‘Hart of Dixie’ Season 4 Premiere Review: ‘Kablang’

Thanks to an unexpected scheduling change by The CW, we got to return to Bluebell last night instead of being forced to wait another month for the Hart of Dixie season premiere. I don’t know about anyone else, but I spent the first 20 minutes of “Kablang” grinning until my cheeks hurt because it was so fun to be reunited with these quirky characters and their outrageous small town antics.

When we last left off, George and Lavon both realized they were in love with Lemon, only to watch her depart on a singles’ cruise where she was expected to come back with a future husband so Grandma Breeland would pay to repair Fancy’s. Cricket stopped her wedding to announce that she was a lesbian, Shelby moved to another town and Zoe told Wade she loved him and wanted to fight for him. He assured her they would never happen again, but Zoe was not deterred, especially when he chose to stay in Bluebell.

Now that we’re all caught up, the season premiere resumed pretty much where the finale left off. George and Lavon remained at each other’s throats – both men used Wade as a sounding board and he did not appreciate their fighting. Neither did Tom, who was doing his best to organize a volunteer fire department for the town after what happened to Fancy’s. Needless to say George and Lavon trying to outdo each other instead of work together was only part of the potential squad’s problems. Is there anything better than watching townspeople fight and fall over themselves in the town square?

Perhaps there is…we also had a fabulous entrance from Shelby, as Brick did his best to get his mother to leave town and Shelby sauntered up to his doorstep and told him she now had a weekend home in Bluebell and wanted another chance with him. Brick told her to come back the next day when his mother would be gone (ha!). Then we had Cricket sleeping on AnnaBeth’s couch, afraid to face the Belles as she pleaded for one more day so she could finish the last two seasons of the L-Word. Have you guys picked out your favorite comedic moment yet or do you share mine…?

After Zoe’s failed attempts to win Wade over with breakfast and a movie, Zoe stood on Wade’s deck and sang “I Walk the Line” with AnnaBeth, Cricket and Wanda as backup singers. It was supposed to be her big John Cusick moment, but instead, Meatball came out in his underwear to accept her offer (and I died laughing). The next day, Wade teased her about his friend coming to him for his blessing and then Lavon and George gave Zoe less romantic, but more efficient advice: sex.

First, Zoe recreated Wade’s iconic water moment from the heat wave episode of season one (still one of my all-time favorites) and then she showed up in his living room and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, which Wade was more than okay with…until the next morning when Zoe wanted to make breakfast plans and dinner plans and he just wanted the sex. A talk with Brick let Zoe see she was just repeating old patterns and she went back to Wade and put her cards on the table: she loves him and wanted him to admit he loves her so they could be together. Instead, Wade reminded her that she broke his heart (after he broke hers, which he did take full responsibility for) and he didn’t think he could trust her not to hurt him again.

I love Wade and I love Zoe and I love Wade and Zoe together, but at this point, I wanted to knock their heads together. Life is about taking chances and there’s always, always going to be a chance of heartache and pain. But there’s also happiness and love to be had and Wade clinging to his broken heart instead of taking a chance disappointed me. It disappointed Zoe too because the episode jumped ahead eight weeks after that and she’d been doing everything in her power to avoid him until she needed him to fix her hot water heater. Things were awkward and uncomfortable and sad, but Wade stubbornly insisted it was for the best when Earl (aka the captain of this ship) tried to intervene.

Elsewhere in town, Cricket returned to the Belles and got asked a lot of inane questions, only to find out there weren’t a lot of single lesbians in the area in her age range. But then her luck changed when the woman training the would-be firefighters asked her to dinner. How adorable was Cricket’s smile and her shy acceptance? I am all for Cricket finding happiness (and I loved the Belles genuine shock that her husband did not turn out to be a homosexual – bonus points for Cricket assuming that he was one all along too).

As for the potential firemen, they cleaned up their act and started to take the training seriously, even George and Lavon. Of course it helped that Lemon returned from her cruise with a handsome, heroic doctor, who could do no wrong. Neither man liked it and wanted to investigate him, but Wade warned them to drop it and let Lemon be happy because she deserved it (I love that they gave us this little Wade/Lemon friendship reminder, even if the two didn’t share any scenes. They were one of the best parts about season three). George and Lavon went back on their agreement anyway and then ended up ruining the test and Bluebell’s chances at getting a volunteer squad, but it didn’t matter to Tom because the woman in charge called him ‘Mr. Long’.

While Lemon showed off her doctor boyfriend to Grandma Breeland, Brick snuck around with Shelby. She told him she wanted him back for real, even if his family did hate her, and he agreed that he’d tell everyone about her. Seriously, I don’t know why this relationship works, but it does and I love it and I really want the two of them to end up happy together. As for Lemon, she confessed to AnnaBeth that Dr. Henry is a fake boyfriend and they’re both doing it to get something from their overbearing grandmothers. I’m happy he’s not going to be a player in the already crowded triangle, but I also have no idea which of the two men Lemon will choose. I really want it to be George because they were also a great part of season three, but I have a feeling this one’s going to go the other way (and that’s great for all the Lemon/Lavon shippers – I know a lot of you have been hoping for this since season one).

Now let’s get back to Zoe and Wade. Earl staged an intervention by pretending to be trapped in his hole. His girlfriend called Zoe and Wade separately and they each showed up to help, only to find out they’d been reverse Parent Trapped (classic Earl). Zoe told Wade that she’d tried to think of a way to prove she wouldn’t hurt him, but couldn’t. All she wanted was for him to knock on her door and tell her that he wanted this and wanted to try. Wade didn’t know what to say (seriously, that was his response) so Zoe made an excuse and left. This scene hurt a lot, but luckily, Earl was not about to let his son off the hook that easily.

In a fantastic speech, Earl assured Wade that he knew why he was scared. He’d been so scared of getting hurt after Wade’s mother died that he lived in a bottle for 20 years. Earl didn’t want the same thing to happen to his son. He urged Wade not to be like him and to go after what he wanted. And he got through to him because Wade did exactly what Zoe asked: he knocked on her door, told her that he loved her and he wanted to try. My heart barely had time to melt before Zoe responded by saying he’d been right and it was too late for them…what?

I have to admit this part threw me a little, even if I did know the reason why Zoe was silently freaking out (anyone who’s seen a picture of Rachel Bilson earlier this year probably figured out where the sex and the time jump were going). But the final shot of Zoe, alone in her room as Lemon and AnnaBeth questioned who the positive pregnancy test belonged to, didn’t really answer the question as to why Zoe would push Wade away now – other than for typical TV show angst because we can’t have the main couple getting back together in the premiere.

So yes, it’s a little disappointing that we finally got them each to say ‘I love you’ only for Zoe to do exactly what Wade feared and reject him again. But knowing Zoe like we do after watching her for three seasons, we know she doesn’t always make the best choices when she’s dealing with something huge. And learning she’s pregnant with Wade’s baby after he told her repeatedly that they weren’t going to happen again is a major life changing event and she probably just needs time to process it. So I’m not going to fault her too much for this one. If anything, knowing how close Wade and Zoe are to finally getting back together is only making me more excited for the next nine episodes. See you in January…