| “ | I watched you Peyton, I listened to you. Everything that you showed me on your webcam. The things that you shared with me online. You were talking to me, I know you were. | „ |
| ~ Ian Banks (to Peyton) |
Ian Banks is a character from The WB/CW drama series One Tree Hill. Ian serves as a recurring villain for 7 episodes in the fourth season. He is Peyton Sawyer's stalker, who shows up and pretends to be her estranged half-brother Derek Sommers.
Biography[]
Ian had a girlfriend named Maggie Watterson in high school and they loved each other a lot, hoping to have a future together. One night, they began speeding in the car and lost control on a slippery piece of road. Ian survived, but Maggie was killed instantly in the crash and Maggie's parents blamed Ian for this and he became wrecked with guilt.
Ian begins to watch Peyton on her webcam on her website and begins to send her creepy IM's under the name "WATCHMEWATCHU". Peyton, at first, believes these messages to be from her biological mother Ellie Harp, who had recently came to Tree Hill and pretended to be a writer for a music magazine intially.
After being dropped for a season, Ian once again begins to send Peyton IM's from the account and hears her reaching out for her half-brother Derek on her MySpace page and webcam after he hung up on her. Ian seizes an opportunity to get close to Peyton and pretends to be her brother Derek, who she decides to give a chance after some hesitation. Ian becomes increasingly jealous of Peyton's closeness to Lucas and attempts to break it up by lying on him and saying that he said he would quit talking to Peyton if Brooke gave him another chance. Lucas becomes suspicious of "Derek" after seeing him sniffing Peyton's hair during a hug and this is confirmed when Ian's room is filled with photos of Peyton and he has even hired a prostitute to dress as Peyton, complete with a curly blonde wig and Peyton's actual jacket given to her by Ellie (Ian also has a tattoo of the angel of death that Ellie drew for her on his back). Lucas sees the badly beaten prostitute while at the hospital with his mom, Karen, for a check-up and takes notice that she has a wound in her leg in the same spot that Peyton was shot during the shooting. Ian IM's Peyton, pretending to be Lucas and talks about her ass, but Lucas tells her that it isn't him.
Peyton finally realizes that "Derek" is "WATCHMEWATCHU" and the fake Lucas account when she goes into his room and sees that his computer has a "YY" typo on it, just like messages she received from both those accounts. Later that night, Ian attacks Peyton and prepares to rape her, but is stopped by Lucas and the real Derek, who tackle him out of a window and he manages to escape. Ian calls Peyton, pretending to be a detective and claims that Ian has been caught, but he attacks her again right before she goes to prom and he has a makeshift perfect prom with her. Brooke Davis shows up to check on Peyton and is also held hostage by Ian. Ian attempts to make Peyton kill Brooke, having witnessed a fight that they had earlier. Peyton goes along with this and ends up stabbing Ian in the shoulder, to help her and Brooke escape. Peyton and Brooke manage to fight Ian off and he is arrested for good.
Peyton, however, continues to have nightmares about Ian and finally decides to have closure on the situation and see if he is in jail for good. Brooke and Peyton find out that Ian had a girlfriend named Maggie Watterson who was killed when the two got into an accidental car accident and that the girl bore a striking resemblance to Peyton, explaining why Ian was so infatuated with her.