Once again I found myself really enjoying Hart of Dixie, I thought that this was yet another great episode. While I thought that this was a great episode, I have say that Lemon and Brick both annoyed the hell out of me in this episode. I’m so sick of their strong sense of self-entitlement. Since they both act that way, I’m guessing it runs in the family. I’m starting to think that they are both going to be the equivalent of Serena van der Woodsen on Hart of Dixie in the sense that I can’t stand them due to the fact that they both seem to think that they are entitled to whatever they want, regardless of how their actions affect other people. Also, both Lemon and Brick seem to think that they are both better than everybody else, especially Brick, and that really pisses me off.
Everybody in town continued to give Zoe a hard time about sabotaging the Founder’s Day parade, and George told Zoe that somebody had signed her up for the town’s gumbo cook off contest as a joke, but Zoe told him that she signed up for it herself. I’m not entirely sure that’s the case though, because later in the episode she acted like she didn’t have any idea how to make gumbo. Regardless of how she ended up being entered in the contest, Zoe was determined to win it, because she thought that it would show the town that she’s one of them and therefore would begin to respect her more.
However, Zoe’s determination to win the gumbo cook-off soon hit a snag after she was bitten by a copperhead snake while she was looking it for it, because one of her patients had come in with a snakebite and she needed to know what kind of snake it was so she could choose the proper treatment. She reluctantly asked Wade to give her a ride to the place where the boy had been bitten by a snake, and as a joke he tried to scare her by pretending that he had the snake in his hand when it was really a rope. However, when he startled her she fell and was bitten on the hand by the same snake that had bitten the boy she was treating, so she ended up having to try and cook the gumbo with only one hand later in the episode.
I have several things to say about the whole snakebite incident and Zoe’s scenes with Wade in this episode. First off, I can’t believe that Zoe had to do a search on how to treat a snakebite using Ask Jeeves. I know that Zoe is going to school to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, but shouldn’t she have learned how to treat snakebite at some point, especially if she’s at the point in medical school where she can work as a general practitioner for a year? That just seemed beyond stupid to me.
As for the Zoe and Wade scenes in this episode, I absolutely loved their scenes together, and I loved the playful banter between them. Wade may give Zoe are hard time, and he may come across as a bit of an ass at times, but you can tell deep down he’s a good guy and he doesn’t let people get away with their crap, which brings me to my comments on George. I have some more to say about Wade in this episode, which I’ll get to later.
Zoe’s mother apparently had some sort of social connection with Emeril Lagasse and had arranged to have him send Zoe a pot of his gumbo through the mail that she was planning to pass off as her own. I’m not entirely sure the whole thing with mailing gumbo would work, because unless he had packaged it in a way that would keep it cold until Zoe got it and had sent it through overnight shipping, I don’t think that would work. Plus, I’m sure bacteria would have begun to grow long before Zoe even got it. She’d also be cheating if she tried to pass Emeril’s gumbo off as her own, so I’m glad that Lavon pointed out that he would be forced to disqualify her from the competition. Regardless, her plan hit yet another snag when Lavon’s pet alligator, Burt Reynolds, got into the package containing the gumbo that Emeril had sent Zoe and ate it.
Since she no longer had the gumbo that she had planned to enter in the cook off, Wade offered to help Zoe make his family’s recipe for gumbo, but since she was still bad at him for causing her to get bitten by a snake, she turned down his offer and said that she would just email Emeril for his recipe and cook the gumbo herself.
One thing that has really surprised me about the show’s portrayal of living in a small town in Alabama is that the writers make it seem like Bluebell is completely behind the times in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to food. I guess I can understand that a small town wouldn’t have a Starbucks nearby like Emmeline pointed out in the pilot, but I would think that the catch of the day for fish wouldn’t always be fried and that the fish market would be able to sell shrimp that’s already deveined. After all this is 2011, they aren’t living in the 1800s or the early 1900s anymore. I’m guessing that was all a plot device that would create tension between George and Lemon, because George ended up running into Zoe while she was trying to devein the shrimp with her good hand and he offered to take her to a place that he knew sold good produce. Of course he took her to a produce market that was clear out of town so no one that he knows would see them because Lemon had told him that she didn’t want him to associate with Zoe and he didn’t want her to find out that he was spending time with Zoe.
However, George’s attempt to help Zoe without anyone finding out about it failed after a man became trapped under farm equipment and Zoe was forced to call Brick to help her, because they had to perform a procedure on the man before they could lift the farm equipment off of him or otherwise he would bleed out. Once he arrived, Zoe walked Brick through the procedure since she wasn’t able to perform it herself due to her one bad hand. They all agreed to not tell Lemon that George and Zoe had been together, but Brick wasn’t happy with George for spending time with Zoe.
It really pissed me off when Brick took all the credit for saving that man’s life and let everybody treat him like he was a hero when Zoe was the one who had guided him through the procedure. I know that the man they treated told the paramedics that Brick had saved his life, but I think Brick should have at least pointed out that Zoe had helped him. Also, I thought it was ridiculous that somebody suggested to Lavon that they have a Brick Breeland day just because he saved that man’s life. Brick’s a doctor so he’s probably saved peoples’ lives countless times over the years, and they didn’t declare a Brick Breeland day every time he saved a person’s life before, so I’m glad that Lavon basically brushed off the idea. I don’t blame Zoe for being ticked off with Brick at all. He’s so arrogant and a bit of a sexist. Plus, he seems to think he’s God’s gift to the world, which is definitely enabled by the fact that most of the people in town practically worship him to the point where it’s just sickening to watch.
At the beginning of the episode Zoe learned that Brick had hired a new receptionist named Didi without talking to her about it first. I can’t believe that Brick didn’t even mention to Didi that he shares the practice with Zoe when he hired her. It’s like the writers are bagging the viewers to hate Brick. Brick hiring Didi played a huge role in Lemon pissing me off so much in this episode, because after Lavon has a brief encounter with Didi he becomes interested in her. Lavon asked Wade for advice on how to handle things with Didi, which was another one of the many reasons why I loved Wade so much in this episode.
The scene where Lavon is asking Wade for advice on what to do about Didi in my opinion was one of the best scenes in the entire episode, if not the best scene. I loved it because that scene was pretty funny, especially when Wade was pretending to be Didi talking to Lavon. I have to say that Wade’s suggestions were all pretty stupid, so I’m glad that the waitress from The Rammer Jammer who was listening to their conversation finally interrupted them and told Lavon to send Didi flowers, which Lavon did. This brings me back to the main reason Lemon ticked me off so much in this episode.
Lemon saw that Lavon had sent Didi flowers when she went to visit Brick at his and Zoe’s medical practice, and while she didn’t explicitly state that she was jealous of Didi, it was very obvious that she was because she told Didi not to call Lavon and thank him for the flowers. When Didi didn’t call him, Lavon was led to believe that she wasn’t all that interested in him after all. Lemon also helped Didi get a job outside of town with a higher salary after she learned that Didi was looking for a higher paying job. Lemon did all of this telling Didi that she wanted to help her out as a friend, but it was obviously all a plot to get Didi out of the picture so she could have Lavon all to herself.
Lemon’s actions in this episode reminded me a lot of Serena from Gossip Girl and how Serena has often times had no qualms about leading two guys on at the same time, which is a huge part of why I despise Serena so much. Lemon is engaged to George, so she either needs to let go of her feelings for Lavon and stay committed to George, or she needs to break off her engagement to George. At the moment, I have no sympathy for Lemon at all, and I personally think she acts like a castrating bitch when it comes to the way she treats George.
Going back to Zoe for a moment, she ended up making a pot of gumbo on her own, but unfortunately it ended up tasting really bad, so they fed it to Burt Reynolds. I thought that the whole thing with Lavon giving Burt Zoe’s gumbo for dinner was hilarious, but I felt really bad for Zoe since she didn’t have any gumbo to enter into the cook-off.
Once everyone was at the gumbo cook-off, everybody was continuing to practically worship Brick for his role in saving that man’s life, which led George to decide to tell everybody that Zoe had walked Brick through the procedure, and he apologized to Lemon in advance for hurting her with what he was about to tell everyone.
However, before George had the chance to do that Zoe confronted Brick about him taking all of the credit for saving the guy’s life. He admitted to Zoe that he was wrong for taking all of the credit for saving the man’s life when he didn’t do it all himself. However, he also helped Zoe realize that while she may have walked him through the procedure, she didn’t go with the man to the hospital or comfort the man’s wife, he did. Realizing that she didn’t do all of the follow-up stuff like Brick did, she stopped George from telling everybody that Brick didn’t deserve all the credit.
Despite the fact that he was off the hook for having to tell everybody that Brick was wrong for taking all of the credit for saving that man’s life and upsetting Lemon by telling her that he had been with Zoe when she and Brick were working together to save that man’s life, he told Lemon everything anyway. I’m glad that George told Lemon everything in the end, and I’m really glad that he told her he didn’t like being given ultimatums and that he wasn’t going to not be friends with Zoe simply because she doesn’t like her. Lemon’s behavior all seems very childish and self-centered to me, and she needed to be put in her place. Lemon wasn’t happy with George for saying this, but I’m glad that she told him that they would simply have to agree to disagree.
Lavon asked Didi if she liked the flowers when he saw her at the cook-off since she had never called him, which she did. He also asked her out, but she turned him down, telling him about how Lemon had gotten her a job out of town and she didn’t think it made sense for them to go on a date if she was going to be moving out of town soon. Lavon ended up asking George if he would hire Didi to be his secretary and match the salary that the job Lemon had gotten Didi was offering her so she could stay in town, which he did.
While I’m glad that Lemon didn’t get away with trying to keep George from being friends with Zoe, I really wish she hadn’t gotten away with her scheme to get Didi out of town. I also felt like Lemon deserved to be upset about the fact that Didi was going to be staying in town after all, because she’s so fake and so self-centered. When it comes to the whole situation with George and Lavon, I think that Lemon just wants to be able to have her cake and eat it to.
Zoe ended up being surprised when the guy who was in charge of the gumbo cook-off came up to her and gave her a medal, telling her that her gumbo won second place. She assumed that Lavon had made the gumbo that had been submitted under her name, but he told her that he hadn’t submitted it and Wade teasingly accused Lavon of helping Zoe cheat. Given the fact that Brick has been a complete and total asshole with Zoe, I thought that it was pretty nice of her to congratulate him on winning the cook-off and say that she’s looking forward to continuing to work with him in the future. I know that I definitely wouldn’t have been able to be the bigger person in that situation like Zoe was if I were her.
Later on it was revealed that Wade had been the one who made Zoe’s gumbo and submitted it under her name. Lavon told him that he must have been up all night making it, but Wade denied it saying that Zoe had already proved that she doesn’t need his help.
I have to say that based on the first three episodes alone, I’m leaning more and more towards wanting Zoe and Wade to get together, because I think they have excellent chemistry together and I love the banter between the two of them. Another one of my favorite scenes from this episode is the scene where Wade finds Zoe trying to work with the fuse box after a fuse has been blown in Zoe’s cottage. I thought the banter between them in that scene was beyond priceless. :)
I know that on the surface Zoe and George seem to have a lot in common, whereas Zoe and Wade appear to be complete opposites, I think that Zoe and Wade are a better match for each other. When it comes to Zoe and Wade, I just think it’s a case where opposites attract. Plus, the fact that George allows Lemon to control and manipulate him way too much annoys the hell out of me, and I think that George really needs to grow a pair. George really is a total doormat sometimes. I love that Wade doesn’t let Zoe get away with her behavior when she’s being immature, and Zoe doesn’t let Wade get away with his immature behavior either. I also think that George and Wade are great foils to each other as characters, especially when it comes to them both being potential love interests for Zoe.
At the end of the episode, Brick finally showed signs of beginning to treat Zoe with more respect after he told one of his patients that he had a lot of patients that day so he wouldn’t be able to see them, but Zoe could see them right away. Zoe was shocked by this and she asked Didi to write down the date and time that this happened to she could remember it later. I really hope that this episode is the turning point for Zoe and Brick’s relationship and that Brick starts treating Zoe a lot better than he has been, because right now I feel like both the writers are making both Brick and Lemon way too unlikable. Given the fact that Tim Matheson is only a guest star, I’m hoping that means that the writers aren’t planning on keeping Brick around on a long-term basis and that they will be writing Brick out of the show at some point.
One last comment that I’d like to make about not just this episode, but all of the episodes of Hart of Dixie that I’ve seen so far is when they were hiring people to work on the lighting crew for the show, who did they hire? Did they hire the entire lighting crew from Touched By An Angel? I say this because the actors constantly have a glowing light behind them that reminds me a lot of the lighting effect that they used on Touched By An Angel whenever one of the angels revealed themselves as an angel to people.
All in all, despite the fact that I found both Lemon and Brick beyond infuriating in this episode, I still thought that this was a really great episode. Once again the script for this episode had a great blend of drama and comedy to it. The scenes between Zoe and Wade were definitely one of the main highlights of this episode for me personally. I just love the chemistry between Rachel Bilson and Wilson Bethel very much, and they are a lot of fun to watch together.
All things considered, I give this episode a rating of an A-.
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