last I love you. Oh yeah, so funny, Yeah, really funny. I know you guys are great together.
Yeah. We I mean, we just have so much good chemistry and like, you know, we've known each other since we were twenty three years old, Like there is so much even now, like there's just so much affection between us, and I love getting to look back at There's really something too, I think when you have such deep familiarity with people, like if he'd if he'd been a stranger cast, I'm sure we would have, you know, found something great.
But like, sure, there's a when you have a depth of familiarity on camera with someone, it adds like a little something special. And I yeah, I don't know. I love their dynamic together. I'm like, I room for these two. They're very cutey.
I did too, and it's kind of immediate too. I mean, well, you know, you like Brooke and Owen. I liked the doctor guy that she never got to have a relationship with I liked I'm trying to you know, Brooke and Lucas had their moment that there was some really fun stuff there, but it wasn't It wasn't electric like it is on camera with Man. You guys are so great
and it's that friendship. It's the familiarity, it's the ease of moving around each other where it's you're not getting to know a new actor in each other's mannerisms and it's just so so much comfort and you could see that. And I really love these two together a lot.
I feel like I see the exact same thing in Haley and Nathan in this episode too, Like you and James have such a good shared language after all these years that I love the humor that they put into the dynamic of him sort of sitting back and letting you like hurricane around because you're mad and you're hurt and you're righteous and you're all these things that you absolutely deserve to be and he's just like you reorganize in the kitchen, like it really killed me in I
also was like, wow, this is like a moment where as a viewer, I feel a little attacked because I reorganize the kitchen when I am stressed out, I was like, why do we do that? Is that just like, is that like such an adhd thing that we do where we're like, wow, I don't want to deal with this. So what I'm going to do is alphabetize the spice.
Oh yes, oh yes, I don't well, I don't tend to do that in a I guess it's two different types of neurodivergent. You can always have a different flavor. My flavor is I'll do that in the middle of the argument, Like I get avoidant in the middle of it, and I'm organizing the drawer while I'm trying to have a real conversation.
It's like, your hands need to be busy for your mind to have something to do.
It's probably my pride too, because it's too vulnerable to just sit and stare at somebody in the eyes and be like, I'm mad at you.
Why did you say that?
This is uncomfortable?
Yeah, it feels better. Just be like, I'm going to organize the drawer and you can think about what you did.
Yeah, you can sit there and look at me while I do something productive.
It's right, it's right. It's so dumb and transparent.
I loved the I loved the phone call with you guys. I thought that it was so sweet and it just made me giggle. It felt really familiar. I thought it was great writing. And then when you circle back and you know, he's telling you the things he knows about you, right, that you're going to do the right thing, that you're gonna that you're you're going to figure it out. And I love that we see as the episode goes on, Haley really sink into the realization that the right thing
is the true thing. And I'm going to tell these kids and yes, I'm I'm gonna lose my job and it's going to be awful and they will miss out on the rest of the year in my class, but this will be the example I can set for them that they will never forget. Yeah, And I thought that was.
It's great cool, Yeah, because when somebody I was thinking about that too, that storyline that that is how tough decisions come up. It's like it's going to have to be one thing or the other, and when somebody puts you in a position where you have to either do it their way or lose. I don't know, something that's important to you or it put you know you're gonna it's gonna cost someone else something, like her class is
going to lose. They're a really great teacher. But at the end of the day, that's not on her, that's on principal rim GISs. Is that what I called this was her name red ho No, but it is. It's on her and Haley. I really appreciated watching watching her as you know, I'm removed now it's been so long because I don't really remember doing this storyline.
But.
Walking with the character through realizing I've been put into this position by someone else and I just can't. You can't force me to change because of whatever your power thing Like, I just can't. And I want to stay here for these students and I want to be the best teacher that they've ever had, but not at the expense of you know, truth and what she feels. So she's she walks out, and I kind of was surprised because I didn't remember what actually was going to happen.
I thought maybe Haley was going to just go, yeah, look I didn't. I didn't do what I was told to do because there is something a little complicated about that, like that's her boss. That's her boss telling her you're not allowed to do this, and so I guess technically she could have said, I disobeyed my employer. I went against what I was told to do as an employee, and therefore I'm suffering consequences for it. I mean, I
guess you could have made a case for it. But anyway, sorry, I'm just babbling through that in my brain.
No, it's but it does. It gives you that like yucky taste, and I think it's really interesting because I could see that it gave you that yucky taste in your mouth. When Nathan said to Haley, sometimes you gotta play the game, you were like, no, I don't want to. This isn't one of those times. And I think there is something to be said for that, when you have that sort of intuition and you go, no, this is different. Something's different. And yeah, I just I loved it, this
whole storyline for you. I love when you get, you know, the opportunity to be like frustrated and pissed, and I love that it winds up giving us this like you know, girls summer camp energy in the studio.
Yeah, so fun, it's fun. I'm excited to see what happened with MIA's record too. I don't remember much of the Mia storyline, so this will be fun to see what happens. Yeah, and Peyton kind of got a break in this episode. There wasn't much except for her dealing. Yeah, she had so much in the previous so much heavy.
Yeah. I was wondering, and I don't know if you remember, but I was like, what were Hillary and James doing because they both really really got a break on this one, and I was like, did they get sent somewhere to like do something or did they just get lucky and have a couple of days to like walk around downtown or go to the beach. I don't know.
Okay, But speaking of Nathan, I really loved seeing him out on the river Court with Lucas again. Any time I see those boys together on the river Court, it makes me so happy. And it was really fun on the heels of Lucas and Julian creating these new river Court memories, but really folding Julian in with everybody.
Yeah.
I thought that was a really.
Smart, fun nuanced way of bringing him into the family, which clearly he was brought in by the next season. Yeah, I love seeing those boys. Anytime we get to see those boys on the court, and watching the two of them, two brothers come to grips with the death of their father, the impending death of their father, and talking about it so casually, but also he's bravatas, but it's like, what do we do with this? We can't we keep going
around and around in this circle with him. I guess it's over weird.
Yeah, it's a lot to carry. And I thought I was really glad that they got to laugh a bit when Lucas told Nathan had happened. It was it was the sort of this is ridiculous, comic relief that we all needed, even as viewers, And then to see them begin to sink into the heavier bits and then Dan show up, it felt nice. Yeah, you know it. It was nice to see them, to your point, trying to make sense of this thing that makes no sense at all together.
Yeah, yeah, I agree this. I love that this episode set us up so much for the future. There were so many doors that opened up in this episode for what's going to happen next. What's going to happen with Mia Peyton was set up in the previous episode and what's going to happen with Haley now no job? What's going to happen with Brooke and Julian Now he's leaving. What's going to happen with Sam and.
Jack?
Now that he's throwed it back in the picture and there's a there's maybe a safer space and that what's gonna happen with Brooke and Sam? And then with deb debn Skills both now separating. There's all this open there's open runway in front of everyone except Dan.
Yeah, it feels exciting.
I guess his open runway is the afterlife, whatever that looks like for Dan Scott his runways. Juliana says, what is one trend from your teenage years that you wish would come back? I say, listening to music? Like just everybody's on their phones now, man, just to get in the car, go for a drive and put on an album and listen to the record. Just that's what you're doing. You're just listening to the to the album together.
Oh, it's so funny that you said that, because I was gonna say, really, and I know they're wasteful and I know, but that's thing of you would put on an album to listen to it from top start to finish. You would buy a whole album you wouldn't listen to like songs in a jumbled Spotify playlist of the week learned by the algorithm. Like I miss putting a CD in and being like here, yeah, go, because a CD
can't be interrupted by a phone call. You know, when we listened to music on our phones were also then just on our phones all the time, and our phones are designed to keep us on apps and social and email and texting, and I miss the folks of it.
I miss when I would put a CD in and I had my three or four favorite songs, and I would just listen to those over and over. And then there were times when I'd put the album in and I'd kind of forget that it was on because I'd be doing something else. And then I'd find a song I had heard before that I kind of thought was boring, but then I hear it from a new perspective, and I fell in love with that one, and then I.
Listen to some of the others.
It's just a constant gift that keeps on giving, and now we don't really get that opportunity, which is why everyone just releases singles instead of albums because we all have the attention span of a gnat and I miss it it.
I do want to just say I absolutely understand the irony of two women with ADHD talking about how we have to attention span. But it is a global thing.
Okay, everyone hyper focus. Okay, it's a superpower.
Yeah. Yeah, That's why one of my love languages is to unpack for people when they move. I'm like, please, please give me eight hours of boxes to open.
It's like, yeah, give me a break from my life.
Oh, it's like cat for me.
Okay, we're spinning a wheel.
D We're spinning a wheel.
Well, okay, I read the fan question.
Go okay, who is most likely to blab their best friends secret?
I can't think of anybody in real life, I mean, character wise, I don't know Rachel.
I was going to Rachel too, which is funny because Danielle is such a good, safe vault of a human. But yeah, I think Rachel had that, especially in the high school years. Her character had that default of I'm going to weaponize what I know yet you. So I think that's probably why I think it's I.
Feel like I could see a world where it's Bevin, but it's like a character wise yeah, yeah, character wise but an accident, or like she really is, like she didn't know it was a secret, or she's trying to she's trying to help, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I can see Bevin like saying the secret again on camera Bevin Yeah, and then being.
Like wait, I thought everybody, well, I'll take those two because I can't. I can't think of and even if I could, I wouldn't say it a real life person. No, no, thanks, we like friends.
No, we we've been. We've been vaults for a long time. We shall continue to be. Next up, we have season six episode nineteen called letting Go.
Goodbye, can Goodbye?
See you next week?
Hey, thanks for listening.
Don't forget to leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram at Drama Queen's Oth.
Or email us at Drama Queens at iHeartRadio dot com. See you next time.
We all about that high school drama Girl drama girl, all about them.
High school queens.
We'll take you for a ride at our comic girl sharing for the right teen.
Drama Queenslease my girl up girl fashion, but your tough
Girl you could sit with US Girl Drama, Queens Drama, Quise Drama, Queens Drama Drama, Queens Drama, Queens