A Hart of Dixie double bill!
Feb. 28th, 2024 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessHoD 3.18 Back In The Saddle Again
As the previouslies reminded us that Lemon had had a special night with a hot guy with a wandering spirit, it was no surprise when she quite literally bumped into him in Bluebell again, and he suggested they have dinner. This was just after she’d told George that she’d decided to go off men for three months. George had mixed feelings about all this, because he was still having his flashbacks to sex problem.
Something similar happened to Zoe, except her hot guy was totally new and a cyclist. Both women tried to call AB for advice, but AB was too distracted by the new man in her life, Davis, and told them to talk to each other. Ha, as if.
Zoe tried talking to Lavon instead, but he was building a model of Bluebell, not because he was still heartbroken but as part of a pitch to get the county fair. His preparations were thrown off kilter when Mayor Gainey called to inform him that AB was now dating Gainey’s nephew. George told him not to believe it and get distracted.
Lemon tried turning to Brick, who complained at one point in the ep that he was surrounded by crazy women (you’re the father of two and the father figure of one, what does that say about you!?) For Marigold had come to ask permission to go to a party at Charleston held by Carter Covington. Her father refused. When she didn’t return to her grandmother’s, Brick started a rumour that Not!Captain Awesome was into 17 year old girls, and then insisted that George come along with him to read the riot act.
I was all WHY? WHY IS GEORGE DOING THIS? Granted, Lemon bossed him into doing stuff (in relation to Fancie’s, which they co-own) at the top and tail of the episode, but George doesn’t have responsibility over Marigold, even if he got guilted into intervening that time she was thrown out of her boarding school. Brick does. Brick needed company for the ‘seven hour drive’ though (in hindsight, he should have stopped to think would even Marigold go so far for a party?)
George really should have stayed in Bluebell for Lavon’s sake, because he’d been there when Lavon was informed that AB really was seeing Mayor Gainey’s nephew.
In an entirely separate subplot, Wade was at another Wilkes’ family event – how has he inherited what started off as Zoe’s family connection? Why doesn’t she go to any of these family events or even acknowledge them any more? Vivian suggested they went on a ‘just them’ date the next night. Potential obstacles soon arose, as little Harley failed at sports and Beardy AKA Charles tried to emphasise the co-parenting thing and push Wade to the margins. Wade was too fast to accuse him of having ulterior motivations. But the next night, on their date, Charles was distracting Vivian with pictures of Harley’s little wins and how the rest of the Wilkes were involved, and playing a little on her guilt at not being there for Harley.
Wade nobly suggested she go, and she was all too eager to. Less nobly, he stuck around at the wine-tasting party, ‘tasting the wine’ when he’s not that fussed. He refused his old (female) friend’s offer that he stay for an after party, as he should. But he did leave a desperate little phone message for Vivian and then did a desperate little drive by to find that Charles had stayed the night (on the sofa) and Vivian wanted to rush back to Harley, distancing herself from Wade. Oh Wade, sweetie, we’re coming to the end of the season, and thus likely the end of your first relationship after Zoe which was all about proving how you’ve matured.
As for all the other relationships, Lemon welcomed Peter to her house, and tried not to feel twinges as he sweet talked her but showed no interest in stopping being a rolling stone. Zoe, after much angsting about whether she was ready to date again, three weeks after things ended with Joel, went to Fancie’s with a man who’s name I have no intention of retaining, because he turned out to be ghastly. The two women ended up leaving their dates, calling each other and meeting up at Zoe’s office to drink a little wine and offer each other brutally frank advice about each other’s situations. They ended up taking said advice, with Lemon returning home to tell Peter she wanted a relationship with a hope of a future, and he wasn’t offering one, while Zoe went back to Fancie’s to shout at her obtuse and obnoxious date. I hope she left him to foot the bill.
Meanwhile, Lavon’s big pitch meeting was outside the Rammer-Jammer (ohhhhkay), which meant he saw AB going into a car with her new beau. He proceeded to partake a little too much of the R-J’s wares, mess up his pitch, and ended up at AB’s door, spewing a nasty little conspiracy theory. I was on her side, anyway, because he was the one who hadn’t been able to tell her he loved her, so where does he get off playing dog in the manger? But she dealt with it with dignity, reminding me that she may well be my favourite character on the show.
Quite some distance away, Brick (and George) woke up Carter Covington, to find out there was no party and no Marigold. Conveniently, our young evil genius had sent Covington an e-vite to the real party – held at her father’s, while he was on his wild goose chase. George was all ‘well played.’ (Please don’t tell me that Geroge/Marigold is eventual endgame!)
I wondered how wild a party it could be if nobody else in Bluebell noticed, although the main characters were wrapped up in their own dramas. Brick came home to find Marigold alone in a sanitised version of ‘parental home after a teenage rager’, and tried the disappointed dad routine with a dash of ‘try to see it from my perspective’, as he'd already gone nuclear by sending her to live with her grandmother and to a religious girls’ school. She negotiated another boarding school and for him to come visiting, which I’d buy, but I daresay she won’t turn up again for another several episodes, so why get invested?
A hungover Lavon found out he was deeply unpopular in town for messing up, and persona non grata with Annabeth. AB instead managed to get Zoe and Lemon to sit next to each other and play nice, while she spilled the reason why she’d been out of reach. Zoe had decided to sell the house she’d bought with Joel, which was a healthier way to move on.
So, some manoeuvrings as we come closer to season’s end, and the show leaning into frenemies Zoe and Lemon becoming more friendly was refreshing.
3.19 A Better Man
At least all the plotlines were tenuously linked. On the one hand there was singing and dancing this episode, on the other, there was high drama as Wade was the latest character to get his heart crushed, with the show finally remembering the awkwardness for Zoe of being Wade’s friend/ex-girlfriend, and so him generally being able to know when she was lying, and Vivian’s cousin.
For lo, we started with an amusing scene showing that Wade was still waiting for Vivian to call him back, and ended up leaving a very sad and desperate answerphone message, which was slightly derailed by a visiting racoon. (This was an episode full of animals, we had an owl silently judging this town for its shenanigans [or do I project?], Wanda and Tom’s goat making an appearance, and talk of a non-existent anaconda.) Zoe noticed he was worried – hard not to, but a reminder that she reads him as well as he reads her (not that a shipper would feel vindicated by that.) He asked her to have a word with Vivian, who she just happened to be meeting (finally!)
The word with Vivian did not go well for Team Wade. Turned out, he was right, Charles was trying to get Vivian back, and she was torn about it, and avoiding Wade (telling in and of itself.) Some shenanigans followed with Zoe trying to avoid Wade, getting herself a little involved in the medical subplot of the episode, but eventually having to spill. An angry Wade went calling on Vivian, and made an impassioned plea. It was raining and everything! I have to admit I got a little distracted, because I was reminded of the end of s1, and thought Wade was replacing George, and Charles was In The House. In hindsight, no, Vivian was fully dressed, and swept away by Wade’s passionate declaration of whatever it was.
The morning after, he was cock of the hoop, bragging to Zoe (who was all ‘no details, thanks’) about how things were fine, better than fine with Vivian. She was a bit more cautious, asking what exactly Vivian had said.
Well, she’d find out for herself, because she went to see Vivian, and heard that things were indeed a bit more complicated than Wade had thought. Great sex with Wade and all that, but there’d also been offscreen kissing with Charles before, and he was moving to Baton Rouge for work, and suggesting that she and Harley came too and they started afresh. (Let us not forget that Beardy left her and only started sniffing around when Vivian got a new boyfriend who was clearly into her. But teen sweethearts, together for 15 years, father for her child and all that!)
And then Harley had conveniently got into an accident, so Zoe drove Vivian to the hospital, where Charles told Zoe how he really was serious, and Zoe saw the family together and thought, ‘Eek, Wade has no hope. They’re going to Baton Rouge.’ In the middle of all this, Zoe was identifying with Harley as the child of divorce, which was a good character note. Yes, she was too involved as she broke a promise to Vivian and told Wade too much at various points – I kept thinking Vivian should front up and tell Wade herself a lot of this, like a grown woman. But then, most of Vivian’s avoidance can be attributed to her being a supporting character and Zoe being the lead, and we all care about the Zoe-Wade angle a lot more.
For Zoe came and told Wade not to have too much hope, Vivian was going to Baton Rouge. He’d turn up at Vivan’s later, and find…Zoe (wearing an incongruous top saying ‘smile’ on it, although she was wearing a lot of red this ep, which looked good on her.) She asked hadn’t Vivian told him to call her, he replied that he’d decided it would be better to call on V in person (probably fearing what was coming). She wasn’t there, Zoe told him, because she’d gone to Baton Rouge to look for houses with Charles and asked Zoe to babysit the still recuperating Harley. Wade didn’t entirely believe all this until Harley himself backed it up. Wade managed to be great with Harley, even while his heart was smashed into smithereens, while Zoe watched sympathetically.
That makes him the last to join the main six characters this series in heartbreak. Well, arguably Lemon has just had her ego bruised, and George was going more off his and Tansy’s history than that they’d had much of anything going this time round. (Shipper me is delighted with the latest development, though it’s been obvious that it was coming.)
But what about the singing and dancing? Well, Lavon found that the Owls were ready to support him despite losing Bluebell the county fair and being horrid to Annabeth, and would continue to hold the Mayor’s roast and toast. But AB found that the Belles were ready to support her and would boycott the roast and toast. Lavon’s latest attempt to apologise went badly enough that AB recklessly said the Belles would hold their own roast and toast the same night, thank you very much.
We had the musical number, with Lavon leading the OWLS (mainly middle aged men behind him) and AB leading the Belles (a good decade and more younger) in competing routines. And then both Lavon and AB realised they’d need Tom’s help with the lights for their show. So, like it was a 60s romcom, we had a split screen of them both trying to sweet talk Tom, who was trying to relax both times, into lighting their show.
We already knew why Tom was trying to relax, for the medical subplot was Wanda taking drugs to help her ovulate. They were giving her mood swings, but as Brick said, that was a sign they worked and she and Tom should have at it. (I liked that they brought up Wanda and Tom wanting to have children, because the show has remained silent on this since they got married, although the proposed llama farming and the goat were suggestive of broodiness.)
Meanwhile Lemon was steaming because Fancie’s had only got an A- for its cleanliness. George was still flashing back to the sex, but mumbled something about how maybe the inspector had been in a bad mood. Of course, Lemon decided to make it her job to improve said inspector’s mood, which it turned out was caused by her ballroom dancing partner letting her down just before a competition May had wanted to participate in. Lemon suggested her father step in.
Which he did, and the couple were okay (terrible gapping, though), but Brick got called away to a medical emergency, which turned out to be Tom’s stress levels. Wanda turned into a fury and invited Lavon and AB to the gazebo and yelled at them to fix it. They sheepishly did, and Wanda and Tom were eventually let alone.
George had gone to the Reverend for advice about his Lemon situation. He suggested George dated the visiting Sunday school teacher, who turned out to be a party animal beneath a facade. She and George went clubbing, which was probably not what the Rev meant when he said ‘date’.
But what about May’s dancing dreams? Lemon stepped in to replace her father, dressed in a suit, saying she’d have no problem leading (which I could well believe). The scratch couple apparently came seventh, and May was chuffed enough with that that she agreed to redo the inspection then and there. Except George and his date were having a food fight as foreplay in Fancie’s kitchen.
The next day, a furious Lemon railed at George because they’d got a C (after she’d bargained up from a fail). Although I didn’t condone her trying to get the inspector to change her grade, she had the rights of it, but George was glad to find he was just very, very irritated with Lemon and his world was as it should be. So, am I, George, that nonsense has gone on two episodes too long.
As the previouslies reminded us that Lemon had had a special night with a hot guy with a wandering spirit, it was no surprise when she quite literally bumped into him in Bluebell again, and he suggested they have dinner. This was just after she’d told George that she’d decided to go off men for three months. George had mixed feelings about all this, because he was still having his flashbacks to sex problem.
Something similar happened to Zoe, except her hot guy was totally new and a cyclist. Both women tried to call AB for advice, but AB was too distracted by the new man in her life, Davis, and told them to talk to each other. Ha, as if.
Zoe tried talking to Lavon instead, but he was building a model of Bluebell, not because he was still heartbroken but as part of a pitch to get the county fair. His preparations were thrown off kilter when Mayor Gainey called to inform him that AB was now dating Gainey’s nephew. George told him not to believe it and get distracted.
Lemon tried turning to Brick, who complained at one point in the ep that he was surrounded by crazy women (you’re the father of two and the father figure of one, what does that say about you!?) For Marigold had come to ask permission to go to a party at Charleston held by Carter Covington. Her father refused. When she didn’t return to her grandmother’s, Brick started a rumour that Not!Captain Awesome was into 17 year old girls, and then insisted that George come along with him to read the riot act.
I was all WHY? WHY IS GEORGE DOING THIS? Granted, Lemon bossed him into doing stuff (in relation to Fancie’s, which they co-own) at the top and tail of the episode, but George doesn’t have responsibility over Marigold, even if he got guilted into intervening that time she was thrown out of her boarding school. Brick does. Brick needed company for the ‘seven hour drive’ though (in hindsight, he should have stopped to think would even Marigold go so far for a party?)
George really should have stayed in Bluebell for Lavon’s sake, because he’d been there when Lavon was informed that AB really was seeing Mayor Gainey’s nephew.
In an entirely separate subplot, Wade was at another Wilkes’ family event – how has he inherited what started off as Zoe’s family connection? Why doesn’t she go to any of these family events or even acknowledge them any more? Vivian suggested they went on a ‘just them’ date the next night. Potential obstacles soon arose, as little Harley failed at sports and Beardy AKA Charles tried to emphasise the co-parenting thing and push Wade to the margins. Wade was too fast to accuse him of having ulterior motivations. But the next night, on their date, Charles was distracting Vivian with pictures of Harley’s little wins and how the rest of the Wilkes were involved, and playing a little on her guilt at not being there for Harley.
Wade nobly suggested she go, and she was all too eager to. Less nobly, he stuck around at the wine-tasting party, ‘tasting the wine’ when he’s not that fussed. He refused his old (female) friend’s offer that he stay for an after party, as he should. But he did leave a desperate little phone message for Vivian and then did a desperate little drive by to find that Charles had stayed the night (on the sofa) and Vivian wanted to rush back to Harley, distancing herself from Wade. Oh Wade, sweetie, we’re coming to the end of the season, and thus likely the end of your first relationship after Zoe which was all about proving how you’ve matured.
As for all the other relationships, Lemon welcomed Peter to her house, and tried not to feel twinges as he sweet talked her but showed no interest in stopping being a rolling stone. Zoe, after much angsting about whether she was ready to date again, three weeks after things ended with Joel, went to Fancie’s with a man who’s name I have no intention of retaining, because he turned out to be ghastly. The two women ended up leaving their dates, calling each other and meeting up at Zoe’s office to drink a little wine and offer each other brutally frank advice about each other’s situations. They ended up taking said advice, with Lemon returning home to tell Peter she wanted a relationship with a hope of a future, and he wasn’t offering one, while Zoe went back to Fancie’s to shout at her obtuse and obnoxious date. I hope she left him to foot the bill.
Meanwhile, Lavon’s big pitch meeting was outside the Rammer-Jammer (ohhhhkay), which meant he saw AB going into a car with her new beau. He proceeded to partake a little too much of the R-J’s wares, mess up his pitch, and ended up at AB’s door, spewing a nasty little conspiracy theory. I was on her side, anyway, because he was the one who hadn’t been able to tell her he loved her, so where does he get off playing dog in the manger? But she dealt with it with dignity, reminding me that she may well be my favourite character on the show.
Quite some distance away, Brick (and George) woke up Carter Covington, to find out there was no party and no Marigold. Conveniently, our young evil genius had sent Covington an e-vite to the real party – held at her father’s, while he was on his wild goose chase. George was all ‘well played.’ (Please don’t tell me that Geroge/Marigold is eventual endgame!)
I wondered how wild a party it could be if nobody else in Bluebell noticed, although the main characters were wrapped up in their own dramas. Brick came home to find Marigold alone in a sanitised version of ‘parental home after a teenage rager’, and tried the disappointed dad routine with a dash of ‘try to see it from my perspective’, as he'd already gone nuclear by sending her to live with her grandmother and to a religious girls’ school. She negotiated another boarding school and for him to come visiting, which I’d buy, but I daresay she won’t turn up again for another several episodes, so why get invested?
A hungover Lavon found out he was deeply unpopular in town for messing up, and persona non grata with Annabeth. AB instead managed to get Zoe and Lemon to sit next to each other and play nice, while she spilled the reason why she’d been out of reach. Zoe had decided to sell the house she’d bought with Joel, which was a healthier way to move on.
So, some manoeuvrings as we come closer to season’s end, and the show leaning into frenemies Zoe and Lemon becoming more friendly was refreshing.
3.19 A Better Man
At least all the plotlines were tenuously linked. On the one hand there was singing and dancing this episode, on the other, there was high drama as Wade was the latest character to get his heart crushed, with the show finally remembering the awkwardness for Zoe of being Wade’s friend/ex-girlfriend, and so him generally being able to know when she was lying, and Vivian’s cousin.
For lo, we started with an amusing scene showing that Wade was still waiting for Vivian to call him back, and ended up leaving a very sad and desperate answerphone message, which was slightly derailed by a visiting racoon. (This was an episode full of animals, we had an owl silently judging this town for its shenanigans [or do I project?], Wanda and Tom’s goat making an appearance, and talk of a non-existent anaconda.) Zoe noticed he was worried – hard not to, but a reminder that she reads him as well as he reads her (not that a shipper would feel vindicated by that.) He asked her to have a word with Vivian, who she just happened to be meeting (finally!)
The word with Vivian did not go well for Team Wade. Turned out, he was right, Charles was trying to get Vivian back, and she was torn about it, and avoiding Wade (telling in and of itself.) Some shenanigans followed with Zoe trying to avoid Wade, getting herself a little involved in the medical subplot of the episode, but eventually having to spill. An angry Wade went calling on Vivian, and made an impassioned plea. It was raining and everything! I have to admit I got a little distracted, because I was reminded of the end of s1, and thought Wade was replacing George, and Charles was In The House. In hindsight, no, Vivian was fully dressed, and swept away by Wade’s passionate declaration of whatever it was.
The morning after, he was cock of the hoop, bragging to Zoe (who was all ‘no details, thanks’) about how things were fine, better than fine with Vivian. She was a bit more cautious, asking what exactly Vivian had said.
Well, she’d find out for herself, because she went to see Vivian, and heard that things were indeed a bit more complicated than Wade had thought. Great sex with Wade and all that, but there’d also been offscreen kissing with Charles before, and he was moving to Baton Rouge for work, and suggesting that she and Harley came too and they started afresh. (Let us not forget that Beardy left her and only started sniffing around when Vivian got a new boyfriend who was clearly into her. But teen sweethearts, together for 15 years, father for her child and all that!)
And then Harley had conveniently got into an accident, so Zoe drove Vivian to the hospital, where Charles told Zoe how he really was serious, and Zoe saw the family together and thought, ‘Eek, Wade has no hope. They’re going to Baton Rouge.’ In the middle of all this, Zoe was identifying with Harley as the child of divorce, which was a good character note. Yes, she was too involved as she broke a promise to Vivian and told Wade too much at various points – I kept thinking Vivian should front up and tell Wade herself a lot of this, like a grown woman. But then, most of Vivian’s avoidance can be attributed to her being a supporting character and Zoe being the lead, and we all care about the Zoe-Wade angle a lot more.
For Zoe came and told Wade not to have too much hope, Vivian was going to Baton Rouge. He’d turn up at Vivan’s later, and find…Zoe (wearing an incongruous top saying ‘smile’ on it, although she was wearing a lot of red this ep, which looked good on her.) She asked hadn’t Vivian told him to call her, he replied that he’d decided it would be better to call on V in person (probably fearing what was coming). She wasn’t there, Zoe told him, because she’d gone to Baton Rouge to look for houses with Charles and asked Zoe to babysit the still recuperating Harley. Wade didn’t entirely believe all this until Harley himself backed it up. Wade managed to be great with Harley, even while his heart was smashed into smithereens, while Zoe watched sympathetically.
That makes him the last to join the main six characters this series in heartbreak. Well, arguably Lemon has just had her ego bruised, and George was going more off his and Tansy’s history than that they’d had much of anything going this time round. (Shipper me is delighted with the latest development, though it’s been obvious that it was coming.)
But what about the singing and dancing? Well, Lavon found that the Owls were ready to support him despite losing Bluebell the county fair and being horrid to Annabeth, and would continue to hold the Mayor’s roast and toast. But AB found that the Belles were ready to support her and would boycott the roast and toast. Lavon’s latest attempt to apologise went badly enough that AB recklessly said the Belles would hold their own roast and toast the same night, thank you very much.
We had the musical number, with Lavon leading the OWLS (mainly middle aged men behind him) and AB leading the Belles (a good decade and more younger) in competing routines. And then both Lavon and AB realised they’d need Tom’s help with the lights for their show. So, like it was a 60s romcom, we had a split screen of them both trying to sweet talk Tom, who was trying to relax both times, into lighting their show.
We already knew why Tom was trying to relax, for the medical subplot was Wanda taking drugs to help her ovulate. They were giving her mood swings, but as Brick said, that was a sign they worked and she and Tom should have at it. (I liked that they brought up Wanda and Tom wanting to have children, because the show has remained silent on this since they got married, although the proposed llama farming and the goat were suggestive of broodiness.)
Meanwhile Lemon was steaming because Fancie’s had only got an A- for its cleanliness. George was still flashing back to the sex, but mumbled something about how maybe the inspector had been in a bad mood. Of course, Lemon decided to make it her job to improve said inspector’s mood, which it turned out was caused by her ballroom dancing partner letting her down just before a competition May had wanted to participate in. Lemon suggested her father step in.
Which he did, and the couple were okay (terrible gapping, though), but Brick got called away to a medical emergency, which turned out to be Tom’s stress levels. Wanda turned into a fury and invited Lavon and AB to the gazebo and yelled at them to fix it. They sheepishly did, and Wanda and Tom were eventually let alone.
George had gone to the Reverend for advice about his Lemon situation. He suggested George dated the visiting Sunday school teacher, who turned out to be a party animal beneath a facade. She and George went clubbing, which was probably not what the Rev meant when he said ‘date’.
But what about May’s dancing dreams? Lemon stepped in to replace her father, dressed in a suit, saying she’d have no problem leading (which I could well believe). The scratch couple apparently came seventh, and May was chuffed enough with that that she agreed to redo the inspection then and there. Except George and his date were having a food fight as foreplay in Fancie’s kitchen.
The next day, a furious Lemon railed at George because they’d got a C (after she’d bargained up from a fail). Although I didn’t condone her trying to get the inspector to change her grade, she had the rights of it, but George was glad to find he was just very, very irritated with Lemon and his world was as it should be. So, am I, George, that nonsense has gone on two episodes too long.
