A class assignment reveals the deepest secrets and desires of Lucas and the students of Tree Hill High. Worried about college prospects, Skills turns to Haley. Nathan wrestles with Deb's suicide attempt. And Brooke's new classmate, Chase, learns that Brooke cheated on her calculus exam.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Call-Back:
- Nathan and Peyton briefly discuss their relationship from early Season 1.
- Peyton is shown to be hesitant to pose for a photo, largely because of Psycho Derek’s behaviour earlier this season.
- Commonality Connection: Glenda starts off believing Lucas is just a stereotypical jock; by the end of their assignment, she admits that he would’ve made a pretty good goth.
- A Day in the Limelight: Glenda Farrell and Shelley Simon, two previously introduced minor characters, are given more screen time and development in this episode than their previous episodes.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: To prove his point about how some of the class are relative strangers to one another, the social studies teacher asks Haley what Lucas’ middle name is, and she absentmindedly blurts out Eugene before realising.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Shelley opens up to Mouth about her abortion and why she formed Clean Teens.
- Hidden Depths: The entire point of the assignment is to highlight how little the class know about each other, and that there's more to them than the labels they were assigned. To wit, Glenda is genuinely surprised that Lucas has written the first draft of a novel, whilst Brooke opens up to Chase about her feelings of inadequacy stemming from her parents' neglect of her.
- Internal Reveal:
- Haley blurts out Lucas’ Embarrassing Middle Name when asked, revealing his full name of Lucas Eugene Scott to rest of the class.
- Chase finds out that Brooke isn’t as smart as she claimed, and that she’s actually failing Calculus. She later comes clean to him about stealing the exams.
- Nathan tells Peyton about Deb’s suicide attempt.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Peyton takes offence at being labelled a Prom Queen by the rest of the class, complaining that she’s clearly a loner. Glenda points out that Peyton’s a cheerleader dating one of star players on the Basketball team, so she’s a Prom Queen whilst Glenda is a Loner.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: When asked where he expects to be in ten years, Nathan just talks about his hopes for Haley and his unborn son. When Peyton points out that the question is about him specifically, Nathan just muses that he’ll be fine so long as his family are doing well.
- Mood Whiplash: Nathan tells Peyton about Deb’s recent suicide attempt; she responds by telling him that she can’t whilstle. Thankfully, Nathan sees the funny side.
- No Theme Tune: The opening title sequence is cut from the episode, and with it, "I Don’t Want To Be" by Gavin DeGraw.
- Pop-Culture Isolation: In-Universe. When Mouth impersonates basketball announcer Dick Vitale, Shelley has no idea who he's supposed to be impersonating.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Glenda mistakes Lucas' impersonation of Gollum from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy for Elmo from Sesame Street.
- The Reveal:
- Lucas is writing a novel.
- Bevin isn’t actually an idiot; she just plays the part of a Dumb Blonde to appease the rest of the cheerleaders.
- Secret-Keeper: Lucas tells Glenda that he’s writing a novel, and admits that he hasn’t told anyone else about it.
- Self-Serving Memory: Nathan muses that he & Peyton were pretty good together; she immediately reminds him that they were terrible together, and Nathan admits that he was hoping she’d forgotten that.
- Shout-Out:
- Peyton wears a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt throughout the episode.
- Part of the assignment requires an impression of a celebrity or famous character.
- Haley impersonates Ashley Olsen, Joey Potter from Dawson's Creek, and Tony Montana from Scarface (1983).
- Peyton and Nathan both impersonate the title character of Borat.
- Lucas impersonates Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life and Gollum from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy; Glenda mistakes Lucas’ Gollum for Elmo from Sesame Street.
- Brooke impersonates Marilyn Monroe.
- Mouth impersonates legendary basketball announcer Dick Vitale.
- Chase references the X Games, an annual extreme sports event held since 1995.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Mouth takes offence at Shelley calling him a Geek, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he doesn’t fit as a Jock, Prom Queen, Loner or "Friendly".
- Title-Only Opening: The episode foregoes the series’ traditional opening title sequence, and instead opens to a black title card.
- Titled After the Song: The title of the episode is taken from the song "Pictures of You" by The Cure.
- Unusual Euphemism: The social studies teacher uses "Friendly" as one for Slut.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Brooke admits to Chase that she doesn’t think she’s good enough because of her parents’ neglect.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Chase is pissed off when he finds out Brooke lied about failing Calculus and instead agreed to tutor him.
