Hart of Dixie Recap: "Aliens and Aliases"

While the official title of this week’s Hart of Dixie episode was “Aliens and Aliases,” a more accurate description of the plot would be ‘the one where the audience is constantly told that George Tucker is a nice guy.’

Picking up where last week’s episode left off, Zoe was still mad at Wade for ruining her relationship with Judson, George wanted Lemon to relax and have fun since she’d been so stressed out about her mother and there was trouble in paradise for Didi and Lavon as well as Wade and Joelle. Didi was upset because of the picture she’d found of Lemon in Lavon’s study and Wade had no idea why Joelle had ditched him in the middle of their date by climbing out a bathroom window.

Lavon asked Zoe to find out why Didi was suddenly avoiding him and Zoe agreed since Lavon was her best friend in Bluebell. Zoe had to swing by George’s office anyway because his client had been fired from his teaching job due to his insistence that aliens had planted a device in him and George wanted Zoe to prove something was medically wrong. While she was there, Zoe chatted with Didi and was horrified to learn that Lemon was Lavon’s mystery woman.

Here’s where the show officially lost me for most of the episode. Zoe was furious with Lavon because George is the nicest guy ever, something that not only she repeated throughout the episode, but so did Didi, the guy who thought he was linked to aliens, that guy’s wife, etc. But Zoe had already said that Lavon was her best friend in town and the audience has seen just how great Lavon has been to Zoe so it made absolutely no sense that Zoe was being so judgmental and acting like she was under some moral obligation to tell George the truth. Not only was it none of her business, but the fact that she was so willing to throw Lavon under the bus to protect George made me like Zoe a lot less.

I’ve said nearly every week that I find George useless and I don’t have any love for the character. That doesn’t mean I want the characters to start talking about how great George is. This is a TV show; I want to be shown how great he is, not hit over the head with bad dialogue that only served to make me want to throttle Zoe. At one point in the episode, Zoe left George a grave message letting him know that she had something important to tell him. I’ve watched TV before so I knew she wasn’t going to spill the beans, but the scene still managed to make me angry. Again, why is she so judgmental? She was willing to give Judson another chance after he had sex with her friend, but Lavon is suddenly the enemy because George is so fragile? What?

But luckily, the man who thought he was possessed by aliens was able to get through to Zoe. It turns out that he had lead poisoning and that was what was messing with his mind. He asked Zoe to tell his wife that she removed an alien tracking device from him because he didn’t want to disrupt their lives. He admitted that it was strange, but it worked for them and who was it hurting? That got Zoe thinking and she went to see Lavon and he told her the entire story, including how Lemon broke his heart when she chose George over him. Suddenly, Zoe remembered how good Lavon has been to her and she felt bad that he’d been hurt. So she lied to George when he called her back and told him that he had to tell the wife about the alien tracking device.

Thankfully, this episode also had a Wade and Lemon subplot that stopped me from throwing things at my TV. It turns out Joelle has been running from her ex-boyfriend because he tried to have her arrested for setting his lawn on fire and she’d jumped out the window because she saw him at the bar. Lemon was trying her hardest not to be her usual type-A self, but she was finding it impossible not to make lists and organize things so she headed to the Rammer Jammer for a drink. Wade told her that she needed to let go and then he suggested that she stop being Lemon for a day and try being someone else. He asked Lemon to pose as a Joelle look alike and go back to the bar with him to fool Joelle’s ex into leaving them alone.

Lemon donned some trashy clothes and hair extensions and transformed herself into Roxy, Wade’s pretend girlfriend. The plan worked like a charm, not only did Joelle’s ex believe it had been a case of mistaken identity, but Lemon started to loosen up and have fun. She was actually having too much fun and Wade sent an SOS to George asking him to pick up his fiancée since she wouldn’t stop line dancing long enough to leave and Wade was worried she would blow their cover. But before George got there, in my favorite scene of the episode, Lemon told Wade that he deserved someone better than Joelle because he had a big heart whether he believed it or not.

Drunken Lemon didn’t stay tame for very long and as soon as George walked through the door, she announced to everyone that he was her fiancé and proceeded to invite the whole bar to their wedding. Joelle’s ex caught on to the scheme and Wade hilariously shouted, “Run!” as George dragged Lemon out of the bar. Wade took Lemon’s words to heart and decided to end things with Joelle which led to her breaking his things and setting his guitar on fire while George and Lemon went skinny dipping in the lake and decided they were going to elope.

 I admit that I didn’t like Lemon for the first few episodes, but the character and Jaime King have both grown on me. Lemon has layers and she’s a good friend and a good daughter and even a good fiancée even if she doesn’t always make the right choices. The writers should take a lesson from themselves on character development. Wade, Lemon and Lavon have all blossomed and grown since the pilot whereas George has remained the same boring, one note character all along. I’m always going to like Wade better than George, but I still wish the writers would attempt to make something of his character instead of just having random people sing his praises.