Breakups, Bras and Blondes – that was the theme of tonight’s episode of Nashville. There’s a big country music event coming up and Marshall Evans, who is the Chris Harrison of country music producing, forces Rayna James and Juliette Barnes to perform a duet together. For Juliette, it’s an opportunity to get back her popularity which sunk since the shoplifting YouTube incident. For Rayna, she’ll reluctantly do it, but only if she gets freedom over her next album. Marshall has been threatening to do a “Greatest Hits” album for Rayna, which is apparently known in music circles as the official admission that your stardom is done.
Juliette’s making out a lot this episode. Things are heating up with her NFL playing tattooed man. There are multiple heavy kissing scenes and we get our first Juliette Barnes bra scene. Right when we think she’s going to score a touchdown (pardon the pun), NFL guy pulls the brakes. He’s more interested in getting to know her. Later we learn, he’s saving himself for marriage. The likelihood of this scenario? About -1000%. This scene does produce the funniest line of the entire episode which is Juliette’s reaction to being rejected, bra and all, from some NFL sex, “You’ve got about 20 tattoos but you can’t have sex?” she demands.
Classy.
Then she accuses him of being gay and throws him out of her house. Right before her big duet at the end of the episode, NFL virgin guy shows up at her dressing room with pink roses, declaring he’s more into her than ever (no idea why since she treated him so horribly). Then they make out again and he whispers into her ear that he’s not gay afterall. Ha. Turns out NFL virgins really love bitchy, spoiled divas. Juliette warns him that he won’t like her once he really gets to know her, but he’s willing to give it a shot.
Meanwhile after they get over insulting each other and disagreeing over what to perform, Rayna shows up at Juliette’s house and they stay up all night to write a song together. This gets performed at the end of the episode in front of anyone who’s anyone in Nashville. It’s an epic hit and there’s no denying the great chemistry between these feuding ladies. Marshall Evans is eating it up, big dollar signs lighting up his eyes while he watches the duet. It’s a wavy blonde haired hurricane up on that stage and everyone is going wild.
On the political front, Coleman calls Teddy during movie night at the Rayna James household and he runs off to meet him and get confronted with pics of Teddy and Father of the Bride actress, Kimberly Williams-Paisley (named Peggy on the show). Unless Teddy drops out of the campaign, Coleman will reveal the pics to the press. Teddy’s got deny, deny, deny to a science. He strategizes with his father-in-law, Lamar, who advises him to remove Peggy from his campaign and let Rayna know what’s going on. He never ends up telling her this episode, but Rayna knows something’s on his mind. Teddy is still denying that anything romantic is “currently” going on between him and Peggy, but it’s not clear whether Lamar believes him or that this will stay the truth.
