“Nashville writers, please don’t make Rayna Jaymes feel like she is a bad mum for being on tour, doing her job! Rayna is not a bad mother because she is leaving her daughters with their father in Nashville while on tour. She has done that a million times before” – Tora Liliedahl 

About this blog

Tora Liliedahle (@ToraLiliedahl) is a fellow Nashville fan, a friend and most of all – a wise woman. This week I  asked her to share HER thoughts on episode 3.05 .Luckily she agreed and chose to write about Rayna. Here’s what she has to say: 

“Nashville is walking a thin line between forgetting how Rayna was in season one and making a story out of Rayna forgetting who she was in season one. She has forgotten that she is a big star and that she knows how to balance private life and business life. She has forgotten she had a car accident that nearly killed her and she forgot how you are supposed to feel when you are in love. That brings up some serious questions.

If I understand correctly, the accident, at least in Rayna’s head, was supposed to make her stronger – what does not kill you makes you stronger. Stronger for Rayna meant saying no to the past, and not being steered by her feelings. But this decision only made her weaker. That’s because not following who you are makes you lose yourself, and that weakens you. Rayna lost her ability to feel what is right and wrong for her by choosing to ignore her insticts. Instead she just presses forward while avoiding her emotions.

This episode is still walking this line, but for the first time for a long time we saw Rayna feel something again. As happy as I am about this, I also got a little bit worried. Please don’t make Rayna feel like she is a bad mum for being on tour, doing her job! She is not a bad mother because she is leaving her daughters with their father while on tour. She has done that a million times before. Of course it is somewhat different now, she is divorced, remarrying and the girls do not feel as safe and harmonic as before. So I see that also as a sign from the girls, not that it is a problem for them staying with their father whom they love, but that they are not happy with the situation as a whole.

I hope this is also why Rayna cracks now, not because she thinks she is a bad mum being on tour, but because she too is not happy with the situation as a whole. It is believable that when  the first crack appears, it is caused by her girls. When it comes to them she cannot hide her feelings. And the fact that she gets upset over quite small things, highlights in the hair and ear-piercing (she for sure have missed out on or not been involved in bigger things than that before) shows to me that there is something else going on. And this something better be Luke.

I also feel that the show is now also making it quite clear that Luke Wheeler  is not a nice man! He is turning into quite a monster, I think. There is the arrogant attitude towards Deacon, the awful yelling at Will, and we all remember in his first scenes, how rude and arrogant he was to Gunnar. He acts very condescending to Rayna, implying all the time that he is the bigger star, and telling her how to handle it and how to handle her kids. Again, did the show forget that Rayna is supposed to be the Queen of Country music? did Rayna? or is it Luke being, again, very condescending?

 To me Luke has now proven to be not just a shallow man with different values than Rayna. To me he is a bully. Period. He is someone who thrives in making other people feel small. It can be subtle like towards Rayna, or it can be very blatant, as towards Will.

One last thing on a different (yet related) matter: One character grows on me more and more with each episode is Scarlett. The simplicity of her scenes in this episode were fabulous and shows how you can tell a story without car chases, without insignificant love interests and paternity questions. All it takes is a young woman and her piano, and we understand the journey that she is on. I love it!”