YMMV / Nashville

The Robert Altman Film

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Opal is just an eccentric woman who says she's a BBC reporter. A scene was shot that revealed this to be the case but it didn't make the final cut, so we only have a few subtle hints (like the fact that her cameraman never seems to show up or the fact that at one point she says she works for the British Broadcasting Company (it actually stands for Corporation).
  • Did Kenny always plan to shoot Barbara Jean, or did he originally plan to kill Walker, himself, or someone else until being strangely affected by her song at the end? He is only in a position to shoot by chance after Mr. Green brings him to the concert while looking for Martha.
  • Is Walker a budding President Evil, a Seemingly Profound Fool, or a Big Good figure? His employees Delbert and Triplette are pretty sleazy and some of his campaign messages could be calculated Rabble Rouser ploys, but many of his political arguments feel accurate and relatable (although perhaps impossible to actually solve in a normal, democratic fashion) and his support base is largely made up of seemingly liberal college students.
• Award Snub: Five Academy Award nominations, but its only win was Keith Carradine getting Best Original Song for "I'm Easy". It also got nine Golden Globe nominations, including four Best Supporting Actress nods (Blakley, Chaplin, Harris, Tomlin), but again "I'm Easy" was the only winner.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Connie White got such a good reaction from the extras in the audience that some of the actual Nashville pros helping out with the shoot suggested to Karen Black that she should go into Country Music full-time. This is despite how she has under twenty minutes of screen time and little plot beyond being an Always Someone Better figure for Haven in a few scenes.
  • PFC Kelly rarely speaks for long and has some Creepy Good moments, but is quite well-liked for his general politeness, the story behind why he is obsessed with Barbara Jean, and how he overpowers her shooter.
  • Linnea rarely interacts with any of the other important characters besides Tom and Del, but makes a strong impression with the fanbase for her warm interactions with her deaf children, her sense of straightforward composure, and how effectively her actress, Lily Tomlin, is Playing Against Type for a dramatic role.
  • Mr. Green's status as a kindly old man who is one of the characters least affected by the music business craze but still ends up as one of the biggest woobies in the film make him stand out despite his limited role.
  • Albuquerque is mostly on the fringe of the story, but fans enjoy her status as both the most optimistic character in the film and one of the most realistic (she admits her dreams of singing may be "arrogant" and is ready to go back to work if it fails), her Mysterious Past, and her heartfelt rendition of an Award-Bait Song.
• Genius Bonus: Haven Hamilton complains about Frog playing piano at his session when he asked for Pig. Hargus "Pig" Robbins is Nashville's most revered session keyboardist.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The shooting of Barbara Jean rather eerily prefigures the murder of John Lennon (and the non-fatal shooting of Ronald Reagan) at the hands of crazed followers a few years later. After Lennon's death, Altman was asked by a Washington Post reporter whether he felt "responsible" for the murder due to having depicted a celebrity shooting in this film. He responded, "That's what the film is all about. Do you feel responsible for not heeding my warning?"
  • The Replacement Party also has a lot of similarities to the populist uprisings of the mid-2010s, with its aims of dismantling the government without any other real stated political goal, appeal to negative emotions, "good old days" rhetoric, and underpinnings of white nationalism.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: 17 years after Hal Phillip Walker's on-screen campaign, a folksy Southerner appealing to American frustration with the Washington status quo really did mount a third-party run that made him a serious contender for the White House (Perot even led Clinton and Bush in the polls for part of the summer). Some pundits also likened Jimmy Carter to Walker in 1976.
  • The silent Tricycle Man is played by Jeff Goldblum, the actor who went on to codify the Gibbering Genius trope in The '80s. (This was his third film.) Irony aside, the Tricycle Man's Cloud Cuckoolander nature isn't that far off from Goldblum's public persona.
• Mainstream Obscurity: It's regarded as one of the landmark movies of the New Hollywood era, but it's never really entered the public consciousness the way that, say, Taxi Driver or Chinatown has. It has an enthusiastic fanbase of mainly film buffs and Altman fans. While it wasn't a Box Office Bomb,^note it grossed around $10 million on a $2 million budget it still didn't play to a huge audience at the time, and it's very rarely played on TV (probably because of its nearly three-hour length), so anyone interested in seeing it has had to seek it out.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Robert Altman directed several later films that clearly seemed like attempts to replicate the style and spirit of Nashville. Short Cuts (juggling a similar number of characters over a few days in Los Angeles) and A Prairie Home Companion (in some ways like a full-length version of the Nashville Grand Ole Opry sequence) were deemed the most successful (both films also feature Lily Tomlin). A Wedding (1978) (in which Altman specifically tried to double the Nashville character count and do a film with 48 characters), HealtH, Popeye, O.C. & Stiggs (a Shared Universe film, since Hal Phillip Walker is a character), Prêt-à-Porter and Kansas City also could count, in varying degrees. The Player and Gosford Park were more straightforward films that borrowed a bit of Nashville's approach.
  • There's also Alan Rudolph's 1976 film Welcome to L.A.. Rudolph was Altman's top protégé, was the assistant director of Nashville, and Altman produced the film. It boasts a similar Hyperlink Story, music by Richard Baskin (who appears onscreen throughout), and shares three cast members with Nashville (Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Allan Nicholls).
• The Woobie:
  • Mr. Green lost his son in World War II, his wife is ill and eventually dies, and his niece is a party girl who keeps ignoring what he and his wife are going through. Also, his only friend in the film, Kenny, turns out to be an unstable gunman.
  • Barbara Jean's fragile mental state, micromanagement at the hands of her husband, and the fate of being shot for no apparent reason make her a character you just want to hug.
  • PFC Kelly seems more eccentric than pitiable for most of the film, but a conversation at the final concert has some hints that he may be a Shell-Shocked Veteran, and after he fails to save Barbara Jean from being shot, the last shots of him show him walking through the crowd, away from the stage, with a broken and downcast look that contrasts with the hopeful music.

The TV Show

• Abandon Shipping: The show began to attract this for the preferred pairings of Scarlett/Gunnar and Juliette/Avery in the later seasons, partly due to the writer's habit of continually breaking the pairs up only to have them get together, but more specifically because of fans disliking Scarlett breaking up with Gunnar for vague reasons to date someone else in season 5, just after they'd finally got back together and Juliette/Avery as a result of Juliette's cycle of continually straining the relationship before trying to make it up to Avery - this had already happened twice but by the later seasons Juliette had abandoned Avery and their daughter to join a cult, which was not well-liked by viewers. The writers may have felt this themselves, as while Juliette and Avery get back together for the finale of season 6, Scarlett and Gunnar do not.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Juliette Barnes: horrible human being or suffering a severe case of post-partum depression ("Nobody Knows But Me," which ends with Juliette, already showing signs of stress, hiring a nanny for Cadence and taking off for LA to prepare her end credits song for the Patsy Cline biopic she filmed)?
  • Although "Is The Better Part Over" indicates it's the latter, that section of the audience which never liked Juliette to begin with maintains it's the former. It doesn't help that claims of errors and Flanderization have been made by fans with regards to how the writers are presenting it... though it's also been suggested Juliette doesn't have post-partum depression so much as post-partum psychosis. And it certainly doesn't help that it proved to be a depressing case of Life Imitates Art (see Harsher in Hindsight below).
• Award Snub: Unlike Connie Britton (who received a nomination for season 1), Hayden Panettiere has yet to receive any Emmy Award love^note Golden Globe and People's Choice love, however, is another story - even though many believe she deserves it as much as if not more than her co-star, including several of said co-star's fans. Chip Esten also hasn't received any nominations despite being one of the strongest performers on the show.
• Awesome Music: See the sub-page.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • While the series avoids making the situation good vs. bad - Rayna's professional but hardly a saint, and Juliette's damaged but she isn't an evil schemer - a lot of fans do seem to prefer one or the other.
  • Of course, given that Rayna and Juliette have understandable motivations (Rayna wants to hang onto her fame, Juliette wants to be the new sensation of country music), this might be intentional. And then there was the series finale (until it was picked up by CMT) — there are some fans who are fine with how it aired, but not many.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: So you're Gunnar, and you've just come home. Scarlett kisses you and initiates sex. You accept the offer. Not a problem - she's your girlfriend, after all... except you've just come back from ID'ing your murdered brother at the morgue. Say what now?
  • When Rayna and Sadie get chased by the paparazzi in "I Feel Sorry For Me," Rayna is remarkably blasé about coming thisclose to a car accident. Given how she was damn near killed in a car crash at the end of the first season...
    • Is it really a good idea for Deacon Claybourne, a former alcoholic (and mean drunk), to open a bar? Admittedly there's television precedent, but... seriously?
• Broken Aesop: The show has a habit of redeeming characters the viewer might not agree deserve it all that much, or weaken storylines about survivors overcoming their abuse by having them welcome their relatively-reformed abuser back into their lives. Scarlett's storyline involving her mother ends on the strong note of Scarlett standing up for herself and telling Beverly to go home, but Beverly returns in later seasons for a redemption arc by being a (very reluctant) liver donor to Deacon which resulted in the writers killing her off. More egregious than this, however, is the very last season including Deacon's father who has been stated by Deacon and Beverly to have been an incredibly abusive drunk with both of them likely developing different problems in later life due to his abuse - and unlike Beverly there was far less screen time for the viewer to develop empathy with him enough to want him to be accepted into the family again by Deacon or anyone else.
• Catharsis Factor: Comes in song form, naturally, but Scarlett delivering a heartrending and fury-filled rendition of Black Roses to her abusive mother Beverly certainly qualifies (as well as one of the final episodes of the season where she calls her out for her habit of blaming everyone else and tells her as calmly and compassionately as possible to go home).
• Die for Our Ship: Luke and Scarlett are the biggest recipients, as they get in the way of Rayna/Deacon and Juliette/Avery respectively.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Scarlett and her voice get a lot of love (although see The Scrappy below).
  • See also Maddie and Daphne (Rayna's daughters), without Scarlett's unfortunate baggage... although Maddie's tendency to be a Bratty Teenage Daughter is propelling her towards Scrappy territory. Daphne, on the other hand, remains well-liked.
  • Emily, Juliette's assistant, because she seems to genuinely like her boss and could probably be considered one of Juliette's few friends.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Rayna/Deacon, Juliette/Avery, and Scarlett/Gunnar... which keeps Scarlett away from Avery.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Watching Juliette's post-partum behaviour was difficult before Hayden Panettiere checked into a clinic for treatment for that condition herself. The combination has not gone down well, especially as Panettiere's post-partum was one factor in the program's cancellation after four seasons before moving to CMT, who came to the rescue just under a month after ABC's cancellation. And by a strange coincidence, another character she played on TV was said to have passed away giving birth.
  • Beloved real life Nashville staple Guy Clark died shortly after the show was cancelled by ABC before being moved to CMT.
  • The ABC run of the show ends with a major in-universe case, as shortly after getting nominated for an Oscar for playing Patsy Cline, Juliette is possibly also killed in a plane crash.
  • "Adios Old Friend", Gunnar's tribute to Jason, isn't quite as heartwarming when you find out Jason raped Gunnar's ex girlfriend
  • In a similar vein, it's hard to rewatch season 1's storyline of Juliette reconciling with her mother and being heartbroken over her overdose and subsequent death when later seasons reveal her mother sexually trafficked Juliette to get money, and not come to the conclusion that Juliette was in the right to shut her out all along.. As with the above example, it can be argued the constant need to keep the show going and have escalating drama and twists results in actually compromising good storylines from earlier seasons.
• He Really Can Act: Some people who only know Chip Esten from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and other improv shows (and Jessie) have the former reaction. The latter reaction mainly comes from those who think Hayden Panettiere can only play cheerleaders.
  • What seemed at first to be a shameless piece of stunt casting really paid off with Christina Aguilera's surprisingly rich and complex performance.
• Hilarious in Hindsight / Squick: One comment on Entertainment Weekly's site pretty much sums it up: "Weird to see Coach Yoast's daughter from Remember the Titans making out with one of the football players. 'Remember when we were in that movie when I was 11? Now, pucker up.'" (Burgess Jenkins (Juliette's producer Randy) played racist player Ray in the movie, which was actually made (and released) when Hayden Panettiere was ten.) This may explain why Randy only appears in the pilot and "Move It on Over."
  • Non-Squick case: given that Miss Panettiere has to wear wigs most of the time on the show when playing Juliette (as does Clare Bowen as Scarlett), it's amusing that Juliette actually puts on a wig in-universe when pretending to be a busker in "Just For What I Am" and again, after her self-inflicted haircut, when playing Patsy Cline.
  • Both Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere were well-known for their work about a show involving Gridiron Football, Friday Night Lights (both TV show and film versions) for the former, Remember the Titans for the latter.
  • Liam's actor, Michiel Huisman, leaving the show to be in Game of Thrones (and Orphan Black) becomes funny since in that show, he becomes a Love Interest to a petite platinum blonde-haired girl with a Dark and Troubled Past. In short, a girl who is basically similar to Scarlett.
  • Layla's shock at learning that Will is gay in "On The Other Hand", is this the light of Aubrey Peeples (Layla) coming out as queer in 2021.
  • The final episode is titled "Maybe You'll Appreciate Me When I'm Gone," which was decided before they knew they were cancelled, but afterwards comes off as a hilariously bitchy final jab at the ABC execs.
• Jerkass Woobie: Juliette apparently grew up in a trailer park with an abusive drug addict mom who tries to use her daughter's money to fuel her addiction. That's not even the worst thing she did Juliette is season 5 shows in a flashback, her mother pimped out Juliette to men in her own home. Even Beverly never went that far with Scarlett. A conversation on the phone brings her to tears. Plus we learn in season two that her dad passed away when she was four (in "All Or Nothing With Me," it's revealed he was a Blackhawk operator and was killed in a training accident). And whenever something good happens to her there's always something to ensure she can't really enjoy it, from a hit single ("Wrong Song," a duet for which Rayna is given and accepts virtually all of the credit, even though Juliette wrote most of it) to winning a major CMA award the very night her mother kills herself. And then her post-Cadence's-arrival PPD takes everything up to eleven...
  • In "Can't Let Go," Juliette derisively calls Highway 65 a vanity label for Rayna. At the end of the episode Rayna discovers that Her Pixieness is not alone in this view.
• Just Here for Godzilla: It seems Heroes fans just want to see their favorite cheerleader singing in the show, while Friday Night Lights fans just want to see their favorite coach's wife in the spotlight. Although some are watching for an ABC soap graduate who isn't called Hayden "Lizzie Spaulding/Sarah Roberts" Panettiere; for General Hospital fans, it's all about Jonathan "Lucky Spencer" Jackson... and then there are the ones who watch for Charles Esten.
  • It goes without saying that a number of fans weren't happy about "That's The Way Love Goes" and other episodes in which Hayden doesn't appear (though she did have a good reason, as she was giving birth at the time of the first; as for the others... well, you know).
• Like You Would Really Do It: The season 2 trailer implies Rayna might bite it post-car crash. Yeah, they'll really get rid of one of the two leads - especially since Connie Britton has had a producer credit since day one. Though the show then spends a few episodes mining the rather more believable possibility that the crash wrecked her singing ability.
  • Does anyone really think that Deacon is the flatlining patient in the season 3 finale? And indeed, it turned out he wasn't.
  • As it turns out, in season 5 they really do kill off Rayna in another car crash.
• Moe: Scarlett Moe'Connor, especially when her uncle Deacon falls off the wagon HARD.
• Moral Event Horizon: Beverly crosses this at the speed of sound in the appropriately named "I've Got Reasons To Hate You" by refusing to be a liver donor for Deacon (you know, her brother) as well as lying about not being a match. Granted, it's a very risky procedure, and they could have shown she couldn't be a match anyway, but...
• Narm:
  • The death of Lamar, of a soap opera heart attack. It doesn't help that he also had one the previous season.
  • Layla's bug-eyed reaction to Will telling her he's gay in the season two finale and her drunk scene in "First To Have A Second Chance" are uncomfortable to watch for opposite reasons to what the makers intended. Unfortunately, that also applies to Kiley telling Gunnar that she didn't cheat on him - she was pregnant with Micah after Gunnar's brother raped her, meaning a potentially wrenching scene loses its impact.
  • After Oliver Hudson jumped ship to Scream Queens (2015), Season 4 features some quite nakedly desperate attempts to keep Jeff an active character without his ever showing up onscreen. Then he was Killed Off for Real.
• One-Scene Wonder: Mario van Peebles (who also directed the episode) as Jeff's boss, who asks him point-blank if he has problems with women after he manages to lose the top-selling Rayna and Juliette from the label, and threatens to fire him if he can't find a new female talent.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • In-universe, Rayna and Luke are dismayed to find themselves saddled with "Ruke."
  • Among the fans, Juliette and Avery are "Javery" while Deacon and Rayna are "Deyna."
• Replacement Scrappy: See Zoey and Luke in The Scrappy below.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Glenn in season 2 when he starts to let Juliette grow up.
  • Kind of a weird one, but lots of fans find Scarlett more tolerable when she's high on pep pills, despite this clearly being presented as a bad thing. Not only is Clare Bowen's Keet performance a lot of fun, but she's much nicer, with a complete lack of the Wangst that had been dragging down her arc.
    • Although when her mom shows up, the angst starts being justifiable and got people to feel sorry for her.
  • People have started to like Luke more ever since he and Rayna broke up.
• Retroactive Recognition: A pre-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Chloe Bennet pops up as Hailey in season one.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: The love triangle between Rayna, Luke, and Deacon, which takes over the whole show by season 3. Some fans are especially miffed at the show refusing to acknowledge that choosing neither of them is an option for Rayna, especially since Connie Britton herself has proudly stated she intends to never settle down with any one man.
• The Scrappy:
  • Scarlett is this for a number of viewers for reasons linked to her personality, her hair and fashion choices (a number of fans loved that her cutting her hair was in a promo for the November 11 episode), and her accent.
  • Dante, Jolene's therapist and Juliette's new manager, succeeded in giving both Juliette fans and Juliette haters something to agree on - they hated him. And this was before he took her for $450,000 and then threatened to release a tape of their having sex, thus proving to be an intentional example thereof. So not many tears when, like Peggy, he got bumped off.
  • Scarlett's friend Zoey stepped up to the plate in season 2 in the eyes of a lot of fans, thanks in part to her storylines being widely derided as tedious. So not too many were upset when she was Put on a Bus to Los Angeles in season 3.
  • Luke Wheeler, mainly because he gets in the way of Rayna and Deacon. Especially since she's agreed to marry him - although it ultimately didn't happen.
  • Pam, Deacon's ladyfriend in the early part of season three, was not a popular woman - though it toned down after their completely amicable split, agreeing that it was just a tour fling.
  • Go onto any board discussing the show and you'll be hardpressed to find anyone who likes Layla Grant for anything other than her singing (or her looks). It continued after Aubrey Peeples (as Layla) got Promoted to Opening Titles in season four. Not least when she started moving onto Avery and scheming to basically taking everything of Juliette.
  • Autumn, who spends every bit of her screentime trying to get Gunnar to sleep with her, and also trying to break up the Exes, and we're never given the slightest idea why, especially since Rayna had vouched for her integrity. There's also the fact that she casually fired a crew member in front of everyone, causing Gunnar and Scarlett to walk on eggshells around her.
  • But in a crowded field, Layla may likely have been the winner had she not been dropped due to the Channel Hop, but Maddie... Maddie, Maddie, Maddie. Maddie Conrad/Claybourne/Jaymes' Bratty Teenage Daughter tendencies get on the nerves of many from season two to... well, the present. She isn't grateful for becoming a joint recording artist under Rayna alongside her sister Daphne and decides the appropriate and mature response is to ignore Daphne in favour of newcomer Cash, play bars while pretending to be 21 and pretending to be a 'bad girl' in a way that makes season 1 Juliette look mature, then try and emancipate her parents for not letting her do what she wants. Most previews with her in tend to get derisive responses. We may have the Scrappy Emeritus. Not helped that suggestions that the show will increase emphasis on her.
• Seasonal Rot: A number of fans believe season two suffered from this, due to an increase in melodrama and a de-emphasis on music (not least from Rayna and Juliette). It also doesn't help that T-Bone Burnett is no longer in charge of the music, though in fairness to Mr. Burnett his other commitments meant he couldn't stay after the first season anyway.
  • Season three also brought that charge, because of the writers' penchant for bringing in more and more characters (most of whom, notably Kiley, didn't work with viewers), not to mention a belief that piling on the misery at all costs was the best idea. The ratings suggested otherwise.
  • The first half of season four, for its melodramatic storylines.
  • Season Five looks to be headed this way as well, with the show taming down Juliette's character to the point of nearly removing all her sassy traits, immediately breaking Scarlett and Gunnar up again for... some reason, and most controversially of all, killing Rayna. Critics are already questioning how the show intends to survive the last one. And the decision to increase the focus on Maddie and Daphne hasn't gone down well.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Good luck finding anyone who was convinced by the green screen work for Jade's Malibu party in "Time Changes Things."
  • Juliette's baby daughter has been compared to the one in American Sniper. Oh dear.
• Strawman Has a Point: Actually used deliberately. We're encouraged to dislike Jeff for his cynical business practices that give no thought to artistic integrity, but when Rayna starts her own label and has to worry about the business side of the industry for the first time, she's forced to admit some of what he said was spot-on.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Juliette's spot-on impression of Scarlett's most annoying tics in "Your Wild Life's Gonna Get You Down."
  • She also has made her disdain for Zoey not so secret as shown in the scene where Juliette fires her.
  • After Luke calls Rayna a bitch after their breakup, Deacon lays a beating on him that the fandom had been waiting for ("Wheels up, jackass").
  • Those frustrated with Maddie's season 4 antics might get some catharsis in Season 5, when she finally gets an attitude check and a reminder of all the damage she did to her family. Icing on the cake is her asking Daphne "Am I turning into a bitch?", and Daphne replying "A little." Gets even better when Daphne calls her on the terrible treatment outright in a later episode during a fight they were having and Maddie finally apologies for it.
• Tear Jerker: Most moments between Juliette and her mom, but Gunnar being called away from Deacon's party to identity his brother's body is the saddest moment of the show.
  • Until Juliette discovers that Jolene killed Dante... and via overdose, herself.
  • How about the flashbacks to Beverley abusing her young daughter Scarlett, while she's doing the same thing in the present day? It's a bit like watching someone kick a puppy.
  • Some of the Deacon and Rayna flashbacks, especially when he proposed to her...while drunk.
  • The death of Rayna. Full stop.
    • The episode immediately following qualifies in spades.
  • Scarlett has a miscarriage in Season 5, followed by the song "Forever".
• Testosterone Brigade: It's a show with Hayden Panettiere and Connie Britton. Think about it. (And Clare Bowen, Chaley Rose and Aubrey Peeples aren't exactly hard on the eyes either.) See also Just Here for Godzilla.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Hope you weren't looking forward to Teddy finding out Peggy faked the pregnancy, because she's killed before anyone can. He does eventually learn the truth, but it's still unsatisfying to never see her confronted about it.
  • And speaking of pregnancies, whose idea was it to have Juliette - you know, one of the show's two leads - give birth during a commercial break?
  • The basic premise counts - given it was primarily about Rayna and Juliette, their ongoing relationship has gotten less time as the show progresses. Two singers going from being rivals to having respect for each other to ultimately being friends? What happened to that, writers?
  • Elton John, one of the biggest gay icons in music history, was somehow given a guest appearance on the show despite not being at all associated with country music. At the same time, Will's storyline is about the difficulties of being an openly gay singer. And Elton has nothing to do with it, being confined to a completely separate storyline.
  • Gunnar starting to get radio buzz from a song he had stolen from his late brother Jason and claimed as his own. Gunnar admits it to the executive that offered him a contract and...that's it, we never hear about it again, and Gunnar goes on to become a successful songwriter with no scandal
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Many fans were quite surprised to learn we were supposed to be on Luke's side over Rayna nearly shutting him out of the CMA Awards, as during her final speech she caves and tells him "What's mine is yours." Until then, he'd just been coming off as a whiny, petulant sore loser.
• Wangst: Scarlett being pissed about Gunnar and Zoe hooking up because...it's really not clear. They could have told her a bit sooner, but that's far from justifying her reaction, so it comes off more like she expected Gunnar to pine away after her for the rest of his life. And later she applies some serious revisionist history to it and claims they both "abandoned" her.
  • Teddy weeping over Peggy, when everyone hated her anyway. And Eric Close's crying face can get a bit silly.
  • Rayna herself gets it with her issues over being away from her daughters during her year-long tour, when she went into it with her eyes wide open and already has done several other tours.
• The Woobie: The straightest example is probably Daphne, who feels left out in the new family unit of Deacon, Rayna and Maddie and no-one seems to notice. She also can't live with Teddy since he gets landed in prison. She is also poorly treated by Maddie a lot of the time, especially in Season 4 when their joint recording contract sees Maddie treat Daphne like a dead weight, and Maddie essentially tries to trade her for Cash. As she puts it herself 'I would do anything for her and she makes me feel like I'm nothing'. Couple this with Deacon and Rayna overlooking her feelings a lot of the time due to her being 'the sensible one' and the kid needs to get a new family, pronto.

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