It's Time

One Tree Hill is now in it's 8th season which means it lasted about 7 seasons longer than most people thought it would.  Seven and a half longer than many thought it had any right to.  I am obviously not one of those people as I've watched from the beginning and mostly enjoyed the soapy, over-the-top, dramatic insanity.  In fact, I've long thought that the show was essentially the same as Desperate Housewives, but with better execution and younger characters. 

But here in the 8th season, they've clearly run out of stories.  In past years we've seen stalkers, bullying, murder, drug addition, kidnapping, betrayal, teenage marriage, teenage pregnancy, sex scandals, and the time a dog ate a human heart on its way to transplantation.  This season we've had significant plot points that involve a contract law college course, having a wedding on a shoestring budget, and the lay-around-the-house-ness of unemployment.  Last night was the all-time low-point for the show when the A-plot showed us that Brooke's boredom manifested itself in her desire to become a Kick Ass-esque superhero and then she talked Haley and Quinn into joining her. 

Brooke whipped up three costumes (she couldn't afford to make herself the wedding dress she dreamed about forever but it was no problem at all to throw these pleather monstrosities together on a moment's notice?) and then asked Haley to use the crisis hot line to find them someone to save.  As it turned out, there was a girl at Tree Hill High being bullied so they decided to "help" her.  There was a showdown in a local park where Haley shamed the bullies into leaving the girl alone - or rather, she tried to shame them and when that didn't work, she just threatened them with letters to their prospective colleges.  This all involved a speech about how she was bullied in high school which would have been a little better if Brooke had displayed a spark of recognition that it was she who did the bullying of "Tutor Girl," but alas, that bit of history was left out of the narrative entirely. 

Elsewhere in Tree Hill, our riveting adventures in contract law continue as Nathan makes a friend in class.  Turns out Quinton Aaron's career trajectory is like a meteor headed for earth - last year he was playing Michale Oher to Sandra Bullock's Oscar-winning Leigh Ann Tuohy in The Blind Side and this year, he's a random college student on One Tree Hill.  Anyway, the professor continues to be a jerk and rather than let Nate risk failing the course and not becoming an agent, Clay pops into class to argue with the professor and make him look like a stupid jack-hole in front of his students.  I'm not saying the guy isn't a stupid jack-hole, but I don't think pointing it out to him in a room full of people is going to result in easier grading practices on the final either. 

Chase, who I guess is getting his own stories now for some reason, has joined the Big Brother program and is assigned to Chuck.  Chuck spends the entire episode being an insufferable pill and no one kills him.  I know he's just a kid, but I have him very much so I'm not going to speak of him further.

Mia and Alex continue to bicker over Chase which is annoying and serves only to give Jana Kramer an excuse to sing her new single which was a rather lovely classic country ballad that I downloaded from iTunes immediately. 

And finally, in the...E-plot, Julian directs a commercial for the local community college and hires Mouth as a PA.  When the "star" of the commercial quits, Julian promotes Mouth to the star.  While all this is happening, Mouth makes another mistake with Millie (dude can NOT keep his shit together in a relationship) and Julian sets him straight. 

See?  They're out of stories to tell and after living with these characters for 8 years, I'd just as soon see them happy and with normal, uneventful lives for a change, so it feels like it's ok that they're out and now we can all say goodbye.