Nashville season 5 episode 19 review: Scarlett and the Amelia Rose tragedy
Nashville season 5 episode 19 aired on CMT on Thursday night, and it somehow packed way more of an emotional punch than expected. Following the robbery, we thought that it was possible that Scarlett could meet a worse-case scenario when it comes to her unborn child. However, we were still hoping that she would find a way to get through it.
Unfortunately, what we saw instead was one of the saddest episodes that we can possibly remember, given that Scarlett miscarried the child, who we found out at the end of the episode was meant to be named Amelia Rose. Meanwhile, it appears as though Scarlett and Gunnar are done, with him taking off on a music tour with her left to grieve.
What was the story that the show was trying to tell here, that relationships are tough or that Scarlett doesn’t deserve happiness? Sometimes, things in life just end terribly, and maybe that’s it. We do feel like the miscarriage is a miscalculation for this storyline — it’s not that we were the biggest Scarlett/Gunnar ‘shippers on the planet or anything, but to follow the tragedy of Rayna up with another so soon is making this show incredibly dark.
At this point, we don’t know how either one of these characters heal anytime soon. The one friend that she may have in all of this is Jessie Cane, who’s apparently had two miscarriages and this somewhat helps to make up for Deacon cluing in someone on a secret that wasn’t really his to share.
Maddie learns the truth
The other big-time story of this episode revolved around the big revelation (one long expected) that Juliette took Maddie’s song from her and then recorded it as her own. He tried to keep her away from the songwriter, but it came out eventually, and we’re still wondering why in the world Juliette ever thought that this wouldn’t get out. She tried to apologize later, but this is a hard thing to make up for given that what Juliette did effectively changes the entire story of Maddie’s career. This could have been a breakout song for her more than any other one, and now, it’s gone.
In comparison to the Scarlett storyline, the good news here is that this wasn’t as depressing. The bad news is that Juliette’s been making poor decisions all season long and there really isn’t any end in sight for it. We don’t know how she’s going to be able to turn this around with Maddie, let alone get the respect of other people in the country community again.
The struggle as a whole
Nashville is a very good show, but it’s in a depressing rut at the moment. We spent a ton of time on a story with Scarlett that led nowhere at the moment but heartbreak, and Juliette never should’ve done what she did with the song in the first place. When these two stories are your biggest plot points for an episode, we’re left with somewhat of an empty feeling. Grade: C+.
Where does Nashville go from here?
If you do head over to this link, you can preview further everything that is coming up on the show next! (Photo: CMT.)