Bubble machines! Smoke machines! Teenage sex machines! What is this, the Industrial Revolution? No, it's Nashville, the show where we don't get to see the mayor skip town, which would have basically set off the most amazing news cycle this fictional world has ever seen.
Rayna
Our hero Rayna is on a private jet, and, as far as Deacon knows, flying to New York to secure a new distribution deal for her record label. Don’t you go neglecting your music bidness on account of my terminal cancer, he tells her! But oh, too late, because she is in fact taking her private jet to Biloxi to see his garbage sister. What was that flight, like 35 minutes?
Garbage Sister Bev is like, “My brother and daughter wanted to harvest my organs and also they hate me.” But Rayna starts using her Convincing Voice and before we know it, Bev is suffering from sepia-colored ’90s flashbacks of Deacon and her. Rayna tells Beverly about the transplant rug-pulling and talks centimeters at her. Beverly reminisces about good times with Deacon at Nashville’s own Peach Pit, The Bluebird. RAYNA’S HAIR. Oh my God. Her flashback hair is giant and glorious and triples the size of her head. She makes flashback sex eyes at baby Deke.
Turns out that oh so long ago, Rayna had the record deal and done stole Deacon away from his sister. She offered it to Beverly too, but Beverly thought Rayna wasn’t good enough for the Tupelo Twinz. “You don’t care about the music,” says Beverly in flashback, which is like the worst insult you can throw at a person on this show. Bev’s got a real teen attitude about missed chances and sexually active brothers and is like, “You wanted him, you save him!” Cool family.
Haha then Rayna gives his Garbage Sister a check for a million bucks in order to basically buy her loyalty/organs. Again, cool family.
Rayna probably thinks she’s having the most awkward interaction of the day right now, but Deacon just found teens Maddie and Cole getting dressed in the bedroom! Teens! What sexy teen shenanigans can’t they get up to! Deacon is really trying his hardest to Good Parent this situation, so he immediately tells Juliette. She offers to talk to Maddie. “Maybe I can be a cautionary tale.” What will she say to her, that she had a bunch of teen sex and all that happened was it made her feel real good and then she became rich and famous? And that was basically the advice! While he’s in a secret-telling mood, he tells Juliette about his cancer-having.
Then Deacon takes Maddie to the doctor and puts her on birth control pills. Haha JK that kind of stuff only happened on Roseanne.
Juliette
Like all new moms, Juliette has to find a balance of baby, family and being a big-time famous celebrity person. She’s called a random band practice and not told Avery, even though he is a part of her band! Haha! He shows up with baby Tonality and hucks her off on top of a speaker or something. Hope that bb has noise-cancelling headphones!
At Highway 65, the most understaffed label in town, Juliette is pissed at Bucky for telling her that she needs to play smaller venues to rebuild her career after her motherhood disappearing streak and lack of award wins. That she is the lead in a soon-to-be-released (?) Patsy Cline biopic is never once mentioned.
Because Juliette is a hero and a genius and a perfect visionary who has to do everything herself, she does a Beatles-style impromptu concert in downtown Nashville. There’s smoke machines and lots and lots and lots of lights and it’s a big-ass production, the kind that is typically thrown together in a day on a roof. The news copters are out and everything! She and Avery are so high off of their rooftop success that they do it in an elevator. Typical married life.
Scarlett
Scarlett, a jingle bell worn around the neck of a naughty cat, is leaving Dr. Boyfriend’s house for some work with Gunnar. “Aren’t musicians supposed to sleep until noon?” he sweetly chides. “Oh, haha, yes, our relationship is so new that you are likely unaware of the thousand-and-one neuroses I have instead of a fleshed-out personality.” Noticing that they are white people, he invites her to a Doctor Dinner at a country club.
Dusty lil’ prairie rose Scarlett and secret Brit Avery do their live radio performance. “Noice!” says the DJ. *air horn* At the country club party, Scarlett looks real nice in grown-up clothes. I … actually have no problem with anything Scarlett says or does in this episode? It only took three years but the kid just might make it!
Gunnar
Remember Gunnar’s nephew-son, and how we thought that was over? Like the whole interlude was just another one of the dozen or so characters (Vet girlfriend! Sober companion! Bunny Colvin! Powers Boothe! Mrs. Pig Blood! Rapist ex-bandmate! Billionaire media mogul! Tandy! Ad infinitum!) to come and go without lasting note? WELL GUESS WHAT, the kid’s mom is BACK and wants to see Micah. Nope, he’s in Texas with her parents! Gunnar is mad that she lied about Micah being her son, and that there’s “nothing she can say that can ever change that.” Famous last words!
Like, what’s the actual worst possible thing for her to say? What’s the one real-life trauma that frequently makes it into soaps because of how awful it is? That’s right, Gunnar’s dead brother is a rapist! What’s funny (“funny”) about how this is presented is that it’s supposed to be a character moment for Gunnar, the brother of a rapist. Not, like, the girl who was raped. It’s kind of like how Deacon’s cancer is really about Rayna.
And hey, good news, it brings out the worst in Gunnar! Scarlett has not been told the story, and from her perspective, is still correctly angry at Kid’s Mom for dumping him in Nashville. But Gunnar is like “You’ve changed! You have a stable relationship and seem happy and look really nice! Go fuck yourself, hypocrite!” Basically that is exactly what he says! Haha! And Scarlett’s rebuttal to Gunnar’s petulance is honestly the best thing she’s ever said — her new boyfriend is an adult. HAHAHAHAHA.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Hahahahaha.
Ya burnt Gunnar. Sorry your dead brother rapes people.
Luke
Luke’s in L.A. with Ruby La Rue, because he wants the “L.A. experience.” She’s throwing your typical L.A.-style bash with bubble machines and giant statues of seahorses. It’s basically going to be the most baller Enchantment Under the Sea prom ever. Jesus. And then these two compare movie preferences, and she says Notting Hill is the best romantic comedy ever. Bitch that’s not even the best Richard Curtis romantic comedy! Talking about romance movies made them have a passionate kiss in front of a green screen and for him to leap into her pool. But the party was … a party? Like it was a normal party? And oh it’s just too much for Luke! So he leaves her. He is in his forties and she is in her thirties and his parties have guns and her parties have bubbles so it’ll just never work.
Layla
Guess who else is in L.A.? My friends Layla and Jeff, that May-August odd couple of my dreams! Layla wants a stylist so she can look all good and be seen, and Jeff … still hates Onyx St. Ringo for vague reasons that have little to do with Layla’s pretty good point.
The pair go to Sandstone’s daytime Ibiza bubble party. She meets a dude named Sully and there are iPhone photos and colorful drinks so it’s basically ladies’ night at a Boston-area college bar. The menfolk are none too keen on this “party” stuff and gruffly walk off together, in a gruff huff. Layla is playing flirty knees and holdy hands with Sully and Jeff is mad jealous. He yoinks her away from a make-out with Sully and her drunk logic is pretty good: People will talk about her! I literally cannot argue with that.
She passes out on a bench outside, and Jeff surreptitiously Tweets a picture she took at the party against the explicit orders of Quartz McGee. Will this end their relationship with Jasper Lucite??? Probably!!!
Teddy
So we’re like a third of the way through the episode before we see Teddy and it was so nice for a second. He’s still got hooker probs and FBI probs and she’s talking about money and wire-wearing and who caressssss. Pls leap from the Batman Building Mr. Mayor k thx. Teddy wants to do a runner so he buys the girls some pretty necklaces and is like, “Uh bye!” Haha! They are better off without you! He leaves some letters. I play with My Idol for a while. He looks at a picture of his girls rather than, like, trying to take it with him. But good news though! White men stick together (see literally any American power structure of the last 400 years for proof), so Teddy’s good-old-boy government buddy doesn’t want to see an honest criminal get ruined: so he can get Teddy off the hook as long as her performs a yet-to-be-determined favor. I hope it’s a murder.
Marty rocking some Chuck Berry.
