‘Nashville’ Recap: Go to the Place That’s the Best
Warning: This recap for the “If Tomorrow Never Comes” episode of Nashville contains spoilers.
Rayna James’s death sentence was sealed long before the final bedside vigil, the cascading organ failure, and the vision of her dearly departed mother (played by acknowledged Nashville fan Carla Gugino) watching her from the great beyond. No, the precise moment it became clear that she was doomed arrived when she joked to Daphne: “What is it with me and car accidents?” With that off-the-cuff callback to the show’s Season 1 cliffhanger, current showrunners Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick and the show’s creator Callie Khouri — who also directed the episode — signaled that Nashville history was in the process of repeating itself with a very different outcome. Having sent her headlong into her second smash-up in five years, there was no credible way they could let the unsinkable Rayna James rise up out of that hospital bed again.
Related: Ken Tucker on What Rayna’s Death Means for ‘Nashville’
And so she didn’t: while family and friends congregated in her room, Rayna’s temporary rebound took a turn for the worse as complications from her injury — a broken femur — resulted first in kidney failure, followed by the rest of her organs shutting down. It was a protracted hospital farewell that recalled Bobby Simone’s exit from NYPD Blue nearly 20 years ago, giving the characters, and viewers, time to say their goodbyes to a major character… not to mention milking every last moment of the departing actor’s contractually mandated screen time.
Anger and recrimination often follow a sudden death in a beloved TV family, as fans question the hows and whys of why a character was killed off as opposed to, say, exiled to another state until a final season reunion. The answer in this case seems fairly clear: Connie Britton was ready to move on, and the showrunners needed to let people know not to expect any surprise Rayna cameos in the near or distant future. It’s the same reason that Julian Fellows offered for the controversial choice to end Matthew Crawley’s life at the end of Downton Abbey‘s third season instead of dispatching him to America on an extended business trip, with only the odd phone call or Christmas visit to Downton. “We didn’t really have any option,” Fellows told The Daily Telegraph. “By him dying, their love can remain intact.”
Killing Rayna achieves the same goal for Nashville; with her gone, the Deacon & Rayna love story will never again be challenged by a new romantic interest or previously undisclosed piece of history. And it’ll now be immortalized in the 16-track album that the couple magically finished in the space of two episodes. Meanwhile, Maddie and Daphne will never again have to worry about losing their mother’s affection due to ill-timed periods or emancipation lawsuits, and she won’t have to be the bad cop disciplining them for breaking curfew or almost burning down the kitchen.
While the end result is probably a net positive for Nashville, it’s fair to take the show to task for how we got here. For instance, why are all the authorities in Nashville so bad at their jobs? First, Rayna’s security team doesn’t properly sweep the Highway 65 offices, leading to her hostage situation. Then, the police officer tasked with bringing her home fails to obey standard traffic procedure. (The cop is apparently fine, by the way, walking away with a few scratches.) As for the hospital’s medical team, they don’t appear to recognize the danger Rayna is in until far too late in the game, laughing off Deacon’s initial concerns and then throwing up their hands when her body starts to fail. And the stalker storyline looks even more hackneyed in retrospect: a red herring that was never intended to have a real impact on Rayna’s ultimate fate.
As for the road ahead, a few potential potholes loom. Daphne pointedly mentioning her real dad, the currently incarcerated ex-mayor, implies we’re going to be witnessing Teddy’s return and a possible custody fight, neither of which sounds like a palatable development. And since witnessing the death of your wife would drive any normal person to drink, Deacon’s alcoholism will likely come roaring back from the “overused storylines” dustbin. Fortunately for Rayna, none of that will be her problem anymore. She’s enshrined forever as St. Rayna, looking down over their house — and all of Nashville — as a beaming, beatific figure.
Best Storyline: Complaints about the circumstances of Rayna’s death aside, Connie Britton absolutely murdered (sorry — too soon?) every scene she was asked to play. As each cast member approached her bed to say their goodbyes, Britton took great pains to share the spotlight, thus ensuring that she was passing the show’s dramatic torch instead of snuffing it out. It was about as well-executed an execution as you could hope for with an actress and character who had already been through so much.
Worst Storyline: I could go with Scarlett’s continued dalliance with Damien, or Juliette’s cancer scare, which mainly seemed designed to assure us that the show’s other founding leading lady isn’t going anywhere… yet. But instead, I’m going to take the writers to task for the seemingly minor storyline involving Daphne and her school choral group, which trekked to the hospital to perform for Rayna at her school chum Flynn’s suggestion. Because right in the middle of their rendition of “Make You Feel My Love” — with Daphne on solo vocals no less! — is the moment when Rayna’s kidneys start to fail, and the medical staff forces all the kids to evacuate the room, screaming and crying. Not only does this basically ensure that Daphne will have PTSD about performing in public, but it also means that every time she looks at Flynn, she’ll see her dead mom.
Maddie Watch: Leave it to Maddie to make Rayna’s death all about her. Exiting the hospital as her mom heads into a four-hour surgery, she proceeds to drag her boyfriend, Clayton, all over the city while she whines about being a bad daughter. She’s so busy flagellating herself that she stays out all night and misses her chance to say goodbye to Rayna while she’s still conscious. Expect Maddie to add that to her already lengthy list of reasons of why she’s the worst.
Best Bit of #RealTalk: One more shout-out to “What is it with me and car accidents?” As Homer Simpson is fond of saying, it’s funny ’cause it’s true.
New Character Alert: Warning: never, ever go to a hospital in Nashville, because the doctors on duty will ensure that you’ll enter with a broken femur and exit in a body bag due to organ failure.
Standout Song: No new tunes this week — those are all likely being saved for Rayna’s funeral — but try not to tear up watching Deacon, Maddie, and Daphne reprise “A Life That’s Good” as Rayna takes her last breath.
Nashville airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CMT.
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