‘Nashville’ Series Finale: Behind The Surprising Character Return

SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about the series finale of Nashville. 

After a lot of will she/won’t she speculation, Nashville‘s original leading lady Connie Britton returned to the country music drama for its series finale, reprising her role as the late superstar Rayna James.

In an emotional flashback scene from Rayna and Deacon’s (Chip Esten) wedding night, the two reminded fans why they were Nashville’s golden couple. Deacon had the vision of Rayna just as he was to walk out on stage at the Ryman in the last minutes of the finale where he was joined by his father and almost the entire cast of the series from all six seasons, including Britton.

“Rayna got to do the impossible,” Britton said about returning to Nashville. “She got to come back from the dead. I got to do the most wonderful, which was to go back to my Nashville family and celebrate all the hard work and love and care that went into that show. Being on the Ryman stage, reunited with 6 years of cast and crew, is a moment I’ll cherish and never forget. I am grateful.”

Getting Britton for the finale was not easy, Nashville creator Callie Khouri told Deadline in a finale post-mortem Q&A.

“We made it happen,” she said. “Obviously Connie was working on another show, 9-1-1, and working on some other stuff too, her son was on spring break, and we just had to figure out how to get it on the day that she could be there. She literally had one day that she could do it. So we just moved everything around in the schedule to make that happen, because it was too important. I was so sure that to finish the show without her would leave on such a wrong note, that it was just impossible.”

“And I think she, and everyone in the cast, felt that,” Khouri added. “We all felt like she needed to be there. It would just be some horrible injustice not to get to have that moment with everybody,  and she really wanted it, and I think she was really glad she came, Everybody got to hug and kiss on each other, and it was just like old home week. It was really, really beautiful.”