A “clean campaign” pledge brouhaha and Lamar and Tandy think it’s a good idea to sully it by arranging for a traffic stop for Coleman on his way to the event. That, my friends, is why I despise politics. Everything about it is dirty and nasty. The only thing that even slightly ties the political scenes to the more interesting Nashville happenings is the tie between Coleman and Deacon. When a routine traffic stop becomes a drug incident because of the drugs Deacon gave to Coleman, his sponsor.

I still didn’t care about the Mayoral race, but it made me feel for Coleman and the good man he truly is, trying to help Deacon. It also proved he’d be a better Mayor for Nashville and gave me one more reason to hope he goes against his own better judgement and uses the trash he received while not following the clean campaign trail so Rayna and Teddy ultimately split up.

Rayna was busy forging her own musical path without Deacon, her regular producer or any of her normal cohorts as she chose a rocker dude to produce her album. While I still don’t like the song she wrote, her decision to break away from what’s expected of her as an artist is refreshing. It seems like she has been doing what’s expected all her life, and being force fed is no longer on her menu. Something tells me she’s going to wander down her own little bad-girl path, learn to understand a bit what it’s like to be Deacon, or even Juliette, before she reaches the destination of success she’s meant to find. It should be a fun trip.

Scarlett stood by Avery just until he did the right thing, and then she gave up. It was rather ironic that he could have gone to the place she accused him of going to, but he didn’t. He chose her over his career. That surprised me, but he did it. After everything, it turned out she didn’t have the faith in him she pretended to, and pushed him to do the exact thing she tried so hard to keep him from doing in the first place. He showed up on a slutty manager’s doorstep for a snog.

Listening to Avery talk about how people didn’t like him, I realized it was low self esteem that drove him to be jealous of Scarlett and Gunnar, not just general asshattery. It just didn’t take long to tip him into the directly everyone thought he was headed in the long run. After first being skeptical of him, now I feel badly for prejudging and sad at where he’s ended up. I think he did love Scarlett and wanted to be a part of her family. Now he won’t be. He may end up famous, but most likely unhappy.

Finally, we had Juliette, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. What a perfect person for her to meet up with, the Tim Tebow of television quarterbacks. No drugs, no drinking, doing charitable work instead of partying. The anti-Juliette. I hope she learns more from him in the long run than he does from her, because they were cute together. If they have something, it would allow for a truly professional relationship between Juliette and Deacon and let’s face it, they made beautiful music together.

I didn’t understand the “angry photo” everyone thought was Sean wasted. Has nobody ever been photographed walking along the street before? I can take 20 photos of myself with a timer and only one looks normal. The rest look like I’m in various states of mental illness. It was a proud moment for Juliette to take care of the situation for Sean, offering herself up like a lamb for slaughter. She better be careful, her heart is showing.

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Juliette would have needed to get a new house with a lot more privacy if she was going to be forced to keep her mother in her life to keep her quiet. Jolene even had the nerve to scream, while in her underwear on the front yard, that stealing nail polish was embarrassing. Maybe she runs through neighborhoods in her undies all the time, but of the two, I’d rather snag a bottle of nail polish with a good excuse.  Deacon was amazing with Jolene. Using his history of addition was just what Juliette needed, even if it made her uncomfortable to let him into the ugly side of her life.

Deacon introducing Juliette to friendship seems honorable, but also a bit too late, considering the number of times they’ve been together already. It’s a little difficult to pull back on the reins and change your expectations when you’ve already been down that road. It’s not surprising that she thinks kissing him is the appropriate response to his help with Jolene. He wasn’t clear about his intentions in the first place, and he may not even be sure what his desires are at this particular moment in time. Considering he counted seven pills in a bottle all night long, his addiction still bubbles closely to the surface of what he is doing at any given time. That’s why it’s so important for him to make the right decisions, and not just any decision, because the wrong one could send him into a downward spiral.

Avery trying to slide onto Scarlett’s gravy train by offering to play guitar at her session was another awkward situation. I actually cringed when he wrote his own guitar riff to accompany the song written by Gunnar and Scarlett. Scarlett has such a wonderful pedigree and so many people to fall back on that I can’t understand why she won’t see through Avery’s crap. I’m worried he’s going to slide into  abuse, even though he hasn’t shown signs of it to this point. Even when they lost the recording deal because of Avery’s shenanigans, Scarlett still chose him. Girls who choose bad boys always end up with the short end of the stick.

The more music per episode, the better. I enjoyed Deacon and Juliette playing together, as I always do, surprisingly. I was so sure I would dislike Juliette from the start, but she has won me over. Rayna looked hot filming the contested commercial and Deacon kicked it at the Bluebird Cafe singing Sideshow. Admittedly, I’ve been buying all of the episode packs that come available and I’m totally addicted to them. I am not a country music fan. Does that mean Nashville is an obsession? It very well may be.

The shocker of the night was Deacon getting in a fight to protect his history with Rayna at the Bluebird. When he called her for help, she hung up, but Juliette came through. After all that’s what friends are for, right? After his altercation he realized holding onto the past was damaging, and he let the rights to the song he shared with Rayna for the commercial go. By taking his time, he had spurred Rayna into action, and she started writing on her own. She already recorded what she considered her first single of her next album, the one she wanted to be fresh and new, before Deacon made his choice. I’ll be honest, I think her own song suffers from the loss of her writing partner, but it will make for a good dramatic story as her label has to decide if the new, improved Rayna James is still the person they want to support.

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