Fun Party (?)
Needless complaints. Classy escorts. Ethics in
games journalism. This episode of Nashville Has. It. All.
Rayna
She and her new friend Sadie are poppin’ bottles and watching the CMA nominations. Sadie is nominated for Vocalist of the Year! Rayna is nominated for Vocalist of the Year! Luke is nominated for Male Vocalist! Luke and Rayna’s duet is nominated! Rayna’s song is nominated! Luke’s song! Rayna’s album! Luke’s album! Luke and Rayna are nominated for Entertainers of the Year! Luke’s been tapped to fly to Mars! Rayna has won the right to be the first person to use a time machine! Luke and Rayna solved world hunger! Luke singlehandedly defeated ISIS! Rayna swam to the bottom of the ocean and found Flight 370! Golly, these two sure are popular.
Rayna is conceited.
The Buckster stops by to congratulate Rayna on her cavalcade of personal and professional successes. But oh no, you see, someone on Twitter said something about Rayna and Luke only getting noms because of their relationship, so now Rayna is sad. She feels the media exposure has distracted from all of her hard work. It is really fascinating how Rayna has supposedly been a mainstream country music artist for decades and is just now figuring out that popularity and fame tend to go hand-in-hand. “I earned this,” says Rayna. Yeah, well, every person who has ever sang a song or written a book or dipped a candle with competence feels like they have “earned” something, but most of them don’t get nominated for major awards and then complain that the nominations weren’t authentic enough.
Rayna is a whiner.
So she complains to Luke, too. “It sucks for people to say we don’t deserve it.” Lady, for a millionaire businesswoman in your 40s, you are way too caught up in the idea of “haters.” Luke, a pragmatist, is flying in Sara Evans to perform with him, ’cause you gotta campaign for Dem Trophies. This makes Rayna think. She asks Bucky if she should campaign, too. He says she’s never done anything like that before. Never done anything like headline massive tours or do TV interviews or radio interviews or magazine interviews or sign on to be the spokesmodel of a makeup company and license your song to it (remember?) or any of the 10,000 other promotional things celebrities do in order to maintain their, you know, celebrity?
Rayna is a hypocrite.
Dancing with the Stars, a show about the history of early 20th century dance marathons, calls up and asks if she and Luke would like to duet. Rayna wouldn’t like to be linked to Luke any further, she says, and would prefer to do it alone. The show passes. So she calls some guy, I assume he is the ghost of a man who danced so hard at a marathon in 1935 that he dropped down dead, and spins some yarn about dropping a hot new bonus single and she’d like to promote it on the show. Now they have a deal.
Rayna is a liar.
She tells Luke she is doing DWTS without him. Not unreasonably, he asks why she is competing against him. She just thinks all this “Luke and Rayna” stuff takes away from all their individual accomplishments. He says fine — they will do their own thing but have each others’ backs. Haha, you see, Luke was hurt for a valid reason and then immediately supported her. What a sucker.
Rayna is a backstabber.
Rayna is the worst.
Juliette
Zoe calls Avery to let him know about Juliette’s collapse. In the hospital, the doctors tell a now-conscious Juliette that the baby is fine, but they’re still running some tests. Watching TV in the hospital room, she sees that she only got one CMA nomination for a song she and Avery wrote together. The television gossips about her for a little, but she tells Glenn she is just happy to not be dead. (JB, my angel, go teach Rayna some perspective please.) Avery arrives and is pretty mad about the baby stuff. They start to argue but then Derek Hough comes in with flowers, Avery instantly gets mad and becomes a dick about it and leaves. Cool attitude.
The doc comes in, sees Hough, and is like “Is this this father?” I don’t know, is that a HIPPA violation? Anyway my girl Juliette Barnes has “factor five gene mutation” (totally a real thing, I looked it up) that makes her have a higher risk for blood clots. Correctly, she looks concerned. Travel puts her at risk but she can still do the movie, the doc says. Derek Hough holds her hand. She’s just happy Avery showed up. Yeah, all it took was almost dying. He’s a hero.
Knock knock on Zoe’s door. Juliette “manna from heaven” Barnes is hours out of the hospital and immediately the best. A: Zoe ain’t try to help the show with that taking-the-lead business, she was helping herself. B. She’s fired (well technically they’re all fired ’cause the tour is kaput but still, that was fun). And C. Where is Avery? Oh there he is. She tells him she only kept the baby because it was his. She wanted to tell him he was the father to see if they still had a chance. He’s still sad that she ruined their love by drunkenly banging hott Jeff Fordham in a closet at a party. She says she wants Avery all in, or out completely.
I take notes while watching the show live, and I clearly typo’d here but am choosing to share it anyway, because it’s apt: “Avery tired of being Avery,” I say. He doesn’t want to keep punishing her and he wants to forgive and raise a family. But he does not trust her and doesn’t want to be in a relationship with her. He’s not picking either option. “It’s not your choice,” Avery says to the pregnant woman, which, generally, is not great language to use! “Actually, it’s about ethics in games journalism,” he says as he walks away.
She holds a press conference and announces she is pregnant, that she’s going to keep filming the Patsy movie, that she’s canceling the tour, and that Avery Barkley is the father. Drop mic. Exit. See Rayna, that is how you campaign.
Teddy
Jeff and Teddy are just bro-chatting on the phone about last night’s killer party and their hot dates and who wore what, and Jeff invites Teddy over. He’ll invite the ladies over, too. Brianna and Natasha. Teddy decides to make Maddie babysit. She wants to hang with Colt (heh) but nope Teddy is pretty concerned about his boner right now so Daphne will just have to tag alone to Maddie’s teen nonsense.
Teddy’s showing his date pictures of the kids he left behind tonight. Jeff is like, “They are mad talented!” and Teddy pulls out a clip of the girls singing and the ladies are like, “Wow have you thought about giving your kids a record deal???” and Teddy is like, “Maybe!!!” and the ladies are like, “You’ll be the coolest dad ever!!!” Teddy is simple.
Colt, who I forgot is Luke’s son, and his buddies want to hang at a second location. Daphne, a little girl who shouldn’t be tagging along with people who can drive in the first place, says they are “not allowed.” But Maddie knows just the place! Oh no, a house party with raucous youths! Maddie is in her room talking to backwards-baseball-cap-wearing Teen Boy Colt. She’s talking about her sad life. They kiss. Daphne is scared. There are fights. She tries to call Teddy but there’s no answer because his date has popped ’em out and jumped in the pool. Who to call if not dad? The cops.
“What a night!” Teddy high-fives Jeff. “I got so many boners at your house tonight! Thanks for the invite!” He thinks Natasha is great. She is smart and funny and sexy as hell. Jeff is like yep, she’s one stellar prostitute. Teddy is aghast. He is the mayor! A man in politics carousing with escorts is unprecedented. But oh, she’s thoughtful and a good listener and he thought he could talk to her! Haha! Dude, your friend sprung for the girlfriend experience. Not cheap! Being a hot and interesting person (who will have NSA sex with you) is literally her job! And now Teddy sees all the calls he missed ’cause of his hooker double-date.
Naturally, the cops let the mayor who just left a prostitute party deal with the underage drinking and property damage shenanigans on his own. Rayna, Luke, and Deacon are all on the way home to knock some teenage heads around. They all, like, immediately get there, because Teddy has only just started to clean up. Teddy and Luke and Deacon also immediately get dumb with each other. “You’re the parent on call!” “You’re not in town!” “Actually, it’s about ethics in games journalism!” Rayna breaks it up. She and Teddy talk alone while Deacon speaks to Maddie. Luke, like the cheese, stands alone. They are going to hire a nanny. They should talk to Scarlett, she’s got a homeless guy who seems pretty handy around the house.
Anyway, Teddy calls that hooker. In fairness to all parties, she was a really good hooker.
Scarlett
Scarlett, a puddle of vomited-up candy corn, goes to see her only friend, the poor crazy homeless man who yells about pizza. She thanks him for fixing her song, and would like to offer him something. OK, how about a fucking songwriting credit you impossible creature? You shameless thief. Jesus. She’ll wash his clothes and buy him a meal is what she offers, though. But golly gee, he’d rather work for it. She says her uncle’s house really needs to be spruced up a little. Yes — Scarlett invites the man she knows from living in the alley singing magical homeless songs of pain over to the place where her family lives. Cool instincts. Great foresight. A normal thing that normal humans do all the time.
So while he’s cleaning out the gutters she takes some time to “clean out his pockets” before laundry, aka “snoop through his business.” She finds a photo of what appears to be a happy family, him with a lady and two kids. He is, of course, singing while he cleans the gutters, this whistle-while-you-work falsehood of a character, and she asks him about the song. “Some blues,” he says, “You wouldn’t know it.” Scarlett says she likes the blues and I laugh and laugh and laugh. She asks if he ever sang professionally. He says a little, and tries to politely change the conversation. So she pushes. Is this your family? I found this. They’re beautiful. Where are they? He gets angry because it’s not her business (which it is so not!) and stomps off. I mean the likely story is that the poor man is crazy or has a drinking or drug problem but ANOTHER THING could be he murdered them all and ran away, you never know, and that is why you typically do not invite homeless people with known crazy tendencies to your house and ask them a bunch of personal questions.
His stuff is gone from the alley the next day. Presumably he made it back to Central Casting just fine.
Gunnar
Oh yeah, Gunnar has a kid. He’s mad about it. The kid (Micah) doesn’t know he has a father, let alone one named Gunnar. The mom still wants to go live with her Internet boyfriend. Gunnar is upset by this. He goes to see Scarlett, roughly the 4,000th wrong decision in his life, and tells her about the secret son who is nine years old. “That’s great, isn’t it?” A normal person’s reaction would be “WTF,” but sure Scarlett, go ahead. The mom says she wants what’s best for the kid, but Gunnar says “What about what’s best for me, huh?” which ties with Avery’s “It’s not your choice” for this week’s Most Egregious Shit Said by a Man Award. Congrats. Scarlett asked if he’s talked to Zoe — he says she’s on tour. Rather than advising him to pick up the phone and tell his girlfriend he is the father of a tween, she tells him to go spend some time with the boy.
The kid runs up and is very HELLO THERE MAN I MET ONE TIME! Gunnar invites him over and the kid is like PLEASE MOM CAN I STAY AT THIS STRANGE MAN’S HOUSE WE MET FOR TWO MINUTES IN THE DINER THE OTHER DAY HE RULES and she says yes, which is maybe fine under these circumstances but someone needs to pull this boy aside and give him a speech about stranger danger. Not the mom, who is running to the Internet boyfriend and definitely not Scarlett, OK you know what, just let me have the kid. I haven’t seen parenting this incompetent since Season 4 of The Wire. (Actually, give him to Coleman. Remember Coleman?)
Kid immediately opens up about all of his mom’s random boyfriends, and Gunnar is like, “Maybe you’ll like this one!” The kid says he won’t “be as cool as you,” but I suggest the kid get to know Gunnar a little better before he makes such bold assessments. Gunnar talks the mom into staying: His son needs stability, and he’s also the only family Gunnar has left. Zoe walks in to him hugging the crying mother of his child, of course, and then the kid walks in. A kid who, by the way, hasn’t looked less like their fictional parents since that girl from 7th Heaven. (What an uncomfortable reference to make, now!)
Layla & Will
These buffoons of self-loathing are up to their usual tricks! It’s the last day of shooting and Will just wants to get it over with. He wants to make it through the day without any drama. An already drunk Layla says “Doesn’t drama make for good TV?” and then downs another shot. Cut to commercial. Heaven help us, this show’s become sentient.
Backstage stuff, Will speaks to Sara Evans but it doesn’t look like she signed a waiver so it probably won’t make it to the show. Also he looks directly in the camera. This is sub-Britney and Kevin: Chaotic nonsense. Layla is sloppy drunk at the bar and says “He should have been nominated for LIAR of the year!” (weak burn, even for a drunk) and Will ushers her away. In the room she tries to kiss him good, which is fair, ’cause he’s hot. He pushes her away and she is so so so so so so so so sad that touching her is not his bag. Honey, it’s not you, it’s all women. Actually, it’s about ethics in games journalism. “I really do care about you,” says Will. “Well that makes one of us,” she says. And the way she’s been drinking and looking longingly at the cut on her hand from that smashed mirror, let’s go ahead and call that some foreshadowing, shall we?
Deacon
Deacon writes a song. I am pretty sure it is about motorcycles. He only performs it after his girlfriend tells him he complains about all these awesome opportunities life is throwing at him. Clearly he and Rayna are meant to be.
