‘Nashville’ Recap: Pregnant Juliette Has a Mama Meltdown
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they face a challenge. For instance, with the exception of her overwhelming sense of guilt and disturbing nightmares, Sadie takes the prospect of life in prison for murder reasonably well. Juliette, on the other hand, has to accept the fact that Miranda, Kacey, Sheryl (that’s Lambert, Musgraves and Crow, we assume), aren’t coming to her baby shower. Guess which route she took.
After shooting her ex-husband dead in a parking garage, Sadie is hauled in for questioning. (Our first question would have been why didn’t you do it sooner?) Luke, who was on another floor of the garage and didn’t see anything, is also questioned. Naturally, Sadie calls Rayna, because if Rayna can’t fix it, it’s probably hopeless. Rayna has just had a few brief hours of restful sleep in the arms of her once-and-future love, Deacon, so she’s ready to go into full-on mama bear mode. When she gets to the police station, she’s shocked to see Luke. To her credit, she doesn’t ask him what we were wondering — which is why didn’t Sadie just shoot him too, while she had the chance. Actually, we might have to lighten up on how we feel about Luke since he ultimately did a very noble (illegal but noble) thing in telling the cops he witnessed everything, which is enough to get the murder investigation dropped. Unfortunately for Sadie, she continues to live with the guilt, having nightmares of the incident and ultimately deciding she’s got to go back home to Virginia for now. She tells Luke it makes her feel better to know there are good men in this world. As they hug, she says goodbye. Luke looks stunned, possibly because he’s thinking, “Wait, is she talking about me?” (OK, now we’ll lighten up on Luke.) Looks like he’ll have a new project to keep him busy. In the studio he hears — and immediately signs — rocker Ron Pope (played by rocker Ron Pope) to his record label.
In an effort to keep his daughter occupied, since she’s not taking her dad’s cancer diagnosis very well, Deacon takes Maddie and sister Daphne to Noshville Delicatessen. Breakfast, he says, is the most important meal of the day. Ever the innocent, Daphne wants to know what cancer feels like. Maddie, who doesn’t want to know, storms out. So much for breakfast. Back at Deacon’s, Maddie locks herself in Scarlett’s bedroom and he attempts to coax her out by counting to three. Daphne tells him that only works on little kids. (Which means it should work like a charm on Gunnar, but more on that later). Maddie calls her other dad, Teddy, and before Deacon and Teddy come to blows about why he’s there, Deacon tells him he has cancer. Teddy, who’s already being enough of a douchebag with that whole prostitute pay-off/blackmail scheme — which is seriously growing tiresome, so we’re not even going there — backs down and even offers him some father-to-father advice. “The harder you push, the more she’s going to pull.” Later, Maddie breaks down to Teddy and he says, “I promise I’m not going anywhere.” (“Wait, does federal prison count?” he’s thinking). Maddie apologizes to Deacon, Deacon apologizes to Maddie. Maddie admits she’s angry, Deacon admits he’s angry. So maybe Teddy’s advice worked after all. Could he have found a second career? He’ll have lots of time to write self-help books for dads when he’s behind bars.
Gunnar, who is seriously pissed that Scarlett has spent the night somewhere other than the hotel, snaps at her when she shows up the next morning. He continues to pout like a two-year-old and only passive-aggressively hints at what’s bugging him. Avery has absolutely no interest in being involved in their shenanigans since he’s got enough baby-mama drama of his own. He’s just trying to keep Juliette from naming their baby girl something embarrassing, like Moonbeam or Glitter. Or Luke.
Juliette’s baby shower, which is supposed to be hosted by Rayna and attended by a who’s who of fellow country superstars, looks like it’s going to be a bigger disaster than Jeff’s career at Edghill Records. Making matters worse, of course, are Juliette’s raging hormones and her obsession over picking out the perfect name. Faced with the prospect of playing “Guess which candy bar melted in the diaper” with her employees (which makes us very thankful we’ve never been invited to a baby shower), Juliette then finds out Rayna isn’t going to make it because Sadie gunned down her ex-husband. “I can’t believe she would choose to shoot somebody on the day of my shower,” she says before having a Chernobyl-scale meltdown. Juliette attacks her living room like Godzilla flattening a Babies ‘R Us in downtown Tokyo. When Rayna arrives, her rant continues as she insults her record label and her “stupid, perfect hair.” Rayna does have perfect hair, we’ll give her that. Rayna puts a stop to Juliette’s pity party by telling her she’s trying to be strong for a lot of people and that Juliette has no idea what she’s been through the last 24 hours. In yet another testament to just how powerful the fictional Queen of Country Music is, Juliette’s water breaks. There really is nothing Rayna can’t do.
On the bus, Gunnar apologizes to Scarlett for being a jerk then promptly goes off about her sleeping with Caleb after their second date. As they’re rehashing their respective less-than-stellar dating histories, which includes their own failed relationship, the bus comes to an abrupt stop. Avery gets the call about Juliette going into labor.
In one of the episode’s few musical moments, Scarlet and Gunnar take the stage as a duo, since Avery is on his way back to Nashville. Gunnar tells the crowd about how lost he’s been and how he couldn’t write to save his life until Scarlett inspired him. He surprises her by changing up their set list and they sing the beautiful “Longer.” They move closer and closer on stage, staring into each other’s eyes and the audience is rapt. Later, Gunnar tells Scarlett that their connection is still there and he knows she felt it too. She tells him — as someone once said to her — “All I felt was music.” Ouch. (We’re a little shocked he didn’t feel Juliette’s temper tantrum, though.)
Juliette is in the delivery room and so is Rayna, but Avery finally shows up. Later, the happy couple is admiring their daughter and Juliette is back to her old sweet self. Actually, she’s back to someone we don’t really recognize. Either she’s instantly mellowed with motherhood or she’s zoned out on post-natal meds.
As the episode ends, Sadie drives out of town, Luke faces reporters, Deacon and Rayna relax together before Deacon goes back to his house and Rayna heads home to see her daughters, and Juliette and Avery sing a gorgeous lullaby to their baby daughter, whose name is. . .not yet revealed.