It’s like a trainwreck that I can’t look away from.
There’s been not shortage of television shows set in Nashville over the years. Partly because of the low cost of filming in Tennessee and partly because of Nashville’s status as one of the hottest cities in the country right now, in just the last decade Music City has served as the setting for shows like Nashville, Chrisley Knows Best and the short-lived CMT show starring Billy Ray Cyrus, Still The King, among many others.
Well just this month we finally got the premiere of the latest much-anticipated TV show set in Music City, 9-1-1: Nashville.
The ABC drama is the third installment of the franchise that started with 9-1-1 and later inspiring the spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star. And as you would expect, the show leans heavy into country music with starring roles from LeAnn Rimes and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, wife of country star Brad Paisley, as well as guest roles within the first two episodes from Kane Brown (more on that later) and rising country star MacKenzie Porter.
Now, I’m usually not into these kinds of shows, but obviously living in Nashville and with much of the show actually shot on location, I decided to give it a shot to see what it’s about. And let me tell you, it’s so ridiculously bad that I can’t stop watching it.
(There are going to be spoilers here, so if you don’t want to know what happens, stop reading now, but honestly it doesn’t really matter if you know what’s going to happen or not).
Like I said, I’m not usually into these shows so I haven’t watched any of the first two series’, and I’m not sure what I was expecting. But the show set the tone early when the very first scene featured a Kane Brown concert at Ascend Amphitheater in downtown Nashville getting hit by a tornado.
That wasn’t the only emergency to occur within the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode though. After a quick scene of a male stripper on Broadway getting fired for giving a lap dance to a girl in a wheelchair, the next thing you know a runaway pedal tavern is getting hit by a car after the driver of the pedal tavern stopped to help a bachelorette who needed to fart.
It’s already a masterpiece. 10/10. No notes.
The male stripper, whose mother is played by LeAnn Rimes, happens to be dressed in a firefighter’s uniform as he’s getting fired, and jumps in to save the bride on the pedal tavern by freeing her from the wreckage using stripper oil, before getting offered a job at the real fire department by the fire captain, who also happens to be his biological father.
There’s a lot going on, and that was just in the first 10 minutes.
From there we got a little girl being carried away by a kite in front of the Parthenon at Centennial Park, as the dispatcher played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley walks frantic birthday party goers through the process of catching her in a tablecloth. And then we finally get back to Ascend Amphitheater, where firefighters are in a race against the impending tornado to save those who were trapped when the stage collapsed due to wind.
Just when you think they’re not going to be able to move the stage rigging in time, guess who ends up being the hero?
That’s right, it’s Kane Brown, who rallies everybody he can find to help out the firefighters as they’re finally able to lift the stage off of the concertgoers trapped beneath it.
I mean, what an episode.
Unfortunately episode one ends on a little bit of cliffhanger, as a stagehand is stuck at the top of the rigging with the tornado bearing down on the concert venue. And I won’t spoil episode 2 for you, but let’s just say Brad Paisley’s wife helps deliver a baby.
The show is so absolutely ridiculous that it’s kind of a must-watch. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a parody of the culture Nashville has become, but it certainly feels like it at times with the pedal tavern crashes and concert emergencies.
Either way, I’m hooked, and I can’t wait for the rest of the season.
9-1-1: Nashville airs on ABC every Thursday at 9:00 eastern/8:00 central, and is available to stream on Hulu.
