Serial Drama

Quick Survey!

Literally one question: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8KSJWMX

It's anonymous and you can pick more than one thing! Feel free to expand on it in the comments here -- if you picked Web Soaps, do you have favorites? If you picked 90210, what are your favorite seasons? Etc!

Edited to add: I want to clarify one thing. I'm probably not going to cover the best new shows on television. Or the best old shows. If I can't have a little fun at the show's expense, for the most part, you can find lots of much more high-profile commentary on just about everything. I'm not here to recap Friday Night Lights or The Wire. I even dropped The Fosters because I like it and other places covered it well (Previously TV, Autostraddle, etc) but I noticed some sites dropped them so, hey, low-coverage shows are more likely to happen here if they're worth it. Maybe I'll pick it back up.

This is kind of stream-of-consciousness, but I just wanted to offer up a sense of what's behind the thinking here! 

 

Nashville: Can't Let Go

Y'all. SO MUCH HAPPENED on the season premiere of Nashville that I don't even know where I'd begin recapping it all, so I'm just going to make a quick list in case anyone needs a cheat sheet to keep up with all the drama! 

To sum up, here's where we left things off at the end of last season:

- Scarlett was dating a doctor fellow but also trying to resist feelings for Gunnar, who was being inappropriately petulant and pouty and pushy about the whole thing.

- Avery was pretty much raising Cadence on his own because Juliette had PPD, apparently, but in reality was just back to being the beast she was when we first met her.

- Maddie was a brat and Daphne was adorable.

- Teddy was on his way to prison.

- Layla and Jeff were in some sort of very twisted, emotionally abusive relationship.

- Will was dealing with a bunch of internalized homophobia, but had finally publicly come out, much to his label's dismay.

- Rayna and Deacon were back together, and Beverly and Deacon were both under the knife for Beverly's liver donation for Deacon's transplant.

- Steven Tyler existed in the world but had never been on this show.

And now, since your heads are all probably spinning from this week's action-packed episode, here's where things stand now:

- Scarlett is dating a doctor fellow but also trying to resist feelings for Gunnar, who is being inappropriately petulant and pouty and pushy about the whole thing.

- Avery is pretty much raising Cadence on his own because Juliette has PPD, apparently, but in reality is just back to being the beast she was when we first met her.

Nashville: Nobody Knows But Me

Four things. Just four.

1. Nope.

I repeat: nope.

 

2. Will! First of all, Will was on the episode. Second of all, he actually just has a plain old legitimate crush and doesn't just want to cruise dudes in the park anymore. He actually wants to date Kevin! And he told him so!

Go, Will! Honestly, all his fumbling attempts to spend more time with Kevin were completely adorable. People coming to terms with their own sexual orientation a little later on often talk about it as a "second adolescence" because while puberty is physically long over, you have to re-navigate crushes and first kisses all over again from a completely different perspective. It's really refreshing to see Will do that, though I doubt Ole Kev is going to be on board for how deep Will's closet is. 

 

3. MADDIE IS THE WORST. We already know what a terrible brat she can be, and one must make allowances for a certain amount of general teen sulking. But really. Note to Rayna: it's not okay for your kids to talk to you like that. And do you know what'll encourage them to continue talking to you like that in the future? Revoking their punishment at the last second just because someone else convinces your kid to apologize. I got a good chuckle out of Rayna and Deacon hoping that Luke's son is "one of the good ones," and then confidently assuring themselves that at least they know their daughter is. One of the good ones. Maddie. One of the good ones. Maddie, who managed to make Deacon's CANCER all about her.

 

Nashville: This Just Ain't A Good Day For Leavin'

I agree, episode title! Bummer to lose Laura Benanti (Sadie), but I'd heard so much casting news about her lately (I can't picture her in a superhero show, but stranger things have happened) that I figured it was inevitable. Though I suppose she could still return, it did feel fairly final. Considering her storyline this entire season was building up to this self-defense shooting incident, it feels a little off, so I wonder if they had to change things midstream and she wasn't originally going to leave right away. I was actually interested in the developing relationship with Luke! Now what's the point of Luke? You tell me!

I suppose since my entire shtick around here for Nashville is hating on Scarlett, I should address this: the fact that she's been reduced to more of a supporting role this season has been a bit of a relief and likely the main reason I haven't been motivated to do a post for every episode. But hoo boy, these two episodes have been rough. Last week's because she was back to her old infuriating self (apparently she's never heard of Twitter before, and by the way is totally comfortable going on tour and performing in front of huge crowds now, everything's solved so I ask you: WHY did we have to go through all that?!) (the worst was her totally naive shock that people on the internet would say something unkind about someone they DON'T EVEN KNOW! Oh, Scarlett, that's the theme of the internet.), this week's because: ugh, Gunnar and Scarlett. We're now pretending that Gunnar's still been madly in love with Scarlett this whole time (here's a hint, Gunnar: if you're in love with someone, don't date their best friend and have her move in with you). We're also pretending that Scarlett waited and waited for Gunnar to return to her for the right reasons (exemplified by how she got back together with her ex-boyfriend, so yeah, yeah, that holds up). 

Okay, it's true that Gunnar did manage to write her a song about how flippin' diamonds come out every time she opens her kewpie mouth, but that was about the only hint we got that she still held such significance for him. But now he's back to wanting to be the one responsible for catching all of those bile-covered diamonds, and he's handling it by being pissy and mean, since that's usually the way the get the girl. 

It hurts, y'all. And I hope Avery doesn't stop playing with them, I do not want to go back to the duo days.

Nashville: The Happiness Bully

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Anyone who's ever read any of my Nashville coverage here on Serial Drama knows full well that my feelings about Scarlett O'Connor are well-documented enough that it often seems pointless to ever address her scenes at all.

But sometimes it's just so hard to resist. 

Last night's episode saw the girl out of whose open mouth diamonds just fly continuing to deal with her uncle's cirrhosis of the liver diagnosis (and vague, bad prognosis). Deacon has downloaded a "Make Your Own Will" kit off the World Wide Web to tie up his loose ends just in case he doesn't get bumped to the top of the transplant list (or, you know, just in case his daughter doesn't eventually find out and donate a slice of her liver in time). Now, such solid planning and forethought does not please our special snowflake Scarlett! 

I can't blame Deacon, as that's the facial expression I'd make if Scarlett were my kin.

Anyway, our little angel apparently has a superstition that making a will can kill you or speed up your death in some way because perhaps her hair extensions are clogging her brain, but Deacon goes on ahead and does the responsible thing and finishes up the will and puts it in a drawer so she'll know where to find it. Which can't hurt. Scarlett, however, has decided if she refuses to make eye contact with said will, it's as if it doesn't exist! 

Later, after a terrifying scene in which Scarlett essentially has several anxiety seizures of some sort while trying to convince the physician to pretend Deacon has decades to live, the country's leading 25-year-old oncologist (who is also blatantly her new love interest) tells Scarlett she's a Happiness Bully, which can be as detrimental to a patient as being the world's biggest pessimist. So she decides to back off a little and stop pretending that denial is the cure for cancer. All is harmonious again at the O'Connor/Claybourne household.

Will, my favorite, was actually in the episode but it didn't advance his story, he mostly served as the most-sober attendee of Luke's and Gunnar's self-pity party. 

Nashville: Brat Time

In all honesty I don't really care to dignify an episode of Nashville that has no Will in it with a post at all. I've consistently found that to be not only the most interesting storyline, but also the one that gets the least movement. It's been chasing its tail for years.

That said, I do have to address a few things. How could I not?

- Maddie. Maddie's a brat. Maddie is a brat whose bratitude is not only allowed but encouraged. I mean I get that all three of her parents are kind of awful in their own special ways, but why is it that every time she throws a tantrum everyone bends over backwards to coddle her? She apparently thinks she's too much of a musical special snowflake to finish high school and her dad doesn't even counter anything she says by explaining why a basic education could actually be good for someone who is trying to have a music career. Somehow her "either/or" philosophy is duly noted and never disputed. And when Teddy tells her why she can't actually quit high school at 15 to go be the next Taylor Swift (although way to not back up your co-parent there, Teddy, with that whole "I don't feel strongly about this at all but your mother does" bullshit), she rolls her eyes and tells him "that's weak" and HE JUST TAKES IT. Who is allowed to talk to their parents like that? Holy crap, my folks would've invented a new definition of "grounded." But no matter! She's going to get rewarded for her nasty attitude with a recording contract, because Jeff Fordham has inexplicably decided she really will be the next Taylor Swift! (Her songs are as lovely as they are folksy and sweet and low-key.

 

This is supposed to be his next arena juggernaut? C'mon.) And of course he's blackmailing Teddy into it because of Teddy's tryst with the lady of the night.

- Major props to Hayden Panettiere for actually allowing herself to look like a pregnant woman. Too many actresses clearly overdo it when trying to stay Hollywood skinny while pregnant. I'm also enjoying enjoying that she's pretty much wearing hoodies and sweats all the time now instead of trying to glam it up. (Also, Avery is being adorable, is he not?)

- While this week they actually let Sadie briefly interact with another character on the show, they quickly scuttled her back off again into her own dark tale of stalking and domestic abuse. She is obviously accustomed to covering up her bruises well. No reappearance of the gun, though. Chekhov's rule hasn't really applied yet, but I suppose in episodic television you get more acts until it has to come into play.

Nashville: She and Me

It's back!

I don't have a whole lot to say about the mid-season premiere of Nashville from last night (that's what we're calling it now when these shows return from their holiday nap, right?) because it was mostly people just sort of wrapping up their reactions to everything that happened in the last episode, but there are a few things worth noting:

- The titular quote is from Deacon, who said something like, "She and me, I don't know what we are right now" in reference to Rayna's and his sort-of-relationship. I ran through my mental rolodex of grammatical situations and I couldn't think of a single one in which "she and me" would ever be correct. She and I? Sure! Me and her? Absolutely! But she and me rhymes, so let's go with it.

- Sadie had a subplot in this episode that belonged entirely in some other show. Was that not completely bizarre? Basically she bought herself a gun (semi-illegally, because this is the Mid-South and if it's a lady behind the counter at the gun store, she gets it) and started filling out paperwork for a restraining order against her ex. I don't remember her ex's name but now I can only think of him as "Riley," since that's who he played on OLTL. It was all very creepy and intense and dark and I'm pretty sure someone is going to get killed in this alternate reality that we'll call Nashville: The Underbelly.

- Will was super-bummed that Layla tried to off herself because of him. I can't really blame her for hating him; she ultimately accepted him and agreed to keep his secret and act as his beard only to catch him sleeping with another woman. If this is what it takes to get Will to come out, I'll take it. Is that what's happening? They got the reality show canceled and Will seems to have a new attitude, but whatever his big plan is, Jeff Fordham seems on board with it. Feels unlikely that somebody like Jeff Fordham would support a country star on his label coming out publicly. But let's get there, show. It's been too long.

- Most importantly: SCARLETT BASICALLY DID NOTHING IN THIS EPISODE. That was pretty exciting. Sure, she offered to donate part of her liver to Deacon (y'all, I'm a donor and all but is there any way to notate on my driver's license to really just not even bother with my liver? It's not going to save anyone, although I was psyched to learn from this episode that we don't need all of our liver!), but she had the wrong blood type (which also reminded me that one of these days I should really find out what my blood type is), which obviously means someone else in the main cast is going to end up forking over a slice of their liver to save Deacon. And naturally this is how the secret will come out, because of course the show fell back on the most boring soap cliche of all: I MUST KEEP MY POSSIBLY-FATAL ILLNESS FROM MY LOVAH TO PROTECT HER! Oh, Deacon. How I'd enjoyed his lack of mystery up until now. This is tedious indeed. 

Nashville: Butch It Up

That's what Will is supposed to do to protect his image now that a website is speculating that he's gay. Will wants to sue for slander. It is legally slanderous to speculate that someone's gay? Is that still a legitimate thing? I have a headache.

Juliette and Avery have conveniently decided to move in together "just for now" "for the baby." As you do.

Rayna's sister is back! I've missed Tandy. Rayna lies to Tandy that Deacon isn't speaking to her because of the Rolling Stone article. And the tour that Luke and Deacon were out on is finally over, thankfully, and they exchange some passive aggression before packing up and taking off.

Oh and Gunnar's kid's maternal grandparents showed up as his legal guardians. He goes and meets with an attorney who's going to set up a hearing. I know we're all on the edge of our seats.

Teddy is on a date with the escort he has a crush on. This time he's paying! He's just the mayor, what could go wrong?

Deacon and Scarlett are watching some sort of duck race. I don't understand what's going on, but I like ducks. 

Sadie's ex (the actor looks soapy, do we know him from daytime?) shows up and is very menacing.

Apparently Luke's been chatting up Rayna's kids and getting them excited about boarding school. Rayna is less than pleased. They have a conversation about it and he apologizes. I'm sure that wraps up that storyline! All is well!

Layla is all ga-ga over Jeff Fordham, much to Will's chagrin. Well, Will doesn't know yet that it's Jeff but he does know Layla has a dude. Will and Layla are at some party with lots of liquor and thumping music, and just looking at it on my screen gives me a headache. Will spies Layla being all schmoopy with Jeff and assumes Jeff must be working some sort of angle on Will. Jeff classily claims that he's just basically keeping her warm so she won't expose Will's queermo tendencies, but she's taking it seriously so Will demands that Jeff makes sure Layla will go out on tour with him. 

Scarlett is flitting about town being an insufferable manic pixie dream girl and has made Deacon sing karaoke with her because WHIMSICAL! 

Jeff tries to shut Layla down, which you should really never do to a girl when she's that drunk. It cannot end well. Will watches all this go down and feels some sads. Some reporter chick hits on Will, complete with disrobing in front of him. Rejecting her is apparently is "proof" that he's gay, so naturally he sexes her up to prove otherwise. Since that's not a "tell" right there, Will!

Micah's grandparents and Gunnar have a big nasty argument and, naturally, Micah overhears the whole thing because this is television. 

Teddy gets a text from his daughter from the rehearsal dinner while his prostitute is showering. Said escort wants him to put her on retainer for two nights a week, and Teddy realizes it's a little twisted that he has to pay someone to hang out with him while his ex-wife is getting remarried.

Layla walks in on Will with the other girl, so she is even sadder and expresses this with lots of booze and pills. 

Gunnar gets a call from his attorney and, according to the lab results, Gunnar isn't Micah's father after all. D'oh! 

Scarlett finds a very passed out Deacon on the floor of a hotel room and calls an ambulance. I'm sort of confused. He's surrounded by bottles, did he fall off the wagon? Because if he did, they didn't show it. They just showed him throwing a glass of water after seeing Luke and Rayna on a magazine cover. (Okay, they explained this later. He didn't drink.)

Avery proposes to Juliette!

Sadie's ex punches her right in the face!

Will finds Layla face down in a pool!

Jeff calls Teddy instead of 911!

Brief Musings on Nashville: On The Other Hand

Season finale! And boy are they lucky their renewal just got announced, this would have been a seriously unsatisfactory series finale.

First of all, my obvious question: do we feel like there's any chance that Scarlett's departure is a real thing and she won't be back next season to torture us with her pouting and twitching and the rest of the cast assuring us of her special snowflake status? (Holy crap, that line in Gunnar's song about her about how whenever she opens her mouth DIAMONDS START POURING OUT?! I almost choked on my laughter.) Or will we be subjected to everyone in town taking turns to sing her praises and beg her to stay and go on about how she's too wonderful to deny the GIFT THAT IS HER to the world/town/country music?

Sadly, I think I already know the answer to that.

Right, so there was an engagement!

Luke proposed very intimately in front of a stadium full of people. I never understand that. Just last week he was insecure that she even loved him, and this week he's so confident she'll be his wife that he risks public rejection like that? Public proposals are one thing if you've discussed marriage and you know the proposee will say "yes." But yikes. Regardless! It happened. In front of her ex-husband and her ex-fiance and a jillion other people. The inner circle was less than pleased, especially Mr. SadFace Deacon.

Maddie, too, was pretty annoyed. She clearly favors Deacon over her other dad, though they are an adorable non-traditional family.

I suppose Maddie's big fantasy is that her birth parents will reunite and then she'll be a big music star. Or something. Point being she's pulling some real asshole moves with Conrad and doing her level best to make him feel like an outsider for not being a musical person. I don't care about Conrad very much but it's rough to watch even him go through that.

Deacon, of course, had to make his play for Rayna. And he was pretty convincing, too, considering he got rewarded with a big makeout session. Now Rayna has two rings! WHO WILL SHE CHOOSE?! (My guess: not the boring dude.)

Brief Musings on Nashville: All Or Nothing With Me

I have to say I'm still ruminating over this most recent episode. Do I not have much to joke around about because it was so solid? Or is because it was just kind of bland? I haven't really decided yet. But one thing I do know: how dare they not give me something to mock or lambaste?! What is my function in the world now? I am so lost, somebody please hold me.

Here are some things I learned in this episode.

Kellie Pickler is still a thing!

This surprised me, though I have no reason to assume I'd know anything about the state of popular music today. I think I've purchased music 16 times since 1997, and really the only reason I have any idea who she is is that I once covered American Idol for another, far inferior website.

Also and more importantly, America!

I have to admit the most amusing part of this for me was how much effort ABC put into promoting Michelle Obama's appearance on the episode --

-- and then hilariously outright cut away from her during her entire speech so that different characters could have conversations about their storylines, with her giantly looming in the background.

Was that maybe a little bit of, "Well, our audience might overlap with country music's audience and they might be turned off by having to watch this Kenyan Muslim's uppity wife blathering on about socialist fake-patriotism so we'll put it there just in case but not really emphasize it" (please know I'm just being ridiculous and don't yell at me in the comments for it), which was probably followed by, "OH MY GOD BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR GAY STORYLINE who is our demographic who are we what is the meaning of life please please we're confused and frightened and so okay we'll alternate gay weeks everything's fixed!"

Or something. Maybe.