"An Attempt to Tip the Scales" is the fourth episode of Season 3 of One Tree Hill and originally aired October 26th, 2005. The episode was written by Stacy Rukeyser and directed by Janice Cooke.
It's party time in Tree Hill as a masquerade ball at Tric provides the perfect opportunity for Haley to attempt to win back Nathan's heart and for Brooke to seduce Lucas. Peyton struggles to comes to reconcile her relationship with Ellie with the influence of her adoptive parents. Meanwhile, Dan gives Deb an ultimatum, but he soon discovers she's a much more worthy opponent than he thought.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Karen tries to look like a cool mom as she introduces Fall Out Boy. It doesn’t go well.
- The Cameo: Fall Out Boy perform at Tric.
- Costume Copy Cat: Invoked by Chris Keller, who dresses up in the same Batman costume as Nathan.
- Evil Is Petty: Dan films a compromising video of Mayor Mullins tied to a bed with two attractive women in lingerie to blackmail him into stepping down as mayor of Tree Hill and endorsing Dan as a candidate, purely because Mullins undermined Dan’s attempt to get Whitey fired.
- Fanservice: The masquerade ball gives us a tattooed Lucas wearing tight leather and a vest that shows off his muscles, a gothic Peyton in fishnets and combat boots, and Brooke dressed as a sexy devil.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Brooke wanted invoke this imagery with her and Peyton’s costumes; she just didn’t account for Peyton to put a darker twist on the angel concept by reimagining it as the Angel of Death.
- Halloween Episode: Zig-zagged. The initial air date was appropriate for a themed episode and the characters all don costumes for a party at Tric, but at no point is the word "Halloween" ever spoken aloud and the episode notably lacks any set dressing that dates the episode as taking place over late October.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Brooke gets Haley to tell Lucas to dress like Tommy Lee in an attempt to humiliate him as she thinks they’re the least sexy band of all time; she doesn’t account for other people not sharing the opinion and winds up watching him spend the night dancing with a curvy fake blonde in a very tight dress.
- Internal Reveal: Haley finds out Lucas has been lying about his HCM.
- Leitmotif: Lucas arrives at Tric in his Tommy Lee costume as Mötley Crüe’s "Girls, Girls, Girls" plays in the background.
- Shout-Out:
- Lucas tries on a variety of costumes at the start of the episode, including Elvis Presley and Captain Jack Sparrow, before settling on Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe.
- Nathan dresses as Batman, specifically in the costume from Batman Begins.
- Haley dresses up as bad girl Sandy from the climax of Grease.
- Mouth dresses as Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever.
- Lucas is approached by a girl wearing a blonde wig & red leather dress, claiming to dressed as Pamela Anderson.
- Titled After the Song: The episode title is taken from the song "An Attempt to Tip the Scales" by Bright Eyes.
- Wham Shot: A double whammy - we see Nathan meeting with Chris Keller, asking him to work with Haley on her music again; and then we see a worn Batman costume on his motel bed, and it’s revealed that he was the Batman who swooped in to save Haley instead of Nathan.
