I forgot for a while how much I hated Maddie. She was still acting like a whiny teenage turd but she was doing it by having rebellious sex and hitting the stage instead of throwing huffy tantrums and crying about how life was unfair. But alas, Maddie the insufferable teen is back and dominates last night’s episode. She kicks things off by sending a selfie to her boyfriend (I’m assuming) followed by, “I’m blonde now, do you like it?” This is how Maddie sexts…from her little sister’s phone. EDGY. Also, wasn’t she always blonde? I’m not really seeing the difference.

Colt probably wasn’t very jazzed about his maybe girlfriend’s hair being lightened by a shade because he’s now in therapy. Ya know, cause he witnessed a death and his dad is a real d-bag lately. Seriously what’s the deal with Luke? He kinda sucks now. And how did Colt get stuck with his shitty parenting? Where are the other woodland creatures that he calls children…I feel like they got the better end of the deal in that they dodged watching a man tumble to his messy death. Regardless, Colt “doesn’t need Kid Rock or a therapist, he needs a dad who gives a crap about telling the truth.” BOOM. (My dad really wanted me to add a boom after that line. All boom credit goes to him.) But actually, Kid Rock? Really? The guy who ripped the riff from Sweet Home Alabama for a shitty summer country song is going to chit chat with Colt about hip hop? Be better, Luke.

Luke doesn’t try that hard to be better when he cries about how everything is his fault (it kinda is) and Gabriella kisses the pain away without being fired first this time. I guess they’ve decided to be together and like still focus on work too. He confesses to Colt so there are no secrets (except for the massive one he’s keeping about Jeff not actually committing suicide.) Colt’s like no shit, I know everything.

Rayna doesn’t really know anything because she’s been in the studio with Markus for like 2 full days while Deacon plays Mr. Mom to her little freshly bleached Satan. Something tells me Deacon is not really loving the whole parenting thing because he run, run, runs as fast as he can to that shitty bar to be named after his dead sis. To be clear, the bar is still a dumb story line that deserves no words and it’s starting to look like his friend and former sponsor Frankie is getting less and less jazzed about Deacon only paying halfsies and going demolition derby on the bar five minutes after buying in.

While Deacon is avoiding his home life by ripping dry wall, Scarlett is on the road and avoiding the fact that she has the most boring relationship in the world. How much longer are we going to put up with this? She had the dramatic hair change and now she needs to shed the high school boyfriend while she’s off at college, or in this case, on tour. They finally catch each other on the phone so that Caleb can pull the “I’m treating kids with cancer” card. Hey Caleb, youse a dick. Go away foreva.

Maybe he can join Erin the roadie when he leaves and finally allows Gunnar and Scarlett to be together so we stop getting this dumb musical sexual tension. As you might have guessed, the arrangement of keeping work and play separate is going swimmingly in that the second Gunnar gets a hotel for the night, play with Erin becomes priority. Due to the fact that little miss roadie prepped for the show by blowing Gunnar, she blows a fuse mid-show and ruins everything. That is, until Gunnar & Scarlett recover smoothly with an acoustic version lit by cell phones. The most unrealistic thing about this was that they didn’t end up blind after this song. I can’t see for 5 minutes after someone takes a picture with flash, I can’t imagine a small theater full of iphone lights burning my retinas. Anyway, thankfully Gunnar grows a set and tells Erin she needs to kick rocks because she clearly sucks at her job. She says she’ll take some pointers about running a soundboard and also will keep getting porked. UGH.

Double UGH to the breakup boys, Avery and Will. Avery is now recording commercial jingles and his life is pretty pathetic. He gossips about Will on the phone with Emily and they really need to stop trying so hard to make Avery and Emily seem like gal pals. She’s the babysitter, enough is enough. It turns out Will has been channeling his inner Taylor Swift, holed up in his bedroom writing breakup songs. This seems like a weird thing to hide so ferociously in Nashville, the songwriting capital of the world. He begrudgingly lets Avery perform one at the Bluebird but big-time shits his pants and leaves before the song. He really misses out too because Avery sheds some tears remembering when Juliette wasn’t a walking bottle of Vodka and in turn, a random blonde in the audience ALSO turns on the waterworks. Who cries at a concert?

Will gets an offer for his first written song that he thought was garbage, naturally, which is the opposite of Maddie’s sitch. She thinks she’s the greatest 16-year-old singer since JoJo and overhears that Sony wants to offer her a record deal but Rayna is like not so fast. YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE MOM GAWDDDDDD!!!!-Me, when my parents told me I couldn’t go to a sleepover or get the latest graphic tee from Abercrombie & Fitch…also Maddie when her mom won’t let her sign a record deal with Sony. Potato, Potahto.

Rayna has a heart to heart with Markus about her kids wanting to get into the biz and he’s NOT a dick for once. It’s great. Then it moves to the couch and gets more intimate and I bet my dad that he tries to hook up with her. I know studio Rayna, and I also know that this show has a real hard time letting two people have a private conversation that doesn’t end in macking. He grabs her hand and the sexual tension is through the roof. They didn’t end up making out but Markus TOTES wanted it, so in due time, I will win this bet. (The seed is planted, so to speak, when Deacon and Rayna do the deed later and Deacon rolls over post-romp to find a text from Markus thanking Rayna for the good talk. Deacon is about to become a green-eyed jelly belly. ALSO we NEVER get to see Rayna have sex anymore. So spicy!)

Maddie tries to tell Daphne that she got the record deal because she’s an adult now and just on another level. I guess I missed the part in society where becoming a sophomore in high school makes you an adult. Das cute, Mads. Daphne is like nobody wants me and runs away crying. Apparently the force of bully Maddie also extends to her father because Deacon has literally been avoiding the house because he thinks Maddie hates him. What a wiener. In the end they call a family meeting to tell the girls they can sign to Highway 65 as a team only. As expected, Maddie’s like this is lame and I hate everything and squashes all of Daphne’s childlike excitement about having a record deal before she gets her first period. In next week’s episode, Maddie turns into the Hulk and eats her entire family because they’re all trying to stop her from being a mature adult superstar.