When a beloved TV show is canceled or comes to an end, a lot of pressure is put on its series finale, especially for long-running shows. That final episode can determine a lot about a show’s legacy, with some of the worst series finales practically overshadowing everything good that came before (just look at Dexter). When One Tree Hill came to an end in 2012, fans had a lot of strong opinions, but Sophia Bush stands by their ending, despite her qualms with one storyline.
One Tree Hill was one of the best teen dramas of the 2000s, premiering in 2003 and lasting nine seasons (way too long, in our opinion). While the final season presented much of the same melodrama and crazy plot twists fans had come to expect, the last episode did little more than wrap up all of its characters’ storylines, which Sophia Bush said on the Drama Queens podcast was the right decision in her opinion. In her words:
It really did feel kinda like a present. You know? You hear people say in a negative way about TV sometimes, like, ‘Yeah, at the end of every episode, they wrap it up in a bow. Like, that’s not real life,’ but I actually think our show deserved an episode where we wrapped it up in a bow and made it beautiful.
Sophia Bush — who played Brooke Davis for all nine seasons — is right about one thing: They definitely did put a bow on everything. Season 9, Episode 13, which was titled simply “One Tree Hill,” was a celebration of the show more than anything, with a lot of reminiscing and nostalgia and all of the characters showing love for one another.
It even included a concert at the nightclub TRIC, with Gavin DeGraw performing the show’s theme song, “I Don’t Wanna Be,” in an especially meta moment. The actress said she loved that everybody went out on a high note, as she continued:
I liked seeing everyone in a rhythm and happy and doing the things our characters had done when we were in high school. There’s really something to that, to the kind of cyclical nature of a life, and I thought it was sort of great.
Bethany Joy Lenz, aka Haley James Scott, agreed with her former co-star, saying that after everything the Tree Hill, North Carolina, residents had been through over the years, it was right to allow them to just be connected and have their happy ending.
Speaking of the wild situations that One Tree Hill found its characters in, Sophia Bush did admit there was one Season 9 storyline she could have done without: the return of Xavier, the man who attacked her in Season 6, killed the beloved high school athlete Quentin and was ultimately arrested. The final season saw him get out of jail, only to attack Brooke again, and I agree that was one story that didn’t need to be revisited.
Other than that, there are no complaints from these One Tree Hill stars (other than maybe a few outfit choices). We’ll have to see if the same is true for the planned sequel series that Bush is reportedly developing with fellow Ravens alumni Hilarie Burton and Daneel Ackles.
In the meantime, you can relive the wild times by streaming all nine seasons of One Tree Hill with either a Hulu subscription or HBO Max subscription.