Nashville Deals With Famous People Problems

This Little Light Of Mine, I'm Gonna Add It To Your Lights And Make Some Bank

Situation: Juliette has been participating enthusiastically in the community at Hallie's church, going to Bible study and enjoying the choir. In fact, she's so transported by her experience in the congregation that she wants to make a gospel album and have Hallie's choir sing on it!

What makes it awkward? Though Hallie tries to warn Juliette that she might seem like an opportunist by presenting this offer to the members of the choir, Juliette does it anyway and pretty much gets her behind handed to her. (They're in church, so I won't say "her ass," but that would be more accurate.) Some of the critiques leveled against her are that she just wants to make money off something that's sacred to them; that she's trying to co-opt black music; and that as someone who came up as a sexy country star, she's the wrong person to nominate herself their lead singer, basically. Hurt by their reaction, Juliette gets way too defensive in response, and the meeting falls apart with bruised feelings all around.

How is order restored? Juliette takes a beat to reflect and returns to the church in a spirit of humility and respect: she feels so fortunate that God's given her a chance to live a different kind of life since her accident, she wants to honor Him -- and the choir -- by sharing their music with the world. But if they decide they don't want to, she'll keep coming to services and to Bible study and working on herself, because she knows she's just a guest there. As she's quietly crutching out, a choir member named Bonetta tells her to come back: "Don't we gotta figure out what you want us to sing?" Forgiveness really is a virtue! As is patience, JULIETTE.

Where The Elite Meet Outside A Perimeter Of 300 Feet

The security corps at Stately Jaymes Manor go apeshit when Rayna's stalker, Carl Hockney, shows up on the edge of the grounds...except they can't actually do anything because he's somehow figured out that the spot on the driveway where he's posted up is exactly 317 feet from the door and therefore technically kosher according to the terms of Rayna's restraining order against him. Did he go to the county permit office to look at the plans for her property to figure this out or what? Anyway: Deacon the hothead wants to go out there and pound the guy, basically, but the lead security dude tells him that Hockney's not actually in violation and that all he wants is a reaction, which Deacon would be giving him if he were to go out there. It's like a high-stakes version of "not touching you, can't get mad!"

There Will Be Blood

Who's causing a family crisis? Daphne.

How? She has a totally mysterious stomach ache and she's not sure why! If you weren't sure why, you're probably not a woman or have never known a woman, because what she has is menstrual cramps. She ends up in a stall in the bathroom at school calling Maddie to bring her a change of clothes -- apparently she has bled through her skirt -- but Maddie can't leave work.

Which relatives have a problem with it? Rayna, who shows up with a fresh outfit, the required feminine products, and hurt feelings due to the fact that Daphne didn't want Maddie to tell her.

Who's an unlikely ally? Deacon, who hilariously suggests to Rayna that they celebrate this milestone by throwing Daphne a party. "A period party?" Rayna snorts, gently informing him that it's not a thing. But it's a sweet thought!

How are things wrapped up? After we find out that Rayna got her first period the week after her mother's death, so that she had no one to help her, we get a very understated scene in which Daphne admits that she didn't want Rayna to make a big deal of the moment, but Rayna basically overrules her, saying that Daphne is her "pride and joy" and that she will always celebrate Daphne's big life events. She's even bought her a "First Moon gift" from Tiffany which we don't see Daphne open but which I hope is a necklace with a little sterling silver vagina pendant or something.

Country Rock God, Reporting For Booty Duty

The main plot purpose served by Avery's return to recording his own music is so that he can ask Juliette about it after she's stung by her failure to win over the choir and church and shrug off her critique that he doesn't need to write music from the perspective of an angry young man anymore. Secondarily, it gives Jonathan Jackson the opportunity to be hot as hell as he enjoys being on the mic again and eye-fucks his wife through the studio window.

Juliette is blessed in so many ways.

Run From Gunn

Ugh, so after one lunch with Damien and one conversation with Deacon, Scarlett decides that she doesn't feel anything for Gunnar anymore and doesn't want to be in an exclusive relationship with him. Not surprisingly, he's not that interested in her suggestion that they continue to, like, see each other casually? He assumes she just wants to throw him over so that she can fuck Damien, and she doesn't really say anything to disabuse him to suggest otherwise, rather coldly announcing that she's not going to lie to anyone and seeming as if she thinks Gunnar therefore doesn't have a right to be upset about this fairly sudden change in her feelings toward him. I don't really get what's happening with this storyline: she doesn't seem to have super-strong chemistry with Damien so much as curiosity about him, and given all the FEEEEEELINGS that revolved around Gunnar's affair with Autumn last season, Scarlett tiring of Gunnar just because this other dude is giving her the hard sell is--

Okay, never mind, I get it. And in Scarlett's defense, she doesn't seem that interested in starting anything serious with Damien either. Maybe she cut off her monogamous hangups along with her hair extensions.

Clayna!

Maddie tries to shake her security detail by going to a daytime gig of Clay's without them, but Rayna just follows her with a small detachment and embarrasses her FOR HER OWN SAFETY. After the set, Rayna is full of compliments for Clay's performance and his "soul of a poet," and invites him to come see her at Highway 65 -- not necessarily so that they can do business together (I guess if she signed him and then he and Maddie broke up, it would get kind of uncomfortable?), but so that she can give him some advice on having a career on his own terms. Friends!

Rayna Learns A Tough Lesson About Keeping Her Head On A Swivel

One of Rayna's security goons drives her from Clay's gig to her office, and after he checks the place for intruders -- it's dead, so I assume it's the weekend and not that they're having money problems again and she just laid everyone off -- she settles in at her desk, listening to a track on headphones.

Settle in, because this confrontation with Hockney -- who's apparently been lying in wait in a closet since he snuck inside during business hours the day before -- is as long as it is banal. As Rayna keeps trying to appeal to Hockney's empathy and make him understand that his actions are causing her to feel threatened, he responds by telling her that he just wants to talk to her, and everyone keeps getting in their way! He was abused by his father (and by his mother, when she drank), but the first time he heard Rayna's voice on his parents' stereo, he felt that she knew him. Eventually, Rayna decides to connect to him by sharing that she's no stranger to abuse -- that her father was a sociopath who killed her mother and covered her up; that her husband's father abused him; that they both still have to figure out how to deal with it, and that it horrifies Rayna that people have such a boundless capacity to hurt the people they love most. (They also bond over names: though Rayna had been told his name was Carl, he goes by name, which she correctly guesses is his middle name; when he's surprised that she sussed that out, she says that her husband goes by his middle name too. HMMMMM.) Hockney has to fight his worst impulses, Rayna tells him, because giving in to them would mean that his terrible father has won.

This seems to penetrate, and as Hockney is sitting down with his head in his hands, Rayna gets her phone out of her coat and dials 911. Because she does so without MUTING IT, Hockney hears it, and the situation escalates: Rayna's in the process of trying to run from Wayne when her bodyguard and a couple of cops burst in.

Rayna promises not to let anyone shoot Hockney, but tells him that he has to decide who he really is...which, it turns out, is a sad, damaged man who doesn't actually want to hurt his hero, even though she sure did make it easy for him to have done so!

While the cops arrest Hockney, Rayna doubles over crying in relief and horror. I mean, I know she partly brought this on herself, but it's rough.

Outside, a dazed Rayna tells first responders she doesn't need to go to the hospital.

And from the back seat of her SUV, Rayna calls Deacon and sobs an abridged version of what happened. Trying his best to keep it together, Deacon tells her to come home, and she says she is...

...but she's going to be late!