ONE TREE HILL “The Space in Between” Review

As one could tell from the title of this week’s episode of ONE TREE HILL, we are still dealing with the storyline of Quinn and Clay. A week has passed in Tree Hill and Quinn is recovering nicely. She is awake and growing stronger, but not yet able to leave her bed to see Clay. Clay is still hanging in there, but just barely. He needs a kidney transplant immediately or he won’t make it.

Meanwhile ghost Clay has been hanging around the hospital too, waiting to see what happens next. He is joined in this in between state by another ghost, Will, who kind of shows him the ropes. Most of their time is spent following Nathan and Haley around as Nathan contemplates donating one of his kidneys so that Clay will live. This, for some reason, means that Nathan would never play basketball again. I could almost hear commenter, Carly, from the last review screaming “NO, we worked so hard to get you here.” That sentiment is voiced by ghost Clay although no one can hear him. However, Nathan finally reveals to Haley that the mysterious test we saw in the first episode showed that his back is getting worse. He has a degenerative condition in his back and it is truly unknown how long he would be able to play basketball anyway. After talking it over with Jamie, Nathan decides donation is best for everyone. Too bad he is not a donor match.

As tired as I am of this storyline, I have to admit getting very teary eyed when they thought it was the end for Clay, and Quinn and Haley were crying. I also liked the interaction between Clay and Will. Actually, I was kind of hoping Will would survive and become a One Tree Hill regular. Unfortunately, the writers had other plans for him. Did anyone else predict that Will would play a part in “healing” Clay?

Aside from the hospital drama, other characters found themselves in between as well. Mouth and Millie slept together and then woke up to somewhat awkwardly regret it. It wasn’t until the next morning that they decided to ask each other if they were seeing someone. Both of them are also in between in their careers. Millie is still trying to fix Brooke’s company and Mouth does not have a job. He has been doing sports podcasts, but doesn’t have much of an audience. Brooke is also in between as she is unsure of her fate, both personally and professionally. Victoria decides to step in and act as a mother for once, take some responsibility and save Brooke and her company. Maybe Brooke will finally have her happily ever after.

I know that these letters to Lucas at the beginning of the show are vehicles to move the plot line along and fill in gaps we might not get from dialogue, but I feel they ring hollow. We never heard of Haley writing so regularly to Lucas before and we never hear anything back from him. Is she actually sending these letters or just keeping a journal? And if she is keeping a journal, it is kind of creepy that it is addressed to Lucas. After all, he is not dead. I think there are better ways to accomplish this. For example, tonight they also used Mouth’s podcast where he described various sports movies including Brian’s Song and Rocky that mirrored what was going on with Nathan and Clay. Also, they had people reading the newspaper to Clay which talked about Brooke and Will. Those actions worked, yet were more subtle and believable than the letters to Lucas. What do you think?

Did you enjoy tonight’s episode of One Tree Hill? Are you happy that the shooting storyline won’t be so heavy anymore? I know I am. Does anyone have any idea what Haley’s mysterious test will reveal? We still haven’t found that out. Finally, I have to give a shout out to commenter, Alice, who stated last week that everyone lives on One Tree Hill. I know some major characters have died, but One Tree Hill has stepped away from that arc since Lucas and Peyton left. I guess their departure were kind of deaths as well. Tell us what you thought about tonight’s episode in the comments below.

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