Connie Britton leaves ‘Nashville’ after season 5, episode 9; what happened to Rayna?

Tonight, “Nashville” season 5 delivered one of its biggest wallops — and you can say that it was one of the biggest wallops of the any scripted TV program in 2017. Rayna James dies during the latest episode, and it takes place as a result of injuries that she sustained during the recent car crash.

So how did this come about … and why? It basically just turns out that the rumors about Connie Britton appearing in just a handful of episodes this season were true all along. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the actress made it clear why she decided to depart the show, and how this was the best way to do so:

“It was my decision. It was something that, for various reasons, had been percolating for me. What was really important to me was that it felt like the right time. This summer, when the show went to CMT, it felt solid and stable. When [executive producer] Marshall Herskovitz came in, we had a conversation and he came up with the way this story would lay out. We both agreed — and I said to him that what was most important to me was that we really do justice and honor the character and all of these characters and the world that we’ve been living in for these last five years.”

Did Rayna have to go like this?

This is a VERY fair question to ask, given that this was so painful and it’s understandable if many people out there were looking for more of a pleasant farewell of the character to the show. Yet, the trouble that comes with removing Rayna from the show via any other means is that you have to justify not seeing her anymore, and under certain circumstances, this is a very difficult thing to sell that she’s off somewhere else, doing something that we just don’t happen to see on-camera. It would be different if this was a show like “The Office” and she’d just left the documentary; this was a show about the abstract idea of the Nashville lifestyle as much as it is country music or the city itself. (Photo: CMT.)

What did you think about the way the show handled the exit of Rayna James, and are you still excited to watch? Sound off in the comments!