If there’s one thing George & Tammy wants viewers to take away, it’s that Tammy Wynette really lived her music. This is true: The real Wynette suffered through a series of controlling (and, at times, physically abusive) marriages. And while I’ll hold off on the details of the inciting incident that eventually led to her death at the age of 55 (it’ll probably be covered in this series), trust that it’s painfully ironic, given the way that sexism negatively impacted her life.
It’s also true that Wynette’s family had her institutionalized after she tried to leave her (perpetually unemployed) first husband and that she received 12 rounds of electric shock treatment while in the hospital. (Wynette’s biographer, Jimmy McDonough, describes a “nervous breakdown” in the lead-up to these events.) Throughout it all, she did her best to carry the traditional burden of a Southern woman: Be both Saturday night and Sunday morning, and if your man strays anyway, that’s your fault because “after all, he’s just a man.”
There’s an element of pity for the inherent weakness of men in that line. If there’s a feminist reading to be had in the lyrics of “Stand by Your Man” — and you do have to squint a little to find it — that idea is its key: A good country woman knows that men, for all their paternalism, are essentially overgrown children who need to be coddled as such. A man’s cheating and boozing is just a temper tantrum; women are the strong ones, the moral ones, the ones keeping families together. The obvious question is, “why bother with men at all, then?” and, well — the world hadn’t quite caught up with that idea in Tammy Wynette’s day, although increasing numbers of 21st-century women are choosing exactly that option.
But pitying men doesn’t protect you from their violence, as Tammy learns when she and George go on the tour together to refill their bank accounts after George throws what’s left of his life savings into a derelict old house in the middle of nowhere. That’s meant as a surprise for Tammy, and she greets it as if George was a little boy who completely wrecked the kitchen trying to make his mom breakfast. It was impulsive, just like George’s decision to give his house and publishing rights to his manager Pappy Daily (Robert Morgan), in exchange for the freedom to record duets with Tammy. True, Tammy’s songwriter and producer, George Richey (Steve Zahn), has been pressuring George to break his contract with Pappy for a while. But that’s a man, talking to a man, and men have no sense.
Being on the road brings out the worst in George, who seemingly transforms into a sodden drunk from the moment he steps onto their now-joint tour bus. The moment where he slams Tammy against the wall of their motel room while blackout drunk was shockingly violent, and I’m glad the show didn’t downplay that. Her eventual barefoot return to that room, where George lies hungover and unaware of (or just not caring about) the very serious line he’s crossed — he’s now an active threat to Tammy’s safety, on top of everything else — is pathetic, and it’s meant to be. But what other choice does she have?
Nashville is a small town, established early in the episode, when George, Tammy, and Tammy’s kids go out for breakfast at a diner near Tammy’s motel. The relationship hasn’t been consummated yet, but the gossip train is already leaving the station — we don’t really think that the server who recognizes the duo will keep her mouth shut, do we? — turning an impulsive act into a business contract. They’re a power couple now, and they’ll work out the relationship part later, after a quickie divorce in Mexico followed by a quickie wedding. George has been in the music business longer than Tammy and has some valid points about the chasm between a stage persona and a real person, and the dangers of conflating the two. But he keeps his protestations brief. He’s just a man.
The musical cues in “Stand by Your Man” are telegraphing just as strenuously as in the premiere: In the diner scene, “Mama Tried” (released in May ’68 by Merle Haggard and the Strangers) is playing over the PA. The chorus of that song ends with, “no one could set me right, but Mama tried” — foreshadowing George’s imminent breaking of all his promises to the relatively morally upright Tammy. And later on, when Tammy is discussing her “issue” with Don (Pat Healy) while styling wigs in the living room, “Harper Valley PTA” — Jeannie C. Reilly’s hit 1968 story-song about a woman standing up for herself against (although the word didn’t exist yet) slut-shaming — is on the radio.
It’s telling that Tammy’s first instinct is to hide the fact that her ex-husband is trying to blackmail her — for songwriting credit, of all things — from George. In her mind, the fact that the photos were taken without her consent doesn’t matter. She is the responsible one here, and just like the dark past that she’s been trying so hard to keep secret, it’s her job to make this go away. She’ll attempt to do so with some soft power, proposing to George with a faux-casual tone and appeasement in her voice that having the two of them sing love songs written by her ex “couldn’t be more country.” (The dating pool is limited in the middle of nowhere.)
Eventually, however, George solves the problem the manly way — i.e., with violence. Tammy finds this romantic, which tracks with her worldview; protection is one of the few things a man is good for, after all. She calls the side of him that comes out during his savage outburst in their motel room “the devil,” and she is indeed making a Faustian bargain by allowing herself to be caught up in the dream of being married to George Jones and wearing sparkly cowboy boots and having screaming fans greet them at the airport. How much of this is love, and how much of it is sublimated ambition?
Another Lonely Song
• The on-the-nose writing is the main thing keeping this show from being great, and the moment where George says, “I’m just a man,” and Tammy is suddenly struck with inspiration is the most groaningly obvious bit yet.
• On the other hand, the sets, makeup, and costumes are fabulous. Tammy’s loose hairdo and red lipstick speak volumes about her mindset when she first runs off with George — she’s ready to have a little fun — and her spangles and bright colors represent her transition from shy up-and-comer to bona fide star.
• That being said, George’s Western wear was the sartorial highlight. I especially liked his white jacket/pink patterned shirt/tiger’s eye bolo combo midway through the episode.
• Fans of Jones and Wynette will have already clocked this — they don’t sound like the originals, although they’re not bad, but Shannon and Chastain both sing their parts on the show. In a recent interview with NPR, Shannon says that their mutual vocal coach “would have us sing the songs sitting on a piano bench with our knees touching, you know, and staring at each other” eight hours a day, five days a week, which accounts for the playful intimacy of the scene early in the episode where George and Tammy share their first kiss.
