The latest episode of the hit ABC drama 'Nashville' featured less original music than any of the others so far. There weren't any cuts from mainstream country acts either, leaving many wondering what artists were played between important scenes in Season 1, Episode 4, titled 'We Live in Two Different Worlds.'
The third episode of ABC's new hit drama 'Nashville' strikes probably the best balance so far between all of the different characters and subplots, really pulling together all of their different needs and storylines in a way that is starting to make each one make sense. Wednesday night's (Oct. 24) episode featured the sometimes snotty, spoiled character of Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere) getting her comeuppance as her life and schemes begin to unravel around her.
Is 'Nashville' actress Hayden Panettiere using her role as the up-and-coming country music sensation Juliette Barnes as "practice" for her very own country music career? It seems likely.
Country songs were once again a supporting character in the plot of this week's second episode of 'Nashville' on ABC. During 'I Can't Help It,' fans watch as many of the lead characters struggle with feelings they shouldn't be feeling. The Deacon and Rayna romance seemed ripe from the start of the pilot episode, but another character let a song pull her heart away from a man.
In an episode appropriately titled 'I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You),' ABC's new hit drama 'Nashville' played with the romantic tensions between several different pairs of characters as multiple sub-plots continued to unwind in the second episode -- especially the old feelings between lead character Rayna Jaymes (Connie Britton) and Deacon (Charles Esten).
After just one episode of 'Nashville,' it's difficult to imagine how the show's first radio single is going to fit in with the storyline. 'Telescope' by Hayden Panettiere -- Juliette Barnes on the show -- is a rollicking pop-country song about keeping track of one's man as his eyes wander. After the pilot, it seems like women in 'Nashville' need to have telescopic eyes to keep an eye on Barnes, as she climbs aboard everything with a Y chromosome.
While the 'Nashville' premiere episode on ABC was loaded with country music, one performance at the very end by characters Scarlett O'Connor and Gunnar Scott (played by Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio) is receiving the most attention. The song -- 'If I Didn't Go Better' -- was written and originally recorded by a male/female duet that became a Grammy winning act in 2012.
Hollywood has a long and sorry history of getting Nashville -- and country music -- wrong. From deliberately corny shows like 'Hee Haw,' to unintentional comedies like 'Country Strong,' Music City has always come off in movies and television as some sort of backwater town full of ignorant, cowboy-hat-wearing hayseeds, instead of a cosmopolitan cultural center that serves as home to the largest collective of top-quality musicians, engineers, producers and songwriters that has ever existed.
'Nashville' star Hayden Panettiere has already dismissed rumors that her contentious character on the new ABC series is based on Taylor Swift, but the actress-turned-small-screen-singer has admitted that fellow blonde beauty Carrie Underwood served as muse for the fictional Juliette Barnes character. Well, at least one aspect of her.
