Last time we saw Lucas Scott (Chad Michael Murray) and his troubled group of friends on the CW's One Tree Hill, his uncle Keith had returned from the heavens to offer his nephew a glimpse of the world without him. Starting tonight at 9 pm/ET, we get to see what Lucas does with that information. Will Keith get his wings? TVGuide.com turned to series creator Mark Schwahn to get some answers about the fate of Tree Hill's dramatic seniors, plus some old secrets, new faces and his hope to experiment with a bit of "time-traveling."

TVGuide.com: The show definitely left off on a different note before the holidays, when deceased Keith (Craig Sheffer) returned to enlighten Lucas. What made you do that sort of episode?Mark Schwahn: We usually go into our hiatuses with big cliff-hangers, but as you know, the week before had all the cliff-hangers — the big car accident with Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti), and Lucas' heart attack. Normally that's where we would leave the audience, but this is our fourth season, and I just felt like we didn't have an opportunity to play Christmas because [it's] actually spring in the lives of the kids in Tree Hill. Around the holidays, people miss their loved ones, and I wanted to write an episode that told those people it was going to be OK. A couple of people said, "Why is It's a Wonderful Life on the TV in the hospital if it's spring?" I wanted to remind the audience and the people of Tree Hill that it is a wonderful life.

TVGuide.com: And then at the end we see Lucas open his eyes, so we know he's awake. The main question I was left with was whether he'd remember that he had that experience.Schwahn: His journey, certainly in the next handful of episodes, is in coming to terms with what he saw. When you're visited by a dead uncle while you're unconscious, do you act on the things you saw? Do you believe them?

TVGuide.com: But at the same time, Nathan (James Lafferty) has been having visions, trying to remember what happened at the bridge a while back. Will he and Lucas bond over seeing Keith?Schwahn: We use Peyton (Hilarie Burton) as more of a conduit for Lucas to cycle through all of these things, because Peyton has had so much loss in her life. And it was her who said to Nathan — when he told her at Rachel's house party that he had seen Keith — "Do you not believe it could happen, or do you not believe it could happen to you?" If anybody had a stake in believing that you could see people you have lost, it would be Peyton. It's a very smart instinct to bring Nathan and Lucas together over this, but Lucas shared a kiss and confessed his feelings for Peyton. Now what are they going to be?

TVGuide.com: Right, is it going to make them stronger together?Schwahn: Well, I think it has the opportunity to. They're two kids that carry around the weight of the world quite a bit. Can they agree together to let go of that weight? The theme for Lucas and Peyton is, "How do you learn to be happy when you've spent so much time carrying grief around? Do you feel guilty for being happy? Is it OK to let it go, especially when you're 17?" Does he have a responsibility to act on the things that he saw, and should he take them to Karen (Moira Kelly), open up those wounds for her again, based on, what, a dream?

TVGuide.com: As far as Nathan and Haley go, I thought for a minute that you might have her lose the baby because of the car accident. Was that ever a consideration?Schwahn: I love Nathan and Haley, and most of our audience does as well. If we let them be happy, they'd probably be bored, but I never considered having her lose the baby. She would be losing it because of the decisions and mistakes that Nathan had made, and I just didn't feel like they could recover from that.

TVGuide.com: This week, Haley discovers Nathan's dealings with Daunte, which caused the accident. Is that going to break them apart?Schwahn: In a refreshing turn for Tree Hill, he's going to tell her the truth! [Laughs] She's going to struggle with his deception — not to the degree that our misdirected promo department will lead you to believe — but she certainly has issues with his decision-making. It's a pretty satisfying arc for them. Ultimately, I think that Nathan and Haley, as a couple, can weather almost any storm.

TVGuide.com: And meanwhile, Dan (Paul Johansson) is facing murder charges, sitting pretty in jail after taking the blame from Nathan. Is he finally going to be punished for a lifetime of cruelty, even if this particular accident wasn't his fault?Schwahn: Probably not. [Laughs] Here's what's really interesting: He may flip out of this one. It may be because he's pulling strings, it may not be. I feel that he took the fall for Nathan because he's healing himself for murdering his brother. If he is set free, that may be the worst thing to happen to Dan.

TVGuide.com: That's true. He's really haunted.Schwahn: He's very haunted, and it's almost like he's trying to punish himself without saying, "I murdered my brother," because he knows he could never recover from that. If set free, it's almost like he's in his own personal prison.

TVGuide.com: I thought the truth about Dan killing Keith might come out when Lucas revisited the high-school shooting scene. Is that secret going to come out, or what?Schwahn: That secret will come out.

TVGuide.com: This season?Schwahn: Yes, this season. I don't know if it will come out before the next hiatus, though.

TVGuide.com: It's so frustrating to watch!Schwahn: It's a delicate balance. How long do you drag it out? Is there a point where the audience is simply frustrated, or are they still intrigued and putting the pieces together? There is a person who knows the truth and [that person] will turn up the heat. Increasingly, Dan will find that his world is shrinking in terms of the deceit he carries around.

TVGuide.com: If Dan gets out of jail, will we see more of him getting closer to Karen? It's kind of creepy that he's been inching his way back into her life while she's pregnant with his dead brother's baby.Schwahn: I know, it is creepy, because the audience knows the truth. But I really don't suffer Karen for the choices she's making, because she is in a vulnerable position and she doesn't have many people to turn to. Deb's pill addiction is taking her out of the friendship loop, and Karen finds herself isolated with another pregnancy, similar to where she was 17 years ago — and the guy who abandoned her then is available to her [now] emotionally.

TVGuide.com: Are we going to come full circle here?Schwahn: What I'm compelled by is [the fact that] as they grow closer, the truth about Dan murdering Keith grows closer as well, and that's going to lead to some explosive things.

TVGuide.com: Is Keith going to visit the Tree Hill gang again?Schwahn: He might. I actually have a scenario where we would see Keith again. I don't know if we're going to do it, but there's a possibility.

TVGuide.com: Is the Brooke/Peyton/Lucas triangle going to continue, or will Brooke (Sophia Bush) have a separate story line?Schwahn: Brooke's story line right now is that she's failing calculus and she's going to decide not to cheat but to study. She's going to learn, in her words, that she's "Brooke smart" and not book smart, at which point she and Rachel are going to set their sights on stealing the calculus exams. That story line intersects with Shelly (Elisabeth Harnois), the leader of Clean Teens, who we met earlier in the year. There's a new member of Clean Teens, Chase, played by Stephen Coletti from Laguna Beach, and Brooke's going to take an interest in him. At that point, we'll find out how dedicated he is to a life of abstinence. [Laughs] There is a huge fan base dedicated to Brooke and Lucas, and sometimes [those people] feel a bit betrayed, just as the fan base dedicated to Peyton and Lucas felt betrayed. That tells me that we've done things correctly — that's the strength of a love triangle. Peyton spent a really authentic time with Jake, and I think that Brooke could spend a really authentic time with another character, which doesn't necessarily mean she won't find her way back to Lucas or he won't find his way to her.

TVGuide.com: Do you know if the show will be on next season?Schwahn: No, I don't, and if you can find out for me.... [Laughs] I've talked about jumping the show ahead five years and skipping college if we come back next season. It's unprecedented and it's never been done, and I think it would be a really compelling journey to take. It doesn't mean we wouldn't go back and dedicate entire episodes and substantial moments to nights in college that affected where they are now.

TVGuide.com: I think I would want to see that!Schwahn: Well, I would want to write it. When most of these shows go to college, it's hard to create the energy and enthusiasm for their journeys, but as a storyteller, there's such a sense of excitement to tell those stories. I think it would reinvigorate the show in a really good way, so hopefully the CW will see the merits in it.

If you like teen angst, you'll love The O.C. series-finale scoop appearing in the Jan. 15 issue of TV Guide.

Career janitor Eugene Gerkin and his pals have a plan: Let's rob Mick Jagger! That'd make for a nifty sitcom title, you say. And it did... for a minute. Now named after Eugene's "criminal organization," ABC's The Knights of Prosperity (airing Wednesdays at 9 pm/ET) must "steal itself" for the return of Idol. Do the crafty Knights have a countermeasure in place? TVGuide.com asked ringleader Donal Logue for an overview of what's ahead.

TVGuide.com: You must feel like you've been doing press for Knights of Prosperity forever.Donal Logue: Yeah. [Laughs] There's been a lot of it!

TVGuide.com: I have to say, you got me with the tag in the pilot, where we see that beyond the keyhole in Mick Jagger's door is fortress-like, multilayered security.Logue: Oh, there's a lot more coming down the pike, absolutely.

TVGuide.com: Last week, the crew tried "seducing" the keypad code out of Reiko Aylesworth. Are they going to just keep chipping away at the assorted barriers to entry to Jagger's place, or are they going to give up at some point?Logue: No, we keep going. There is no stopping this organization.

TVGuide.com: I don't know how they can fool the thumbprint scan, though.Logue: Oh, you'll see.... It's good.

TVGuide.com: There's some irony in the brouhaha surrounding the show's oft-changed title in that for all practical purposes, it could have been, like, "Let's Rob Troy McClure." You know, make up your own celebrity.Logue: Right. We wanted a celebrity playing themselves, although I always like fake celebrities, because that's funny, too. Like in The Party with Peter Sellers — "Oh, my god, it's Hrundi V. Bakshi!" It just needed to [facilitate our story of] the haves and the have-nots. It could be Danny Masterson or Wilmer Valderrama, anyone you have ever seen on MTV flaunting that they have stuff.

TVGuide.com: Now even though we may not see any more of Mick Jagger, other celebrities will be appearing as themselves?Logue: Yes. Ray Romano is in it, and then Ed Burns shows up, and Kelly Ripa and Regis Philbin.... I can't really talk about the story lines too much, but....

TVGuide.com: What kind of spin does Kelly, for example, put on her real-life self?Logue: What's great is she just plays someone who is sweet and kind of confused by the group. She kind of plays herself as she would be, exhibiting a lot of patience with this group of odd goobers who enter her life. She's very gracious.

TVGuide.com: What I like about the overall casting is that Eugene and his crew — Sofia Vergara excepted, of course — look like regular schlubs. You truly feel these guys are scraping for their piece of the American dream.Logue: I think there are two things at play. One, we wanted to do this à la the "Jimmy the Cabdriver" stuff I used to do for MTV a long time ago, where he seems like a real guy and looks like just one of those guys. On the other hand, the show plays like a live-action cartoon, with these Scooby-Doo characters on their weird adventures. I like the juxtaposition of the two.

TVGuide.com: The "live-action cartoon" thing is what my wife doesn't "get," though. She's like, "These guys are so stupid."Logue: My kids, who are 5 and 7, find it funny in that regard, and comedy writers get it, too. But it's not so obtuse that it's like Arrested Development, where it's kind of written for comedy writers.

TVGuide.com: What's the big, huge plan to maintain The Knights of Prosperity's profile once that "singing people" show starts up?Logue: To just hang in there. You know a tsunami is hitting, so you just do your work and hope that the group of people who like you stay with you. The hard thing with the Nielsens is that clearly they have to have a way of determining who watches what, but the problem is that people watch the show at different times. Probably 70 percent of people don't necessarily watch the shows they like at the time they air initially, so who knows.

TVGuide.com: I enjoyed your role in Ed Burns' The Groomsmen. Your character, as annoying as he is at the beginning, winds up being the heart of the film.Logue: Yeah, his thinking is obviously, "If I hate myself, I will make you hate me, too." Yeah, I liked that project a lot.

TVGuide.com: Any upcoming films you'd like to talk up?Logue: Well, there's Ghost Rider [a comic-book adaptation starring Nicolas Cage]. I play his best friend, a mechanic. There's a movie that my friend Jesse [Peretz] directed called Fast Track, with Zach Braff, Amanda Peet and Jason Bateman, [Saturday Night Live's] Fred Armisen and Amy Poehler. I don't have a huge part in that, but it's a lot of fun. There's Zodiac, the David Fincher movie about the Zodiac killer. And I did a couple of indies that I like a lot: Almost Heaven, with Tom Conti, and one at Sundance called The Good Life, starring Mark Webber and Zooey Deschanel.

TVGuide.com: Your Ghost Rider mechanic, is he in the loop regarding Nicolas Cage's secret identity?Logue: No, no. He doesn't know about that side of his life. In the crudest of terms, hopefully he's the guy who, when he's in danger, you're like, "Oh, no! Not good-hearted Mack!"

When How I Met Your Mother's Barney tells a guy to "suit up," he probably doesn't mean for a fella to pour himself into snug, pink Spandex swimwear. Alas, that is precisely what Atlanta marketing whiz Carey Sherell did on NBC's The Apprentice, resulting with Donald Trump declaring his taste in fashion a total wipeout. But is the Donald's gaydar simply out of whack? And was Carey edited to look like more of a diva than he actually is? TVGuide.com spoke to him the day after his ouster.

TVGuide.com: Nearly none of it made it through editing, but there was reference made in the boardroom to your tailoring the pink suit to Trina Turk's gay customers. I was wondering if you could elaborate on that strategy. Carey Sherrell: We were at the Trina Turk boutique, where we had a chance to speak to one of her assistants, and we realized they had a store in Palm Springs. Well, like 70 percent of the male consumers who shop in Palm Springs are gay, so in designing the concept for the swimwear line, we knew we had to do something that appealed to all her consumers, and not really appeal to the mainstream buyers [who decide the task's outcome].

TVGuide.com: You did seem a bit stubborn in fighting for the suit you wound up modeling. When all was said and done, you didn't change the cut or the color....Carey: That's bad editing. You can talk to anybody who was there. I was just on the phone with James, and he was like, "Man, they made it look like you just went with the suit," and that's not the case. In the end, as Nicole said, we all took a calculated risk, and everyone was involved in that. But the editing made me look like I was saying, "We're doing the suit no matter what!"

TVGuide.com: I was surprised at the minimal airtime given to the actual strategizing and preparation. They made it seem like you spent 45 minutes designing the suits, and then put them on the runway show.Carey: I know! It was about 30 hours of work, and we didn't really go to sleep. We were working on a really crazy timeline, so once a suit came out of production, the choice was to either stick with it or not have a suit [to show]. If we wanted to change something, we had little or no time to do it.

TVGuide.com: Did you really think you could sell Michelle as the one to be fired? Or were you grasping at straws?Carey: No, you'll see. It has yet to be proven, but Michelle is a disaster.

TVGuide.com: Really? I've seen truly destructive team members over the past seasons, and I'm not getting that vibe from her.Carey: She has this ability to stifle creativity, and she's negative.... It will come to pass. She's not going to last long, I don't think.

TVGuide.com: Now, does she look as much like Jaime Pressly in person as she does on TV?Carey: She really does! [Laughs] Everybody kept saying Jaime Pressly, and I had never seen Jaime Pressly before. But then I caught My Name Is Earl, and she definitely looks like Jaime Pressly.

TVGuide.com: In retrospect, what would you have done differently?Carey: Nothing. The fact of the matter is that [the gay consumer] is a market, and no consumer should be overlooked. If that's the kind of people who shop at a store, then they need to be respected and offered something that they want. I'm not in the business of overlooking people — I'm in marketing, and if the demographics say something, then that's what we do. We had that information, but you didn't see that. It looked like, "Gay guy goes crazy and designs a crazy suit," and that's sad. We acted on the information we had. Again, we took a risk, but if you've been to a Trina Turk boutique, you'll see that her clothes are risky. They're not clothes you'll see in mainstream America.

TVGuide.com: Who would you say is a player to watch?Carey: James is stellar. He's the one I first got to know, and we became really great friends. I think he will go far.

TVGuide.com: Lastly, what's next for you?Carey: We are going head-to-head with Trump by showing him that there is a marketplace for that "loser bathing suit," as he called it. We're designing some suits right now, and BlueMotionSquared.com is the name of the line. We're going to show Trump that we are a force to be reckoned with. Feb. 1 is the launch date, and it will be really cool stuff, with cool people behind it.

Reality-TV fans, Justin Guarini previews the new season of American Idol on this week's The 411, airing on TV Guide Channel. Click here for days and times.

When TVGuide.com interviewed Tori Elmore, the first beauty to be eliminated from Season 3 of the CW's Beauty and the Geek (Wednesdays at 8 pm/ET), she complained of cliquish attitudes in the house. Though at first we suspected she was just making up excuses for not having studied, last week's episode pretty much confirmed her story: The "blondes" seemed to have reverted to high-school behavior, leaving darker-tressed and surprisingly brainy pageant queen Andrea and "Former Hooters Waitress" Sheree to study their butts off in fear of this strong alliance. Of course, the end result is the following conversation with 25-year-old Sheree Swanson, who now works in event planning in Ft. Lauderdale, and 25-year-old Virginia accountant Piao Sam (aka Pi), who swears he does know how to listen to women.

First, Sheree's story:

TVGuide.com: Were you a ringer? I didn't see any evidence that you were shallow or ignorant.Sheree Swanson: Smart people say something silly, stupid or dumb some time or another. I do, everybody does. Most of the girls are pretty smart, regardless of what they're acting like.

TVGuide.com: Did you feel like you should have been acting less smart?Sheree: No. Have you watched any of those reality shows where you can tell that a girl totally did it for a singing career or an acting career or a modeling career, yet she's making out with everybody and doing all kinds of ridiculous stuff? I'm like, "Listen, girl, no one is going to take you seriously after this show!" That was my thought: As far as future things, I wanted to portray myself as I really am, so that hopefully I can be taken seriously for future things.

TVGuide.com: That's probably more valuable than your share of the show's prize.Sheree: To me, it was. So I didn't get $250,000; I'll make it up.

TVGuide.com: That's pretty smart. Do you think some of the other girls were acting dumber on purpose?Sheree: I thought all the girls were smart. When we were all together, everybody held intellectual conversations. It could be anything; Ceci would say, "In this part of town, the housing market is really expensive. For example, that little house right there would be a million dollars." Not brilliant things, but a normal conversation. But I'm watching the show, and she's saying some really dumb things!

TVGuide.com: Tori was not kidding when she told me how cliquey the girls were. Did you try to cozy up to the other girls to turn that in your favor?Sheree: What happened was Ceci won the first challenge in the library, and Nate won the challenge talking to the people out on the street, and then Nate won the comedy challenge. That's three wins out of four challenges, which automatically made them a strong team. Common sense, I want to be friends with [them]. Ceci is very "out there" in her values and views, but I could care less what she does on her own time; it has nothing to do with me. Andrea, on the other hand, was like, "I say what I feel, and I feel you're disgusting." I think Nadia and Jennylee got caught up. It wasn't that they purposely said, "We want it to be blondes against brunettes." It was: "Ceci's winning. Let's follow Ceci."

TVGuide.com: Did you feel left out?Sheree: I hung out with the girls sometimes, but ultimately, I was around Andrea the most. There were times I would be talking to four girls, and right in the middle of me telling them something, each one of them just started talking amongst themselves.

TVGuide.com: How much study material did they give you before a challenge?Sheree: A lot. Specifically, for the first challenge, for the interview, it was two or three magazines, like Newsweeks, a binder with probably 100 or more pages, some newspapers and the Freakonomics book. Late that night before [the interview challenge], I was almost finished studying, and I went in Ceci's room, and she was like, "I'm gonna blow you guys out of the water. I've read this book. I know about this book. Do you?" Maybe it was intimidation, but I took my butt right out of her room and stayed up for the next three or four hours reading it. So, she helped me.

TVGuide.com: What did Pi need the most help with?Sheree: Pi is on two completely opposite ends of the spectrum. If you say a rap song or hip-hop artist, Pi knows who it is. On the flip side, he doesn't hold conversations well at all. He gets caught up in thought and can't say what he's thinking, so he says something really weird instead. I was trying to help him with that. Physically, he was not one of the least attractive guys. He just made funny faces.

TVGuide.com: You scolded him for objectifying women when he drew nothing but the nude model's breast. But didn't you work at Hooters?Sheree: I don't hide the fact that I worked at Hooters. For me, it was a good job when I was in college. It paid all my bills; I didn't have to worry about money; it was flexible; and I met a lot of cool girls.

TVGuide.com: What do you do now?Sheree: I do business development for an event-production company. Event stuff is fun, but it's not making me rich, and it's not something that I ever saw myself doing. So eventually, I want to do something entertainment-related. I want to make a good paycheck and love what I do.

TVGuide.com: Did you get in touch with the news anchor from the interview challenge who said he'd hire you?Sheree: He interviewed me just this morning. When we weren't on air he asked me what I was doing, and I should have said I didn't have a job! But I have his information.

TVGuide.com: Are you rooting for anyone else on the show?Sheree: Of course, Andrea. The thing was, they hated her more than me. I didn't want her to leave at all, but I figured if I could stay in, then at least they wouldn't have the dislike for her rubbing onto me.

TVGuide.com: Did you have any favorites among the geeks?Sheree: I love them all. I spent the most time with Niels and Matt, because he was with Andrea. Matt was really determined and really wanted to be there.

TVGuide.com: You seemed to think Pi wasn't trying hard enough.Sheree: He was playing chess and hanging out and telling his little funny jokes. He was trying to be like the class clown. It was frustrating for me. He still says he tried his hardest. I think Pi's a gentleman, but I think he went more for fun than he did to win.

Let's see what Pi has to say about that:

TVGuide.com: Are you working as an accountant these days?Piao Sam: Yes, in Virginia. It's for lovers. Maybe not for me, but for some others.

TVGuide.com: Yeah, why is that? Your label on the show was "Only Kissed One Girl."Piao: That's the most interesting thing about me. Since the show, I've kissed two, maybe three girls.

TVGuide.com: Because of the show?Piao: I don't think because of the show. I wasn't on long enough to have that drastic a change. I didn't even get a makeover. But a makeover wouldn't really do much for me. What are you gonna do, cut my hair and give me contacts? I've done that already. I actually have contacts, I've just been too lazy to renew the prescription.

TVGuide.com: Did you do anything to seem more geeky for the show?Piao: I screwed my hair up. And for the most part, that was who I was.

TVGuide.com: Do you consider yourself a geek?Piao: I just consider myself a person, not a geek. If you want to call me a geek, fine. If you want to call me one of the things I said in my comedy routine, fine.

TVGuide.com: What did you say during your routine? It was all bleeped out.Piao: You won't be able to write it — I used the P-word. I basically turned off the whole audience at that point, and I had no backup material because I'm not a professional comedian.

TVGuide.com: What did you want to get out of this show?Piao: I wanted to be around that type of girl. The girls that I'm usually around are really down-to-earth type of girls who basically take as long as I do to get ready. It was a little bit much, but it was interesting.

TVGuide.com: Did you learn anything that would help your dating life?Piao: Trust me, I listen to women, I really do. I was just really tired after getting berated by Sheree.

TVGuide.com: What kind of study material did you guys get?Piao: We got a pamphlet that said Art of Appreciating Women. There were like 500 things. There was an article on electrolysis, handbags.... I don't remember there being an article on manicures! [That was the question he got wrong in elimination.]

TVGuide.com: Did you study them all?Piao: Of course I studied them! Sheree might say I didn't, but I put in a good effort. I probably didn't put in the best effort I could. I got the first question right! The problem was that Sheree and I studied with Matt and Andrea the whole time. We basically poisoned ourselves.

TVGuide.com: Sheree said you were more intent on being the class clown.Piao: I had two goals on the show. My first goal was to have fun. This was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so why not live it up? The second was to improve from where I came from. Sheree gave me some fashion advice. One of her methods of trying to improve me was saying I should stop smiling so much, and she even made fun of my laugh. We just had a personality clash.

TVGuide.com: Your relationship didn't seem that bad on the show. More playful.Piao: I don't really know what to think of it. I know she's out there on MySpace, and I haven't contacted her. I might as well let sleeping dogs lie.

TVGuide.com: Were you into playing the game of trying to make alliances?Piao: It blew up in our faces because we were so aligned with Andrea. I compared it to Spartacus. At the end, it's Spartacus versus his protégé, and he kills his protégé, then he gets strung up by the Romans.

TVGuide.com: Uh-huh. Were you aware of what was going on with the blonde clique?Piao: I didn't realize until the end, until our demise. It was weird that the guys got along but the girls didn't.

TVGuide.com: Are you expecting your life to change now?Piao: I have 300 MySpace friends; I had 100 before. I'm kind of recognized. As Aimee Deeken said [in her TVGuide.com Commentary Blog], "Piao and Sheree were both serious about the competition, not to mention sizable sources of reality-TV entertainment."

TVGuide.com: Wow, thanks for studying our blogs at least. Got any words of wisdom for other geeks?Piao: Listen to women, naked or clothed. My advice to everyone else is to get your taxes filed on time, the earlier the better.