‘9-1-1: Nashville’: LeAnn Rimes Says You See Dixie’s ‘Heart’ in Don Flashbacks (VIDEO)

“The universe always brings us back together,” Dixie (LeAnn Rimes) insists when it comes to her and Don (Chris O’Donnell). And the Thursday, February 26, episode of 9-1-1: Nashville, which dives into their origin story as well as his with his wife, Blythe (Jessica Capshaw), certainly shows that seems to be true.

Heading into “Don Begins,” we knew, from the previous episodes, that Don and Dixie knew each other before he and Blythe did and they reconnected when the spouses were separated, resulting in their son, Blue (Hunter McVey). This episode reveals all about those pasts, through flashbacks with Ben Winchell as Don, Noa Bess Solomon as Dixie, and Hunter King as Blythe. TV Insider spoke with LeAnn Rimes about learning all those details, Don and Dixie, Dixie and Blythe’s rivalry, and much more in the video interview above. Warning: Spoilers for 9-1-1: Nashville Season Episode 11 ahead!

The episode opens with the fire that ultimately took the lives of Don’s parents and baby sister — Dixie lived next door with her grandmother, and they called 9-1-1 and stayed with him in the hospital. It was years later that the two reconnected and moved in together, encouraging each other to become a firefighter and songwriter. But as she became a success (Rimes wrote and sang “Wild Things Run” for that montage), he struggled in his probie days. By the time she left on tour (to be backup for Faith Hill), he was excelling at work and their relationship had fallen apart. It was then that he met Blythe, responding to a fire on the ranch and helping to save her horses. They fell in love (and ran into problems with her ex-boyfriend and her father), and Dixie was hurt when she returned home to find the two together. But then, as the episode ended, came the flashback to Don drinking his sorrows in a bar after his and Blythe’s separation — and Dixie finding him.

Disney/Jake Giles Netter

Rimes hadn’t known any of the details prior to getting this script. “I wish we would’ve known,” she admits. “It informs our choices as actors, and it was so great to now have this information from here on out to really inform what we do. You really kind of get to see where they all began and why Blythe and Dixie butt heads. There’s many reasons, but that’s where it started.”

Meanwhile, in the present, Don struggles as he prepares to speak at the parole hearing for the man who set the aforementioned fire. It’s Dixie who’s able to help him, in great part because she shares some of those memories.

“That history and that connection is what allowed him to open that door, knowing that he had the support, I think, of someone that was actually there at that time, but I think you really see that there’s a certain kind of connection that they have that Blythe and he do not, although they have their own beautiful love story. So, that’s where it becomes very complicated,” says Rimes.

What doesn’t help: Dixie hasn’t been able to let Don go. (Rimes agrees that her character could use a new love interest.) “I think Dixie’s still very much in love with him, and because of that, I think it’s so painful for her to be around him and Blythe,” the star explains. “It’s also she feels like she’s been slighted in life, and to see this life that they now have together with all this money and power, I think for her, that’s also very painful.”

But for Rimes, what’s key about this episode is that it shows that Dixie has it in her to not be that person, to maybe one day let it go so that she and Don could be friends. “She has a great heart. And I think through this flashback with Noa, who plays the younger version of me, she did it so well where you really get to see the heart of Dixie before the manipulation set in,” the actor and singer-songwriter explains. “To me, that manipulation is really a survival mechanism, and that’s how she’s learned how to survive as a single mom in this crazy town that just eats you alive. And so I think you get to see the heart of her before that survival mechanism set in, and that’s all still there. And so I think ultimately she has it in her, if she can dig deep enough.”

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Ultimately, Don is able to speak at the parole hearing, with everyone there to support him. After, Blythe acknowledges what Dixie did for him, thanking her. Rimes thinks that surprised Dixie.

“Blythe always tries to extend an olive branch reluctantly — I think the southern Belle in her always tries to extend the olive branch. But yeah, I think for any acknowledgement from Blythe and any thank you was definitely a surprise,” she notes. “I think that’s why you see Dixie kind of respond the way she does, is she can’t take that in, she can’t be friends, she can’t let that in. So, her response back is always one with a little bit of a jab. And if you look at it, I don’t know if Dixie knows how to receive love in a lot of ways. I think she’s really kind of been walled off for a long time, and she can’t let stuff like that in.”

Watch the full video interview above for much more from LeAnn Rimes about Don and Dixie, Dixie and Blythe, Dixie’s upcoming vocal surgery, how she feels about Blue getting to know the rest of his family, his new relationship, and next week’s 9-1-1 crossover with Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) coming to Nashville.

9-1-1: Nashville, Thursdays, 9/8c, ABC