Shippy Moment of the Day: "Why Can't Forever Start Today?" (One Tree Hill)

Nathan Proposes to Haley
"Desperate Kingdom of Love" from One Tree Hill Season 2

Recap: Haley and Nathan got married offscreen in the season one finale. In this moment, Haley flashes back to Nathan's proposal.

The Moment:

Nathan's shirt = Cue flashback!

*catcall* Take it off, Haley!

Nathan: Haley.

Oh, Nathan. Super freaked out about his virgin girlfriend's
boundaries. *Sigh* How much do I love him?

Haley: No, it's okay. It's okay.

Hot Naley action! Woo!

I'm such a big fan of nose-to-nose shots, especially the
forehead-to-forehead variety. They are ridiculously cute/intimate.

Nathan: I could love you forever.
Haley: So could I.
Nathan: You're my family now, Haley. The true thing I have. I never wanna lose you.
Haley: You won't.

Nathan? What are you thinking in that ridiculously
cute head of yours?

Haley: What?
Nathan: Marry me.
Haley: Stop it.
Nathan: What, would you?

I like how Haley thinks he's teasing her before she
realizes how serious he is.

Haley: Oh, you're embarrassing me.
Nathan: Why not?
Haley: Because...we're in high school!
Nathan: So what? I'm emancipated.
Haley: Is this about sex? Because I want to wait?
Nathan: No, I can see you caving on that one already.

Yeah. She was totally going to cave. I mean, she was
undressing for him just a minute ago.

Haley: Well, maybe so. Nathan, couples don't get married in high school. It's just--it's not normal.

Completely serious. Completely in love.

Nathan: So? I'm not normal. What I'm feeling is definitely not normal and to be honest with you, Haley, I don't ever want to normal. Not with you. I'm serious.

And suddenly, so is she.

Haley: I know you are.


Nathan: Okay, so I'll say it again. I could love you forever.
Haley: Nathan, so could I, but--
Nathan: So then, why can't forever start today?

Happy Haley!

Thoughts: How can anyone NOT love Naley? Seriously. Ignore the Brooke/Lucas/Peyton love triangle. Nathan/Haley is and always will be the heart of One Tree Hill.

What I love about this scene is how clearly it exemplifies the relationship that they share. They're completely, desperately, head-over-heels in love. The scene has lust/passion, playful banter, but, most importantly, an open forum to discuss important issues. Nathan took a huge risk proposing to his girlfriend of less than a year. It shows how much he trusts Haley with his hopes, dreams, and future, especially after a year of upheaval.

From Haley's side, she's the logical one. She has to go through steps A-Z before making a decision. Which is why it impresses me even more that Nathan was able to convince her to marry him. Nathan is able to make her feel loved and safe. She is able to throw caution to the wind because of how deeply she loves him and how much she knows he loves her.

I mean, of course there are the obvious concerns about two sophomores in high school getting married. Especially from Nathan's side, he's been through a lot in the past year. He's been thrown out of his throne at the top of the hierarchy with his cheerleader girlfriend and overbearing father. He's been forced to compete with his half-brother. The only real constant has been his growing relationship with Haley. It could be argued that Nathan is turning to her for stability, but as the seasons continue, it's clear how much Nathan (still) loves Haley. Obviously, their marriage is not typical or recommended, but the show was smart enough to keep them together through it all. Because, let's face it: without Naley, who would watch?

Gossip Girl Season Premiere!

It was pretty much amazing. Here are my five favorite moments.

5. Dan walking in while Serena and Nate are kissing. Classic teen drama for a reason, and they reaped all the benefits it bestows.

4. When Blair and Serena are gossiping about the summer and Chuck walks by. Because Serena? Is pretty bad at picking up on the not-so-subtle clues Blair often drops.

3. Pretty much anything Erik said. "Yeah. Uh, 'How well do you know Blair Waldorf?' is kinda boring for those of us who actually know Blair Waldorf." Plus his turn as Jenny's gay knight in armor made for an excellent showing for Mr. Van der Woodsen. I'm so happy he's (rumored to be) getting a boy toy this season that's not a douche in the closet.

2. When James/Marcus dropped his American accent and started talking in his English lord British accent mid-sentence to an amazed Blair. ("Milord!") I sincerely hope Ed Westwick will use his real British accent to mock Marcus' at some point. BTW, Patrick Heusinger, who I cannot wait to get more of, is actually American (born in Florida), a graduate of Julliard, and recently finished doing the national tour of Spamalot.

and the best scene?

1. "Give me a reason. And 'I'm Chuck Bass' doesn't count."


Although, you know, there are still questions. Where was Vanessa? Why was PsychoBitch Granny being nice (probably because Kelly Rutherford wasn't available for filming)? Why is Nate with a cougar? Why is there so little backlash from Nate and Blair's break-up (since Chuck feels free to talk about his designs on her in front of Nate)? And why are Dan and Serena back together, especially when Dan has become even more of a judgmental jerk and probably slept with all of NYC over the summer?

But all in all, totally squeal-worthy. This season promises to be just as good, if not better, than last season.

On a One Tree Hill side note? Lucas, you picked wrong. You could have had classy, articulate Lindsay or generous, strong Brooke and you chose whiny-ass Peyton. Like I'm actually going to watch the Lucas and Peyton show. Please.

A Thought on Graduation

My dad asked me today why I don't graduate after the end of junior year if I have enough credits. I explained to him the whole "three majors with a minor" thing and he still didn't seem to get it. Whatever. My parents said I could go anywhere and promised to pay for undergraduate. So I'm staying for the whole four years, goshdarnit.

But, despite my inner family financial angst, the talk made me think about graduation.

Sometimes I think about how I'm going to graduate in a purple robe and I die a little inside. Sometimes I remember graduating in a red flimsy gown of cheapness and I cringe. Here's a little dedication to the graduation attire of our favorite teen shows.

All graduations are high school unless noted.

Also, I've cataloged where their tassels are in respect to their status as graduates, since we all know there's no consensus on that little detail.

Red

Felicity (High School)

To pull a Topanga or not pull a Topanga...that it the question.
Graduated: Left

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

I remember Buffy's diploma being a little more scorched
in canon. Love Willow's shoes.
Graduated: Left

Roswell

I didn't watch this show. I probably should at some point
since it's right up my alley (romantic angst + aliens). But I
remembered that their robes were red and they were!
Graduated: Right

Smallville

Chloe: Where's Lana?
Clark: Probably hiding in Lex's mansion after killing her boyfriend's mom.
Chloe: At least she won't outshine me in the graduation photos.
Not Graduated: Left

Blue

Dawson's Creek

Katie! Before she popped out her dress-like-me Barbie.
Not Graduated: Left

Felicity (College)

Oh, Felicity. With the rarely-seen college graduation.

Graduated: Left (Good in-show continuity!)

One Tree Hill

And then Haley has her baby! NALEY 4-EVA.
Not Graduated/Graduated: Right (They didn't move their tassels.)

Black

Gilmore Girls (High School)

Chilton's colors were blue and white, but they're classy
and college-prep, so they have cool black robes.
Not Graduated: Left

Gilmore Girls (College)
Wow. I guess despite where I left off with Rory as a petty
criminal living in her grandparents' boathouse,
she did manage to graduate.
Graduated: Left (BAD in-show continuity!)

Green

Veronica Mars

Oh, my sassy little detective. Our only grad in green.
Graduated: Left

Random Crap

The O.C.

If I were forced to wear a lei to my graduation...there would
be blood. Notable also for the different colors for each gender.
Not Graduated: Right

Really just makes you think if they bought some of these robes in bulk and handed them off to multiple shows, especially the red. Although it's interesting to see how their graduation bling differs, with medals and stoles, etc. At my school, you could have an NHS tassel or a Maine Scholar stole and that was it. How rocking would it be to have a fricking medal?

Also, this study further proves how ridiculous the whole tassel thing is and how no one can get it right.

According to the Academic Costume Code and Ceremony Guide, there is no regulation on how to wear your tassel. However, they also state that typically, the tassel is worn to the right until the degree is received; then the tassel is switched to the left. Some say it started for ceremonial reasons; another, more practical reason for it being on the right is because the tassel won't be in front of the graduate's face during photos (as graduates usually cross the stage from house right to house left). That means every one of our graduates is a-okay, even the self-contradicting Gilmore Girls, since it can be assumed that Chilton and Yale have different tassel procedures (but why Chilton would purposefully differ from the Ivies is a far more pertinent question).

So...what color do you want to wear?

I Went to a Stupid CW Prom and All I Got Was This Lousy Dress

After re-watching Smallville's prom episode, "Spirit," I've decided to do a little CW prom dress cataloging. Because, let's face it. For a network that is supposed to be up with the trends and what the young people wear, most of their shows have awful formal wear choices.

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

What a fabulous photo. If only Buffy's dress could have been half as fabulous.

Ug. I think if there had been no build to the dress ("Angel's gonna lose it!"), I wouldn't dislike it as much. The color is nice and shimmer-y, if not eye-catching. But then you start looking at it. It gathers in weird places and it doesn't look like it fits right around the bust, as if it's about to fall off of her at any second and expose her. And then it has that awful brooch that's been pinned lopsided.

And that weird train. To top it all off, the material ends up looking a little cheap. I read somewhere that it was a Vera Wang dress; I guess it just proves that even the almighty Vera can mess up.

Willow has a more traditional prom dress and she looks lovely. Plus cool hair. And spiffy-looking Oz.

I like Anya's dress because it has a very vintage feel with the lace and the patterned red. You really believe that a vengeance demon who lived through the Bolshevik Revolution would see that in a store and come to terms with it as an appropriate compromise of the fashion of all her times.

But the best dress?

That, dear Buffy, is how you wear a show-stopping dress. One that is in-character and gorgeous with a total wow-factor.

Eat it up, Wesley.

One Tree HillOh. My. God. Ta-cky. Haley, the pregnant valedictorian in go-go boots, Peyton in a nice-color, but unremarkable dress post-kidnapping, and Brooke in what Nina Garcia calls the ultimate tacky sin: shiny, tiny, and short. I can get behind the short prom dress thing. Kind of. But if you're gonna wear it with hooker boots or sequins, I'm just going to have to stamp "FUGLY" on it.

And let's not even start on the men. I mean, I can get behind Skill's leather or Mouth's powder blue retro look ensemble because they both fit the characters. But Lucas has that poorly-cut, poorly-accented white jacket and is that a velvet coat on Nathan? What's wrong with a plain black tux with an accent matching your date's dress? Nothing, I say! It's a classic for a reason.

Why was the tackiness of this cast's entire ensemble not kept in check? *le sigh*

Edit: Apparently there was a reason for the tackiness. Since I didn't watch the fourth season of OTH, I didn't know the prom episode followed a trip to a vintage store for their ensembles. I still say that there are ways to do vintage and mean business. See Mouth. But even if it's 70's, they're dressed more for clubbing than prom-ing, as evidenced by That 70's Show.

Floor-length! Muted Colors! Floral! Prom's an effing big deal no matter what decade you're in and you don't go dressed like a tramp or an Emma Peel Wanna-Be. To conclude: WB/CW shows should showcase awesome dresses, even if they are from a 70's vintage shop, that every teen girl will drool over. That, and the customary awww! romantic dancing! parts.

Also, I will never excuse Nathan or Lucas' jackets. Or their hair. Eek.

Smallville
What's great about this prom episode is that we get the spirit of a Super-Prom Supporter and thus we get, when she inhabits Lois' body, the most cliched prom dress ever:

It's like the nightmare prom dress that mated with your Miss Junior Tacky formal wear selection. And for that reason, it's fabulous. Good job, Smallville costumers for finding the worst prom dress ever. It's hot pink and it's shiny and I love it.

Chloe has a halter dress. It's very nice, modern with the criss-crossed banding, although a bit strange when the banding leaves gaps. It highlights what fans of Smallville call her "Chloevage."

Yay, prom queen.

But, my friends, Smallville also features the motherload of sincere prom awesomeness in the form of Miss Lana Lang.

Lana! For as much as I hate her character, she does look stunning 99% of the time. And here she is just gorgeous. Just beautiful. This is a dress and an entrance that will make your commitment-phobe, super-powered love interest "lose it." Admittedly, it's a fairly simple sweetheart-cut A-line dress. But what really sells it is that it's expertly styled and fits her perfectly. WIN. And best prom look I've seen on TV or in real life.

(Side Note: Kristin Kreuk is the halfie that I want to be. Or, you know, Michaela Conlin from Bones. Whatever.)

You Know You Love Me (But You Don't Know Who I Am)

GOSSIP GIRL

I will preface everything by saying I didn't read the books. Not that that should be a shocker to anyone since I have not read a novel outside of class since January and that was Princess Mia from the Princess Diaries series. I like my teen chick lit fluffy and angsty in only the most teenage way-- "Does the love of my life know I exist? Will I fail Calculus?"--because, that, my friends, is how high school worked for me. The only book I read (it had some vain title about loving oneself or being awesome or rich or something) featured Blair, I think, three pages in, talking about how rich she was and how pretty she was and how she was going to have sex with her really hot boyfriend and how she was going to get into Yale. Which is quite ridiculous and grating and so the book was shelved.

But the actual show? Pretty addictive. But, gentle reader, you ask, "What's different about the show? How is it less annoying?"

Let's just say Josh Schwartz has learned much from his years on The O.C.. He's learned to create characters (yes, he's created them and they are not nearly as vain or pompous or just plain weird as in the books) that are flawed in ways that make sure we don't hate them. But more importantly, he's learned how to weave a plot that is heightened but not One Tree Hill-ridiculous.

(GG's Serena, an excerpt: I left town because I had sex with my best friend's boyfriend and then was present when a guy overdosed on coke! And now I'm dating a social outsider!)

(OTH's Peyton, an excerpt: My mom's dead! No, that was my adoptive mom! My biological mom has cancer! She's dead! But I have a brother! He's my brother! No, he's a stalker! My actual brother's black!...and during all this time, she romanced her ex-boyfriend's brother/best friend's boyfriend, a teen parent, and Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy.)

But let's get back to the characters. While I do think all of the characters have a point (and it's a common and deadly problem when characters don't), few of them are actually compelling, even if they're all very good-looking.

Penn Badgley plays Dan. I first fell in love with him in
John Tucker Must Die. He's much hotter in Gossip Girl, though.

Serena spends most of her time looking sad. Nate is either smoking pot, trying to sex up Serena or Blair, or looking sad. Dan pretends he's not judgmental when he kicks his damaged girlfriend to the curb repeatedly. Jenny wants to be Queen Bee.

The only characters I care about are Blair, Chuck, Rufus, and Lily. BECAUSE THEY'RE INTERESTING. They change! They do unexpected things! Blair loses her virginity, but not to her boyfriend of the past million years! Chuck falls in love! Rufus and Lily combat her need for stability and cash and his desire to fix his marriage! These are characters to get behind: the ones who are not one-note but change and evolve as the season progresses.

I mean, I suppose Serena falls into that protagonist problem of lacking character but not adventure. But I wonder endlessly why we should accept boring main characters and watch shows for secondary characters only (Smallville, you must admit, stars a pretty lackluster Clark Kent and features pretty awesome backers like Chloe and Lex).

When it comes down to it (although I've articulated this all in a horribly roundabout way), Gossip Girl is not good because it takes us into the world of privilege. It's not good because of the characters. It's certainly not good because of the dialogue ("Little did I know she had a surprise waiting for me..."). But it's because of really well-woven plots with great set-ups and even greater payoffs.

Some examples:

• Eric's suicide attempt and the reveal that he's Jenny's boyfriend's boyfriend.
• Blair/Jenny power rivalry (which Blair owns).
• Serena's real secret and Georgina.
  

When Gossip Girl fails, it's because the show relies too much on the characters alone or doesn't use enough set-up. (It takes really strong characters to build a show around them and not so much the plot; see Psych.)

Examples:

• Nate/Vanessa. Charming? Yes. Believable? No.
• Serena/Dan. Completely fell into the Clark/Lana trap of having a relationship mini-trauma each episode which really made you question why the heck they were together in the first place, minor cute moments aside. You can't rely on the cute moments to pull the viewer through the crap. We remember the crap, especially if you throw it at us every episode.

So! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch Season One of Gossip Girl. It's fab and Blair is bringing the headband back in a good way.

On a Disney Channel Note:

Doesn't Taylor Momsen totally look like Aly Michalka from Aly & AJ?