20 replies to this topic

[DollEyes]

Meet Juliette Barnes. She's the young, beautiful blonde country superstar who's America's newest sweetheart, played by Hayden Panatierre. Based on the first episode, Juliette's also a lying, scheming, backstabbing skank who's determined to stay on top at rival Rayna's James' expense. Then again, since Juliette has a junkie mom who tires to mooch off her every chance she gets, much of Juliette's behavior is understandable, if wrong.

My take: so far, I like Juliette. Despite her mistakes, I don't think she's evil personified, just a mixed-up kid who wasn't raised right. Whether you think Juliette Barnes is the new Queen Of Country, deserves a good, um, Swift kick, both or neither, dish here.

[sammiekay]

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Edited by sammiekay, Jan 30, 2013 @ 12:17 PM.

[Nidratime]

Well, at least one aspect of her. “She’s one of those girls that doesn’t do the whole dancing-around-choreography thing but has that stage presence like no other,” Panettiere says of Underwood’s onstage charisma. “She can just stand there and be incredibly interesting.”

Hmm, no doubt Underwood is very successful, but I don't find her at all interesting or charismatic. Juliette Barnes, on the other hand, does have more oomph.

Edited by Nidratime, Oct 11, 2012 @ 11:29 AM.

[MethodActor05]

I didn't really think Taylor Swift with her, either, because Taylor's very, very much about being wholesome with girly flouncy dresses, and her image isn't really sexpot the way that Juliette's seems to be.

[Last Time Lord]

One aspect I loved about Juliette from the pilot was the thing with her addict mother. It humanized her, and prevented her from being a daytime soap villain, IMO.

[tuco6]

The hair is really the closest thing Juliette has to Taylor Swift. Swift has had credibility and respect for her song-writing since she began, whereas Juliette is more of a Carrie Underwood without Carrie's voice. Although, that said, I didn't think Hayden's voice was bad or warranted heavy autotune! But, I"m also not sure if this is one area where we really should go with what we're told and not shown. The character Juliette Barnes may be a poorer singer than the actress Hayden Panettiere. But I think several real-life celebrities influenced Juliette's character - she has a touch of post-Mean Girls but pre-total meltdown Lindsay Lohan. It's just that early reviewers latched onto the Taylor Swift resemblance and ran with it.

[annonshay]

I hope they delve into the character backstories a bit, maybe even dedicate a whole show to their origins. I'd be interested in seeing how Juliette was discovered, and how she broke away from her mother. In the episode thread, there were some comments wondering how Juliette's druggie mama has been kept a secret in this TMZ day and age, but I don't think it was necessarily implied that she IS a secret from the public. All I got from it is that Juliette tries to have as little contact with her as possible.

One aspect I loved about Juliette from the pilot was the thing with her addict mother. It humanized her, and prevented her from being a daytime soap villain, IMO.

I agree with this, and I think Hayden is doing a good job making the audience feel for the character too.

Edited by annonshay, Oct 12, 2012 @ 1:04 PM.

[Irlandesa]

But, I"m also not sure if this is one area where we really should go with what we're told and not shown.

Same here. Rayna clearly hates her and everything she represents about music. The wisened producers have some contempt for her voice and likely only see her as a money maker.

But I think the show also highlighted that those people may fall into the generational divide where the 'older' generation looks down on the new generation's music or at least a popular artist from the new generation's music. As a result, their critique may be harsher than it is with the general public. I think they did this with how much Rayna's daughters were enjoying Juliette much to their mother's chagrin and how the radio personality who was playing vintage country music told Rayna that he felt Juliette was here to stay.

It gives me hope that Nashville may end up taking a much more nuanced approach to that generational divide/Juliette's music than one is 'good' and one is 'bad.'

Edited by Irlandesa, Oct 12, 2012 @ 3:10 PM.

[ByaNose]

Just watched the show. It was well done and Hayden does the sexy young starlet thing well. I've been watching her since OLTL and especially GL. I haven't seen her in anything since. I know she was on Heroes but I never watched it. The storyline with the Dina Lohan mother added more layers to her character. The only thing I was a little confused by was the guy she slept with & lead guitarist in Rayna's band that she wants to get busy. They looked too much alike. At least, to me.

[CapsChick]

Well, she's slept with both of them now. But I don't think they look much alike.

Deacon

Randy

I'm not getting the similarities to Carrie Underwood at all. Carrie isn't exactly a vocal lightweight or bitchy diva.

[MethodActor05]

Freud would have a field day with Juliette's fixation on Deacon.

[cosmom]

Freud would have a field day with Juliette's fixation on Deacon.

The Potluck section needs a forum for Freud's take on the numerous Daddy and Mommy Issues on tv. He could have fun with Rayna's Daddy Issues too!

[nexus2012]

Hmm, no doubt Underwood is very successful, but I don't find her at all interesting or charismatic. Juliette Barnes, on the other hand, does have more oomph.

LaineyGossip nicknamed Carrie Underwood "Country Bitch, so it's possible HP was being polite in the reasoning for CU being the muse for her character.

Edited by nexus2012, Dec 3, 2012 @ 8:27 AM.

[lorra]

Well, Juliette, tonight was not so much hell on wheels or in heels. It seems that Glenn is now a non-issue.

I truthfully think that Juliette's adoration for Deacon is over the top. She did need to be paying more attention to her mother. But also get her resentments.

At least it was a nice ending with Juliette there for her mother. The therapist seems to be a really good guy. Her assistant is now her manager, so it seems. She's nice.

[shron17]

Her assistant is now her manager, so it seems. She's nice.

There was a throw away line when they were shopping where Juliette says something like, "let me check with my manager--she says it's fine" that led me to believe Juliette is acting as her own manager now. Have a feeling that won't end well.

Edited by shron17, Feb 28, 2013 @ 8:15 AM.

[lorra]

There was a throw away line when they were shopping where Juliette says something like, "let me check with my manager--she says it's fine" that led me to believe Juliette is acting as her own manager now. Have a feeling that won't end well.

Oh ... okay. I didn't at first understand that. This was one of the main problems with tonight's episode. It didn't really follow thru on the important issues or emotions, except in an off-handed way.

[stillshimpy]

This seems like the best place to discuss this, because it pertains almost entirely to Juliette.

The show is pretty consistently doing rather odd things with Juliette's character trajectory, I think. Nashville's primarily a nighttime soap, so I'm not looking to it to achieve much in terms of great writing and that's fine. Escapism and some overblown drama absolutely has a place in my viewing lineup, but it seems like they are making an attempt to address weightier material with Juliette and the writers are doing a good (or better than I expected, which might not be the same thing) job with it all.

First there is the kind of interesting exploration of the arrogance of youth and learning to accept that not only do you have limitations, those around you do too (generalized, universal "you" not aimed at anyone). Like Juliette deciding she can manage her own venue and then when it goes directly to hell, screaming at her assistant for it being messed up and her inability to manage it. The assistant replying that she has no idea how to do any of this and that her last job was in retail was great. Juliette has a young, bright person's view of the world, and it's absolutely a stance of privilege. Juliette doesn't really get why she can't snap her fingers and have everything fall into place, because she's been so primarily fortunate. Firing her manager was a rookie move, trying to berate her unqualified assistant for not having a nearly magical understanding of how to do things was also a rookie move.

There's a lot of stuff with some nuance in the approach to Juliette's character that is sort of impressive. She came from nothing and seemingly got everything. Now if she loses it, it will primarily be because she wouldn't listen to anyone...but they've made the character self-aware enough to at least contemplate that as a real possibility. Rayna was justifiably upset as hell, because realistically something horrible and permanent could have happened to Maddie, and that absolutely warrants a phone call from Juliette and fast. That would just be common courtesy. I do think that most people would have not been able to actually listen to Rayna without become so defensive as to shut out any validity to what she was saying, but Juliette didn't.

So there's that nifty feeling of nuanced character structure that's creating a fairly complex character in Juliette and it's smart writing, I think.

Then I consider the story as it pertains to Jolene and Juliette. I do not know what the heck the writers could be thinking here and it's bad enough to verge on wildly freaking irresponsible. Juliette is responsible for her actions, accountable for her own mistakes, no matter what the origin of the damage to her emotionally is. Her job is to understand what having Jolene for a parent brought about in her own unhealthy approach to other people. That's her stuff to fix and own.

The show keeps making it seem as if Juliette owes something in the form of an apology to Jolene though and that's just ludicrous. For her behavior right now and going forward, Juliette bears responsibility, but at present Jolene's addiction therapy seems to consist of being allowed to sit there and detail to a very young woman, how often Jolene perceives her relationship with her daughter as having contributed to her addiction. Now, that might all be true, but Juliette will never bear any responsibility for that. At all. The person who bears the responsibility for Juliette taking one look at her mother in a crowd and pretending not to see her is not Juliette, it's Jolene and the response she built in her child via her addiction.

It's driving me nuts. I'm just nearly appalled that on this show, when Juliette talks about putting out the cigarette but confesses she considered letting her mother burn to death, the response of the counselor wasn't, "You were a little kid. It was your mom's responsibility to take care of you, not the other way around. Let yourself off the hook for a completely human anger response and let's go from there. Maybe you can get to know your mom as a person now, but your past hurt and that's okay." I mean, that's alanon 101 stuff.

It's just...tell the story or don't, but please skip telling the story that somehow implies that Juliette was a monster there. Jolene wasn't a monster, she was just sick and Juliette was just an angry kid who had an understandable thought about someone who was making her life hell. It's an interesting story, but it touches so much on real-life experiences for people in the audience, I wish they'd be a lot more careful about it. I was startled that the show skipped all the "You were a child, you weren't the parent." stuff and in doing so made it seem like Juliette was responsible for taking care of her mom.

I just couldn't help think that there are people out there watching this who haven't figured all that out and that a goofy nighttime soap shouldn't be tweaking their issues that much. I like Nashville, but I really wish it didn't have so many badly told addiction stories at once. It's a goofy show about the music industry and it really shouldn't be risking hurting real-life people.

[cosmom]

The Juliette-Jolene story is all over the map to me, and of course, the addiction story is a huge part of that. Add to the fact that they are juggling multiple addiction stories with Jolene, Deacon and Coleman (although they really haven't gotten into that one) and now possibly the addiction counselor (he made millions at some point).

I think showing Deacon's interpretation of the Jolene-Juliette history is interesting - as a former addict he may identify a lot more with Jolene but he knows he is not qualified to be her therapist. But it clearly should not be the only perspective shown.

I swear I had a point, but the show has broke my brain. I'll edit this if I can find the rest of the train of thought.

[BBDi]

Hmmm. Well, I mostly love what they've done with Juliette's character, because they have made her much more textured and 'realer' than I would have expected. It's been pretty clear since episode 1 that she's impulsive, has a chip on her shoulder, uses sex to numb her feelings and/or manipulate, and that she's fundamentally pretty damaged. It would bug me a lot if the show had her suddenly figure out everything and rise above the past, mature dramatically, and so forth. So it makes sense to me that we see her constantly take one step forward and two steps back. We see flashes of insight, then she reverts to a way of dealing with things that is more comfortable.

I haven't paid too much attention to the details of the addiction counselor thing because sometimes the Jolene storyline gets too cliched and it also bugs me that they seem to be setting her up for something with her addiction counselor. I'm hoping that if they go there, he will tell her that he can't because he shouldn't get involved with a patient or family member.

I suppose if I paid more attention or thought more about it it would bug me that he seems to be swaddling Jolene in pity instead of speaking truth to her. I somewhat get his attitude toward Juliette a bit, in that she has learned to relate to her mom in a particular way, and even if her women did a 180 it wouldn't heal their relationship if Juliette didn't drop her defenses with her mom and learn how to relate to her mom on a different basis. Not that such a thing would be easy--Juliette went through a lot and it's hard when a parent stops drinking or drugging and expects the kid to forgive and forget and accept the new, improved parent on faith. Even if what you have always wanted is for your parent to be sober. (Yeah, I've been there.) But it seems like a prerequisite would be her mom staying off the juice and getting 100% honesty and clarity about what she's done and the damage she caused.

Yeah, I guess the more I think about it, there is something off about the way it's written, particularly that the addiction counselor's focus seems to be making Jolene feel good about herself when maybe that's not what she really needs.

[MethodActor05]

   Well, it turned out that Dante was indeed a con.

 

   I do think Juliette and Jolene's relationship is incredibly realistic...for someone who grew up with addicts, the barely-below-the-surface rage on Juliette's part, and Jolene's need to be the victim, are very on-point.

[cosmom]

Juliette is responsible for her actions, accountable for her own mistakes, no matter what the origin of the damage to her emotionally is. Her job is to understand what having Jolene for a parent brought about in her own unhealthy approach to other people. That's her stuff to fix and own.

 

This I would like to see or at least them positioning Juliette to move towards that.  I doubt if she can get to that point on her own and I have yet to encounter a character in the show that could help guide her there.

 

But it seems like a prerequisite would be her mom staying off the juice and getting 100% honesty and clarity about what she's done and the damage she caused.

 

I'd like to see this happen.  Too often addiction gets called an "illness" and the horrible, hurtful & damaging behavior of the addict is written off as a "symptom".  Granted, IRL I had my ex F-I-L turn a particularly brutal and craptastic episode around on me and say if his son had cancer (instead of addiction) I wouldn't be "abandoning " him in his hour of need.  Clearly, YMMV on this issue since it hits too close to home for me.

 

  I do think Juliette and Jolene's relationship is incredibly realistic...for someone who grew up with addicts, the barely-below-the-surface rage on Juliette's part, and Jolene's need to be the victim, are very on-point.

 

As effed up as it is (the relationship), I agree.

 

It seems that a primetime soap is an unlikely place to delve into an addiction storyline, but HP does a bang up job (in general) and an incredible job at letting you get glimpses of this fundamentally damaged soul underneath all the sexed up pretty.

Edited by cosmom, May 6, 2013 @ 7:04 AM.