Primetime ‘Nashville’: “Tired Of Pretending”

ABC.com

Season 2, Episode 9:

“Since when is Layla allowed to give herself an encore?” says Juliette Barnes from her backstage dressing room during a tour stop. So begins another round of the Juliette-Layla catfight. Juliette retaliates by flipping Layla’s and Will’s opening sets–ensuring that country stud Will plays to more fans each night than the brunette television music competition darling.

Meanwhile, rich media mogul Charlie Wentworth joins Juliette on the road again, determined to get her back. He even divorces his wife Olivia to prove his loyalty to the country singer. Meanwhile, Layla becomes intent on getting into Wentworth’s good graces–and further angering Juliette–by flirting with him in front of Juliette. The move doesn’t go over well, and Will Lexington gets a shock during his next performance. As he turns to welcome Layla onstage to perform a song with him, Juliette grabs the mic from Layla and walks onstage for duet and praises Will in front of the crowd.

One of Will’s business execs is watching from the side of the stage and later shares his observation with Will: “You’re dealing with a diva and a diva-in-training.” Juliette’s manager, who has been trying to work with Layla’s manager to resolve issues between the two singers is none too happy, either. Once again, we see hints of Juliette’s own lingering immaturity as she responds, “She started it!”

Things get heated between Deacon Claybourne and Teddy Conrad as each grapples with how to be part of Maddie’s life. Maddie asks biological father Deacon to give her guitar lessons and he reluctantly agrees. This angers Teddy, who sees Deacon as unstable and a bad influence. “He wasn’t there for the ups and downs. I was,” said Teddy. Teddy’s anger peaks during a performance at Nashville’s Two Old Hippies, when Maddie brings Deacon onstage to sing one of his old songs, “A Life That’s Good,” with her. As Deacon leaves the venue after the performance, Teddy follows and an argument ensues. Teddy says Deacon needs to pay for the damage he’s done to their family, while Deacon takes Teddy to task for marrying his mistress and then asking his daughters to sing at the wedding. Of course, Maddie sees all of this and runs away, later telling Rayna she’s not sure if she wants to know either man.

Rayna lays down the law with Deacon and Teddy, telling them that Maddie loves them both and they need to work things out. They both agree, but Teddy has his own plans. At the end of the episode, Mayor Teddy quietly makes a call to have Deacon’s name taken off the list of performers at the upcoming Music City Music Festival in Nashville.

While both Scarlett O’Connor and Gunnar Scott are on the Luke Wheeler tour, Scarlett begins to envy the close relationship that Gunnar, Zoey and Avery Barkley have forged from working together at the Bluebird. When Zoey and Avery visit during a tour stop, lovebirds Gunnar and Zoey decide they should tell Scarlett about the relationship. Unfortunately, that confession doesn’t come quickly enough; Scarlett walks in on Zoey and Gunnar kissing at the hotel.

Lamar Wyatt pushes the court for house arrest instead of spending his time behind bars. He asks daughter Rayna to be a character witness. Rayna tries to pawn the job off on her sister Tandy, citing Tandy’s generally closer relationship with Lamar. Of course, Rayna doesn’t know that Tandy is the one who leaked the information that led to Lamar’s arrest. After Tandy is a no-show to the court appearance, Rayna stands and testifies that despite her strained relations with father Lamar, he is not a flight risk. The judge denies his request for house arrest anyway.

According to next week’s promo, Layla gets revenge on Juliette by leaving an anonymous tip with the press that Juliette is the reason behind the Charlie and Olivia Wentworth divorce. In a dramatic ending, the announcer reveals that another character will die.