'Nashville' Recap: Rayna Gets Her Voice Back, Zoey and Gunner Hook Up

Rayna’s work with a vocal coach paid off on this week’s Nashville and Juliette invited Will on tour in “Don’t Open That Door.”

Rayna (Connie Britton), Juliette (Hayden Panettiere), Scarlett (Clare Bowen) and Layla (Aubrey Peeples) were all busy preparing for Luke Wheeler’s (Will Chase) benefit concert. Scarlett is having a tough time trying to fit into the young, sexy, glamorous image of a pop-country star that Jeff (Oliver Hudson) is trying to push on her. She meets with a media coach/publicist who informs her that, to be a pro on the red carpet, she pretty much needs to change everything about her, including her life story. Layla encourages Scarlett to be herself with the press, but all anyone wants to ask her about is her uncle, Deacon (Charles Esten) and his drinking. Jeff ends up taking her off the red carpet and sending her straight home.

Deacon is having a tough time adjusting to life in recovery, for both his alcoholism and his hand injury. Juliette offers to bring him back on tour with her, even if he can’t play the guitar, but he declines. Deacon says it just makes it worse to be around the music scene when he can’t join in. During his conversation with Juliette, she lets slip that Rayna might have lost her voice in the accident – Deacon had no idea. He immediately goes to confront Rayna, who is remarkably calm about the prospect of not being able to perform anymore.

At the benefit concert, Luke insists Rayna perform. She tries to politely decline, but winds up on stage despite her best efforts. Rayna kicks off “The Best Songs Come From Broken Hearts” with a bit of difficulty, but soon the reaction from the crowd livens her up and Rayna blows the crowd away. She proved to everyone, including herself, that her voice wasn’t a casualty of the car crash after all.

Even though Juliette invited Layla to open for her on her next big tour, she’s still feeling threatened by Layla and decides to hire another performance to round out her tour, and cut 15 minutes from Layla’s stage time: Will (Chris Carmack). This puts Will in the perfect place to embark on his first real fake relationship. Jeff wants Will and Layla to pretend to be a couple to invigorate the fan base, but Will is hesitant. He doesn’t like Layla and doesn’t trust her one bit.

Avery (Jonathan Jackson), however, will not be joining Juliette on tour. He’s decided to stay home and work on songwriting with Gunner (Sam Palladio), who’s in the full throws of a new relationship with Zoey (Chaley Rose).

Lamar Wyatt (Powers Boothe) got arrested for 42 counts of extortion, racketeering and bribery, and, not knowing that Tandy (Judith Hoag) is the leak, swore that he would get his revenge on Teddy (Eric Close). Tandy, meanwhile, was put under a gag order about the case. Another downside to Lamar’s arrest: his assets are frozen so Rayna can’t borrow money from her father to buy Highway 65 out from Edgehill and leave Jeff Fordham in the dust.

Nashville airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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