Haley returns to the stage much to Miranda's annoyance but the gig turns out to be a success and changes Miranda's attitude somewhat. Brooke believes she might be pregnant but is conflicted on how Julian will take the news - but the test proves negative. Julian finishes the script with Alex and heads out to be with Brooke at Haley's gig but gets a call from Alex telling him she's close to taking cocaine again so he goes to her much to Brooke's annoyance. Rachel and Dan arrive back in Tree Hill but his hoped reconciliation with Nathan doesn't materialize. But Dan isn't going anywhere. Mouth meets Rachel and tells her to try and reconcile her differences with Brooke but Brooke isn't having it. Mouth and Brooke are both concerned and angry with Millicent who's desperation to be liked by the public is putting her in a downward spiral. Elsewhere, Clay's hardball tactics with the Charlotte Bobcats and Nathan's contract fail when they sign another player to fill Nathan's spot. What will Nathan do now?

After losing his place on the Charlotte Bobcats Nathan reaches breaking point with Clay and fires him but this ends up causing a rift between Haley and Quinn with Quinn moving out to a hotel. Dan takes it badly that Clay messed up and tries to teach him a lesson by nearly drowning him in the surf. Later Clay is fired by his boss for stuffing up Nathan's contract. Victoria arrives unannounced and takes a liking to new TRIC bar manager Grubbs. Meanwhile, Brooke tells Julian that it is doubtful that she will ever be able to get pregnant and he promises to get different opinions and they will work it out. Elsewhere, Millicent's increased drug taking alarms Mouth and her model like tendencies and demands disgust Brooke. It prompts Victoria to call the police when she sees Millicent driving drunk. Millicent calls Brooke from jail but Brooke tells her she cannot help her.

Clay gets his mojo back with some help from Quinn and which might mean that Nathan can stay in the US and play in the NBA with the his old team the Charlotte Bobcats instead of going to Spain. Skills gets offered and takes the job in Los Angeles and brings Mouth along for the ride. Dan goes against Rachel on his television show and tells his audience that this is his last show and also serves with divorce papers. Julian rescues Alex from her near suicide bid and tells her the film deal is back on. Brooke fires Millicent from her model contract and tells her to get immediate help for her drug problem but her stay in rehab is brief. Victoria hires a new designer, Alexander Coin, for the menswear collection without telling Brooke.

Flashback to the '80s.

Haley, Quinn and Taylor receive a surprise visit from their mom Lydia who tells them that she has incurable pancreatic cancer and that she is not seeking any further treatment. Quinn takes the news very hard but Clay is there to support her. Meanwhile, Alex sets her sights on Alexander as Brooke and Julian try to get their old relationship back on track, and Millicent finds herself struggling with temptation.

Haley and Quinn refuse to accept that their mom Lydia will not fight her pancreatic cancer and after some convincing manages to persuade her mother to get a second opinion with Nathan's doctor but the results don't bring any change. Because she told Jamie that she won't be alive for Christmas he organizes for her to have Christmas now with the family. Meanwhile, Brooke and Julian's relationship moves up a notch but comes crashing down spectacularly when Brooke finds Alex in his bed but is it what it seems? Elsewhere, Grubbs puts Miranda through hoops before he allows her to produce his album with her and Owen Morello comes back into Millie's life much to Mouth's displeasure.

Quinn's gallery opens with Clay very supportive unaware that he is being stalked by Sara lookalike Katie until she makes her presence known and Clay shows Quinn how alike Katie is to Sara. Josh's sex tape with Alex is emailed to Julian's father with a demand for $1,000,000 putting the film in jeopardy. Miranda finds out she is being deported thus putting a spanner in the works with Grubbs's recording but Grubbs finds a way around it by proposing to her. Lauren tells Skills that she has fallen for someone else but he is unaware it is his best friend Mouth until he sees a photo of them at the gallery where he promptly punches Mouth. Meanwhile, Victoria's affair with Alexander is exposed in more than one way. Elsewhere, Nathan and Jamie spend a guys evening together & later he asks Haley if she'd be ready to try for another baby. She tells him she took a pregnancy test and it was negative but is she telling him the whole story?

Nathan and Haley struggle with the aftermath of her mother's death, while Brooke deals with the fallout of Alexander's tryst with Victoria. Alex discovers a secret about her leading man, Josh, that could derail Julian's film, and Quinn is confronted by an unhinged Katie.

Quinn takes Jamie on a treasure hunt as an increasingly despondent Haley further withdraws from both Nathan and Jamie. Katie invades Clay's personal space convinced that she is his dead wife Sara. Clay plays along until he manages to have her committed. Mia breaks up with Chase by text and then comes back to Tree Hill to manage a heart-broken Grubbs after Miranda leaves. Julian shows his film to a delighted Brooke as he anxiously awaits confirmation on whether his indie film will be bought by a film festival.

Haley tries to overcome her depression by joining Nathan, Jamie and the rest of the Tree Hill gang on a trip to Utah for the premiere of Julian's film.