ABC Picks Up Nashville For A Full Season
In a move presumably designed to prevent me from organizing an actual riot, ABC has picked up my beloved Nashville -- far and away the best new drama of the season -- for a full season. (If speculation about 666 Park Avenue's imminent demise prove out, maybe Nashville could move into that plum post-Revenge slot, hmmmm?)
Now that we know our time in Nashville is not going to be cut cruelly short, the show's producers have a chance to plot the direction of its current story arcs in the best possible ways. So, based on what we've seen thus far, here's my wish list.
Figure out the Scarlet/Avery/Gunnar love triangle
It's obvious that Scarlett (Clare Bowen) and Gunnar (Sam Palladio) are the show's Jim and Pam. While Rayna (Connie Britton) and Deacon (Charles Esten) are old enough for their love to be dramatically effective for being tragically doomed, Scarlett and Gunnar can still make us care about their potential for happiness. Avery (Jonathan Jackson) is so obviously the Baxter in this trio that for it to be credible for Scarlett to stay with him, we need to see either what she sees in him, or for him to force a breakup by doing something really scumbaggy -- the way his undermining and haircut are telling us he is about to do at any second.
Make us care about the politics
We know Lamar (Powers Boothe) has plans to use Teddy (Eric Close) as a puppet once he's elected Mayor. But Teddy is such an empty suit that it's impossible to care. Can we see some evidence that Teddy is going to experience some kind of crisis of conscience whenever this happens? If not, we're just watching two dicks be dicks together -- and, moreover, we're left feeling Rayna is a fool for staying with Teddy, particularly when he's about to be romantically linked with Peggy (Kimberly Williams-Paisley).
Ditch Juliette's mom
It was not quite credible that Juliette (Hayden Panettiere) would have taken in her estranged mother (Sylvia Jeffries) in the first place. Juliette has the resources to make sure her mother never gets near her; given what we've seen about Jolene, we would believe that Juliette would use them.
Get Rayna and Juliette together on tour already!
The proposal of a joint Juliette/Rayna tour was one of the plot points in the series pilot, and a series of contrivances have kept the two of them apart so far so that the promised tour hasn't happened. Though the ladies remain connected through Deacon, what we really want to see is the two of them in a direct, in-person power struggle. Let's force them into it.