The Peyton-Lucas-Brooke love triangle, otherwise simply referred to as "the love triangle", was one of the central storylines of the first four seasons of One Tree Hill. A love triangle involving Lucas Scott and best friends Peyton Sawyer and Brooke Davis, it began in the first season and culminated in the fourth season when Lucas realized who his one true love was.
Storyline arc[]
Season 1[]
Lucas Scott has always loved his half brother's girlfriend, Peyton Sawyer, a hard-tempered girl due to having lost her mother at a young age. Lucas tries to approach Peyton many times, but because of her big loss, the girl fails to open up very easily with people. The only person who can reveal the true character of Peyton is her best friend since childhood, Brooke Davis, but thanks to Lucas' kindness and goodness, Peyton eventually begins opening up to him and reciprocating his feelings. Unfortunately, in the meantime Brooke has set her eyes on Lucas too and, despite being well aware of Lucas and Peyton’s feelings for each other, she throws herself on him, aggressively flirting with him despite his evident disinterest in her and his dislike for this type behavior. However, when the two spend one night talking while taking care of Peyton after she was drugged and nearly raped at a college party and he’s come to help the girls, Lucas gets to know a deeper side of Brooke and reconsiders his opinion of her. Brooke, who is not accustomed to the fact that a guy is interested in her as a person and not just for her body, begins seriously falling for Lucas. Meanwhile, he and Peyton have shared their first kiss at a party and he’s told her she wants everything with her, but she’s run away because of his fear to let someone in, so Lucas, feeling of having no hope with her, accepts to go on a date with Brooke and, when Peyton decides to go to Lucas’ to tell him she wants the same things he wants, she finds him together with Brooke, realizing what’s happening and leaving heartbroken. Lucas then tells her he did not want to hurt her, but Peyton stops him telling him she is happy for her best friend and for him, deciding to take a step back not to hurt Brooke. In the meantime, Lucas and Brooke start dating, even though Lucas still has strong feelings for Peyton and Brooke herself soon realizes that she and Lucas have nothing in common and bring out the worst in each other. Soon after, Lucas and Peyton give in to their feelings, which they can’t deny anymore, ending up cheating on Brooke (despite not sleeping together). Then, Lucas breaks up with Brooke in order to explore a relationship with Peyton, who instead decides to tearfully ends things with him out of guilt for betraying her best friend. Unfortunately, Brooke eventually finds out about the betrayal: with a broken heart, she decides to close her friendship with Peyton and is enraged with Lucas, but in the end she's able to forgive her best friend, but not her now ex-boyfriend, whom she even tries to take revenge on by pretending to be pregnant, although he soon learns she lied.
Season 2[]
During this season, the love triangle storyline is given much less space than in the previous one as all the three of them have other storylines for most of the time, interacting very little with each other. Then, in the season finale, when Brooke is about to leave for California for the summer, Lucas tells her he’s developed some true feelings for her and wants to be with her: she is stunned and at the same time shattered and leaves him alone without an answer. Meanwhile, after having remained at odds with each other for basically the whole season and both hurt for letting them drift so apart, Lucas and Peyton finally make amends, promising to one another not to be separated ever again and starting to reconnect.
Season 3[]
Lucas and Peyton have spent the whole summer together, growing closer again and forming a great friendship by hanging out, sharing mutual secrets and intimate things, resulting in their bond becoming stronger than it has ever been. Meanwhile, when Brooke comes back to Tree Hill for senior year, Lucas become set on getting her back and agrees to have a non-exclusive fling with her, who doesn't trust him because of their past. However, a series of events leads Brooke to sleep with Chris Keller, tearing them apart. Even after that, Lucas and Brooke still don’t give up on the idea of being together: in fact, when she shows the 82 letters she’s written him whilst on vacation, telling him she wants to be with him, he decides to forgive her, then the two agree to start a real relationship. Meanwhile, Lucas and Peyton’s friendship keeps growing stronger and stronger until she realizes that her feelings for him are resurfacing and when he saves her during the school shooting, thinking she would die, she tells him that she loves him and the two share a brief but meaningful kiss. After that day and Keith’s death, everything’s changed: Brooke and Lucas start growing apart again as they can’t get each other and aren’t able to communicate, especially during this tough moment, while he and Peyton decide to pretend that what happened between them meant nothing and it was only because of the situation, but Brooke herself once again notices how strong and unbreakable their bond still is, ending up telling Peyton “the boy I love saved the girl I love. That's the girl that he loves too... We both know that it's true”. So, Peyton tries to still bury how she really feels about Lucas not to hurt Brooke, but soon after she realizes she can’t deny her love for him anymore, so she decides to be honest and reveal to Brooke that she is still in love with him, causing another huge fight between the girls which ends with Brooke enraged and declaring her friendship with a shattered Peyton over once again. Then, at Nathan and Haley's vow renewal, Lucas lets it slip that he and Peyton kissed during the school shooting because he assumed Brooke already knew: she is furious and the two have a massive fight in which she tells him that he has never "let her all the way in", feeling that their relationship has never had emotional connection enough to be a real couple even regardless of Peyton. The season ends with Lucas and Brooke’s relationship destiny uncertain, though surely at its lowest point, Brooke and Peyton’s friendship once again broken and the latter determined not to give up on her love for Lucas anymore.
Season 4[]
Right after the vow renewal, Brooke breaks up with Lucas, feeling they that have grown too far apart. Lucas does a little try to get her back, but Brooke acts immaturely towards him and Lucas quickly stops his pursuit of her, stating that he’s not the guy for her. After some time, the two go on one last date together, but, after realizing they don’t see their future next to each other, they understand it was a huge mistake, accepting their relationship had run its course and they’re not meant to be: this ends the romantic chapter between Lucas and Brooke for good, though they agree to remain friends. Then, after winning the State Championship basketball match, after Peyton has revealed her feelings to him, Lucas finally realizes she’s the girl he wants next to him when all his dreams come true: after Brooke tells him she is fine with them getting together as she’s understood herself they are meant to be and his iconic “It’s you” speech, right at the end of the match, Lucas and Peyton share a long-awaited kiss in the middle of the court and then finally become a couple for the first time at the after-party. Between the two, however, things aren’t simple right away: in fact, that same night Lucas suffers a heart attack, risking his life but fortunately making through it. This, at the beginning, scares Peyton, whose worst fear is losing those she loves, pushing her to reject Lucas' affection, but their love prevails as Lucas tells her he had to come back for her because he hadn’t told her he loves her yet, so he couldn’t die: thanks to Lucas’ declaration, Peyton’s fears go away as the two are finally able to enjoy their love story. Unfortunately, soon after another problem arises: it is discovered a video shot by Brooke and Nathan, who have filmed themselves having sex out of nowhere at a party when he was still Peyton’s boyfriend, unleashing Peyton’s rage and leading her to punch Brooke in the face. At this point, after engaging Brooke in a violent and aggressive fight for throwing eggs at her window, Peyton decides to "permanently" end her friendship with Brooke, feeling she is a hypocrite because of the way she was always treated by her due to her feelings for Lucas, now knowing she had already done something that bad before her with Nathan and even without having any feelings for him. Furious at the one she considered her best friend, she even decides not to go to the senior prom with Lucas. Fortunately, after the two have beaten Peyton’s stalker together, they’re finally able to rekindle their friendship once and for all, even strengthening it, while the love story between Lucas and Peyton is on its highest note and the three of them graduate from high school and are ready to face adult life: Brooke is going to throw herself in the fashion world, Lucas decides to go to college near Tree Hill with Nathan and Haley while Peyton moves to LA to pursue a career as a music producer, but the two decide to go long distance.
Aftermath[]
One year after graduation, Lucas flies to LA and asks Peyton to marry him, but, feeling not ready yet, she rejects his proposal, leading to a painful break-up between them. Then, Lucas goes to see Brooke in New York: they talk about what happened in LA and spend the evening hanging out together. When they get back to Lucas' hotel room, he kisses Brooke drunkenly and invites her to stay the night: despite still having mild feelings for him, she pulls him away, knowing it is just the drink talking and that he is still completely in love with Peyton, then she leaves.
At the beginning of season 5, both Peyton and Brooke move back to Tree Hill after four and a half years away and it soon becomes clear that, despite now being in a relationship with his editor, Lindsey Strauss, Lucas is still in love with Peyton and so is she. On the other hand, Brooke has finally moved on and has begun a new chapter in her life, so, when she realizes the her friends are still in love with each other, she begins encouraging them to get back together. At the beginning of season 6, Lucas and Peyton finally reunite after he proposes to her again, at which this time she happily accepts. Then, they settle down together and soon after they discover they’re pregnant with their first child. Brooke couldn’t be more happy that their friends have finally found stability in their relationship and is chosen by Peyton to be her Maid of Honor at their wedding and the godmother to their newborn daughter, Sawyer Brooke Scott. In the meantime, Julian Baker, a film producer, arrives to Tree Hill to turn Lucas’ first book into a movie, and soon he and Brooke fall in love with each other, allowing her to finally have her great love story: the two later get married in season 8 and also have twin sons, Davis and Jude Baker.