HOD: Anything's possible (on a CW show)
Mar. 29th, 2024 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessHart of Dixie - 3.21 Stuck
Mostly shenanigans, some strong feelings underlying some of them, and everyone telling Wade ‘Anything’s possible’. I will say this, though, director Mary Lou Belli had an eye for using familiar spaces slightly differently. It looked as though the sets for the outside of Zoe’s place, Lavon’s house’s interior and the surgery were much bigger than usual.
Did Lavon, with George as a loyal witness, have the silliest plotline? Hard to say, really, but it involved playing ping-pong against Mayor Gainey to determine whose town came top on a replacement road sign. George’s investigative moment of triumph came when he denounced Gainey as the one who’d vandalised the road sign that needed to be replaced in the first place. Thus giving Bluebell the top place!
The episode started with Zoe’s elderly uncle coming to tell her he was getting married because of her. Zoe jumped on the title ‘love maker’ immediately. The happy couple were planning to wed in the next month and wanted Zoe and Wade to do a reading at the ceremony. As Wade was still cross with Zoe, that looked unlikely.
Lemon’s grandmother was back in town, wanting to send Lemon on a cruise with southern gentlemen bachelors so that she could get married, even if Lemon said it was pathetic and she was very busy with Fancie’s. She was trying to get a socialite to agree to hold her wedding there. Said socialite seemed to be quite the match for Lemon and pointed out there didn’t seem to be a website with photos of past weddings on it. Lemon promised the website would be (back?) up with photos by the end of the week.
She tried brainstorming with AB, but the latter hadn’t had enough sleep because of her new boyfriend. In this scene, held in the Rammer-Jammer, a mystery woman had a proposition for Wade that sounded like a business proposition. Lemon heard about the Wilkes wedding and set out to insist the couple bring it forward and hold it at Fancie’s. By pointing out that time was not on their side. So Lemon.
Rose had now decided she might want to become a doctor and wanted Brick as a mentor. (Zoe offered, but Rose said that it would mean more to get a curmudgeon like Brick’s approval. Heh.) Brick only agreed after his mother turned up wanting to lunch.
Dr Zoe was required to see Earl who had requested a physical. And it was Earl, not Crazy Earl. He hadn’t drunk for over four weeks. When Zoe learned why – he fancied the health inspector – she, ‘the love maker’, decided to promote the match. And maybe use it as a way of bringing her together with Wade, because surely he’d want his father to be happy. Except Wade, still hostile to her, responded like the son of a drunk who’s been let down one too many times. Zoe proceed to bulldoze Earl into a makeover that made him look like he could be Wade’s father (compliment) and ask the object of his desire out.
Meanwhile, at her grandmother’s call (and for money), Magnolia had returned to Bluebell, where she was miffed to find her father spending all his time so enthusiastically with Rose.
Lemon saw Davis in a car with a strange woman, accosted him like a fury of a best friend and found that he was actually looking at engagement rings. His jewellery broker said this happened all the time. Tell you what, love, don’t meet clients in their cars and you’ll find it happens waaay less. Lemon was both supportive best friend and opportunistic restaurant co-owner, suggesting that Davis propose to AB at Fancie’s and she’d take the pictures.
At the Rammer-Jammer, Wade had, for some reason, allowed Lily Anne to sing there. He looked mighty uncomfortable as she sang a brief love song straight at him. But wait, it wasn’t directed at him, it was at Meatball, former thrash country afficionado who seemed to be fine with acoustic guitar ballads and declared he was in love and getting married. He’d soon be calling Lemon because she’d been a bit rash and desperate in offering a friends and family discount.
Zoe had come to the R-J to gloat about Earl’s date, but it was spoiled when his date came in to say that Earl was an hour late picking her up and did Wade or Zoe know why. Bitterly Wade thought he did, but Zoe was sure something had gone wrong.
Meanwhile, Magnolia was bitterly disappointed to find that her father was going to have supper with his new protégé instead of his family. (I.e. her.) She tried bullying Rose, while showing her complete ignorance of medicine, but Rose was smart enough to hear the abandonment issues and would end up telling Brick that Magnolia had reason to be resentful that her father seemed to be avoiding her (really her grandmother) on the one night she was home from her latest boarding school.
Zoe was worried enough to go to Earl’s. She saw a spilled bottle and thought the worst, but then heard him calling for help. He seemed sober but had fallen into a hole he’d built in his garden during a survivalist phase. (Plausible for him in Bluebell.) Clever Zoe found this out by falling in too, and heard how he’d got nervous, reached for a drink, remembered what she’d said, hadn’t drunk, but had still fallen into this pit. It then emerged that he’d hurt his leg. Good job he had a doctor there with him.
Fortunately, Zoe had got sufficiently under Wade’s skin that he’d followed her and would be able to help them out, although he was clear that he was disgruntled with both of them.
Davis led a blindfolded AB into an empty Fancie’s (although it was night-time and so should have been full of paying customers.) It was full of candles and roses, and Lemon and her grandmother (who I have to say was wearing a very disappointing hat) were there, one to take pictures, one to carp. He proposed, AB hesitated and there was a definite distraction as a candle fell into a curtain that went up in flame immediately. Sprinklers came on, AB said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’
While Zoe examined Earl’s injury, he passed out and Zoe realised it was a break and the bone was pressing on his artery. She and Wade needed to pull his leg like a tug of war with equal force in the hope that it would snap back together properly or Earl would lose his foot. (TV doctoring, right there!) They managed the teamwork, and Earl was all right.
Brick came home and said the right things to Magnolia, even agreeing they could go to a holiday destination of her choice – she floated Las Vegas and Amsterdam. He then cut her off to answer a phone call from Lemon, but as it was to say there’d been a fire, fair enough.
Wade came home to report on the good news from the hospital to Zoe, clearly shaken and moved and thanked her. He also revealed that the mystery proposition was that the RJ be franchised, and he wouldn’t be coming to the Wilkes wedding because he'd be in Atlanta. Both actors were great at showing that the characters, having been through an experience that highlighted what was important, realised that this meant there would be no second chance for them, and they regretted it.
There’s a part of me that feels the need to say that franchising probably doesn’t work like that, and although Wade is the current owner, he’s worked on the basis of the previous owner’s work, really. He didn’t even come up with the bar’s name! But he’s leaving – like Joel did, even though his defining characteristic was always that he was the one who stayed. (Of course if his father stays sober, he might not need him so much. And Zoe was acting much like a daughter in law towards Earl all episode, actually, which was sweet.)
Should also note that the proposed cruise made me think of the one where Zoe’s mother met the original Harley Wilkes. Will Lemon go and give up the chance to boss everyone about how to rebuild Fancie’s according to her specifications? And what will Annabeth’s answer to Davis be? (‘It’s too soon, ask me again in a few months,’ seems entirely reasonable, but Hart of Dixie is not about being entirely reasonable, is it!?) Questions to be answered in the third season finale!
Mostly shenanigans, some strong feelings underlying some of them, and everyone telling Wade ‘Anything’s possible’. I will say this, though, director Mary Lou Belli had an eye for using familiar spaces slightly differently. It looked as though the sets for the outside of Zoe’s place, Lavon’s house’s interior and the surgery were much bigger than usual.
Did Lavon, with George as a loyal witness, have the silliest plotline? Hard to say, really, but it involved playing ping-pong against Mayor Gainey to determine whose town came top on a replacement road sign. George’s investigative moment of triumph came when he denounced Gainey as the one who’d vandalised the road sign that needed to be replaced in the first place. Thus giving Bluebell the top place!
The episode started with Zoe’s elderly uncle coming to tell her he was getting married because of her. Zoe jumped on the title ‘love maker’ immediately. The happy couple were planning to wed in the next month and wanted Zoe and Wade to do a reading at the ceremony. As Wade was still cross with Zoe, that looked unlikely.
Lemon’s grandmother was back in town, wanting to send Lemon on a cruise with southern gentlemen bachelors so that she could get married, even if Lemon said it was pathetic and she was very busy with Fancie’s. She was trying to get a socialite to agree to hold her wedding there. Said socialite seemed to be quite the match for Lemon and pointed out there didn’t seem to be a website with photos of past weddings on it. Lemon promised the website would be (back?) up with photos by the end of the week.
She tried brainstorming with AB, but the latter hadn’t had enough sleep because of her new boyfriend. In this scene, held in the Rammer-Jammer, a mystery woman had a proposition for Wade that sounded like a business proposition. Lemon heard about the Wilkes wedding and set out to insist the couple bring it forward and hold it at Fancie’s. By pointing out that time was not on their side. So Lemon.
Rose had now decided she might want to become a doctor and wanted Brick as a mentor. (Zoe offered, but Rose said that it would mean more to get a curmudgeon like Brick’s approval. Heh.) Brick only agreed after his mother turned up wanting to lunch.
Dr Zoe was required to see Earl who had requested a physical. And it was Earl, not Crazy Earl. He hadn’t drunk for over four weeks. When Zoe learned why – he fancied the health inspector – she, ‘the love maker’, decided to promote the match. And maybe use it as a way of bringing her together with Wade, because surely he’d want his father to be happy. Except Wade, still hostile to her, responded like the son of a drunk who’s been let down one too many times. Zoe proceed to bulldoze Earl into a makeover that made him look like he could be Wade’s father (compliment) and ask the object of his desire out.
Meanwhile, at her grandmother’s call (and for money), Magnolia had returned to Bluebell, where she was miffed to find her father spending all his time so enthusiastically with Rose.
Lemon saw Davis in a car with a strange woman, accosted him like a fury of a best friend and found that he was actually looking at engagement rings. His jewellery broker said this happened all the time. Tell you what, love, don’t meet clients in their cars and you’ll find it happens waaay less. Lemon was both supportive best friend and opportunistic restaurant co-owner, suggesting that Davis propose to AB at Fancie’s and she’d take the pictures.
At the Rammer-Jammer, Wade had, for some reason, allowed Lily Anne to sing there. He looked mighty uncomfortable as she sang a brief love song straight at him. But wait, it wasn’t directed at him, it was at Meatball, former thrash country afficionado who seemed to be fine with acoustic guitar ballads and declared he was in love and getting married. He’d soon be calling Lemon because she’d been a bit rash and desperate in offering a friends and family discount.
Zoe had come to the R-J to gloat about Earl’s date, but it was spoiled when his date came in to say that Earl was an hour late picking her up and did Wade or Zoe know why. Bitterly Wade thought he did, but Zoe was sure something had gone wrong.
Meanwhile, Magnolia was bitterly disappointed to find that her father was going to have supper with his new protégé instead of his family. (I.e. her.) She tried bullying Rose, while showing her complete ignorance of medicine, but Rose was smart enough to hear the abandonment issues and would end up telling Brick that Magnolia had reason to be resentful that her father seemed to be avoiding her (really her grandmother) on the one night she was home from her latest boarding school.
Zoe was worried enough to go to Earl’s. She saw a spilled bottle and thought the worst, but then heard him calling for help. He seemed sober but had fallen into a hole he’d built in his garden during a survivalist phase. (Plausible for him in Bluebell.) Clever Zoe found this out by falling in too, and heard how he’d got nervous, reached for a drink, remembered what she’d said, hadn’t drunk, but had still fallen into this pit. It then emerged that he’d hurt his leg. Good job he had a doctor there with him.
Fortunately, Zoe had got sufficiently under Wade’s skin that he’d followed her and would be able to help them out, although he was clear that he was disgruntled with both of them.
Davis led a blindfolded AB into an empty Fancie’s (although it was night-time and so should have been full of paying customers.) It was full of candles and roses, and Lemon and her grandmother (who I have to say was wearing a very disappointing hat) were there, one to take pictures, one to carp. He proposed, AB hesitated and there was a definite distraction as a candle fell into a curtain that went up in flame immediately. Sprinklers came on, AB said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’
While Zoe examined Earl’s injury, he passed out and Zoe realised it was a break and the bone was pressing on his artery. She and Wade needed to pull his leg like a tug of war with equal force in the hope that it would snap back together properly or Earl would lose his foot. (TV doctoring, right there!) They managed the teamwork, and Earl was all right.
Brick came home and said the right things to Magnolia, even agreeing they could go to a holiday destination of her choice – she floated Las Vegas and Amsterdam. He then cut her off to answer a phone call from Lemon, but as it was to say there’d been a fire, fair enough.
Wade came home to report on the good news from the hospital to Zoe, clearly shaken and moved and thanked her. He also revealed that the mystery proposition was that the RJ be franchised, and he wouldn’t be coming to the Wilkes wedding because he'd be in Atlanta. Both actors were great at showing that the characters, having been through an experience that highlighted what was important, realised that this meant there would be no second chance for them, and they regretted it.
There’s a part of me that feels the need to say that franchising probably doesn’t work like that, and although Wade is the current owner, he’s worked on the basis of the previous owner’s work, really. He didn’t even come up with the bar’s name! But he’s leaving – like Joel did, even though his defining characteristic was always that he was the one who stayed. (Of course if his father stays sober, he might not need him so much. And Zoe was acting much like a daughter in law towards Earl all episode, actually, which was sweet.)
Should also note that the proposed cruise made me think of the one where Zoe’s mother met the original Harley Wilkes. Will Lemon go and give up the chance to boss everyone about how to rebuild Fancie’s according to her specifications? And what will Annabeth’s answer to Davis be? (‘It’s too soon, ask me again in a few months,’ seems entirely reasonable, but Hart of Dixie is not about being entirely reasonable, is it!?) Questions to be answered in the third season finale!
