Rachel Bilson leaving Nashville, joins project from Castle creator

While this may not be a surprise to some, it is finally 100% official. Rachel Bilson is departing Nashville, and will not be a part of the upcoming sixth season.

TVLine confirms that Bilson is in fact gone as Alyssa Greene, but this was always the plan from the moment her character was first brought on board. She had a chance to serve her story in full and now, the CMT series will move on to some other things. Kaitlin Doubleday, one of the other new additions in the second part of season 5, seems to be sticking around.

The arc of Alyssa Greene was meant to provide some tension at the record label, especially when it comes to figuring out the right way of promoting artists. Deacon wanted to go about things in a more traditional, old-school manner. However, Alyssa’s strategy was more to build strategic partnerships and find branding opportunities for some of the stars to make them more profitable. The challenge with that is that these said partnerships often go by another name depending on who you are: “Selling out.”

This news comes at the same time as Bilson’s new show Take Two being ordered to series over at ABC. This show, from Castle executive producers Andrew Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller, will feature her playing a washed-up actress who ends up restarting her career in a very surprising way: Alongside a private investigator (Eddie Cibrian). This starts off as a way for her to do research on a potential new role, but after it turns out that the two make a rather good team it could end up making the arrangement a little more permanent. This feels almost like a reverse Castle with Bilson playing the Nathan Fillion part, but given her ability to play comedic and dramatic elements rather well this could turn out to be a good fit for her.

We’ll see where Take Two lands in the ABC schedule coming up; meanwhile, Nashville season 6 is going to premiere on CMT in early January.

What do you think about Rachel Bilson departing Nashville? Are you going to miss her character? Be sure to share now in the comments!

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