Hart of Dixie made a triumphant return for its fourth season with an early premiere in December, giving us our first glimpse of how the show is handling Rachel Bilson’s pregnancy. As expected, Zoe is pregnant! The attempts to conceal her growing belly were becoming increasingly absurd in last night’s otherwise entertaining episode.
Secrets and Lies in Bluebell
Apart from the pregnancy, there are a few other secrets brewing among Bluebell’s residents, and poor Annabeth finds herself caught in the middle of it all. She’s on the verge of cracking under Grandma Betty’s pressure to spill the beans when Brick steps in and takes one for Team Breeland, confessing to his mother that he’s been secretly seeing Shelby. His greatest fear was that his judgmental mother would disapprove, but it turns out they genuinely love each other.
Lemon almost succeeds in scamming her grandmother for the money she needs for Fancie’s. If it weren’t for the small-town nature of Bluebell, a policeman wouldn’t have come to arrest Lemon’s fake boyfriend Henry, all because of a gossip blog that exposed his true identity. It’s difficult to feel sorry for Lemon messing up once again, considering she’s a grown woman in her mid-30s. She should know better than to put on a facade of a happy relationship just to get money handed to her, as has likely been the case for most of her life.
Zoe’s Pregnancy Struggles
Unrelated to the Breelands, Zoe is in full-on panic mode. Annabeth puts two and two together and figures out what’s going on with her, and it’s a good thing she does. Zoe desperately needs girlfriends at a time like this, so it was heartwarming when AB and Lemon comforted her. Even Rose finds out after Zoe delivers a frantic sex talk to a group of young girls. Her comparison of a baby to a curling iron is where the episode title came from, but it was an adorable metaphor.
In the end, Zoe tells Wade that she’s pregnant and plans on doing this alone. More power to her. She’s more than capable of it, but living in a small town, it would certainly be awkward raising a child as a single mother while the father is literally next door. There’s no doubt he’s going to step up to the responsibility once he has time to process the news. It’s only fair that he’s allowed some time to freak out since Zoe already did that for a week. Their relationship is entering a whole new level that will be fascinating to watch as this potentially final season unfolds.
The Love Triangle We Didn’t Need
My main issue with this season so far is the resurrected (and unrequited) love triangle between George, Lemon, and Lavon. I really, really despise it. George and Lavon can engage in goofy antics like trying to frame Henry as an impostor, but their motivation that they’re still competing for Lemon is worse than beating a dead horse. Instead of seeing Lemon end the season or series paired off, it would be in her best interest to find success with running Fancie’s by herself. Not everyone needs a happy ending. That said, I still hope there’s a future for Lavon and Annabeth to get back together. So much of last season was focused on their relationship, and then three-quarters of the way through, they broke up. Now all of a sudden Lavon loves Lemon again? To quote Mayor Hayes himself: naw, naw, naw, NAW.
How are you enjoying this season so far?
[Photo via The CW]
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Did the whole wait until I could binge watch it thing with Hart of Dixie this season, and I’ve been really happy with that decision – I love season 4 and being able to power through the first 5 episodes made me realize it would’ve been really annoying to wait week to week. The only bummer is that now that I’m caught up I wish I could’ve held out for the whole season.
I really loved the bathtub scene – each character totally reacted in ways that are so “them” and the cookie crumb trail leading them to Zoe was an awesome touch. Further kudos to the show’s producers for using “Can’t Be Love” by Jill Andrews during the scene – a lovely icing on the cake of such a memorable scene.