Nashville - (Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I - Review: "Hot Mess"

So if you’re reading this review, you probably just suffered through an unbearable hour of television. I feel your pain as I had to sit through it as well. If you’re familiar with my previews, you know I sort of tore this episode apart. So without further ado, Nashies, let’s discuss the atrocity that is “(Now and Then There’s) A Fool Such as I.”

For starters, this should have been a great episode. Why? Because we reached the big 100. While 100 episodes used to mark syndication, in this era of “peak TV” any show that lives to celebrate 100 episodes is defying the odds. Nashville should have been more than willing to celebrate as it survived a series cancellation and channel switch. Shows usually go all out for this episode or at the very least do something special. This episode of Nashville didn’t have to feature a wedding or a birth or anything that extravagant. I would have settled with another typical trope of bringing back departed characters. I personally feel like this was a wasted opportunity where the series could have brought back Connie Britton for at least a cameo. It would have been nice to see a new flashback with Rayna or a dream sequence or something. I’m disappointed the new showrunners didn’t decide to take the opportunity to even go the extra mile. Like I said in my preview, this could have been episode 99 or 101. What makes it even worse is that this episode was one of the worst of the season. We have characters making terrible choices and discarding character growth. Fan favorites such as Will and Avery aren’t even featured. The main storylines just seem to drag on. We, as fans, deserve better.

I feel like I may have been a little too harsh on Maddie in my preview. I was really disappointed that the showrunners didn’t do anything special for the 100th episode (see the paragraph above), the awful love triangle that is Scarlett/Gunnar/Damien, and the continuing regression of Juliette’s character that I somewhat channeled my frustration into all aspects of this episode. That was not exactly fair because while the whole mess Maddie finds herself in is her own doing, it’s not as ludicrous as her emancipation storyline. I just think the fact that we have been hating on her for so long that it somewhat clouded my judgment. Maddie makes a mistake, a big one, but she’s still a child and has a lot to learn about the world. After having some time to mull it over, this story arc is nearly as awful as I initially thought. I’m not saying it deserves accolades, but the writers do a better job with it than the rest of the episode.

Things seems to be going as good as can be expected for Maddie when we start the episode. She hears her song on the radio, and while I have not experienced that, I do remember the first time I saw my name in print in an actual newspaper. I was so excited and it felt like nothing could go wrong. However, things start to slowly unravel when the radio hosts just asks her questions about Rayna and then the whole mess with the police. The police pull over Clay and Maddie, claiming Clay ran a stop sign. Maddie is very indignant, wanting to know which one. She gets upset and has the bright idea to film the whole exchange. She even goes as far as to insinuate the police pulled them over because Clay is black. Whether Clay rolled through a stop sign or the police racially profiled him is not the point of this storyline.

I really dug into the showrunners and this whole episode in my preview, but I didn’t actually get to say that they were smart in how they set up this whole arc. Yes, Maddie makes the situation a million times worse by opening her mouth, but this incident doesn’t attempt to tackle race in an over the top way. The writers didn’t try to do something as outrageous as having one of the cops shoot Clay; I’m looking at you UnREAL. Instead, they take the smart approach by having Maddie be ignorant about how the world really works. She decides it’s a good idea to be disrespectful to the officers, regardless if they are in the wrong or not. While we do have the freedom of free speech, she blatantly ignores the fact that they are authority figures. As I’ve said before, Maddie grew up in a world of privilege with everything under the sun handed to her in life. She seems to believe she can be disrespectful to an authority figure because she believes she’s in the right. Honey, they don’t care who your parents are. They just see a punk ass kid mouthing off.

Clay, on the other hand, is extremely cautious in his interactions with the police. He tells them exactly what he’s going to do before he does it. The fact that Clay has to announce his every move is really telling of the current political climate we live in. As Clay mentions to Maddie later in the episode, he wasn’t worried about getting a traffic ticket; he was worried he would end up being shot just for driving while black. Clay can see the reality of the world we live in because he hasn’t grown up in a bubble. His life has been hard from dealing with mental illness to an addict mother being in and out of prison. Also, the color of his skin has affected how he sees the world. Maddie doesn’t seem to understand just how different they truly are; how much their differences impact how the world treats them, but Clay does. Their differences have been an undercurrent throughout their whole relationship, but this incident is the tipping point. Clay decides that he and Maddie should take some time apart. This is the plot point that was inconsequential for me. I was never really that invested in their romantic entanglements and found their relationship to be completely inappropriate due to the age difference.

The other consequence is that Maddie’s subsequent arrest has made its way to the news media. Everyone knows that she was arrested, and while Juliette says there’s no such thing as bad publicity, I happen to disagree. Maddie made a mistake and should have to deal with the consequences, but the whole world should not be privy to every detail of her personal life. This is where the right to privacy comes in for celebrity figures. Maddie is only 17. She can’t vote, she can’t legally drink, she can’t serve our country. Since she does not have those rights, why does the paparazzi think it’s all right to dig into every aspect of her life? She gets to have the whole world watch as she makes her mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes in their youth and learns from them, but hopefully they don’t follow you for the rest of your life. Maddie isn’t so lucky.

So now that I’ve somewhat recanted my previous sentiments, I am ready to completely rip the rest of the episode to shreds. What are the writers doing with Scarlett? She’s with Gunnar but not really. She keeps finding herself kissing Damien but tells Gunnar she doesn’t know what she wants. Then she digs into him for not being understanding and giving her time to figure it out. You know how she wishes she was having puppies, well so do I because then we wouldn’t have to deal with this mess for the rest of the season. I’m just so fed up with how Scarlett handled the whole situation. Like I said in my preview, her indecisiveness didn’t push me over the edge. It was the fact that she expects both guys to wait around while she makes a decision with complete disregard for their feelings. And then when she “chose” Gunnar by default, I just wanted to have Juliette smack some sense into her.

Yes, the situation she finds herself in isn’t ideal. And yes, we’ll ignore the fact that she and Damien have absolutely zero chemistry and was a complete sexist misogynistic pig during the music video. But life isn’t fair. Gunnar is kind of in the same boat as you. I’m pretty sure he didn’t dream of playing second fiddle in your love life or finding out he’s not the father AGAIN, but he’s still there. Most other guys would have run for the door, but for some reason Gunnar decides to be supportive and step up, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to wait forever. You can’t just keep him on the hook forever Scarlett. Gunnar deserves better. He really has been somewhat of a saint throughout this whole fiasco. He’s been giving Scarlett the space she needs to figure out this situation and continues to stay no matter how awful she treats him.

I really do hope this is the last we see of Damien. I mean Scarlett basically told him any chance of them being together romantically was off the table. Damien starts out this episode super chipper with the prospect of co-parenting with Scarlett and Gunnar. He decides to buy a giant mansion and move there to raise Rupert until Rupert gets sent off to boarding school. Okay, back up. And then he tries to get Scarlett to move in with him behind Gunnar’s back. He was either completely stoned this entire episode or not thinking things clearly. Damien just gets completely wrapped up with the fantasy of raising his child with Scarlett, and them being the perfect nuclear family. However, Scarlett reminds Damien that he’s not the guy that will stick around as much as he wants to be.

So Scarlett makes the decision to “end” things with Damien, at least romantically. Except, she’s upset about it and basically tries to get Gunnar to console her. She didn’t break things off with Damien because she realized she was madly in love with Gunnar and couldn’t live without him. She just realized she couldn’t count on Damien to be there for her and the baby, and Gunnar being the good guy that he is, will do it because he loves her. So while Damien is no longer a contender romantically, she and Gunnar aren’t exactly in a good place. I feel like Scarlett somewhat chose Gunnar, not because she loves him, but as I said before because he’ll do the right thing, which is pretty crappy of her. I don’t even fault Gunnar for not wanting to watch her cry over Damien. I really feel like Scarlett should have chosen to be alone for the time being since she’s so conflict, but she’s essentially afraid of being a mother. Raising a child by herself scares her even more, so she chose the dependable guy, which isn’t right.

Now onto Juliette. Why does she decide to steal a song meant for Maddie? Well her career is a stalled after the flop of a gospel album, and there’s no Avery to take some sense into her this time. He’s conspicuously absent from yet another episode. We know the truth will eventually come out and there will be hell to pay. Juliette has served as a mentor for Maddie and with the whole mess Maddie finds herself in, Juliette’s betrayal will hurt even more. I feel like there’s not that much more to say other than I’m sick of the constant flip-flopping with Juliette’s character. Either she’s an evolved person or a scheming manipulator. There doesn’t really seem to be any in-between with her these days. She’s basically a flat character that just changes to fit the ridiculous storylines the showrunners have concocted. Real people have a multitude of characteristics, not just semi-dimensional personalities. Juliette can be such a complex and compelling character when she is written correctly. It’s like the new writers don’t really understand or want to understand her and just write what’s easiest. She can have real emotional depth when Hayden Panettiere is given good material.

Lastly, we see my favorite character of Deacon, who gets shoved to the background during this episode. Why mention this will be his first performance since Rayna died, if we aren’t going to see him play. We could have had Deacon perform instead of Jessie, and the audience could still have been briefly introduced to her character like we were. Was it really necessary to give one of the limited songs to a newcomer, who hasn’t really earned it. Not that the song wasn’t good or I’m not looking forward to what happens with Jessie, I just would have preferred to have Deacon sing. Like I mentioned in my preview, I am tentatively hopeful about Jessie’s character, but that’s mostly because it couldn’t be any worse than the rest of what the showrunners have put us through, and no that’s not a challenge.

Well there you have it Nashies. The 100th episode has come and gone. What did you think? Were you as disappointed as me? Will Maddie and Clay stay broken up? Is this the last we’ve seen of Damien? Yes, please. When will we see Avery and Will next? Until next time, that’s a wrap for me.