#NashvilleCMT Recap [SPOILER ALERT]

Seventeen Feet Outside a Restraining Order

What an ending. But let’s start at the beginning.

On Thursday night’s episode of (Feb. 16) CMT’s Nashville, things in the fictitious Music City kicked off with Juliette and her plans to make a gospel album because of her exhaustive one-month brush with organized religion.

“I want my next album to be a gospel album, and I would be honored if y’all would record it with me,” Juliette told the choir members at Hallie’s church.

They had questions, though. Why gospel music? How long have you been listening to gospel music? How long have you been going to church? Isn’t your thing a little sexier than that? She fought back to defend her intentions but ultimately went back to them with a heartfelt mea culpa.

“God paid me a visit and He gave me gift. I don’t want to steal from you. I want to honor you, and I want to honor God,” she promised.

Scarlett got a little closer to God in her own way, too. After breaking things off with Gunnar — “I feel something for this person and I don’t know what it means. I’m not going to cheat and I’m not going to lie. You know, not everything’s about sex” — it actually was kind of about sex. Scarlett and the Exes’ director Damien consummated their love in a hotel room, had some waffles and then more sex.

When she told Deacon about Damien, he encouraged her to be open about it and let the wave take her. Because when he and Rayna kept their love a secret, he said, it was a big damn mess.

What was even a bigger damn mess, though, was how things escalated with Rayna’s stalker.

He was hanging around their house, albeit 17 feet into the safe zone. The restraining order against him said he had to be 300 feet from Rayna, so he stayed right at 317 feet from the front door. Clever, right?

But he must’ve realized that was no way to get closer to Rayna, so off to the Highway 65 broom closet he went. Then one late night when Rayna went back to the office to work, there he was. With a knife. And a sob story.

“I wanted to tell you how connected we are,” he told her. “I wanted to tell you that you understand me better than anyone I’ve ever known. You met me the day I heard your first single on my mom’s stereo back in West Memphis. You spoke to me in a way I couldn’t speak to myself. You changed my life. You’ve known me for a very long time, and all I’ve ever wanted was to meet you,” he revealed.

Rayna was terrified, but she listened to Wayne and shared her own story of abuse.

“My father was a sociopath,” she said. “Killed my mother, covered it up. And that happened when I was 12 years old. And I have to deal with that every day of my life. And sometimes it gets to me.

“So I write songs, because that’s the only way I know how to deal with this pain I carry inside me.”

It seemed like maybe she’d diffused the situation, but she had actually dialed 911 on her phone and that just undid Wayne. He held her hostage with the knife to her throat, but by the time the cops showed up, he let her go.

Which was a relief. Until it wasn’t. On her ride home, Rayna’s car was hit by another car, and there was no word on what kind of impact that had.

Oh, and Daphne became a woman.
