Nashville - (Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I - Advance Preview: "Unhappy 100"

So we’ve made it to the 100th episode Nashies! Whoo! Except, this episode could just as easily have been 99 or 101. Sometimes shows go over the top for milestone episodes, but most usually do something to mark this momentous occasion. You would think the showrunners would want to make a big deal out of this, considering Nashville almost didn’t make it to 100. But no, this episode is nothing really special. It continues to be a mixed bag of everything we, as viewers, have had to endure since the show returned for the second half of season 5. It can be described as lackluster at best and a complete and total failure at worst. Seriously, I wouldn’t have picked this episode to be remembered as 100. In fact, I probably would have erased the past three episodes and rewritten the storylines so we wouldn’t have been stuck watching this train wreck play out on screen.

Maddie’s whole mess of a storyline is her own doing. From the previews, we know she and Clay are pulled over by the police. The police cite a traffic violation for the reason they pulled Clay over, but Maddie claims he does nothing wrong. Being the rational thoughtless person that she is, Maddie decides to film the encounter and insinuates the police pulled Clay over because he’s black. Whether or not Clay rolled through a stop sign is not the point of this storyline; it’s that Maddie doesn’t understand how the world works. Part of this is due to her age, but also the fact that she was raised in a world of privilege. Not only does she fail to understand that racial bias exists in this world, she doesn’t get that a different set of rules apply for her than Clay. Maddie is a white, rich girl. Her parents are essentially country royalty, she grew up in a mansion, and has basically had everything in life handed to her on a silver platter. Clay is black young adult from ‘the wrong side of the tracks.’ He suffers from bipolar disorder, his mother was an addict who was in and out of jail, and he’s had to work for everything in his life. So when Clay gets pulled over, Maddie doesn’t realize that more than a traffic ticket is on the line. Clay could end up shot just for driving while black.

So the subsequent fallout that happens is really her own fault. If she had said nothing and kept her mouth quiet, she probably wouldn’t be in the mess that she is now. There are two major plot points that occur due to this whole debacle. One will probably resurface in a few episodes’ time while the other appears to continue in the following episode, so we are stuck watching the chips fall where they may. One of the plot points is rather inconsequential for me, and I really don’t care. The other is something that is hard to watch because it really only appears to be happening because of who she is. Yes, Maddie made this mess and has to pay the price, but because she is in the spotlight, she has to pay the price in front of the entire world. I know we love to hate on Maddie, but she is still growing a person and making mistakes. I don’t exactly feel bad for her, but I empathize that her mistakes will never really be private. We’ve all made mistakes in our youth, me included, but hopefully most of them haven’t followed us as we get older. Why? Because we’re not in the public eye, so people will eventually forget, but if everyone out there knows your name, then can you ever really move on?

Now onto the other disaster that is the whole Scarlett/Gunnar/Damien fiasco. My first thought when we see the three of them interact is, “How high is Damien right now?” I seriously kept thinking that throughout most of the episode. While his actions are a complete 180 from last episode, it’s the fact that he’s chipper about it, like super happy, like this is the best thing in the entire world. While Damien has long been a nuisance, I found myself more perplexed by his actions this episode. However, the winner of the most irritating character award goes to Scarlett. She has officially used up all of my sympathy; I just stopped feeling sorry for her for the mess that she’s in. It wasn’t even her indecisiveness that pushed me over the edge; it was the fact that she wants to have the whole cake, eat it, and then expects people to feel sorry for her. Don’t get me wrong, her back and forth about Damien and Gunnar was annoying, but it’s the fact that she keeps stringing both men along.

At the end of the hour, she doesn’t so much as make a choice as eliminate one prospect. I really have no idea where the story goes from here or who she ends up with. Everything was somewhat up in the air at the end of the episode. Just because she and one suitor won’t be together romantically doesn’t mean she and the other will be. I’m just confused and tired and done with everything. It would be so much less exhausting if this storyline had never happened or Gunnar was the father or literally a million other iterations except for this one. Gunnar has really been a champ through all of this. He’s basically been along for the ride, just waiting for Scarlett to make a decision. He hasn’t exactly been patiently waiting, but he has stood by her during this time of uncertainty. He deserves a lot better than what he’s getting. The new showrunners have literally done everything in their power to sink every ship except Javery, and that one is still fuzzy because we never actually got to see them come back together organically. We just went along for the ride because we wanted at least someone to be happy, but if you look at it from a critical point of view, it hasn’t been earned.

Juliette continues with her backsliding, except this time she doesn’t come clean with her deception because 1) her lies don’t catch up with her and 2) there’s no Avery to be her moral compass. Determined to get back on track, Juliette decides she’s going to record a new album since her gospel one tanked. However, she’s finding it harder than anticipated to reclaim her title as queen of country. She wants Glenn to find her surefire number one songs, but apparently the pickings are slim. So Juliette, being Juliette, does what she feels she needs to do to regain her throne. She manipulates a situation to steal a song that was intended for someone else. She almost does the right thing, but backs down at the last second. She will probably end up being caught and then do the right thing, which is annoying as it keeps happening. To me, her actions this week are not justifiable at all. She’s got her fire back, but it’s being used for evil instead of good. What happened to the Juliette in the first episode after the break who mentored Maddie? Why did we watch half a season of character progression, if it’s just going to be flushed down the drain?

Lastly, Deacon partakes in a roundtable of sorts at the Bluebird. This would be his first time performing since Rayna died, but, unfortunately, we don’t get to hear him sing. The only saving grace continues to be Charles Esten, and the writers can’t even throw him a song. We are introduced to the new character Jessie, who as we’ve seen from previous is returning to country music following her time off to ruin her life. We don’t see much of Jessie, but from what I saw I am apprehensively looking forward to her character. She seems to come with her own baggage, and while we may not care about her now, anything is a welcome reprieve from the current messes we are stuck watching. Of course, the showrunners will probably screw her up, but who’s keeping track.

We get little movement on the Daphne front, and Avery and Will are. On the plus side, there’s very little Zach.

So hate watch the newest episode of Nashville when it airs Thursday, June 15 at 9 on CMT.:

As your weekly parting gift, I leave you with the best part of the episode: the zingers:
“I don’t want to hear about how great I’m doing; I want to hear about how great I am.”
“Again, how the hell should I know? Figuring out what you want would take a team of shrinks and mind readers working ‘round the clock, year in and year out, and maybe, just maybe, they might be able to come up with some idea of what makes your mind work or what the hell it is you want.” / “Well, you’re not wrong about that. Nope, not wrong at all.”
“So are you telling me that they bumped me or they canceled?” / “Let’s split the difference.”
“What do you think’s gonna happen? You think we’re gonna burn the house down; I don’t know if you remember, we tried that once and it didn’t work.”
“I took a little break for a while to go ruin my life.”
“Curiosity killed the cat.” / “I’m pretty sure the cat died in a car accident.”
“I swear to God I wish I was having puppies because then I could give one to everybody and we could all go on our merry way.”

So hit the comments below to let me know your thoughts. What are the two major plot points that Maddie finds herself in? Who does Scarlett eliminate as a potential romantic interest? Are the new showrunners determined to ruin our favorite ships? And, why didn’t they make a bigger deal out of the 100th episode?