non-spoilery notes on Nashville S2
I've finished watching Nashville S2 and am working on a post about it (trying to write it before all the details blur together!), but since it's not done yet I am going to go ahead and post this non-spoilery reaction.
Short version: I liked it!
I liked S2 even better than S1, and I liked S1 quite a bit (up until the season finale, which irked me for various reasons). My main points of interest in the show have always been the main female characters, and specifically their attempts to realize their creative ambitions, control their careers, and negotiate personal relationships without downplaying those ambitions or sidelining those careers. So my main frustrations with S1 were that the main female characters didn't get to interact much and the (largely male-centric) ~political intrigue~ storylines got way too much airtime. S2 delighted me by intertwining the female characters' storylines -- they got to talk to each other! and have complicated relationships! -- and by paying quite a lot of attention to both the creative and the business elements of the music industry, as well as by reducing the narrative importance of the political shenanigans and examining those shenanigans largely through the lens of their effects on the female characters. S2 also introduced several significant new female characters, developed the secondary character of Tandy (Rayna's sister), and gave Maddie (Rayna's teenaged daughter) a much more active role in storylines central to the show. Seriously, it's like they went down my wishlist and checked all the ticky boxes. And the closeted gay character from S1 becomes a much more significant presence in S2, largely because he's integrated into the main female characters' storylines.
And one brief vague-but-technically-spoilery comment on the end of the season -- stop reading if you haven't seen it and want to be totally unspoiled!:
Rayna and Juliette presenting a united front to Jeff Fordham The Manipulative Patriarchal Asshole Label Executive was so fucking satisfying. I loved everything about that scene. EVERYTHING.
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Short version: I liked it!
I liked S2 even better than S1, and I liked S1 quite a bit (up until the season finale, which irked me for various reasons). My main points of interest in the show have always been the main female characters, and specifically their attempts to realize their creative ambitions, control their careers, and negotiate personal relationships without downplaying those ambitions or sidelining those careers. So my main frustrations with S1 were that the main female characters didn't get to interact much and the (largely male-centric) ~political intrigue~ storylines got way too much airtime. S2 delighted me by intertwining the female characters' storylines -- they got to talk to each other! and have complicated relationships! -- and by paying quite a lot of attention to both the creative and the business elements of the music industry, as well as by reducing the narrative importance of the political shenanigans and examining those shenanigans largely through the lens of their effects on the female characters. S2 also introduced several significant new female characters, developed the secondary character of Tandy (Rayna's sister), and gave Maddie (Rayna's teenaged daughter) a much more active role in storylines central to the show. Seriously, it's like they went down my wishlist and checked all the ticky boxes. And the closeted gay character from S1 becomes a much more significant presence in S2, largely because he's integrated into the main female characters' storylines.
And one brief vague-but-technically-spoilery comment on the end of the season -- stop reading if you haven't seen it and want to be totally unspoiled!:
Rayna and Juliette presenting a united front to Jeff Fordham The Manipulative Patriarchal Asshole Label Executive was so fucking satisfying. I loved everything about that scene. EVERYTHING.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth