Nashville 3×05: “Road Happy”

When You’re On The Road It’s A Nashville Kind of Time with Touring, Tantrums, Texting & Trainers

Was anyone actually in Nashville this week? We joined most of our cast on the road this week and got a look at the very different song writing processes of Scarlett and Layla. Juliette is jet setting from filming the Patsy Cline movie to her tour and it’s starting to take its toll on her patience and her wardrobe. “Layna” takes its first trip as a family and Teddy teams up with Jeff Fordham (Oliver Hudson) to become the cool parent. We do not like where this is heading. Let’s dig into a big helping of Nashville, there’s much to discuss!

Meet Bratty and Brattier

We did not enjoy this week’s inside look at “Layna” family vacation. Rayna (Connie Britton) has the girls come with Luke (Will Chase) and his son to meet her at the filming of a car commercial, which sounds lame but don’t forget, they fly there on a private jet. With chocolate milk. When Daphne sent back her plain milk for chocolate milk we had a notion we may be seeing the creation of a monster. Daphne proved us right when she had a freak out on set about how much the trip sucked and we wonder if perhaps part of the problem is in how Rayna responded to aforementioned freak out. We know how tough it is to be a child divorce and these kids are in the spotlight even more now with the whole “Layna” madness, but that smart mouth has got to go! All Rayna does is quietly address Daphne about her sassy talk and then she’s got to get on set and we didn’t see any follow up on the incident. Maybe Rayna is taking the $1500 headphones approach to parenting. Please don’t take tips from Luke, Ray!

“Be the best version of yourself.” ~ Rayna to Maddie

Can you remember being a teenager and how awkward you felt? Intensify that ten-fold and we imagine this is how poor Maddie feels. She’s been bratty herself the past few episodes but this week we were feeling sad for her more than anything. She’s got her photo in a tabloid captioned “Saddie Maddie” and her mom is making her bowl with the fam at an alley with tons of fans with smartphones. Poor girl can’t get a minute without having her picture snapped and she’s listening to the internet trolls calling her plain and actually taking it to heart. We really enjoyed seeing Rayna do some consoling and counseling with Maddie because we can’t recall the last time these two had a nice mother daughter moment like this. Maddie and Daphne weren’t blue for long however, since “cool parent” Teddy took them for ear piercings and highlights. This upsets Rayna who obviously hasn’t realized owning your own label and touring and developing new artists means spending time away from your family. Since the first two seasons had a lot of things coming easy to Rayna (besides that whole car crash, fighting for her life thing), it’s nice to see Saint Rayna have to deal with some challenges. Looks like her main challenge for now at least, will be getting these girls of hers in line! We love the Stella sisters as Daphne and Maddie, and while we are grateful for the development of their characters we hope we are seeing the last of the bratty behavior. We did love seeing more of Eric Close this episode and hope the writers keep giving him more material in the episodes. Instead of Gunnar’s random kid showing up, why not a political scandal for Teddy? Just a thought.

As if community service isn’t bad enough…

We have been firmly on team “Tell Avery” for the last few weeks, but Juliette texting Avery was not what we had in mind. Avery finally sobered up long enough to do his community service from his last arrest and has to find out via text he’s having a kid? That was harsh and kinda awesome. Classic Juliette! In our opinion, she’s keeping Avery at a distance because she knows how much she still loves him despite everything that’s happened between them. Their love story seems to be a bit star crossed and maybe that’s why so many people are pulling for them and Baby Javery. We want to love Avery again (still getting over the sting from telling Juliette she meant nothing to him) and seeing him fight to get to talk to Juliette on set is definitely helping make that happen.

“You’ve got a good apartment.” ~Gunnar

“I’ve got a sad Dad apartment.” ~Avery

When Avery goes to Gunnar for not only forgiveness but advice, we fangirled out a little. This bromance is the best on this how and their on screen friendship is so believable it makes us wonder if they are buds in real life. (Jonathan Jackson & Sam Palladio, please feel free to let us know!)It was very interesting to see Avery go from banging on Juliette’s trailer door for answers to telling Gunnar that he’s contemplating staying away from the baby and Juliette because it’s probably for the best. We don’t believe Avery would go through with that and we really hope that’s not where this is headed. That will only further our love/hate relationship towards the character of Avery! While we wait for Avery to come to his senses, at least we have Derek Hough as Juliette’s co-star Noah getting some screen time on this show. We’re not sure Juliette needs a love interest so we were happy to see that Noah only wants to hang out with Juliette because she’s fun and understands that she’s going through something complicated right now. It made us squeal a little bit just to see someone care about Juliette that doesn’t work for her, although we continue to applaud Glen taking on a bigger, more parental role in Juliette’s life (and apparently her baby’s life as well!).

That time when Will trolled Craigslist for a hook up

This storyline just continues to sadden us. It’s starting to feel a little depressing that Will has no one in his life that can convince him it’s okay to be himself and love whoever he wants to love. We were glad when Deacon picked up on a few things and put two and two together. Doesn’t look like Will is going to take D up on that offer to chat anytime soon, but it’s nice to know they are at least giving Will someone to talk to if he decides to. We honestly didn’t see Will’s trainer Tony getting upset about the non-disclosure and lack of boyfriend title so that came as a shock. Even more shocking was when the guy we thought was a hooker was actually a gay basher. Trolling the parks is not a safe way to find a hook up Will, and we love that cute face of yours so don’t hit the parks at night like that again please.

“Right. I guess it’s easier to deny needing the occasional hookup than actually be in love with a man, isn’t it?” ~Trainer Tony to Will

Seeing Will struggle with his sexuality week after week is heartbreaking, and we really want the best for our new country crooner. At first it was a pretty intriguing storyline, how will he navigate the relationship with Layla? How will he hide who he really is and who he loves from all his friends and those closest to him? But it’s starting to fall flat with us. We hope that the writers have Will heading in a positive direction soon so that we can see him happy for a change, and hopefully inspire the fans watching that it does get better. Deacon is older and wiser so we want to believe the little chat he had with Will this week is the beginning of a new friendship. When Deacon referenced his friends that have been bashed and then advised Will to stay out of the parks, we gathered that D is more than just guessing what Will is hiding from everyone. Deacon continues to be the beacon of wisdom on this show for those around him going through struggles (one of the many reasons we love him!).

FINAL VERDICT

We didn’t really love the “National Lampoons: Car Commercial Vacation” that Rayna took with the kids. Here’s hoping the bad attitudes from Daphne and Maddie stayed in Idaho. It was great to see Avery finally wake up and fight for something for a change, even if Juliette only wants him to go away now. While we consider ourselves to be Javery shippers, Derek Hough as Noah seems to be a good influence on Juliette and someone who really cares about her. The way he saved her from that having to film that sex scene with her belly showing, that’s knight in shining armor stuff right there. Will they remain just friends or will the friendship develop into something else? We desperately want Juliette to be happy and we hope the writers can deliver this for more than four or five episodes. Another person we would love to see happy and less tormented is Will. His beard wife has gone crazy, his trainer’s taken off, and he’s been bashed in the park. At this point, we wonder if coming out would not only make Will (and us!) happier but could also boost his popularity too! All publicity is good publicity, right?

Questions, Comments, Concerns…

• Sadie is the new Scarlett. If Rayna had put forth this much effort with Scarlett, maybe she wouldn’t have gone cray on stage?
• Watching Scarlet write her eleventh song in 3 weeks were really fun scenes. We could see her pushing past the distraction of Terry outside with his pizza song, LOL!
• Speaking of Terry, we loved that he helped Scarlett finish her song, and he called her “Little Pixie”! And the song is beautiful!!
• Pam & Deacon as a couple might be growing on us. They are kinda cute together, at least until he gets back in the ring to fight for Rayna’s heart.
• Gunnar and Kylie (his ex from back in Austin) apparently made a child 9 ½ years ago. She doesn’t ever think to tell him until Gunnar happens to meet little Micah. This kinda felt like a last ditch effort to throw in some drama for Gunnar. Not feelin’ it.
• Could Jeff Fordham BE any slimier? Ugh, we are so over him but we can appreciate the trouble he tends to stir up. Keeps it interesting!
• We say this every week but HELLO DEREK HOUGH! Seriously, hello. Call us, tweet us, PLEASE! Huge fan of your hot bod and adorable face work!;)
• Layla is still trying to make Layla happen. The song we heard her recording this week didn’t sound half bad, but then we saw her struggle to write a song she could relate to and then contemplate killing herself??? Can Will and Layla just get divorced already? She’s boring us.
• We got excited when Zoe took over for an out of breath, about to pass out Juliette. And then we immediately became worried for her when Juliette saw the screen. We suspect J will not be thrilled with Zoe jumping in the spotlight. Or maybe she will give her a pass. Zoe is after all, her only link to Avery right now.
• Juliette is clearly looking pregnant. We appreciate both the show’s commitment to acting like she’s not showing that much, as well as the fact that they aren’t throwing giant pillows and props in front of her belly, ala Will & Grace, Monica on Friends etc.