Nashville - Recap: Love In the Spotlight

Of course, "I Can't Get Over You to Save My Life" is also a heavily cluttered episode in that it attempts to touch on every single plot in the Nashville orbit, which means it ends up being a pretty unfocused hour. I'm not sure I care all that much about Maddie's (Lennon Stella) continuing rebellion against Teddy (Eric Close) by going to parties, drinking spiked lemonade, and getting felt up by randoms. I also didn't see the use in the discord between Zoey (Chaley Rose) and Gunnar (Sam Palladio), as she grows jealous of his partnership with Scarlett and his connection with his first love, who's just moved to Nashville. But even then, both these stories had a redeeming element to them. For the Maddie storyline, it's Scarlett (Clare Bowen). It was just such a wonderful little character beat for Scarlett to spring into action to rescue Maddie from the party, seeing enough of herself in Maddie's behavior to take her cousin out of the situation before it had the chance to get worse. Similarly, Gunnar's storyline illustrated his commitment to Zoey, even as he admits he isn't sure how he feels about his first love being back in town. These are necessary elements to establish if we're ever going to get anywhere with these characters. Still, a little less screen time for this would have been welcome, given how much there was to cover in the celebrity romance department...

Credit: ABC

Rayna (Connie Britton) and Luke (Will Chase) are having a bit of a hard time pinning down the right date for their wedding. Luke is set on November 1st, but Rayna thinks it's too soon. Their publicists, however, insist that it's the only date available that both their tour schedules will allow. That is, until 2016, at the earliest. Basically, for the next year, Luke and Rayna are going to be on opposite ends of the globe. So it's either in November or in 2016. However, this complicates matters, since November 1st will be one of the only free dates Deacon (Charles Esten) has to spend with Maddie. This only exacerbates Maddie's terrible mood, since she'll now have to spend her one weekend with Deacon away at a wedding she doesn't even approve of. Maddie lets slip to Rayna that she knows she rejected Deacon's proposal, and this adds an extra layer of friction between Rayna and Deacon -- and Luke, as well, who not only forces Deacon to continue the tour but also cuts his set in half. By now, it's clear that Luke's campaign against Deacon is personal, and it's sending Deacon into a spiral of depression, hooking up with a very forward woman who claims to be a huge fan of his. Meanwhile, Rayna and Luke make up and settle on a date, and Rayna is back on top of the world: not only are she and Luke a frontpage story on country and entertainment magazines and websites, Rayna has also reclaimed the top spot from Will (Chris Carmack), whose album has slipped to Number 5 due to the blackmailing Layla (Aubrey Peeples) is putting him through.

Credit: ABC

I'm still not exactly crazy about the Will and Layla storyline, because I've never been crazy about blackmail storylines in general, but it mostly works this week because it allows Chris Carmack to illustrate how the pressure is slowly breaking Will apart. He's dedicated himself to regular sessions with his trainer, because it's the only time he can get away from the cameras. And from Layla, who insists to be put on his tour, and onstage for duets with him. Jeff (Oliver Hudson) takes Will aside and explains that this is a terrible idea, since his success is rooted almost entirely in how his young fans perceive him. He's a heartthrob to them, but it's a whole lot harder to be someone's dream guy when their wife is onstage with them. Layla takes offense, but he's right. And so Will goes onstage on his own, prompting Layla to track Jeff back to his hotel room and offer up a threat to him as well: either he helps her make an album that will go Gold, or she tells the entire world about Will. The script seems to be portraying Layla as a straightforward villain, and I don't really dispute that anything she's doing is awful, but I do feel there's great complexity in the performance Peeples delivers. Sure, she's angry and vindictive, and her bitterness is shaping her into a terrible human being. But I think she's far more desperate than she is vindictive, as Peeples plays her as someone who is desperate to find some meaning in all of this. If she doesn't have Will and she doesn't have a career, then she suffered through the wringer of fame for nothing. She wants fame by any means necessary, because she can't have happiness.

Credit: ABC

It's the same kind of performance that Hayden Panettiere is delivering, and it works in her situation too. Juliette's pregnancy is slowly reaching the point where she's going to start showing, yet she still hasn't told Avery (Jonathan Jackson) yet. Nor has she told her manager or her assistant, since the secret getting out could result in her losing the Patsy Cline movie role, and that'd be a shame -- not only because it'd be a huge boost to her career, but also because she's met an outrageously handsome actor (Derek Hough) who will be starring in the film with her. Although she's not quite ready for a relationship yet, and admits as much, she seems to share a kinship with the actor, who offers up his own story of recent heartbreak. Hough is an amusing inclusion on the series, and he acquits himself quite well as an actor, although I'm not sure how much deeper this character is going to prove to be. Still, I consider him a welcome addition to the cast, even if he can only be a detour for Juliette at this stage in the story, since she's still hung up on Avery. In driving over to Avery's place, Juliette rehearses telling him the truth, but backs off once she sees him drunkenly making out with another girl. Little does she know that Avery isn't really all that into this other girl, sending her on her way home shortly thereafter, and breaking down while singing a song to himself. But because Avery isn't a celebrity, his pain gets to remain private, whereas Juliette's is a matter of public interest. And so she seeks out advice from the only other person who'd understand what it means to be a pop star pregnant by a man who doesn't know he's the father. Anything that brings Juliette and Rayna back into the same orbit is usually great, so I'm looking forward to seeing what direction this story takes, since I'm genuinely not sure which is actually the smarter story path: Juliette keeping the baby or terminating the pregnancy. Given that this is a show that is at least somewhat marketed to the Heartland, I'm guessing Juliette is keeping the child. Either that, or losing the pregnancy tragically (because she's Juliette, so she must be in constant anguish. Ugh).

"I Can't Get Over You to Save My Life" is a decent episode that's well-worth checking out in full, since there are at least two solid musical numbers, and a lot of great little moments, from Luke and Rayna's backstage chemistry, to Maddie calling Deacon "Dad" and telling him she loves him. Nashville is comprised of such moments, and they're in service to a larger story -- one that is, for the moment, working pretty well.