OTH: All About Love

Just when I'm ready to declare this show completely craptastic, it does something that makes me connect with it, and dare I say, love it again.

My love affair with One Tree Hill has been going on for so long. I didn't want to love it, never had any intention to, but something happened and I fell...hard. Sometimes it's my dirty little secret--the one I want to hide in a closet with until everyone leaves and we can sneak out. Then there have been times when I've held on to it tightly and shouted from the rooftops, letting the world know how in love with it I am--faults and all.

But then things started to get bad, really bad. This season I was getting ready to break it off. I wasn't connecting with the characters, the amount of cheese was excessive, and sometimes it was just too painful to sit in the room with it. I understood that the show was growing and changing, but I wasn't so sure I wanted to grow and change with it. I missed how it used to be. I wanted things to be the way they were--when I was happy and looked forward to actually seeing it. It didn't feel like the magic was there anymore.

Then, tonight happened. I and Love and You came back in full force and I was smitten again. Yes, there was still a good amount of cheese still involved and some predictability, but I didn't mind that much because those are two qualities that have always been present on this show. Those were the faults I learned to accept.

Nathan and Haley, on the other hand, are two of the greatest things about this show. They are always golden. No matter what, this relationship keeps everything together. It's the glue. It's what made me stay in love with this show for so long. No matter how frustrated I get with this show, it's a given that a Naley scene will bring me right back. There's no denying the chemistry between these two actors. They make me believe that love, although imperfect at times, can be enough.

But tonight it wasn't their relationship that pulled at my heartstrings, although I guess you could say it played a small part. What really got me was the Clay/Sara back story. For a while I'd been going back and forth with Clay's character. I liked that he and Nathan were good friends and that he seemed like a good guy, but I really wanted to know his story. I wanted to know what made him tick. The only problem was that the show was making me wait--for too long in my opinion. So tonight his story was put out there and now I think I officially love Clay. I understand why he does what he does and why he's the way he is. He is Nathan, or should I say, was Nathan. He and Sara were Nathan and Haley. This is why the Naley family unit means so much to him. That's what he would've had if Sara were still alive.

Even though Sara only played a small part in two episodes, this character made a huge impact on the show. Each scene they showed with Clay and Sara gave you a good idea of how much these two loved each other. So when that final scene where she fell to the floor and died made an appearance, you could feel exactly what Clay was going through--know why he'd become the person he is now. Then to see him not be able to say goodbye...well, that was just as heartbreaking. As a Naley fan, I couldn't help thinking, what if that had been Nathan and Haley? I suspect Nathan probably would have followed the same path as Clay, which again, just made the whole thing that much more emotional when you put it in the context of our golden couple.

Mark Schwann is kind of like the Barbara Walters of teen dramas--when he writes an episode he knows just where to poke and prod to get the waterworks started. I admit, it worked on me. I was bawling like a baby when Sara died. It's hard not to when he does such a good job of getting you emotionally invested in these relationships.

Well OTH, you've pulled me in again and made me love you when I didn't want to, but then again isn't this how it all started?