Is it normal for a songwriting session to be this brutal? On Thursday night’s (Feb. 9) episode of CMT's Nashville, Deacon and Rayna spent all of their time, energy and creativity on their would-be music, and came up with exactly nothing.

First they did some wistful reminiscing and playful bantering about their rocky history -- "It wasn’t all fairy tale,” Rayna said -- but then Gene walked in. He was hired to film the happy couple writing songs for their duets album, but it just made their writer's blocks that much worse.

It got so bad that it kept Rayna up at night, because she recalled being able to literally write songs in their sleep. Finally Deacon had something.

“I’ve been thinking about all that time we spent apart, and somehow it always felt like you were there with me," he said. Rayna added to that with her idea about how sometimes you go looking for happiness right where you lost it.

Then there was the kind of montage you might see in a romantic comedy: They went for a drive, they went bowling, they made out behind the bowling alley, they cried, they fought, they made up. Still, though, no great songs were being written.

Deacon suggested that they spend some time apart, which really pissed Rayna off.

“You’re so good at this. At quitting. Things get real, you get gone,” she yelled at him.

Part of the struggle with Rayna and Deacon is that while their love story is pretty perfect, their daughter Maddie’s is not. She’s really falling for Clay, who is much older than her, and her parents can’t wrap their heads around that.

After putting out a small fire -- literally, not figuratively -- the family gathered in the kitchen and talked things over. Well, Rayna talked. Maddie just listened.

“My house, my rules,” Rayna said, adding a very insincere, “Bye, Clay, lovely to see you.”

Maddie stormed upstairs and then tried to explain herself to her little sister Daphne, who has her own boy drama.

She told Daphne that when you’re in love, it can hurt sometimes.

“It feels like you’ve sewn someone else’s skin on top of yours and you can never take it off without feeling like you’ve just been ripped apart,” Maddie said.

And that’s exactly what it must have felt like for Scarlett and Gunnar. While their music video had gone insanely viral, their love had not. In fact, Scarlett went to dinner with the video director Damien, and after a few glasses of wine, voila. The hate in their love/hate relationship had completely faded.

They shared a kiss, and Scarlett rushed home to spill her guts to Gunnar.

“Whatever it was about, it’s over,” Scarlett assured Gunnar.

Really? If that's the case, then why did Damien send text after text after text while Scarlett and Gunnar were making up the old-fashioned way -- in bed?