Dreams are what drive us. Without them, we have no forward momentum. Dreams are also what drive One Tree Hill. With most characters so unsure of the future, this episode felt like it had a flat tire.

The biggest disappointment was Mouth. Giving up your dream job for your dream girl is crazy. Brooke will get back on track. Other than helping her, Millie has no burning career desire. Wait a few months and she can move back to Omaha! Your real dream girl would be one that supports you when you get the big break. Mouth needed to come back to Tree Hill but there had to be a better way to do it than to force him to deny his destiny. It seems like lazy writing.

Not as lazy as Haley’s storyline. What happened to that new record she was recording? Isn’t that the whole reason they got a nanny in the first place? Her singing career hasn’t really been mentioned this season. Get the girl back in the studio. Give Peyton a great record to put out. Do something, anything. Haley deserves it and so do OTH fans. We aren’t just going to forget it because the writers did.

Lucas actually did accomplish something wonderful – a second novel. His dreams were taken away from him by a corporate machine interested in selling product not promoting literature. There are so many roads he can go down from here. Hopefully love will help him get back on course and not force him to the shoulder. Peyton has always been his biggest fan so that should carry him forward (I say this through the gritted teeth of one who hates the two of them together!). But he can’t afford to wallow in self pity. That was last season. He only gets one of those before we lose interest.

Lucas has to stay strong anyway to help Peyton. She had her ‘dream dad’ scenario crushed. And I was wrong. Mick is her dad. An alcoholic loser of a rock musician dad. It was a romantic idea that her birth father could be this really cool guy already in her rock god orbit. She saw potential in him but he doesn’t see it yet. Instead he walked away and Peyton lost her third parent.

The Brooke/Samantha pairing has a lot of potential. Brooke is in neutral until she finds some focus in her life. Giving her a bucket list, as Millie did, is merely a diversion. Fostering a teenager should shift her story into high gear.

Millie herself has no story. She has written down everything Brooke ever wanted to do but what does she want out of life? It has to be more than Mouth because love alone does not sustain the soul. Millie started out with such great promise: scattered but efficient, silly but smart, nervous but always standing up for what was right. Now she appears to be little more than a plot device to keep Mouth with the rest of the gang. She needs to have something of her own that she’s passionate about to gain momentum.

Moving forward isn’t a problem for Nathan. Thankfully someone in Tree Hill will still do anything to get where they want to be. Slamball is cool and dangerous and sure to be bad for Nathan’s back. But won’t it be fun to watch him go for it?

When dreams die, others have to take their place. With so many characters striving for nothing, One Tree Hill is spinning its wheels.