Last night, viewers said goodbye to One Tree Hill after nine seasons and 187 episodes. Though the ratings have fallen quite a bit since the show’s heydey, the cast and crew were given time to wrap up the show with a true series finale — written and directed by series creator Mark Schwahn.

The CW kicked off the night with a special retrospective — One Tree Hill: Always and Forever — that took viewers through the history of the TV show. It wasn’t a hit in its first season (even by WB standards) but the ratings grew significantly in season two. Season three saw the numbers start to dwindle but the show has held on and even survived the WB to CW transition.

The last episode, appropriately named after the U2 song “One Tree Hill,” begins with a montage of the various characters literally looking back at their younger selves. They’ve truly come a long way.

Most of the episode takes place via flashbacks and revolves around the 10-year anniversary of the Tric nightclub. Haley (Bethany Joy Galeotti) tells the audience (and the home viewers) that, “The time that we’ve spent together over the years has meant so much and without you we would not be here tonight.”

Brooke buys the store for her Baker Man across the street from Karen’s Cafe so that she and Haley will have their own corner of the world. Julian (Austin Nichols) buys her old house with the red door for them to raise their family in.

Mouth (Lee Norris) receives a $500,000 check from Dan Scott’s estate. He revisits the traumatic school shooting and ends up starting a sports scholarship named after Keith Scott and Jimmy Edwards.

Clay (Robert Buckley) and Quinn (Shantel VanSanten) decide they want full custody of Logan. At the courthouse, after running into Bevin (Bevin Prince), Clay and Quinn decide they can’t wait and get hitched. They legally adopt Logan and their family is complete.

Nathan presents Chris Keller’s (Tyler Hilton) old guitar to him — the one he’d sold to get Haley’s masters. Chris impresses a lady record exec when he performs at the Tric and he then turns down her offer.

Nathan (James Lafferty) prepares a special dinner for Haley and gives her a box of Crackerjacks, just as he did in the first episode. The prize is a real bracelet and he tells her, “Don’t say you never gave me anything.” Jamie decides that he wants to break his dad’s basketball record. Nathan makes sure that Jamie wants to be a great basketball player because he likes it.

In an epilogue that’s set in the future, the characters attend a basketball in which we see a full-grown Jamie running onto the court. He’s surpassed his father’s record and his dad is very proud. Millie’s pregnant and Skills and Bevin are back together. It seems everyone has gotten a happy ending.

What do you think? Was the series finale of One Tree Hill all that you hoped that it would be? Was it a satisfying ending for the TV show?

Image courtesy The CW.