Nashville season 5 finale: Is Rachel Bilson leaving after that kiss?
If there is one thing that we’ve learned about Nashville over the years, it’s that they have a tendency to go hard with many of their finale episodes! Tonight was no exception to the rule. There was drama, music awards, relationship-building, and also a kiss that many people out there probably did not see coming. We’re talking specifically about Alyssa and Deacon, who had that very surprising moment during the hour.
As it turns out, though, the kiss was at one point going to be more aggressive, before the show brought in Rachel Bilson on set and the character started to evolve.
In speaking about this moment to TVLine, executive producer Marshall Herskovitz had the following to say about the buildup to that moment:
“It was our plan to do that scene all along. From the moment we introduced Alyssa, one of the things we said was that she was going to kiss Deacon … But what we had in mind for that kiss was very different from what you saw.”
Will Bilson return to the show?
That’s one of the larger mysteries coming out of the finale, given that this was technically the end of her arc on the show — a rather entertaining one, but also one that showed how different that she is from everyone else at the record label. (We’ll always have that karaoke performance, though.) We’re not ruling anything out, given that the sixth season is not going to be premiering for a good while still.
Even beyond that, one of the other questions that we’re going to be wondering is the future of Kaitlin Doubleday, whose Jessie Cane may also have a future of her own with Deacon judging from their embrace. They’ve both been through a lot, and we could see it — we just don’t want the show to rush anything too quickly here when it comes to a relationship.
In general, though, we’d say that this finale was less insane than the one at the end of season 4, but that’s a good thing in some ways. You don’t want EVERY single finale to be so crazy that it doesn’t feel like the show has any semblance of realism anymore. It needs to be grounded in whatever sort of world the Nashville music industry is in. Make the show dramatic, but don’t always go for the jaw-dropper — if you do too many of those, there aren’t going to by any more jaws that drop in the end.
What did you think about the Nashville season 5 finale? Be sure to share in the comments below!
Also, head over to this link to get some of the other news when it comes to the show! We’re going to be giving some additional insight on it in due time, but for now, we’ve got a good feature up there about when the sixth season could premiere. (Photo: CMT.)