‘Chesapeake Shores’ Season 2 Finale Recap: Did Trace Choose Abby Or Music?

After 10 heartwarming and heartbreaking episodes, Season 2 of Hallmark Channel’s “Chesapeake Shores” has come to an end.

The hour-long drama has been captivating viewers for two seasons now and this season’s finale only continued to do just that. Fans have been following not just the drama within the O’Brien family, but also the romantic drama of will-they-or-won’t-they between high school sweethearrts, Trace (Jesse Metcalfe) and Abby (Meghan Ory).

With the Season 2 finale, Trace finally had to make a choice between music and love. Which one did he choose? And how did all of the other relationships on there series fare? Did love win out for any of them?

Let’s recap where all of the “Chesapeake Shores” couples ended up by the end of the finale.

Abby and Trace

The episode opened with Trace (Jesse Metcalfe) singing to Abby (Meghan Ory), and apparently it’s the only way that an episode of “Chesapeake Shores” should open because it’s beautiful.

They’re having a little day at the park with her daughters and you see the family that they’re really becoming together. It sets up the episode for what’s to come, the choice that Trace is going to eventually have to make between taking the next step with his music or staying with the woman he loves. This scene shows the viewer, as well as reminds the character, of exactly what he’d be leaving behind if he moved forward with his music.

That decision starts to come into the forefront for Trace when his bandmates, John and Leigh, shortly later begin to breathe down his neck about looking for a new record deal after their performance video went viral. With that, they called their old label head, Mark Hall (Jerry Trimble), to talk about a new deal.

Meanwhile, Abby’s working and meets up with Douglas (Victor Webster), a father of one of the students at Abby’s kids’ school, to talk a little about their kids, but mainly about him becoming a partner with Mick on the O’Brien Trust project.

Though they are talking business, it seems like the two are really starting to get close, especially on his end. From the beginning of their relationship, when they met as school volunteers, viewers could tell that a bit of chemistry was bound to form between the two of them, and each time they are in a scene together the chemistry has done just that. It’s grown and grown. While she is maybe just being friendly right now, with the sweet looks he keeps giving her it seems like he might want to be more than just friends — even though he knows she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend who is pretty focused on music, though. Nonetheless, Abby is solely focused on Trace.

Elsewhere and a little bit later, Mark comes down to Trace’s club to show them exactly what they would get if they signed with him, which is an opening slot on a six-month arena tour for the label’s top artist. While Trace’s two bandmates are over-the-moon excited, Trace, with Abby sitting right next to him, is quite conflicted over the whole ordeal. He loves music and the band, but he also has his girlfriend and her daughters and his club to think about.

Later, Trace tries to convince Leigh that it’s too long of a commitment and the band’s not ready, but it doesn’t seem like she believes him as that being the real reason.

But, nonetheless, it seems like the band tells Mark that they don’t think they’re going to go on the long tour because he later comes to visit Trace as he’s setting up his music equipment at the town festival with a little wisdom.

“When they [musicians] don’t jump at the chance [to go on tour], my experience, they’re either scared, and you don’t look scared, or they’re afraid to leave something behind, or someone,” Mark tells Trace. “Let me tell you one truth I know about success: You can’t have it all.”

Even with hearing that, Trace tells Abby that he’s not going to go on tour because he has too many responsibilities in Chesapeake Shores to leave.

Happy that Trace has decided not to go on tour, she’s extra enthusiastic when she tells her sisters, Bree (Emilie Ullerup) and Jess (Laci J. Mailey), and her grandma Nell (Diane Ladd) the news, but they don’t have quite the same reaction as she did. They all tell her that he’d be giving up everything for her by not going and that there has to be balance in a relationship. They explain to her that this is a huge opportunity for him and that it wouldn’t be good for their relationship if she didn’t encourage him to go.

All of this makes her realize that once upon a time she left Trace for New York to have her chance at her dreams, and now it’s time for her to do the same for him.

At the festival, Abby tells Trace all of this, but he doesn’t understand. He tells her that he loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her. As the tears fall, she tells him that she loves him too.

“If we’re meant to be, this isn’t the end,” she tells him when they both declare that they don’t want to lose each other again.

Later, as Abby watches Trace on the stage performing for the festival, a compilation of their most romantic and lovely memories plays. They’re left simply to hope that one day in the future they’ll have more memories to add to that montage.

Jess and David

Jess and David (Carlo Marks) were doing well as both co-workers and as a couple when he hit Jess with a bombshell that he’s leaving the inn because his family needs him. Which, of course, came as a little bit of a shocker considering he never talks about himself or his family. Jess wasn’t happy and said that he can’t break up with her, but he assures her that he doesn’t want to break up with her, just the inn.

Eventually, while interviewing a new chef for the inn, Jess blurted out that she knows about David buying $10,000 worth of extra books she accidentally bought for her sister’s bookstore last week, and David overheard and responded with simply, “You knew?”

And she tells him that she knew he would’ve said something had he wanted her to know and it only makes him happier to hear that she understands him so well. But Jess said she wants to understand more and wants to get to know him better.

This is when he randomly decides to open up to her, with the interviewee and Bree sitting right there, and reveals that his father is Dennis Lyle Peck.

The interviewing chef knew exactly what that meant because he piped up with a, “You’re a Boston Peck?”

“Your family owns everything,” he continued.

When all of that was finally out in the open, David was able to explain that his family really does need him and he has to leave the inn to help because his father is sick and they need David’s help with running things until he recovers. He has to go to Boston and overseas, to places like Paris, naturally.

During the art festival, as the couple are watching Trace perform, he simply kisses her on the head and makes his exit.

Bree and Simon

At the end of the last episode, Bree got news that a publishing company wanted to print her manuscript, so she’d been working like crazy to send in chapters, but it hasn’t been enough. While she’s happy about everything that’s happening, she’s not happy with Simon (Oliver Rice) for submitting the manuscript on her behalf without asking. It makes her start to think that he’s like her ex-boyfriend, Martin (Kyle Cassie), and will only hurt her.

She told him how she was feeling over lunch, but then they’re interrupted and don’t get a chance to speak about it.

In the end, when he’s helping her pack up books, she told him to go back to England because even though he cares about her and didn’t change her written words like Martin has in the past, she can’t be with him. She said she had to believe that her terrible seven-year relationship taught her something and that she’s able to stand her ground.

While Simon’s not okay with this, he really has no say because Bree had made up her mind already. He’s left looking sad as she drives away from him.

Kevin and Sarah

Kevin (Brendan Penny) is moving forward with his life after coming home and is about to start his seven months of paramedic training. He told all of this to Sarah (Jessica Sipos), who he’d become just friends with, and it somehow turned into him agreeing to help her out with a project at the art festival.

Later, he told his sisters Bree and Jess that he’s not over her, even though they recently agreed to have a platonic relationship.

As Kevin and Sarah work on building a tent at the festival together, they continue to have their usual chemistry, making it seem like it’s only a matter of time before they become more than friends.

And that time came towards the end of the episode, when the tent slightly falls on them and they’re standing close to each other. That’s when the kiss happened. A sweet kiss shared amid laughter.

Things seemed to be going well for the two of them until he gets an email from Stanford saying that he’s been accepted to their medical school. Even so, he’s not frowning or contemplative while reading it, but seemed to be okay with the fact that he’s about to start paramedic training instead of going to medical school.

Nell And The Mysterious Dylan O’Malley

Nell, who had been elusive and reserved about a specific part of her past since earlier in the series when Abby showed her an old ring Trace had found, finally shared some of what she’d been hiding. She pretended like she didn’t recognize the ring, but we all knew she did. She tried to tell her son, Mick (Treat Williams), about it all but it was never the right time. She took a seemingly random trip to Ireland after that and then in the beginning of this episode she pretended to not recognize an old photo that Bree found in the attic, when once again, it’s clear that she did.

It’s in the second half of the episode when Megan (Barbara Niven) went to Nell and asked what’s going on and she simply came out with it and said, “I know who the boy is.” She’s referring to the photo of the man from the beginning of the episode, of course.

“Dylan O’Malley,” she continued, saying the name viewers have heard a few times from her throughout the show, but never much more than that.

“I took that photograph the day I left Ireland,” she shared. “And although I wonder what his biggest regret is, I know mine. That I never told him how I felt.”

Right after finally getting that off of her chest, before Megan could respond, Nell quickly switched gears to talk about Megan’s speech that she was putting together for the art festival.

All three of the O’Brien sisters are about to be without the important men in their lives, but will it stay that way or will some or all of them make their way back? Will new love interests pop in to shake it all up? Will Kevin decide that he can’t give up Standford’s medical school and leave Sarah and paramedic training behind?

Only “Chesapeake Shores” Season 3, which hasn’t been announced yet, could answer all of those questions and more.