Episode Report Card Drunken Bee: A | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Put Him in Coach
By Drunken Bee | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 01.30.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The Arnet Mead game is here again, and so is the Coach's yearly barbeque. Does anyone else feel as warm inside as I do at having having this world keep turning? It's like a REAL TOWN! So the barbeque is stressing Tami out, because once again the work of preparing to host all the mean boosters and all the messy, shaggy boys in her house has fallen to her. When she runs into Katie McCoy -- J.D.'s mom-- in the grocery store and Katie offers to have it at their house, Tami gratefully accepts. But Coach is livid, thinks she's getting played, because the McCoys are starting to play hardball trying to get J.D. starting as quarterback. The barbeque goes off without a hitch in the McCoys seriously whopping McMansion; no hitches except Coach getting waylaid by Buddy and McCoy. Off to the side, though, we get our first brief meeting with J.D. actual -- when the kid comes upon Matt and Julie chuckling over all the trophies J.D.'s parents have displayed. And, just as I suspected, he seems like a sweet, dorky kid being pulled along by the current of his dad's weird displaced ambition.
Matt is really feeling the pressure to win on Friday. As he puts it to Julie, the outcome of the game could pretty much change his life. As in, if he messes up, he gets benched and J.D. goes in. In our first nail-biter of this season (in part courtesy of the great Fucked Up song the game is set to) the game comes down to the last minute. Matt's taken a beating for four quarters, but he swears to Coach that he has one more play in him. He runs the ball and just makes it into the endzone, but gets hit hard and fumbles the ball. Arnet Mead wins, all of our hearts break, Matt's shoulders slump, and Coach comes home to a bunch of "For Sale" signs posted in his front yard.
The Upstairs/Downstairs Garrity/Collette/Riggins drama continues with Ole Sis and Angela hating on Lyla and Billy begging Tim to help him with this "one last thing"-- stealing copper wire from an abandoned plant for cash. Tim reluctantly goes along, but in the process stands Lyla up at the barbeque, which brings them to an impasse.
When Smash finds out his mom is planning on taking a second job to help send him to college, he considers not going to college at all. Luckily that "plan" is quickly squashed by Corinna.
Want more? The full recap starts right below! The Collette ladies (ladies?), the Riggins boys (yes, boys), and Lyla are out drinking and carousing and going to get steaks. Quick cut to Billy and Tim in the truck on the way home, Billy berating his brother for ordering a thirty dollar steak, Tim snarking at Billy that maybe he might want to ask his "soul mate" to stop pointing out who all she's given a lap dance wherever they go. It makes Lyla uncomfortable. Billy tells Tim he's whipped and they pull up in front of a mobile home. "Where are we?" Tim asks. I'm getting an uncomfortable "Ferret Guy" vibe here. Billy says he's got a "business meeting" with someone there about getting some scratch together; Tim suggests maybe he stop picking up checks everywhere; Billy sarcastically wonders if he should have had his fiance's mom pick up the check. The Ferret stink just wafts out from the trailer when Billy knocks on the door and goes in to this "meeting" with a guy with a handgun tucked into the back of his pants.Football field. J.D. practices with a private coach his dad has brought down from Dallas, as Buddy and McCoy and various other DadThugs look on. Coach comes out of the locker room with his team, giving Matt a pep talk. When Matt pauses to look slackjawed at J.D., Coach insists to him that J.D. is not his quarterback, Matt is his quarterback, and he just needs to focus on Friday night and everything will go fine. Matt meekly says "Yes, sir." McCoy comes up to Coach to thank him for letting them use the field, and then tells Coach that everyone is talking about whether he'll be switching to a spread offense for Friday, and that whatever Coach decides, he supports him. Coach is taken aback -- because what does he care if McCoy supports his decision? -- and tightly tells him that he appreciates it. McCoy continues, smarming that if Coach does switch to the spread, J.D. is ready. Coach just shuts the guy down by saying he's only got the boys until 8, and needs McCoy to clear the cones off the field.
Taylor house, morning. Coach is on the phone with Buddy telling him once again to cram it while buttoning his shorts and tightening his buckle. Mmm. ManDad. He's just hot. Meanwhile Tami is fussing with packages of plastic cups. Coach gets off the phone, and talks at his wife about how horrible the boosters are and how outrageous it is that the McCoys are spending thousands of dollars on this coach for J.D. Tami talks at him about having to plan this party for all the horrible boosters and how much money it's going to cost them. She wonders if Coach has ever thought of not having the party at their house and Coach is like "Wha?" Coach tells her that he knows it's a lot of work but that he promises that next year maybe they'll have it somewhere else. Then he gets all jujitsu on her, leaning in real close and telling her that she looks sexy and that she's the best friend, mother, and lover that a man's ever had.