Cheapville
Seriously, at first I thought Juliette was shooting a lousy music video, because it would explain her totally flat, lackluster lip-synching and the ridiculous blue-sky backdrop.
Fireworkville
But no, she's actually rehearsing a song she wrote with Avery, as part of her stage show. Which looks like it's taking place in a Planetarium that has a really cheesy special effects budget.
Explosionville
And then the Planetarium climaxes everywhere.
Deadville
And it's here that we find out the death was, in fact, Peggy, who is really most sincerely dead -- so much so that they carry her off the mountaintop wrapped up in a body bag. And they shoot it like it's just Rayna, Teddy, and some paramedics, having a private little cry. When in reality IT'S THE MAYOR and even if it weren't (but it IS and that's part of the story they cant pretend isn't true) it would be a crime scene, with tape, and cops, and sirens, and probably security for the person who was the target of the assault. I know you can't pay for that many costumed extras for a shot this short, but it's just sort of silly.
Averyville
Avery shows up to try and talk to Juliette. I actually DON'T know where they are -- they're not in Pittsburgh, the next tour stop, so they must have a set rehearsal space for this tour in Nashville. I recognize that beige couch with the throw-pillows. Avery seems to have gotten a slight haircut since she ran to his door; I think it's a mistake making Jonathan Jackson slick back his hair, though. He looks old and kind of salesman-y with it that way, like he's got a beater of a guitar he wants to sell you so he's going to con you into thinking someone famous once used it.
Shirtville
Juliette is wearing another in her rotating cabal of slightly see-through tight shirts. I'd kind of like to see her rehearsing in jeans and a t-shirt and Uggs sometime. Anyway. Avery and Juliette talk super awkwardly, because they haven't seen each other since she professed her love and Juliette is trying to pretend they don't need to discuss that. Hang in there, honey. Scarlett is nobody's end game right now.
Reunionville
Juliette gets her assistant Makena back, because... I don't know. Maybe they wanted to save money by writing her out for a string of episodes. This show does have a lot of peripheral people it needs to pay. Anyhoo, her return means Avery doesn't get to say anything, even though I'm not sure he even know what he WANTED to say. It probably involved a lot of pauses.
Sleevesville
Layla is still wearing a lot of blazers for such a young person. She's irritated because nobody knows where Will is, and he's supposed to be her boyfriend. My prediction (which is not that surprising) is that this poisonous little snake is going to be the one who susses out that he's gay, and that something is going on between him and Brent, and that's going to be unpleasant.
Handville
I don't know why Gunnar is making Zoey talk to the finger, but it made me laugh. Anyway, Brent shows up wondering where Will is, and Gunnar realizes he hasn't slept in his bed. Then Zoey decides to check his search history and Gunnar is like, "NO LET ME MAYBE IT'S PORN," because of course he thinks maybe Will has been Googling gay sex things and he's trying to protect Will's privacy. This is thoughtful of him, except then he takes the computer and lets Zoey sit right next to him and stare over his shoulder. Fortunately, all Will has been doing is Googling places where he can get hit by a train, in a non-euphemistic way.
Clarksonville
Scarlett is wearing a halfway reasonable outfit when she finds out Kelly Clarkson want to record a song by her and Gunner. The call comes in the middle of her asking Avery if Juliette came by at 2 a.m. looking het-up and urgent just because she is recording the song she wrote with Avery. Scarlett, who is emotionally dumb in so many ways, appears not to be so stupid that she missed the nuance of that scene. I have hope for her, then.
Protestville
When Juliette hits the road again, protesters follow her, all because she's apparently totally godless because she came between America's favorite couple. You are KIDDING ME that Charlie and Olivia Wentworth were ever America's favorite couple. She didn't sleep with Jay Z, or Prince William, or Emma Thompson's husband. She slept with the equivalent of, like, Mark Zuckerberg. If Taylor Swift slept with him and split up his marriage, people would only be protesting because it's a really boring choice.
Blockville
Deacon's story: His new record guy loves his stuff, but not enough. He needs more. He needs gritty Deacon Claybourne hits. So Deacon goes home and tries to write, can't, has a sex break with his girlfriend, and then still can't. And then he turns into an asshole, calling her annoying, snapping at her, and basically driving her out of his house. I was infuriated by this until he fixes it later by telling her that he doesn't know how to write a song when he's happy, and so he was short-circuiting trying to figure out how to do it. It's not an excuse, but it's a damn charming reason. Deacon, you delicious rogue.
Boozeville
Before he comes to that realization, though, Deacon does spent a moment sitting outside a liquor store. He doesn't go inside, but... you know, just in case this becomes relevant. He DOES 'fess up about it to his girlfriend Megan, though, so maybe it will turn out to be a very false alarm. I can't handle Deacon being drunk again because everyone hates on him when he's drunk, like it's his choice to have the disease.
Rivalville
Layla takes advantage of the Juliette protesters by signing autographs for them. Juliette marches over, annoyed, and then gets sidelined by a guy shouting something about her dead drug-addicted mother being in Hell -- something intensely personal that would obviously get a rise out of her. So she walks over and delivers the line in a haltingly unrealistic way that's necessary for the plot twist: "There is no God [pauuuuuuse] who would listen to a crackpot like you." You can see where this is going. Layla's braid could even see it. That's probably why it tried to hide on the other side of Layla's head. And indeed: The crackpot cut his video so it just features Juliette hissing that there is no God. Over and over and over again. So, she's having a bad month.
Tarville
And then the crazies go and hurl black paint at Juliette, which would only be more on-the-nose if they feathered her as well. Fortunately for Juliette, she has taken to wearing casual clothes, so nothing really catastrophic is ruined. I WISH she had been wearing one of her thong necklines. We don't need to see those again.
Woodsville
Gunnar's hair is extremely startled to find Will living in a deserted clearing, which he found by following the search history for "Deserted Places To Camp When You Hate Yourself."
Fleeville
And then something hilarious happens. When Gunnar challenges Will on why he's hiding, and asks if it's because of Brent, Will basically shrieks, "I'M DISGUSTIIIIIIIIING," and runs flailing and shrieking up the hill like Ed Rooney running from Ferris Bueller's dog. I don' mean to mock this character's pain, but this was such a melodramatic, awkwardly staged, teenager moment. If Gunnar's hair hoped to stop being startled, it was not meant to be.
Hatville
Will has traded his cowboy had for the Skull Cap of Self-Loathing. He admits to Gunnar that he tried to kill himself but couldn't do it, because he hates what he is, and it's not what he'd imagined for himself. Gunnar basically smacks him and is like, "Don't you EVER do that and if you think you're likely to do it again then TELL ME you idiot." Poor Gunnar does NOT say it's because he's already lost someone he cares about to personal demons, but maybe Will inferred it.
Duoville
Scarlett and Gunnar play the song Kelly was interested in, and nobody seems to mind that Scarlett's idea of what to wear for Kelly Clarkson is to dress up as Laura Ingalls Wilder if she were in lumberjack school.
Kellyville
Kelly loves the song. She's right. It's gorgeous and the two of them are SO good together. As performers, these actors' singing voices meld so well -- Scarlett just does not fly on her own, I don't think. What's weird is that she then tells them she really just wants to lock them away in a room with her team and have them churn out some awesome new heartfelt stuff for her album. I thought she wanted to buy that one, but maybe she just wants to be in the Gunlett business (Scarner?).
SIGHville
And so Scarlett, LIKE AN IDIOT, tells Kelly that she can't do it because she and Gunnar aren't in that place anymore. And WALKS OUT OF THE ROOM. Gunnar is clearly dumbfounded, because he lives in the world and understands that a) you don't just tell Kelly Clarkson no on the spot without discussing it first, and b) you don't just walk out of the room on Kelly Clarkson, and c) YOU NEED TO LEARN TO BE A PROFESSIONAL. Have all your feelings, Scarlett. Have the hell out of them, if you want. But you also need to learn how to compartmentalize and do your job. I can't just be like, "Sorry, Jess/everyone, I'm worrying a lot about my kids this week and you're just not going to get the fugs you want out of me so I'm just going to STOP DOING IT GOODBYE." Ugh. This show makes it SO HARD to root for Scarlett, which makes no sense considering she was such a good Get-A-Grip Friend for Gunnar and Deacon for a while.
Pantsville
I'm having trouble with screen grabs from my iPad and iPhone coming up dark. I lighten them, but I'm typing this on a Mac for a change and they're still coming up ridiculously dark. Having said that, I KNEW this one would be dark because it looked dark even on Hulu. I just wanted to show you the silhouette of Rayna in pants and boots, to illustrate that she still wears the hell out of them. She is stressing out because the market research from Edgehill says she doesn't have a single on her new album, and she brings in Liam to discuss it and he says SCREW THE MAN and she points out later that if she screws The Man and then The Man turns out to be right, then she's out a house and many millions and she has kids. She ALSO points out that she can't screw Liam because she's dating Luke Wheeler. IS SHE? I totally got the impression those two were done with each other when she left Edgehill. I wonder if Luke Wheeler got the same impression.
Confrontationville
This is a good scene, though: Scarlett and Avery finally bare it. Avery calls her out on why she can't work with Gunnar, because they've all moved on and are dating other people. She calls HIM out on Juliette, because she saw his face when Juliette showed up and she doesn't think anyone shows up at 2 a.m. for any reason other than Feelings. And then the two of them stare at each other and Scarlett mumbles a folksy analogy with an old pair of slippers, where they tried to put each other back on, but they've changed too much. It's marble-mouthed and awkward, but it's at least TRUE. I like it when this show is true.
Pressureville
Layla -- whose image is Super Super Christian And Pure even though she herself is not -- is ordered to tell the press the truth about what Juliette said, as a way of saving the tour (although Juliette also has to promise to owe her a favor). Layla says her manager is going to kill her, and Glenn says, "If he does, I'll manage you myself," which warrants this hilarious look from Juliette. What cracks me up about all this is: I'm not sure it's THAT much better that she actually said, "There is no God... who would listen to a crackpot like you." Because that is her essentially telling that guy that the God he believes in actually hates him. And this guy represents a large swath of angry people, and so effectively she is therefore telling ALL of them that the God they believe in actually hates them. Which, whether they're assholes or not, is not exactly a measured response. It's not going to calm anyone down, is my point. But Layla goes out and plays her role anyway, and everyone hopes and prays Juliette's career isn't over.
Touchyville
Brent is relieved that Will is okay, but Will is angry and bitter with him and tells him to go back to L.A. and quit chaperoning him and that nothing will ever happen again. We'll see. When Will's hat is on, he's all Alpha Male and ragey. When his Skull Cap of Self-Loathing is on, he's introspective and honest, but also living in the woods. Will needs to find a third hat.
Familyville
Teddy is grieving his murdered wife -- who died in an attack intended for him -- so Maddie therefore goes and does something that would make Teddy mental: She writes a song with her biological father, whom Teddy hates. To be fair, we've seen the girls be sad for Teddy and give him hugs and stuff, but still. Life needs to be normal for the girls but it's weird that she is doing something that would SO upset Teddy at a time when he's already bummed out. HOWEVER: The song is great, and it serves the convenient purpose of a touching soundtrack to the next batch of scenes.
Adiosville
Scarlett, depressed and alone, gets back on her tour bus. Is Gunnar going to be on it, too? They don't show that. But they do show Gunnar and Zoey saying "I love you," so he clearly doesn't have lingering feelings for Scarlett. Nor should he, given how poorly she's proven she can deal with life. SOME of which is in character and some of which seems strange for a girl who was able to smack Deacon out of his funk.
Teddyville
Teddy has been poring over the files from the murder, and decides that it doesn't add up, and that the shooter they caught was for hire and that the person who wants him dead may still try again. Poor Teddy. I'm also very bummed we never got a scene where he found the pork blood. He'd be REALLY messed up right now if he knew about THAT.
Hairville
Rayna's hair has looked tremendous the entire episode -- perhaps the infusion of grief in the air is very good for it -- and she agrees to take the kids for a while so that Teddy can try and figure out what happened and whether someone is going to try and kill him again. She seems sad about it, but weirdly resigned, like, "Yeah, okay, try not to get killed I guess, but at least we'll be okay."
Propville
I'm NOT sure when they got this happy family photo taken, since Maddie basically didn't even like Peggy and refused to spend time with her and snapped at her in the previous episode. Which ended with Peggy dying. Nice try, Nashville.
Boohooville
Avery is left at home alone, and calls Juliette and tells her that he's here for her, day or night. It's probably as close as he is going to come right now to hinting that he'd be into having sex with her. Juliette, though, ignores it because she's watching a story on the news about how much everyone hates her. I feel like we've hit these notes before, but the thing that works about it is that Hayden Panettiere is so good, and she manages to make Juliette feel complicated and layered and rich, rather than repetitive. She keeps shooting herself in the foot, sometimes for terrible reasons and sometimes for innocent ones and sometimes for a combination of the two, but the actress has built her into a person I root for even when she's being awful. So it all works.
Fireville
Her fans, though, not so much. Poor Juliette. She's going to have to see Jesus in a piece of toast soon, or else.