Season 1 Episode 2

The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most

Original Air Date: 9/30/2003
Director: Bryan Gordon
Writer: Mark Schwahn

Two minutes in and Karen is already refusing to go see Lucas play in his first Ravens game.  So mean!  Dan is already counseling Nathan on how to make Lucas look bad.  So much drama in so little time! 

With the start of the game, Lucas is clearly astounded by the skill level of the other team and Whitey pulls him out of the game.  Uh-oh, I can already see where this going...

Peyton catches a ride with Lucas after Nathan tosses her out of his car.  I think everyone wonders again 'why is she with him?'  Nathan heads home only to be reprimanded by his father for not playing quite right, despite the fact that Nathan actually played well.  When Lucas drops Peyton off at her house, they have a heart-to-heart that shows Peyton's depressing moodiness. Karen half-heartedly apologizes for missing the game, but Lucas is upset in a passive aggressive kind of way. 

Nathan half-heartedly apologizes to Peyton.  I still firmly believe Peyton is an idiot and an attention-getter for having a webcam set up in her bedroom for no particular reason, other than to put herself on the net.
The exercise in class is totally unrealistic.  A kid would not get away with calling another kid a bastard in the middle of class.  Lucas attacks Nathan and somehow only gets a lecture.  Point for Lucas! Brooke and

Peyton talk about popularity and it is amazing how shallow Brooke's dreams are.  Yet, it is characteristically true of some teenagers.  Sophia Bush is pitch perfect here. 

After Keith finishes fixing Peyton's car, Lucas spots Peyton's sketchbook and starts looking through it.  Peyton naturally freaks out, yells at him and storms off, without her car oddly enough.  Later, as Karen talks to Lucas about the fight, Lucas sasses her back!  Then he sees Peyton standing outside a shop across the street.  What's she doing there?  Karen tells Lucas about why she felt uncomfortable going to the gym. 

Apparently, that's where Dan told Karen he was leaving her and their baby to go play college basketball. 

Meanwhile, Dan gives Nathan a lecture about not backing off Lucas and how he should try to get him off the team.  Dan also talks about when he played for Whitey in high school.  He claims it was him who lead the team to wins, not Whitey.  He tells Nathan that Whitey is just using Lucas as a way to get back at him.  Dan displays his childish perception of past events.  Even though, I wasn't there, I can tell Dan is delusional.

Nathan confronts Lucas at the River Court and Lucas, for the second time this episode, displays his aggression.  He throws the basketball at Nathan's car like a child.  It was laughable, especially when Nathan

says, "You missed again."  Point for Nathan!

Peyton comes back to Keith's shop and talks to Lucas about why she hasn't shown her drawings to anyone.  She gives a very emo speech about how her drawings don't mean anything to anyone.  Very emo, but it does sound like something an idealistic high schooler would think.  Not say, but think- lol.  Peyton then proceeds to destroy her room, ripping down posters in a very emo-like manner.  It really makes me wonder why her character is supposed to be a cheerleader and how she even got started doing it. 

When Nathan visits her in her bedroom, Peyton encourages him to leave the team if he wants to.  She even says "we" could walk away.  She is clearly willing to leave cheerleading and the popularity contest- if someone will do it with her. Hah!  Also, do these kids parents just not exist?  My parents didn't let

me have a boy in my room through ALL of high school.  Man, I'm jealous of these kids! LOL.

Oddly enough, Lucas walked away from it all.  He didn't show up to practice and attempts to take himself off the team.  After a talk about it with his best friend Haley and a heart-to-heart with his mom, Lucas

decides to play.  He drops off some of Peyton's drawings with someone and rushes off to play!

Dan, playing a little mind game, calls Lucas 'son', but he is foiled by Jake's kind words.  Jake, another player on the team, tells Lucas not to let him take his talent.  Jake is also the guy who gave Lucas the conservative 'Atlas Shrugged' earlier.  Lucas goes on to play and in the top emo-move of the episode, he blacks out his name on his jersey.  Victory for Lucas' sensitivity!  Now, can he actually play?

This show seems difficult, as someone no longer in high school, to watch with a straight face.  The thing is, while I laugh, I also remember times I said or thought something similar.  I guess that's why this show has

been on so long!  Nine years is definitely a long time for a television show!

Quotes:

• Peyton: "If I say that I like it, then I'm just another cheerleader, but if I say that I hate it, then I'm either a liar or a fraud.  Either way I lose."
• Brooke: "I think about the future sometimes and it scares me, but then I think, I'll go to college, I'll join the right sorority, I'll marry a rich guy...unless I get fat."
• Whitey: "I have had 35 winning seasons, but you know what keeps me up at night?  The college jobs I never took.  Could-have-beens have a way of doing that."
• Lucas: "You ever wake up from a really good dream and try really hard to get back to sleep or you've got the flu and promise yourself you'll appreciate normal so much more if you could just get back to it."
• Peyton: "I want to draw something that means something to someone.  You know, I want to draw blind faith, or a fading summer or just a moment of clarity.  It's like when you go and see a really great band, live for the first time and, you know, and nobody's saying it, but everybody's thinking it, we have something to believe in again.  I want to draw that feeling, but I can't.  And if I can't be great at it, then I don't want to ruin it.  It's too important to me."
• Lucas: "Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark.  In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but never been able to reach.  The world you desire can be won.  It exists.  It is real.  It is possible.  It is yours." (Ayn Rand)

Literature Mentions:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Soundtrack:

This episode is named for a song by Dashboard Confessional.
I Don't Want To Be -Gavin DeGraw
 Overdue -The Get Up Kids
Switchback  -Celldweller
Hard to Find  -American Analog Set
Beside Me  -Forty Foot Echo
To Hell With Good Intentions  -McLusky
She's Got It So Phat  -Bosshouse
"Echo" Vertical Horizon
Further  -Longview
Belief  -Gavin DeGraw