Sophia Bush, Bethany Joy Lenz React to OTH’s Iconic Heart-Eating Dog Scene

Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz still can’t get over the iconic One Tree Hill heart-eating dog scene, just like Us.

“This is the episode we get talked about … Well, I don’t wanna say, ‘Talked about the most for,’ but I’ll say, ‘made fun of the most for,’” Bush, 41, recalled on the Monday, April 29, episode of the “Drama Queens” podcast. “Yeah, a dog eats a heart and everything is insane.”

Lenz, 43, noted that there were “a lot of really poignant and meaningful moments” in the episode, but there were also “just bizarre” ones specifically with the dog.

“I liked it, I think, overall,” Lenz reflected. “I’m just thinking about this now. If the dog eating the heart in the hospital was not in the episode, do I like this episode? And I do.”

During episode 18 of season 6, Dan Scott (Paul Johansson) awaited a heart transplant in a hospital. While in the waiting room, a medical professional carrying the organ in a cooler tripped and fell, which led the heart to fly across the floor. Within seconds, a dog — who was high — ran over and ate the heart in a case of the munchies.

“Here’s the thing: there has to be a way for Dan to not get the heart,” Bush said. “The extreme choice of having a dog that’s eaten pounds of weed — so it’s high and hungry — eat the heart is, you know, a choice that was made.”

Bush noted that the scene was “so silly,” saying, “It, like, pulled me out because I was like, ‘Why is it in a lunch box? Why isn’t it sealed? It should be hermetically sealed or whatever the term is for so it doesn’t get contaminated.’ All of the little things where I was like, it’s so far-fetched that I can’t stop asking questions instead of actually watching the scene.”

She continued, “But then I did have to wonder, is that because we’ve been ridiculed for this for a decade and a half and so we are just ready to hate it? I don’t know.”

Lenz agreed with Bush, adding that the “mistake” that was made was “not building [the scene] up enough.”

“If we had started on the medic who was, whatever, coming in from a bender the night before and didn’t seal the thing up properly, and we followed the case … if they had actually come up with plausible explanations … if we saw why the heart was the perfect storm, it really would’ve actually paid off I think,” Lenz said, before adding, “There were ways they could’ve improved that, but [it] didn’t happen.”

The women stayed focused on the OTH episode they were recapping and did not address Bush’s major life events of late, including her coming out as queer. She announced her sexuality in an essay for Glamour on Thursday, April 25, and immediately received support from her former OTH costars, including Lenz.

“Your open-hearted living is so, so inspiring💎,” Lenz commented on Bush’s Instagram post. “I love you.

Bush and girlfriend Ashlyn Harris made their red carpet debut at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, April 27.