One Tree Hill: The Complete Third Season

Review By: Jason Babb
JasonBabb@TheCinemaSource.com

I was always familiar with the show One Tree Hill but I never watched it weekly. I kind of get it confused with the other shows on the CW Network (formerly known as the WB). It can be hard to tell if you are watching Smallville, Gilmore Girls, 7th Heaven or Everwood at first. But after a while you begin to remember faces like Chad Michael Murray who plays Lucas the most involved and popular character on the show.

One Tree Hill is not hard to catch onto at all. Almost every character that’s being talked about pops up in each scene repeatedly so the viewer is immediately filled in. The show revolves around six teenagers who are all linked together. Lucas and Nathan (James Lafferty) are half brothers. Hailey (Bethany Joy Galeotti) is the wife of Nathan and best friend to Lucas. Brooke (Sophia Bush) and Peyton (Hilarie Burton) are also best friends and share the common love for the highly sought after Lucas. Lastly, Mouth (Lee Norris) is the sensitive school reporter that has befriended them all.

Season Three begins with a fire arson attempt on local business man, Lucas and Nathan’s daddy Dan Scott’s (Paul Johansson) car dealership. Dan is the show’s principle antagonist and a vengeful cold hearted father who treats Lucas like crap. Meanwhile, Hailey is back in the town of Tree Hill and desperately trying to mend her broken marriage to Nathan by leaving her pop-star dreams behind. The beautiful Brooke hides her feelings for Lucas by playing a non-exclusive relationship game. Lucas plays along until he realizes his true feelings for her are serious. Peyton who has too many problems for any real seventeen-year-old to handle, deals with her true identity and untrustworthy people after she gets a shocking visit from her biological mother Ellie. There’s also the nerdy Mouth has gained popularity by being embraced by the clique of friends.

Season Three also features a special guest appearance by the band Fallout Boy. (How cool is that?) There are other significant characters that interfere with the lives of the friends but it kind of leads to me revealing plots. Loyalty, trust and strong friendship are key points to solving the problems that surface between the six friends of Tree Hill, N.C. It is almost surreal that people like this could exist.

The highlight of Season Three is episode 16 titled “With tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls, we slept”. This is where an emotionally disturbed student carries a gun to school and holds a classroom of student’s hostage. (I call it the columbine episode) This episode is a must see and should have been the season finale because of its dreadful ending. This was a powerful episode that writers took a risk with because it was a topical issue to tackle that tried to send a ...