Note: This story contains spoilers from “9-1-1: Nashville” Season 1, Episode 17.
“9-1-1: Nashville” pushed Blythe Hart to the brink, leading to a heated argument with her husband Don to set the stage for a “very emotional” Season 1 finale.
Episode 17, titled “Saboteurs,” followed as the typical “9-1-1” universe emergencies took a bit of a backseat after Dixie (LeAnn Rimes) released a diss track about Blythe (Jessica Capshaw) — keeping her identity a secret as marketing campaign that helps the song go viral on social media. After threatening to release her name publicly and air out her dirty laundry to jumpstart her singing career, Dixie tells Blythe and Don (Chris O’Donnell) the whole thing could go away if they pay her $2 million.
“To be thrown into the fire by this person that she has only shown compassion and grace towards. She gets pissed. She hits her limit,” Capshaw told TheWrap about Blythe’s journey in the penultimate episode.
The revelation leads to a big fight between Blythe and Don, after she calls out all of Dixie’s antics through the years — including admitting to purposefully getting pregnant with Blue (Hunter McVey) so long ago to keep hold of her connection with Don — and points out Don must only put up with it because he, too, continues to have feelings for his ex.
The episode ends with Don walking away from the conversation — setting up what Capshaw described as a “very emotional” finale as Blythe fights to preserve her reputation on her own.
Below, Capshaw breaks down her time filming the first season of “9-1-1: Nashville,” her hopes for how new cast member Ryan Phillippe will shake the dynamic playing a detective in Season 2 and how a hiatus from filming opened the door to her podcasting return. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: How are you feeling about Season 1 now that you’ve had some time since you wrapped filming?
Capshaw: It’s so funny that you just asked me that it almost felt like a fever dream. When was that? It’s because you’re correct. We finished it in the very beginning of February, after this radical ice storm event in Nashville. And then yeah, we finished it.
But I feel great. I feel as though we accomplished a lot upon reflection of the season. I have never started a series from Episode 1 — with “The Practice” I joined in Season 7 and stayed until Season 8, which was its last season. With “Grey’s” I entered in Season 5 and stayed until Season 14, and yet it still keeps going. So this has been the first show where I started Season 1, Episode 1, and have been completely along for the whole ride.
I learned a tremendous amount, having started with one of our first shots. We were borrowing a rodeo crowd and a rodeo arena, and it’s the scene where my character comes in and you follow her fancy footsteps, and then she kind of scans the crowd, and then you meet Don and Ryan and are pulled into the beginning of this world. That seems as though it was a really long time ago.
Rashad (Raisani) is such an incredible showrunner. He takes all of this to heart and he really loves the show, and he tries his very best. Everyone that works on the show really gives it their all. That’s the thing about being in a show from the first season, we make mistakes … there’s episodes where we’re like, “We should have done that differently.” But the great news about getting Season 2 is that you get to go again. I’m hoping that Season 2 is full of ways to make it even better and smooth out the wrinkles. There’s really infinite possibilities.
We’re almost done with Season 1 and have this feud between Blythe and Dixie reaching a new peak with the release of this crazy diss track. How was it to learn about these skeletons in Blythe’s past through a song?
The very first time, we only read what the words were. And when you only read the words, if you’re honest, it doesn’t really hit because it’s just rhyming really. Then once you hear the finished product, it clearly becomes a whole other thing.
I think in this particular case, it was far more about Blythe feeling as though she was exposed in a way. I personally feel like it becomes this crescendo. Blythe has been so measured at every turn, she’s always been the voice that suggests a little more grace, a little more compassion, a little more perspective, warmth and contemplation. She’s just such a grownup. She’s mother goals. She also manages to give off this whole vibe that she’s a boss. What she does really, we don’t really know. But we know that wherever she does it and however she does it, that it’s important. So all of a sudden, what comes into question is her reputation. After all of this kindness, after all this grownup-ness, to be thrown into the fire by this person that she has, again, only shown compassion and grace towards. She gets pissed. She hits her limit.
And it makes her look at Don in a different way, because if he is OK with what Dixie is now doing, then it’s Blythe’s opinion that there must be something in Don that likes this. Because for her, it’s crossed the line and it is done. And anyone who loves her would be like, “Off with her head. This ends now.” And he doesn’t do that. So she ends up going on her own kind of solo journey to figure out how to stop her. That ends up being her story for these last two episodes.
Blythe and Don have a big fight over Dixie’s ultimatum, and his lingering feelings for her. Is this rock bottom for them or only the beginning?
It really depends on how you look at it. We have spirited discussions about who sees what and how, as though the characters were truly real. I have absolutely stood on a soapbox and argued that it has to be done. There’s just no world in which she can unsee or un-know what has happened. But people have made very compelling arguments that suggest otherwise and I think they are good arguments.
So I really, genuinely don’t know. I don’t know how it’s going to roll out, but I know it’s going to be good.
By the way, (Don) is so funny (in that last scene). We would play it and it was so apparent to me that Blythe’s line was so accurate … there’s no world in which we would be playing 18 episodes of this game if you didn’t like it on some level. But she says it and he looks at her like she’s insane.
We only have one episode left this season, so things will surely get crazier from here. How does this set things up for next week’s finale?
(After the argument with Don), Blythe really decides that she’s going out on her own and she’s going to figure out what is going on. She is strategic and goes down a path, and I think she gets a little lost … It gets very emotional.
And of course she has to confront Dixie … it does end up being quite a cat fight.
The show is coming back for Season 2, and Ryan Phillippe is joining the cast as a detective coming to shake things up. What have you learned about what’s coming in the new season?
I know nothing. I’m not even like pretending like I know nothing. I know absolutely nothing. I feel so grateful to, I said this last year when we were talking about all things at the upfronts, when we truly didn’t even have a first script. It’s amazing that we’re living in a time where you can take something that you know is working and say, “Hey, you like ‘9-1-1’?” This is our template. This is how “9-1-1” works. Yeah, with these incredibly original writers and directors and actors, but this is the template, and we can actually run a parallel process where we take that template, and then we have other creative, interesting, smart writers, directors, actors and we create a whole other world. “9-1-1” started it, “9-1-1: Nashville” carried it forward.
And what we didn’t have in “9-1-1: Nashville” that “9-1-1” the original did was this police presence. And so I think — I mean, I’m not Ryan Murphy and I’m not Rashad, but my guess is that they’re going to be able to weave in some of that magic. No one can be Angela Bassett. There’s only one of her. No pressure, Ryan. But I think he will bring in the aspect of the police presence that we just haven’t had. It will be really interesting to see how that plays into things.
When do you go back into production? What are you up to in the meantime?
I think we will now go into your typical network television production schedule, which is usually mid-July. I don’t even know exactly how many episodes we’re doing. We did 18 this first season. I don’t know how many we’ve been ordered for Season 2.
And given that I was commuting from New York to Nashville for the season, I felt that by the time our season was over, I was so excited about not having to go anywhere. I can’t tell you how many Delta SkyMiles I’ve racked up. I was so happy to just stay where I was and be with my kids. And to be so lucky to have this wonderful life with them and just do all the things that they do. So I’m full-blown carpool mom, soccer mom, lacrosse mom, tennis mom, all the sports.
The other piece is that I have a podcast with Camilla Luddington from “Grey’s,” and we put the podcast on a hiatus for a minute because I was navigating a new job and we were trying to figure out all the different things … so we’re working really hard on relaunching it. People can look forward to us coming back sometime in June.
“9-1-1: Nashville” airs Thursdays on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.
