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Oh, what a beautiful episode. If last week's felt a bit schizophrenic, the story lines not quite integrated, this episode is an aesthetic whole, from start to finish.
Julie and Matt are still lying down together, like in Bible times, which is the best way to describe it, because Matt and Julie sleeping together is seriously the most wholesome thing I have ever seen. They love each other, and you can tell that they love each other. One person who maybe can't see immediately that they love each other, though, is Coach, who walks in on them in bed together one afternoon. Coach goes in lockdown, letting Tami have the conversation with her daughter. And it is a doozy of a conversation; I have mentally bookmarked this conversation for if I ever have a child, under "How to Talk to Your Child About Sex." Coach's conversation with Matt, however, I have just bookmarked under "Cringe."
If the Taylors are coming to terms with their daughter growing into adulthood, Lyla Garrity is coming to terms with the fact that becoming an adult doesn't mean you stop doing stupid shit. Buddy Garrity gets arrested for wailing on a guy at the strip club. They were having a "business meeting" in which the injured party told Buddy that he lost the $70,000 Buddy had given him to invest in a strip mall development. Ooof. What's worse is that the money Buddy tried to invest was Lyla's college money. Lyla moves out of the condo, into The Playgirl Ranch, livid with her father and unwilling to forgive him just yet.
Tyra, back from her fleabag lifestyle in Dallas, needs to cram for her S.A.Ts. So, she taps Landry for the job of tutor. Landry complies readily, until he realizes that he's totally The Giving Tree, and Tyra just keeps taking and taking until he's a stump of a man. He tells Tyra that she's selfish, and to prove him wrong, Tyra goes and gets his band a gig at a local bar. Seeing Landry bloom on stage with a guitar, however, Tyra seems to start getting some ideas about watering his roots.
A sweet little slut named Madison is after J.D. (man, is that thing she does with the glass of milk KINKY!). J.D. is into it, until his father tells him to drop the girl and focus on the playoffs. He does, for about ten minutes, until Tim Riggins tells him that a) getting laid is the BEST before a game and b) none of the guys on the team are going to respect him enough to play for him unless he's banging this girl. Dude, boys are so weird.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Julie and Tyra are in the school parking lot. Tyra is worried that she really messed things up for herself by skipping school for so long to go on the rodeo circuit with Clammy Cash. She's behind in everything, and missed the S.A.Ts. Julie tells her that it's simple. Tyra just needs to bribe her teachers with cupcakes to let her make up the tests she missed, and then there's another S.A.T on Saturday that Matt is taking. Tyra continues to get in her own way: "Yeah, well, the problem is: I suck at tests." Julie, her hair seriously glinting in the late afternoon sun, has a heart of steel, the calculating genius of a flinty football coach: why doesn't Tyra ask Landry to help her study? It isn't like Landry has anything better to do. Oof. Girls. They can be so mean.
A clown car full of football players. They don't know where to go, Landry's jammed in the back seat, J.D. up front. J.D. says that he's out of there, the kid at the wheel (the African American kid we saw making fun of J.D. for being on daddy's leash a few episodes back) tells him he isn't going anywhere. Out of nowhere, a creature of the female persuasion arrives to set these dolts straight: she leans in the window and tells them that Madison's parents are out of town, and she's having some people over. J.D. transitions for us eagerly: "Who's Madison?"
Yes, who is this Madison? We find out right now, cutting over to a red head in a short skirt and boots swanning through her illicit after-school party. She makes eye contact with J.D. across the way; he dorkily makes his way over to the kitchen. She offers him an Appletini, and J.D. mouth breathes, "No, uh, uh, I don't drink." She fixes him for a second and then cocks her head the way only popular girls know how to cock their heads, "You don't? How 'bout a glass of milk?" She heads over to the refrigerator, and the first time I watched I was really worried that she was going to do something really mean here with the milk, but what she does is even more jaw-dropping. J.D. says he doesn't want any milk but Madison tells him this will be, like, his thing. He's a "young, wholesome, milk-drinking quarterback." She pours a glass full of milk and hands it to J.D. He takes a gulp, ending up with a milk moustache, of course, because this kid has the moves of a five year old. She leans in and sexily wipes the milk from his upper lip. J.D. throws it back again. That is the DIRTIEST milk drinking scene I have ever seen!
Somebody took a class in transitions this week, because we cut from J.D. chugging milk-- that symbol of childhood and innocence perverted -- to Buddy tossing back a glass of whiskey at The Landing Strip. One sexy, hormonal swig of milk, that first step from being a baby to being a man sometimes finds you... here. Buddy's there with another guy who looks about as clammy as Cash, which is not a good sign. Also: he keeps asking if Buddy's okay, and whether or not he wants some chicken fingers with "that spicy ranch sauce you like so much." Oh, dear. The strip-club buffet. Certainly one of the seven signs of the apocalypse, no? Buddy asks the guy to just cut to the chase and tell him why he brought him there. The guy obliges: turns out, Buddy had given him some money a while back to invest in a strip mall. The project went belly-up. Buddy is speechless for a minute, while the other guy rambles on about how he'll give Buddy a chance to invest in another project with him. This suggestion presses Buddy's "on" button, and Buddy starts freaking out, telling the guy that it is NOT possible that he's lost his $70,000. Oh, that's a lot of money. Their voices raise and a guy at a neighboring table stands up and asks them to quiet down. Buddy jumps to his feet and shouts, "You redneck son-of-a-bitch, do you need silence to watch nekkid women?!?" A question for the ages there. Buddy accuses the clammy guy of stealing his money, which doesn't sit so well: the guy starts talking back a bit to Buddy. So: it is on. The two brawl across the room, breaking glass, knocking over decorative lamps (?!) and basically just having it out, Roadhouse style. But as the hair metal guitar fades out on the soundtrack, and the somber instrumental music fades in, and the brawl turns less "grappling" and more "Buddy Garrity might kill this guy," leaning over him and punching him repeatedly, we get the editorial point. Buddy Garrity is a Man on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Ugh. Oh. Oh! Cut outside the strip club... where it is daylight, full blazing, high-noon DAYTIME, and Buddy Garrity is cuffed and being put in the back of a cop car.
Credits. Coach is in the little fluorescent-lit, cinder block cell with Buddy, asking him what the hell happened. He's in his Panthers windbreaker, khaki shorts, and white socks and couldn't look more upstanding. Buddy, his chin all red with spittle and abrasions, tells Coach not to worry about him, to just keep his focus on the game Friday night. Buddy editorializes that the Bisons play dirty, and the refs assigned to the game don't like Coach Taylor. Coach breaks it to Buddy that he'll be spending the night in jail.
Cut to Tami in the car on the phone with Coach, clucking and intoning while Coach tells her about Buddy getting into a fight or something at The Landing Strip. He asks Tami to break the news to Lyla; Tami says sure, but she was supposed to pick up Julie at Matt's at 6 p.m. Coach says he can handle that one.
Lyla answers the door. Tami, clearly trying to hold back any note of judgment in her voice, tells Lyla that her father got himself into a scrape. Lyla is concerned, Tami tells her it was a fight, Lyla's concern turns into disbelief, and then into embarrassment as Tami clears her throat and explains it was apparently at a business meeting at The Landing Strip. Tami assures Lyla that her father is fine, and then tells her that even though she knows Lyla is a "big, grown-up girl and all," she would be welcome to come stay at the Taylors' that night, just in case she wants to have some family around. Lyla nods her head.
Matt. And. Julie. Are. Naked. In. Bed. Together. Listening to some singer-songwriter crooning, they lie on their sides, looking into each other's eyes. Julie whispers that she loves him, Matt says that he loves her, too. Seriously. You guys. I can hear the heart beating as one, right now. Matt glances at the clock -- it reads 5:33 -- and says that they should probably get up. Julie's mom'll be there soon, and AS HE GLANCES AT THE OPEN DOOR TO HIS ROOM, Grandma and Shelby will be back from the doctor soon. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. Outside, Coach has pulled up in his truck. Inside, Julie asks if they can just listen to one more song. Matt smiles and says sure. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. Coach knocks on the door. No one answers. He opens the door and walks in. The camera pulls back to a shot of the house from across the street. All we hear is Julie scream, "AHHHH! Dad! GET OUT!!!" and a second later, Coach Taylor walking swiftly out the door, his face an absolute and total blank. He walks around the car, sort of rocks back on his heels for a minute, opens the door. Julie suddenly appears in jeans and a t-shirt (dressed so quickly by the aid of science and absolutetotalfuckingmortification) rushing out to the car, her head bowed. She tries the door, it's locked. She stands out there while Coach, in his seat, waits just a beat, and then unlocks the door for her. She hops in and keeps her bangs in her face, her glance averted, pointed out her window, they don't speak.
Drum beats take us to band practice in Landry's garage. Crucifictorious is really picking it up now that they are no longer a Christian death metal band or a Tyra tribute band. Landry has his back facing the open garage door, and he's about to go into the "clapping" part of the song, when the other two sort of fade out, because they see Tyra approaching behind. Tyra asks if she can talk to Landry for a minute, Devin's face is suppressed hilarity. Landry mutters about Tyra showing up at the most random times, Tyra gives lip service to how they sound really good. Landry mutters some about how his distortion pedal isn't really working. Behind him, Devin giggles looking at Cute Little Nameless Drummer. Tyra cuts to the chase, asking Landry if he could help coach her this week for her S.A.Ts. Landry pauses, and then says that it's fine. Tyra leaves, and Devin and Nameless Cuddly Drummer laugh. Devin tells Landry it's like he's a prostitute. "Except... you don't get paid." Nameless Cuddly Drummer piles on, "Or laid."
Lyla and Julie are in Julie's bathroom, sweatpants, ponytails, brushing teeth. I must take a moment here. The tone is just too pitch-perfect. Matt and Julie being so dumb to just think they could lay there with the door open, 20 minutes before an adult was supposed to be coming by. It isn't stupidity, exactly, it is just a complete inability to tear yourself away from this thing that just feels so good, lying to someone that you love, feeling your body alive. And now, here, these two girls who aren't exactly friends, but thrown into this extremely intimate situation -- Lyla dealing with a major family crisis, Julie dealing with her own -- the way when you are a teenager living amongst adults, without complete self determination, without a space to fully call your own, you witness and become a part of these private dramas with a regularity that you forget once you are on your own.
So Lyla and Julie are brushing their teeth, wearing their ponytails. Julie slows her brushing and tells Lyla that she's sorry about her father, and asks if Lyla wants to talk about it. Lyla, looking in the mirror at Julie, thanks her, and says she doesn't need to talk. Julie brushes some more, then gives Lyla a heads-up that there might be some drama with her parents tonight. Lyla asks why, and Julie: "Matt and I were... uh... brush-a brush-a brush-a... well, we were doing stuff, and my dad walked in." Lyla is very cutely bemused and wants to know if they were "'making out' doing stuff, or, like, doing stuff?" Julie tells her it was "like, afterwards," and Lyla just says, "Wow." Julie bends over and spits into the sink.
And Transition Guy takes us over to Tami, leaning over the sink and spitting out. Coach is sitting on the edge of the bed, stiff straight. Tami just gets into bed like normal and settles in, until Coach comes out with it: "I found Matt and Julie in bed together today after school." Tami pops back up behind Coach, and scoots over to the side of the bed to him. She wants to know where that grandmother was, and what were they doing. Coach makes sure it is clear as day to her: "Honey, they were in bed together," and Tami just screws up her face and says "Oh, honey, oh honey." She asks what he did after he walked in, and he's like "I walked back out is what I did!" Tami gets up and says she's going to go talk to her, but Coach tells her, seriously, that if she is going to go in there, she better know what she's going to say. Tami sinks back down on the bed and realizes she has no idea what she would say.
Outside, Julie has her ear pressed to their door. Lyla whisper-asks what she's doing, Julie says she wondering how long they'll ground her. Oh, grounding. For having sex. What a fucking tonal oxymoron. What a space between being a child and being an adult. Julie sits down with Lyla, who tells Julie that Matt seems like a really nice guy. Julie, serious, says that she knows, he's great, that's not the problem. "I just feel like everything's different now. Like I'm not daddy's little girl anymore." Lyla nods her head knowingly and drops her glance. I could do without the "little girl" stuff because it's never seemed to me like Coach and Julie have that kind of stereotypical relationship, but I think that sentiment, that everything is different now, is one of the most honest sentiments I've ever heard expressed about what happens when you have sex with someone you love as a teenager. Things don't become "different" when you're fooling around and hooking up. They change when you put it together -- that new feeling of being in your body AND the emotional connection with someone else. The way Julie looked at herself in the mirror after the first night she spent with Matt expressed this feeling as well; something snaps when this happens, and it makes you feel completely beatific but also a bit bereft.
Commercials. morning. Tami and Julie are getting ready to leave for school, Julie doing her best to keep her face averted from her mother. Tami takes a deep breath and tells Julie that her father told her what happened at Matt's last night. Julie mutters "Great." Tami asks Julie if there is anything she wants to say, and Julie only knows one way to go: bitchy. "Shoulda knocked." Tami, behind her, rolls her eyes, and tells her daughter that she doesn't like her tone. Tami says she would like to be able to have a conversation about this, and Julie snarks, "So, let's have a conversation." Oooooh, that response really gets under my skin. One of my least favorite marital exchanges is when I say we need to talk about something and my husband responds, "Okay, let's talk then." Makes me nuts! Tami says she doesn't know how to have a conversation about it, that it's disconcerting. Julie rolls her eyes and says her mom should just tell her what her punishment is going to be. Tami clearly thinks that maybe someone who is expecting to get punished for this sort of thing is maybe a person who shouldn't be DOING this kind of thing in the first place. She tells her daughter that her punishment is that she's going to have to have a conversation with her about it, and they leave for school, Julie bitching, "You do realize I'm 17, don't you?" and Tami is holding her shit together admirably well, muttering that she does know how old Julie is, and I'm thinking she's probably thinking that in fact she has some marks on her body that remind her every fucking day how old Julie is.
Buddy Garrity is at the court house. He's charged with drunk and disorderly, assault and battery, and inflicting $30,000 damage to The Landing Strip. He pleads not guilty, bail is set at $10,000. Lyla is there, with a perma-furrow.
The McCoy house. Doorbell rings and Katie answers it to find a young girl in a short skirt and boots. Madison brightly asks if J.D. is home. Katie is perplexed and Madison puts on a shit-eating grin, introduces herself and compliments the McCoy house, all while Katie coos and hums in pleasure at the thought of a girl coming over to see J.D. Her husband has wandered over, concern written on his face. He mumbles about J.D. being upstairs studying, but Katie steamrolls him and sends Madison upstairs to J.D.'s room.
Landry is helping Tyra study over at Tyra's house. Tyra's mom comes in wearing just a towel and grabs a cigarette. She tells Landry that they're so happy to see him again, they've missed him. Angela sweetly asks Landry to take a look at the pilot light when he gets a chance. Tyra steps in and tells her mother that Landry is helping her right now, Angela just flights back out of the room, "well, whenever he has a moment!" Meanwhile, Landry looks from one Collette woman to the , and realizes that selfishness and manipulativeness doesn't necessarily skip a generation.
Garrity condo. Lyla asks her father to tell her what happened. Buddy is looking bad right now, even more red and sweaty than usual. He explains that when he found out a business deal went south, he lost his temper. That's all. He mutters about being swindled, about the man basically making a scheme look like a business deal, and then tells Lyla that it's nothing for her to worry about. Which is an odd thing to say, given what's coming . Lyla gets a bit heated, pissed that her father is giving her the ridiculous "don't worry your pretty little head about it" line when she just had to go to his arraignment and listen to him being charged as "a crazy drunk man at a strip club." She wants to know what's really going on. Buddy tells Lyla that times have been tough, business isn't good, and that what he did was take "the savings money" and tried to make some quick cash with it. "Basically, we're in real big trouble." Lyla mans up and says "okay, okay" she'll get a job until she goes to college and help out, they'll make their way, they'll get through it. But, no. "I used the college money, Lyla." Lyla's perma-furrow turns pained, and she fights back tears as she rushes into her room to pack a bag. Buddy tries to keep her from leaving, but Lyla raises her voice, yelling at him not to touch her. As she leaves the condo, Buddy pleads, "Lyla, please don't leave me." When Buddy got swindled, he just hauled off on that weaselly guy. When Lyla gets swindled, she knows how to hurt, too.
Commercials. Matt and Landry are in the locker room, talking quietly. Landry is like "Dude! Didn't I tell you to always close the door!" Blind leading the blind, there. Landry takes it a bit further and tells Matt that as soon as Coach sees him, that's pretty much it for Matt. "I'm looking at a dead man walking right now." Matt looks the part. Coach walks into the locker room, Landry tells Matt that whatever he does, do not look him in the eye. Coach starts making an announcement to the boys, trips up a bit on his words -- perhaps he is nervous, too -- but basically tells the team that their appeal to change the biased refs wasn't approved, so they should expect a lot of dirty play and missed calls on the field Friday night. He tells them that they are not to lose their tempers, they are to put their heads down and play the game. Matt is taking the advice to heart, keeping his head down already, to avoid Coach's glance. Coach gives the boys a bit of a pep talk: "2 games. Then state." The boys whoop it up and file out.
Landry and Tyra are out on the Collette back porch studying vocabulary. Tyra is losing steam and moans that she's so bored. She pops up saying she'll make some sandwiches, she needs a break. Landry tells her that he's got band practice soon, they need to finish what they're doing there. Tyra's like "Can't they just wait for a half hour?" and Landry tells her that no, they can't wait. Tyra snarks about his band practice and Landry gets up and tells her that he's not going to make his bandmates wait while he has a sandwich with her. He said he'd help her study, that's it. Tyra wants to know why he's getting so mad, and Landry comes out with it: "You keep taking advantage of me because you know how I feel about you." Landry starts walking away, Tyra asks him if he is serious, and then he comes back, "Have you ever read the book The Giving Tree?" Tyra bitches that sure she has, when she was like five, DUH. Landry realizes she didn't really internalize the lesson so he recaps it for her: it's about a tree that loves this boy, and the boy just takes and takes and takes until the tree is nothing but a stump. "And I'm like the tree, and you're the little boy. Just take and take and take until there's nothing left. And that's exactly what I feel like, like I'm just a stump." Oh, Landry. I had to direct quote you there, because what you are saying is perfection. He tells Tyra that what they have is not a friendship. He walks away.
Coach and Buddy are sitting in a coffee shop. Buddy is bitching about the "dadgum" Landing Strip trying to make him pay the $30,000 in damages; the whole place isn't worth that much. Buddy unleashes on Coach: he might not even be able to keep the condo, he's so broke, Lyla is gone, moved in with Riggins, can you imagine what's going on over there, he doesn't understand this, they're in the middle of a family crisis and Lyla walks out in a huff, and when he was in college he had to work for the money and and and. Finally Coach leans in, needing to speak some truth to this talking-with-his-mouth-open Buddy of his: "Here's the thing. Money? Comes and goes, yeah? These kids of ours? That's a one-time deal." Wow, Coach, who so often comes up short in the "talking" department, just delivered the truth to Buddy's front door.
Okay. Are we all ready for this? You over there? Have you taken a deep breath? Okay, then. Taylor house. Tami sits down to Julie on the couch and turns the TV off: "Can we have this conversation now?" Tami speaks quietly and hesitatingly. She asks Julie if she loves Matt. Julie quietly says she does. Tami asks if Matt loves her. Julie responds, "Matt loves me." Tami smiles so sweetly. The smile fades a bit and she asks about birth control. Julie goes a bit on the defensive saying she doesn't want to talk about it, but Tami stands firm, saying this is what the conversation is. Julie says they're using birth control, Tami asks what kind, specifically. "Condoms. We're using condoms." Julie is sitting on the couch, not looking at her mother, arms crossed in front of her. As Tami looks to the side a bit, Julie steals some glances at her mother, a gesture that kills me, because Julie's vulnerability always comes through in these little minor moments -- like the first time she and her mom talked about sex, two years ago, and even though she was snarking at her mom during most of the conversation, she sort of absentmindedly caressed her mother's back when they hugged at the end of it.
Tami asks Julie if she knows how to use the condoms and Julie says she does. Tami follows up, telling her daughter that she has to make sure to use them every time, because sometimes boys try to... Julie is now looking at her mother, and this "we have to have a conversation" is turning into an actual conversation. Julie tells her mother that Matt's really good about using a condom every time. Connie Britton's eyes are swimming as she takes the conversation from practicalities to emotions. She tells her daughter that just because she's having sex this one time, that doesn't mean that she has to all the time, and if it ever starts feeling like he's taking it for granted, or Julie isn't enjoying it, Julie can stop any time. And if Julie ever breaks up with Matt, she doesn't have to have sex with the boy necessarily. And like I said before, I have bookmarked this conversation for my own future, should I need it, because this is exactly what teens should be told about sex. The whole "virginity" thing makes kids think that once they have sex once, that's it, the store is open for business for the rest of their lives. But it so is not. It should be a choice every time. So, Tami's voice has started really trembling, and her eyes start brimming over. Julie is getting emotional, too, and she asks her mother why she's crying. And Tami just sort of shakes her head and tells her daughter the truth: "Because I wanted you to wait. And that's just 'cause I want to protect you, 'cause I love you." Julie's face registers what her mother is saying to her, and Tami tells her that she just always wants Julie to be able to talk to her, even when it's something so hard like this. The camera ranges down to their hands, clasped, and Julie's face crumples a little bit and she looks right at her mother and says, "I didn't want to disappoint you." Tami just shakes her head no, and the two hug, and we finally break for commercial, which is good, because the TV has just started looking real blurry to me for some reason.
The Playgirl Ranch. Buddy is knocking on the door and calling for Lyla. Tim asks Lyla what she's going to do, Buddy stays outside making a racket, saying he doesn't care if he wakes up all the neighbors. Lyla finally gets up and goes outside, her ponytail flying. Buddy tells her that she needs to come home, this is no excuse to play house with her boyfriend. Lyla, arms crossed, can't believe he's trying to lecture her on morals. Buddy says he'll work it out, but Lyla wonders how exactly he'll do that, he's $20,000 in the hole for ripping up a strip club. Buddy tells her that she's acting like a spoiled brat. Lyla's perma-furrow is deepening and deepening in expressiveness. (Minka Kelly, if you ever get Botox, so help me...) She can't believe he's calling her spoiled, and when he starts laying into her mom for taking money from him, Lyla thrusts a pointed finger into his chest repeatedly, screaming that he will NOT blame mom for this, he was the one who cheated, who threw his family away, and she's the only idiot that stuck by him. She cries that they'd been saving that money since she was a baby, that she was told if she made the grades it was hers, and he didn't even ask. He just does whatever he wants and wonders why everyone hates him. She storms back into the house with Buddy behind her yelling that she is not to walk away. The delivery comes out all garbled and heated, just like in a real argument: "You DOE not walk away from me..." He reaches for the doorknob of the front door that's been slammed in his face, but just then Tim Riggins opens it from inside and stands in his way. Buddy tells "Tim Riggins" that he is going to talk to his daughter right now, but Tim just shakes his head and says "Not right now," Buddy shouts some more, but Tim stays calm and tells Buddy that he needs to go. Please. Oh, Tim Riggins. Please come stand in my doorway sometime.
Commercials. The Panthers are outside school filing onto the bus on their way to their away game. Madison gets in J.D.'s space, hugging him and going in for a good luck kiss, but J.D. pulls away and says that maybe they should just "lay off for a while." Madison is like, "You're throwing away a nice piece of tail here." Funnily enough, the other guys on the bus who are watching this go down say the same thing! Tim watches J.D. like he's watching his little brother take his first hit off a crack pipe, except here the crack pipe is an abstinence-only pledge. J.D. walks on the bus, and Tim pats the seat to him. Tim asks J.D. if he just dropped that gal; J.D. doesn't know what he just did. Tim turns to him and says, "Cuz, you know what's good before a game? Getting laid. A lot." J.D. mentions that that won't happen because of his dad. Tim asks him how he could expect all the other players to battle for him every night, if he can't even make decisions about who to have teen sex with and who NOT to have teen sex with. Tim is making a good point: the quarterback needs to command respect from his players, but it seems kind of socially depressing, you know, that the only way J.D. can gain that respect is by doing some hot little redhead.
Game time! The Bisons play dirty, dirty, dirty. Coach is up in the referees' business, but they ignore him. In the huddle, Tim tells everyone that they've just got to suck it up, just like Leslie Mann says. Play starts again, and the opposing team is throwing dirt in the Panthers' faces, grabbing face masks, the whole bit. Matt Saracen gets totally tackled as he goes to catch a ball, and its clearly pass interference, but the refs don't call it. Coach is sashaying up and down the sidelines losing his shit: "How could you not see that? You gotta be kidding me!" play, J.D. gets totally roughed up after he throws the pass. Everyone in the stands is booing and Coach has decided that in a life over which he has little to no control -- no job security, no daughter security -- this is one thing he can take charge of: he gets in the ref's face and calls him a "no-calling son of a bitch!" The ref throws a flag, but Coach keeps going. The ref throws him out of the game; Tami's in the stands, her eyes wide at her husband losing it like this. Coach shoves the playbook into Wade's hands and walks off the field. Buddy's on the sidelines looking rough in a plaid flannel shirt; he's freaking out, too. You take football away from these guys, and all they've got is a bunch of confusing females in their lives.
Coach walks away from the field as the announcers exposit that he'll have to sit the rest of the game out in the locker room. But Coach heads straight for what looks like a little trailer or bunker just behind the stadium; when he walks in, it's a bar, which is kind of hilarious. Think back on your high school's football stadium. Was there a bar within twenty feet of it? No, there was not. Because that would mean, pretty much, that the bar was on school property. Texas just gets better and better. So, a coach walks in the bar...
There's a tv in there, so Eric can see what's going on in the game. He whips out his cell phone and tries to call Wade. Wade answers on the field, but he can't hear what Coach is saying, and so hangs up the phone and calls the play. It's a good one, we gather from Slammin' Sammy expositing that Wade's "inspired play calling" has put the Panthers deep in Bison territory. Another snap, but a sack this time. Coach resigns himself to watching, resigns himself to being totally out of the driver's seat now. The clock is ticking down, but J.D. gets the ball into Riggins' arms, and Riggins powers through yard after yard for the touchdown, Panthers Win! Panthers Win! Coach, back in the high school tavern, asks the bartender if he's got any scotch back there. He gets his pour and clinks glasses with some other dude in there (who is not a Bison fan? confused), and watches the TV coverage of Wade getting cheered, Slammin' Sammy going a bit overboard in telegraphing, er I mean, praising Wade for those three play calls he just made.
Joe and Katie McCoy get ready for bed. Katie is sad that J.D. is in bed asleep, because she was hoping he might be out on a date. Her husband informs her that that isn't going to happen, because he and J.D. had a little chat the other day, and J.D. saw the wisdom in taking a break from his non-existent love life right now. Katie is pissed that her husband keeps making these unilateral decisions; Joe snarks that it's not a big deal, in a few weeks, after State, "Mercedes or Madison or whatever" will still be there. Katie tells her husband that this whole football thing is freaking her out, and goes over to the window and glances out behind the curtains, seeing Madison greeting a sneaking-out J.D. out by her car. She goes silent for a minute, and Joe realizes something is up. Because he is an insane megalomaniac, he can't let a mouse take a shit in the house without knowing about it, so he goes over to the window to see what she's seeing. When he catches sight of J.D. and Madison taking off in her car, he mutters, "That little bastard..."
Crucifictorious gig. Squawky guitars start picking out a beat up on stage. Matt is anxious for Landry, Tyra's standing around in her Crucifictorious t-shirt snarking around about how it might be kind of bad. But when the drums and bass come in, and Landry starts singing the melody, what happens is that they're pretty good. The crowded room seems to agree, the people up front start bobbing their heads, and in back, Matt notes that they're not bad, Julie adding in that "Landry's kinda cute up there." And therein lies the rub. Tyra gazes up on the stage, watching Landry, and that reliable old alchemy of "dorky boy + guitar + stage = PANTS ON FIRE" starts taking over. Hilariously, as Tyra gazes up at Landry, the Crucifictorious song fades out and a soaring song by the English band Soulsavers fades in. Tyra is bathed in the red light of a dive bar, a full-throated chorus singing about revival, making charmingly literal, visual and aural what is going on inside Tyra right now.
The song takes us over to Buddy in his condo, calling Lyla once again, then over to Tim Riggins' house where Lyla ignores his phone call. Buddy leaves a message anyway, asking his daughter to call him back. "I'm sorry. You were right, Lyla. And I'm very, very sorry. Please call me back. Please. I love you very, very much." Buddy sort of hangs his gin-blossomed head, obviously without a plan, then cut back to The Playgirl Ranch, a long shot from outside the front door, Tim and Lyla inside sprawled on the couch, Friday night at home, framed by the screen door, Lyla grabbing a beer from Tim and taking a swig, the two teens-on-the-verge-of-adulthood also without a plan about what to do .
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