Nashville season 3 will come to an end this Wednesday May 13, 10/9c on ABC and we at Nashville Forever choose to mark the occasion by being a little nostalgic and celebrating the (great!) season that was.

Therefore, as we try to emotionally prepared for the finale and the LONG summer hiatus, we’re posting during this week here as well as on our Facebook and Twitter some of your picks for Nashville season 3 favorite moments. We also asked some of our favorite contributors to this site during the passing year to choose their favorite moments, the ones that made them look at the screen and say, “This is why I love this show. This is why Nashville gets me”. 

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This choice is an editorial one (meaning, mine) and it’s from one of my favorite episodes this season – episode 3.13 “I’m Lost Between Right and Wrong’ (Written by David Gould). This episode deserves a serious review but for now I’d like to talk about one scene – the morning after the boys night out scene at Gunnar’s house with Gunnar, Will and Luke.

One of my favorite things about Nashville is that the show takes ordinary, day to day situations that we are used to watch being played out on TV in a certain way that we tend to refer to them as clichés and  then change one detail that turns everything upside down and turn those moments from recycled and repetitive to real, raw, refreshing, surprising at times and even thought evoking.

Related: More Nashville Season 3 Favorite Moments 

The scene I’m referring to is a perfect example. At the beginning of this episode Luke paid a visit to Gunnar (he can do East Nashville y’all) in order to write a song but since all the muse called at this session is mediocre hate songs for the women in their lives Luke took the initiative and invited Gunnar and the innocent bystander Will to join him for a boys night out.

So far, there’s nothing new or out of the ordinary about this storyline. We’ve seen this scenario being played out hundreds of times – men go out to drown their sorrow by getting drunk and sleeping with other women. Boys will be boys, right? The fact that Will bailed early also isn’t surprising since he is’ after all’ gay, and thankfully, came to a point in his life where he’s not working full-time job as a fake-straight.

Related: The Characters Defense – Will Lexington Behind A Broken Smile
Related: The Characters Defense – Luke Wheeler: Where’s The Love?
Related: The Characters Defense – Gunnar Scott Can’t Get It Right

The interesting part comes in the morning after when the three men wake up and meet at the kitchen. Will, the only one between the three that doesn’t suffer from hangover sit in the living room and play an (unplugged) guitar. Gunnar comes in and then Luke who’s asking Will why he left early. Will, who’s not ready to come out in front of Luke says something that we can call as “half lie, half-truth” and tell to Luke that he’s not what he thinks he is and that all this going out sleeping with random women is not him.

Related: Nashville Season 3 Favorite Moments: Will Lexington Is On It

That particular moment is also something we’ve seen many times before and we know how it ends. We know that usually, when there’s a man that doesn’t follow the “leader” and act “like a man” he’ll be accused of being…gay.

This scene ALMOST goes there but instead in the most subtle way, takes a u-turn that turns it not just to a non-homophobic scene, but to a one that break stereotypes and gives us a beautiful refreshing display of a different type of manhood – the kind that doesn’t appear on TV too often.

What Luke says to Will instead of “accusing” him of being gay is that he’s…sensitive. Yes, sensitive. For Will it’s a relief not just because his secret is safe but because it allows him to take one step forward in his journey towards authenticity since now, being sensitive is not something he has to be careful not to show in fear it will label him as gay. He can just be.

Luke’s observation also alters the direction of conversation from the “day after men talk” that we’re used to watch where the men either compares “conquests” or say nothing or let a woman “fix” things, to a talk about real feelings: Luke admits he’s sensitive too and that this whole night is not really his thing and instead of continuing in a rooster self-destruct path sit down, take the guitar and write a song with Gunnar…a great song I might add, about what he really feels.

In just one word, Nashville turned a scene with the men that we know all too well; to a scene with the men we would like to know and by that also takes that country world back to its roots: from songs about parties, beers and trucks to three chords and the truth. And that’s how the world, eventually change, right?…with a word.