Nashville - Recap: A Study in Scarlett

In many ways, the lives of these characters is one long fight against their origin, a resistance against the places from which they came, and the people who brought them into the world. Rayna (Connie Britton) waged a war of words with Lamar that didn't end until Lamar actually died, while Juliette (Hayden Panettiere) had a similarly troubled relationship that didn't find peace until, once again, the parent died. Maddie (Lennon Stella) is still struggling to find her own sense of identity while stuck between the man who raised her as his own and the man who is biologically her father. And now, Scarlett (Clare Bowen) has succumbed to the same parental issues, due to the arrival of a mother whose brutal parenting methods resulted in the shrinking violet we see today. "Crazy" is an episode that goes a long way towards explaining how Scarlett has become the person she is, and why everything in life, from fame to performing and even relationships (whether romantic or platonic), is so difficult for her. It's a striking hour of TV that is among the best of the season.

Credit: ABC

Scarlett’s mother, Beverly (Dana Wheeler-Nicolson), surprises her when the tour stops in San Francisco. Their relationship isn't exactly close, but Scarlett doesn't have the nerve nor the inclination to tell her mother to get lost, and so Beverly inserts herself into everything. She comes backstage during shows, ambushes Juliette with praise and comparisons to her family, and even goes out onstage and warms up with Scarlett's band before one of her shows. Beverly is basically the worst case scenario of stage parenting, as she's passed middle age, witnessed her daughter fulfill the dreams she never achieved, and has grown bitter in the trade-off. Worse, she views her own daughter as someone who is actively against her, such as in one chilling moment where Beverly sees that her brother, Deacon (Charles Esten), has had a child with Rayna, and is immediately insulted that Scarlett never told her. Her badgering, belligerent nature starts to wear on Scarlett to the point where she asks for the night off from the San Francisco show. Juliette, who knows a thing or two about destructive mothers, insists that Scarlett will be better off for going onstage, since she'll never overcome the psychological damage her mother has done unless she confronts it head-on. And while this is good advice from an objective standpoint, Juliette doesn't really know the situation, nor does she realize just how heavy the weight of her tattered parental relationship strains Scarlett.

Credit: ABC

It all comes out in one nightmarish sequence backstage at the show, as Scarlett performs "Black Roses" and dedicates it to her mother, causing Beverly to immediately snap and starts tearing into her daughter, grabbing her by the arms and shoulders and tearfully accusing her of costing her a shot at her own dreams by being born. She claims that Scarlett had a good childhood, and that everything Scarlett has ever accomplished was because of her. Scarlett is, of course, terrified, as her mother gets louder and more aggressive, triggering flashbacks to a childhood spent locked in a closet (or cellar. It was hard to tell from the fuzzy images we were given, but all in all, it was one of those ridiculous nightmare childhoods you only ever hear about on soap operas or on Investigation Discovery). Faced with a panic attack, Scarlett runs off to her dressing room, takes a few pills, washes them down with alcohol, and heads out towards the stage. Avery (Jonathan Jackson) immediately recognizes something is wrong and tries to keep her from going out, but a dispute with Juliette keeps him from stopping her in time. Scarlett hits the stage and immediately falls to pieces, seeing images of her mother everywhere among the crowd. She screams in terror and shields herself, as if she's being attacked, and hides under the piano while crying uncontrollably. It's an absolute nightmare, and one of the most stunning sequences the show has done.

Credit: ABC/Mark Levine

But here's the thing. I can accept that Rayna, and even Teddy's, career could survive a scandal. Ditto Juliette. Between the three of them, they could fill a year's worth of National Enquirers. But it's going to be really hard for me to buy Scarlett hitting it big anyway when the show inevitably tries to sell that story, because this is the kind of outlandish public meltdown you don't exactly come back from. Ashlee Simpson didn't bomb nearly this badly on SNL back in 2004, and she basically went from having a #1 album (NUMBER ONE!) to being "that girl who married Pete Wentz." Of course, I recognize that this is entirely fictional, and that plenty of stars have had meltdowns and bounced back. But if the show is going to convince us it's a part of the real world (Good Morning America interviews and all), then it has to adhere to how the real world would react to a situation like this (where damn near everyone in the audience caught a major recording artist tripping balls onstage with their camera phones), and I have serious doubts the show will follow through. That said, I will happily (so happily, you guys) eat crow if I turn out to be wrong and this really is the end of Scarlett's music career, for all intents and purposes. But she's too big of a character, and too integral to the narrative for that to be the case, I feel. Having said all that, I thought Clare Bowen and Dana Wheeler-Nicolson did tremendous work with their storyline tonight, even if I could have really done without yet another "country singer is the product of a hot mess mother," since that was pretty much Juliette's entire storyline for most of last season. Hopefully, this story has more going on than there appears to be on the surface.

The other stories this week vary from strong to so-so. Rayna and Deacon have a wonderful talk that's a long time coming after they appear on Good Morning America with Teddy (Eric Close) to explain the situation with Maddie, with Deacon even going as far as to say that the reason he wasn't in Maddie's life before now was because he was a drunk who didn't deserve to be. He essentially played it off as though Rayna had told him about Maddie from the start. Of course, that wasn't the case at all, and it eventually leads to the aforementioned conversation, as Deacon calls Rayna to the carpet for lying to him all these years. Thankfully, after my concerns from last week, Deacon didn't actually get drunk here. Instead, he just wrecked things up, furious about the Teddy/Megan affair, only to then learn about the trouble with Maddie (whose video went viral, with some calling her "the next Taylor Swift"). Deacon tears into Rayna for lying to him all these years, and makes a good point when he notes that if Maddie hadn't found out, Rayna would still be lying to him.

Deacon is understandably upset because he's been cheated out of big moments like birthdays, and little moments like having his little girl shyly grab onto his leg in the presence of a stranger. He's miff because Lord only knows when, or if, Rayna ever actually planned on telling him about Maddie. Yet Rayna has a damn good comeback when she notes that it's not as if she wanted to keep this from Deacon. It's that his actions made it necessary. "I wanted to be your wife," Rayna declares, before detailing how Deacon screwed all that up with his alcoholism. Even recently, after he found out Maddie was his daughter, he didn't go seek her out to hold her and tell her he loved her. Instead, he went and got drunk and nearly got Rayna killed. Rayna notes that while Deacon may resent her for keeping Maddie's paternity a secret, she resents him every bit as much for putting her in a position where that lie was necessary. And hey, she's not exactly wrong, either. But then, neither is Deacon, really. And that's good drama, as we're presented with two opposing, equally valid viewpoints, to where it's hard to know entirely whom to side with in the argument. I'm leaning more towards Rayna's side, since she had Maddie's best interests at heart. But even in the dregs of his alcoholism, Deacon still deserved to know. And who knows? Deacon might have gotten cleaner sooner than he did (and maybe would have even stayed that way) if he knew he had a little girl who looked up to and depended on him. But it's hard to know, either way. What I do know, however, is that this was some of Connie Britton and Chip Esten's best work of the season, if not the entire series, as both convey the pain of an issue that has only been barely contained for damn near a full season now.

Credit: ABC

While I didn't dislike the rest of the episode, none of the other stories approached those heights, although I do need to shout out one scene that's among my favorite of the season. Basically, Daphne (Lennon Stella) is mad at Maddie for posting the "Maddie Claybourne" video online, since she thinks it means Maddie doesn't want to be her sister. Maddie insists this isn't the case, and tries to get her to lighten up by playing their duet version of "Ho Hey" and hoping Daphne will join in. When she doesn't, Maddie sulks away...until Daphne pipes up, and the two sisters sing their lovely version together. Just such a beautiful little moment that told the reconciliation story through music. In fact, it was part of a trio of wonderful music scenes this week, with Scarlett's achingly powerful rendition of "Black Roses" serving as the centerpiece. So much pain, and it told the story of her broken childhood with such ferocity that it made the use of flashbacks all the more unnecessary. The third big music moment was centered on Zoey (Chaley Rose), whose new song, "Done Runnin'," served as a declaration of her intent to finally reach for her dreams. Granted, this latter moment was wrapped around a fairly dull story, in which Gunnar (Sam Palladio) receives his first royalty check for $400,000, and goes crazy, spending money on studio time for Zoey and asking her to move in. Zoey, however, just isn't ready, and is still trying to figure out if she wants a music career bad enough to travel to LA and get into hip-hop/R&B (seriously). It's not dreadful or anything, and admittedly, the Gunnar plot does bring up the question of whether he can get his band with Avery back together, since a gig at a club depends on him being able to pull it off, but most of this felt like filler.

Credit: ABC

But the stuff with the Stella Sisters was practically enough to make up for all the other stuff I wasn't that crazy about, like Avery and Juliette getting into a quarrel over Charlie Wentworth (Charlie Bewley). Basically, Juliette needs Charlie's help if she's going to get back on country radio, so she organizes a meeting with Avery's blessing. But Charlie misunderstands the nature of the meeting and gives her a kiss, leading to turmoil when Avery finds out she conveniently omitted the kiss (saying only that Charlie "tried" to kiss her). For her part, Juliette is concerned that Avery is fretting over Scarlett, not recognizing that it's because something is dreadfully wrong with the girl in the moments before she hits the stage. And it's basically all one big mess. And I hate saying that about those two, since they're neck-and-neck with Rayna and Deacona s my favorite pairing on the show.

"Crazy" is an episode with a solid dramatic foundation rooted in the ways our upbringing shapes the type of people we become. However, Nashville doesn't intend to say that the way we're raised pigeonholes us into being one kind of person for the rest of our lives. People like Rayna and Juliette overcame their unfortunate upbringings, even if those scars still remain. It should be interesting to see how (or even if) Scarlett changes as a result, and whether she's able to overcome her adversity to become a stronger character. Either way, I feel it'll make for strong television, since "Crazy" largely achieved that same goal with a similar premise.