Mykelti Williamson

A crime procedural drama set in Los Angeles (sometimes called Boomtown) that is unlike any other show in it’s genre, in that within each episode a crime is investigated and told through the unique perspective of the individuals surrounding the felony, i.e. the criminals, the victims, the policemen, the detectives, the lawyers, the media etc. The story unravels as vignettes, with character title card chapters revealing that character’s side of the investigation. At best, the individual chapters serve as self contained and complete narratives that feed into the main narrative. At worst, a character chapter would break the momentum of the episode.

After a short hiatus so ABC could air the CMAs last Wednesday, Nashville returned last night with an episode that felt like treading water. It is quickly established that there has been a two-month time jump, a jarring decision being that the show had only been off the air a week. I’m not sure if this was a scheduling peculiarity – was ABC initially going to give the show a long hiatus through the holidays? Or maybe Hayden Panettiere’s real life pregnancy required Juliette to fast-forward almost an entire trimester in order to physically catch up. In any case, the time jump served to mellow conflicts that had been building through the first part of the season, dissipating tension rather than heightening it.