There's plenty of both to go around. Skills (Antwon Tanner) is still in a furtive romance with Deb Scott (Barbara Alyn Woods), mother of his close friend and Lucas' half-brother, Nathan Scott (James Lafferty). Nathan is still struggling, post-injury, to fulfill his dream of playing in the National Basketball Association. Brooke (Sophia Bush) is working hard to keep her mother (Daphne Zuniga) from wresting control over the fashion company Brooke started. Marvin (a.k.a. "Mouth") takes a job in Omaha, only to leave his fiancée behind to help Brooke. Little Jamie (Jackson Brundage) becomes close to a Ravens basketball star, Quentin (Robbie Jones), only to experience heartbreak. Dan, Lucas' and Nathan's father--whom we last saw struck by a car--finds himself in a Misery-like nightmare, kept captive by a crazy lady who tortures him and forces him to eat live insects. (Yes, well, perhaps this bit of the season's storyline is ridiculously over-the-top.) Only Haley, Nathan's wife and Jamie's mom, demonstrates her typical equanimity in the face of everyone else's crises. And the crises keep on coming. A significant death devastates everyone. Nathan gets word from his doctor that basketball could cripple him for life. Peyton's health is on the line after becoming pregnant. Brooke is physically assaulted in her own shop. Lucas can't decide who should direct the film version of his autobiographical first novel. Dan awaits word that an available heart can replace his own, failing one. So it goes in Tree Hill, and more than ever, it's hard not to stay engrossed. --Tom Keogh