Pretty Little Liars vs. One Tree Hill: Who Had the Most Unbelievable Time-Jump?

From fashion moguls to teachers, which characters fared better after high school?

By Jean Bentley Nov 25, 2015 2:00 PMTags
Pretty Little Liars, One Tree Hill, Season 5ABC Family, The CW

Real talk: The best way for a television show to handle the awkward transition from high school to college? Skip it altogether! That's what Pretty Little Liars is doing come January, and what fellow long-running high school soap One Tree Hill did back in 2008.

But the way these two similarly dramatic shows handled their respective flashes forward are incredibly different. How? Now that we know where the Liars end up in five years, let's compare their post-collegiate lives to the super-successful small-town OTH crew.

ABC Family

Here's where the Pretty Little Liars are when the show returns for the second half of season six:

Aria: After a brief foray into photography, this Liar has moved into the publishing world, where she meets her new boyfriend (hi, Liam) and also happens to reconnect with her old love, Ezra.

Hanna: While she and Caleb moved to New York City together so she could attend FIT and intern for Zac Posen, the couple couldn't make it work with her travel schedule once her career took off. Now she's a fashion assistant and engaged to a man she met in Europe.

Spencer: This should surprise no one, but the straight-A (pun intended) student headed to Georgetown after leaving Rosewood and now works on Capitol Hill as an aspiring lobbyist (and current coffee gofer). Unfortunately, she and Toby didn't make it, either.

Emily: Losing her father affected Emily so deeply that she dropped out of school in California and is now working as a bartender.

Alison: Despite the fact that she didn't really attend much high school at all—you know, with the "assumed to be dead" thing and all—Alison is now a teacher at Rosewood High and married to Charlotte's doctor (!).

The CW

And in season five of One Tree Hill, here's where our favorite characters wound up:

Peyton: It's no surprise that the artsy Peyton went into music, and was working as an assistant in the music business before quitting and moving back to her hometown.

Brooke: Oh, no big deal, Brooke just spent her four years between seasons creating a mega-successful fashion line called Clothes Over Bros, and running her own magazine and fashion channel.

Lucas: Like every brooding high schooler's dream, Lucas became a bestselling author by 22.

Haley: She had already achieved success in the music world in high school, and subsequently went to college and became a teacher.

Nathan: After a successful college basketball career, Nathan was signed to play professionally in Seattle but suffered a career-ending injury before he could start.

The verdict? It's pretty insane that a close-knit group of friends from a small town could produce a group of 22-year-olds so successful that there's a former teen musician, a fashion mogul, a bestselling author and a pro athlete in one single crew. OTH tackled plenty of grounded issues, but the characters' adult lives were pretty outrageous. Meanwhile, PLL has some of the most insane drama ever, but the girls are now in very realistic places in their lives. They may have diverse interests, but they're all succeeding at entry-level roles in their chosen careers.

Watch: "Pretty Little Liars" Flashes Forward in Season 6