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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.
Uninspiring credits. Slammin' Sammy Mead Greek choruses about the upcoming game against Gatling. A caller logs his anxiety about the road game, making a veiled comment that going over there is like "going to another planet, you know what I'm sayin'." Yeah, I do. Like Brother From Another Planet, other planet wink, wink? We cut around town, the Panther coaches sipping coffee and dryboarding plays, kids crowded in school hallways, and then to the Williams household just as the caller finishes jerking about Gatling, "it's inner city, it's tough, it's the 'hood, and that Junior Silverio makes that defense brutal." Slammin' Sammy continues expositing for us: as Smash polishes his cleats we learn that he grew up in Gatling and that Silverio is Smash's childhood rival. Corrina comes in and yells at her son to get his cleats off the table. Smash doesn't like how all they're talking about on the radio is Junior. His mom tells him to not mind the talk, to do his talking on the field. The Williams sisters -- were there always two, or did the older one get added this episode? -- ask their mother if they can stay the night in Gatling and look up old friends, go see the old house. Corrina snaps that they aren't going to fool around, they're going to watch Smash play. Smash asks if they "can go see Dad" and everyone sort of stops for a moment and looks shocked until Corrina snaps again, "We're not going to no cemetery."
At the Taylors, Tami has decided to go with "boobalicious" this morning. I do believe this woman has decided to bring sexy back. She puts on her jacket and tells her husband that Julie is talking to Matt Saracen right now. In the morning? Before school? I will never understand all these shows that have characters actually getting anything done besides spilling coffee on themselves before 9 a.m. Tami says this whole situation is "becoming a thing" and then elaborates, "it's that thing that we always knew would happen to our little girl, its that thing, its that thing." So cute. That thing. Coach is just happy she's not interested "in a serial killer...or one of the Rigginses."
Speak of the (handsome) devil, Tim Riggins sits in his truck in the school parking lot. He glances in the rear view mirror and we see his bruised face. But we? We look past it to see his bruised soul. Hot, but damaged. WE LOVE IT.
Inside the locker room, it looks stinky. FNL is certainly one argument against smell-o-vision, the other being, of course, Deadwood. Some red-headed galoot walks up to Saracen and asks him what he's going to do about Riggins. Matt is, not suprisingly, laconic, "What do you want me to do?" he drawls. The Galoot is giving off some wicked Wes Bergmann vibes. With his red hair and mottled skin, and worm-lipped mucklemouth. "Why do you know the full name of a two-bit reality ghetto person," you ask? In response I shout "Julie Stoffer!" and then collapse on the ground, a weeping heap. The Galoot reminds Matt that he's team captain and needs to step up and be a leader. I didn't realize that part of the Football Team Captain's duties was to oversee Ye Olde Adultery Pillory.
Meanwhile, Tim has come in to the tune of some delicately-plucked guitar strings. The locker room goes quiet, as all the boys watch Tim go to his locker, see a photo of him and Jason taped up on the outside of it (it's unclear whether this predated the scandal, or if someone taped it there as a cruel joke), gaze at it for a while, pick it off, fold it in half. All without saying anything.
The soundtrack swells as we cut over to the highschool, where Lyla walks quickly down the hallway, clearly trying to avoid talking with anyone as well. We hear Tyra's voice bark out "Garrity! Garrity!" as Tyra rushes up and catches Lyla. Our Beautiful Giantess spins Lyla around and pumps her for information about why Jason punched Tim out. Lyla sweetly demurs. Tyra says "The rumors are flying just so you know," and Lyla assures Tyra that the rumors probably aren't true. As Lyla tries to leave, Tyra restrains her with a hand to the forearm and looks down at the tired little princess, "Look, I know you an' Tim've been spendin' a lot a time together," and Lyla just stutters that she has class and turns to go. She's wearing this really grandmotherly cardigan over a dress, and I am really feeling for her. Her espadrilles are distressed! Her hair is flat and with barely any volume!
For some reason, elsewhere in the school, Tami and her husband are standing and talking with Lady Mayor, who gums away about "the hotel situation" in Gatling. Apparently, they've only arranged to set aside rooms in the Cheyenne Motel (Lady Mayor says the word "motel" like it's a piece of barbecue stuck in her dentures) for everyone traveling from Dillon. She clarifies, "At the risk of sounding like a snob, I don't want to get shot in a drive-by this weekend!" The camera pans in on Tami's face which looks confused and horrified, then over to Coach who smoothly laughs at Lady Mayor's unfunny joke, and then back to Tami who has taken a cue from her husband and has put a smile on her face, but in a far less convincing manner than her husband's. Lady Mayor exposits that there's a meeting set up to work the problem through, but that she can't attend. She's worried that left in Buddy Garrity's hands, the situation could spin out of control. Especially without her there to be "the yin to his yang." Heh. Lady Mayor acts like it's a sudden brainstorm, but you know she calculated the whole thing while drinking her prune juice that morning, and she tells Tami she'd be perfect for the job. Tami stutters, "You want me to be Buddy's yang?" Lady Mayor is quick, "Yin, actually," and then talks over Tami's protestations as if it's all settled. As she's almost out the door, Lady Mayor tells Tami to wear something pretty, "and...you know..." gesturing with her hands to indicate something low-cut. Seems like Lady Mayor wants to bring the sexy back as well. Coach hightails it out of the room with his wife comically following, fluttering about not knowing what the hell she just got roped into.
Cafeteria. Julie's mousy friend is incredulous that Julie is going to date a football player. Julie says "he's not a football player, he's Matt." Aw. Julie swears Matt doesn't buy into the whole football god thing, but her friend tells her that people change when they get on the team. Julie tells her friend that she's jaded and then ascends into the heavens to become Queen of Incredible Hair, in the Fairy Land of Cupcakes and Frosting.
Landry's taken Matt Saracen to the Salvation Army to shop for an outfit for his date.
(Excuse the paragraph break, I just died from cuteness and had to be revived). Landry's idea is spot-on as I basically buy half of each year's wardrobe at the Good Will in Dallas when I go visit my inlaws for holidays. It seems that Dallas never got the "thrifting" memo, and so the shops there are full of gorgeous Gunne Sax blouses, drop-shouldered eighties sweaters, and vintage Jordache jeans. It's all quite unlike the thrift stores in the city here in Chicago, which have been so picked over, all that's left is pilly, faded black jersey from The Limited circa 1997, and smelly fleece blankets emblazoned with regal lions. So Landry lectures Matt that his date is not just a date but "a pre-release party." He clarifies that the team is just .500 right now, but when they beat Gatling this weekend, Matt'll have instant rock star status. Nice extended music industry metaphor there, kid. Matt complains that all the clothes are older than they are. Landry schools him, "It's called retro. Chicks dig it."
Matt underenunciates a zinger about Landry being such an expert about girls, his last one being a girl named Emily in the fifth grade. Landry pauses and looks at him intently and tells him he doesn't have to get personal, that Matt knows the fifth grade break-up still hurts. I love him. Matt asks about a shirt, and Landry vetoes it, saying that "Matt Saracen would wear that. Julie Taylor is about to go out with her first football player. She doesn't want the man, she wants the myth." I love how fabulously off-the-mark Landry always is. Except, of course, in his fashion advice, as he holds up a jacket against Matt's chest, "Can you say 'Member's Only'?" Perfection.
Out on the field, Coach Taylor is all blah blah blah gamecakes at the players. He lectures them about having to shut down Silverio to shut down their defense and then riles them up with some "Let's go! Let's go!" man-shouting.
Depressingly Realistic Rehab Facility. The Galoot and some other guys walk in to see Jason, who's lying in bed. They all fist bump and then The Galoot mouth breathes his way through the scene, telling Jason that they don't let anyone hit their quarterback. They're the offensive line, get it? The O-Line. Suspiciously similar to O-Town, no? Coincidence? I'm not so sure. Perhaps we might hold out hope that the O-Line, too, wants to bring sexy back, and will do so by breaking into some Darrin's Dance Grooves, while rapping about always having their boi'z back. Jason clarifies that Riggins didn't hit him, that it was the other way around. He asks them not to make anything of it. The Galoot has been watching a few too many episodes of Columbo and so starts putting together some facts: "Where are all your pictures?" And then, "The nurse said we're your first visitors today. Where's Lyla?" leading him to the beady-eyed conclusion, "Riggins and Lyla?" Jason, meanwhile, writhes his head around his pillow, obviously all he wants in the world is for this thick-necked turkey to get out of his room. But The Galoot will not be de-galootified. He tells Jason that "me and the guys always got your back. We're gonna take care of this, man."
The day, outside school, Matt and Landry discuss the latter staying with Matt's grandmother while he goes out at night. Matt says he'll give Landry Julie's number (Continuity! No money in the Saracen household for cell phones) and assures Landry that his grandmother doesn't need taking care of, she just doesn't like the idea of being alone at night. Landry reminds Matt that he's not too excited about being alone with her himself. Continuity some more! Matt sighs, "LANDRY. My grandma is not a witch. Okay? She's not." Coach comes out, greets "Lance" and asks Matt if he can talk to him. Landry corrects him, "It's 'Landry,'" but Coach could not care less. He pulls Matt aside and brings up "the big date tonight." Matt stutters about having her home early, to which Coach is like "Duh. Of course you will." But that's all just Coach fucking with Matt, he really wants to know what's going on with Tim. Matt asks what he means, and Coach replies "I have eyes, I want to know what's going on out there." Matt says he doesn't feel it's his place to say anything. Coach appreciates his allegiance to his teammates but says Matt also needs to be team leader and let him know of anything that might affect their playing. Matt hems and haws until Coach just snaps at him to "spit it out!" It comes out that Tim is rumored to have hooked up with Lyla. Coach takes the information in impassively and then turns to leave, "Have a good time at the movies." He pauses to turn and point his hand at Matt's chest, "Hey. My daughter and I talk a lot."
Williams household, everyone around the dinner table. Corinna says they've been invited to a barbecue the night before the game in Gatling. Noannie can't believe that her mom is going to put Brian and Junior in the same room. Her mom explains that they're only enemies on the field, that the Silverios are some of their best friends. Smash wonders aloud why she moved them away from them, then. She says it was because Dillon is safer. Smash snarks, "and whiter, too" and then asks if she moved them away from Gatling to get them out of the ghetto or to get them away from dad. Who was dead when they moved, so there's nothing particularly wrong or unusual about moving away from a dead man's memory, or the memory of his death? I guess we can chalk Smash's accusatory tone up to teenager logic. Or, steroidal, daddy-less, world-on-his-shoulders teenager logic. Corinna takes Smash's comment overly hard and tells him to shut his mouth. Smash says, quite reasonably for a fatherless, steroidal, world-on-his-shoulders, fast-talking charm machine, that he thinks they should all talk about it, about why they moved. She won't hear it, though, and orders him to take his mouth and his plate "and get away from my table." I sort of can't wait to have kids so I can do things like order them away from "my table."
And now for the scene we've all been waiting for. Matt rings the Taylor's doorbell, while Coach Taylor tries to forget that this kid is going to be trying to ring his daughter's doorbell a little later that night. Coach opens the door, and Matt can barely say hello before Coach asks him, incredulously, "Is that a Member's Only jacket?" The implication that Matt is just flaunting times-gone-by in Coach's face goes right over the boy's head. Tami walks up and warmly welcomes the poor kid just before Julie rounds the corner of the hallway in the most sweetly awkward sexpot outfit ever before seen on television. She's wearing a tropical print red slinky sundress that her mom probably bought for her to wear with flip-flops on a beach vacation, but she's paired it with four-inch high red patent fuck-me pumps, which her mom must have bought for her in the middle of a tequila-induced blackout. She has a coltish gait in the shoes, all loping legs and casual posture. Coach quickly and authoritatively says, "Nuh unh" even as Matt tells her she looks real nice, she thanks him, and Tami trills above all of them, "Okay! I'm just gonna talk to little Jules here." Matt is staring at Julie like she's a Playstation 3 and he can't wait to play her later. Her mom puts an arm around her daughter's waist and ushers her back to her room. Coach pointedly suggests to Matt -- who is practically drooling, staring after Julie -- "Why don't you take off your Member's Only jacket and hang it on the coat rack." He has to repeat himself to get Matt's attention,
Meanwhile, Tami's telling Julie that the outfit she's in is not the one they agreed on. Julie protests, "But this is what people wear on dates, not that other dress." The camera ranges down to her fuck-me pumps, and Tami responds, "I know. But baby this is not what you wear on dates, and you can't even walk in those shoes." Tami tells her daughter to "come on," then pauses, "I love you. Come on." The camera cuts back to the background where Coach has finally gotten Matt's attention and decides to have some more fun at the kid's expense: "Want a beer?" Matt, probably thinking he's passing some sort of test by saying no thank you, mumbles about having to drive. Coach responds, the snark just dripping off the line, "I was joking."
Matt and Julie stand outside the movie theater in line for tickets to Eragon, which is an appropriate date movie for these two fantastically cute creatures of woodland cutedom. Also, the actor who played Billingsley in the Friday Night Lights movie is in Eragon. ["Looks like I'll be seeing Eragon, then." -- Joe R] Okay, moving along now. Julie and Matt make small talk about the movie in line, Matt telling her that "one of my people recommended it," and my head explodes from cuteness. One of my people?! Julie smirks, "You mean Landry?" and Matt smirks at his own dorkiness just as he sidles up to the box office to ask for tickets. The girl behind the glass tells him that the movie is sold out. Matt is unfazed and now we move into the cowering cringe part of the episode: "Oh, that's alright, I'm Matt Saracen." The girl looks at him blankly. "QB1." The girl continues the blank stare, and Julie looks embarrassed to be his date. But Matt keeps trucking along, flashing his "charmer" smile as he explains, "Quarterback?" until finally the girl is like "And?" Matt asks if they don't hold tickets for the football players, and apparently Dillon's goodwill toward football player policy only extends to fried foods and steroids, because the girl explains that they don't. Not, that is, since Reyes (the hot-headed Latino, remember him? I don't.) started a fight on the balcony. Matt continues debating with the ticket girl when Julie's phone rings and makes his lame efforts moot: "Matt, it's, um, your people is calling." Matt takes the phone and we gather from Matt's part in the conversation that Landry's had to call him in for grandma reinforcement.
We cut to the outside of the Saracen household. Matt parks the car and apologizes to Julie, telling her that it'll all only take a second. Landry comes running out of the house, swearing that he "did not touch her" and explains as they walk toward the house that they were just watching TV when she started "flipping out." Turns out, she's locked herself in the closet. Matt takes the front steps in a bound and we cut inside. Grandma Saracen's confused crying can be heard as Landry leads him to the closet. Matt tries to coax her out, but she just keeps crying and saying she won't let him touch her like that. Landry is distressed and protests that he never touched her. Matt shushes his friend, knowing that his grandmother is just talking crazy. Grandma Saracen starts moaning for Joel. Matt explains to Landry that she's asking for her husband, Matt's grandfather. Landry, still not getting it, yells toward the door that he's "been dead for six years." Matt shushes Landry again and sort of sheepishly leans in toward the closet door, darting embarrassed glances back toward Landry.
And we soon find out why, because it seems there is some Southern Gothic haunting familial stuff going on in this house as Matt puts on a deep voice and says "Darlin'? You in there, darlin'?" From the closet: "Joel, is that you?" Landry looks on, all "...and I thought that R. Kelly closet thing was weird!" Grandma Saracen requests that "Joel" sing "our song" just as Julie walks in the open front door. Matt obliges, launching into a Stephen-King-movie-worthy, strange and halting "Mr. Sandman" and finally getting his grandmother to open the closet door. He keeps singing, she reaches out her arms, he twirls her, she gazes into his eyes and he leads her back to bed, the two of them the weirdest old-timey twosome in the world. He finally gets her to the bed and tucks her in, while doing his Grampa voice, "That's our song!" As she keeps gazing up at her he tells her "See you in my dreams, okay?" and then when she says she loves him, he drops the Grampa voice and tells her, with all his heart, "I love you."
La-ame!!
Okay, just kidding, that was the most heartrending thing I've ever seen on television, if also probably the only geriatrically incestuous thing I've ever seen. Matt walks out to where Landry and Julie stand in sort of awe at the insane familial intimacy they just witnessed. Julie quietly says that she'll just have Landry take her home. Matt watches them go and finally takes off his Member's Only date jacket.
Buddy knocks on Lyla's door, calling in to her, "Ly-Ly?" He walks in and finds her curled in bed, lips rosy with depression and nicely-applied Lancome. He quietly pushes her to come downstairs as she's late for school, but she just sort of croaks that she'll be down in a second.
Tami drives Julie to school and pumps her daughter for information about why she got home so early from her date. Julie tells her mom that they can't talk about these things...and then proceeds to talk to her mom about these things. She explains that they didn't go to the movies and quickly assures her mom they didn't go "park somewhere or anything." She tells Tami -- who is like a whole stratosphere beyond a M.I.L.F. in aviator sunglasses and Tawny Kitaen hair -- that he had to go help his grandmother out. Tami says she's sorry about that, but Julie tells her mom that it was "sort of okay. It was like the first time I got to see the real Matt Saracen." Tami just nods, and she's probably panicking behind those sunglasses, realizing her daughter is well on her way to her first serious relationship.
At school, Matt and Landry are in the cafeteria, and Matt is kicking himself for blowing the date last night. Matt is pissy at Landry for not being able to take care of his grandmother for two hours, but Landry tells Matt that singing to his grandmother was probably the only thing he did right the whole night. "Julie totally bought it." Landry explains that on the way home, Julie told Landry that she thought the whole thing was "sweet and vulnerable." Matt isn't too happy to hear this, but Landry is all too happy to tell his big-time-football friend that girls find him vulnerable. Julie and her mousy friend sit down at a table across the cafeteria as Matt watches and frets about his vulnerability. Landry advises him to "drop the macho football thing" and play up the sensitive, artistic side. Matt realizes that maybe there is a chance that Julie is still into him. Landry agrees, "Singin' to your grandma may be the one thing that gets you into Julie Taylor's funhouse." Matt fixes his friend with his vulnerable kitten face and tells him that he's "just wrong." Landry, a big bite of sandwich in his mouth, just twists into a grin with pleasure at his own weirdness.
Buddy and Tami pace around a small office somewhere, sometime. Buddy flabs that they just need to tell the Gatling folks that they will have better accommodations and that's that. Tami suggestst that maybe they don't want to put the Gatling folks on the defensive. Buddy responds by telling Tami "we know how these people are." Ah, the old "you know how these people are" school of human stupidity. Tami sort of doubletakes at Buddy's thinly-veiled racism, and then suggests that they just come at the problem from a different side, "kinda tip it on its head." She accompanies her good sense with hot boobs and a head tilt and Buddy, predictably, likes it. He smiles at her, "I can see why my daughter likes you. She speaks so highly of you." Tami is flattered. Buddy uses this moment to try to get some information out of Tami about what is going on with Lyla, but Tami keeps her confidence and advises Buddy that whatever it is, he shouldn't try to fix it but just be there for his daughter. Buddy smiles and says they make a good team. Tami fake agrees.
Smash is outside lifting weights with Older Sister Who Dare Not Speak Her Name. Seriously, what is her name, and has it ever been established on the show? She's real jock-y and tall, and you wonder what sport she plays and whether she's annoyed to be in Smash's sports shadow. Smash fast-talks about how he'll be "ready for prime time, just like Dad taught me," and his sister tells him to shut up already about their father. Smash, reasonably enough, says again that they're going to the town where he died, so he might as well talk a little bit about him. He says "I remember the guy who taught me to throw a spiral. And took us fishing. And gave me my nickname after I crashed my bike into the water heater." Smash is working his quadriceps and breathing really hard, and you know what's coming as his sister tells her brother that she remembers other things about their father. What those things are we don't know yet as Smash goes full-on into apparent heart attack mode while the Older Sister Who Dare Not Speak Her Name ineffectually tells her brother to breathe.
We cut to a doctor's office where Smash is hooked up with electrodes and is being told that he's in perfect health. The doctor tells him it's probably just anxiety, and Smash says that there is the big game coming up. The doctor wishes him good luck and tells him to relax and then leaves. Smash dares to speak her name -- which is apparently is "Sheila" -- and tells his sister, "See, told you it was no big deal," but she isn't buying it. "Oh please, since when did you start having anxiety attacks?" Smash protests that he always gets worked up before games and she counters, "And does your face always break out, too?" Suspending disbelief for a second, as Gaius Charles's face is clear as the blue sky, but she's nailed him. Smash quickly tells her it's "just some pick-me-ups I've been taking." She's pissed and tells him that he's going to get in trouble but he begs her, tells her that football is his life, that it's all cool, and all the rest of the life-lesson-about-to-be-learned-in-four-to-five-more-episodes jazz.
Tim Riggins pulls his truck up into his driveway and just as he turns it off, O-Town appears out of nowhere with baseball bats. Tim sort of just nods, realizing that when boyz need to dance, boyz need to dance, and they all haul off and smash his truck up but good.
Depressingly Realistic Rehab Facility. Coach Taylor walks into the gym where Jason is working out, weaving between cones in his wheelchair. They make small talk about the upcoming game and Jason tells him that he played in the murderball scrimmage. Coach tells him that he heard all about it, and Jason pauses, looking down and asks his mentor if he had heard anything else. Coach says that he has heard and asks Jason how he's doing. Jason sort of just tightly says "You think you know someone and then you just don't." Coach tells him he didn't come to talk about it, but that he wants Jason to know he doesn't have to be alone with it. Geez. Sometimes the relationships in this show are so functional, it's hard for a recapper to know what to say.
Tim vacuums the safety glass out of his truck while his brother leans back with some chaw in his lip. Tyra marches up out of nowhere and slaps Tim across the face. "Anybody but her." And then she marches off, tossing back to Billy, "Your brother's a jackass!" Billy sits up straight and exclaims, "Whooo! I hope Lyla was worth it, little brother!" Tim continues to take the "silent, brooding type" description on his call sheet rather literally.
Cut over to Tami just laying it all over the Gatling folks. She tells them that they have the best barbecue, and that they don't have anything that even comes close to it in Dillon, but that if they ever repeat that to anyone she will "deny, deny, deny." Buddy interrupts the conversation that willing and good-hearted people are having in order to get into the strong-arming he prefers. After calling the motel they are set to be in a "roach motel, flea bag," he demands that a wing in "the Remington" get set aside for them all. Mr. Gatling looks askance at Buddy and his demands, reminding Buddy that The Remington is a five-star hotel. Tami cuts in and puts it this way: the whole town of Dillon is going to come, and that means a lot of business for them. A call to the hotel explaining this might convince the hotel to bring the rates down. Everybody looks around the table, struck dumb by this brilliant suggestion. I would like to suggest, myself, that perhaps they are struck dumb by Tami's hotness because, frankly, that is some remedial marketing class shit she just spouted.
We cut to a long, long line of vehicles making their way down a two-lane Texas road. The police escort first, then the school bus, then dozens and dozens of cars. We cut inside one of the buses with the cheerleaders in it and see Lyla sitting apart from the rest of the girls, looking down in the mouth and like she may have some trouble mustering any "cheer" for the boys. The night progresses through the vehicular montage and the caravan arrives in Gatling in the dark. We see shots of black guys hanging out on urban-ish street corners, we cut to Coach Taylor's impassive gazing and then to Smash's equally inexpressive gaze. I'm confused as to what sort of town Gatling is supposed to be, but I sort of assume it's supposed to be a poor suburb of a more major metropolis like Houston or San Antonio, rather than a small town.
Cut back to Jason in the rehab center, hanging out in bed doing some arm strength exercises, when Tyra and her long, long legs wheel around the corner. She looks real pleasant and tells him that she figured since they're the only two left in town she thought she'd stop by with a movie. Bo-ring, we think. But Tyra is (with those long legs) two steps ahead of us; she says, "then I thought, hey, what the hell" as she reaches into her purse and pulls out a brown paper bag which has the distinct and quite beautiful look of a forty. Jason raises his eyebrows and says he's not doing anything else tonight. Tyra cocks her head, her hair tucked behind one ear and raises her own eyebrow: "Yeah?" I really like her style.
The Williams and Silverios reunite over a backyard barbecue. Junior Silverio is truly enormous. Out back, the grill is smoking and everybody is shooting the shit. Smash is nostalgic for these barbecues in the 'hood; Junior quickly tells him about an old friend doing time for armed robbery. He says, "Seems like you, and me, are the only guys from the 'hood got a decent chance." This guy is like four times the size of Smash. In fact, I believe Smash might fit inside the enormous gap he has between his front two teeth. Meanwhile, Corrina talks with her friend, telling her about the old wounds that get opened when they come back there, which leads her to say that sometimes she doesn't even miss her dead husband, which leads her to remark on not missing wondering if and when he was coming home and night, which leads her to remark that she thinks they might be better off now that he's gone. She follows this train of thought despite warning looks coming from her friend and from Sheila. Corinna turns around and sees her son standing right behind her, hearing everything she just said. He huffs off.
The rehab center, turns out, is not so depressing when you've got a forty ounce of malt liquor and a game of quarters going. Jason gimps a quarter toward the cup and misses terribly. Tyra cackles drunkenly, telling him that his attempt was awful. Jason "Try, Try Again" Street goes for it once more and gets his quarter in. The two of them are having the best time, lots of tossing the head back in drunken laughter. Do I toss my head back a lot when I'm drunk? I don't know. I do know that I spend a lot of time screeching like a howler monkey when I'm drunk, though. Jason picks up the mug of beer and holds it toward Lyla. He slurs, "Here's to good friends in Texas. Texas forever." Tyra gives just as good, as she falsettos, "I'm the pefect Lyla Garrity. Gooo Panthers!" and then does some ladylike cheer claps in front of her face. The jokes hit a bit too close to home as they both go sort of quiet. Jason looks intense, "Do you think you'll ever forgive 'im?" She doesn't answer, but asks if he'll ever forgive Lyla. He doesn't answer and they cheers their glasses, Jason saying "Here's to real friends in Texas." Yes! Jason and Tyra! I am so there.
In Gatling, Corinna sits on the outdoor walkway outside what is presumably NOT The Remington but the Cheyenne Motel. Smash walks up behind her and she is thankful to see him. She tells him that she smoothed Smash's missed bed check over with Coach Taylor and asks where he went. He tells her that he went to the old house, apologizes, and wearily sits down with her. Now it's her turn to apologize. She asks what he remembers "about that night." Smash remembers that his dad was coming home late from work alone, and that some lady ran a red light. His mom says that he's got it partly right, but that he wasn't coming from work and he wasn't alone. She doesn't say who he was with, but the message is clear: ADULTEROR DESERVES TO DIE. Perhaps this is the main message of this episode? Lyla better watch her pretty back, then. Corinna tells her son that his father was not perfect, but she wants Smash to know how much she loved him. She says that the things she said tonight were stupid, and then tells Smash that his father would have been so proud of him. "There wasn't a person in the world your daddy couldn't charm. You go that from him." Hard inheritance, I think.
We cut over to the cemetery, where Smash finds his father's headstone. Michael Williams, born March 1954, died October 1999. Smash kneels quietly before the stone and briefly breaks into tears.
Game night. This game is shot in a slightly more grainy manner than the games usually are. I wonder if it's meant to replicate the perhaps more shoddy field at the poorer school, or if it's just a few cut corners on production. In either case, the stadium is packed and rollicking, the cheerleaders and cute, and Junior Silverio is huge and talking shit to the tiny Matt Saracen on the field. One of the Gatling Eagles shoves a Panther and a brief scuffle breaks out, the crowd's smiles turning to scowls. Coach gives his boys a talking to, telling them that they've got to play smart, and then calling Smash into the center of the huddle and asking him to "take 'em out." Smash gets in there, preacher man in his glory, and testifies, "This ain't their house, this is my house! My field. My blood is in this house. They want to live the pain? We give 'em pain. We're takin' this house back tonight!"
Cut to game play, Slammin' Sammy expositing that this is the fourth quarter, and the teams are deadlocked, "a defensive battle." Shots of all the Dillon folks we know and love as we hear that Saracen has been contained, Smash hasn't been able to do anything, and Tim Riggins has been "beaten like an old rug." We see one play, a handoff to Smash who gets laid out by Silverio. Another play, another hard hit on Smash. Tami, in the stands, twists her face into a humerous grimace. The Panthers, butted up against their own endzone, try one more handoff, this time to Riggins, who gets tackled for the safety. Gatling up two points. Riggins is down and hurt and escorted off the field by Smash.
Cut to Lyla who looks out onto the field while we hear some girl voices "Hey slut, Riggins is over here!" "Oh, Riggins, are you okay?" they singsong. Lyla turns her head toward them. In the stands, her parents overhear the taunts and look concerned. One of the girls yells out, "Hey, Lyla, does Riggins prefer boxers or briefs?" Lyla turns toward the girls and gives them a look. A girl takes a bottle and throws water toward Lyla down on the track. This is too much for Buddy; he needs to know what's going on, and when Lyla walks off the track, gorgeous posture and swinging ponytail, Buddy tells his wife that he's going to handle this one. And in the fourth quarter? Call Bill Cosby, I think we've got a model father here!
Buddy walks around under the bleachers and finds Lyla crying. She turns her face from her father, who asks her what is going on. She confesses, "I lost Jason," and then pauses when he doesn't understand. "I was unfaithful, Daddy." Wow. This is not something I would ever confess to my father. I would make up a story, any story, to avoid talking about sex with my dad. Buddy, who we are supposed to be warming up to, but who I can't forget is A COMPLETE RAGING RACIST, is admirably non-reactionary at this frank sexual confession from his little girl. He tells her that "we all make mistakes, and we grow up. But you're my little girl. You're my daughter. I want you to always remember that." She finally turns toward her dad and notices that he's never left a game before. Buddy surprises us all by saying "It's only a game. You're my daughter." Okay, let me check in with my cold, black heart. Cold, black heart? Are you warmed? No? Okay, good. End scene.
Back on the field, Coach coaches in a twangy manner, sends his boys back on the field. He calls Riggins, who's hurting on the bench, and asks if he's got "one more" in him. Riggins says he does and limps back out. Slammin' Sammy choruses, "He is really digging deep and showing his teammates what he's made of." Out on the field, The Galoot mouthbreathes, "Way to tough it out, Rig," and it seems the puritanical sexual policing part of the narrative has reached its closure, as it should, with boys lustily running their bodies into one another to help them forget the bad things girls make them do. The hymn from the first scene at Smash's church plays as the final play starts in slow motion which signals that success, it is immanent. Matt gets the ball to Smash, then Riggins, who's been reintegrated in the manly world of jock straps and butt slaps, comes through with a big block, and Smash runs it for a touchdown, Panthers win!
Everybody starts freaking out, but none more cutely than Matt Saracen, who's just hopping up and down like a little bunny. A very manly little bunny. Julie runs onto the field, clapping and beaming, and straight up to Matt who just goes for it and kisses her on the mouth, and just like the Sandman moment was the creepiest sweet thing I've ever seen, I think that that kiss was just the hottest sweet thing I've ever seen. Julie backs up and tells him she has to go, but it isn't in a bad way, and he looks after her, amazed at his own awesome cuteness. Cut to Tami in the stands who just sort of rolls her eyes at it all, and then down onto the field where Coach asks Riggins how his shoulder is. Riggins tells him he'll live (his only line of the whole episode), and Coach responds "Yeah you will," and in that moment I find it difficult to believe that Kyle Chandler is not this man named Eric Taylor. Everything about his bearing, his styling, his delivery, he is living this character.
Smash makes his way into the crowd to hug his moms, telling her "Let's go home, momma, let's go home." He reaches out to hug Sheila, who looks at him with slightly less admiration than everyone else has for him and although all the secrets are out for everyone else, she has a heavy one to keep now.