I have that I loved this episode even more than the pilot, mainly because I feel like Zoe has gotten rid of some of what I consider a superiority complex, which makes her seem a lot more likable in my opinion, compared to when she was acting like a total snob. Now a lot of her behavior is mostly due to what I consider a case of culture shock or being like a fish out of water going from living in New York City to living in a small town like Bluebell, Alabama.
The main storyline of the episode was basically Zoe having to deal with people not accepting her as a member of the town now that they know she’s Dr. Harley Wilkes’ daughter. On top of that, Brick asked George to look at Harley’s will to see if he could find a loophole that would allow him to get Harley’s share of the practice from Zoe. Unfortunately for Zoe, George found one dictating that Zoe has to bring in at least thirty percent of the patients for the practice every billing quarter otherwise Brick can buy her out of her share of the practice. Zoe tried her best to convince people to let her treat them instead of Brick, which proved to be very challenging after she misdiagnosed a patient who experiencing paralysis in his legs as having a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre when his paralysis turned out to simply be the result of a tick bite, which Brick discovered.
In an effort to try and fit in with the rest of the people in town, Zoe accepted Lavon’s offer to ride with him on his float in the Founder’s Parade hoping that it would help her gain the town’s acceptance. She tried to help Wade with building the float for the parade, but he of course continued to give her a hard time, especially about misdiagnosing the guy with the tick bite.
Brick continued to cause trouble for Zoe, and he mocked her throughout the episode in addition to trying to keep her from convincing people to let her treat them. I have to say I found that very annoying and hypocritical on his part. He and the rest of the town were upset with Zoe for acting like she was better than them in the pilot episode, and yet in this episode he feels like he’s entitled to act like he’s better than Zoe because she’s from New York City. I think Brick really needs to get off his high horse.
I could say the same thing about Lemon because she continued to act like a self-absorbed bitch in this episode. Zoe treated a girl named Betty who was experiencing fainting spells, periodically losing her balance, and experiencing acute muscle weakness in her left arm. Betty confessed to Zoe that she had been diagnosed with M.S. the week before. Zoe told her not participate in the Founder’s Day parade, because doing so would most likely exacerbate her symptoms, but Betty told her that Lemon would be furious with her if she backed out of the parade. She told Betty that she could tell everyone that she injured her arm and wear a sling to help “sell’ her story since she didn’t want anybody to know that she has M.S.
Betty decided to ignore Zoe’s advice, because she told Zoe that back home in Huntsville she’s a loner, she’s shy and a nobody, but when she visits Bluebell every summer she’s a belle, which basically makes people be considered a star in town. Given her own outsider status, Zoe sympathized with her situation and gave her some pills that would help alleviate the muscle weakness, which Zoe told her to only take one three times a day because they are really strong. However, just before the parade Betty experienced another episode of muscle weakness and took a bunch of the pills all at once. During the parade she started to experience another bad case of dizziness as a result of taking more than one of the pills, which Zoe noticed and told Wade that she needed to create a distraction so she could get to Betty. She began to fight with him for control of the steering wheel of the tractor that was pulling Lavon’s float, and Zoe ended up causing the float to crash and ruin the whole parade. I’m not sure if Zoe crashing the float was the diversion that she was trying to crash or she was trying to do something else to distract people and crashing the float was an accident. My guess is that she was intentionally trying to cause the float to crash.
Zoe treated Betty, but everybody in town was furious with her for ruining the parade, especially Lemon. Zoe tried to apologize to Lemon, but since she had to respect Betty’s confidentiality, she couldn’t tell Lemon the reason why she caused the float to crash. Lemon refused to accept Zoe’s apology and used her status in town as a belle to make the people in town hate Zoe even more. I have to say that I’m already completely sick of Lemon’s “Me, me, me!” attitude. All she seems to care about is herself. After the parade was ruined, she asked George to find some legal grounds that she could use to sue Zoe, but he basically ignored her request and told her to calm down. I seriously don’t understand why George wants to marry Lemon at all. I know that he told Zoe that she used to be really nice, but she’s clearly not that person anymore. Since Lemon apparently has a history with Lavon, I’m hoping that George will dump her once he finds out about it. I just pray that the truth comes out soon rather than later, because Lemon doesn’t deserve George. George definitely deserves a woman who is much better than Lemon. I’m not saying it necessarily has to be Zoe, because I think I like the chemistry between Zoe and Wade more. I just want George to be with someone else.
I have to admit that as much as I hate Lemon, I did feel a little bit of sympathy for her after I watched the scene between Lemon and Brick at the end of the episode. Apparently Lemon’s mother walked out on her and Brick twelve years ago and every year around the time of the parade she finds herself hoping that her mother will come back and see her on the Belles’ float since they used to ride on the float together before she left. Despite learning this, I still hate Lemon quite a bit, because I just think she’s a major bitch, and not the kind you love to hate like Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl. I don’t love to hate Lemon, I simply hate her.
Rose (The girl that’s fascinated with living in New York City and is a big fan of the TV show Sex and the City) asked Zoe for advice about how to deal with a boy she likes, and at the end of the episode the boy she likes came to talk to her. Things were a little awkward between them at first, but Wade who was working on a tractor nearby mentioned a comic book series that he knew they both liked, and then Rose and the boy began to talk about it and really hit off.
At the end of the episode, Emmeline told Zoe that she was leaving Bluebell to run a bakery in Shreveport with her daughter that they had bought shortly before Harley died, but she had been stayed in Bluebell to look after the practice after he died. Emmeline told her that she felt was ready enough for her to finally leave Bluebell to join her daughter. Of course, this whole story with Emmeline was because they had to write Nancy Travis out of the show now that she’s on Last Man Standing.
Zoe was worried that she’ll lose her share of the practice without Emmeline there to help her since everybody hates her even more now after she ruined the parade, but Emmeline told her that sacrificing her chance of getting the town to accept her in order to help Betty was Harley to the core. Emmeline also gave Zoe Harley’s notes on all of his patients, because she felt like the essence of who Harley was is in the files and reading them will help people respect Zoe more as a doctor. The episode ended with Zoe visiting an old lady that she had dismissed as being a hypochondriac earlier in the episode and they began to bond over the fact that they didn’t have any family in town and their mutual love of peach pie.
All in all, I have to say that I absolutely loved this episode for the most part. The only thing that really brought down my level of enjoyment of this episode was definitely Lemon and Brick. I get that they are both around to create conflict for Zoe, but I just find them very unlikable and annoying.
All that being said, I give this episode of rating of an A-.
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