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It's time for Gracie to go to daycare, and Tami isn't taking it too easy. She tries to drop the baby off three times, and hightails it out of there three times, bringing the baby to work with her instead. Which, thank the Lord, gives us at least one Glen sighting to help ease the pain inflicted by this otherwise blunt instrument of an episode. Eric is frustrated and wishes he could tell Tami that he thinks she should stay home with Gracie, but when he hears Mac say as much, he realizes that Mac is not only a racist but a sexist, too, and decides to not be that guy himself. He turns to the internet for support and, crazily (because, don't listen to internet parenting advice, fool!), Tami is comforted by what he tells her -- that daycare is good for children and separation anxiety is natural. The Taylors continue to be the most charming people on the face of the earth.
Santiago gets a visit from Weevil -- his loco friend from back in the dia. Weevil appears to have aged about thirty-three years since he was in Veronica Mars. Weevil and the boyz are trying to get Santiago back into the gangsta lean. Buddy doesn't want to appear racist, so he goes out of his way to invite all of them over to the house, then carefully places all of his "prized possessions" (his words) on the mantel, then leaves the house. Brilliant. A thuggish house party ensues, a gold watch gets stolen, Santiago has to go fight Weevil to get it back. Santiago is sad.
GO BACK TO GUATEMALA, CARLOTTA.
(See the power I have? She did! Hooray! Matt is sad.)
Noelle and Smash apparently have been doing most of their dating in a parallel universe, because all of a sudden they are beset by racists objecting to their relationship. And not that we've seen this relationship developed or anything, but context clues tell us that it's serious enough for enough for Noelle's parents to invite Smash's family over for dinner, and serious enough for Noelle's parents and Corinna to have concerns over the interracial couple, so one wonders where the community's outrage was before Smash conveniently needed this story line, which I'm sure we would all trade in a heartbeat if they would just let any of the boys interact with each other anymore. Anyway: Smash is sad.
Lyla starts co-hosting a Christian Teen Radio Show with a real cute rough-hewn-cross, Bible-camp type. You know I had my first kiss at church camp, so I am SO THERE. Lyla must find it difficult work, though, to be so winsome every second of the day. Tim prank-calls her show and she gives him a talking-to about it; Riggins keeps listening and his smitten-ness is reactivated by all her hot "This Little Light of Mine" talk. He shows up to her church with a bouquet of flowers, only to find her getting some of that sweet Bible Camp action. Tim is sad.
And! Jason Street sighting! For only two seconds, but still! I bet Jason is sad. About something. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Morning at the Taylors'. Tami's on the phone saying that they can have Gracie "there by seven." There's a last-minute opening at day care, "the good one, the one with the waiting list." Coach is suspicious about why they have an opening all of a sudden; Tami is busy thanking the woman on the phone for taking the baby on short notice. Julie is whining in the background, demanding to know where her homework is. Coach talks at his wife while she's on the phone (most annoying habit ever!), asking her to consider if the place has an opening because it's on such a busy street with a lot of traffic. Tami explains that they have a gate, with a security code, et cetera et cetera. Tami gets off the phone and tells Coach to calm down, and then tells him that she'll take Grace to daycare while he takes Julie to school because he's clearly too worked up about the daycare issue to bring Gracie in himself. Julie is continuing being both annoying and ignored until Coach tells her that her homework is under the newspapers. Totally, God, Dad. Tami heads out the door with the baby, exclaiming, "Say goodbye to Gracie Belle! She's going to daycare, woo hoo!"
Grandma Saracen is making Matt pancakes. He's moping around wondering where his wonderful characterization went. Grandma tosses about a quarter cup of baking soda into the mix, and Matt exclaims about it. She tells him she's been making pancakes for forty years, she knows how to do it. Matt mopes his way into Carlotta's room, where we find that the reason he's moping is that she's packing her things up. She tells him that she has to go to Guatemala. He is stunned, and wonders if she's going for vacation. She vaguely tells him that her "family needs" her. I think we can name this the "Guatemala Clause," part of the fine print in the show's narrative contract with its viewers: When someone needs to go back to Guatemala, no questions about said person's presence in the story need ever be answered. Grandma, batty and oblivious as ever, comes cheerfully in and invites Carlotta to come and have some pancakes. Matt mopes some more.
Tami arrives at the daycare center, which looks perfectly fine. She mutters to herself about the cute neighborhood and the nice playground, and then overhearing a child's cough, her muttering turns suspicious. A childcare worker comes out with a toddler in her arms and tells Tami she'll be right with her. Tami plasters a smile on her face as she tells Gracie what a big day she's about to have, that she'll eat, and play, and nap, "do all those things you love to do." But the smile doesn't cover her rising guilt, and Tami continues talking to the baby: "And I bet you're never going to wonder why we left you here with strangers." Her eyes start darting around, Gracie lets out a squeak, and Tami says, "I think you're absolutely right," and then hightails it back out that nice, secure gate she was telling Coach about. She puts Gracie in the car, telling her that maybe they'll try again tomorrow.
Credits. Santiago wanders through the school parking lot when what appears to be an honest-to-god hooptie pulls up behind him. Santiago exclaims, "Davin Diablo [?], what up, homie?!" And it's Weevil! Francis Capra himself. The Italian Latino! Who IMDB tells me is twenty-five years old, which surprised me because, well, dude looks a little rough. Santiago and Weevil discuss how Weevil "got out" early, Weevil peppering his speech with plenty of Randy Jackson "dogs." Weevil tells Santiago to get in the car, but the boy tells him he can't. He informs Weevil that he's playing football now, and Weevil takes the information in with grinning condescension: "I'm prouda you, homie. A'right, you go to school, I'm-a be in the streets." He then peels out, Santiago watching.
Lyla is late to church for something. The Reverend ushers her into a sound booth, where she quickly is introduced to a guy around her age named Chris Kennedy, and then settles in as co-host (with him) of a radio show called "I Was a Teen-Aged Christian." Chris is played by Matt Czuchry, who was Logan on the later seasons of Gilmore Girls. Here he is, in all his Anglo-looking glory, just annoyingly shining with the Lord's blessings. If he sticks around, I think I will love to hate him. Lyla and Chris immediately go to the phones. The first call is for Lyla; it's a girl who says she and her boyfriend are both Christians but that they are also both horny all the time. She says her boyfriend tells her that "all the stuff we're doing isn't a sin, and I guess technically it's not..." and then trails off. Lyla is making eyes at Chris over catching this question her first time out, and hesitantly asks the girl what her question is. The girl puts it out there: "Is oral sex sex?" and Lyla's eyes go wide. Chris jumps in to say he'll field this question for Lyla on this, her first day, and that it is a little early in the morning to be defining intercourse, but that, "Biblically, oral sex is not intercourse," which is the kind of nonsense you get when you use a extremely outdated book as your reference source for contemporary matters. Then he charms the situation by turning the question back to the caller, saying that what he is hearing is that maybe she's uncomfortable with the "stuff" she's doing. Lyla looks about ready to throw her panties at the guy, so I guess, fellas, jot down "dole out Christian advice" ahead of "enroll in Women's Studies course" on your list of ways to get into some pants.
At school, Coach rushes toward Tami's office, while she tries to intercept him. He busts in the door only to find Glen holding a crying Gracie. "Hi, Glen," Coach says. Oh, Glen. I miss you when you aren't there. Tami explains to her husband that she had a hard time leaving Gracie, so she brought her to work just this one day. Glen interrupts to say that he really wants to help but he has to get to class. Oh, Glen, with your sweaty brow and awful short-sleeved button-downs and weekend Magic: The Gathering tournaments. Coach just stands there and silently judges. Tami takes Gracie and hands her to Coach and tells him that if he could just stay there with her for ten minutes, just ten minutes, she's got a quick meeting to go to, "just...statistics." Like you ever get out of a meeting involving education professionals in under two hours. Glen tells Coach that Grace needs a diaper change, and he just tightly says thanks and nods his head in derision.
Smash declares, "I know I'm cool." Okay, then! He's walking with his posse when Noelle comes up to him, cracking all the boys up plot-contrivance-style. They all start exclaiming over how Smash didn't learn nothing from O.J. and then break into a little rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Jungle Fever." They fade away and Noelle tells Smash that her parents want him, his mother, and his sisters to come over for dinner. Smash remarks that it's "meet the parents" time and then tells her that he'd love to have dinner with her parents. She leans in all like she's his girlfriend (thanks, show, for giving this relationship some context!) and kisses him.
Santiago is leaving the practice field when Weevil comes up to him shouting, rather embarrassingly, "Dude! It's the Dillon Panthers! Whoa!" I can't quite explain in writing the tone he has, but it makes me cringe. He tells Santiago to get in the car with him, and no protesting that (in whiny voice) "you've got homework." Weevil then declares, dog, that "we're riding tonight. Like old times." Santiago gets in the car, greets his other homies, and takes a seat up on the convertible's back ledge. Cut to the boyz hanging out in front of Buddy and Santiago's apartment complex. They're drinking forties wrapped in paper bags, and Weevil is bagging on some guy with a stuttering problem that got out and then arrested again in the same day. "Stupid! Not like us, huh, we're professionals." I can't even imagine Santiago being a thug; he's standing there swigging from his forty and hanging out, but he does everything with such gentleness. He sort of murmurs in reply to all of Weevil's antics, but the latter doesn't seem to notice what must be a changed aspect in Santiago. Weevil wants to know when Santiago is "going back to work" and then announces that he'll wait about two weeks before getting back into it. Into what? Petty larceny? Drug-dealing? I sort of want to know.
Santiago catches a glimpse of Buddy's SUV pulling up and quietly says he should go inside. He's too late; Weevil sees Buddy and wants to know who he is. Santiago explains, as Buddy gets out of the car, that Buddy's just a guy that's been helping him out, letting Santiago stay with him. Buddy approaches the group and asks Santiago if everything is okay. Santiago tells him that these guys are his friends and Buddy goes into a completely embarrassing "cool dad" routine, asking the guys if they're all "friends with the Sandman here?" Weevil busts out laughing at the dorky nickname. Buddy then, mortifyingly, tells them that "mi casa su casa" and invites them over for pizza and a movie on Thursday night. Buddy Garrity, it doesn't take a sociologist to be able to tell these guys are maybe not the chips 'n' dip types. Weevil shakes Buddy's hand and then puts it together: "Buddy Garrity! Hey, I've seen your car commercials, man!" Presumably, his brain is already working out what he might be able to steal from the fat cat. Santiago and Buddy walk toward their apartment, Buddy repeatedly telling Santiago that they're "nice guys, nice guys," Santiago just muttering in weak response.
Tami snuggles Gracie in bed, telling Coach about how they ran from the daycare center like they were escaping from prison. Coach tells her he understands and suggests that she just try again tomorrow. She thanks him for being so understanding and he replies, "I have my moments." His hair is looking particularly pleased with itself. Tami hands Gracie over to him and Kyle Chandler proves himself to be the greatest baby-talker in the world. He jokes, "Not you again! Not you again!" and then asks the baby, "Who are you? Where'd you come from?" I'm pretty sure the Taylors would not appreciate it, but I am about half an inch away from jumping into their bed with them during this scene.
Morning. Tami pushes Gracie down the school hallway in a stroller, greeting her students as she goes. She runs into Julie, who brats, "So you wimped out again?" Tami tells her daughter that she didn't "wimp out," that Gracie just isn't ready to go yet. Julie wonders if Tami's just going to cart Gracie around until she's married. Tami just looks at her directly and says "no, I'm not." Julie looks back at her mom just as directly, and you can see that beneath the brat there is a sweet girl. She should probably hold off on lecturing her mother about daycare, though. Julie walks off, wishing Gracie good luck. Tami tells her to have a good day and then mutters under her breath, "Brat." Perfect.
OH MY GOD, Matt and Landry are hanging out. Matt tells Landry that Car-LOW-ta is leaving, going back to Guatemala. Landry needs to be reminded, "That's the hot maid?" Matt gets defensive, saying that she's not a maid, she's a nurse, and she studies a lot. Then he adds, "And, yeah, she is kinda hot." Landry gets a glint in his eye and asks Matt, "You're not sleeping with the hot maid, are you?" and Matt gets a wide grin on his face as he tells his "best" "friend" (in quotes, because their relationship is one of the many awesome ones to get shitcanned this season) that he is sleeping with her and that it is "kinda cool." I love it when Matthew gets randy. Landry tells Matt that he's proud, and Matt goes back to moping, saying he doesn't know what to do about her leaving. Landry asks if he has feelings for her and Matt says he does, "like serious feelings," and with Landry's prodding admits that he thinks he loves her. Landry just says, "Well, uh, don't go, uh, there," which is a really great line. Matt mutters about how he can't do anything about her leaving, he's just in high school, and that just about breaks my heart, how powerless you sometimes are when you are young.
Lyla and Chris are manning the phones, ready to talk you out of your teenaged horniness. The call they take is clearly someone putting on a fake, falsetto voice. Lyla furrows her brow, and then we cut over to find that it's Tim Riggins, hanging out in a wheelchair, with Herc sitting on the couch to him cracking up at his antics. Now, would it have killed someone to have given us one scene in the last few episodes where we see Tim making a habit of hanging out at Jason and Herc's? Also, now that we're on this topic, why wasn't Jason's apartment an option for Tim when he was in self-exile from The Playgirl Ranch? WHERE IS JASON STREET? I have so many questions. So Tim, in his really bad cartoon falsetto, says his name is Tina and that he's wondering because he thinks Jesus is really hot. Herc is dying in the background as Lyla tries to answer the question, saying that the images we have of Christ probably don't have anything to do with reality, that they are based on hundreds of years of art. Oh, and also: racism. Jason wheels out to where Tim and Herc are and asks loudly "What is going on out here?" JASON STREET! I repeat: Jason Street! We have contact! I feel like Jodie Foster when she goes in that whirly physics thing and ends up swimming around with her dead dad! I've missed him so much! I have so many questions! Jason: WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?
So anyway, the scene continues despite my raving insanity, Jason now whispering "Is that Lyla?" and over in the sound booth, Chris is giving Lyla the thumbs up for how she is handling the prank call. I would say the best way to handle a prank call would be to hang up, but then I am not a Christian teenager. Tim continues, shrieking, "What's the deal with the Shroud of Turin?" and Lyla, now backed by melancholy soundtrack guitars, begins to look hurt as she says that, again, no one really knows. Tim spits, "So someone just painted his face on a sheet?!" and finally Lyla leans in to the microphone and gives him a real tongue-lashing (don't worry; Biblically speaking, a tongue-lashing is not intercourse, either). She disconnects, and Chris jumps in to take another call. Does anyone else feel like Chris is a little self-important? How he's all leaning back with his hands doing that all-fingertips-touching news-reporter thing, like he's Larry King or Christiane Amanpour.
Back over at Jason and Herc's house, Tim and Herc laugh and laugh until Jason upbraids them, asking Tim if this is his way of telling Lyla he likes her. Cut to later that night, when Lyla knocks on the door of The Playgirl Ranch. He opens the door and she tells him that she knows it was him, trying to make her look stupid on the radio. Tim, beer in hand, mumbles that he just thought it was funny. Lyla repeats, "You thought it was funny. Do you ever think about what you're doing? About who you might be hurting?" She tells him that she's doing the show, getting up at four in the morning and after school, too, trying to help people that might need it. She asks if that sounds like something he should screw with, and he helplessly concedes, "No." She continues, advising Tim to start thinking about why he does the things he does, and then turns around to leave. So serene, that girl. Makes you want to shake her up or something.
Smash and his mother and sisters approach the doorstep of Noelle's house. Corinna mutters that he's lucky they came. Yikes, she hates Noelle. They're greeted warmly at the door, and we cut immediately to the dining room table where everyone is laughing and having a grand small-talk time. Noelle's younger sister gets up and invites Smash's two sisters to go play with the Wii. Once they're cleared out, Noelle's mom decides to get this contrived "racism" plot going. She asks Corinna directly how she feels about Smash and Noelle. Noelle looks at her mother with horror. Noelle's mom continues, declaring that their relationship scares her and Corinna repeats, seemingly incredulously, "It scares you?" Noelle's mom continues, trolling out the old "we live in Dillon, Texas" thing and says that no one else is going to be so open-minded about this relationship as they are all being. Smash interrupts to say that the world has changed. Noelle's dad, who has to have the weirdest frowny lower lip I've ever seen, pipes up to say that he would feel a lot more comfortable if Smash and Noelle would break up. Corinna, who I suppose we're meant to think will bristle at these hoity-toity white folks' fear of her son, finally weighs in: "I have to say...I agree."
So here's the thing. This story line drives me crazy. Not because the "interracial relationship" aspect of it feels dated (though it does, to an extent), but because we have absolutely no investment in Smash and Noelle as a couple. So why would we care that their "relationship" is threatened? Further, now they suddenly encounter racist reactions to their relationship, when previously they dated one another unmolested? If they are serious enough for their parents to meet (for God's sake, my parents didn't meet my husband's parents until we were engaged), then surely they have gone on dates in public before. Where was the community outrage then? This whole narrative arc is completely inorganic, it mixes up causes and effects and it, as I said before, drives me crazy. If we can't count on Friday Night Lights to give us gadfly narrative observations about something like small-town resistance to interracial relationships, who can we count on? I feel let down. Sigh.
Okay. Deep breath. Coach and Mac are going over game tape in Eric's office. Mac says that he saw Tami with Gracie in school again. Coach admits it's the third day that's happened, switches back to football talk, and then back again to domestic matters: "Sometimes I wish Tami would just stay home and take care of Gracie and quit the damn job. But I can't say that to her." Mac, looking at the game tape, says, "You can prevent that by just forcing them to go left," and then turns his head to Coach: "You know you're entitled to your opinion." I really love how this scene puts two men in a very gender-specific, ''male" atmosphere while they both hash out exactly how gender-specificity organizes (or, in the case of the Taylors, disorganizes) their lives. Coach replies to Mac, saying that he could never ask Tami to do something (quit her job) that he wouldn't be willing to do himself. Mac, our favorite old-timey whipping post, declares, "That's because men aren't built that way. Women are supposed to want to stay home with the kids." Coach gets exasperated, even more so after Mac announces that he would never let a woman of his go to work if she had a kid at home. Hearing it put that way, Eric decides that "that sounds really stupid and ignorant." Mac answers, "Well, sometimes the truth is stupid and ignorant." I guess that explains the last two Presidential elections.
Lyla and Chris are hanging out in the creepily cavernous empty mega-church. Lyla is giving him her God-o-biography, explaining how she gave up cheerleading because of everything she'd been through. She then claims that she burned her cheerleading uniform, which is patently untrue. I was there! I saw it! You dumped your cheerleading uniform in the maid's cart in a hotel in Dallas. I don't think God would approve of lying. Or sloppy continuity, for that matter. Chris asks her what led her from "lighting up" to the church. I don't understand what he's talking about. Lyla's problem was never the "lighting up," it was the getting down. Lyla says that she felt lost, her whole life was upended in six months, God was the only source of comfort for her at that time and that relationship just grew and grew. Chris nods his head, self-importantly, and tells Lyla she's an interesting girl, but "it's too bad you're so hard on the eyes." They both laugh; Chris looks embarrassed and Lyla simply says thank you.
Cut to Buddy holding forth in a bar, going on and on to the stranger on his right about how people shouldn't judge others by appearances, but instead look into their hearts, their souls. He declares that "you just have to have faith in people" and then asks his bar buddy a question. If you had an antique gold watch your grandfather gave you, would you leave it in your house with a bunch of thugs? His pal chuckles and says he doesn't believe he would. And you know that Buddy is going to take this opportunity to prove something about himself.
The Taylors are having dinner, Tami looking really down in the mouth. She tells Eric that she knows he thinks she's being weak and overprotective of Gracie. Eric sort of just chews his cud and says, "Uh, no I don't." Tami tells Eric he wouldn't have been so brave if he were in her position, and he responds by reminding her that he offered to take Gracie in. Tami declares that he was not in the right state of mind to do any such thing, and Julie pipes up to ask if they are fighting. They both say, shortly, "No!" and then Eric does what he really should know better about doing. He says, "Well, there are other options." Tami is very, "Mmm hmmmm? Aaaand?" Julie tries to leave the table again, but they don't let her. Tami demands to know what these options are. He suggests maybe a leave of absence, and Tami loses it, telling him that it must be easy to be able to just sit there and judge her, knowing he'd never have to consider leaving his job, "which you love, and have worked so hard for." Tami, really looking hurt and confused, says, "I hear what you're sayin'!" and the three descend into depressing family-meal silence until the doorbell rings. Tami hops up and greets Buddy at the door. She walks back toward the table, saying, "Buddy's here, he's got a box."
Buddy apologizes for the bad timing while Tami sourly gets him a plate for dinner. Buddy says that he's there with all his prized possessions in that box -- his Babe Ruth autographed baseball and his grandfather's gold watch -- and that he just came by "cuz y'all are great parents, you always know what to do." Cut to funny reaction shots of both Julie and Eric. Buddy explains that Santiago's old friends have resurfaced and that he doesn't want to be judgmental or prejudiced but, well, these guys are thugs, but they ought to be allowed to hang out in the house if they're Santiago's friends, and, well, if Santiago sees him take his nice things out of the house, maybe he ought to just put them back in there. Meanwhile, not one Taylor has said a peep. Poor Buddy and his wonky internal compass.
Smash comes downstairs and ignores his mother on the couch. He gets a drink from the refrigerator and starts to head upstairs again. Corinna stops him, telling him that he's going to talk to her eventually. Smash tells her that what she and Noelle's parents did was stupid and embarrassing. Corinna says she has a right to her own opinion, and Smash storms back upstairs.
Matt knocks on Carlotta's door, mopily. She tells him to come in, and he mopes his way into her room. He wonders what she's doing and she tells him that she's getting ready to go to a quinceañera. He tells her she looks beautiful and then asks what a quinceañera is. She explains it's a birthday party for a fifteen-year-old girl, like a Sweet Sixteen. ["It seemed strange to me that Matt is born and raised in Texas and doesn't know this already." -- Sars] Matt hangs around for a moment awkwardly and then tells her to have fun. She calls as he's leaving her room to invite him to come along. His face lights up
Cut to the quinceañera, which is cute but totally boring. Carlotta explains some of the rituals to him, then gets him onto the dance floor. During a slow dance, Matt tells Carlotta that he doesn't want her to leave, that he loves her and she loves him. She tells him that she wishes it were possible but "my family, my family needs me." GUATEMALA CLAUSE. Who wrote this scene, a monkey? An extremely vague and abstract, non-detail-oriented monkey? They hold each other close on the dance floor. And hold each other some more. And then some more. As if showing them holding each other closely will make us forget that this is yet one more relationship on the show that no one ever really cared about.
Noannie rushes Smash out the door. As they leave, Corinna thanks Smash for taking his little sister to the movies and he coldly says, "You're welcome." She shakes her head as they leave.
Buddy carefully places all his prized possessions on the mantelpiece one by one. Santiago comes in and looks at Buddy and his ridiculous things with trepidation. He says he should go get some things for when they come over and Buddy gives him some money. Seriously, why would Buddy place everything out in the open on the very night there's obviously going to be a wild party? If his stuff wasn't on the mantel before, why now? By being so overt about "trusting" Santiago, I'm sure Santiago gets the fact that there is something about him that seems untrustworthy. Oh, Buddy. How can a grown man be so misguided?
Tami and Eric sit out on the patio having a glass of wine. Tami is looking so cute, her legs curled up, wearing jeans and Converse. Eric looks at her, his hair sort of lifting its eyebrows, daring her to not notice how smooth and unbuttoned he is. He says they should talk, and Tami lets out a big sigh. She says that she forgot how hard new motherhood was, how it turns everything upside down. And how she thought she could do it all -- the job, raise Gracie, take care of Eric, Jules. And that she doesn't think she can do it, that she's going to have to give up the job. Eric pauses and tells her that she's not going to give up the job. He tells her that she is an awesome mom, an excellent counselor, and "a hell of a hot wife." I'll say! The whole internet says! He tells her that he was just on the internet, where he found out that separation anxiety is normal, and that some studies have shown that daycare is good for children. Seriously, the 1950s really screwed everyone up. It's not like, for the majority of human history, anyone had all that much time to spend taking care of kids. And we lived. We all lived. For God's sake, in the 1898 of There Will Be Blood there's a baby just set down in a wooden box right to a yawning mine in the ground, while its father worked below. I'd say that baby would be right happy to get some time in daycare. Eric continues, telling Tami that if daycare screws Gracie up, then she'll just have to go to Tami for counseling when she's older. Hee. He tells her, "We stick together, it all works out," and they kiss. Charmed!
Smash and his sister are at the front of the concessions line. Noannie is wondering why they came all the way over to this theater. When Smash orders three drinks, she puts it together, just as Noelle comes walking up. Noelle and Smash kiss, and a couple off to the side stare and shake their heads in disapproval. The very same disapproval their elders warned them about! What a "coincidence."
Over at Buddy's, the party is bumping. Santiago turns the music down, someone urns it back up. Santiago rushes around cleaning up spills while Weevil looks meaningfully at the items on the mantel. A fight almost breaks out; Santiago breaks it up. Please notice that Santiago is wearing this plaid shirt buttoned all the way up his neck. It is so cutely nerdtastic, I love it.
Movie theater. Noelle and Smash snuggle up in one row; Noannie sits alone two rows behind. A couple of true thugs -- nasty privileged white boys -- start psssting at her. One whispers at her, "Hey, little mama. What you doing here all by yourself." She tells them that her brother is right over there, they make kissing noises at her, and Smash turns around to tell them to knock it off, then goes back to making out with Noelle. The boys turn really nasty, wondering whether black-on-white runs in the family. Noannie calls for her brother, who gets out of his seat to go tell them to shut up. The main guy says that he wasn't doing anything and that, anyway, Smash got "one of ours" so why can't they have one of his? Smash hauls off and punches the guy and then rushes the girls out of the theater while the asshole whines about not having done anything. Outside, Smash tells Noelle to go straight home. ["Andrew Johnston made this point elsewhere already, but: if the theater is in Dillon, wouldn't those guys know who Smash is? Even if they went a few towns over, he's like the biggest star on the defending state-championship team -- wouldn't they know better than to mess with him? And hasn't he gotten friendly with Caucasian-American girls before? I get that the racism subplot is catnip to TV writers, but come on." -- Sars]
Santiago surveys the damage from the party. He starts cleaning up all the trash on the floor and then notices with dismay that the glass over one of Buddy's family pictures got smashed. He rushes to the mantel to find the gold watch gone. Cut to Santiago confronting Weevil out front of the latter's home. Santiago is a really, really sweet character; he's grown on me. He yells at Weevil not to play stupid -- he knows that he has the watch. He tells Weevil to not be an ass, and Weevil turns it back on him, accusing him of forgetting where he came from, letting a rich, fat bastard take care of him. Santiago says, with emotion, that it isn't his fault that he caught a break, that he's got a chance. Weevil turns to him, dead serious, and asks him if he thinks Buddy would give a damn about him if he wasn't playing football for his team. Santiago can't answer. Weevil says that Buddy doesn't care about him, that he just wants something from him. These are words that strike deep for Santiago, because they are slightly true. Weevil tells Santiago to get out of his 'hood and turns to go inside. Santiago pauses, but runs after him and gets into a pretty violent fight with him. We end on Santiago straddling Weevil, seemingly strangling him.
Also not doing so great is Noannie, who is in the car crying while Smash drives them home. Smash apologizes; she cries that he shouldn't have left her. Smash begs her to not tell their mother, which makes her cry even harder. She repeats that he shouldn't have left her. And in this entire story line, the only aspect that rings remotely true is how devastated and scared Noannie is by the encounter with those guys.
Lyla and Chris. God Radio. Lyla takes a call from someone who says that when she prays at school, trying not to bother anyone, people make fun of her for doing it. Cut over to Tim, driving, listening to the show. Lyla answers, telling the caller that people are going to make fun of other people for almost anything at school. She tells her to think of the gospel song "This Little Light of Mine," that the song doesn't just pertain to spreading the word, but to the light that is inside her. She tells her to let her light shine. Tim is totally touched, and mutters, "Damn it, Lyla. All right."
Devendra Barnhardt's "Now That I Know" plays in the background. Now there's one guy that I wish wouldn't let his light shine quite so much. Such an annoying hippie. So basically we're in music montage land, where not too much happens, but it all takes on some emotional import because of the heavy music in the background. First, Tim pulls into a convenience store and picks out some flowers, telling the cashier that they're for "a girl." Then Matt comes home and finds Carlotta gone. She left a note on the bed. Grandma comes in in her nightgown to say that Carlotta had to leave a day early. "It's too bad, she was a nice girl." Then back to Tim, driving up to the mega-church. Inside, Chris and Lyla finish up their night on the air. Tim trying to find his way in the confusing hallways of the church. Chris putting on his jacket and leaning in to hug Lyla. Lyla and Chris holding onto each other even after the hug should be over. Chris leaning in to kiss Lyla, Tim walking in and seeing them through the glass, tossing his flowers down, and walking back out, shot from a beautiful low angle, looking pretty heartbroken (and SO SO hot). Then cut over to Buddy's house, where he cleans up with a lot of sighing. Santiago comes lurching in the door; Buddy is shocked because he's all covered with bruises. Santiago tells him that he had to get the watch back. Buddy just says, "Aw, aw. Let's get you cleaned up," and leads the hurting boy toward the bathroom. At the Williamses' the morning, Corinna asks how the movie was and Smash and Noannie are tightlipped, just saying it was good. Noannie gives Smash a number of pointed looks.
And finally, both Eric and Tami show up to daycare together, telling the woman that they think they're ready now. Tami hands the baby over and immediately starts tearing up. Eric gives her Gracie's bag. The lady starts walking inside with Gracie when Eric stops her: "Oh, and here's Mr. Noodles." All set for the day now, Gracie goes inside with the woman. Tami watches her go and then says, "She didn't even look at me. I think she's totally over me." Eric and Tami walk toward the gate -- Connie Britton has the greatest dejected posture, all long, swinging arms and low shoulders -- where Tami tells Eric he has to pull the latch up. He says he knows, and she sort of brats, "Well, I didn't." Which just perfectly captures the sad crankiness she must feel after having dropped her little baby off. They get in the car, Eric looks at Tami, and they nod at one another without words.