Nashville - Winter Finale 2014 - Recap: A Life That's Good

Sure, the stories we'll be exploring in the second half of season three are fairly clear for some of the characters, but there's no sense of an overall, unifying structure. Really, there's just the sense that everyone is going to be doing his or her own thing in the narrative, with little overt crossover. Maybe I'll end up being wrong about that, but even if so, I still love how excited and conflicted this winter finale left me feeling. On the one hand, I really dug the balance of personal drama and industry intrigue that permeated "First To Have A Second Chance" in its better moments. On the other hand, some of the storylines skewed a bit too far into retread territory. Deacon (Charles Esten) dealing with the consequences of his drinking again? Layla (Aubrey Peeples) being a self-destructive mess? Rayna (Connie Britton) becoming indecisive about her love life at the worst possible moment? It all had the feeling of "been there, done that." Hell, the episode's biggest surprise was that Juliette (Hayden Panettiere), the show's proverbial punching bag, ended up the happiest out of everybody by the end of things. Of course, even the moments that felt like retreads did just enough to make the stories feel like a new wrinkle on what came before.

Credit: ABC

Case in point, while Deacon ends up in the hospital again after a Rayna-fueled nervous breakdown, we learn that he didn't actually break his sobriety. Instead, he had a bad reaction with some pills he was taking for an illness. Unfortunately, a blood test reveals he's in the early stages of cirrhosis of the liver, and could possibly have cancer as well. Scarlett (Clare Bowen) tries to cheer him up by stating that he doesn't know for sure that he has cancer, but Deacon takes this as a death sentence just the same. And it comes at a time where, strangely enough, things actually might end up going his way: Rayna apparently still carries a torch for him. Granted, there are other reasons for why she decides to end things with Luke (Will Chase), but the episode seems to suggest that she still has lingering doubts about the man she's chosen, particularly after he resolves to enroll Maddie (Lennon Stella) and Daphne (Maisy Stella) in boarding school without her approval. Luke naturally takes the news badly, and I don't really blame him for flipping his lid, even if Rayna was well within her rights to make the choice to leave if she felt it wasn't working (although she owed him a better explanation than the old "It's not you, it's me" with a sprinkling of "You deserve better"). Full disclosure: I was pretty sad to see this relationship end. I liked Luke and Rayna as a pairing, and thought they made an interesting Tim McGraw/Faith Hill analogue. If nothing else, Britton and Chase had terrific chemistry as couple. Maybe not the white hot chemistry she has with Esten, but a more mature, settled down chemistry that suggested Rayna and Luke would have been a perfect fit as husband and wife, had Rayna not had any more lingering doubts.

Credit: ABC

Of course, it says a lot about the winter finale that the inevitable dissolution of Rayna and Luke's relationship on their wedding day isn't the biggest thing that happens. For one, we still end up getting a wedding anyway: Avery (Jonathan Jackson) finally pops the question to Juliette, although he does it in that strange Simon Cowell fashion, where he makes it seem like he's being negative before revealing he couldn't possibly be more positive. In this case, he tells her he doesn't think they're working out as friends, and he just can't raise a baby with her in this friendship arrangement, because it doesn't work. But just as Juliette is about to despair, Avery helpfully clarifies that he's asking her to marry him. She says yes, and by the end of the episode, they're exchanging rings in a quiet little ceremony. And I say it's about damn time. Other than being the show's best pairing, Avery and Juliette are two characters who've long deserved to catch a break from this series, particularly Juliette, who catches the harsh end of the writers' whims. For once, everything is coming up roses for Juliette, and I couldn't be happier about that development, since I'm completely over seeing her as the show's Designated Hot Mess.

That said, it's looking like the Designated Hot Mess title is passing over to Layla, who continues to be in free fall. After finally getting some sense of comfort and happiness in her brief tryst with Jeff (Oliver Hudson) last week, Layla is right back to being miserable. And I can't say I blame her, since it's all organized by Will (Chris Carmack), of all people. What's interesting about this storyline is not that it throws Layla's mortality into question, but rather that it obscures Will's morality. When tabloids begin spreading rumors that he's gay, Will decides the best way to combat those rumors is to have Layla on tour with him. However, she suddenly doesn't want to leave Nashville, infatuated as she is with Jeff. So Will tells Jeff to put an end to the relationship. Basically, in his desperation to further conceal who he really is, Will further torpedoes the happiness of a girl who's been through enough as it is. Granted, it's not all Will's fault. Even though he does really like Layla, Jeff ultimately puts money above romance, feeling it makes more sense to protect his top artist than to continue his romantic relationship with said star's wife. Layla is devastated and immediately deduces that this is all Will's doing. Seeing him in bed with another woman at the party they're attending is pretty much the last straw, since it speaks to Will's hypocrisy ("He doesn't want to be with me, but he doesn't want me to be with anyone else," Layla mutters). She ends up overdosing on some pills Jeff gave her, and it isn't long before Will discovers Layla face down in the pool. Will she live or die? It's anyone's guess right now, but Layla has quickly evolved into the show's most tragic character.

But the drama doesn't end there. I was actually kind of surprised at how many big reveals and moments the show was able to squeeze into its runtime. Basically, bad things come in threes for Gunnar (Sam Palladio): 1) Kiley's parents arrive from Texas and file for custody of Micah (Gunnar Sizemore), claiming to be his legal guardians. Gunnar lawyers up to fight them in court, but he soon discovers through a court-necessitated paternity test that 2) Micah isn't his son. But that's not all, since the DNA shows they are related. Yes, Gunnar is Micah's biological uncle, since 3) Kiley apparently cheated on him ten years ago with Jason. Suddenly, Gunnar has no claim to the one blood family member he has left, and now he must deal with the further sting of Kiley's betrayal, all while being reminded that his brother is dead and gone. Gunnar goes to the only person who might be able to comfort him, and when he does hug Scarlett, it's such an impossibly sad moment that I couldn't help feeling devastated for him. In the brief time since Micah was introduced, the show has gone a long way in illustrating Gunnar's full-fledged commitment, not just to fatherhood but to Micah himself. This reversal upends Gunnar's entire narrative, and leaves him fairly rudderless as a character, similar to how rudderless he is as a person in this moment.

Credit: ABC

Then again, some might argue that Gunnar still has it better than Sadie Stone (Laura Benanti), whose abusive ex-husband comes back around, looking for his cut from one of her hit songs, which he argues he co-wrote when they were together. She refuses to give in to his bullying tactics, so he tracks her down to her house and...PUNCHES HER IN THE FACE?! It's an absolutely brutish, horrific moment that turns Sadie into a victim in a way I'm not sure the show intended. I would imagine the show wanted the act to make Sadie's ex come across as a small man, pathetic and bitter. But it actually had the opposite effect for me, in that it made his threat seem bigger. Maybe Nashville will happily prove me wrong, but I'm not sure the odds are that high that Sadie is going to report this, because then there isn't really anywhere for the story to go. The ex gets arrested and that's it. But having Sadie try to soldier on, and prove that she's strong enough to overcome this without getting the authorities involved? It's a story I could easily see the show exploring, even while I hope they don't. It's not the worst story in the world, but there are so many different, better things the show could be doing with Laura Benanti. Hell, the scene in which she and Avery work on a song for her album together is one of my favorites of the episode, offering a glimpse into the creative process that we haven't seen enough this season. It's kind of why I wish we'd gotten more follow-up on Scarlett joining Gunnar's band, or more of Layla's Joni Mitchell-esque reinvention. But this was a crowded enough episode as it was, I guess. After all, gotta make room for Teddy (Eric Close) to come to the realization of how messed up it is that he's paying a hooker to listen to his problems. Mayors, go figure.

"First To Have A Second Chance" is a pretty strong episode for Nashville to close 2014 on, even if I can't be certain exactly what kind of series we'll be coming back to in 2015. Is the show really going to end up being as dark as this winter finale suggests? The possibility of Deacon with a terminal illness is bad enough, but it gets worse when you consider Sadie was just physically assaulted, Gunnar is now his son's uncle, and Layla might be dead. The drama is piling up like a Jenga tower, and it just feels like the overall tone of the show is shifting. It's a precarious balance to maintain, since I don't think the show wants to skew too dark, but it also doesn't want to seem tirelessly hopeful either. In a way, Nashville is trying to strike a tone similar to that of...well, life. Hopefully, by season's end, for some of these characters at least, it can be .