Hart of Dixie combines the fast-talking, small-town atmosphere of Gilmore Girls with the best of Southern traditions and hospitality. With a cast assembled from some truly great unknowns and some stars from some newly canceled early-aughts shows, it was a great way to kick off the ‘10s and get a new decade of CW TV shows started.
This classic dish of southern hospitality, good-natured shenanigans, and just a dash of drama (okay, it’s more like a dollop) will have you “bless your heart”-ing and preparing a covered dish for your neighbor in no time. Hart of Dixie tells the story of an up-and-coming New York surgeon who needs to improve her bedside manner before she can continue on in her career. She inherited half of the local medical practice in Bluebell from her father, who she never knew. In the first season, Zoe Hart’s focus is all about getting her 30% of patients so she can stay in Bluebell, keep her half of the practice, and get herself back on track. That is, when she’s not being distracted by all the attractive men in town. The subsequent seasons, well, let’s just say that once you settle in Bluebell, it’s harder to leave than you’d think.
At its core, Hart of Dixie is a fantastically funny take on Southern charm with a crazy love hexagon in the middle of its core cast of characters. It’s basically the definition of delightful and is definitely worth a binge if you weren’t fortunate enough to catch it when it was still on the air. With such a talented cast, they surely went on to bigger and better things, so we should see what they’ve been up to.
Rachel Bilson (Dr. Zoe Hart)
The series titular character, brought to life by Rachel Bilson, had one crazy ride throughout Hart of Dixie’s four seasons. Zoe Hart’s story doesn’t entirely revolve around her medical career, as she spends a great deal of time of the series length navigating a complicated love life, as well as frustratingly complex friendships (and a frenemy or two). No matter what is going on though, Zoe is always there for her patients, no matter what event she has to skip or whom she has to cancel on at the last minute. Ultimately, it’s the things she gets right that define her character, allowing herself to choose happiness over ambition from time to time as well.
In the six years since Hart of Dixie left the CW, Rachel Bilson has had a few projects come and go. First, there was a multi-episode arc on Nashville for the show’s penultimate season. Then came the short-lived Take Two with Eddie Cibrian, which Bilson also produced. The past few years have been a bit of a professional dryspell, including an offer to star in the reboot of The HIlls she ultimately turned down, but she has focused on raising her daughter with her ex, Hayden Christensen.
Jaime King (Lemon Breeland)
Jaime King brings Zoe’s constant foil and archnemesis to life in incredible style. Lemon Breeland manages to be a total mess and an unreachable ideal all in the same show. Lemon shows a lot of love to her father and sister, tries very hard to do right by everyone, but also doesn’t seem to know what she wants for herself. The four seasons of Hart of Dixie showed us Lemon trying to find true happiness. And I think, in the end, she does get it figured out well enough.
Since the show ended, King has had a few projects on her plate. There’s a quick cameo of her in Ocean’s Eight as herself, but also a few movie roles and a streaming series as well. Out of Death, an action film in which she co-stars alongside Bruce Willis, is currently available on Hulu. You can also see her in a lead role in Netflix’s Black Summer, whose second season was just released this past June. With a couple of projects in the pipeline as well, Jaime King has definitely kept busy since Hart of Dixie's end in 2015.
Cress Williams (Lavon Hayes)
While many characters in Hart of Dixie are solely defined by whom they date, Lavon’s time as mayor allows him a myriad of crazy roles throughout the show. He gets to judge crazy competitions, run to keep his mayoral seat, be a great friend to Zoe, and give a loving home to an adventurous alligator, known affectionately to all Bluebellians as Burt Reynolds. Plus, he does take a chance or two on love as well.
Perhaps the most obviously busy post-Hart of Dixie, Cress Williams has been leading a different CW show since 2018. He plays a super-charged hero in Black Lightning, and has also appeared in The Flash thanks to the extended world of the Arrow-verse. Williams has also done a lot of voiceover work as Steel/John Henry Jones in a trio of Superman animated films, The Death of Superman, Reign of the Supermen, and The Death and Return of Superman. Next, you can catch him in What Remains alongside Anne Heche and Kellan Lutz, where he plays a pastor whose wife’s murderer returns to town. Turns out the man in question may be a suspect in a new murder and Williams’ character has to get to the bottom of the situation.
Wilson Bethel (Wade Kinsella)
Next up is the man, the myth, the scapegoat, Wade Kinsella. Wilson Bethel does a fantastic job of bringing layers to this seemingly simple townie. Thanks to nothing in life really going quite the way he planned, Wade begins Hart of Dixie as a helping hand on Lavon’s property, who trades him room and board for his troubles. This close proximity to Zoe Hart allows their enemies-to-lovers story to kick off with frightening verve. We learn a lot about what makes Wade Kinsella tick in four seasons, transforming our view of him from a stereotypical country boy into a multi-layered, complicated old soul.
Another very busy man, Bethel has taken small roles in a number of popular shows, and a pretty big role in a recently revived one. After spending short, mult-episode arcs on The Astronaut Wives Club, Blood & Oil, and How to Get Away with Murder, Wilson spent an entire season on Netflix’s Daredevil as Benjamin ‘Dex’ Poindexter. And now, you can see him on All Rise, which was recently saved from cancellation by Oprah’s OWN Network.
Scott Porter (George Tucker)
Shortly after wrapping up his starring turn on Friday Night Lights, Scott Porter left football behind for a chance to play small-town lawyer. Porter’s time on Hart of Dixie let him really play up his comedic chops, something sorely lacking from his time on FNL. While never missing out on his share of the drama, as well as his on-again, off-again thing with Lemon Breeland, George Tucker does some pretty wild things for being Bluebell’s resident legal expert. The minute Zoe Hart appears in his life though, nothing is ever the same again. Her presence challenges him to look long and hard at what he wants for himself, and whether or not he’s truly happy at home in Bluebell.
The Hart of Dixie men have had tons of success after the show's cancellation, as Porter has also had a number of seriously interesting roles in the last six years. He had a lengthy 13-episode run on the misfit action drama Scorpion, after which he took a small role in Why Women Kill in 2019. Most recently, he appeared as Mayor Paul Randolph in Netflix’s southern drama Ginny & Georgia, as well as in a 6-episode stint for Lucifer’s final season, also on Netflix. In between, Porter is never bored, keeping busy with voiceover work for a number of Marvel animated series and video games.
Tim Matheson (Dr. Brick Breeland)
There are so many great actors at play in Hart of Dixie, but perhaps their greatest get was Tim Matheson as Brick Breeland. The doc is most beloved in Bluebell, and the show truly wouldn’t be the same without his trademark snark and glorious wit. He plays a wonderful, but sometimes clueless father, who simultaneously wants his daughters to need him and be independent. A truly modern take on southern parenting, his need to be needed is ultimately fulfilled by someone outside his dependable family unit, and she brings a jolt of life to his routine life in the later seasons.
Matheson has appeared in a number of high-profile projects since Hart of Dixie’s cancellation. Starting with an uncredited, but pretty scene-stealing turn as Old Man Vreeke in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Matheson also went on to do a 4 episode arc on The Good Fight in 2018, as well as two episodes of Showtime’s The Affair. You can currently find him as Dr. Vernon Mullins on Netflix’s Virgin River, trying like hell to rekindle the spark of a seemingly doomed marriage to his wife, played by Annette O'Toole (Smallville).
Kaitlyn Black (AnnaBeth Nass)
While AnnaBeth Nass wasn’t a major character in those first couple seasons, Kaitlyn Black made her a most valuable one by the end. AnnaBeth brings an honest, authentic sweetness to Hart of Dixie that is missing a little bit in the beginning. Her romances always feel genuine, and her smiles even more so, all thanks to Kaitlyn Black. It’s impossible to imagine the last couple of seasons without AnnaBeth, as she plays such a quiet, but pivotal role in pushing all the major players to their happily ever afters.
Our final principal cast member, Black has starred in a number of short films, including Born and Missing, Relationship Deli, Last Call, and Pick-A-Chick Bar, and taken up an interest behind the camera, getting involved in the writing and producing of a few shorts. And when she’s not busy with short films, she’s made guest-starring appearances on NCIS as well as NCIS: New Orleans.
Hart of Dixie is streaming now on IMDbTV.