Avery Barkley can’t catch a break on Nashville. First, he’s paired with the very volatile Juliette Barnes, who cheats on him with Jeff Fordham. Then, they have a baby and get married and everything is hunky dory… until she slips into a deep, deep postpartum depression, self-medicates with pills, is accidentally involved in the death of Jeff Fordham, and then checks herself into rehab (maybe), disappearing from the lives of Avery and their daughter. Did you get all that? Now that Juliette is out of the picture and Avery has filed for divorce on Nashville, he is responsible for caring for Cadence. One would wonder why he just doesn’t take money from Juliette (who has plenty of cash), but he is either too proud or too stupid and does not. Instead, Avery chooses parenthood over his recently rediscovered dreams of playing music.
Avery’s been doing mostly jingle grunt work to make ends meet. He plays a lot of music for taco restaurants and similar places, and it’s not paying nearly as well as he’d like. The one moment when he is able to book a gig at a bar managed by an old pal of his, Avery gets a call from the jingle studio saying that he’ll make an instant $3,000 if he can play that night — at the same time he’s booked to play at the bar. Being the responsible adult and father that he is, Avery chooses to make money over play music for free, but you can tell that he’s hurt by the decision. It doesn’t help that everyone in the music business thinks that he and Juliette are still together—they don’t understand why Avery is hustling for money that his wife obviously has.
At the same time, nanny/assistant/PR person Emily hears from Juliette, and she knows where her former boss is. Emily also offers Avery some money from Juliette’s accounts, which he refuses to take. My guess for the Season 4 winter finale is that Juliette’s whereabouts will finally be revealed, but Avery won’t make things easier on himself. He totally should —don’t get me wrong — but he’s too proud to accept money from Juliette, especially now that they’re divorcing. Will Juliette be back to run the roost, will Avery continue sacrificing his own dreams instead of seeking, or can some sort of compromise be made? Hopefully, next week's ""We've Got Nothing But Love To Prove" will provide those answers before Nashville leaves us for the winter.
Images: Mark Levine/ABC; Giphy
