‘Nashville’: Connie Britton Wants Rayna to Just Go Away

So it’s being reported that Connie Britton is only going to appear in about 10 episodes of the new 22-episode Season 5 of Nashville when it makes its move to CMT and Hulu in January. Britton is, of course, a linchpin of the series: Her Rayna Jaymes is arguably the show’s central character. As a performer, Rayna is Nashville’s crucial link between the earlier, Loretta Lynn-style of country music and the Taylor Swift younger generation. (I’ve always thought that show creator Callie Khouri probably thought of Rayna as a composite of Martina McBride, Reba McEntire, and Faith Hill.)

As a parent, Rayna is a devoted if distracted mom to two daughters, Maddie and Daphne, who became more active in the show’s plot lines as the series went on. And as a wife/lover, Rayna is the yin to Deacon Claybourne’s alcohol-soaked yang. Their love story is the greatest Nashville achievement, a rare primetime network portrait of flawed equals meeting in the middle to try and make things work.

But when ABC canceled Nashville, it was mighty obvious that Britton was ready to put away her cowboy boots and skedaddle back to L.A. Soon after the cancellation, she went on Late Night With Seth Meyers, and when he asked how she felt about the end of the series, she was nearly giddy. While careful to say Nashville was a great show, and the titular city a great place to work and live, she seemed excited to reconnect with West Coast show biz. As she says in the clip below, “My friends in L.A. are like, ‘We’re so happy you’re coming home!’” She took to Instagram to further bury the show with a eulogy that read in part: “I am grateful for the hard work and faith of so many who dedicated themselves to creating and supporting this show. And I am forever changed for the better. Thanks for the music.” In other words, so long, you beautiful rubes!

Then CMT picked up the show in a deal with Hulu, which was likely a shock to the actress. That her contract obliges her to Rayna-fy herself once more, it must have been like being told, ‘Nope, you can’t graduate — you gotta do senior year all over again.’ I’ll bet the 10-episode compromise was the result of Britton and her reps trying mightily to get out of her contract entirely. So what does this mean for Nashville, and how will Rayna be worked out of the show? How will her scant airtime affect the roles of Chip Esten’s Deacon and those poor little Stella sisters, Lennon and Maisy?

Well, the most obvious thing to do would be to let Britton serve out her 10-episode sentence and then kill Rayna off in some way. But Nashville has used that exit strategy for everyone from Rayna’s dad Lamar to the swan-diving-to-the-pavement Jeff Fordham. I think it’s unlikely that new showrunners Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick — the subtle men who brought you My So-Called Life and thirtysomething — would be so crass as to off Rayna.

How about putting Rayna on a never-ending tour, Bob Dylan-style? Rayna’s been talking about how being a music executive is a drag and how she longs to perform more. Keeping her on the road could easily keep her off-camera. But, again, periodic phone calls to Deacon and the kids are not going to be satisfying to them or us.

If the solution is to keep Rayna in town but in a much-diminished role, Nashville will have to find something to do with Deacon, who as far as I’m concerned is the soul of the show. But, then, the new season of Nashville is bound to be a very different creature. It was previously announced that Aubrey Peeples and Will Chase had been cut loose from the show, so no mopey Layla to bedevil Avery, no good ole boy Luke Wheeler to jolly up the proceedings.

Here’s the thing: Herskovitz and Zwick are all about dramatizing relationships. My So-Called Life and their other productions were never about grand actions, but intimate moments between people — how they interact, irritate, and inspire each other. So with Rayna sidelined, Deacon could start performing regularly with the ambitious Maddie, and the show would closely explore different facets of that father-daughter relationship. And my guess is that, in general, Herskovitz and Zwick are going to shift the focus of the series to the younger cast members and make the trio of Scarlett (Clare Bowen), Gunnar (Sam Palladio), and Avery (Jonathan Jackson) the central aspect of a new Nashville.

Who’s the wild card in everything I’ve discussed so far? Hayden Panettiere’s Juliette Barnes. Panettiere is signed up for the full 22, but given Juliette’s cliffhanger status from last season and Panettiere’s real-life struggles with postpartum depression, it’s impossible to say how central she’ll be to Nashville’s future. One thing’s for sure: There are going to be a lot fewer soulful close-ups of Britton-as-Rayna, and Nashville is going to have to work hard to fill up that hole in its own soul.

Nashville will return Thursday, Jan. 5 at 9 p.m. on CMT.