That sounds truly bad. It makes juliette's progress storyline completely ridiculous. Plus tons of maddie and clay? No thanks. These writers are complete imbeciles. I would hope that for season 6 they fire marshall and his writers, but that won't happen I think.
Hence I hope ratings continue to decline in this and also next season and CMT ends this mess by making season 6 the last season, so the more talent actors like hayden, jonathan, sam and also charles get the chance to do something better. I just hope they give all characters a good and fitting ending.