Golf secrets. Mustang getaways. Binders full of families. Your aunt and uncle buying a motorcycle and hitting the highway. Not one, but two scenes in a restaurant's pantry. Are these themes taken from a poorly edited anthology of short stories? No, they are Nashville, that town with the oyster place.
Rayna
Rayna is prepping to go on tour with Luke, but before she does, she would like a meeting with Sadie Stone, the lady from last week’s backstage whose name I refused to look up. Sadie Stone is a singer lady and is shopping for a new label. Rayna feels that Juliette is “distracted” because of her secret pregnancy her upcoming moving. Busy busy Rayna, she is also at her kids’ school for a silent auction fundraiser. One of the prizes is a golf date with the mayor, a thing that feels like it should probably violate some sort of political ethics clause. Jeff Fordham (boo, hiss) has come to the stage, his sideburns slowly angling out into villain hacker territory, and gives a bunch of money to the school. Rayna’s children sing, like a couple of von Trapps minus the imminent threat of Nazis. Do other children go to this school?
Another meeting at The Ryman, like you do, with that new chick Sadie Stone. “You’re Rayna Jaymes! And you want me on your label!” she says, just in case you missed the first act. They name drop The Southern in the Ryman, and then Rayna invites the stranger to go watch her try on her wedding dress. And oh, it turns out singer Sadie Stone is the new Tandy! Only funner. There is a paparazzi mob at the Wedding Dress Depot, but have no fear! Rayna’s new BFF/potential employee sashays her out of the store and into her car. The photos are chasing the pair down, Princess Di style, and they run a stop sign and almost hit a truck. Remember when Rayna was in that car accident and nearly died? Neither does she, because those two are just laughing and laughing about the danger and recklessness.
Speaking of danger and recklessness: golf. That’s right, ol' Jeff Fordham (who is mean, racist, and very very very devilish) has purchased the dream date with Teddy on the links. “Why would Jeff Fordham be the top bidder to golf with the mayor?” asks Teddy, just in case you missed the first act. Jeff just makes a sexist joke and chuckles at himself, because he is unambiguously evil. This was all a business meeting ploy, see. He wants to give loads of money to all the schools because he has such a bad image. Teddy is unsure of this at first, but says “I’ll give you nine holes.” (TWSS.)
One game of golf turns them into INSTANT BROS, Jeff is reminiscing about his college band and how he got an MBA instead of following his dreams, and hey, speaking of musicians, did you know Jeff thinks Teddy’s kids are mad talented? They are fans of noted country singer we just learned about last week Sadie Stone and Jeff just happens to be signing her to Edgehill.
Rayna is agog when Bucky tells her of Sadie’s Edgehill plans. In fact, she’s going to handle this before she gets on that plane for tour. Sadie doesn’t want to be one of Rayna’s artists, she wants to be Rayna. (Rayna is flattered by this because she is egotistical.) Rayna says he made the label, they didn’t make her, times were different back then. You used to be able to turn on the radio and hear so many female artists — like, eight of them. Edgehill likes dudes in cowboy hats (so does Rayna). Sadie should want to be Sadie. Highway 65 is the feminist choice.
And so Sadie announces to Jeff’s surprise that she has totally changed her mind about who she is signing with. I assume she got a group text going with her lawyer and manager about this, right? She brings Rayna up on stage and they duet about being hot burning matches and gasoline and fire and explosions, and riiiight about here is where the shipping begins. Sadie is already a million times better than Luke. Raydie 4evr. (Sayna?)
For about the fifteenth time, Rayna gives Jeff a piece of her mind. He doesn’t deserve to have women on his label, and he started the playing-dirty game by signing Will out from under her. She calls him a thief and a whore, but that probably just turned him on. Jeff says the stakes are too high. The rules have changed. The consequences will never be the same. She walks away to hug her kids. Jeff makes a call — can you sign kids to a record label with only one parent’s consent? (Probs.)
Juliette
My girl Juliette tells Glenn and, um, Assistant that she’s pregnant. “Obviously I’m not going to keep it,” she says, and she would like her minions to do some research on adoption. Not up for discussion. “But what of your movie and tour?” they ask, “Won’t you be showing?” Haha oh boy, so Juliette says “THAT’S WHY IT’S A GOOD THING PATSY CLINE WAS A HEFTY WOMAN” and just below I have video proof of how Patsy Cline basically looked like a big fat preggo:
I know she is wearing a girdle or whatever but GET CRUCIAL JULIETTE. Anyway she is stoked that she’ll probably get an award for putting on ugly people weight. Glenn pushes his luck and asks if the baby even belongs to Avery. Bad form, dude.
During a press conference for her Mama Cass film, she is asked if she can pull this movie off, since she has no acting experience? She is like, “My entire public persona is a falsehood and I am lying to you right now.” Haha. “So who is the real Juliette Barnes?” they ask? No time to answer, Glenn ushers her out and throws down some hot annoying nonsense about the state of Tennessee’s adoption laws, and I do not envy whoever got stuck researching this.
Luckily Glenn found a shady adoption agency that is chill with lies and cash, and has presented her with files of prospective parents to go through. Lots of dogs in these pictures. She starts breathing heavily and grasping her stomach — she calls Rayna to tell her she thinks she’s losing the baby. Are there any tubs of pork blood around? That’s the quickest way to know for sure. Rayna gets her to a doc and Juliette is sad about not knowing how to give love. She goes to Glenn’s house all sad and gets a hug. She says she is scared. But that’s not important. What’s important is that Glenn is not wearing his hairpiece: I will assume it gained sentience and joined Gunnar’s band until further notice.
Deacon
Do we have to? Ok. Deacon sneaks out of some bluesy white loving while Tammy (is her name Tammy? She seems like a Tammy) is in the shower. In his AA meeting, she slinks in to the back row. Just after, he tells her he is in love with someone else and she tells him that they are hanging out and she would like to be super cool and casual. (Lies.)
He sees her throwing back shots backstage. “What are you doing?” he asks. “Shots,” she says. Deacon is all mad about her sneaking into AA for no reason whatsoever, but she is sad he rejected her so I guess it’s okay? Also she makes fun of his denim shirt while she is wearing a bedazzled tank top, total Tammy move to not even get the irony of that.
Now she is on the bus. Why are you on my bus. I am here to play poker. I do not want to play poker. He sings sad white people blues. She sings with him. The singing is about the situation. Deacon makes tearyface. Then they are at a gas station. Wanna be on my bus. No I wanna go on the other bus. Do you want me on this bus. No I want to be on my own bus. What about more bus things. Then they do it on some washing machines.
The bus left them. You know what is dumber than buses? Motorcycles. So he buys one to catch up to the bus. Mean ol’ Rayna didn’t let him have a motorcycle while he was a constant girl, but his cool new easy-breezy casual hookup lady thinks motorcycles make him look cool. Such. A. Tammy.
These Clowns
Avery hears that Juliette got the lead part in the Big Pun biopic. How does he hear this? By watching what appears to be a gossip report presented as television news, with an anchor at a desk and everything: very old-school Entertainment Tonight. The news about maybe having salacious doings with her handsome new co-star lead Avery to boozing up his coffee, because alcoholism isn’t really a topic this show has tackled yet. The liquor has made Avery miss his shift at The Bluebird (clown), but Zoe says that Gunnar can probably cover it. She walks in on Gunnar and Scarlett (a half-finished friendship bracelet that has been set aside for six months) in the pantry, acting all shady with one another.
Gunnar and Zoe. Clowns. They are talking about how Avery is a total bummer, but Gunnar can talk him out of it. He says, “Cheating’s not the end of the world!” He’s right, that will be Ragnarök, but Zoe takes this declaration very cryptically indeed. How does Gunnar try to cheer up Avery about his cheating girlfriend? By comparing her to his brother, who was an actual criminal. Avery doesn’t get why Gunnar cares. I also do not get it.
Zoe has checked Gunnar’s phone and seen lots of calls to Scarlett, so they have it out, over Gunnar and over writing songs with Gunnar and Scarlett insists nothing is going on because they are all friends and THAT IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM and Zoe doesn’t get why Gunnar begged her to stay but Scarlett doesn’t get why Zoe DIDN’T beg her. Oh god those clowns are killing me. American Horror Story: Clown College right now, seriously.
OH HAHAHA IT WAS A SURPRISE PARTY FOR ZOE THIS WHOLE TIME, NOT SEX SECRETS
Zoe goes to say sorry to sad Scarlett. “What happened to us?” Probably all that sleeping with assorted exes of friends. Zoe says she’s insecure and competitive with Scarlett around and I am like, girl, don’t be. Their reverie is interrupted by drunk Avery shoving Gunnar around. He also says every bad thing is Scarlett’s fault because she’s so needy. I LOVE drunk Avery!
The party is still hopping though, in spite of that embarrassing and violent aside! (It’s a clown party for clowns, is why.) Zoe gives a speech. How did I get here? She knows how. Scarlett is how. Come and sing with me, Scarlett, please. Sing with me, your friend. Scarlett, who has barely been in this episode, immediately takes that Scarlett nonsense up to ten and runs away. Meeting again in that closet of sadness, Zoe asks what’s wrong? After all, she was trying to apologize. “Not everything is always about you,” says Scarlett. Um, it explicitly wasn’t, Zoe decided to turn her own party into a celebration of Scarlett’s (often spoken of, never witnessed) genius. “Don’t ever ask me to sing again,” Scarlett Scarletts. It is hilarious.
How’s our clown Avery? All arrested. He got in the wrong car, and can only call one person to bail him out: Juliette. She can’t love her! He can’t hate her! She’s his daughter and his sister! He needs to feel nothing about her, and is crying real good. He tells her she destroys people and that he wishes he never met her. Oddly enough, three other couples were having this exact same fight right outside the jailhouse, too.
Nashville!
