When we left Nashville last season, everything was fucking insane! Just absolutely nuts! To recap: Teddy Conrad and his on-the-side lady (who is conspiring with Rayna Jaymes’ father to something something I forget) found out they were pregnant; Gunnar proposed to Scarlett after being almost-kissed by Will Lexington who, as it turns out, is secretly gay; Maddie found out that Teddy is not her real father and, in fact, “Uncle Deacon” is; Juliette Barnes’s mother murder-suicided herself and her sober companion to save Juliette from a sex scandal; and Deacon, after finding out that he is Maddie’s real father, started drinking again and, blah blah blah, was in a major car accident with Rayna Jaymes. I feel like I’m even forgetting some of the cliff-hangers. In any case, season two premiered last night and was even more fucking nuts than you remembered it to be. Nashville seems to have completely shed the idea that it is anything other than one of the soapiest soaps, and it is better for it. (Though, it is also worth pointing out that the show has lost T-Bone Burnett as a songwriter, and is clearly worse for it.) (Wait, we all watch this, right?) (You should watch it! It is so much fun!) Rayna is in a medically induced coma fighting for her life, and no one knows if she’ll survive (except for us, but it truly does not hurt the drama that we know she’ll survive) (there is a LOT of drama to go around). Deacon is in jail for driving drunk and his bail is set to one million dollars while the court waits to see if Rayna dies, so they can charge him with involuntary manslaughter. But wait! He was not driving drunk — he was the passenger! Ah, it doesn’t matter. He is too guilt-ridden and wants to be locked up forever. (But he won’t be — not if Pretty Attorney has anything to do with it.) Elsewhere, Scarlett and Gunnar are NOT married.

Scarlett has moved out of the house, leaving Gunnar and Will to themselves to paint the walls brown because they are men. But it’s all right, after the boys burn all the furniture in the house, Gunnar sings a duet with Scarlett, at her going-away-from work-party, and they are friendly, if completely nonsensical: after they finish, Scarlett thanks him for singing with her and he says, “To be honest, I didn’t really want to.” “Why did you, then?” she asks. “You don’t give up on people you love.” he says. UH, WHAT? Wait, what? Why would you give up on Scarlett? She’s very successful. You are the one who should be saved from being given up on, you lunatic.

Elsewhere, Teddy Conrad tells his lady that he doesn’t want to have any part in their baby’s life, but he’ll help out financially. (UH, YEAH YOU WILL.) (You have to, you dumb jerk.) Juliette Barnes is up to her Juliette Barnes stuff — polishing up her hardened outer shell, complaining that Rayna being in the hospital will screw up her album release, and scheming about how to use it to her advantage. She stages a publicity stunt, covering an apparently “classic” Rayna Jaymes song (it’s not so good), “This Love Ain’t Big Enough for the Two of Us,” then bringing the entire audience to the hospital to hold up glow sticks. At the hospital, she runs into Maddie who confesses to her that she thinks it’s her fault that her mom is going to die, because if she had never been snooping in her stuff she wouldn’t have found out that Deacon is her dad, and if she hadn’t found out the Deacon was her dad she wouldn’t have told him, and if she hadn’t had told him he would never have started drinking. “Hmmm, when you put it that way it does kind of sound like it’s your fault,” Juliette says. Hahah. JK. Juliette tells her (and, through tell her, herself) that it isn’t her (their) fault. Later, Juliette cries in front of candles and a Rayna Jaymes CD.

Deacon’s court-appointed attorney won’t give up trying to get him free, because she’s good at her job, and he’s handsome, and she’s beautiful. While she’s off finding out that Rayna was actually the driver, Scarlett comes in to tell Deacon that she’s trying to get the money (by using her publishing advance, and asking Juliette) for his bail. He screams at her and bangs on the glass when she tells him he was like a father to her, shouting “I’M NOT ANYBODY’S FATHER!” Hahahaha. Yes you are! Then he tells her to go away. Wah-wah. He gets out later, though, because — RAYNA JAYMES WAKES UP AND CONFIRMS THAT SHE WAS ACTUALLY THE DRIVER!

For a second you think she might not be able to remember anything, but she does. It’s fine. Oh! But something that isn’t fine is this plot point: Her mom died in a car accident, and when her dad was scolding Teddy about how he needed to have treated Rayna better rather than divorce her, to keep her from running away with Deacon, Teddy said that he saw the writing on the wall and didn’t want to have her pack her bags and run away from him like the dad’s wife (Rayna’s mom) did. Then Rayna’s dad said, “SHE DIED IN AN ACCIDENT!” Hahaaahahahahahahahahahaha. It’s almost insane that Teddy didn’t, at that moment, say, “Wait. Did you kill her?!” 100% were not talking about how she died at all. But then at the end some suit comes up to Rayna’s sister and tells her that there’s some evidence that suggests the dad had the mom killed. Perfect. Love it. Perfect show. (Except for how the music isn’t as good.)

DID YOU WATCH? WHY NOT?!