JM McNab
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Teen shows have gotten pretty wild these days. Their stories feature everything from demonic role-playing games to underground juvenile prison fight clubs to maple syrup waterboarding-- and those are all just from the most recent season of Riverdale. But even the teen shows we typically regard as aggressively normal have dipped their toes into madness. It's time to remember such bonkers episodes as ...
One Tree Hill was the hit WB drama about half-brothers Nathan and Lucas Scott, and their lives in the small town of Tree Hill. It was not home to zombies, vampires, or any of the other crazy stuff the creators would throw in if the show was made today. Starring heartthrob Chad Michael Murray, the show was loaded with steamy romance and the occasional murder. But despite the show's typical soapy drama, one episode featured perhaps the most randomly baffling scene in the history of television.
In Season 6, the Scott boys' father Dan is in desperate need of a heart transplant, and in "Searching For A Former Clarity," he is finally about to receive one. But it seems Dan offended some kind of trickster god offscreen, because after his heart is helicoptered in ...
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... and driven to the hospital ...
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... the paramedic carrying it trips over a dog's leash, spilling the heart onto the floor. It's a country music lyric made manifest.
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Who brings a dog to a hospital? Well, at least it can't do any more damage than- oh dear god, no.
With that kind of setup, we're surprised they didn't have a Scooby-Doo door chase routine.
Yeah, since no one seemed too bothered about immediately picking up the lifesaving organ, that dog straight up eats the heart. This is the kind of thing you expect to see in a John Waters movie, not a teen melodrama. The reason for all this? The dog's owner is a stoner who accidentally let the pooch eat three ounces of "Lebanese hash." And because weed apparently makes you forget what a veterinarian is, he ended up at a hospital. So basically, the dog got the munchies. Weirder still is how Lucas reacts after witnessing this apex of cosmic insanity. He just kind of shoots his dad a "Sucks to be you" look.
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Warner Brothers TelevisionWe want to make a snarky joke about this tragic situation, but we simply don't have the heart.
By the way, this isn't, like, a big finale moment. This entire sequence occurs before the opening credits have even stopped rolling! According to The Ringer's oral history of just this scene, when Murray read the script, he asked: "Are we really doing this? Are you just f*cking with us?" And even on set, he still lamented: "I can't f*cking believe this is happening." And at the risk of spoiling the magic, they actually used a pig's heart, because according to one producer: "We weren't going to kill an ape." And speaking of dogs randomly eating things ...
For those who ever wanted to see a guy who has admitted to sexually abusing underage girls rant and rave about the horrors of exactly one doobie, well, we have precisely the episode of 7th Heaven for you. From the second season of The WB's Christian drama, the episode "Who Knew?" opens with teenager Matt being given a joint by a friend at school. He then drops it as soon as he gets home, leaving it to be picked up by the family dog, Happy. At least now he looks like he's living up to his name.
Paramount Domestic TelevisionFrankly, we have no idea how this shot didn't make it into the opening credits.
Later, family patriarch Reverend Camden comes home and is shocked when Happy coughs up the joint as if it were a common human heart.
Paramount Domestic TelevisionThe idea that this is a message from God to chill out for once is never entertained, despite seeming rather obvious.
It's not long before the reverend gathers the family in the living room, like Poirot rounding up suspects in a study. He threatens to "drug test" all of his children before Matt eventually owns up. Reverend Camden then creates an open dialogue to discuss drugs, peer pressure, and- just kidding, he screams at Matt as if he murdered a puppy on Christmas Day.
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Matt then storms out of the house, and his dad pounds on the door like he's in a Tennessee Williams play.
Paramount Domestic Television"Open this door! Don't think I don't know how to get into a teenager's bedroom!"
This scene makes Reefer Madness look like a Seth Rogen movie. Anyway, Matt ends up praying to God for forgiveness so he won't get "baked" in the fiery depths of Hell for all eternity.
Unless it surfaces that Lil Wayne had a bit part on My So-Called Life, we're guessing that Drake is the only superstar rapper to date to begin his career acting on a teen drama. Drake (then Aubrey Graham) starred as the lovable Jimmy on Degrassi: The Next Generation. In a particularly dark two-part episode, Jimmy is gunned down by a school shooter, and he is then confined to a wheelchair for the rest of the series.
It's an intense moment for a Canadian teen show. Their fare usually doesn't get edgier than a homeless German shepherd somehow fighting crime. MTV called the episode "a harrowing look at how toxic masculinity, bullying, and unregulated access to guns." So what leads to this dramatic scene? It's ... dumber than you might think.
The gunman, Rick, was bullied at school, but mostly because he shoved his ex-girlfriend into a rock and put her in a coma. So when he wins a school game show, a couple of students slime him. Rick mistakenly thinks that Jimmy was the one behind the silming, leading to the shooting.
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Now, you might be thinking, "Wait, hang on. Isn't this supposed to be the origin story for a school shooter? Did a few paragraphs get deleted?" Nope! That's what sets the kid off. That's not a harrowing look at bullying or homicidal radicalization; that's how Nickelodeon built its empire. Carrie White got doused in pig's blood, and she didn't even put anyone in a coma. At least Rick would later get his comeuppance in Drake's music video for "I'm Upset," which reunited the Degrassi cast. The last we see of Rick, he's being chased by Drake's real-life buddies.
Except Rick dies at the end of the episode. So who's that supposed to be in the video? The actor? A ghost? Presumably it's up to the Canadian prime minister, or possibly the queen of Britain, to decide what's canon in the Degrassi-verse.
For those who either weren't alive in the '90s or had lives in the outside world that didn't revolve around television, let us attempt to explain Beverly Hills 90210. It was essentially a prime-time soap opera in which fully grown adults pretended to be teenagers, and America absolutely loved it. Don't believe us? Just ask one of the 90210 dolls they made for some reason.
Over the course of the show, that group of lovable teens was subjected to every trauma you could imagine. Dylan's dad was blown up by a car bomb, David's buddy accidentally shot himself, and Kelly became addicted to everything a human being could conceivably become addicted to. Still, one seventh-season episode went particularly nutty.
"We Interrupt This Program" finds Brandon and Donna working at the college TV station when one of their colleagues, Evan, admits that he's obsessed with (and stalking) Donna. When she doesn't reciprocate his creepy advances, he pulls out a gun and holds everyone hostage! It's like Die Hard, but with worse acting and way more pastel colors.
CBS Television DistributionOf course, this was before "lunatic with gun" events were as common news as the weather.
Evan doesn't want money, or even bearer bonds; he merely wants Donna to go on camera and tell Ameri- sorry, the population of California University, how much she loves him. Which would be much more convincing if he wasn't also on camera pointing a gun at her.
CBS Television Distribution"Let's use this photo for the Christmas card this year."
While this setup could have teed up an exciting action sequence, instead the writers opt to have Donna save the day by ... agreeing to make out with Evan. It's quite gross and uncomfortable, but Evan does put down his gun, allowing her to grab it. So maybe one day we'll get a more open-minded Die Hard remake where John McClane and Hans Gruber settle their differences with smooching.
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CBS Television DistributionBeing a serious drama, we're sure the rest of the season is about Donna processing this trauma, and it's not something that gets forgotten by the next episode. Right?
Oddly, the episode also features a comedic B-plot wherein two characters worry that their parents are dating. Which seems kind of inconsequential and tone-deaf, considering that their friends are being held at gunpoint by a hormone-addled psycho.
Remember Smallville? The teen superhero show that spent ten years chronicling how young Clark Kent grows up to become Superman, whom we got to see for like four seconds at the end? The show has been in the news again in recent years, but only because one of its stars, Allison Mack, was second-in-command of a "sex cult" that tried to lure in celebrities like Emma Watson. Yup, it isn't slash fic from the darkest corners of the internet; Superman's friend tried to turn Hermione Granger into a brainwashed sex puppet.
Which made us wonder if Smallville itself ever tackled the issue of cults. Turns out it did, though the results were more goofy than horrifying. The episode "Harvest," from the show's final season, begins with Clark Kent and Lois Lane running into car trouble. For some reason, Clark's myriad superpowers don't give them an easy fix for this. Thankfully, they're taken in by local townspeople seemingly left over from that M. Night Shyamalan movie.
Warner Brothers Television"The clothes? They're from The Gap. Fashion is going through one of those weird trends."
Naturally, it turns out the villagers are part of a cult -- though after reading about what a certain cast member was up to, it's hard not to find these guys slightly adorable, since they aren't mutilating anyone's genitals or anything.
Warner Brothers TelevisionThough it sure looks like they tied Jack Skellington to a roulette table at some point.
Unfortunately, there's blue kryptonite in the village, rendering the superpowered Clark vulnerable. And by "vulnerable," we mean he takes a scythe to the belly, leaving his guts practically hanging out.
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They then bury Clark alive, but he survives and heads back to town armed with a goddamn shotgun! Maybe we all owe Zack Snyder an apology.
Warner Brothers Television"My mother's name is 'Remington' too!"
As Lois is about to be sacrificed to blue Kryptonite fire (for crop-related reasons, duh), Clark steps in and protects her. Of course, since he's Superman (eventually), the fire doesn't cause him too much trou- nope, all the skin gets burned off his back.
Warner Brothers TelevisionIt takes a real effort for TV effects to look especially fake.
He heals up quickly, and Lois tells the villagers that they've angered a god. And sure, they're an evil cult, but this still somehow feels vaguely unethical. And it seems almost being Wicker Man-d is the ultimate aphrodisiac, because at the end of the episode, Clark and Lois have sex for the first time.
Warner Brothers TelevisionYou sure you don't want to try a little hand stuff first to make sure it doesn't fire lasers or something?
For some reason, the hundreds of candles in the bedroom don't remind them of the fact that they were just almost burned to death.
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