OTH: "Truth is the best vindication against slander"

Four main storylines came to a head during Monday's One Tree Hill episode that was all about love and happiness. Below is a recap of the action.

- Brooke is still mad at Julian, mostly because he insists on working with Alex even though he knows Brooke does not trust her. Brooke even tells Julian she wanted to marry him - past tense - and Julian reassures Brooke that he wants to be with her forever.
- Through flashes of memories and the past, we get a small glimpse into Quinn and David's life. We see that at one point in their relationship they were really happy and really loved one another. But in multiple flashes we see Quinn pointing out and saying to David that he needs to be happy. We see that David wants success and is willing to put his dreams on hold for financial security, which pisses off Quinn who doesn't want things to change. Even after seeing moments from their past, I do not fully understand why Quinn feels the way she does. I think this is all the explanation we are going to be given, but honestly I think Quinn is making up this change that she thinks broke apart her marriage.
- We also learn that (no surprise here) Clay's ex-wife Sara is actually a ghost who died recently. We see a bit of their history - also through flashes of their past - and realize that they really loved one another. When Sara died suddenly, it left Clay feeling like a piece of him was missing. We now also understand his womanizer ways; Clay is afraid to let another woman into his life because he thinks he would be erasing Sara. But at the end of the episode Sara gives Clay permission to move on and be happy, and hopefully he will take this to heart.
- This episode was judgment day for Nathan. Renee appeared on Dan's show and the truth was finally going to come out. During the show we see flashes of the party, as seen through Renee's eyes, and we realize that she is fabricating the flirtation. The show is live, so when Dan tells Renee they are going to perform a lie detector test, she seems a little weirded out, but she agrees. The lie detector says she is not lying when she answered the question about sleeping with Nathan, but then Dan hooks himself up to the lie detector to show that it was rigged. Then, through Dan's persuasion, Renee admits it was all a lie and agrees to drop it all.

One side note: when they showed the scar on Dan's chest, are we supposed to assume that means he got his heart transplant? Did we know this? Or is he lying about it? Someone please remind me if you know.

I enjoyed this James Lafferty-directed episode for its artfulness and appreciate that it tied up some loose ends. But who wants to guess that the real father of Renee's baby is actually Clay? I feel like that is the next appropriate jump. We'll have to wait and see though.

As for next week's episode, it looks like a fun one: The men go camping and leave the women to have a girls night. We need some funny following a few weeks of heavy stuff. I'm looking forward to laughing with these characters. Until then...