Brando
Remember Brando, Zoe's...uncle? Something like that...who does terrible movie imitations? He's getting married to whoever it was that he fell in love with all those weeks ago (the heat has fried my brain and I seriously had a moment where I thought the character they were referencing was Zoe's mom and I was like, "shouldn't this be a BIGGER DEAL?" And then thank god Wade noted, SEVERAL scenes later, that the bride is Joel's Grandma, because you KNOW someone at the network was, "you have to remind the audience who this person is.") and he's come over to ask her and Wade to do a reading at the ceremony and give her props for being a great "love-maker." She is pleased with herself, Wade is still NOT HAVING HER OR LOVE OR ANYTHING, and I just want to know what freaking season it's supposed to be in BlueBell given how wrapped up she is to go for a run. Because surely Alabama is hella warm right now. Zoe makes some comments about the seasons changing but....okay. You guys knew when this was going to air. Is Alabama suddenly in THE OTHER HEMISPHERE?
Grandma Breeland
Granny Breeland has started dressing rather like her Majesty the Queen, and like her Majesty the Queen, she is very interested in WHO AND WHEN her eldest -- and, one might argue, most important -- grandchild shall wed. Lemon is just wearing what I THOUGHT was a great dress, dealing with her super successful business, when Betty comes swooping in and start yelping that she's pulled some strings to get Lemon on this crazy singles cruise that Lemon claims is only for the desperate, and Betty is all, you ARE the desperate and there's NOTHING I like more than a plot line where someones berates a single, gorgeous, really successful woman for not having gotten married yet. I know Betty is SUPPOSED to be terrible, but I also wish someone would tell her that GOD LEMON IS DOING GREAT. She was just banging a hot chauffeur AND a hot Carter Covington. Leave her alone.
???
Someone needs to leave Rachel Bilson's hair alone, also. It looked straggly last week, but I thought that was a character choice. But now I think it might just look straggly?
AB
This dress is very cute on AB. And because she's in the background, I will cover the Rose plot: she's decided she wants to be a doctor and so she's going to shadow Brick, who is delighted to have a teenager who cares. Magnolia comes back to town -- I literally said to the TV, "I thought you were in SWITZERLAND," before I remembered that sending her to a Swiss boarding school was actually MY suggestion and not a thing that has happened on this show for real -- and gets all butthurt that Brick cares about Rose and not her and blah blah I think Rose taught Brick An Important Lesson About Magnolia but I don't know because I have to confess that I fast-forwarded through the final scene in this plotline.
Lavon's Pants
Lavon, on the other hand, is un-fast-forward-able, at least because you don't want to miss a moment of his trousers. Here's his plot: After they're vandalized, he's hell bent on getting the freeway exit sign to list BlueBell before Fillmore. Here's my thought: um, aren't all freeway signs NATURALLY alphabetical? This even comes up later, that it OUGHT to be alphabetical, and I seriously think that the Department of Transportation would agree with this. ANYWAY, obviously, Fillmore gets involved, there's a wheel of cheese and a ping-pong tournament, and it's actually fairly amusing. Mayor Gainey never fails to make me laugh and I enjoy anything that involves Cress Williams caressing a bottle of scotch like a baby.
Weddings
So, Lemon is working on trying to get a variety of people to have their wedding at Fancie's, but the truth is that this is going to end badly, so just go into this knowing that. Also: this is another one of those episodes where it appears that it all happens on one day, despite that being basically impossible -- Lemon wears this ensemble the entire time -- and ever since once of you pointed out in the comments that this show has a real problem matching the timelines from its various plots to one another, that's all I can see.
Have We Seen This Shirt Before?
Oh, right. Crazy Earl has gotten on the wagon, he's in love with Mae The Health Inspector We Just Met Last Week, and Zoe wants to help him make that happen. Wade, because he is still Over Her and in fact OVER LOVE, is like, "good luck with that. He's gonna get drunk and fall in a hole." SPOILER: He does fall in a hole, albeit not drunk, and also I don't know if I think that the new continued trope of people on this show falling in holes all the time is gonna work out great for them long-term.
Magnolia
What the ever-loving blazes is Magnolia wearing? It's ostensibly fine except that skirt is WAY TOO SHORT and riding far too high on her body. This entire episode, she looked like she was tenderly poking her legs through a weather balloon.
Makeover!
Obviously, no good Get The Girl plotline is complete without a makeover. Why doesn't anyone try to fix Zoe's hair? I don't get it. Bilson has totally good hair. WHAT IS HAPPENING. Also, I have to say that this much brightly colored leopard print is kind of making her look like the window display at Betsey Johnson, which doesn't quite seem her aesthetic to me.
WHAT
AND THEN WE LEARN THAT LEMON'S LOVELY DRESS IS A JUMPSUIT. BETRAYED! Speaking of betrayed, she looks mad because she thought she caught Barry Watson stepping out on AB, but he's actually just meeting with his "jewelry broker" because he's going to ask AB to marry him and Lemon is all delighted for AnnaBeth and ALSO wants him to do it at Fancie's because she needs photos of joyous events for her website.
BETRAYED
ALSO BETRAYED: MY HEART. Meatball is marrying Lily Anne Lonergan. Actually, I think that might be kind of funny, but I secretly wanted him to get back together with Lemon. They ARE having the wedding at Fancie's, though. Meatball's suggestion for a menu item is....Meatballs. I love you, Meatball. I wish you and that crackpot folk singer happiness all the days of your lives, and I look forward to the rage-y song she is going to write about you six months into this. SO many thing rhyme with "Meatball." Free fall. Phone call. Unmitigated gall.
Ping Pong
Mayor Gainey and Lavon are playing ping-pong for the right to have their town listed first on the highway sign (sometimes I wonder what I am even typing with regardless to this show) and there's a kind of cute Princess Bride reference where Lavon is all, "I AM NOT LEFT-HANDED" and switches hands to try to really kill Mayor Gainey, and he does not say, "I am not left-handed either," but instead babbles some crazy thing that confuses Lavon and ergo Gainey bests him. I'm trying to figure out which of them is actually the Dread Pirate Roberts. ANYWAY, it also then comes out that Gainey himself orchestrated this entire thing to get Fillmore listed first on the highway sign. SCANDAL!! So Lavon gets what he wants in the end, which is always my aim in life anyway.
Out of the Hole
SO Crazy Earl was a no-show for his date and everyone assumed he was drunk except for Zoe, and she was right: he accidentally fell into his own booby trap. And then Zoe fell into it after him. And thank God, Wade thought better of letting Zoe traipse off on her own after his father and finds them and (a) helps Zoe fix his father's broken ankle, in the traditional Hart of Dixie Zoe and Wade Bond Over A Medical Emergency way, (b) calls the authorities to get them out of the hole and Earl to the hospital. So now they're friends again. I have to admit that I'm a bit over the push-me pull-you of this pairing, but Wilson Bethel was great in this scene.
Will You Put Out My Fire?
Barry Watson asks AB to marry him and she totally doesn't want to, but she's saved from having to say no by the fact that one of Lemon's Many Romantic Candles have SET THE BUILDING ON FIRE.
Betty
"IT'S AN INFERNO," Grandma Betty screamed, and dear reader, I laughed out loud.
Poor Lemon
So Lemon is pretty bummed out that her restaurant has partially burned down, as one would be. Poor Lemon. Free Lemon!
Also Here's A Giant Curveball
"Thanks for saving my Dad and sorry I was a dick. Also, they're making the Rammer Jammer a franchise and I'm moving to Atlanta indefinitely. SEE YOU LATER!!!!!"