Spoiler alert: Hart of Dixie was the network show whose return I was most looking forward to this fall. It might not have been the most artistic or emotionally complex show of last season, but the sunny world of BlueBell, Alabama was one that guaranteed me a smile every time I visited. Hart of Dixie is comfort television at its finest and something that managed to balance goofy comedy with juicy love triangles and the relatable leading lady in Dr. Hart, still an outsider with only a few friends to her name. The show ended up on a pretty major cliffhanger last season, but the question is…
…did it live up to the expectations?
Girlfriend…?
Dr. Hart has a choice. A pretty darn impossible choice, if I must say, as she left last season with the two men in her life hers for the taking. George had broken up with Lemon and cancelled the wedding, while she had gotten the type of connection that she needed from Wade, at least on a physical level. Complicating that choice is the fact that the entire town of BlueBell blames her for breaking up the golden couple and Wade has made it clear that he’s not interested in being anybody’s boyfriend, so in his mind, there’s not even a choice to be made. (Wade is known for putting up walls and hiding his feelings in sarcasm, so most of that aloofness comes from a desire to not be hurt again.) How will she figure out what she wants, especially after the two find out about the other one the morning after everything happened?
A girlfriend. That she doesn’t have. Lavon Hayes may be able to do a lot of things, but his ability to gossip about boys and decide the direction of Dr. Hart’s life is pretty null and void. After informing his friend that no matter what happened, someone will end up hurt and she should be honest with all parties involved, Lavon withdraws from the matter, leaving Zoe to try and figure things out on her own. Dangerous, I know. But one afternoon at the office, she finds something that might help her.
A girlfriend. That girlfriend came in the form of Ruby Jeffries, a former BlueBell resident who moved to Atlanta upon graduation and never looked back. Until now, as she sold her lucrative cosmetics line and moved back home to take care of her grandparents. At first, Ruby provides Zoe with a non-Lavon shoulder to lean on while trying to parse out her feelings – Zoe’s best girlfriend at this point is Rose, so any adult female with life experience, a love for coffee, and a keen ear to listen would be an improvement. Ruby does have a little life experience of her own, in the form of a relationship with Lavon. The two dated during high school, though they eventually drifted apart once Lavon headed to the University of Alabama and went on to become the Lavon Hayes that ruled the NFL at one time.
Ruby had a more adversarial relationship with Lemon in high school, who she claimed was “too big for her britches.” With Ruby patching things up with Lavon (their break-up was more a result of juvenile miscommunication vs. anything malicious from either party) and coming back to town, Lemon will have to let go of the shy freshman that let people push her around and stand up for herself. Or else any personal progress she makes will vanish once she locks eyes with her former nemesis.
Lonely Lemon
While Zoe was busy trying to figure out who she wanted to be with, Lemon Breeland was trying to figure out who she wanted to be. Half of her life had been spent with George Tucker and planning toward becoming Mrs. George Tucker, where she’d then have a litter of little George Tuckers who’d then meet a litter of Lemon Breelands and the cycle would begin again. A life of domestic bliss was the end all, be all for the southern belle, so without a man in her life, Lemon doesn’t really know who she is. She had spent so much time on her relationship that she had neglected herself, never cultivating occupational skills or independence from her father, and now that she’s single, she has no direction.
That insecurity about her place in the world came out throughout the episode. For as much as she talked about “rising again” and thought about getting her own place, Lemon came to understand that her arrested development was holding her back, particularly after she talked to former bully Ruby. Moving on is harder than it seems, though, if your love life becomes the talk of the town and you see your wedding decorations being torn down and thrown in the trash. After putting her foot down with her father over his coddling, Lemon stormed out of the house to give back a cake knife to Shula, but once she saw what remained of the wedding nearly 2 decades in the making, she had a panic attack and ran to…
Dr. Hart.
Only Lemon thought that it was a heart attack, refusing to take any medication and ultimately spending the evening in Zoe’s house until the symptoms (shortness of breath, racing heart) subsided. (They hashed out their problems and found that they had more in common than they expected, as they both are dealing with messy personal lives, have no idea what they’re doing, and are lonelier than they let on.) However, Lemon didn’t exactly go down the street unnoticed; a pretty blonde wielding a cake knife and rushing toward some unforseen location is pretty unusual, even for BlueBell. Word got around quickly that Lemon had been holding Dr. Hart hostage in her house, resulting in BlueBell’s first hostage situation and a crowd of people waiting outside the residence to see what would happen.
Aside from a physical fight between George and Wade over who would go in to try and mediate the situation, which resulted in Wade being slammed through a table and a whole lot of dirt being splayed, there was little drama once the two ladies came outside. Lemon revealed that no one person caused the break-up between her and George, the topic that was still on everybody’s lips, and that going through two embarrassing experiences in two days (the break-up and the hostage situation) had made her stronger, that nothing would break her. It was a triumph for the 30-year-old and one that led her to accept Wade’s offer to come work as a waitress at the Rammer Jammer.
The Choice
After all the fighting, the indecisiveness, and the police attention, Zoe chooses to stay single, in a move that I quite liked. Rather than end up as George’s rebound following a 15-year relationship, she encourages him to spread his wings a little bit and try to figure out who he is away from Lemon. However, the door for them to eventually get together hasn’t been completely shut; it couldn’t ever really be shut with the feelings that are shared between the two. If the stars were to align and the emotional wounds were to heal, we might see the debut of Zoeorge, but for now, things have been put on ice.
Not on ice is Wade and Zoe’s sexual relationship, which continues despite the latter’s contention that she has “nothing to prove” in the bedroom following the former’s B/B- grade of their initial encounter.
I guess Dr. Hart really is an overachiever after all.
Additional thoughts and observations:
-I admittedly swooned at George’s speech to Dr. Hart at her office regarding how he wanted her to pick him.
-Brick and Emily went on a date, that ended up being interrupted by Tom Long informing them about the situation at Dr. Hart’s. It seems like nobody had any luck in their relationships tonight.
-I truly think that breaking Lemon and George up will be the best thing for both characters. I’m honestly looking forward to watching each figure out their place in the world and explore avenues of life previously unavailable to them.
-I loved that sex with Wade made Zoe finally understand R. Kelly music. Wade doesn’t see nothing with a little bump ‘n grind, apparently.
-Remember, sometimes, it’s about the baby steps.
-“Bless your heart” counter: 1.
-My response to the long, slow pan-up of Wade fixing his car while shirtless: Oh my.
–Next week on Hart of Dixie: Zoe gets volunteered to run the first annual BlueBellapalooza, while George dips his toe back into the dating pool and Lemon deals with a medical emergency at her job.
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