Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | 3 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Daddy Issues
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.15.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Buddy! Garrity! I'll say it again. Buddy! Effing! Garrity! Who's got two thumbs and loves Buddy Garrity? This guy! After a, quote, "moment of scintillating clarity," Buddy and Coach Taylor decide to turn the stupid racist Santiago plotline into total awesomeness by moving Lyla's pet juvie into Buddy's house. Tammy is at first resistant, but then she decides that 55 is the perfect age for Buddy to become a man, and gives the go-ahead, and lo, it is awesome and tear-jerking.
Plus other things happen. Riggins decides, in his usual way, to move out of his house altogether, because the brother and the cougar next door seem to be stumbling towards love. He surfs Tyra's couch for 48 hours and not a second more, and then ends up ferret-keeper to a creeping creepster. Tyra wastes an efficient amount of energy busting Tim's balls about his homelessness, but saves the majority of her mojo for finally proving her awesomeness to my girl Lyla, who couldn't be loving her more right now. They choreograph a scandalously sexy dance for the boys of the football team at the eponymous team-boostering event after being roped into working together by Tammy herself. You know what's more frighteningly powerful than Tyra or Lyla? Tyra PLUS Lyla. Awesome once again.
Smash continues to be starry-eyed about his future possibilities, up to and including a full-ride scholarship to a historically black university, which he ignores because their team sucks. Mama Williams (with a distaff reference to Street, which is the only 06 sighting of the entire episode, which sucks) takes matters into her own hands, reminding Eric that he is in loco parentis with the fatherless Smash, along with everybody else in the entire town of Dillon, TX. A showdown with a creepy recruiter reminds us all, especially Smash, that Eric Taylor rules at life. Coach's love even seems to make an impression on Smash, which, as you know, is technically impossible.
Julie is betaken with the sexy new faculty advisor for the school paper, Noah From Cincinnati, and Tammy sees trouble brewing. Predictably, Julie does not see the danger in crushing on the teacher, no matter how inappropriately friendly and disproportionately hot he actually is.
Matt Saracen's sexy nursemaid lady finally crosses the line, teaching him first to dance and then to chastely kiss, and finally to be goofy and cute over breakfast, all with the bristling speed of a bustling glacier. It's so weird to see him even a little bit happy that it practically shocks his grandma into lucidity. In related news, Matt Saracen discovers new ways to be adorable. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously, Matt Saracen made out with his horrific Rally Girl right in front of Julie, acquainting her finally with the concept of "consequences," and Riggins got thrown off the team, but still didn't really make the connection. Santiago got passed from Lyla to Buddy to Eric, like that sexy virus called Responsibility. Landry's dad set fire to the GMC evidence of his crime, thus showing that sometimes, neither consequences or responsibility are really something anybody's going to talk you into taking on for yourself.
Now, it's 6:40 in the morning, and the recruiter circus has come to town, folks: it's "the first day that college recruiters are officially allowed" to talk to individual players. Smash wakes up and starts with his morning routine of pushups, free weights, and sending himself mental valentines about how awesome he is. Of course, everybody in town wants to know how things are going with him, because he's the only person on the team whose storyline even tangentially involves football. Which, frankly, I like that, because his stories were very uneven last year, and mostly he was just a dick, but having him be the baseline player guy -- steroids, recruiters, going pro v. graduating college -- makes him a lot more sympathetic than just having him stand around being rude. So it's not even seven and already the people are calling and getting on Mama's nerves, so she hangs up on a few of them, but finally little sis Noannie brings Smash the phone. He tells her to take a message and she reminds him that she's not his PA, which he agrees is a good thing, because she's not getting paid in dollars: "The Smash train is pulling out the station; you better hang on, before you lose your seat." She rolls her eyes, but he's laughing cutely as he answers the phone.
Tami's awful sister made some pancakes, for which Julie does not pine, because she's already busy whining and lying in bed thinking about how stupid it was to let Matt Saracen go. Everybody's getting ready to leave, and Julie's having yet another meltdown about him, and even Tami is like, "Seriously." Oh, Tami, you are going to wish you still had it that simple by the end of the day.
Over at the Saracen house, Carlota gets out of the shower and runs into Matt in the hallway, and starts yelling at him. This makes Matt...way less jumpy than you might think. He just kind of grins and apologizes. This newfound confidence is, like, thing number one billion of the things about Matt Saracen.