Hayden Panettiere
Hayden is one thing that totally, totally worked in this hour. Short version: Her mother is dead and she's bummed. They didn't hit her character with any more swerves; they just let her marinate in her misery, and H.P.'s performance was amazing. It's a strange thing to feel like you have to congratulate an actor for being willing to LOOK smashed by grief even as she's playing it, but this is a world in which characters wake up in bed fully made-up, or Erica Kane gets sent to the slammer (all four times, or whatever it was) and proceeds to spend every day there in false eyelashes and her regular complement of slap. The fact that Hayden got her eyes all puffy and left her vanity behind to play all these scenes made them that much more wrenching, so good for her for putting the job first.
Gunnar
In an attempt to win Scarlett back, Gunnar has abandoned his greasy man-bangs and is trying to fluff himself back up to his former bouffanted heights of emotional depth.
Scarlett and Avery
Instead, she gets herself all prettied up and calls a meeting of the Mumblebores. Lucky Spencer, I love you in theory, but you too are guilty here of being marble-mouthed at times. I think it might just be a disease that Scarlett is passing around town, which I suppose is preferable to anything venereal, unless what the person you're with is trying to say to you is, "I have gonorrhea," and all you can hear is, "I've gone REAL."
Deacon
Gripe No. 1: This scene. So, I lied last week -- Maddie found a paternity test, not a birth certificate. And her solution is to sleep on it, and then go to Deacon's house and say, "I think you're my dad." Fine. And frankly, I'd have been satisfied with ending this season right here, or near it, so that we had all of next season to play out the consequences in an interesting way. As it is, Maddie pops by and drops this bomb, and then WE GET NO FURTHER SCENE WITH THEM. This is a total "What happens next" moment, and we don't GET IT. Did they sit around his house staring at each other? Did he offer her a Fanta? Did she ask if eyes that are searing pools of angst and yearning are genetic? WE DON'T KNOW. Am I really supposed to think he went, "Hmm, that's interesting. Bye! See if you can still catch your school bus"?
Scarlett and Gunnar
Gunnar brings Scarlett some flowers, but she's been invited to see Lucky Spencer play -- I guess Marilyn Funroe's city-wide pox on his name has been lifted -- and so she is getting her boobs out for a little reunion. Gunnar is understandably alarmed, perhaps also because didn't she just sign a big recording contract and therefore might be in a lot of meetings and/or singing into microphones in studios? I feel like the producers were like, "Let's just... pause on that part for a bit."
Hayden
Hayden is still planning to perform at the CMAs, although everyone tells her that she should go home and feel things. She screams that what she SHOULD feel is RELIEF that finally it's all OVER, and then immediately wants to vomit -- both at the words that came out of her mouth, and the searing pain that comes from using a strapless dress to try and wring out your boobs. So she acquiesces and leaves.
CCC
Despite being either gay or at least unsure of himself, CCC is still welcoming people to his O.C., bitch. Gunnar catches him and asks him about it later, and CCC is like, "I AM GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST COUNTRY STAR EVER, DO YOU HEAR ME," so clearly SOMEBODY has his arc for next season all ready to go. I actually think that might be good. Also, CCC tells Gunnar that he saw Scarlett eating lunch with Lucky, and that she appeared to be gazing at his soul patch with something more than geometric curiosity.
Tami and Brad Paisley
It is SUCH a surprise that Brad Paisley showed up, given that he's married to our fair Peggy Kenter in real life. The world's most infamous accidental racist is performing with Tami Taylor while wearing a t-shirt that appears to be an ode to construction cranes, the international society for which is probably drafting a letter right now asking Brad to please leave them out of everything. And Tami's outfit is causing me actual acid reflux. It is HORRIBLE. The top doesn't fit, and looks like something she peeled off the pump of a girl who passed out after the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. My theory? Somebody on this show really doesn't like her, because that right there? That is a revenge corset.
Deacon
Even Deacon -- who showed up late to avoid talking to Tami -- is all, "THAT is the mother of my child? Can I take back my sperm?"
Deacon and Tami
Plot Gripe #2 is coming up here. Tami changes into a simple but MUCH BETTER black dress -- the best revenge comes in subtle short bursts so the person doesn't know it's happening -- so that she looks halfway elegant when Deacon tells her what Maddie knows. And asks if it's true. And crumples visibly when she can't answer him. But one tiny, almost throwaway line is the key to my irritation: As Tami explains herself, and we all remember that this paternity lie is basically the only moral mistake the show has allowed her to make, Tami says Deacon was a mess when she found out she was pregnant and that COLEMAN TOLD HER TO LET DEACON GO or else he would never recover. That one little line basically undoes the most complex thing about Tami, and lays the groundwork to absolve her of responsibility for the thing she is TOTALLY REALLY responsible for, and I think that's terrible. It's okay to have your main characters do the wrong thing sometimes, ESPECIALLY if that wrong thing was done for the right -- or perceived right -- reasons. I am SO CAPS-LOCK by this.
Lucky and Scarlett
Now let's pause for some impromptu duetting, and emotional confusion as expressed by a boring love ballad that totally isn't Lucky Spencer's style at all.
Gunnar
Gunnar is like, "Dammit, he's totally going to take my place. WHY DID I CHANGE MY HAIR ALL THOSE TIMES???"
Hayden
Instead of going home, Hayden goes to cry over her mother's open casket. The scene is fantastic and H.P. really, really, really has earned an Emmy nod here. But she really should have gone to put on a more comfortable shirt, because I'm afraid her breasts are going to get stuck that way.
Maddie
Oh, and now we're back to Casa Taylor, where Maddie is frantically packing two cotton things into a backpack and screaming that she wants to go live with Teddy. Who is like, "Oh, well, okay, if that's how you want to do it..." Tami is livid but he says she should trust him and that NEITHER of them will lose their daughter. So Tami lets her go. And do we ever get a nice scene with Maddie talking to Teddy? NO. GRIPE #3. The only thing that has made Maddie interesting this WHOLE TIME was the knowledge of her paternity. So naturally, instead of getting inside Maddie's head -- which ought to be a pretty freaking intriguing place right about now -- the show just has her throw a tantrum and decide to go sleep at his apartment and NO MORE FOLLOW-UP. No scene with the two of them talking or yelling or crying, nothing with them cementing their bond in spite of the lie. NO. THING. You would think she'd run off to Tandy's, or a friend's house, or to a bar. Nope. This was so, so botched. Again: Obviously some of this can come up next season, but why pull out this reveal now if you're going to jam it down our throats and short-change the payoffs?
Deacon
Deacon hits the bottle again. Hard. Really hard. And almost immediately. Which conceptually, I don't hate. We knew this was going to happen. It will lead to another gripe, but you know what? I'm going to give you a quick break from that and just say OH DEACON PLEASE DON'T TO THIS TO ME UM I MEAN TAMI AND MADDIE.
Teddy
Last week, Tandy told Coleman that the stupid Cumberland Deal was worth reinvestigating, and BOOM, this week, it's being reinvestigated. No dots are connected, officially, and for all we know it's Powers Boothe and not Coleman pulling the strings. Either way, Teddy is hosed. The OTHER reason he is hosed: He appears to have a bobblehead (of himself?) on his bookshelf but NO COMPUTER ANYWHERE. Windows 8 sponsored every other show in the world this year; why not this one? Apple, anyone? What self-respecting mayor doesn't even have a computer? What is he using to Google himself when he's bored of mayoring?
Tami, Coleman
Meanwhile, Deacon has disappeared, and Tami has A Bad Feeling About This. Wherever he is, Chewbacca just let out a concurring yawp.
Glenn
Ex-manager Glenn and his hair arrive at Juliette's place with her CMA Award -- she beat Tami for Female Vocalist of the Year. Which feels about right, because all of Tami's songs lately are frankly not very good (I think Connie Britton must have a limited vocal range, and thus all her songs start to sound the same because they're only ever within the same small space of notes). But Glenn then steps inside and folds Hayden into a caring hug, which nobody has really done for her yet, not even Deacon (although he did come over before The Drunkening, but she told him to shove off).
Hayden
Despite the screen shot making it look like the hug gives Hayden a stroke, she is actually surprised, then grateful, then emotional, then weepy. She is so good.
Deacon and Teddy
Hilariously, still-drunk Deacon -- who just woke up in a booth somewhere -- assaults Teddy on his way to work, and then two of them knock each other around pathetically because Deacon is hammered enough that you could do that cartoon thing where you push him away via the top of his head and he just swings and swings anyway and hits nothing but air.
Funeral
Tami goes to the funeral for Mama Hayden, and actually has the nads to tell Hayden -- with all the self-awareness of Amanda Bynes -- that she knows how it feels because her mother is also dead. And while, yes, a dead parent is a dead parent and it blows and that part is universal, Tami OBVIOUSLY has no idea how it feels when your dead parent was a drug addict whom you spent your whole life wishing would disappear, and once or twice maybe even wished dead, and you were never able to make peace with her. Hayden tells her as much but is way more polite than I would have been, or even than I think Hayden would have been, except that grief has dulled her edges. I actually rolled my eyes and said, "Shut UP, TAMI." It's such a Tyra Banks moment: "You are semi-homeless and sleeping your whole family on a twin mattress in the ghetto? That reminds me of when I was 17 and living in Paris as a model BY MYSELF."
Gunnar
Deacon is now at home, energetically vomiting into a shrubbery. Gunnar comes by wanting advice on Scarlett, and Deacon ralphs, "YOU'RE NOT GOOOD ENOUUUUGH FOR HERRRRRRRRR," and slams the door on him. Gunnar correctly processes this flagrant display of drunken messitude as a flagrant display of drunken messitude, and calls Scarlett to tell her that the wagon didn't notice Deacon wasn't on it anymore and drove away and left him lying in the middle of the road.
Cole and Deacon
Scarlett calls Coleman and they all clamber up Deacon's steps and into his house. Deacon is furious and hammered and starts trashing the place, while Scarlett cries, and there's a lot of man-clutching. There is a line earlier from Tami about how Deacon once had a drunken rage in which he smashed everything in her house, and we know that back in the day rehab took five or six tries to stick, but otherwise there wasn't much indication that he was a super DANGEROUS boozehound. I feel like if we'd known more about this all along, we would have dreaded this moment more... effectively, and not just because we hate seeing dreamy Deacon's Keanu sadface.
And here is my other gripe: The show has painted Deacon as a paragon of sober stability. He has had no visible cracks at all in twenty episodes -- well, he did call Coleman once when he confiscated Mama's pills and claims it was tempting, but the whole thing was so sensible and calm that you never got the sense he was very close to the edge. If we'd seen him struggling on the road, or tempted to take a drink to cope with his feelings for Tami being so strong, or to help him when he thought she was going to St. Lucia with Liam... if we'd felt ANY kind of tremor in the force, then the force and depth of his slide downhill would have been a lot sadder for me, I think. Instead it felt overly theatrical -- not poorly acted, but just... like the show screwed up.
Sadface
Cole stays until Deacon wakes up again, and Deacon tells him he'd like to go to a meeting, telling Coleman he doesn't need a babysitter because he knows he just threw 13 years of sobriety out the window and that it's Real Bad, mmmkay. So Coleman, because it's dramatically convenient for him to be a totally gullible sucker, believes this even though he KNOWS DEACON and leaves.
Hayden
Then Hayden calls to invite Deacon to a tribute show she's singing at the Bluebird that night, because her mother always wanted to see her sing there. He apologizes for not being there for her, she says she realizes she pushed him away, blah blah blah Deacon is going to be there.
Deacon
So he washes down his Tylenol with booze, which I suspect tastes really nasty with toothpaste. He is not going to that AA meeting. Coleman is going to feel like such a schmuck. WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE AMIABLE TERTIARY CHARACTER?
Powers
Let's pause and get this out of the way: Powers Boothe thinks his stadium deal still has legs (so maybe he DID get Teddy busted?) and ends up demoting Tandy for her treachery. So she quits, and sasses that it's only fair, because historically he has only been able to get along with one daughter at a time. Then on her way out to her car, an investigator pops up wanting to interrogate her about Cumberland. Aren't you excited? EVERYONE'S favorite part of the show involves gubernatorial politics, and now we get a whole juicy cliffhanger about it! Are you trembling? I sure am!
Hayden
A letter arrives in the mail for Hayden. It's from her mother. And somebody in props fell asleep, because instead of the pretense of being sealed, the back flap is just... well, flapping. So she opens it by lifting it. Because it was already open. Maybe Mama Hayden was too strung out when she sent it to lick the glue. Anyway, this coincides with the cops revealing they found a ground-up SD card in Mama's Disposal, so now Hayden knows Mama shot Dante and OD'd on purpose to give Hayden a free and clear life. She is sad. She really, really wanted a chance to teach Mama how to seal an envelope.
Tami and Maddie
MORE GRIPES. First, we get one really low-energy and underwhelmingly written scene in which Tami tells Maddie that she'll never lose her -- hello, Tami, YOU are not the one whose participation in her conception is in doubt -- and Maddie seems happy with this and climbs into her lap. ALL IS FORGIVEN. Say what? It is horrible. This is the spot in the episode where I started to HOPE 35 minutes' worth of actual scenes had been deleted, because otherwise whoa.
Worse, there is a line where Tami tells her she lied about paternity because she wanted Maddie to have a father who would love her. THIS IS A HORRIBLE THING TO TELL MADDIE. Instead of saying, "Deacon was struggling with some really scary, grown-up problems, and I wanted you to be in a more stable place," or whatever, she essentially tells Maddie that Deacon wasn't going to love her?!?!?!? And now Maddie has to digest that? SHOVE IT, TAMI.
Peggy
Oh, and PS, the feds already talked to Peggy Kenter but she didn't say anything because... she's pregnant. I hope it's ALSO Deacon's.
Deacon and Tami
And now we are really deep into Hurriedville: Tami spies Deacon at Hayden's show, and gets up to talk to him, so he runs away. But he's too drunk to start his car fast enough -- rightly -- and so she muscles in there wearing what feels like a T-shirt version of this hideous Gucci dress. AT LAST, Tami's penchant for wearing shirts and pants instead of dresses saves her hide.
Tami and Deacon
They drive in silence, with LOTS of obstinate chin action.
Tami and Deacon
Then they drive in SHOUTYNESS, with LOTS OF SHOUTY FURROWING ACTION. But do we get to hear any of it? No, because it is montaged underneath Hayden singing a song about how no one else can ever break her heart again. Which is a lovely song, and touching, but I WANT TO HEAR THEM FIGHT. It's like the show had no faith in its character moments and instead was like, "Well, we need to get to the BIG WOW at the end, so let's just skip through the stuff the audience wants to hear on account of how we've successfully gotten them invested in these people, and just MAKE THEM GO BOOM."
Cute Man
So while CCC makes eye contact with this hot and very excited guy (clearly the guy CCC had that fling with eons ago, right?) and looks delighted, then horrified, and shakes his head no (as the guy walks past him, crestfallen, because CCC feels like being a folksy, flirty horndog is the key to country music success, which in a way that IS the lesson Blake Shelton is starting to teach us)....
Gunnar
... and while Gunnar suddenly, randomly, out-of-nowhere, desperately PROPOSES to Scarlett (seriously, THIS was his solution? They have dated for like two hours)...
Scarlett
... and while Scarlett says nothing (in fact we have heard NONE of this scene because of the aforementioned montage, although in this case, I don't mind so much because I understand her better when she's not talking, and she seems to be deciding whether it's more of a statement to vomit ON the ring or just next to it, which probably means she'll say yes and her mother will show up next season to deal with that and with Deacon and then she'll realize it was The Wrong Answer)...
BOOM
... Deacon and Tami are screaming so hard in the car that Tami screws up -- FINALLY, although she and everyone else will blame Deacon, so whatever -- and hits another car and their vehicle goes FLIP BOOM and skids to a halt on its side.
So: In the name of cliffhangers and a huge telegraphed car accident (the minute Tami starts telling her daughter -- in a scene that makes no sense -- that her daughter will not lose her anytime soon, you know something is going down), the show rushed through a lot of big moments and robbed us of emotional payoffs of the big bombshells. I know some of that can play out in season two, but they took things far enough to get here that I'm worried it won't be what it could have been. But whatever. Car accident, proposal, big deal: WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH THE CUMBERLAND DEAL, AMERICA?!?!?!?!?!!?