Monday brings a very special episode of One Tree Hill.  After Chad Michael Murray and Bethany Joy Galeotti have already stepped behind the camera to direct episodes this season, now it's Paul Johansson's turn.  The actor who plays Dan Scott directed this Monday's new episode.

The CW released a video clip from the episode as well as creator Mark Schwahn's own personal preview.
 
According to the official One Tree Hill episode preview, "Julian makes Brooke a startling offer.  Lucas brings Nathan and Jamie to an important place from his past, while Peyton prepares for the future.  Sam and Jack take a stand against the principal who fired Haley.  Skills takes Mouth on a road trip to get his mind off Millie."

The first video is Mark Schwahn's usual preview setting up the basic premise of the episode. Schwahn always has some sort of pitch about what makes an episode so special and it's always interesting to hear how he'll make an individual chapter in the serial stand out as a must see, one of a kind treat. Once again he says it's a 'big' episode but his logic is a little different this week. Schwann makes "Letting Go" sound like more of a character study, the kind that may not advance the major storylines as much in a literal sense but adds a lot of emotional impact that will pay off later. If so, it should be the kind of episode that stays in fans' hearts even after some of the week to week shockers blur together in the mind.



I love the second video, the scene from "Letting Go." Haley stood up for Sam. Now Sam and Jack return the favor. Perhaps in real life rebelling against Principal Rimkus wouldn't help anything. Maybe it would only put the school administration's back up against a wall and make them feel like they have to defend their original decision to fire Haley, even once they realized they had made a mistake. Maybe it won't help anything here, either. But the look on Principal Rimkus' face suggests that at least on television life is a little sweeter than that. Their civil disobedience may have actually been heard.



There's no real distracting from the lingering questions that will haunt the rest of the season - What will happen to Lucas and Peyton, and how will Chad Michael Murray's apparent departure from One Tree Hill effect that? But I'm looking forward to seeing some nice development of Skills' and Mouth's characters and perhaps some nice scenes of Jackson Brundage bonding with the men.



-Henry Jenkins, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of The CW)