Running themes in Moriah Blake

Not to be confused with Running jokes in Moriah Blake

The following is a list of running themes or motifs in Moriah Blake.

=Music= Several songs and artists from the 20th and early 21st Centuries are used both symbolically and literally in Moriah Blake.

Simon and Garfunkel
Several songs from 1960s singer/songwriter duo Simon and Garfunkel are used to create moods in Moriah Blake. Several of their songs have also been used as episode titles, including:

• America: the third episode of Season Three. This episode takes place on the Fourth of July, so the song "America" had a natural place. It is played in the final act to allow the audience empathy towards Scott's precarious position between his relationships with Ashley and Emily.

• The Sounds of Silence: the eleventh episode of the third season. "The Sounds of Silence" is played by a homeless man in a Boston tram station, before he is confronted by a lonely Emily Greene. Before they meet, we see a quote from Scripture graffitied on the wall of the station, which is a reference to the line in The Sounds of Silence that goes, "...the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls."

American Pie
The 1971 song American Pie, by Don McLean, is often used in pieces for dramatic significance or references.

• At a point in Season Four, Devin catches Robin and Patrick sneaking into the school gym to slowdance privately. This can be paralleled to a line in American Pie that goes "I know that you're in love with him/'Cause I saw you dancing in the gym."

• One line in American Pie reads, "I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck/With a pink carnation and a pickup truck." The image of a pink carnation appears often in Moriah Blake, and three of the characters—Scott, Tom, and Patrick—all owned pickup trucks at one point or another.

• The twenty-third episode of the fourth season is entitled American Pie. It is named after the song, which, in the episode, is played by Basil Smith while waiting for his rehearsal to start. The song appears often when a plot twist is going on, and this is no exception: the episode climaxes with Ashley's sexual harassment by her boyfriend, Austin.

• A line in American Pie that goes "I went down to that sacred store/Where I'd heard the music years before/But the man there said the music wouldn't play" is reminiscent of the Season Seven episode Vow of Silence, in which Patrick returns to Mt. Angel Abbey and has a talk with Brother Ben, explaining that he doesn't feel like a part of Catholicism anymore.

• The day on which the Moriah Blake Massacre occurred is often referred to as "The Day the Music Died," a reference to the chorus of American Pie. "The Music" is often taken to mean the spirit of youth that disappeared after the Massacre.

Pink Floyd
The music of Pink Floyd, specifically their 1979 album The Wall, is used in Moriah Blake.

• In the penultimate episode of Season Two, Scott, Patrick, and Dave gather in Room 203 to listen to The Wall. They are confronted by Mrs. English, who insists that the music is inappropriate for school. She is interrupted by Principal Johns, who reveals himself to be a big Pink Floyd fan, or a "Pinker" as he calls it. This is a silent nod towards his nature, as opposed to Mrs. English: he is often no more than a thirty-year-old teenager, in that he sympathizes with their emotional problems over their crimes.

• Almost all of the walls in Moriah Blake are made of white bricks, just like the cover of The Wall.

• In the ninth episode of the fourth season, Scott tries to convince Principal Johns—a big Pink Floyd lover—to let him put on The Wall as a school play.

• In Season Eight, Scott explains that at one point between graduation and the flashforwards, he relived The Wall: sitting in a hotel room retreating deeply into his subconscious.

Young and Beautiful
"Young and Beautiful" is a song by Lana Del Ray released in the 2013 adaption of The Great Gatsby. It makes several appearances in Moriah Blake.

• Young and Beautiful is the name of the fourth episode of the sixth season of Moriah Blake. It is the episode that depicts the Class of 2014's sophomore homecoming.

• The phrase "young and beautiful" is often used by Ashley Donovan or Scott McCrimmon, recognizing their Gatsby-esque relationship.

• Young and Beautiful is played many times throughout Season Eight. It was released in 2013, after the first six seasons.

=Symbols= Many different objects or ideas are used throughout Moriah Blake. They are recurring images, none of which have a specific meaning; however, they could all be hypothesized to have several different meanings.

The Infinity Glove
Main Article: Infinity Glove

The Infinity Glove, or the Eternity Glove, is the name of two separate gloves appearing throughout the series. The original was found by Patrick Donovan in the first episode, lying on the floor of Moriah Blake High School. It then appears in several different places throughout the first four seasons. Presumably, it is continually forgotten and found by someone else.

In the beginning of Season Five, Patricia Donovan finds the Infinity Glove for herself. However, Patrick insists that it is the pair of the original. Where the second Glove came from is unknown.

In the final episode, Scott goes back to see the Toby Tree, and finds the original Glove hanging on one of its branches. He hangs the second one up with its pair and walks away.

The Toby Tree
The Toby Tree is a young sapling planted in the woods behind Moriah Blake by Principal Johns, who the tree is named after. It first appears in the Season Two episode Earth Day, when Principal Johns decides to take all the high school students out into the woods and plant a sapling, in remembrance of Earth Day. The Toby Tree appears many times throughout the series, and is sometimes said to represent the spirit of Moriah Blake.

East Rose
The East Rose is a symbol first used in the Season Four Flashforwards, when Ashley refers to Scott as "The East Rose." This is explained in the next episode, when, in the main timeline, Principal Johns hangs up a map of Olympia in the lobby. On the map is a compass rose, and on each of the cardinal directions is a picture of an actual rose. The north, south, and west roses are identical, but the East Rose is different in shape and size.

The Symbol
The Symbol is a shape made up of five lines, usually in red, that appears all over the series, usually graffitied on walls. It was started at some point in the past, and adopted by characters such as Patrick Donovan and Scott McCrimmon as a symbol of student discontentment.

=The Great Gatsby= The 1925 novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is used in many different circumstances in Moriah Blake. Gatsby includes a lot of symbolism, some of which is continued in Moriah Blake. According to Scott, he was named after Fitzgerald. His full name is William Scott McCrimmon.

• The Green Light: The Green Light is a symbol used in Gatsby to represent the ideal future that the central character, Jay Gatsby, looks for. This ideal future includes the woman of his dreams, who he has been secretly in love with for many years. This situation is often paralleled to Scott's dramatic infatuation with Ashley.

=Numbers= Several numbers appear in different places throughout the series.

• 203: the number 203 appears several different times, most notably as Mr. Jenkins' room number and part of the Internet name of Hangman203.

• 242: the number 242 is Mr. Smith's room number. It was also a number on the 500 Things List: "Make a prank call." It was also the room number of where Will, Scott, and Emily stay in The Sounds of Silence.