| Brow Beat Character Studies: Scarlett, Nashville By L.V. Anderson
Posted Wednesday, May 22, 2013, at 01:02 PM ET  I got hooked on Nashville fairly early in the season, unable to resist Callie Khouri's richly drawn dramatic universe and T-Bone Burnett's insanely catchy tunes—not to mention Connie Britton's effortless likeability as Rayna and Hayden Panettiere's tightly wound dynamism as Juliette. But the show's third fair-haired songstress, Scarlett O'Connor (Clare Bowen), made me feel twitchy the very first time she appeared onscreen. Whereas Rayna and Juliette struck me as plausible human beings, Scarlett struck me as a type: a hyper-feminine ingénue who sticks with her obviously horrible boyfriend, Avery (Jonathan Jackson), because she's infinitely open-hearted and trusting. And Bowen's thick-as-molasses accent and slack-jawed manner rubbed me the wrong way—it seemed like the Australian actress was conflating being Southern with being infantile. In short, Scarlett drove me bonkers. And yet, over the course of the season, Scarlett has become my favorite character on Nashville. While Rayna's preternatural charisma has lost its novelty—and her sexual tension with Deacon has finally been resolved—and Juliette has checked items off the to-do list in the out-of-control-starlet handbook I assume her assistant carries around for her, Scarlett has blossomed into a real person. And that person is someone I'd like to join in her backyard to have a beer and sing some tunes with on a Southern summer evening. Really. One problem with Scarlett early in the season was the tension between her personality and her storyline. We were meant to ... To continue reading, click here.
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