Episode Report Card Potes: A | 46 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Shut Up and Sing
By Potes | Season 2 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.15.2014
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.So aside from the fact that her assistant Emily is back, Juliette is having a bad week. Not only is she feeling weird around Avery after her 2:00 a.m. visit, but everywhere she goes there are crowds of people with signs saying, "Whore!" who chant, "No respect for Juliette!" When one protestor yells that she'll end up in hell just like her junkie mom, she tells him that there's no God… who would engage with a crackpot like him. As you probably guessed, video of Juliette saying, "There is no God," shows up on the internet. In my hometown of Pittsburgh, someone goes so far as to throw black paint on her, and she finally gets desperate enough to ask Layla to confirm to the media what she really said. Layla does it, with the understanding that Juliette now owes her one.
Meanwhile, Peggy is dead and Teddy's quite shaken up about it. The guy who shot her (who was aiming for Teddy) is also dead, and apparently was "bitter" about his "unemployment" and "blamed Teddy." (Lamar had to be behind this, right?) Teddy worries that there's a continued threat, and also maybe is going a little crazy.
Rayna has officially split from Edgehill, and while a team of folks starts getting things set up for Highway 65, the topic of market research arises. Bucky wants to do it, but Rayna isn't so enthusiastic. She finally does read the folder that Jeff gave her last episode, which says that there's no single on the album. Liam shows up (woo!) and wants to bone (woo!), but Rayna tells him that she's kind of dating Luke Wheeler (boo!). That Rayna doesn't recognize the fact that Luke Wheeler blew her off in time to bone Liam during one of his rare guest appearances is one of the great tragedies of this show. In any case, Liam wants to throw market research out the window (or over the couch, as the case may be) and go with their gut to release "Better Days" as a single. But Rayna points out that, having risked everything she has including her house, if the new album flops her children will be homeless and stuff. He finally relents, and Bucky tells her to write the single and try to recapture some magic from the old Rayna and Deacon days.
And… quelle coincidence! Deacon meets with the A&R guy who is interested in signing him as a solo artist, and the guy says that his new songs are solid, but skim the surface. He wants Deacon to try to write some new songs that recapture the magic from the old Rayna and Deacon days. Deacon sits at his piano and basically plunks out, "All work and no play makes Deacon a dull boy," until Megan comes home. She tries to be nice to him, but he gets all snippy with her and sends her away and THEN sits outside of a drive-through liquor store for a while. Finally Deacon realizes his problem: he's happy. He's always written songs from pain, chaos, and heartache. Well, except for "A Life That's Good," I guess. I totally thought he was going to break up with Megan to get his writing groove back, but instead he sits her down and says that he has to get used to it. I guess he's finally realized that being happy is a good thing. And then, during a guitar lesson, Deacon and Maddie write a song together. They play it for Rayna and Daphne, and it's totally beautiful and also feelings are happening everywhere.
Meanwhile, Will is MIA. Brent visits Gunnar to ask if he's seen him, which prompts Gunnar to look at the search history on Will's computer and track him down to some woodsy hiking spot. Will is camping and tortured because A) he thinks he's disgusting; B) he wasn't able to kill himself as planned. Gunnar calls him a stupid son of a bitch for pulling this crap, and also reminds him that it's the 21st century. Not for popular country music singers, apparently! Gunnar is a good friend, and eventually Will picks himself up and flies to Pittsburgh to rejoin the Luke Wheeler tour. Once there he is ambivalent to Layla and very mean to Brent.
Scarlett and Gunnar get big news when they learn that Kelly Clarkson wants to record "Fade Into You." They meet with her, and play a song that's all about missing somebody a whole bunch and gaze at each other longingly throughout. Kelly loves it, and asks if they'd write some new material with her in mind. Scarlett declines, saying that she and Gunnar have had their differences and can't write together anymore. She rushes out and Gunnar tells Kelly, "It's complicated." Scarlet goes home and vents to Avery, who wonders if she still has feelings for Gunnar. She in turn wonders why Juliette showed up at his place at 2 a.m. And then I guess they break up. When Gunnar vents to Zoey, things go quite differently as she tells him that she loves him, and he reciprocates. Avery, meanwhile, leaves a message for Juliette saying that he's there for her and wants her to call or come by, anytime, day or night. Sadly for him she's too busy watching TV footage of crowds burning her records to listen to his message.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Nashville: Peggy got shot, y'all. And it was nowhere near as satisfying as I thought it was going to be. Juliette was deemed responsible for the Charlivia split, and her fans tried -- in vain -- to successfully paint "home wrecker" on a sheet with Peggy's leftover pork blood. She then showed up at Avery's door to profess her love, only to find Scarlett there. Awkward! Scarlett, meanwhile, puffed her cheeks up with rage when she found out that Zoey and Gunnar were dating. Jeff handed Rayna a folder of market research, which she refused to look at before announcing that she was buying herself out of Edgehill. And finally, Will boned Brent and found himself in yet another shame spiral that ended on railroad tracks. Let's hope that some of these folks have a better 2014.
We begin with Juliette singing a rather maudlin song about being haunted by dreams against a blue sky video backdrop. The tone, apparently, is appropriate as we see Peggy being taken away from the grounds of the Music City Music Festival on a stretcher while Rayna and Teddy look on, and then slowly walk away. We then see the whole Jaymes-Conrad family sitting together on the couch in funeral attire, with Maddie and Daphne snuggling with a pained Teddy. I know I am haunted by dreams of Teddy innocently trying to butter his toast and pulling a tub of leftover pork blood from the fridge.
Juliette finishes the song, and is surprised to see Avery looking on with Glen. As it happens, this is the song that Juliette and Avery wrote together, and Glen invited him to watch rehearsal. Avery thinks the song is beautiful, but Juliette makes an excuse to avoid having to talk to him further, which would possibly entail admitting that she did in fact show up at his door in the middle of the night to profess her love.
Rayna and the girls then watch Teddy give a press conference about Peggy's death. The shooter -- who was, of course, targeting Teddy -- was also found dead, apparently by suicide. Maddie wonders if this means that this whole thing is over and nobody is trying to hurt Teddy anymore. Rayna says that is exactly what it means, but WE know that Lamar was probably behind the whole thing. Teddy continues that the shooter blamed Teddy for his chronic unemployment, which makes absolutely no sense. If the guy was a professional assassin, for example, I'd say he simply needed more skill development. Teddy tears up as he says that because of this man's delusion, the woman that he loved is gone. I thought he kind of hated Peggy? I guess he was coming around at the end. Rayna tells the girls that they can see Teddy soon, and that he's said that the only thing that helps him is having them around (preferably without Deacon in tow, one can assume.)