The Nashville Love Triangle Puts Deacon In The Power Position

The ratings for last night's episode of Nashville showed a significant drop from last week's series premiere; it's probably not enough for cancellation to be a worry (yet), but still, it's a pity when one is talking about a show that's been so assured, straight out of the gate. What this second episode did particularly well -- establishing a credible love triangle -- is all the more impressive for its high degree of difficulty.

Here's the situation. First, there's the gorgeous, perfect, stunning, angelic, marvelous country music star Rayna James (Connie Britton). Then, there's the grasping, striving, scheming up-and-comer Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere). In the middle is guitarist/songwriter Deacon Claybourne (Charles Esten): he's been playing with Rayna for some twenty years, but Juliette is aggressively pursuing him to come on tour with her; not just plying him with extravagant gifts (a guitar she makes sure he knows cost $50,000) but coming on to him as well.

It would be so easy for the show to stack the deck in favour of Rayna. She is a Connie Britton character, which means she brings to Nashville all our associations from Friday Night Lights: we think of her as a beacon of rectitude, whose every decision is as good and admirable as her hair. But producers did something tricky this week: they complicated her awesomeness. We already knew from the pilot that she and Deacon have A History, and that he would take her back in one second if she were willing to leave her family. But last night we learned the details: Rayna started seeing Teddy (Eric Close), the man who became her husband, while she was still technically with Deacon, though at the time Deacon had a bad substance-abuse problem. Rayna paid for Deacon to go into rehab, and while he was getting clean, she...married Teddy. This explains why Rayna and Deacon's relationship still seems unresolved -- because it is unresolved -- but it also takes some of the shine off her halo, particularly when we see them sing one of their old songs together at the end of the episode, and it clearly brings up old feelings for both of him. Or, rather, for her -- current feelings for him.

Or are they? When we see Juliette and Deacon alone together, he doesn't work that hard to resist her overtures -- not professionally, out of loyalty to Rayna, nor physically, which...I guess would also be out of loyalty to Rayna. We see that there would be lots of upside for Deacon to work with Juliette: he'd get greater exposure for his songs, something the pilot established he wasn't getting from Rayna. He'd get the adulation of a younger woman who's acting like she thinks he's an infallible genius (and, for all we know, actually does). Plus, going on tour with Juliette and/or taking up with her romantically might help sever his (maybe) unrequited love for Rayna.

As for the way the ladies relate to one another: the pilot established that Rayna is against Juliette on musical grounds (she thinks Juliette is untalented), and professional ones (wounded pride at their mutual record label trying to have Rayna open for Juliette on tour). Juliette is against Rayna not just because replacing Rayna would make her lots of money, but also because she overheard Rayna shit-talking her and is making things personal. Deacon is the prize worth having for both of them, but he can only belong to one. Will he be loyal to the woman who straightened him out, but broke his heart? Or will he defect to the hack who could take his career to a new level? If ABC doesn't give us the chance to find out, I will riot.