Episode Report Card Drunken Bee: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Secrets Will Out
By Drunken Bee | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.04.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Smash shoots up alone, Lyla bakes cupcakes alone, Tim broods alone. The only folks, it seems, that aren't lonely and guilt-ridden are the blockheaded offensive linemen who "protect their quarterback" by taking baseball bats to Tim's truck and the cheesebrained rally girls who hurl insults at Lyla during the big game. Nothing like a mean-spirited mob to make you circle the wagons around the characters you maybe never even liked that much in the first place. The secret about Tim and Lyla is out and everyone besides the cheeseblockheads is trying, at least, to cope. Coach tells Jason he doesn't need to carry it alone, Buddy tries to comfort his daughter, Tyra slaps Tim and takes her long legs and a forty over to Jason at the rehab facility.
Meanwhile, Landry takes Matt to the Salvation Army to get a Member's Only jacket for his date with Julie, a jacket that infuriates Coach who feels he has the authority to declare that Matt is not, in fact, a member. When their date is cut short by a grandma emergency, Julie witnesses Matt calming Grandma down by speaking in her dead husband's voice and singing "Mr. Sandman" to her to get her into bed. Nothing so deeply creepy has ever been so deeply heartwarming.
Smash's secret, too, is out as his sister divines from his pimples and "anxiety attacks" that he's on the juice. He scores the winning touchdown against his former "ghetto" hometown team. Julie runs up to congratulate Matt and he congratulates her right back. All over her lips. This episode was like a beautiful poem. Of awesomeness. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously, Jason punches Tim out, Julie decides to go on a date with Matt, Smash decides not to steal money from a fast food establishment to buy steroids, in favor of simply taking money from the offering plate at church to buy steroids. Good for him, not artificially inflating the price of fries.
Church. I wonder where I can get myself one of those clear acrylic podiums that Reverend Black Man preaches behind. We cut between Smash, in church clothes, shooting up in the car out front, and Lyla, also seemingly dressed for church, baking muffins. Reverend Black Man preaches about Hebrews 4 and 12, which "tells us, that God will discern the thoughts and the intents of our hearts." The congregation resounds in amens. He continues, "There are secret things that belong to God, but the revealed things belongs to us." Meanwhile, we see Lyla kneeling before a small altar, which turns out to be the rehab center chapel. This scene is quite elegant. Reverand Black Man segues from preaching on secrets and lies to calling Smash out, who's been sitting with his family looking down in the mouth, "Brother Brian, we pray god will give you the strength to run all over Gatling this Friday!" The congregation whoops it up a bit, and then begins to sing a hymn as we cut over to the rehab center to watch Lyla quietly, and in subtle slow motion, get up from her prayers and make her way down the hallway. Gay Phil greets her, and she just silently mouths hello back to him. The camera pulls back to show her slim body teetering on top of those good old four-inch espadrilles of emotional crisis.
Jason claws pictures of Lyla off of his bulletin board. Lyla beaming, Lyla cheering, Lyla posing. They all get dumped into a cardboard box that also contains her Rally Girl/Cheerleader Joint Committee on Boyfriend Support banner. Lyla walks in and bursts out, "I'm sorry. There are no words that could ever express that, but I am so sorry," and Minka Kelly has thankfully dialed down the babywhine in this scene. Jason wheels closer to her and dumps the box at her feet. Scott Porter is back to puffy-face in this scene. His lips are thin and his jaw tight as he barely manages to spit out, "Didja have sex with him?" Awkward. Lyla nods. Jason asks "How many times?" and she begs him to stop. He turns from her after telling her to go. Long shot of Jason facing the camera in the foreground, Lyla leaving and pausing in the doorway in the harsh morning light to look back at him, before setting down her heartbreaking bag of muffins in the middle of the hallway and teetering off, all slumped shoulders and espadrilles of distress.