How The CW Taught Us Everything We Need To Know About Love

The CW receives a lot of stick for its melodramatic teen shows. After all, this is the broadcast network that brought us various seasons of Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, Smallville, Riverdale, and, of course, the Arrowverse shows.

Yeah, okay, most of its programming is the polar opposite of award-winning television, but let’s not be obtuse here: The CW taught us everything we ever needed to know about love.

It’s through these unforgettable characters and tangled storylines that we navigated our own personal relationships to discover how the heart leads the head about 99% of the time. It’s how we dreamed of finding our own special romances like the ones we saw in our favorite series. Sure, call it corny. Call it silly. But never call it ordinary. The CW’s shows changed us – for better or worse.

Love changes everything

There’s no feeling quite like falling in love. The air seems fresher. The food tastes better. There’s a Michael Jackson-esque moonwalk to every step. A perfect example of this lies in Gossip Girl, especially in the relationship between Dan Humphrey and Serena van der Woodsen. When she walks into his life, it’s a whirlwind of emotions. He becomes spellbound by her mere presence, and she’s all that he can think of. To sum it up: Dan is whipped.

Now, here’s the thing: Dan knows he could never catch her attention, since he wasn’t a part of the Upper East Side social scene, so he needed to find a way to get himself in with the crowd and to meet her. Hence he started Gossip Girl. Romance forced him to think out of the box and to come up with a practical solution. Yeah, his whole method of catching her attention is pretty creepy and morally questionable, but there’s no disputing he let his heart – not his head – do the thinking here and it changed everyone’s lives – not just his and Serena’s.

Watch friends closely, because they usually have similar taste in romantic partners

Oh, boy. This is the dangerous thing about love. While someone gets caught up on cloud nine over somebody else, this doesn’t mean that person is out of bounds for others. The entire premise of One Tree Hill features characters falling in love with their best friends’ significant others. Now, some people might argue that the heart wants what the heart wants, but in this world, friendship means about as much as an alliance in professional wrestling. In other words, there will be betrayal in the end.

Technically speaking, Brooke Davis fell in love with Lucas Scott first, but she had to contend with her BFF, Peyton Sawyer, sneaking around with Lucas. The first time it happened, it caused trouble between everyone; however, Brooke forgave both Peyton and Lucas for their actions. Then, it happened again. At this point, Brooke had every reason to hate them both and cut them off as pals. Plot twist time, though, since it was revealed that Brooke hooked up with Peyton’s ex, Nathan Scott, when they were on a break ever before the whole Peyton and Lucas debacle, so that complicated matters even further. The final capper, though, was Brooke married Julian Baker, another one of Peyton’s exes. Phew! These aren’t love triangles – they’re love octagons.

First love isn’t always the deepest

Pop culture paints out first love as the most important. It’s supposed to be the deepest of them all, because nothing ever reaches the same level. Well, it’s a lie, according to The CW. Sure, first love connects two people, and they remember what it means, but it doesn’t overshadow the big love story that might come later on down the line.

Look at Smallville. On the show, Clark Kent and Lana Lang share strong feelings for each other. It takes them a while to find each other, but when they do, everyone believes it’s forever – including the characters themselves. This isn’t what happens, though, as Clark and Lana break up, and he meets Lois Lane. Lois might not have been his first love here, but no one can’t say their love isn’t the strongest in the end. Lois is his person, his purpose, even if she wasn’t the one he fell in love with first. 

Love hurts

Relationships are complex. While everything looks perfect right now, that doesn’t mean it always will be. At times, people drift apart and break up. It’s a natural part of life, but gosh – it hits hard and sucks. 

The CW shows never shied away from showing the ugly side of love – the part where it hurts and pokes holes in the heart to make it look like Swiss cheese. Riverdale, for example, showcases a tremendous amount of heartache as a number of key relationships don’t last between the characters. The devastation drops like a bomb, pummeling the characters into balls of woe and misery. Seeing Betty pine over Archie, Jughead, or everyone really hurts to see, and it’s clear to see the other parties are equally devastated. The ending for the show smacks on a different level, showing a lifetime of love earned and lost and how all that’s left in the end is bittersweet memories. Please pass the tissue.