ABCThe show must go on.
Nashville fans were left with the jaws on the floor when Jeff (Oliver Hudson) died at the end of the Oct. 28 episode, falling to his death after preventing Juliette (Hayden Panettiere) from jumping off a roof. Even more surprised by his grisly end than the ABC drama's viewers? Hudson's co-stars, including Aubrey Peeples.
While Peeples knew Hudson would be leaving the show (due to his commitment to Fox's Scream Queens), she had no idea his exit would be so shocking. "I did not know they were going to murder him so brutally, or kill him so brutally," she told E! News at the JCPenney CMA Style Suite. "It was definitely a shock. I was very surprised. It was an interesting shoot, and I think it turned out well. We're all really sad about it though."
And on-screen, Peeples' character Layla will arguably be grieving the death of Jeff the hardest.
"It's just devastating," she previewed of the fallout for Layla in tonight's episode. "It's a big episode for me. She writes a song, so you'll see a lot of new music about it...her pouring her feelings into her music."
And Peeples is excited for fans to see more music from Layla on the show, saying, "I'll have more music than ever. It's really good. [Layla] drops a new album and starts working on another one. I think she's going to grow as a musician, and she's depends on all these different relationships for such a long time, I think she's going to grow into her own a bit." Peeples also teased, "There's going to be more romance for sure."
Fortunately, Peeples told us that Nashville is probably done with its major deaths for the season after Jeff and Beverly (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), saying, "[Jeff's death] was probably the most traumatic of the year. I can't imagine we'd have another one, because we already had Beverly die, so that's two. We're normally at two a season."
Phew!
Nashville airs tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC.
—Reporting by Lindsey Caldwell