One Tree Hill and George I

With great big bunches of shamefacedness, I admit, I watch One Tree Hill. I was watching Smallville (maybe it was Gilmore Girls) at 8 pm, I didn't want to have to get up from my seat and get back to work, and there it was, all dramatic-like, trying to suck me in at 9 pm. I've got to say, it had a fascinating premise, one with which I consoled myself so I wouldn't feel so dirty or ashamed: two brothers (separated by 3 months), two different mothers. He chooses the "favorite" mother and son, Nathan, and disowns the other mother and son, Lucas. One son is born to a life of privilege, the other has a mom struggling to make ends meet and deals with social stigma. And now ... both of them are on the same basketball team and have to learn how to interact. It raises really interesting questions about nature vs. nurture, family, responsibility, etc.

Well, at some point in the television series--okay, maybe it was from the very first episode--part of the driving force of the series became that their father, Dan, was evil. Every season they'd have to up the ante about just how despicable the guy could be: whereas the first season Dan was just trying to control his favorite son, in the second season he pays a woman to date and then dump his own brother, and then in the third season he actually kills him and blames the murder on someone else. Perhaps in the fourth season he shall be even more evil, perhaps performing a zombie ritual that will force his dead brother to serve him for eternity.

Since I'll have to wait until at least the fall for them to air the zombie episode, I was pleasantly surprised to read about a kind of "bizarro world Dan" who was just as controlling over his son: George I, an 18th century monarch. The following excerpt from J. H. Plumb's The First Four Georges is like something out of One Tree Hill, if Dan Scott had only been made king of England instead of a car salesman. Now, George I was George II's father, and the Princess of Wales was George II's wife, and George I and George II were Hanoverian--George I couldn't really speak English, and George II had a thick accent:

"The Princess of Wales gave birth to a baby boy. The Prince [George II] wished to [choose] its godparents, the King insisted on the protocol, named them himself, and included, again, according to the protocol, his Chamberlain, the Duke of Newcastle, whom the Prince detested. At the ceremony the Prince failed to control his feelings, took Newcastle by the elbow and said, "Rascal, I find you out." Newcastle was easily put in a twitter, and this mark of royal displeasure, combined with the Prince's rather strong accent, put him in such a dither that he thought the Prince had said, "I'll fight you." Appaled and confused he rushed to consult his colleagues .... They advised him to go to the King, so he did, and told him that he had been challenged. The King immediately placed the Prince under what was virtually house arrest--without bothering to ask him for his version of the story.... [George I] also seized their children, secured a decision from the judges that he had the right to control their education, rapped the Prince and Princess over the knucles for visiting their children secretly, and rationed them to one visit a week so long as notice was given to him first" (55-56).

That could basically be the plot for season four of One Tree Hill. Okay, granted, Dan is not king, but he was recently elected mayor, so he's got some power. And Nathan, Dan's favorite son, is married and could get his wife pregnant. (Side note: Nathan's wife wanted to remain a virgin until she was married, which might have been one factor in Nathan's decision to marry her in high school. I think it's pretty daring for a drama to show someone with that degree of respect for virginity and for a story to explore a marriage between high-schoolers.) And season 3 ended on the pregnancy cliff-hanger moment where someone--we think it is a woman--has taken a pregnancy test, and it was positive. One of these possibly pregnant people is Nathan's wife. Dude, I have totally plotted season four of One Tree Hill! Dan is going to get custody of Nathan and Halley's baby because Nathan will have said something like, "Rascal, I've found you out," and someone will mishear it as, "I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die!" and he will claim Halley is an unfit mother because she used to be a rock star. And to add to all of that, Dan's brother (the one he killed) got Lucas's mom pregnant last season, and I betcha Dan's going to try to control that kid too once it's born! Bastard! (I am referring to Dan, not to the illegitimate offspring.)