After being unceremoniously cancelled by ABC towards the end of its fourth season, Nashville was unexpectedly saved by CMT. And the trailer for the show’s fifth season offers our first look at the series in its new home. But first, it catches viewers up on where things left off with a brief season four retrospective: Rayna and Deacon are married, Scarlett and Gunner are an item, Maddie is newly emancipated but still living at home, Will is out of the closet, and Juliette and Avery have a fractured family. Oh and Juliette may or may not have died in a plane crash after ditching out on the Oscars. (Never ditch out on the Oscars.)
The trailer teases the mystery of what happened to Juliette’s plane, but also hints at some other major plotlines for the show’s fifth season. Maddie gets a love interest, Rayna tries to find a hit for her record label Highway 65, and there’s some tension in both the Scarlett/Gunner relationship and the Rayna/Deacon one. But the big selling point here is definitely the shot of Hayden Panettiere looking distressed as alarms sound on her shaky plane. The season description cryptically notes that “shocking news” about Juliette “creates a wave of emotions throughout Nashville and sets Rayna off on a journey of discovery.”
All that and more will unfold when Nashville debuts on CMT on January 5. But for those who can’t quite wait that long, the channel is airing a “sneak peak” look at the first half of the two-hour premiere on December 15. That sneak peak, along with all new episodes of Nashville, will also be available to stream on Hulu the day after it airs.