16 EW.COM MARCH 10, 2017
“Maybe this song is finished.”
And with those words (from
the ghost of her dead mom,
no less), Rayna Jaymes’ fate was sealed
on the Feb. 23 episode ofNashville.
Immediately after surviving an attack
by her knife-wielding stalker, Rayna
(Connie Britton) got into a devastating car
accident. Recovery briefly seemed pos-
sible, but then the country singer’s organs
started shutting down. By episode’s end,
she was dead. “It was the net result of
the horrible things that had happened to
her,” says producer Marshall Herskovitz.
“Life always seems to go that way: In the
moment where you think you’re free
and clear, some terrible thing happens.”
But if there’s one genre that knows how
to turn heartache into music, it’s coun-
try. After a hiatus following the March 9
episode,Nashville will return this summer
and pick up three months after Rayna’s
death. “There’s a balance between the
new stories, some new people that come
into [the characters’] lives, and the fact
that they’re still dealing with this incredi-
ble loss,” Herskovitz says.Perhaps reeling the most is Rayna’s
husband, Deacon (Charles Esten). After
a lifelong romance filled with ups and
downs, he’s left to face life without the
woman who helped hold him together as
he struggled with alcoholism. “The ques-
tion that he faces is: Did her love just make
him strong enough to survive with her or
did it make him strong enough to survive
without her?” Esten says. Even with Rayna
gone, Deacon will find himself having
to defend his wife, battling to protect her
legacy in the back half of the season.
Though Herskovitz sees the show as an
ensemble, he knows some viewers can’t
imagine a Rayna-lessNashville, so they
will see her in flashback. “There is a life for
the show beyond Rayna,” he says. “But
that doesn’t mean we forget her.” In other
words, Rayna’s song might be finished,
butNashville’s keeps playing.
Connie Britton and
Charles EstenTHE SHOW
MUST GO ON
Nashville is hardly the
first drama to dare
kill off a main characterDEREK SHEPHERD
A goodGrey’s Anatomy
doc killed by bad ones.With Rayna Jaymes (Connie Britton) singing her last refrain (sob!), producer Marshall
Herskovitz charts out the CMT series’ future.BY SAMANTHA HIGHFILL
Nashville’s Life After Death
Daniel
Kaluuya and
Allison
Williams in
Get OutGET OUT
BREAKS OUT
Jordan Peele’s directorial
debut scares (and scores) at the
box office.BY JOEY NOLFI•••
Five seasons ofKey & Peele, 94 epi-
sodes ofMad TV, and oneKeanu
later, heeere’s Jordan. Best known
for his comedic chops, Jordan
Peele surprised and delighted hor-
ror fans withGet Out, his inaugural
turn behind the camera, which
chopped its closest competitor,The
LEGO Batman Movie, down to size
in its first weekend at the domes-
tic box office. The film, about a
young black man (Daniel Kaluuya)
who discovers that his white girl-
friend (Allison Williams) has a
sinister family secret while visiting
their posh estate—captured the
zeitgeist with its racially charged
premise, luring in moviegoers
to the tune of $33.4 million and
making it Blumhouse Productions’
seventh microbudgeted film to
open above the $30 million mark.
Moviegoers weren’t the only ones
pleased with Peele’s buzzy flick; the
film hit theaters on Feb. 24 with a
stunning 100 percent “fresh” score
on review-aggregation site Rot-
ten Tomatoes, putting it in league
with only four of its genre breth-
ren, including 1920’sThe Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari and 1965’sRepulsion.
ThoughGet Out’s score has since
dipped slightly (as of press time it
was at 99 percent fresh), the proof
is in the blood spatter; we’ve never
been so tickled to be terrified.EDDARD STARK REK
TheGame of Thrones
hero lost his head.MARISSA COOPER
This girl next door never
made it out ofThe O.C.NASHVILLE: JAKE GILES NETTER/CMT;THE O.C.: FOX;GAME OF THRONES: HELEN SLOAN/HBO;GREY’S ANATOMY: RON TOM/ABC; PEELE: VALERIE MACON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES;GET OUT: JUSTIN LUBIN/UNIVERSAL