Episode Report Card Drunken Bee: A+ | 16 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Work
By Drunken Bee | Season 4 | Episode 5 | Aired on 06.04.2010
Panther football field at night. The Riggins boys, Matt Saracen, and Landry are gathered to blow off steam. They're fucking around, shotgunning beers and the like. Tim is punting empty beer cans and Billy is asking them if they remember the State Championship game from three years ago. He starts to reminisce, about how there was ten seconds left on the clock, and they had Matt "Mayday" Saracen setting up. But all the boys are like "What? Mayday Saracen?" Tim says that Matt was never called Mayday, and then suggests "Cobra" as a nickname. Billy, slurring a bit, tells Cobra to think fast, and chucks the football at him, knocking his beer can out of his hand. Tim protests, "Dude! Why would you kill Cobra's beer?" As much as I want to do girl-boy things with Tim Riggins, I also would totally love to just get drunk and slosh around on a football field with him. He seems so damned fun, in a brosef kind of way. Matt's been standing around with the guys, smiling, and obviously enjoying their company, and he finally starts to open up: "Do you know I have to give a eulogy at this thing tomorrow?" He shakes his head, talking to his now-somber (not sober, but certainly now somber) friends, not believing that he has to stand up in front of everyone and say good things about his father when all he really wants to say is "Here lies Henry Saracen, his mother annoyed him, his wife couldn't stand him, and he didn't want to be a Dad so he took off to be in the army." Matt keeps going, on a roll, imagining saying the things he actually thinks out loud to everyone at the funeral: "And now all you got left with is a mother with dementia and a son"-- pause, hiccup in his voice "who delivers pizza. Thank you for coming one hundred people I do not know." He finishes and no one knows exactly what to say so they sip their beers some more. Matt thinks some more and realizes that even if he did finally say all those things, he doesn't know if he'd be saying it to his father, he has no idea whether his body is even in the casket. For all he knows it's someone else, "someone funny, or a buncha rocks, I don't know." Tim, having apparently put on his bad idea jeans, looks up from his beer and says "Well, there's only one way to find out then, right?"
Cut to the guys breaking into the funeral parlor, Tim still referring to Matt as Cobra like they're on a mission stealing the rival school's mascot or something. They're all sort of slovenly and slackjawed as they unexpectedly come upon the funeral director in one of the rooms. He doesn't take alarm, and greets Matt. Tim starts to say what they're there for, but Matt tells him to pipe down. Matt looks directly at the funeral director and says what he wants: to see his father. The funeral director reminds him that they agreed that wasn't a good idea. Billy and Landry start rumbling in the back about how Matt wants to see his dad, but Matt shushes them, too. He's not going to let anyone do any of the lifting here for him. The funeral director realizes that, drunk or not, the kid is serious and we cut to them walking into the room where the bodies are kept. Matt follows him over to the casket, towards the back of the room-- the other three guys linger by the door. The funeral director repeats that "Son, I really don't think this is a good idea" and Matt tells him that he appreciates that but, please just open it. Matt is sort of rocking back and forth on his feet as the man opens the casket. The camera swings around low and to the side of the casket so all we see is Matt's reaction framed by the top of the casket lid on the left side of the screen. And it is horrible. Zach Gilford doesn't say anything verbally, but somehow still says everything you need to know. Whatever he is seeing, nobody should ever have to see. Somehow he endures it for longer that I can even imagine, his eyes wide, his nose flaring with sorrow, his stomach nearly rebelling. With his eyes welling with tears he finally tells the director "Thank you" and then brushes past his pals, who try to ask if he's okay, as he exits the room.