Welcome back, Rayna Jaymes! Thank you for opening the show in sunglasses and a trucker hat, reminding us all that Connie Britton looks practically perfect in every way and in everyTHING.
Things That Work On Rayna James That Mere Mortals Shouldn't Attempt: silver-studded pants. (I have no idea what was happening here. I assume Deacon was snatching her phone, but it looks like he's trying to correct her very poor Warrior 2.)
When we last left the show, Juliette was maybe going to die in a plane crash. But I guess Hayden P. is feeling better, because instead, Juliette is The Girl Who Lived. And the Lily Potter who blocks the curse in this case is a local woman who stumbled on the wreckage and found Juliette, and covered her with a blanket and sang ot her and prayed.
Somewhere in Juliette's ordeal, she found the time to bleach the life out of her hair. If this were a Stephen King book we'd find out her hair turned white the second the plane hit the ground. Anyway, she's trying to make the best of it, but when Avery says things like "I love you" her replies are along the lines of, "WE'LL SEE HOW LONG THAT LASTS BECAUSE I AM A CRIPPLE" -- her word, not mine -- and so clearly she's still Juliette Barnes. If she were TRULY able to dust herself off and greet this with positivity, we would be crying character foul.
And LO, in the first episode we get a Rayna/Juliette scene. It doesn't repeat itself, sadly. Makes me wonder if the actors don't get along, and that's why we get these almost as occasional breadcrumbs rather than regular moments. I have no knowledge there; it just seems like a weird choice to separate your two stars so much. ANYWAY: Juliette thinks she deserved it because she's terrible, and Rayna is like, "Chill, friend, and behold instead my great leather jacket."
Rayna also wears a lot of billowy sleeveless tops in these episodes.
And then THIS SHIRT. Rayna usually has flawless taste in blouses. Now suddenly she's like a French aristocrat undoing her cravat after a hard day. Maybe Rayna is The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Meet Zach Wells, a Silicon Valley squirt who grew up on Rayna's music and is obsessed, hires her to play a company party where no one else is into it, wants to get into the music biz, etc. He says things like, "I want to hack your cloud. I mean, pick your brain." No. Sorry. Herskozwick do not need to be all cutesy about writing a tech entrepreneur. NOBODY SAYS "HACK YOUR CLOUD" UNLESS THEY ARE ACTUALLY HACKING SOMEONE'S CLOUD AND EVEN THEN THEY PROBABLY DON'T DISCUSS IT.
Rayna is still great at making things all about her, although I get it: She has a panic attack on her flight to San Jose, because of what happened with Juliette, and can't bring herself to fly home. So Deacon flies out there, surprises her, and then they go home together. Rayna is thrilled. She never ONCE asks, "Oh, uh, who did you leave with Maddie and Daphne? Tandy? Moved away. Teddy? WHOOPS. Beverly? DEAD." No way Maddie is in their good books enough for them to trust her with Daphne right now. PARENTING. Hack THAT cloud.
I wish I had a better shot of this. Juliette is obsessed with the crash site and her guardian angel, so Avery ends up bascially carrying her across the field to the spot where she landed, so she can have a therapeutic cry. (He DOES mention that they called Emily to watch Cadence. Emily is a saint on this planet.) The nice thing about Juliette here is that she still has her tendency to crab at people and push them away a little bit, but you can see her really trying not to push them too far, and to catch herself.
And then she finds a church the next morning when they're getting gas, and is drawn to the voice singing, which is: her savior. Juliette gazes up at her as if she's finally hacked God's cloud. But, in the next episode, she then has to jump through all these hoops to get to find her and talk to her. I don't understand why she didn't just... stick around after this church service and say hi.
Maddie is still being mean to Daphne about how she wants to write her OWN stuff, so she rejects any help Daphne tries to give when she get stuck. Daphne fixes the song problem on her own and plays it for Scarlett and Gunnar and Deacon; Maddie flips her shit, and Scarlett has to talk her into realizing that Daphne was just trying to help, and that collaboration does not diminish your own artistic achievement -- indeed, that most art is borne of teamwork. "HEAR HEAR," says this writing duo. I would, though, love it if it turned out Maddie's strength is the performing but that Daphne is the better songwriter, or something. It's logical that their strengths would be different, and it'd give them some natural friction.
Will catches the eye of a fashion designer who's totally on the prowl. It clearly makes Tepid Kevin very nervous, but he tries to show how much he trusts Will by pushing Will to go to a trunk show solo -- where the designer paws at him and Will is TOTALLY INTO IT but then stops before they kiss. Will's temptation comes totally out of nowhere. This guy basically squeezes his shoulder and Will is immediately sprung.
I KNOW, RIGHT? Rayna and I agree that while Tepid Kevin is tepid, the 180 into Horny Will was real fast.
IMPORTANT NEWS: Was this mint KitchenAid always there? It seems impossible that I wouldn't have salivated over this before.
This is Scarlett, stunned that Deacon doesn't want to do this album with Rayna. I'm irked that nobody gave Deacon's viewpoint here more credence. He's a rageaholic alcoholic who had a LOUSY YEAR. If he's telling people he doesn't want to revisit that right now, maybe they should LISTEN TO HIM instead of rolling their eyes and eating Strawberries of Incredulity. Loosen your neck string, Scarlett, for the love of God.
Whenever Juliette freaks out about her condition, Avery is all, "Oh, it'll get better soon," and like... I think what he needs to tell her is that he's with her even if it doesn't. Which is of course what SHE thinks her fate is. At least she's still getting her hair carefully bleached.
Cadence had LOTS of eyerolls for this conversation, which also included Avery suggesting that Juliette do the "airplane coming in for a landing" feeding technique before realizing that maybe Juliette doesn't want to talk about safe travel right now.
These two. Even when they squabble, they're cute.
But seriously, some of Rayna's sleeveless shirts are ENORMOUS this season.
BEHOLD, A CLOUD FOR THE HACKING.
All the sets feel Similar But Slightly Remodeled. For example......... maybe I just never noticed, but I don't recall Gunnar's kitchen having a giant decorative oval over the sink before.
Scarlett is really into thin-strapped dresses right now. Remember when all she wore were giant cardigans? I guess the amount of wool in which she cloaks herself was directly proportionate to the amount of yarn coming out of her head.
Meet Randall, the social media expert who also pilfered memorabilia from Rayna's desk. He probably IS Rayna's stalker, although it would be more interesting if it was the tech guy, because otherwise they are treating this with all the subtlety of Borat.
We do also get some scenes where my favorite bros have important emotional conversations with each other, which as you know is one of my very favorite hallmarks of Nashville. Here, Will is fretting about nearly hooking up with the designer and whether he should confess to Kevin, and Gunnar is like HELL NO IDIOT. Will handles it instead by going home and suggesting he and Kevin move in together. That is not going to end well.
We ALSO get Scarlett and Deacon having an honest heart-to-heart about how frustrated she is with herself, because she knows fixating on Gunnar's romantic past is just her being paranoid. I'm with them right up until they start making some awfully folksy analogies abut pets. But between this and the fact that Scarlett had a true sisterly conversation with Maddie, it's nice to see Nashville remembering just HOW many people all these characters can lean on at a given time.
Trauma has caused Juliette to wear real questionable shirts. Here, she's chatting to the pastor and gleaning that her angel's name is Hallie, but the pastor is super weird about hooking them up -- I guess Hallie is very private and didn't want the media attention. Juliette is still like, "I DON'T DESERVE HER," and the pastor insists he's sure that she was saved for a higher purpose. Yes: ratings.
Scarlett chooses a maxi dress for her maxi-emotional conversation with Gunnar about how she's sorry and she's Dealing With It All. I assume all that fabric is a sign that she's more comfortable with herself. Scarlett is not a skimpy dresser. Whenever she is, I'm like, "WHAT'S WRONG."
Rayna's stalker has nice taste in flowers. I'm just saying.
But her stalker has terrible taste in windshield repair shops. I assume this shot is in there because later, it will be the clue that tells the audience who her stalker is before SHE learns so that we can scream OH NO RAYNA GIRL DON'T GO IN THE BASEMENT WITH HIM, HE IS GONNA HACK YOUR CLOUD. (Sorry, I can't let that go.)
Please let us marvel at how dreamy Chip Esten's eyes are when he sings. He put all the love and tears in the world into this performance. Then again, maybe when you are looking at Connie Britton, it's not hard to glow with affection.
In an effort to forestall Maddie's recording career, Deacon and Rayna convinced her to take a job interning at the recording studio to "learn the business," or whatever. She clearly has borrowed one of Rayna's blouses for the task.
We're here introduced to a new character, Ashley Willerman, a YouTube sensation recording her first album. And sucking at it. She's doing childish vocal tics and insisting on a lot of reverb, and none of Avery's plaintive pleas for her to Trust Her Voice are getting through. And she does sound terrible, clearly by the show's design. But am I crazy for thinking she has a point that if she has 30 million YouTube fans, it's not wrong to give them what they expect the first time out of the gate? She's totally annoying about how she behaves, and she's not GOOD, but I don't think Avery hating her style means he's necessarily right that she should abandon it immediately. Also, they disparage Britney in here a little, which SHALL NOT STAND.
However, let us all marvel at the hideousness of this coat. It's THE WORST COAT. Or even if you like it, let's please all agree that Maddie would never, ever have purchased this garment. She MIGHT have stolen it from a homeless person off the street, who herself stole it from a Barbara Mandrell estate sale, but ONLY if Maddie were in the middle of a criminal fugue state.
However, the jacket works to catch the eye of a hot busker, Clayton, who of course is mad talented and has a touching story -- his mother is dead, and was homeless -- and does not mind at all that Maddie dresses like Winter Is Coming... in 1985.
I MEAN.
Juliette Google-stalks Hallie and finds her house. Hallie is warm and wonderful about it, though, and they agree to be friends. She's played by Rhiannon Giddens, a Grammy-winning singer (she has folk/bluegrass/blues roots) who was supposed to take over for pregnant Audra McDonald in Shuffle Along until producers decided to close instead. Her voice is wonderful, though, as is her presence. It sucks for her that they decided Audra was the only ticket draw.
Juliette notices that Hallie's car is sputtering, so she surprises her with a new Range Rover. She doesn't explain that she was trying to be thoughtful, though; she just leaves it outside the church. But she has misread Hallie, who isn't comfortable accepting it, and then Juliette feels like a shallow heel for thinking she can throw money and gifts at her angel friend. I understand all this but HALLIE YOU NEED A CAR THAT STARTS.
Creeper candidate no. 3: The street fan who asks about Maddie. There's got to be a reason they included this weird little bit, beyond just reminding Rayna that she's really really famous. We'll see.
Juliette, in the middle ranting again that her life is over, goes off to change Cadence and is delighted to discover that she feels it when Cadence pees all over her leg. It's got to be the first time on TV when someone joyously weeps, "SHE PEED ON ME," and a family reunites through urine. (Reurinites?)
We spend so much time with Ashley freaking Willerman here. You can tell by her clothes and her hair that Avery stomping off the project, leaving her to work her own boards with one other engineer (is that not frowned upon by this establishment?), has stressed out poor Ashley. Deacon is there playing guitar as a session musician, and when she yells at him...
... and when she insults the coffee Maddie brings her, Maddie snaps. There was also some stuff about her being hungry and Maddie being late with the sandwiches and getting the order wrong, and yes, okay, "low blood sugar" is both a real thing for some people, but Ashley is clearly the person who uses it to excuse her cranky behavior and be melodramatic. However, she has a point, because Maddie went to get the food and instead sat down and hung out with Clayton for a while. Ashley is not wrong to be peeved. I can't believe I'm siding with someone who is stealing airtime from people I like better but for real: Avery flounces when she stands her creative ground, and yes, she's a jerk to Deacon, but just do you job Maddie.
Anyhoo, Maddie snaps and calls her a bitch, and gets fired. And it is BALLSY to pass judgment on anyone while wearing that shirt.
My favorite bros...
... and, the third prong of the triangle. I have the warmest feelings of affection when these guys sit around and drink beer and rib each other and talk. It's the healthiest male relationship(s) on TV right now. Sincerely. It's modeling actual cool, evolved male behavior, even when they themselves screw up as individuals. Because they can come together and reality-check each toher. They are Get A Grip Friends.
Juliette's Get A Grip Friend right now is Hallie. She shows up to apologize for the shallow gesture of the car -- am I a bad person for thinking it was actually thoughtful, if slightly weirdly executed? -- and needs reassurance yet again that she didn't deserve to die even though she's not the best person. Hallie essentially tells her to find God. I actually think this is a really good storyline for her. Juliette Barnes is the last character on this show that I WANT to find God, because I like her just the way she is, but I also think that's what makes it good. No one in her life will expect that, everyone will question it, and in its own way it'll probably test her relationships -- but at least not by retreading old ground.
Maddie makes a shockingly thorough TV sandwich -- mayo AND mustard, and ham and veggies -- while complaining to Deacon that her internship sucked because she's being treated like a servant and it's not her job to run around after everyone and absorb their lousy moods. God bless Daphne for dropping a millennial reality check: "You're an INTERN. That's EXACTLY your job." Deacon shirtily informs her that she needs to apologize IMMEDIATELY because she can't just go around saying crappy things to people LIKE OH I DON'T KNOW WHEN SHE CRUCIFIED HIM ON THE STAND. No, really, he actually does toss that out at her, although in a more organic way, and it's kind of a great mic drop. He probably shouldn't be that petty, but honestly, it's realistic that he would be unable to get over it AND that they would need to deal with it. Nashville is so emotionally healthy sometimes.
Rayna then has a come-to-Jesus with Maddie where she's like, "Whatever about Ashley, but you have to fix this shit with your father RIGHT NOW because you basically slayed him." Later: "Am I becoming a bitch?" Maddie asks Daphne. "Kinda," Daphne replies. Maddie sighs. "I hate that," she says, and then they are quiet for a second before laughing together. I can't help it -- I love them, even when Maddie annoys the hell out of me.
And so she and Deacon have a conversation in which she apologizes for reacting badly to her situation, and saying things she didn't mean just to get what she thought she wanted. He apologizes in kind, and it's just a really lovely scene.
And then at the end, a music montage: We see Maddie's two-second apology to Ashley being forgiven, Avery going through his memorabilia from his recording days with a sadface on, Hallie's car not starting, Maddie and Clayton flirting, and Juliette polishing off this song all about how she's going to find her way. Are we really headed for Juliette Barnes: spiritual and/or gospel singer? MAYBE.