Nashville - Series Premiere - Recap and Review
The hype for ABC's Nashville has been relentless, with critics coming out the woodwork to laud the hour-long drama as TV's best new show, a series that has all the daring, ambition, and musical relevance that NBC's Smash didn't. Now I happen to like Smash quite a lot, for good or ill, but after having seen the premiere of Nashville, I can safely say we're dealing with another monster entirely. I seriously can't see how this show doesn't wind up being a massive hit, since it ticks all the boxes of a cultural phenomenon. Is the show perfect? Of course not. Although the pilot is often exhilarating in the potential it forecasts for the series, there's way too much going on in the episode, from the Old Guard vs. New School mentality of a music business in transition, to a mayoral race with a string-pulling power broker at its head, along with a plot where a doe-eyed ingenue is goaded into performing onstage during an open mic night and causes an epiphany in a stodgy music exec in the crowd. It's a lot to take in at once, and I'm only just barely scratching the surface of all that's going on in the episode. But those elements are in service to a narrative that melds the best of ABC's soap opera sensibilities with the ambition of a cable television show. In brief, Nashville is alarmingly good. And there's at least one song in the pilot that I defy you not to rush to iTunes to buy the minute the episode ends (the music is courtesy of the legendary music producer T. Bone Burnett, and is a real, honest-to-God highlight of the premiere).
Rayna James (Connie Britton) has been the queen of country music for nigh on twenty years, with countless Grammy awards, multi-platinum albums, hit singles, and sold-out concert tours. But her best days are behind her. Her latest album hasn't produced a single hit, and tickets for her latest tour haven't been selling all that well. Thus, the record label comes to her with a bold offer: go on tour with crossover mega star Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere). But the cut goes deeper than that - Rayna would actually be opening for Juliette, and if she doesn't accept the offer to combine tours, then the record label is going to withdraw its promotion for her album. Connie Britton is an outstanding choice for the role of Rayna, as she elevates the material by embodying a character who's been through a lot, despite the relative opulence of her lifestyle (although her husband tells their children that while they're rich, they're technically "money poor"). Britton projects a very lived-in feel with the character, and is immediately convincing as a country music legend, a Shania Twain by way of Reba McIntyre. It's a terrific casting choice, and Britton plays her to the hilt, since Rayna has a lot more problems on her plate than just Juliette Barnes.
Credit: ABC
Rayna's father is Lamar Wyatt (Powers Boothe), one of the most powerful men in the city of Nashville, who intends to make a mark with an ambitious construction project in the city. For this, he needs a mayor he can control, and suggests Rayna's husband, Teddy Conrad (Eric Close), for his candidate. Teddy is outwardly kind, but he's incredibly resentful over having to live off of his wife's salary, due to his failed business ventures. He wants the spotlight, for once, and he intends to use his father-in-law, a cold man who never approved of his daughter's country music career, to succeed. Rayna's personal troubles are compounded by her young daughters being such huge fans of Juliette Barnes, leaving Rayna to feel as though the music industry is slowly passing her by. She has no idea why her album is tanking, nor does she have any idea how in the world Juliette Barnes is popular ("Why does everybody keep pretending she's good?" Rayna complains, in one of the episode's funnier line readings). Rayna is driven to distraction by the Juliette problem, made worse by the fact that her longtime guitarist and former love, Deacon Clayborne (Charles Esten), is being courted by Juliette, both professionally (she's his number one fan and desperately wants to work with him) and romantically (because, let's face it, the man is handsome...1960s Cigarette Ad handsome). For Deacon, it's clear that Rayna is the one that got away, but beyond that, we see that he's a hell of a talent himself, as he sings and performs at The Bluebird Cafe, a music bar where his niece works.
Deacon's niece, Scarlett O'Connor (Clare Bowen), is pretty much the anti-Juliette. She's shy, reserved, and writes poetry for no audience but herself. In contrast, her boyfriend, Avery Barkley (Jonathan Jackson), is an ambitious aspiring musician, who constantly nags Deacon about listening to his demo. Deacon is wary of Avery, and instead gives advice to another young musician he's taken a shine to, Gunnar Scott (Sam Palladio), an immensely talented, kind-hearted kid with a crush on Scarlett. Gunnar convinces Scarlett to turn some of her poems into songs and, during an open mic night, it's Gunnar who talks Scarlett into performing the song they wrote together. I got my ass over to iTunes while the episode was still airing just to see if "If I Didn't Know Better" was available for download. It's a smoky, lilting ode to the sting of having better sense than to be with someone you know is bad for you, and Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio hit it out of the ballpark. [Of course, as I'm writing this, I've learned that the song is actually a Civil Wars cover - great group, so it's no surprise the song is as good as it is] The entire episode is good, sure, but this performance was the one moment of the premiere that felt transcendent. I suppose then that it's no small coincidence that one of Rayna's producers is in the bar that night, and calls Rayna so that she can hear this herself.
As for Juliette herself, Hayden Panettiere has gone on record stating that Juliette Barnes is not supposed to be Taylor Swift, and after seeing the premiere, I don't know how anyone could have thought so in the first place, other than they're both blonde country crossover superstars. We see Juliette in the studio and hear her voice as she records a song about boys being like buses (I'd say "ain't that the truth?" if I had any idea what in the red, rugged hell she was talking about), and she really doesn't sound half bad, which is why it's kind of surprising when the producer reveals that they'll fix her vocal in autotune. It leads me to wonder whether Juliette knows she's being autotuned or not. Whether she does or doesn't, she's still accosted by a whole host of doubts, owing in large part to her drug-addled mother, a woman who keeps swearing to Juliette that she's clean, despite constantly hitting her up for money. It's going to take time for Hayden Panettiere to grow into the role, but I think she strikes a nice balance between sweet and sinister (And hey! Taylor Swift agrees), though it's a bit of a cliche to have her sleeping around as much as she does in the premiere (alternating between her manager and a "Why am I doing this?" Deacon Clayborne). There's also some wonderful cattiness between her and Connie Britton, as Juliette and Rayna are at each other's throats the entire episode without actually breaking out the pistols and dueling at dawn. It's like Revenge by way of Smash.
There's a lot to be said about transition with Nashville, from commenting on a music industry that's ever-changing in the digital age, to record companies that chew their talent up and spit it out like flavorless gum. It's maybe not as substantive as a show like Last Resort, but it's every bit as thrilling. And it has the added value of a soundtrack that's loaded with some real potential hits. Whether it will be a hit of the zeitgeist nature of Glee remains to be seen, but it certainly deserves to get there if the subsequent season produces more episodes with the scope and intrigue of this premiere. This is simply the best new show of the season. If you missed the premiere, check out the full episode below, and sound off in the comments and let me know what you thought of it.