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Nashville Recap: Dynamic Duet

This week, Nashville made a very smart choice — the show put Rayna James and Juliette Barnes into a situation where they had to write, fight and perform together, and the show was all the better for it. Make them go on tour together! Make them write an album together! Fortunately, it looks like the label has the same idea.

In order to rehabilitate Juliette’s image further, her team decides to have her perform at the label’s anniversary concert at the hallowed Ryman Auditorium. The only catch is they want to pair her with the upstanding and scandal-free (so far) Rayna for an extra boost of cred. Both women fight the label on it, Juliette eventually acquiescing once she decides it’s an opportunity to show everyone that she’s not a “flash in the pan” and Rayna using it to get the label to agree to the producer she chose for her next record and to shelve her greatest hits album until she decides she wants to make one. The only trouble is they can’t agree on a song — Juliette doesn’t want to sing Rayna’s stuff, Rayna doesn’t want to sing hers and neither of them want to put a new spin on a classic. Rayna basically tells Juliette she doesn’t think she’s a real musician and she storms off, while Deacon, who seems newly sympathetic to Juliett’s desire to legitimate herself in the eyes of the country music establishment, throws a copy of the song he recorded with Juliette earlier in the season at Rayna and makes her listen to it.

She does, and shows up at Juliette’s place to tell her she thinks they should write a song together. They do, with the help of a lot of coffee and an attitude adjustment, and blow the doors off the auditorium with “Lovesick Blues,” which actually sounds pretty good. Elsewhere in Juliette’s life, we learn that her goody two-shoes boyfriend has an absolutely terrifying sleeve of tattoos and isn’t interested in “making love” outside the “confines of marriage” and uuuuugh, he said “making love.” Dump him! Juliette seems into it though, so he’ll be sticking around for the moment.

Elsewhere in Rayna’s life, she’s having movie nights with her daughters, blissfully ignorant of her husband’s various misdeeds. Coleman calls him for a secret meeting to let him know that he has the incriminating pictures of him with Peggy, and wants him to withdraw from the race. Obviously Lamar won’t let that happen, though, and wants to break the story his way, assuring Teddy that the paper trail leading to the actual terrible things he and Peggy did together has vanished. Teddy doesn’t seem too sure about that, but since he’s lacked a spine for the entire season it’s probably too late for him to grow one now.

And…Scarlett. Deacon kicks her out of the house after she won’t stop cleaning up after him, and Gunnar’s new girlfriend nicely agrees to take her out to get her mind off of her breakup. Once they’re at the bar, though, Scarlett gets faced on tequila and starts dancing with a random guy, making Gunnar get super protective and gross, even going so far as to break things up when Random Guy goes in for a kiss. Scarlett storms off to Avery’s place, only to find him in the desiccated arms of sex monster Marilyn (who, to be fair, actually seems to be doing a decent job at getting his career going, so far). Despite Gunnar’s controlling and frankly sexist treatment of her, Scarlett goes crawling back to him hoping they can still write together. After he apologizes to her, he agrees.

Lots of good setup for the winter finale, here. Tell us what you thought about the episode in the comments!

TAGS: Female Showrunners | Nashville

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