Nashville Review: Happiness Bully (Season 3 Episode 13)

I just don’t know anymore, you guys. Nashville seems to be stalling out, and I’m having trouble liking any of the characters at this point.

Deacon is, of course, still struggling with his prognosis (that he had to get from the internet because his doctor is 14 years old, or something). Even though doc is not comfortable with giving Deacon a timeline (the internet says six months), he is comfortable talking with Scarlett about Deacon’s health, because I guess Tennessee doesn’t have doctor patient confidentiality rules? He does call Scarlett a ‘happiness bully’ which is a completely fair and accurate statement (maybe I do like this doctor), but he also seems to be flirting with her, so I don’t know.

Deacon makes some progress in the bad attitude department and even realizes that he’s been being a bad father and starts up guitar lessons with Maddie again. So that is a relief.

Speaking of Maddie, this whole Jeff Fordham blackmail record contract thing is still happening. And, because Jeff is the biggest jerk on TV, he sends Maddie a diamond necklace, care of Rayna of course, to welcome her to the label. Obviously, Teddy hasn’t told Rayna or Maddie! about the contract yet, so Rayna is pretty mad.

Rayna does sort of redeem herself in the mom department this week by going into full on mama bear mode to get Maddie out of this contract. She’s seen how Jeff behaves and she doesn’t want Maddie to have anything to do with it. Which is reasonable, since Jeff’s last young star did almost die in his swimming pool.

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Teddy is in a bad spot here, since he’s supposed to get Maddie to a meeting with the label in like twelve hours and now he’s got Rayna on his back, so he has to come clean. He gives a lame explanation of the string of events that led him to feeling trapped. Rayna is disgusted (and so am I. Honestly, his ‘apology’ reminded me that his whole storyline has been really tough to buy).

Rayna tries to go through legit legal channels to get Maddie off the hook, but the contract seems to be binding, so she takes matters into her own hands and does the one thing Jeff somehow never sees coming. She goes to the meeting Maddie is supposed to be at and just tells the other label big wigs what Jeff has been up to. Obviously, Jeff is promptly fired and he heads straight to Layla’s house for some ‘TLC.’ For some reason, she lets him in.

Nothing new really happens with the other characters. Juliette is still pregnant, so she’s still just sitting at home being boring while Avery is off producing songs for Sadie. It’s really difficult to be interested in Avery and Juliette when they are behaving like a normal married couple. A little drama does go down at the recording studio when Sadie’s ex serves her with a lawsuit (he thinks he owns her music), and Avery finds out he’s outside and goes and yells at him.

The rest of the country boys (Luke, Gunnar, and Will) go out for a boy’s night because they are all just so sad about various things. Nothing really happens except Luke and Gunnar both bring girls home and Will doesn’t, so Will freaks out that Luke is on to his secret, but then Luke shares a secret of his own. He’s sensitive too, you guys! And then they write a song together about how sensitive they all are. No comment.

In the end, Rayna lets Teddy know that she fixed his mess, but that she doesn’t want him around the kids until he ‘gets some help.’ I’m not sure what kind of help is out there for being a terrible father and generally bad person, but Teddy is devastated non-the-less.

I’m not sure what it is that is making Nashville feel off to me lately. Maybe it’s that Juliette needs to have that baby and get back into the action of the show. Maybe it’s that it feels like they are reaching a bit with story lines. Or maybe it’s that I live in North Carolina, and some of these Tennessee accents are starting to get to me.

But most likely, it’s that Deacon and Rayna aren’t even interacting with each other. Their love story has been the tie between these characters since the beginning, yet now that they are both single (and Deacon is running out of time!) their relationship feels non-existent. Anyone else hoping that that changes next week?

Until then, I’ll be using my new favorite term, “happiness bully,” as much as possible.

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Nashville airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on ABC.