Nashville: 3×06 Review - “Nobody Said It Was Going to Be Easy”

The CMA Awards are announced, Juliette’s Pregnancy Goes Public, and a Party Down South, Goes South.

This week on Nashville was the week of the announcements. The CMA award nominations were revealed with special guest starts Robin Roberts and Sara Evans doing the honors, and after Avery announced his forgiveness, Juliette followed by sharing her pregnancy and Avery’s name with the press. Maddie continues to let us and her parents down by making bad decisions and acting out while Teddy drifts into slimeball territory with the company he keeps. All this and more on this week’s Nashville!

Ready for a “Rayna v Luke” Country Showdown

Okay, was it just us or did it seems like Rayna’s CMA nominations were a tad far fetched? That album of hers must have been amazeballs. Seriously though, we heard the song “This Time”, which is catchy but not great and “Ball and Chain” which is basically just a ‘Layna’ PR tune. How did she get so many noms? If there are tracks that we haven’t heard yet, please Callie Khouri, let us hear ‘em! Rayna (Connie Britton) is not super stoked however, when she hears that people are contributing her recent success to the First Couple of Country madness that is Layna. Since Luke (Will Chase) also had several noms, the press is pitting them against each other because let’s face it, that’s what the public wants to see and gossip about. Rayna is really concerned because she’s so proud of her album and all her hard work and she feels like her relationship is overshadowing that. Isn’t all publicity, good publicity? They make it seem like a bad thing pretty on this show. And doesn’t she need more attention for Highway 65? Other than Sadie’s (Laura Benanti) one Best New Artist nom (which she is pitted against and we predict will lose to, Will Lexington) no one is really talking about Highway 65. Maybe Layna can change their couple name to HighLay 65. (Hey we tried! Contact us for more ideas Rayna!)

“Well, I think I’m gonna be doing it myself. “ ~Rayna
“You pushing me out?” ~Luke
“Kind of…” ~Rayna
“I didn’t realize when I was talking about campaigning that you’d start competing against me.” ~Luke

Dare we say we thoroughly enjoyed watching Ray push Luke out of the Dancing with the Stars performance? That is some mean girl-ish behavior from our normally holier than thou Saint Rayna. We sure hope she can pull that bonus track that doesn’t even exist out of thin air quickly! We hope this means our favorite music producer Liam (Michiel Huisman) will be back in Nashville soon, if only so he can break up Ray and Luke so Rayna can go back to Deacon.

Javery ‘Shippers Rejoice! Or Not?

Juliette (Hayden Panetierre) finds out her baby ok going to be okay, but her tour is not. Poor mama to be has developed blood clots that typically show up in pregnancy and she must stop traveling. Doctor’s orders Jules, no more touring but she’s free to finish up the Patsy Cline biopic (which means more Derek Hough so thank you, Nashville writers!). Avery (Jonathan Jackson) drives all night to arrive at the hospital only to be joined by Noah (Hough) in Juliette’s room. Juliette tries to explain that the two are only good friends but Avery isn’t having it. We have watched Juliette really grow this season and we are really enjoying seeing this mature side of Country’s once-was bad girl. Hayden always brings the realness to her scenes and we are delighted to have a season of Nashville where she’s given character work that really showcases her talent.

“I’m still here and the baby’s alright. I’d say that’s a pretty good day for me.” ~Juliette

Further proving our point about growing up, Juliette turns down Noah’s advances about seeing where their friendship might go, and explains that she is having Avery’s baby and he showed up at the hospital for either her, the baby or both and she needs to see what is there. This is such a change from the Juliette we have seen in the past! Traded bed-hopping for baby shopping, we love it! Juliette also took her one and only CMA nomination in stride, while the girl we remember from seasons past would definitely have fired someone and thrown something. Juliette considers having the baby being in good health and getting that one nom, a good day. We have to agree with her there! We also might have enjoyed it a little too much when Juliette fired Zoe. We knew this was coming last week when Zoe (Chaley Rose) took over the stage for a hyperventilating Juliette. Finally we get to see Juliette and Avery have the conversation we had been wishing they would have for weeks! Juliette gives Avery the choice of all in or nothing at all when it comes to the baby, and tells him to figure out what he wants. Avery showed up at the end of the episode to the excitement of Javery shippers across the country and then crushed our souls by telling Jules that he chooses neither of her proposed options and while he forgives her, he doesn’t trust her and cannot be with someone he doesn’t trust. We don’t know about you guys, but the television screen was really blurry in that scene. (No, we were not blubbering like babies from the emotional high that was the word forgiveness followed by the super sad let down of the words, no trust no relationship.) We are still pulling for Javery and their happy ending that both characters truly deserve.

Teens who Drink and Dads who Dip

Staying consistent this week is Maddie (Lennon Stella), who decided to throw a little party at Rayna’s house while she’s on tour and Dad Teddy (Eric Close) is at an “appointment.” Well, Jeff did have to call ahead to reserve your “friend” so we guess the appointment cover works Teddy. We weren’t surprised to see Luke’s son Colt (Keenan Johnson) was involved in this little plan. Those $1500 headphones and his attitude that we’ve seen in the past have already solidified our opinion of that kid long ago (spoiler: we think he’s trouble). Daphne (Maisy Stella) panics when she can’t find her sister in the middle of a huge party and when she can’t reach Teddy because he’s too busy skinny dipping she calls 911. Maddie on the other hand, is too busy kissing her future stepbrother Colt in her room (?) to be bothered with both the party going and her little sister calling the authorities to rat her out.

“You can’t act out like this.” ~Deacon to Maddie

This party brought out ALL of Maddie’s Daddys and we were treated to a super awk moment with Rayna being faced with her romantic past, present and dare we say future (Team Deacon forever Y’all!). Seeing Teddy, Luke and Deacon all show up for Maddie and Rayna may be a sliver of hope that this blended family can weather the storm of divorce and remarriage and come out on the other side unscathed and closer than ever. The scene with Maddie and Deacon on the couch was hands down the sweetest moment of the night. We doubt he would have had the same reaction had he known about that kiss with Colt though. Rayna and Teddy once again prove that even though their daughter is acting like a spoiled and entitled teen, they can solve anything by throwing money at it and that they will be getting a nanny to keep an eye on the Conrad girls. It was strangely out of character for Rayna not to press Teddy on his whereabouts the night of the party though. Last week she was crying over missing Maddie’s first highlights and Daphne’s new ear bling and this week she had no further questions for Teddy when all he provided as an answer for the girls being left unattended was he had a “last minute meeting.” Again, we wonder if Ray would have the same calm reaction if she knew about the kissin cousins moment in Maddie’s room.

FINAL VERDICT

We really hope that we have seen the last of the surprise pregnancies and “Hey you’re my kids real father” storylines for a while. While we have our hopes high that the Javery baby will reunite our favorite Nashville couple, it really seems like lazy writing to have Rayna hide a child from Deacon, then Juliette hiding a pregnancy from Avery, and now Gunnar finding out he has a secret kid as well. And lest we forget, Peggy Conrad’s fake pregnancy last season. We love our soapy drama on Nashville but this storyline is getting tired folks. Our favorite scene of this week’s episode was without a doubt the scene as Juliette left the pregnancy announcement press conference. Scene supervisor Robert E. Knight really captured a moment there. We could feel the pressure of the world on Juliette in that last scene while she continued to field questions about her pregnancy and the craziness that real life stars likely deal with on a daily basis. Hayden plays Juliette so well and this scene was just a further example of the talent that is both film editor Jamin Brickner and creator/writer Callie Khouri. They give these actors some really great material to work with and together they bring it (save for the baby daddy storylines)!

QUESTION COMMENTS AND CONCERNS

• Rayna is the reigning pants wearing performer on this show, and we were very disappointed with those pants that someone put Sara Evans in. We suspect they were a cast off of Rayna’s. We sure hope Sara doesn’t actually own those lace pants!
• Oh yeah, Gunnar’s ex Kylie? She’s decided not to leave town and give Gunnar some time to bond with his son Micah. How considerate of her.
• RIP Scarlett and Terry? We certainly hope not. We thought Scarlett was giving Terry the third degree about his family as well, but it made us so sad to think of Terry without a friend. We really hope to see more of Terry.
• Luke, you have numerous best selling albums, CMA awards noms, AND you have Rayna. Let’s cut Deacon a break on the singing with the crew thing. Overreact much bro?
• Plus, that song from Deacon was good! And we enjoyed Pam singing a little back up harmony, showing that these two can make love AND beautiful music together.
• Jeff Fordham is the slickest. Skanks and skinny dipping? Teddy will definitely let the girls sign a record deal with Edgehill.
• Except, shouldn’t Maddie be grounded after that stunt with the party? Might be hard to record while grounded for eternity. Although knowing Rayna, she will give in and let Maddie off in order to be the “cool parent” again.
• Speaking of “cool parents”, Gunnar is pretty adorable with Micah, it was so sweet watching them play the drums and hang out.
• Not getting the “cool parent” award this week is Teddy, who needs to take a cold shower and remember that he’s a dad to two girls dealing with the fallout of their parent’s very public split. We liked Teddy a lot more when he was taking care of pigs blood Peggy and being a good guy.
• ABC made the most of this hour, highlighting not only the upcoming
  (real) CMA’s, but also Good Morning America, and Dancing with the Stars! (Hi Derek Hough!)
• OF COURSE Zoe would walk in on a Kylie/Gunnar hug! We think we haven’t seen the last of Green Eyed Monster Zoe.