Nashville: How Far Down Can I Go Review

Tonight’s episode of Nashville got back to basics with the good music we watch the show for: a song from Rayna and a duet from Gunnar McHotStuff and Ol’ Marble Mouth McScarlett. Side bar: Scarlett has a gorgeous singing voice, so is it a character choice or a directorial choice to have her speaking voice sound like she’s chewing gravel?

TAKE US FROM THE TOP:                                                  

Before the 1st commercial there were about 98 scenes of Rayna looking at office space for her label who should have office space by now, Deacon looking like shit, Gunnar asking Zoey to move in, Juliette looking puffy and complaining, and Rayna’s boring sister talking about (surprise) their father. Did I leave anything out?

BEST SCENE(S) OF THE NIGHT:

Maddie and Deacon fumbling around to build a father-daughter relationship. While it was totally out of line for Deacon to tell Maddie that he proposed to Rayna and Rayna turned him down, but he’s new to all of this parenting stuff and all their moments this episode felt very real.

BIG CLOSER:

Jeff walked around most the episode calling women fat and telling them they are bad at ordering lunch, so it was a big relief when Juliette went to the doctor to “take care” of something and through the wonders of math, learned that her baby was too far along to be Jeff’s evil spawn and therefore it was just a bi-product of using birth control improperly verses not using it at all!

OTHER OBSERVATIONS OF RANDOM MOMENTS IN THE EPISODE:

• Rayna is upset that the press only wants to ask about her brand new nuptials to another country legend and not her boring record label. Weird!
• Why don’t these performers know anyone else besides each other? There are more country singers on a “Now That’s What I Call Country Volume 23” CD than on the entire tour circuit in this show.
• My summary of Rayna’s interaction with daughter Maddie. “I had the option to marry your biological father that we both love but didn’t and then I added 40 dates to my tour to miss a year of your childhood. Pass the peas!”
• I love watching director’s hide their star’s off-screen pregnancies. In Scandal, Kerry Washington carried a giant purse and stood behind her conspicuously higher desk a lot. In Nashville, Hayden Panettiere peeped out from behind a wall in a hallway for a minute long scene.

I give this episode 4 out of 5 stars. One for not having Teddy in it, another for letting Gunnar and Scarlett soothe me with their acoustic voices and sexual chemistry, a third star for Maddie getting to develop into a character of her own and a fourth for Connie Britton’s hair. The episode looses one star for the writers making Jeff into a cartoon of an asshole. And I’m aware that how I count stars doesn’t actually add up correctly but I’m sort of okay with that and hope you are too.

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