Episode Report Card Drunken Bee: A | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT May The Best Show Win
By Drunken Bee | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.07.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Humanity! I love it! When has television ever made you feel this way? NEVER.
So, Peter Berg is in town (as "Mo McArnold") on what Coach calls "the world's longest business trip." Mo is Tami's old boyfriend, the one that came right before Coach, and he's in every way Coach's opposite -- flashy, talky, jittery. He's in town looking to buy some real estate, but it's clear the only property he has eyes for is in Tami Taylor's pants. Coach can only take so much of Mo's incessant "friendly" kissing of Tami's cheeks before he really, according to every code of manhood ever written in any culture, is called upon to go whiskey shot for whiskey shot with him. Which (again, according to some man code) ends with Peter Berg and Kyle Chandler rolling around on the floor together.
Smash tries to ingratiate himself to the University of Alabama since TMU dumped him; when that fails, he finds himself taking a meeting with a recruiter for arena football. Yikes. Coach finally steps in to help him out of this downward spiral, taking him for another meeting with the football coach at Whitmore College -- the historically black school Corinna wanted him to go to. They still want him, and he makes a commitment to play for them. He's not immune to the sadness of seeing his NFL dreams ended, but tries to listen to his mother's assurances that it's the college education that matters.
The waitress that Jason Street had a one-night stand with shows up to tell him she's pregnant. Jason can't believe it, because everyone told him it wasn't physically possible for him to have children. The nineteen-year-old waitress (rightly) is pretty set on an abortion until Jason lays it on super-thick about the tiny toes and fingers and how this is his one chance to have a child.
And, in the most surprisingly good storyline of the night, Lyla and Chris grow closer when he invites her to a family weekend at his grandmother's ranch. His family is infuriatingly perfect -- educated, somewhat worldly, witty, and loving -- and you can see Lyla just blooming under the prospect of becoming part of something so blessed again after being in paralysis/divorce/adultery exile for so long. But this is exactly where the long arc of her dalliance(s) with Tim Riggins pays off; we know she has it in her, and so as much as she wants the perfection, she's always going to need the Riggins. When Chris prematurely ends their soon-to-become-heavy-petting session, Lyla is quite literally blue-balled and it's fascinating. Meanwhile, Tim Riggins has been playing it steady, going to her church (and, ridiculously, hosting a sports call-in radio show there), just keeping himself in view. I think it's going to work. May the best man fucking win.
Oh, god. Except we might not ever know! Show! Come back! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously, we were tested to our very souls. Currently, we are tested to our very souls in having to consider the possibility that this might be all there is of our beloved show.
We open at the megachurch. Tim and Billy Riggins are in attendance, barely managing to toss a buck into the offering plate Lyla is passing around. Cut over to the rocking black church, where a three-tiered electronic keyboard has been pressed into serving the Lord. What I want to know is, where's the key-tar? Corinna is clapping her hands and swaying to the music while Smash stands next to her, distracted. He looks down at his phone and then walks out the open door in the back, much to Corinna's chagrin. Outside, we find that he's calling the football coach at the University of Alabama. He's fed to voicemail, where he leaves a message "following up to see if you got my other messages." Ouch. He forces out a sunny reference to how he feels like "rolling with the Tide" now. He hangs up and looks down at a piece of crumpled paper in his hand, a sad little list of schools and coaches to call.
Buddy Garrity Motors. Jason is with a customer, giving him the "this is the absolute best we can do" spiel. The guy is resisting, but Jason gets distracted by his commission when he sees the redheaded waitress he had a fling with a few weeks ago. He wheels outside to greet her, and they make the briefest of small talk. She tells him she's not shopping for a car and then apologizes for not calling him back. Jason then tells her he was wondering about all that, about how she didn't return any of the ten phone calls he made. Oh, Jason. Ten phone calls? He babbles nervously about not knowing what "the rules" of this sort of thing are, and continues babbling until she jumps in and says it: "Jason. I'm pregnant." Jason's jaw drops and then he says, "That, that's impossible." And though I'm not thrilled with teen-pregnancy story arcs (thanks a lot, Party of Five), I'm willing to see this one through.
Credits. Tami walks through a parking lot with Gracie Belle and is stopped in her tracks. "No way! Is that Mo!" We pan over to a guy who...well, you guys, it's Peter Berg. Which, I don't really think I need to remind you but will anyway (because, Pete, call me!) but I sort of have always had this Peter Berg, uh, thing. The crooked teeth. The overbite. The receding hairline. The handheld-camera obsession. Oh my god, I just think he's so hot. I can't really explain it. Okay. So now that's out of the way, I'm just going to try to recap his scenes without interrupting myself every ten seconds to check in with you about whether or not you still want to sit with me at lunch now that you know my deep, dark secret.