Nashville – “You’re Gonna Change (Or I’m Gonna Leave) Review/Recap
Kristina Carroll ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
The episode opens up with Juliette doing a PR event involving rescued zoo animals, in order to boost her image after her robbery scandal that has been circulating the newsstands and television programs. Sean Butler, an attractive quarterback in the NFL, is hosting this fundraiser. Juliette, however, is not impressed by his good looks or his love for animals, and just wants to get out of there. She eventually leaves with a scowl on her face, but not before she takes a picture with Sean, and an animal climbing all over her head. Later on in the episode we learn that this picture went viral, signaling an upward slope in terms of Juliette’s fate as a country artist. However, she is surprisingly calm and somewhat careless about the fact that Sean Butler and this fuzzy little creature just saved her entire career from going down the drain. Her manager and publicist tell her that she should go on a date with him in order to improve her image even more. At first she flat out refuses, but eventually after realizing how it could help her gain more fame, she decides to do it. Next thing you know they are flying together on Juliette’s private jet on what may be the world’s most awkward date. Despite his extreme politeness and attempts to get to know her better, she still treats him terribly. She eventually asks him if he is as much of a goody two shoes as he seems, and he responds by saying, “Are you as much of a klepto as you seem?”
As they fly to South Beach together, they become closer and Juliette becomes less rigid. At one point, Sean reaches over her in what looks as if he’s about to kiss her, but instead grabs her guitar. What happens next, though, is just as surprising as a kiss would have been-he begins playing one of her songs. This results in the two of them singing a duet together. When they reach their destination, Juliette takes the goody two shoes to a club, and they dance together all night. As they leave the club after what turned out to be a great night for both individuals, the pair is attacked by a paparazzi that begins interrogating Juliette about her drug-addict mother. In an act of defense, Sean punches the paparazzi in the face and knocks him to the ground. The next day, Juliette’s publicist shows her a picture of the beaten up paparazzi, and tells her that if this photo is released to the press it could ruin Sean’s career. She decides to go with her publicist to meet the paparazzi and make a drug deal-like offer in which she pays him off in exchange for access to the photo.
Meanwhile, Rayna is recording a new song that is much different from her typical style of music. Her manager Marshall is somewhat skeptical about it, but thinks that it has potential. He decides to let her personally choose whom she wants to be her producer. She tells him that she is considering Liam McGuiness, but Marshall shoots down that option, arguing that he is too rock n’ roll and not country enough. However, Rayna is adamant that he will be the perfect person for the job, and they end up going to his studio. When he answers the door, he tells her that he only answered her call as a courtesy, and really had no interest in being her producer. He offensively associates her with moms and SUVs, saying that he “does not speak her language” before slamming the door in her face. She does not give up after this, though, and shows up at his house again a few days later. She tells him that he made a snap judgment, and does not know who she is. She also mentions how she knows who he is, because she heard him sing live in Belfast. This impresses him, and when she asks him to listen to her demos, he lets her inside.
They have a conversation, in which Rayna tells Liam that her main reason for coming to him is because she wants to “find her voice now”. When he offers her a drink, at first she says that she needs to go home to her husband and kids. However, she cannot resist, and ends up staying with him until 2 am. The next morning, obviously hung over from her late night with Liam, Rayna is talking to Teddy and realizes that she is going to be late for the Fall Festival, which her children are involved in. Obviously her relationship with Liam is already starting to affect her personal life. Rayna returns to Liam’s studio yet again, this time to ask him what happened the night before (she can’t remember any of it because she is drunk), and he shows her a video that he recorded of her singing. He tells her that she is best when she just “lets loose”. Rayna brings this recording back to her studio to show Marshall, but he still refuses to work with him
Teddy is also doing damage control in this episode. In the previous episode, we learn that he was involved in an embezzlement scandal with his partner Peggy. Rayna’s father Lamar promises to keep him safe, and things are looking up, until the last ten seconds of the episode when we see a mysterious person secretly taking pictures of Teddy and Peggy talking from a car. Now, Teddy is behind in the polls, and he decides to host a campaign pledge to help get votes. He goes to Lamar again for help, and Lamar offers to stage a traffic stop for his opponent Coleman Carlisle. Lamar asserts that it will be an innocent situation in which Coleman is pulled over for a traffic violation. It will give him a negative innocent in the press while not destroying his career. Teddy is hesitant about the idea, because he does not want to do anything to harm him personally. However, he feels that this is the only way he can win the campaign and become mayor, so he goes along with the idea. When Teddy is bringing Rayna coffee to help cure her hangover, he sees on the news that Coleman has been arrested for illegal possession of oxycontin. Apparently, he was stopped for a traffic violation, as promised by Lamar. However, he had the bottle of pills that Deacon gave him in the previous episode (essentially Lamar saved him from diving back into his drug addiction by taking the pills from him) on the floor of his car. The police noticed him, and immediately arrested him. When Teddy frantically confronts Lamar about the situation, Lamar tells him that he had nothing to do with the drugs. Like clockwork, Teddy’s votes triple. Meanwhile, Deacon meets with Coleman to apologize that the trouble that he has gotten him into, and offers to take the blame for the entire situation. Coleman, however says that it was his fault for not disposing of the pills, and does not want Deacon to get involved. Later, he has a conversation with his wife, and tells her how he suspects that Teddy is having an affair with Peggy, who has recently just become a volunteer on Teddy’s campaign. He has control of the pictures that we saw being taken in last week’s episode, and it’s clear that he’s thinking about leaking them out to the media as an act of revenge. However, he considers the fact that doing this will not only ruin his career, but will also ruin his family. He tells his wife that it feels wrong, but she responds by saying “Sometimes you need to do a little wrong to do a greater good.”
In this episode, Avery gets quite a bit of screen time compared to previous episodes. It starts up with him and his band packing up their car, and him apologizing for being in such a bad mood for the past couple of weeks. He thanks her for being such a great girlfriend, and they kiss. Why is he so surprisingly happy, you ask? Because Reed Olsen, a regional promoter, is hooking his band up and helping them finally gain some recognition. Soon after, Avery is performing at a bar, and Scarlett is watching proudly in the audience. But Scarlett is not the only one who takes interest in this performance; we keep seeing a random man and woman, and later find out that these people are Marilyn Rose and Reed Olsen. After his performance Avery asks Reed if he can be the local opener at The Lumineers, but is not confident about Reed’s reaction. However, he is soon confronted by Marilyn, who says that Reid liked him but is a coward. She tells him that she has close ties with Reed, and that she will talk to him for him.
Meanwhile, Avery drops off some food to Deacon, and tells him that Scarlett sent it because she was worried. He asks if he knows Marilyn and Reed, and Deacon replies that he does, and promises to put in a good word for Avery. Avery is shocked, and thanks Deacon, explaining how he thought that Deacon hated him. Later on, Deacon meets Marilyn at a bar, and tells her that she does not need to sign Avery. She tells Deacon that he should have signed with Reed in the first place, because him and Marilyn would have made him more than “the guy who just stood behind Rayna James.” When Avery talks to his band members and finds out that he did not get the gig, he talks to Marilyn, who tells him that she was confronted by somebody (she will not reveal) who told her to stay away from him. She asks him to come back to her place so that they can work something out, but he says he cannot. When Scarlett finds out that it was Deacon who told Marilyn to stay away from Avery, she is infuriated and goes to confront him. Avery explains to Marilyn that she only signs guys “after a certain closeness has been established”, which basically means that guys have to sleep with her in order to get their record deal. While Avery is at Marilyn’s house, we see that Deacon was telling the truth. Avery and Marilyn start to kiss, and are about to have sex when Avery realizes what he is doing is wrong, and gets up and leaves. When Avery returns home to Scarlett, they get in an argument in which Scarlett accuses him of sleeping with Marilyn. He pretends as if she is the evil one in the relationship for accusing him of such a crime, but when she slams the door on his face, whom does he go to? None other than Marilyn herself. Scarlett runs to Deacon crying for help, and Deacon, being the nice uncle that he is, lets her stay at his house for as long as she wants.
This episode was jam packed with a lot of great songs. However, there was only one major song that was actually sung by cast members, and it was “Love Like Mine”. This was the duet that was sung between Sean and Juliette on the jet. It was a great song, and really depicted the change in feelings of the two. Besides this though, I feel like there definitely should have been some more songs sung by the characters, rather than just random songs playing in the background of each scene.