Warning: Don’t read this post until you’ve watched the ‘One Tree Hill’ series finale. It contains so many beautiful spoilers.
Mark Schwahn told me he wanted to make the series finale feel like “a quintessential One Tree Hill episode,” and that’s exactly what he delivered April 4: introspective voiceovers, unforgettable performances, and a look into the future that wrapped up nine years of story into an hour-long love letter to the fans of “the little show that could.”

The March 28 episode brought smiles, waterworks & a major step for one fan-favorite couple!
As One Tree Hill’s series finale inches closer and closer — it’s literally seven days away now — the residents of Tree Hill burned their failures and burdens at the town’s Burning Boat Festival.

The March 7 episode of ‘One Tree Hill’ gave a whole new meaning to the song ‘Rock-a-bye Baby. It’s officially creepy now.
Xavier Daniels (Devin McGee) was still lurking around town on this week’s One Tree Hill, and even persuaded Tara (Chelsea Kane) to give him a job at Tree Hill Cafe — right across the street from Karen’s Cafe. My guess is that it didn’t take much convincing, because I have no doubt Tara only gave him the job get under Brooke’s skin. Julian (Austin Nichols) and Brooke (Sophia Bush) decided to stalk Xavier to catch him in a criminal act, and when they saw him “break into a house,” they called the police. Well, he actually lived at the house and had to use the window because he forgot a key. Brooke and Julian merely added fuel to Xavier’s fire.

Fans of Nathan Scott found out they can all rest easy — for now!
Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti) was called down to the morgue to identify a body believed to be Nathan (James Lafferty) on the Feb. 29 episode of One Tree Hill — but those tears we saw in the previews turned out to be tears of joy, because Nathan was NOT in the body bag! In her desperate state, Haley even did the unthinkable and turned to Dan Scott (Paul Johannson) for help solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearance. It’s safe to say that hell has frozen over.

Nathan’s new foe makes Nanny Carrie look like Mother Teresa! We’re kind of worried.
On the Feb. 15 episode of One Tree Hill, viewers finally found out where Nathan (James Lafferty) is — sort of. It turns out he’s been kidnapped! Also, people in Europe take basketball way too seriously. Apparently, Nathan tried to sign a player who was the “property” of someone else. (It’s just a sport. Winning isn’t everything, remember?!) Unfortunately, his family and friends back in Tree Hill are still left in the dark.

Sex, corpses, and endless emotional montages — Tree Hill hasn’t changed one bit!
One Tree Hill returned for its ninth and final season Jan. 11, and it was all sunshine and rainbows from start to finish — well, as long as you don’t count the arson, vandalism, arrests, assaults and dead bodies. I almost forgot about those.