Hart of Dixie 3.16 Review: “Carrying Your Love With Me”

Last week Joel found out he’d have to be in LA for 6 months to work on his book’s movie adaption after it was sold to Warner Brothers.  Fun fact: Hart of Dixie films on the WB lot in Burbank so those “LA” studio scenes were possibly just around the corner from the Bluebell town square.

Zoe and Joel schedule trips to visit each other, but colds and snow storms often got in their way.  The first time they see each other after almost a month is cut short by flight delays and they end up only having 6 hours together before he has to be on a plane back to LA.  Zoe is really starting to feel the strain of this long distance relationship, and when it starts affecting her work at the medical practice, Brick encourages her to fly out and surprise Joel.

While visiting Joel, Zoe learns of the surprising developments on the movie.  It’s been fast-tracked and will be filming in London for a year.  There goes my prediction that it would shoot in Bluebell!  Poor Zoe and Joel face the facts that it’s been hard enough to keep this long distance thing going when he was only across the country from her, but now he’ll be even further away.  They don’t necessarily break up, they’re just calling it a break.  Joel promised Zoe he’s coming back to Bluebell as soon as he’s done but we’ll have to see how true that is.  Let’s say, God willing, the show gets picked up for one more season.  Maybe Zoe will have moved on or gotten back with a certain fan favorite by then?  Zoe and Joel did just buy their house together, so that’ll be a sticky subject if and when they break up for good.

Lavon, with the help of Rose, has been preparing to host Bluebell’s French sister city.  Apparently it takes a month to decorate the Rammer Jammer with a few French flags.  At least Lavon kept further distracting himself from his break up woes by learning French in the hopes of wooing his French counterpart, the attractive female mayor who bears a striking resemblance to Annabeth.  Sadly only the deputy mayor showed up because the real mayor was busy with her husband and children.

One of the sillier storylines went to Brick this week.  He’s campaigning for the Man of the Year award, which surprisingly goes to Joel.  Zoe accepts on his behalf but everyone can see how heartbroken she is by Joel’s absence.  That leads to the cutest scene of the hour when Lavon, Wade, George, Rose, Annabeth, and the rest of the Belles rally around her with comfort foods including a specialty break up pie baked by AB.

Lemon had her heart set on buying Fancie’s Restaurant now that Shelby was selling it, but Lily Anne beat her to it.  Lily Anne is most famous for her not-so-subtle songs about Wade and George, and naturally they both want her out of town.  Lemon agrees to help them get her to sell the business if George helps Lemon buy it from her.  Let’s take a second to remember Lemon and George’s long history together.  They dated for 15 years, up until 3 years ago when the truth of Lemon’s affair with Lavon was discovered and George left Lemon at the alter for Zoe.  Ever since then they’ve become good friends which seems the much healthier option for both of them.  When they can’t stop bickering about the restaurant, they even have to keep someone as a buffer to broker the peace so that they don’t lash out in front of their customers.  Next thing you know, they’re waking up in bed together at the end of the episode.

At this point Wade is the only one of the bunch with his life in order.  He’s the sole owner of the successful Rammer Jammer since he bought Lemon out, and he has a mature relationship with Vivian.  It’s probably only a matter of time now before that relationship starts to fall apart, but like I said, hopefully we still get one last season of the show to wrap everything up completely.

[Photo: Greg Gayne/The CW — © 2014 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.]