Fan-favorite small-town shows like Virgin River, The Way Home and One Tree Hill are joining forces for a first-ever experience.

As Virgin River fans patiently await season 8, there’s something else they can look forward to. 

Ben Hollingsworth, who plays Dan Brady on the hit Netflix drama, took to Instagram for a first-ever announcement that delighted fans. 

“Virgin River fans, I know you’re excited. You want to know: is Brady coming back for season 8? You want to know when season 8’s coming out? You want to know if there’s going to be a season 9. Well…” he begins, before a censored sticker covers his mouth and a bleep-out noise cuts off any sliver of news he was going to share. 

“I’m just joking, I can’t tell you any of that,” he admits, before revealing something equally as exciting for the fandom. 

“What I can tell you is that for the first time ever, me and a bunch of my Virgin River cast mates are going to be doing a convention.”

And it’s not just any convention, as he clarifies that it isn’t like “one of those mall ones,” adding that this one is “tailored just for shows like ours.”

By that, he meets small town shows, which have carved out a place for themselves in the TV landscape. 

“It’s called Meet Cute con and the theme is small town television,” he added, noting, “that’s basically Virgin River.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Benjamin Hollingsworth (@hollingsworthb)

The excitement continues as Hollingsworth reveals it’s taking place in Nashville at the Loveless Barn, with Virgin Hotels Nashville fittingly serving as a sponsor. 

It will kick off with a rooftop party and run from Nov. 6th through 8th. 

People reports it will include “celebrity panels, live music, interactive experiences, and Southern food for an intimate fan experience.”

But it’s not just Virgin River! 

Other small town hows included in Meet Cute Con include One Tree Hill and The Way Home.

The confirmed guest list for Small-Town Swoon is as follows: One Tree Hill alum Jana Kramer, The Way Home‘s Evan Williams, and Virgin River stars Alexandra Breckenridge, Martin Henderson, Hollingsworth and Zibby Allen.

Additional celebrities from small town shows will be announced in the coming weeks. 

In the meantime, if you want to be part of the first-ever meet up, you can grab tickets here.

Sophia Bush may have just gotten married, but she’s reflecting on a past, high-profile relationship on the Drama Queens podcast.

Specifically, her marriage and divorce from One Tree Hill co-star, Chad Michael Murray. 

While chatting with her former co-stars, Bethany Joy Lenz and Hilarie Burton—who are all too familiar with what went down between Biush and Murray—the actress opened up about the hardships of having to work on set after the couple divorced in 2006. They got engaged in 2004 and married in 2005. 

In fact, Bush said it was even more difficult because their characters, Brooke Davis and Lucas Scott, started dating around the same time their relationship was hitting a rough patch that it would never bounce back from. 

“Not for nothing, you were going through a breakup with the person that you were playing a romance opposite of,” Joy Lenz said. 

“And regardless of what all those circumstances were, that’s incredibly difficult — emotionally to be able to be vulnerable and be there in that moment. There’s lots of actors who have done that — who’ve done movies and TV shows and things, they date their costar or whatever, it doesn’t work out. But the fact that you were able to just be that raw and open and vulnerable, it’s a real credit to you as an artist.  You put your art in front of everybody and just were like, ‘Look, this is it. I’m just sharing my heart and here we are’. I thought it was really beautiful,” she said. 

Bush gave a very mature answer, explaining that regardless of what was going on in her personal life, she prioritized the show and the character that resonated with so many young women.

“People can call it whatever they want. They can say it’s strength, they can say it’s pride, they can say its professionalism — you can put a positive or a negative skew on I, but I was always going to put Brooke Davis ahead of everybody and everything else. Nothing mattered to me but being honest for her,” she explained.

The actress, who recently wed Grant Hughes in a stunning and poignant Oklahoma wedding, previously refused to speak about her marriage to Murray as she didn’t want her career to be defined by a relationship. 

 “I refuse to let that one relationship define me, which is why I’ve done my best to avoid discussing it for 10 years,” she began, while acknowledging that it was a “massive event” in her life. 

She added: “The trauma of it was amplified by how public it became, which was incredibly foreign and bizarre to a girl who’d been just another college kid 24 months before her life blew up.”

There are plenty of relationships fans can “ship” on One Tree Hill.

You can be #TeamBrucas, #TeamLeyton, or #TeamNaley, and they’re all great in their own way.

But there’s undoubtedly one relationship that trumps them all — Laley, aka Lucas and Haley.

As with all friendships, they’ve had a fair share of ups-and-downs.

They grew apart briefly, but despite the rocky road, they’ve always managed to come back to each other and never lose the love.

On One Tree Hill Season 4 Episode 3, Haley asked Lucas to promise her that “matter what happens, you and I will always be friends.” And he kept that promise.

Significant others came and went, but Lucas and Haley remained best friends throughout the entirety of the series.

Even after Lucas and Peyton drove off into the sunset (Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton exited the show on One Tree Hill Season 6), their friendship lived on off-screen.

When it comes to OTH relationships, Haley and Lucas’s was the purest one.

It was the most enduring relationship in the series, having started in childhood.

When we met them on One Tree Hill Season 1 Episode 1, they already had an established connection that was built on a foundation of trust and memories.

Their dynamic would have allowed the writers to easily cross the line and give in to the played-out friends-to-lovers trope (and maybe that was even the plan at one point), but the best thing about Lucas and Haley is that they never crossed that line.

The fact that they remained best friends and never pursued each other romantically made them far more interesting than if they would have ever considered dating.

In a small town like Tree Hill, it’s almost unheard of for a guy and girl to be “just friends.”

But Haley and Lucas proved that members of the opposite sex could love each other platonically.

These are some of our favorite things about them:

They Were Protective Over Each Other

We first begin to understand Lucas and Haley’s relationship on One Tree Hill Season 1 Episode 1.

They’re the outcasts that always stuck together and had each other’s backs.

When Nathan starts cozying up to Haley after she offers to tutor him, Lucas gets protective and warns her against getting involved with his half-brother because he believes he’s only getting close to her to get back at him.

While Lucas isn’t entirely wrong, he also trusts Haley to make the right decision, even if he doesn’t agree with it.

In turn, Haley’s decision to tutor is fueled by wanting to protect Lucas. She offers Nathan her math tutoring services on the condition that stop bullying Lucas and leave him alone.

They Cheer Each Other Up

Though it would be easy for Lucas to point out that he warned Haley about Nathan’s self-serving intentions, he never does. Instead, he’s there for his best friend.

On One Tree Hill Season 1 Episode 7, when Haley believes that Nathan’s been making fun of their relationship, she confesses that he showed her his true colors and she fell for it because she’s “stupid,” but Luke assures her that she’s far from it.

Instead of saying, “I told you so,” he’s supportive and lends her a shoulder to cry on.

On One Tree Hill Season 1 Episode 18, famously known as the “Boy Toy Episode,” Haley taps into her savings from the cafe so that she can buy Lucas during the auction to spend time with him.

At the end of a fun-filled night, Lucas assures Haley that “If Nathan doesn’t see how special you really are, then he’s an idiot cause I think you’re amazing.”

He may not be fully supportive of the relationship, but he always wanted her to follow her heart and be happy. 

Read the full post at TV Fanatic!