Binge Bites: One Tree Hill

can you feel the angst?

Hi Full Senders!

How’s life? It’s been a while. To be honest, it’s been hard for me to write since my last newsletter, not for lack of want but because I write professionally these days! My brain capacity isn’t always there to thinkpiece something new after spending a full week delivering over 30 copy assets. So for my absence, I apologize.

It’s not all bad though - I’m glad that I found a job after a long 8 months of unemployment and it has helped me a lot. Really, I just want to thank you all for your patience as I try to get back into the swing of things with this realm of my process. As a treat, this is the first official installment of Binge Bites - a new mini-letter series where I try to condense hundreds of hours of TV marathoning into something quick and digestible.

My usual content and deeper dives will return soon. For now, enjoy this palate cleanser. Love u :)

Over the past couple of months, my friend B and I have been watching One Tree Hill. It’s his favorite TV show, and he’d been asking me for years to start it so he could talk to me about it. I typically don’t go for shows that are majority white, and I didn’t grow up having access to mainstream television, so I’m experiencing this show in its entirety for the first time.

I just finished season 2 tonight, and we will resume our regular binge-watching marathons later this week.

Here are some of the things that stand out to me the most so far (beware this is your only spoiler alert if you plan on watching!):

• One of my absolute favorite things they do off the bat is include quotes from literature to bookend different episodes and make you think about the parallel themes in the story. It seems like such a trope by now, but it is effective!

  • Like the house on fire reference during the season 2 finale? Sheeeesh. The writers ate that.

• They did their thing with casting. Everyone seems to fit their character profile so much, and not to mention many of them are objectively attractive. I always found Chad Michael Murray, Bethany Joy Lenz, and Sophia Bush attractive but this show gives you some eye candy.

• The show accurately captures the essence of being in a small town in the American South. Especially the teenage part of it.

  • That being said, everyone cares about each other’s business way too much.

  • Also, everyone in the show has a villain arc. No one is flawless.

• In terms of villain arcs, it is certifiably insane how Dan, a grown-ass man, has beef with basically every teenager in Tree Hill. I get resentment towards your own life and immediate family but man, he is….a piece of work.

  • Dan’s character overall tends to be the most confusing or wishy-washy. It’s always a game for him, and I get that’s the point, but there are times it feels like they’re dragging it. It’s frustrating how the few shots he’s had at redemption gets flipped by the next episode when there are times it could’ve made a positive difference.

• The show tackles some real-life topics though: teen pregnancy, bullying, failing marriages, addiction, consent, sexuality/queerness. For the 2000s, the range for dialogue was impressive.

  • Anna’s character was handled well in my opinion, given how gayness and bisexuality were treated back then. I loved that she left season 2 being supported and empowered.

• My ships: Lucas and Brooke, Peyton and Jake, Keith and whoever the hell makes him happy tbh because he deserves so much better than both Karen and Jules.

• Most insufferable characters imo: Deb (!!!!), Dan, Peyton (not always but mainly for her camgirl/redlight habits)

  • It’s just funny to me when people who seem to have it all feel the need to sabotage their life to spice things up a bit…imagine ruining not just one good thing but all good things? couldn’t be me!

• I LOVED Haley in season 1 but I am NOT happy with Haley right now. Her whole trading her relationship for music thing was awful and I have yet to see how it will (or won’t) be resolved.

  • I’m of the camp that Haley would have been a successful musician no matter what because she was so loved and supported by everyone around her already. It was her fault for not seeing the people who saw her before the fame.

  • Fuck Chris Keller.

  • I hated Nathan in the beginning of the show but he really grew on me as he started to show up as a partner to Haley and a brother to Lucas. I was proud to see how they developed him. I feel so bad for Nathan post-accident and relationship mess.

• The general vibe of this show is social life chaos. Like, the stakes are never actually that high when you think about it, but someone makes them FEEL really high and it’s such an interesting reminder of when you’re a teenager, your feelings are just SO BIG. And for some people who peaked in high school, things never stop being interpreted and treated in this way.

• It’s true that hardly anybody locks their door in the South. People do just walk in and out of each other’s homes unannounced. But even then - how is it that nearly everyone in the show has absentee or neglectful parents LOL like Peyton straight up lives ALONE.

  • Is it because they’re wyt? Because that’s generally not how POC homes tend to be…

• Brooke becoming student council president was cute and I found myself celebrating her growth.

• Coach Whitey is solid in terms of filling in where everyone’s parents/role models have failed, though I’m not sure if having teacher who is *that* involved in every student’s affairs IRL would be a good idea.

• I’ve heard this show gets even darker and doesn’t ultimately end anywhere you think it will. Should I sue for emotional distress now or later?

Overall, my biggest love for this show is that for all its complicated storylines, it represents a simpler era of TV - one that I’m not sure we will ever get back to. 30-40 minute episodes instead of 1+ hours each, seasons that were 20 episodes long instead of 8 with a mid-season break.

The expectations of the entertainment industry in the 2020s are incredibly harsh. TV shows get canceled shortly after they air, or even before they get to. Going to the theaters is now an EVENT, as every movie in theaters MUST be a blockbuster of MCU caliber or else it’s not given any marketing support. I miss when you could watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or The Suite Life of Zack and Cody or other “coming-of-age” media as many times as you wanted and it all still felt new. It seems movies or shows that just casually exist or make you feel good are so few and far between now.

With the writer’s strikes and SAG-AFTRA strikes recently reaching their agreements, we have to continue to hope that there’s exciting work yet to be realized. I’m sure there is, and as a writer/filmmaker myself, I want to keep imagining new, seemingly impossible stories. But sometimes, it’s okay to admit that easy simple silly small-town drama is enough too.

Anyway, there’s a LOTTTT more left to One Tree Hill than season two. So if anyone wants to join me on this journey and talk about it, let me know in the comments. Would love to hear your takes!