I was hoping this was the winter finale but unfortunately we have one more week before we get a well-deserved break from the depraved lives of the sad sacks of Nashville. This week, Colt took a page out of Maddie’s bitch teen book and really amped up the LIFE ISN’T FAIR and I HATE YOU’s for some QT with Luke. Gabriella goes out on a limb as the girlfriend trying to impress the kids with, “So Colt, your dad tells me your pretty big into hip hop,” like she’s talking to a 6 year old and not a teenager who witnessed a guy plummeting to his death. Stay irrelevant, Gabriella, don’t eva change. Luke tries to take Colt fishing so they can bond and also so his son can sign a nondisclosure about the death he witnessed that Luke is sweep, sweep, sweeping under the rug. Daddy issues bubble over when it turns out Luke actually needs to do a Forbes photo shoot. Is Luke even that famous? Anyway, dad almost punches son and son moves in with grandpa, you know, the usual. Hey Luke you’re a shitty dad and your girlfriend’s about to leave you once the work dries up. Boom, roasted.

Scarlett and Caleb’s relationship progresses in that they drag it out for another week REFUSING TO BREAK UP WHEN THEY’RE TERRIBLE TOGETHER. Scarlett surprises Caleb on her day off and he’s like sarrryyy I’m busy. When he finally gets home, Scarlett is waiting for him in a nice Maidenform bra to seduce him I guess? I mean this scene was about as sexy as a Nickelodeon cartoon. Obviously not overcome with the need to bed his girlfriend who’s only in town for 24 hours, Caleb opts for a solo shower sesh. THIS ALONE POINTS TO DUMPSVILLE, Population: Scarlett. But no…later for pillow talk, Scarlett (wearing nothing but a beaded Navajo choker) tells a story about someone on the tour bus falling out of the bunk with a thong on and Nick talks about his clinical trial. Are these two compatible, or what?! It all blows up when Doc loses his baby bitch temper as he’s known to do once a week and shouts -I DEAL WITH PEOPLE WITH CANCER, NOT SING FOR FREE BEER. And yet…they stay together. Their entire relationship has a whole dad hit mom at the dinner table and we all need to act casual feel to it. Dr. Caleb is an asshole. Get him outta here.

Since I naturally tend to clump them together because they both send me to Snoozetown, Avery visits the poorhouse this week while Will thumbs his nose at a high-paying songwriting gig just because country singers think they’re going to catch the gay from working with him. Avery has quickly taken Layla’s place as the sad sap of the show. Everything in his life soooooks. He can’t book a gig on his own anymore and when he finally does he has to cancel it for a jingle because it pays more and lil screamer’s gotta eat, I guess. LoLz to Emily offering to launder money from Juliette’s account for a quick loanski AS IF that’s totes legal. Look, I can sympathize with Avery’s shitty life because I deal with being a poor person every day but like I also don’t need to relive it on TV every Wednesday. This is not interesting television. At one point Avery preaches to Will, “What we want to do and what we need to do don’t always line up.” And SHIT that’s depressing, but also #blessed because at least I don’t have an infant to support on an unemployed salary. Tough stuff, lesson learned.

Rayna still hasn’t learned that Markus is trying to bang her and it’s actually kind of cute that she’s so naïve to her mad cougar vibes. Markus finally meets Deacon—calls him Freakin’ Deacon and wraps him in an aggressive bear hug (thus deducting hot points) and shouts with glee that he NEEDS to work with the Deaconator. Yeah, yeah whatever we see where this little ménage a trois is going. Unfortunately for all of us, Markus is so eager to be the meat in a Deacon-Rayna sandwich that he coins them “the dream team” and goes to the record store to stock up on every song Deacon ever released (I’m assuming they were in a cardboard box marked “Vintage”.) For a quick giggle, the original “dream team” refers to the ‘92 US basketball team in the Olympics, but sure, a recovering alcoholic who doesn’t play anymore, a country singer turned declining label owner and a surly rocker who everyone refuses to work with TOTES equals a dream team. Before they can even win a gold medal there’s a little tussle over changing lyrics for a song, Deacon handles it real well, by stomping around with his fingers in his ears and shouting that Markus obviously wants to bang one out with Rayna. Rayna is like WHO, ME?! *hair flip* then skips on over to Markus’s hotel—where he’s just stepping out of the shower in an open cardigan. Markus agrees that their relationship is just business then winks and closes the door. He’ll be forcing himself upon Rayna in due time. In due time. (Next week.) Something tells me there’s trouble amongst the dream team.

ALSO Gunnar finally writes a song that I like with NO whining whatsoever. He was supes inspired by slumming it with roadie Erin, who wears a fedora and touches statue bewbz. And for all the cringes in the world, Maddie goes full on BIIIIITCH and curb stomps her innocent lil sis by treating her like she’s a member of Barney and Friends then actually comparing her fashion sense to Kidz Bop. KIDZ BOP. I didn’t think there could be anything more insulting this episode. Have your ears ever bled to the tune of a chorus of children singing today’s pop hits? Just the commercial alone makes me want to go deaf forever. Seriously, whatever genius thought hey, I know how to make top ten radio hits catchier, let’s have children get in a recording studio and sing along to them like they’re performing at their 3^rd grade concert! GENIUS. It’s like the Kars for Kids jingle, but 13 of them, on a CD, that’s sold for profit. GAH. But I digress, Maddie laughs right in Daphne’s face just for trying to be more like her and it’s terribly sad and I want to cuddle little Daphne bear and tell her it gets better but because they’re sisters they’ve made up five minutes later.

I never thought I’d say this but like…I think I want Teddy back. I mean I’m literally begging for the mayor who used to bang call girls and try to keep it on tha DL to come back to this show. That’s where we’re at. #FREETEDDY. Let’s get it trending, guyz.

I think that if I had slept through that hour of television I still could have adequately provided this recap just from last week’s previews. In fact, I kind of wish I did.

We carry on with this “let’s be sad about Bev” business by opening up on her funeral. What’s vital to dwell on is not that Bev is dead and Deacon is sad, but that Rayna wears a chic as hell hat to the event like it’s the Kentucky Derby. The south has risen—hallelujah! Oh sorry is that inapprops for Bev’s tearful goodbye, because that’s the vibe I’m getting from the cap that’s perched atop Rayna’s perfect mermaid waves. Other than Rayna’s hat fit for a Tyler Perry movie, ZOEY IS BACK. “Ugggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhghghghghghghg” sums up the exact reaction I had to seeing her back on my TV. She sings a little at the funeral and I pray that she’ll be hightailing it back to the land of banished minor characters who haven’t been killed STAT. Deacon holds it together and gives a beautiful eulogy. Just kidding he sputters and sobs in the first sentence and shouts SHE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE RIGHT NOW. Way to keep it cool, Deacon. Obviously he still regards his niece as a murderer who shall be shunned from his life forever. Then Zoey and Gunnar get a minute to chat which merely consists of Gunnar being all “hey we should catch up sometime” (a very standard thing to say to someone you’ve never made to effort to keep in touch with but awkwardly run into) and Zoey’s all “I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!!!!” No one cares, girl, no one cares.

Meanwhile Juliette misses three interviews from partying and Jeffy Fordham flies out from wherever they film Scream Queens to kick her ass into gear and declare that her punishment is to have a reporter all up in her shit for the next two days for an article. Juliette takes this opportunity to turn her life around and do what she gets paid millions to do with a smile on her face. Except for the fact that she pops an adderall from a “doctor” in a suit among a crowd of fans, like NO ONE WOULD CATCH HER TOSSING PILLS BACK. No but actually, no one thinks this is cause for concern. As if in today’s world every single fan doesn’t have their iphone out snapping pics and vids and would ever let a drug deal right in front of their dumb teen eyeballs slide on unnoticed. Ugh. Clearly this fires me up. Anyway, this one incident leads to her becoming a casual drug addict in mere minutes. She washes down some sleeping pills with a nip for bedtime before she moves onto needles the next night. No seriously, she calls formal doc over for a shot in the hip so she can “feel nothing.” Things are still going real swell for her, obviously.

Juliette takes some time out of working her way down her narcotics bucket list to see some snapshots of Avery, Emily & Screamer at the park playing house and dial up Emily to politely relay the message that she’s, “just a gold-diggin, back-stabbin, whore.” Probz safe to say that Emily’s paychecks will stop coming in on the reg. Avery tries to rationalize that his wife might still have an inkling of affection for the creature that once resided in her uterus for 9 months by comparing her to BEV. YIIIIKES. Couldn’t think of anyone else, Avery? Him holding out hope for his now doped up wife is getting a liiiiiiiiittle sad.

Someone whose not handling the sads very well is Deacon, who is often known to drown his sorrows in the bottle, but managed to stay sober for this whole episode! Pause for golf clap. Besides, we’ve got a whole season for him to fall off the wagon, no need to rush. One thing we do know is that he DOES NOT want any DAMN funeral casserole. He also beats the shit out of Bev’s old room and stuff while Maddie spies on him and runs away because her dad punched a mirror and she just can’t even.

One thing that remains is Deacon’s fiery hate for Scarlett who is having a tough time coping and when Zoey asks if Caleb is helping she says hugging him is like hugging a textbook. WHOA. Did she take that right out of an erotica novel? Hugging a textbook? Sounds hawt. What chemistry those two have. Dr. Caleb tries to put the spice back in their relationship (was it ever there?) and decides to write her a song. Since he’s so ABOVE music, his lyrics are on par with Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and he’s forced to ask Gunnar for help. Gunnar obvsicles just writes a song from his heart because he’s madly in love with Scarlett but when Scarlett reads the lyrics she doesn’t suspect that Caleb had basically nothing to do with it and thanks him by opening her legs.

Layla also opens her legs as a welcome back to her boyfriend/manager Jeff Fordham, who is playing the loving boyfriend character in scarily accurate fashion. He gives her some sassy cowboy boots for her Opry debut and I would love a pair of my own, Jeff, jus sayin. No seriously, where can I buy those and are they under 20 bucks because I’m currently on an unemployment budget.

Anyway, Layla does the whole Opry debut thang and the only highlight is Jeff backstage smugly telling Rayna she finally did something right by his client and Rayna snapping back “Shut up, Jeff.” After her forgettable song, Rayna sings her praises and they are quite soon stomped on as Marcus Keen the millennial boy toy of my dreams shows up and even those sparkly cowboy boots can’t stop her from fading into the background of The Opry…Highway 65…life…The good news is that Marcus isn’t just a pretty face, he also tells riveting stories about Prince Harry grabbing the mic from him, a lesson he quickly picked up when he basically grabs the mic from Layla later on and drop kicks her from the stage.

But before that, Avery sneaks in to pitch the producer gig for Marcus by telling him that he’s got loads of credits such as being Juliette’s baby daddy…or at least that’s what Marcus knows him for. Zing, bro. It’s gotta be REAL rough to have a rep in the biz for being a baby daddy and not a talented producer. Before Avery can even seal the deal he gets a call that his little screamer has a high fever and needs to be rushed to the hospital. Obviously. (Just don’t try to call Mommy because she’ll be unconscious in nothing-land for another 10-12 hours!)

This frees up Marcus to throw an invisibility cloak over Layla and do an extremely creepy duet with Rayna about how much they love each other with a whole lot of close-face singing. It was ALMOST as mentally scarring as Juliette and Steven Tyler’s hover-arming but couldn’t quite take the cake for all the cringes. Afterward Rayna has to tell her number 1 label star that it was “uncool” to jack Layla’s spotlight and bum rush the sacred country stage. I’m gonna guess this union will be short-lived as we all know there’s only room for one diva at Highway 65 and she belongs on Nashville’s Mount Rushmore of Hair.