Nashville Recap: ‘The Trouble With the Truth’

Heartfelt thanks, once again, to Nancy Floyd for taking the wheel last week. She did so great, I got a compliment for her work! It was a big episode, too, with lots of hot, steamy events, and this week we’re dealing with the fallout. Will Will be treated like dirt for no reason? Will Deacon make a bad choice? Will Scarlett and Gunnar act like mature adults for the first time ever? Let’s find out, even though I’m sure you’ve already guessed the answers!

Rayna

“You are a good mother,” we hear at the opening, with Deacon reassuring Rayna that she isn’t as awful as she believes herself to be as she prepares to face her daughter in court. Well, one of her daughters. The other daughter isn’t in this episode! They speak to the lawyer, and he says the only thing that can’t happen is an outburst. Deacon says that won’t be a problem. (And for once, it isn’t! At least not in the courtroom.) Frankie has shown up for the hearing, too, because his daughter Cash asked him to.

On the stand, Maddie talks about how she’ll be able to support herself by getting a G.E.D. and selling a shitload of records. Then Rayna speaks, but she is interrupted by Cash who says that she and Deacon are trying to exploit Maddie. Is this allowed? No one stops her from chiming in from the peanut gallery, so I guess so! This outburst in no way negatively affects Maddie’s case for whatever reason (storytelling).

Maddie’s law-talking-guy tells her they need an alternative strategy, and Maddie goes back on the stand. Is this what family court is, just alternating going on the stand as a back-and-forth? Up there, Maddie says that Deacon is her biological father, but he’s only know about this for a few years. And it turns out her new-slash-real dad has a pretty short fuse! He pulled her off a stage, he shoves people, he is Smashing Deacon, man of a thousand shattered picture frames. She’s asked if she’s ever feared for her personal safety. “Tell the truth,” Rayna mutters under her breath, as if she can know how Maddie feels. Maddie says yes, and that she wouldn’t feel safe living with him. But we can tell by her pained face that this is a LIE, because we all know Deacon’s short-sighted, dangerous, stupid, immature violence is only used to defend the women and girls he loves.

DEACON TO THE STAND, and we are treated to a Greatest Hits (literally) of Deacon’s smashes throughout the years. He beat up the mayor in front of City Hall! He beat up a band member backstage! He started the Great Chicago Fire! He beat up Luke Wheeler! He gave Rayna a black eye in the ’90s! He drove the tank in Tiananmen Square! He choked out Coleman Carlisle! (Blast from the past!) He punched a man at the Bluebird! He disappeared the Princes in the Tower! He done kilt a man named Vince in a car accident (wait what?)! And how does the law-talking guy know all of this? His sponsor Frankie sold him the hell out. Guess there is no such a thing as alcoholic-alcoholic privilege!

Rayna tells Deacon that she knows he’s not actually like all of those things that he’s done (he is) and that Maddie is being manipulated. Two things can be true at once! Rayna goes to cry in Maddie’s room, and Deacon goes to The Beverly to start some shit. (Kelsea Ballerini is also there.) Deacon stalks through the crowd and asks Frankie for a word. Outside, in one of our city’s many glamourous alleyways, Frankie says he narc’d on Deacon because Rayna threatened Cash’s career. Deacon is like “lol what career,” and Frankie punches him right in the face. Then Deacon Smash comes out, and they fight for reals, Frankie calls him a leech (lol), and a crowd gathers. “He tried to kill me,” says Frankie. Someone calls the cops, and Deacon gets arrested.

Rayna goes to see Deacon in the slammer. He pulls the preschooler’s defense and says Frankie started it. Rayna says he never should have gone there, and now Frankie has a cracked rib and broken nose. Frankie and Cash have filed restraining orders, even. They are definitely going to lose Maddie. And they do! The judge grants her emancipation request, her contract with Highway 65 is voided, and now there’s also a restraining order keeping Deacon away from her. Maddie looks SHOCKED by this last thing, but hey, it’s not her fault her dad responds to stress by smashing things.

Juliette

Juliette and her crew of two wake up hella early to see if she’s nominated for an Oscar. Which she is. Which is insane.

(In fact, history lesson time! A singer winning Best Supporting Actress is one thing — Jennifer Hudson, for example. But a singer nominated for Best Actress? Not really! Actresses can play singers: Reese Witherspoon won for Walk the Line. Renee Zellweger was nominated for Chicago in 2002, the same year Nicole Kidman was nominated for Moulin Rouge. Angela Bassett was nominated in ’93 for What’s Love Got to Do With It. Sissy Spacek won for Coal Miner’s Daughter. Singers who act and won: Cher won almost 30 years ago, but she didn’t sing. And before her, I think it was Streisand in Funny Girl, 1968. So they’re telling us, that on her very first acting try, where she also sings, Juliette is immediately the same caliber of actor as Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep. Sure, Jan.)

ANYWAY! Juliette calls Avery to tell him the good news, but she overhears a lady voice in the background. She wants to know who he’s with, but he won’t tell her. But because Juliette is the best and smartest, she knows it’s Layla. She also puts all the pieces together in about 15 seconds: Layla took her manager, Layla hopped on tour, and now she’s taking her husband.

Juliette calls Luke and asks him if Layla knows about Jeff’s final heroic moment on the rooftop, the only heroic moment in his life. (Sure has been some FALLout from that incident, huh? Huh???) He says he doesn’t know, and I honestly don’t remember who told her. “This girl’s got an agenda and I’m going to prove it,” Juliette says. I hope I get to say a sentence like that someday.

She heads off to confront Layla, but Avery’s already there. Eavesdropping, she overhears Avery try to let Layla down gently. But Layla parries that she doesn’t want to make his life any more complicated than it already is. She cares too much about him to do that!!! She says they should go back to being friends. He, ugh, oh God, compliments her by saying “You’re not complicated.” Complicated women are the worst, am I right??? Simple women are the best. Simple, like tic-tac-toe or a dog that’s hit its head a lot. But now AVERY thinks they should give it a try because she wasn’t afraid of starting something with him, even though two minutes ago he was trying to write her off? Juliette walks away, and I wish I could do the same.

Luke and Juliette discuss the goings-on. She tells him Layla gave Avery an out, but he didn’t take it. She’s upset because he chose Layla over her. Luke wants to know why she hates Layla so much, and she says it’s easier to hate Layla than to acknowledge the pain she (Juliette) has caused her. So she hops off to apologize about accidentally killing Jeff in her suicide attempt. Layla says she appreciates that Juliette came clean, but nothing is changed between them.

And I guess Juliette comes to terms with this real quick, because now she just wants to know that Avery is happy. He says yes, and that’s great because he deserves it. (So she’s cool, I guess, with Layla essentially co-parenting her baby? It’s literally never discussed!) Juliette and Luke have another moment, and then they perform together, and I guess these two are going to have a thing now. They have a lot in common, like loving fame!

Scarlett & Gunnar

There’s a bang-bang on the hotel room door — Rolling Stone has been waiting for Scarlett (a second-grader’s spelling test paper) and Gunnar! But they’re in bed together! But they make it out! And the journalist, as is usually the case, is a beautiful lady using an iPad. So far, the interview is 60 percent Scarlett and Gunnar answering questions, and 40 percent holding hands and touching knees and making goo-goo eyes at one another.

And man, this reporter is great! She brings up Zoe and asks why Scarlett was kept in the dark about that relationship for so long, and wonders why Scarlett kept having nervous breakdowns when she tried to perform and why are they The Exes and never talk about their personal relationship? Scarlett says Gunnar’s dead brother brought them together. The journo excuses herself for a moment, and Gunnar turns petulant real fast, “If Jason never passed away we wouldn’t have gotten together?” So now they’re mad at each other. So stupid!

Also, how long is this interview? Rayna and Deacon went to court and back, Juliette found out she was nominated for an Oscar and then went to Emily’s house and then went to Layla’s tour to overhear a conversation — it’s seriously been like six hours, and these two are still being grilled at a folding table about when all of their kisses happened. “Why did you say no to Gunnar when he asked you to marry him?” Haha. They are barely looking at each other. I love this journalist. Away from the journalist, Gunnar and Scarlett argue about how she never gives him any credit for being a different person (even though he’s kind of a worse person?) and he calls her judgmental.

Why is the band working now, though, the lady wants to know? Scarlett says it only works because they’re THE EXES and Gunnar is like THAT’S RIGHT. These two.

Will

He’s in the shower and hears his song on the radio, but this cannot be the first time that’s happened, right? He’s acting like it’s the first time, and it’s good to be excited for your career, but he was famous for a while and even had a reality show. He’s heard his music on the radio before, for sure.  

But some salty bitch on TV, on a set festooned with eagles and red, white and blue, is whining about AN AVOWED HOMOSEXUAL on the radio. If gay people in the music business has got her bloomers in a bunch, I’d hate to know what’ll happen when she finds out about the television industry. Will talks to Luke about how he doesn’t want to talk about it. But Luke says this shit is shots fired, and he’ll go on her show hisself to give her what-for. Loud, angry, conservative TV show hosts are the fairest people in show bidness, so this’ll definitely turn out well.

And I guess, like, the same day, Luke appears on her show? Is it on twice? Does she get a four-hour block? How much time passes in this episode? Anyway, Luke doesn’t get a monitor — they’re only recording him. Why use his celebrity status to tell America what to think, asks the host of the television show who just told people what to think. Luke says that Will is great, and being gay has nothing to do with it. She asks if he would be happy if his son was gay. He says he’d love his son no matter what, but he wouldn’t be happy because — and surprise surprise, this is where his feed cuts out — people like her would make his son’s life difficult. This lady says, “If you like listening to the radio without thinking about two men having hot, passionate, loving sex with one another, perhaps in the rain at dusk or in a beautiful flat in Paris, and they look like the two main vampire dudes from True Blood, call every country radio station and tell them to stop playing gay songs!”

Will is doing the one thing you should never do, which is reading the comments. Never read the comments. NRC. NEVER READ THE COMMENTS. He and Luke talk about how crappy the day has been, but Luke says he’s on Will’s side and they’re in this fight together. Great world we live in that this even needs to be a fight! But whoops, Will’s car gets gay-bashed at his house.