The Great and Noble Men of Dillon Panther Football

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For about the first forty-five minutes, it’s depresso downer time. Jason doesn’t make the Quad Rugby team, Herc is mean to him about it, and he accepts a ride home from Susie, who he ends up smooching at Stonehenge II. Julie is giving her parents the eyeroll treatment because they’ve told her that they’re all moving to Austin when Coach accepts the offer from TMU, and she does. Not. Want. To. Go. Waverly and Smash get a few exposition-heavy scenes in order to remind us that she’s bipolar. (And you know you are deep in a teen soap when “bipolar” is only a blip on the melodrama scale). Tami tries to get Angela to sack up and be a good mom to Tyra by encouraging her girl to try to get in to college, but Angela would rather drag her daughter around to get pedicures. Buddy thinks making a photo album will convince his wife to forgive and forget, but it doesn’t, and instead causes his wife to let the cat out of the bag in front of Lyla that Buddy has cheated on her throughout their whole marriage. Lyla, meanwhile, confronts Jason over whether he really wants to be engaged to her and, frankly, it doesn’t look good. And Tim makes a move on his older lady neighbor who acts shocked and pushes him away.

But just when you thought you couldn’t be more depressed, the most wonderful thing happens. The boys – Matt, Smash, Tim, and Jason – reunite on the football field. Only this time it’s night and they’re drunk and it’s all quite awesome. And then you go to the father-daughter dance with Coach and Julie, who despite trying her very hardest to rebel and be a teen is simply putty in her charming and loving and perfect father’s hands, and they dance and smile, and Angela and Tyra show up to the dance in a loopy but endearing display of family solidarity, and Tim and Old Lady start to do it, and Lyla calmly goes to her father’s car dealership and fucks shit up violent style, and Coach calls TMU and says he can’t accept their offer quite yet, he needs some more time to decide. Want more? The full recap starts right below!

Tami is reading real estate listings and oohing and ahhing over a "turn of the century" with original floors. She winces, "Needs a little work." Coach wonders "turn of what century?" while Tami continues rattling off all the things they need to do before moving -- hiring a broker, putting the house on the market, finding a new job for her. Julie walks in behind her and they clam up, but not before Julie overhears them and launches straight into Teen Red Alert mode -- shrilly declaring that she is not going, she is NOT going, she isn't going. Coach tells her she can't tell anyone, especially not Matt, and she storms off. Tami calls after her that she needs to try on a dress "for the father-daughter dance" and barely thirty seconds in, I'm out of my seat pacing in anticipation of the perfection.

Austin. Quad rugby. Yawn. Jason wheels around real fast, tosses a ball around, slams into various surfaces, et cetera. Horrifying guitar licks in the background indicate that this whole thing is Kool. Tattoo Girl is watching the game from the sidelines, because, well, because I have no idea why someone would go watch quad rugby tryouts. Although I guess I don't have too many athletic friends, so my comparison is, like, going to watch my friend at a job talk or something. One of the coaches tells Jason he's playing well. Jason laps up the praise like he's a Schnauzer on Puppy Bowl.

Cut to an empty gym where a line of coaches sits at a table. Jason wheels in front of them, and though he gets lots of positive feedback, he's told that he didn't make the team and won't be going to Beijing. Hallelujah! I never thought I'd say this -- well I never thought I'd say this without a hangover -- but thank god we're leaving Austin.

Uninspiring credits. Whoops, we haven't left Austin yet. Oh well, I guess another Shiner won't kill me. Jason, Herc, and company are hanging out. Tattoo Girl seems kind of drunk as she tells Jason she's sorry he didn't make the team. Herc rolls over, all set for some "Wooo!"-ing, but Jason is being a downer. Herc calls him "depressing guy" and I feel kind of silly for having spent so many hours typing so many words about Jason the past few episodes when, really, "Depressing Guy" would have done just fine. Herc patronizes Jason a bit, telling him that the coach loves him. Jason gets bitchy and tells Herc that everyone knows Jason was the best athlete on the court, but that he didn't get picked because the other guys make up, basically, a Quad Rugby In-Crowd. Herc comes back at Jason, telling him that he has a "truly spectacular ego." Tattoo Girl reminds us of her presence as she tells Herc to lay off. Herc continues, saying that Jason may have the most raw talent, but he didn't make the team because he isn't comfortable in a chair.

Jason's face softens, he isn't up for the fight, and he just sort of confesses, "I really needed this." Herc leans in close and tells Jason that they all of them "need" the validation of getting on the team and playing, but "it's the championships, not therapy."

Move on over to another corner of the bar, where Jason and Tattoo Girl have a long and exposition-heavy conversation about how Herc was a jerk and how she'll give Jason a ride back up to Dillon 'cause she's got a refrigerator in her trunk needs delivering. I believe someone picked that line up off the floor of The Forty Year-Old Virgin set.

At the Playgirl Ranch, Tim peels himself off a drooly couch to answer the spastic knocking at his door. He finds Neighbor Lady (GIVE HER A NAME PLEASE) at his door, rapidly scolding him for cleaning out her gutters and then just as rapidly shifting gears and asking if he can pick Bo up at school that afternoon. She stresses that Tim needs to be on time, "because Bo has trust issues," and offers to pay, but Tim -- molasses to her Pop Rocks -- slowly shakes his head and grins that he's not a babysitter.

At school, Tyra asks Tami if she's kidding. Apparently the latter has proposed that the former actually do some school work. Tami has put together what she calls a "very aggressive" schedule for Tyra, explaining "that's the way we do." How we do. We family. Tyra reminds Tami that she has a job, and Tami tells her she will help the girl manage her time. Tami's plan is for Tyra to turn her grades around, get into a junior college, "kick ass there," and then transfer to a four-year college. Tyra isn't so confident, though, and she tells Tami that her expectations are "unrealistic," as the women in the Collette family have a tendency to barely get through high school. Tyra asks, rhetorically, if anyone could believe that she'll be any different from them. Tami answers: "I do. And I think you should, too." Stand and deliver (fantastic hair), woman!

Smash and Waverly sit outside his house and watch the kids play football in the yard. Waverly is in mid-explanation that she "basically" has been diagnosed as bi-polar. That's all well and good, but I do not hear an explanation for why she is wearing a terrifying cowl neck in this scene. I believe Nina Garcia will require an accounting of that sooner or later. Smash awkwardly brings up "when [she] was in Africa" so that she can spell it out to us that she never was in Africa. She was doing an out-patient thing near her aunt's in Dallas. She continues explaining, saying that she gets extreme mood swings and that the swings can even lead to thoughts of suicide. Smash looks at her blankly, and she tells him that he looks terrified. He demurs and says he just needs time to digest.

Hotel room. Linens strewn about. Buddy and Lyla are putting together a photo album. He smarmily remarks how "fantastic" it's going to be. Lyla asks her father if the photo album is the right thing to do. Buddy is sure, saying he saw it on Dr. Phil and that her mom is going to melt when she sees all the old memories and hears that father and daughter worked on it together. Lyla is like, "Uh, I'd prefer not to have my name on this piece of schlock. Now, if you saw this idea on Ellen..." Lyla says she doesn't want to "take sides." Her father looks hurt and Lyla looks way too wise for her age, and suggests her father give her mother more time. Buddy says he can't give Pam any more time because he can't be away from his family any longer. Lyla asks why he did it then, and he responds by going ickily Jimmy Swaggart-y. Buddy reminds her that he is a sinner, and a weak man, but that it was one mistake and he'll never do anything to hurt the family again. I guess he is assuming that no one has any problem with him singlehandedly keeping The Landing Strip in business with his patronage.

Tim pulls up to school to find Bo in the center of a circle of four gigantic monsters. These monsters are easily four feet tall. While Bo appears, in comparison, to be about the size of a Snork. Tim runs up and makes them stop pushing the poor kid around. When they claim they're "just playing with him," he responds by grabbing one of the kids by the jacket, leaning in real close, and telling him that "if I so much as see you lookin' at him the wrong way, I'm gonna find ya and punch a hole in your chest and rip your heart out." Awesome. Now that is some solid Texas parenting-by-proxy. The mini-monsters run off, and Tim kneels down to Snork level and apologizes for being late. Bo is breathing kind of heavily and wiping at his face a lot. He confesses that this happens every day after school, but then immediately looks on the bright side and squeaks, "I can't believe Tim Riggins is pickin' me up from school!" I'm desperately looking for answers for why the little dork is endearing in this scene. I think one answer is that he is apparently not supposed to be the charmingly wacky (and thus hateable) five-year-old kid he appears to be, but instead is a tremendously and weirdly tiny eight- or nine-year-old. The other answer is probably just that he looks like Sandy Duncan, and who can fail to be charmed by Sandy Duncan?

At the Taylors. Coach is stuttering himself into a corner, trying to tell his daughter that they have her interests in mind in moving. He tells her how arty Austin is, and "you're arty." He tells her how much "culture" there is there, "a lot of dance...you, you love dance." She gives him the silent treatment. "There's a hell of a lot of dance. There's dancing all over Austin," he continues. Tami gives him the "Stop Being Weird" eyes, but he keeps barreling through. "They've got an excellent ballet. They've got some top-notch ballet-ers." At this Julie grabs her bag and books from the table, whirls around, and fixes her father with the Teen Death Glare. Coach responds, "Oh, 'The Look,' that's a great look," but no weak-assed fatherly sarcasm can possibly defuse the nuclear power of that Teen Death Glare.

At the Alamo Freeze, Matt Saracen talks to Landry and Julie about something...some kind of sport or something...where a ball is thrown around, and some entity called an "defensive line" is important and causing him anxiety? I do not know of what he speaks. In any case, Matt is worried about losing and riding the bench the year. Landry tells Matt he'll never be second-string again, that Coach loves him, that Matt is Coach's "Seabiscuit." Julie giggles, but then clams up when Landry poses a question she can't answer too truthfully: "You will always be QB1 as long as Coach is here. Right, Julie?" She looks down and says yes.

Tattoo Girl drives Jason back towards Dillon. It turns out the refrigerator in her trunk was not euphemistic. There is an actual refrigerator she hopes to deliver. So much for that new sex catchphrase. Jason is explaining how the town hates him because he's suing the football team. Susie wants to know why he doesn't leave, because she can't understand why anyone would stay where they weren't wanted. Cut the "Fly Free, Butterfly" crap, lady. Jason reminds her (and us) that he's engaged, and then says Dillon is the only home he knows and he can't imagine going anywhere else anytime soon. She changes the (boring) subject and asks him, "How 'bout Stonehenge II?" and then tells him that's where they're stopping .

Tami's office. Angela is in there, trying and failing to focus her Valium eyes. Tami tells Tyra's mom that she's worried Tyra is riding on her looks but that she wants her to start using her brain, "cuz, you know, that looks thing isn't gonna last forever." Ouch. And to a woman who just lost her famously perky ass in a tragic accident. Angela says she's unclear why she's there, and Tami clarifies that she wants to tag-team Tyra with Angela. Whoa there, lady. That sounds downright European. Angela resists Tami's suggestion that Tyra is messing up -- defensively saying that it isn't like Tyra is a criminal (which, actually, she is with the drinking and party-money laundering). Tami backpedals and tells Angela she just wants them to both help Tyra reach her potential. When she gets the Opiate Face in response, she provides some actual motivating information: "Tyra is at great risk of not graduating from high school." Way to bury the lede, lady.

House of Plaid. Angela watches what looks like Dallas on TV and blabs on at Tyra, who's doing her homework in the room, about some girl who's put on a lot of weight. Tyra asks her mom to cram it, and Angela does for two seconds before blabbing away some more. She does cram it for real, though, when a Buddy Garrity commercial comes on the TV. Buddy's car dealership's "three pillars of prosperity" are apparently "Honesty. Loyalty. Trust." But what is really too much for Angela is when he launches into his tagline "Deep in the heart of Texas. Deep in my heart. I'm your Buddy." God, should we add "pedophilia" to his list of pillars? Who else calls themselves "your Buddy"? Angela gets up and shuts the TV off and then spontaneously suggests they pick Ole Sis up at the club and go get pedicures. Tyra says she has too much homework, but Angela persists, asking her daughter to "think of your toes." Tyra smiles the tired smile of children with ridiculous parents.

Susie and Jason are out in a dismal-looking field. Susie smirks as she asks, "It's amazing, huh?" and we know we are in for a This Is Spinal Tap reveal of a tiny little monument. Which we get. Cut to them sitting inside the mini Stonehenge, instantly accelerated into "how'd you get engaged" talk accompanied by ponderous strings. I had no idea novelty roadside attractions could inspire such things. Jason jokes that he and Lyla "called a meeting" and talked it all over and decided the engagement was best. Susie gets it: "You were fighting." She asks what the fight was about and Jason tells her that Lyla slept with Tim. Susie snarks, "I'd propose." He says he was grasping at straws, afraid of losing her, and Susie says she understands. Please excuse this interruption in our regularly scheduled program, but WHAT in GOD'S name is up with her overplucked eyebrows? They are making me crazy. I'm praying for her to re-don those "smart with a fuck-it attitude" cute, thick-rimmed eyeglasses of hers. Okay. So the ponderous music has gotten a bit louder, Jason is leaning in, some yadda yadda about how easy she is to talk to, and then they're smooching it up, loud lip-mike style.

Tami and Coach slow-dance in their living room during one in the apparently never-ending string of long, warmly-lit late afternoons they have in their house. Tami laughs and asks Julie if she's watching, because "it's fun to dance with your father." Her head is pressed to her husband's shoulder as she mumbles about dancing, telling her daughter to let the man lead, but if he doesn't, "I find it's easy to lead with your hips and the rest will --" Coach abruptly pulls back from his wife in order to stutter toward his daughter about how she doesn't need to do too much with her hips. The Hair is in exclamation-point formation above his head. Julie says she's not going to the dance and Coach responds crankily, "All right, fine, then," and says he's not going either. Tami is the only one speaking Crazy Family Logic Truth here and she shouts, "No! Y'all are goin' to the father-daughter dance. I'm-a pull out my camera, I'm-a take a picture of you both, you're gonna look real happy, and I'm gonna cherish it for the rest of my life. So y'all better stop bein' a pain in the ass and make me happy for once." Love it.

Tami leaves those fools and goes to answer a knock at the door. She greets Tyra, who just got there for her tutoring lesson. Coach and Julie know that the decree has been decreed.

Tim is teaching little Sandy Duncan how to box. Eureka! I think I discovered why I now find little Sandy Duncan so endearing. (And it certainly isn't because she elbowed Valerie Harper off her own damn show, The Hogan Family, my ass.) It's because she was in The Million Dollar Duck, which happened to be on television during the first big fight I ever had with the man I'm now married to, and we were fighting and fighting but then one of us looked up and saw this crazy chase scene on the screen where a duck was being chased around a pool by a puppy (or was it the other way around?) and we dissolved into laughter and then, fight over, settled in to watch this demented family movie because, though we didn't know it about one another at the time, we both will in fact watch anything.

So, Little Sandy Duncan is punching at Tim's open hands. Tim advises Little Sandy Duncan that on the schoolyard anything goes: "That means groin kicks, eye gouges, anything it takes." Meanwhile Bo's mom pulls up and gets a glimpse of the heartwarming vignette of Tim kneeling and instructing her Little Sandy Duncan. She smiles, but when Bo starts punching Tim's hands again her smile fades. She gets out and asks what they are doing, and Little Sandy Duncan says, "Tim Riggins is teaching me how to kick some serious ass." She laughs and sends him in to get her a soda "with one of those delicious limes you put in it." How old is this kid? That line is like something you say to a six-year-old, right? ["I don't recall ever having expected a six-year-old to garnish my drinks, but I'm told things are different in the South." -- Sars]

She turns to Tim and demands to know what he's doing. She tells Tim that she's a pacifist and doesn't want Tim teaching Little Sandy Duncan to fight. Tim tells her what he found when he picked Bo up at school. She sucks in her breath and wonders where the school monitor was. Tim admits he might've been a little late, and she gets exasperated. Tim tells her that, in any case, she can't always be there to protect him, so the kid needs to know how to defend himself. She thinks that if she teaches her son to ignore the bully, the bully will go away. Tim gives her a schoolyard lesson and says that ignoring the bully will just get your ass kicked more. She wonders if Tim was harassed in school. Tim chokes back a laugh and says, "No. I was the bully." This is a really charming conversation. No, really!

Tim tells her that he "likes the kid. He may be awkward and weird, but he's a good kid. You bein' a pacifist is fine, but him being a pacifist in the fourth grade? All that means is 'a punchin' bag.'" Catch that? Little Sandy Duncan is nine. What kind of toxic dump did he grow up in to stunt his growth like that? Oh, right. Hollywood.

Little Sandy Duncan comes out with the soda, and then awkwardly invites Tim over to watch Back to the Future "for the thousandth time." Tim agrees, and Bo raises his arm in whisper-shouted celebration, "Yesssss!" Taylor Kitsch ad-libs back at him, two thumbs up, "All right!" and little Sandy Duncan comes back with a fist pump. Then I die.

At the Taylors', Coach is in the kitchen while Julie and Tyra study and Tami does work at the kitchen table. Coach jokes to Tyra that she's about to experience "award-winning chili." Tami and he go back and forth over what kind of award, exactly, this chili was awarded. Tyra looks on, totally amused, and happy to be part of this functional kind of family silliness. Coach talks over his nattering wife, pointing a spatula at Tyra: "You like your chili spicy, lady? You like your chili spicy?" Tyra laughs and says yes, and just then Angela wanders into the house in a Valium haze. She says that she knocked, and Tami assures her that their doorbell's been broken for years and that people just come in all the time. It's all high-spirits and good times as the Taylors invite Angela to stay for chili. She says they can't, and Tyra pleads, "Of course we can, Mom," and then Angela responds that she's got something at home: "I cook three meals a day for my children just like regular people." Heh. Tami and Coach realize what's happening, their faces a bit crestfallen.

Outside, Angela drags Tyra out of the Taylor house and into the car while Tyra complains. Angela wants to know what Tyra is doing with "those people," and Tyra retorts, "Learnin' somethin', maybe?" I really like seeing the obverse of Julie's naive attraction to Tyra's ramshackle family. This is yet another nicely-executed exploration of a real part of teen life that rarely gets anything on television other than the ham-fisted "my parents are embarrassing" or "her parents are the coolest" treatment. Angela tells Tyra that Tami is filling her head with all these things that can't possibly come to fruition. Although Angela does not use the word "fruition." She asks Tyra if she knows how much a semester at Texas Tech costs, and then declares it too expensive, that they'll never afford it, so she isn't going to college. (We'll bracket the issue of how, on television, loans never seem to be an option. Though I guess a discussion of interest rates doesn't really lend itself to dramatic mother-daughter fights). Angela says that Tami filling Tyra's head with stuff "is not nice." Meanwhile, throughout all this, Adrianne Palicki is registering Tyra's five million degrees of disappointment in her face so nicely, how Tyra must feel trapped and foreclosed, all at seventeen.

Movie night. Tim is on the couch in the middle of a sleeping Neighbor Lady/sleeping Little Sandy Duncan sandwich. He picks Little Sandy up to carry him to bed, as guitar strings of inappropriateness sound. Neighbor Lady wakes up, and watches him do this. She walks right up into Tim's business and gazes into his eyes, but when he leans in to kiss her she pulls away in horror and tells him he's a kid and then barks, "Go home, Tim. Go home!"

Jason is home, packing away his trophies from his parent's living room. Lyla comes in and is pissed that she hasn't known where he's been. Jason tells her he didn't make the team and she's sympathetic for a minute, but then narrows her eyes and, focusing on moving their break-up storyline along, demands to know how he got back to Dillon. He says that Susie gave him a ride, and Lyla gets her BitchFace on (which I love), saying she remembers Susie. Jason, too quickly, says nothing happened. BitchFace purses her lips: "Happened? What could happen?" and then, shrilly, wonders what could have happened during a ride with a cute girl who is really into him. Jason tells her that things have been tough and confusing. Lyla is not one to miss a chance to remind everyone about her dirty sex life and so asks if he thinks it's okay to have an affair just because she did, "because it's not, Jason. It's not." Jason reminds her that he didn't have an affair. The natural lighting in this scene bathing Scott Porter's face reminds all of us viewers that he is not a teenager. Lyla demands to know if Jason still wants to be engaged to her, and he answers, "I don't know." Way to advance the plot, show!

At the Garrity house. Pam opens the door and finds her nasty husband at the door. She tries to close the door on him, but he stops her and then presents her with the "really special" photo album. He tells her that Lyla helped put it together. She glances at it and tells Buddy to shove it. Everyone cheers. She tells him that he has made the family a laughingstock and that she's even considered leaving town. She slams the door on him and turns on Lyla, who is standing on the stairs behind her. She points her finger at her daughter and asks her not to take sides. Lyla swears she isn't, but Pam thinks she is. Lyla gets angry and says that her mom can at least talk to her father, as he only made one mistake. Pam is quiet for a second, Buddy's shadow lurking outside the schlocky etched glass of their front door. Buddy begs and pleads to get let back in while Pam and Lyla fight inside. Lyla insists again that Buddy just made one mistake until Pam erupts and tells Lyla that he's been unfaithful their entire marriage. Lyla is confused, and Pam just keeps shouting that she's sorry but then turns toward the door and shouts to Buddy that she knows about his last secretary and on and on. It's really depressing. Pam stalks off, and then Buddy whimpers outside to Lyla to "let Daddy in." Lyla opens the door and screams one word to her father: "LEAVE."

Coach and Tami in their bedroom, Coach worrying about why Julie doesn't want to leave Dillon. He mutters about how much he knows she'd love Austin. And he's right about that. He sits down and Tami gets wise, saying that she doesn't think Julie's resistance to their move has anything to do with Dillon. Coach thinks its him. Typical. Tami says that it isn't him, it isn't Dillon, or Austin: "I think our little girl is in love." Just then Julie walks into their room and leans on the door frame. There is not a smile within a thousand miles of this girl's mouth. Her parents tell her how nice she looks, Coach looking real meaningful when he says it. She insists that she's only going for one song. Tami holds up her camera and tells her daughter to smile. She does, if by "smile" you mean "twitches one corner of her mouth 1/753nd of an inch."

Jason hoists a twelve-pack of "National Beer" onto the counter in a convenience store. The proprietor says he can't sell the beer to him. Jason asks "C'mon, you can't sell it to me cuz I'm a cripple?" Uh, good guess, but...it's actually because he's seventeen, says the clerk. Meanwhile, Tim saunters into the store behind him. Jason begs, wondering if he was still playing football if he could buy the beer. Tim just comes up, swings two twelve-packs onto the counter, and indicates he'll pay for Jason's. The clerk asks, "Got ID, sir?" and Tim hands his over. He pays and Jason looks dejected, but both Tim and Jason stifle laughs and the clerk says, "Thank you, Sergeant Riggins," as they leave.

Outside, Smash and Matt sit in the car talking about their outfits or something. And dare I hope? Dare I even reveal this thin, delicate hope that I have harbored in my breast for so long? Dare I mention that it seems as if -- perhaps -- the MOTHERFUCKING TEAM IS BACK?!?! Smash and Matt hop out of the car as Jason comes out of the store with Tim, and excitedly invite him along. Jason at first says no, but then he can't resist, because who really can when IT'S THE MOTHERFUCKING TEAM. Back motherfucking together. Yes!

Cut to the football field at night. And if you blink, you might think you're watching a different group of Texan boys on a football field at night: Matthew McConaughey ("You just gotta keep livin', man -- L-I-V, I-N"), one of those London boys, and a whole lotta weed. Smash pushes Jason along, while Matt in a pulled-up hoodie wonders what Smash means by "bi-polar." Smash clarifies, "It means she's crazy." THE TEAM! IS! BACK! TOGETHER! Jason interjects that it just means that she has issues like everyone else. Jason is leaning over the stacks of beer. And if you ever wondered about my credentials in writing about immature kids and Texas, let me assure you that those packs of CANS of beer look simply mouthwatering to me right now. Matt wonders how Smash is dealing with the news and Smash declares he is dealing with it like a man: "Avoiding the cause, ducking the issue, hidin' in the bushes." Jason laughs and just then, it's Tim's voice over the loudspeaker: "Ladies and gentlemen. I present to you - you- you, the great and noble men of Dillon Panther Football."

Jason has a huge smile on his face as Tim comes bounding back down the stadium steps, fully sucking on a fifth of Jack Daniels. I like him SO much better as a drunk. Matt worries, somewhat drunkenly, about getting caught and losing game time. Jason asks Matt what's gonna happen: "They gonna bench you? Start me?" To illustrate, Jason fake-calls his own play, "Look at Street, he's on a tear, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two," all while wheeling himself at the speed of a snail across the soft grass. The boys are really reeling around drunk. I LOVE THIS.

Matt gets all "but seriously," causing Tim to wonder what Matty's troubles could be. Smash wonders how anyone's could be worse than his with Waverly, and Tim interjects, "I just tried to make out with my door neighbor who's at least in her mid-thirties. Pretty much got put through the wall on that one, so I think I win." Pause. Jason: "Nah. Chair says I win. Every time." Matt continues worrying, though, saying he can't take the team any farther. He thinks he'd be better off for the team on the bench.

Jason gets serious and tells Matt that if he wants to play big, he needs to think big. "I'm gonna show you how." An arrangement of, probably, "Your Hand in Mine" gets going as the boys break into wide boyish grins and start playing football, Jason calling plays and coaching Matt through. He finally calls "18 Yard Deep Out" and Matt says he can't hit that. Smash agrees, but Jason forces Matt to look at him and listen. Jason gives Matt the play, telling him how to hold his head, where to look, when to throw. He says, "You hit the slants, you hit the posts, they will respect you. You hit this pattern, they will fear you." The soundtrack crescendos, Jason coaches Matt through the play, and he hits it. With a big, goofy grin, Matt turns to Jason and says, "I hit it!" and Jason responds, "Yes, you did."

Father-daughter dance. Pairs file into the gym while Coach and Julie sit in the car. Coach says he wants to talk for a second, "about you and Matt." Julie tries to not have this conversation, but Coach continues. He says that he know it won't be easy for her to leave Matt, and then apologizes for being insensitive about that. Julie looks like she's softening, but she snarks, mildly, "Did Mom tell you to say that?" Coach makes his usual "you are fifteen years old" comment to tell her that she can't dictate where the family will live. But then he doubles back and says, "But you are also fifteen years old and you deserve to have your opinion heard."

So Julie gives her opinion. Coach tells her he is listening, and she tells him that she dreaded moving to Dillon, and when they did (some very confusingly unspecified time ago), all her fears about moving came true. But that then something changed, and for the first time in her moving-around life she felt at home. She tells her father that she knows the Austin thing is his dream job, "but I have dreams, too." And I don't care how cheesy this is, I love it. Coach looks at her and says, "I hear you." Julie brats a bit that they should just go in and get the dance over with, but she leans over and kisses her father on the cheek and hugs him. He tells her, "I love you."

Angela and Tyra are out at a restaurant, Angela apparently having traded the Valium for some uppers tonight. She goes on and on about what they'll order -- margaritas, ribs -- until Tyra demands to know what is wrong with her. Angela flips out and says that she can't sit there "with these fathers and daughters and their little flowers" and rushes herself and Tyra out of the restaurant. Cut to the car, where Angela continues spazzing out, telling Tyra that she doesn't want her to feel pressure to be something that she's not. By which she means successful and unslutty? I presume. Tyra interrupts her mom to say that she doesn't feel pressure to change, but that she WANTS to change. That she wants to go to college and break the Collette mold. She then says that she can't do anything without her mother. Which, frankly, I'm not buying, given the frequency with which Tyra says it. Angela tears up and then does that insane car swerving screeching thing she does, peeling off at the last second toward a different road.

Cut to the gymnasium, where Julie and Coach dance contentedly together. Angela pulls Tyra past the ticket-takers and onto the middle of the floor, where Tyra has again waited until she has been dragged into the middle of something by her mom to ask what the hell she is getting dragged into the middle of. Angela launches into a speech about how she knows she's a mess but she's going to try to do everything she can for Tyra, she promises. Seriously, haven't they already had this conversation? But Tyra is a sucker for a crazy-ass mom who's constantly doing terrible shit and then promising she won't do terrible shit anymore before going on to do some more terrible shit. And I guess that's what TV is all about, anyhow.

So Tyra and her mom dance at the father-daughter dance, they both make silly eyes at Julie and Coach and generally look like they enjoy being their loopy selves.

Curtis Mayfield's "Only You Babe" keeps playing as we move over to Buddy Garrity's car dealership where Lyla, shot from behind, walks out of the office, and gets in one of his cars. She revs it into reverse, smashing it into another car, then revs forward and back again, smashing some shit up, until she finally accelerates right into the glass walls of the dealership. She looks a bit shaken, gets out of the car, and walks off. That was hot, was what that just was.

Sunrise. Football field. Smash and Matt lie asleep, Matt's hand gently placed on Smash's stomach. Tim and Jason sit up, Tim still drinking. Tim says, "That is so Brokeback, man," and then he and Jason laugh. Tim glances at Jason and asks, "Friends?" Jason says, "Yeah, always." Then Jason sort of snarks, "Texas forever," but Tim repeats it sincerely, "Texas forever, man." Cut to Tim driving up into his driveway. Neighbor Lady sits on a conveniently-placed bench waiting for him. He asks where her son is, and he is -- obviously, since it is just past sunrise -- at piano practice. But let us not dwell too long on the nonsensical nature of any of this because MAKE-OUT ALERT! She grabs his hand, and we cut inside her house to her telling him no one can know, as they make out and do the "walk backwards to the bedroom" TV make-out move. If you look closely, Judi Dench is in the background, peering inside the window and composing wry remarks for her simultaneously perceptive and totally misguided personal journal.

At the Taylors, Coach is outside on the phone while Tami and Julie watch him through the sliding glass door. He comes back in and Tami asks what he told TMU. He says he told them that he needs more time to decide. "My family needs more time," and then he grabs Julie's head and hugs it. Which is not as weird as I just made it sound.