Nashville- Pilot

gdcgraphics [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

What happened: Rayna James is having trouble selling her album, so her record company gives her an ultimatum- open for the talentless Juliette Barnes or they will stop promoting her album. Rayna tells them where to stick it. She's having more trouble with her father, a rich man who managed to keep Rayna's sister on his side, but not his oldest daughter. Rayna's father is getting her husband to run for Mayor. Rayna doesn't like that. Juliette has trouble with her drug addict mother who is always calling for money. Juliette also seduces one of Rayna's guitarists, Deacon.

Meanwhile, Deacon's niece, a perky little blonde named Scarlett just got discovered in the Blue Bird cafe singing with her new male friend, a guitarist named Gunnar. Gunnar is determined to steal Scarlett away from her boyfriend, the songwriting Avery. If Gunnar is going to be the second half of Scarlett's duo, that might mean problems for her current relationship. We don't really care about this subplot yet, but Rayna's producer thinks this duo might save her career.

What we thought: Whoa, now there's the kind of drama we've been missing in dramas. For not being a singer, Connie isn't bad. She's convincing. I believe it. Her southern accent is more believable than Hayden's too. But Hayden is chewing up the scenery with her role of manipulative, damaged mean girl. She doesn't sound very country, but that's probably why she's referred to on the show as a "crossover artist."

We expected to be solidly on Rayna's side, but the character is surprisingly judgmental, proud, jealous, and unwisely living beyond her means. We liked when she apologized for her "diva dip" though. It's Juliette we're understanding more right now. Who's the protagonist here? Both of them? This is what Smash would have been had the Ivy/Karen rivalry been done right. We sympathize with Rayna wanting that threatening, powerful father out of her life. We like Rayna's balls and her line, "Well you can kiss my decision as it's walking out the door."

Rayna's husband, Teddy, is sweet and supportive, but he lost all their money and caves too easily to Rayna's evil father. Teddy won't be a mayor. He'll be a puppet. Deacon might be a better love interest for Rayna, but now that Juliette's got him, that can't work. We can't wait to see Rayna's reaction when she finds out.

In this show, the songs serve the scenes and story. The story isn't written around songs. We don't want to download any of them. Maybe the protagonist is Scarlett, the poet with the soft voice working as a waitress. She's more Karen than Juliette is. That's not necessarily a good thing. It's annoying that she never thought of turning her poems into songs, even though she lives in Nashville, works at the Bluebird Cafe, and has a nice singing voice. Come on. What a drip. Let's hope she was lying to Gunnar to be demure.

Scarlett's song fit the tone of the episode's ending so well. If we download any, it will be that one. It's haunting and hasn't been out of our heads since we watched the pilot last week (this post has been in draft form for a while. This episode was released on hulu early.)

Bottom line, this episode was entertaining the whole way through, and the blogger writing both this sentence and the initial draft of this post isn't interested in Nashville or country music. This pilot set a LOT up. This was a smooth hour of TV with drama that's not over-the-top. We can see why it's being called a must-see. We'll keep watching for now.

Episode grade: A-