Episode Report Card Drunken Bee: A | 4 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Father Never Knows Best
By Drunken Bee | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.23.2006
Jason is frustrated and depressed, and he just keeps telling Bill that he's tired and wants to lie down. Bill keeps pressing him to try, reminding him that the only way he can get better is to try. The camera pulls back and we see Lyla's arrived and is listening to the conversation from the doorway. She comes in and quietly says, "He says he's tired, let him rest," and Jason really has the world against him here, a PT scrambling to motivate him in all the wrong ways, and a girlfriend who just wants to pamper him because she feels so guilty. Bill leaves the two, and Lyla sits down, telling Jason that she knows he'll try to use his hands when he's ready, but that he has to eat. Then she takes the knife, and with a disgusting metallic clink on the institutional plate, spears a little chunk of scrambled egg, which she holds poised and quivering in front of Jason's pasty and losing-it face. He pauses before opening his mouth for it, and the fork hits his teeth with another cold clink, and the whole thing IS SO DEPRESSING I feel I need a little inspiration right about now.
And just then, Herc, The Inspirational Wheelchair Guy comes wheeling in, with his buddy, Quadruple Amputee Doesn't Let Life Slow Him Down. Herc wheels over to Jason, eying Lyla all the while, and starts dipping his fingers into Jason's eggs. Quadruple Amputee holds out his arm to Lyla who pauses until he says, "It's alright, you can shake it!" She giggles in embarrassment and then does as he suggests. I have to confess, while I'm joking around about these Rehab Facility characters and their inspirational role, I think the show is playing this admirably straight, and I have to point out that while everyone is going on about the color blind casting over at Grey's Anatomy, there's some equally awesome casting (or, really, plotting) happening over here on FNL...not color- or disability-blind, but color- and disability-aware. Lyla snaps at Herc to get out of Jason's eggs, and the two wheel back out of the room, tossing a rugby ball back and forth between them.
Back over at the high school, Julie is practicing with her dance troupe, and they are absolutely adorable. With their "walk in a circle with attitude" choreography. Matt walks by the room and peeks inside the window and watches Julie for a minute.
In the locker room, the team walks into the trashed room. Coach Taylor has his Man Sunglasses on and his twang in full effect. He's got a whole rhetorical approach, opening by telling the boys how pissed he is at the boys from Arnett Mead but then telling them that there will be no retaliation. He tells them to channel their anger into kicking Arnett Mead's ass on the field "where it counts" and then gets them psyched up for practice. As they head out, Saracen asks Riggs where Voodoo is. Riggs replies with unexplained antipathy, "I don't know, Saracen. He's probably jerking around in front of a full-length mirror right now." Tim Riggins needs some dialogue and he needs it stat. I don't think he's said anything for like three episodes. Why is he so pissed at everyone? And why does everyone keep liking him? The answer simply cannot be his skill with a brush blush, can it?