Rayna's stalker storyline is moving at a snail's pace on Season 5 of Nashville, but after the jam-packed twists and turns the show took during its first four seasons on network television, it's sort of fun to watch the mystery play out in tiny increments. So the question is: is Rayna in danger on Nashville? While the show has been plodding creepily towards something seemingly sinister, maybe her stalker turns out to be harmless after all.
We finally saw her receive the envelope from the teaser, hand-delivered to her home. It's filled with rose petals and a thick stack of paper, upon which is written one long love letter. A lingering shot of the page lets us know that it's basically the rantings of someone who is very excited that they have finally "made it" to Nashville to be near (or maybe with?) Rayna, who is the only woman they have ever loved. It also details how they tried to love another person because they were "unworthy" of Rayna, but they just couldn't go through with it. As far as hints to who the stalker may be, there aren't many. Super eagle-eyed fans may have spotted some their/they're/there grammatical errors in the letter, but Nashville doesn't really hone in on tiny details like that. So it may actually just be a prop fluke.
Rayna's manager Bucky doesn't seem concerned by the letter, but suggests she could "beef up her home security" if she was feeling uneasy. He insinuates that she's gotten tons of creepy fan letters like this one before (apparently one of them involved a woman mailing Rayna her socks?), and that it's not really a new threat. But the fact that the letter was delivered directly to her mailbox without an address or stamp on it is definitely disconcerting.
As for the two potential suspects, Rayna does sign a contract handing a 20 percent stake in Highway 65 to Zach Welles in exchange for basically getting whatever she wants funded. So the two of them are about to get closer, in spite of her many reservations about him. (For his part, Deacon seems a little suspicious of him, too.) Randall St. Claire, Rayna's besotted social media director, is as paralyzingly awkward around her as ever, proving that he's not really relaxing into his new job. (Although he's performing it very successfully.)
In the previews for next week's episode, Bucky finally begins to suspect Randall, and has him write out a sentence in order to compare it to Rayna's stalker's handwriting. So this might be the moment the stalker is apprehended with no further harm to Rayna. It would be disappointing for the storyline to peter out without ever putting Rayna in any real danger, but at least we won't have to worry about the Queen of Country getting written off the show anymore.
