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Vince's ego is alienating his teammates, girlfriend, and Coach, but not the recruiter from Oklahoma Tech who invites Vince and his dad for an "unofficial visit" to campus. Where there are apparently three pools. Which, what? Anyhow, Vince and his dad play right into Oklahoma State's hands by buying wholesale the shady shit they are selling. (I don't completely understand this shadiness because I have not taken the time to research NCAA recruiting rules, I am very sorry to have let you down in this arcane way). In any case, Vince excuses his absence from practice to Coach Taylor by blaming it on his mom's drug habit which he says has returned. Oh, there is a special place in hell for kids who pretend their mom is addicted to heroin in order to placate their football coaches (granted: a very specialized hell niche, but still). Coach finds Vince's lie out and gives him and his father a stern talking to, threatening to bench Vince if they keep up these shenanigans. But this stern talking-to doesn't go far to heal Coach's own hurt as he watches his team -- left without a leader in their quarterback -- start to implode.
Becky tries her hardest to resume a regular teen relationship with Luke, but she can't quite do it on her own. For support, she calls in a crack team of awesome strippers who prep her for a beauty pageant, and meet her confession about her abortion with wise humor and much love, giving her exactly what she needs to tell Luke that she's ready to try to start over with him. And yes, this "crack team of awesome strippers" is one of the more awesome things I have seen this week.
Head T.A. Derek Bishop shows up on the Taylor's front stoop and -- please take note, any man with hang-ups about how to be a man -- Coach Taylor chases him off by wielding a pink and white piece of a tricycle at him. Which just goes to show, it's not at all about the tool but about how you use it. Ahem. Anyway, once Head T.A. Derek Bishop finally cons his way into getting a moment with Julie (by telling her mother that he just wants to convince her to go back to school), it becomes very clear that his real intention is to get her back into a weird relationship with him. Julie then declares to her parents that she's going back to school, and though they believe her, we do not and so watch with bated breath as she gets in that car that has allowed her such misguided freedom so far, and watch as she drives along, seemingly not going to school at all, and watch as she shows up on the doorstep of some man we aren't sure who it is at first until the camera swings around and we watch as, yes, it is a dream come true, we watch as MATT SARACEN looks up at her and smiles.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open out in the back of Vince's apartment complex, where a bunch of neighbors have gathered in the shade to watch the Friday Football Roundup on TV. Ornette is bragging, everyone is drinking tea and snacking and generally in good spirits. An interview with Vince gets broadcast, and we hear him talk about "I" "I" "I"-- he stepped up as quarterback, he didn't take the summer off, Vincey Vince Vince. As his family and neighbors erupt in high fives and hugs after it's over, Jess holds back and looks subdued. Vince asks her what's up and she points out that he didn't talk about anyone but himself, no mention of the team. Vince lies that he did, but they just cut that material out. Jess calls him out on the lie, noting that the interview wasn't cut at all. Ornette jumps in and tells Vince that he's the star, after all. More high fives and Jess excuses herself.
Luke and Becky lie on his bed making out. Becky keeps interrupting, sure she hears his parents coming home. He assures her that they are gone for the entire day. Probably working on their Teen Abstinence Inspiration Boards or something equally as useful. She tries to get back into the make-out session but finally gets up, puts her boots back on to compliment her jean shorts (BEST LOOK EVER, NOT JOKING), tells him she can't do this and leaves.
The Taylors are gathered in their living room, Tami and Eric trying to put together a little plastic tricycle for Gracie. The doorbell rings and Julie gets up to get it while her parents keep bickering sweetly about trike assembly. Julie opens the door to find....Head T.A. Derek Bishop! He stammers while she tells him he has to leave. We hear Coach in the background asking who it is, as Julie really urges the doofus to leave. But as Eric approaches, Head T.A. Derek Bishop takes a different tack: "Hi Mr., I mean Coach Taylor. My name is Derek, I taught your daughter at Burleson." I mean, what is he trying to accomplish here? No time to consider that further because Coach Taylor just walks straight at the weaselly guy, shoulders square, and basically just drives him backward into his car with the force of enraged fatherhood, continually muttering in a low, frightening register, "You better get out of here right now," while Derek scrambles. Tami and Julie ask Coach to stop. Derek makes it to his car, while Coach begins wielding the piece of pink and white plastic tricycle he happens to have in his hand. Coach whacks the top of Derek's car with it a few times and then, as he peels out, smashes one of the car's taillights. And luckily we now cut to credits because I know I, for one, need a minute to cool down after getting so much uncut Hot Dad in that scene.
Credits. Lions locker room. Hastings interviews Luke using a water bottle as a microphone. Amateur stuff when compared to Tim Riggins interviewing a puppy with a beer can. Luke pretends to be Vince, kissing his biceps, and then explaining how he "threw the ball to myself, I caught it in the end zone, and then I kicked the extra point with my gold-plated schlong." Everyone laughs, and Hastings moves over to Jess asking her what it's like to date the most interesting man alive. She tells them to cut it out. Hastings jokily asks whether it's true that Vince discovered a new planet. Meanwhile, Vince has walked in and overhears what's going on. His face registers some ambivalence, but he quickly wipes it away and tries to laugh off his team's laughing off of him. He brags about himself further, hoping to neutralize the situation by being even more self-aggrandizing, but the team just sort of ignores him and heads out to practice. Jess watches him sadly, and Vince's face falls as he watches himself get ignored.
Fight in the hallway! Epyck and Porn Mouth are at their hair-tearing best until Principal Levi and Tami separate them. Cut to Tami's office where she lectures Epyck that she has to stop fighting. Epyck complains that "she started it" but Tami isn't hearing it. "It doesn't matter who starts it, you gotta stop it." She tells Epyck that she's on her side, but Epyck has to help out. Epyck sighs and asks Tami if she's going to finish her sandwich. The specter of abusive starvation: one way to change the subject.
Out on the football field, we get a shot of Billy straight on, leading the players lined up behind him in that Maori war dance/chant that you may remember from important things I have recapped such as Season 17 (ha!) of The Real World-Road Rules Challenge. Coach and Crowley look on in semi-disgust. I know, Coach. I should not waste my time watching that show. But....I love it so!! Like, this one time? CT punched a cactus! And another time? CT almost actually literally killed someone on national television! Crowley calls Billy over and reminds him that they only have 30 minutes slotted for defense. Billy explains how awesome this war dance is at psyching out the other team, but Crowley won't hear it. "Defense is discipline. Enough with the dance practice." Meanwhile, the boys are all riled up in the background, dancing and chanting and such. That is, until someone goes down on the field with a shout of pain. It's Buddy, Jr. and no one knows what happened to him, only that his left leg seems effed.
Cut to the outside of the hospital, where Buddy harangues his son-- who is on crutches sitting on a bench-- with questions about his hairline fracture. What is with this "Samoan war dance"? "Do they even play football in Samoa?" What was Billy Riggins thinking? Buddy Jr. just sort of sighs. Buddy sits down to him and bemoans, "We're sitting here in the middle of an undefeated season and you weren't even playing football!" When Buddy, Jr. responds with a despairing, "I know, dad, I know" Buddy realizes that his son has come around on this whole football thing, that he was starting to feel a part of something, and that now that's been taken away. And that the troubled Buddy, Jr. recognizes how much this sucks. Buddy finally goes quiet, and puts an arm around his son.
Tami is in her office when Head T.A. Derek Bishop comes in. She pops up and immediately tries to tell him that she doesn't think she's going to be able to see him. He apologizes and she tells him that he should leave. He tells her that he's resigned and she simply says, "Good." He tells her he wants to try to get Julie back to school and she nibbles the bait a bit: "How're you going to do that?" He smarms some about how he couldn't live with himself if he was the reason she dropped out of college. He wants to make it right. Tami: "You can't." He tells her that if he could just talk to Julie, he could convince her. Tami tells him that she appreciates him coming by and just instructs him to leave with her eyes.
Playgirl Ranch. Mindy comes into the living room, where two of her stripper friends are hanging out and Becky is sitting at the kitchen counter. Mindy declares that there IS a Lord because her sweet, sweet baby sleeps for two hours everyday, giving her "Momma Mindy Time." The strippers all clink their margarita glasses. Mindy asks Becky what she's doing and Becky tells her that she's deciding about doing a pageant. They all slightly tease the girl about the pageant business. "Does she get a tiara when she wins that thing? I mean, I swear!" Becky confirms that beauty queens win tiaras, and then adds that they also win money and cars. The strippers all coo and exclaim. Mindy declares that they are going to do this beauty pageant. When Becky mentions that this one is in Wichita Falls, they pause for a beat before Mindy yelps, "Road trip!" and more clinking of glasses. To Wong Foo!
Vince and his father talk with a shady guy from Oklahoma Tech in that same diner where Tami tried to distract the superintendent with her flowing locks and low-cut halter top. The OT guy has invited Vince to campus, and Vince wants to know whether that's against the rules. He says no, as long as it isn't an "official visit," which this wouldn't be. He just wants Vince to fall in love with the school, and also wants Vince to know that he's OT's football team's number one prospect. Vince and Ornette exchange wowed glances and these guys are just like fish in a barrel for these shady-ass football boosters.
The Taylor women are in the kitchen. Tami tells Julie that Derek came to her office. Julie asks what he said and her mother tells her that doesn't matter: "End it." She needs Julie to do whatever it is she needs to do to put this whole situation behind her. Julie sighs.
Over at Oklahoma Tech, Vince and Ornette sit in an office gleaming with polished wood. Their trusty "friend" walks in and apologizes for keeping them waiting, and then introduces them to two leggy girls who will escort them around campus. They are "unofficial tour guides for your unofficial tour." Chiddy Bang's "Opposite of Adults" plays as Vince and Ornette get the "unofficial tour" of the facilities--fancy looking buildings and multiple pools more suited to Las Vegas than a college campus. I mean, I know I've been out of college for a while but....pools? For hanging out to? Is that a thing at college now? Anyhow, the whole thing looks like an exercise-facility-obsessed hip hop video. Ornette ogles a couple of coeds as they walk by in their bikinis and quips to their host, "I should have gone to college."
Back at East Dillon, Luke finds Becky at her locker. He asks her to go to a party at Tinker's with him, but she tells him that she can't, she's watching Stevie tonight for Mindy. Luke sighs and then Mr. Open Book tells her for the hundredth time that he really, really likes her (like really, really) and that when she's ready to go out, she should call him. As he's walking away: "Or, just email me. Or send me a post card in the post office or whatever. Carrier pigeons."
Cut over to The Landing Strip, the most modest strip club in America, where all the strippers where bikini tops and little skirts. Mindy makes her way backstage where Becky is getting some mirrors sewn onto her neon pink gown by one of the Crack Stripper Pageant Team. Becky wonders if it's all a bit much, but gets no critique of bling from these girls. They ask her whether her "boyfriend" is going to be at the pageant, and Mindy editorializes that "Y'all, he's hoooot." One of the girls tells Becky that if she wins, she has to sneak into his room wearing nothing but her tiara. Mindy makes a face that at first implies she might get pearl-clutchy in defense of the honor of the girl she is caretaking, but that glimpse of stuffy maternity quickly dissipates as she says, "Hellll, yeah!" Becky just hangs her head at the suggestion and Mindy cocks her head, realizing that something is amiss. She asks what's wrong, and Becky--shot nicely, only half of her face showing from behind the gaggle of women fussing about her--confesses: "Luke and I have only have had sex once." All the woman rush to assure her that that's fine and it will get better, until Becky clarifies: "I got pregnant. And....I didn't keep it." They all sigh and coo at her as Becky's eyes fill up with tears and she tells them how much she likes him but how awkward and weird it is to try to be with him because every time she is, all she can think is "You're stupid, you're stupid, you lost your virginity in a truck." The Crack Team of Strippers latch onto this because, I mean write what you know, right? When Becky asks, "Who does that?" they all raise their hands and say that's exactly where it went down for them too. Becky, through tears, just says that she wishes she could start over. Mindy, voice cracking a bit, tells her to listen: "Life is going to throw a bunch of crap at you, but all you can do is just put it in the past and leave it there." And we have just enough time to think through how Tami Taylor isn't the only one giving loving support to young women in this town before one of the strippers quips, "Or you could just drink a lot" and the tension is broken. Man, some serious wisdom going down in the back room of The Landing Strip.
Lions practice. Coach asks Jess on the sidelines whether she's seen Vince. She says no, that she thought he was sick but he didn't answer the phone when she called. Coach stares her down a bit. She's like "What?" and he just tells her that if she sees him, tell him to give her a call. Coach Taylor, if you don't stop looking through Jess, I am going to start to get really annoyed. On the bright side, I smell another lesson for Eric Taylor to learn!
Cut over to Vince doing the vaunted "walk out of the dark locker room into the gleaming sun-drenched football field" thing at Oklahoma Tech. He and his father ooh and aah as their host continues to smarm-sell them. The host's phone rings and we hear him say, "Yeah we're here" right before the OT team runs onto the field all around them. The host tells Ornette and Vince to stand there and not say anything, just listen, and then goes over to glad-hand the coach a bit. They have a fakey loud conversation with one another about this Vince Howard, "We like him, like him a whole lot." The staged conversation goes on, the coach saying that between Vince and another kid, whoever gives them a verbal agreement first will probably be running their offense in two years. Vince listens with the most naive grin on his face. Ornette turns to him and asks if this is all worth missing a day of school, and then they jostle and smile at each other as the host takes them off the field to continue their tour.
Commercials. Tami drives away from school when she spots Epyck mixing it up with some boys. Tami calls her over to the car, and yells at the boys, "Y'all boys, quit!" Epyck slouches in the car and then begs some more food off of Tami. Tami tells her that's it, she's going to go feed her. Cut over to them sitting in their car outside a fast food joint. Tami asks if she's getting fed at home, and Epyck tells her that she's in a foster home. Tami reminds her that she's supposed to be fed at a foster home. Epyck describes how there's just a lot of fighting and not quite enough to go around and the lady that takes care of them uses the money for herself. Basically a Fox News version of welfare. Epyck shrugs and says "You know what that's like" and Tami softly tells her that "No, I don't know what that's like," asking Epyck with that statement to consider that there is a world where this stuff doesn't happen. Tami offers to call Social Services and Epyck reacts swiftly. She doesn't want Tami to do that, she doesn't want to get shuffled around to another place that might be worse. "I can take care of myself." Tami tells her that she doesn't have to live like this, but Epyck pleads with her. If she gets moved, she'll move schools and "I won't get to see you any more." This appeal seals the deal for Tami.
Vince goes on and on to Jess about how awesome his visit was. Pools, Jacuzzis, Xboxes, et cetera. Jess is pissed though, telling him she's glad that he had a good time, because she spent the whole day getting interrogated by Coach. Vince pauses for a minute but then races on, telling her that OT is going to give him an offer. Jess asks him to hold up, "Did you speak to the coach? Because that's against the rules!" and Vince gives her the whole "unofficial visit" spiel. He says that he's sorry he didn't tell her he was going--he just didn't want her to have to lie to Coach. To which Jess smartly replies, if all this is totally okay and "unofficial" then why all the lying? Vince tells her that all she needs to do is say congratulations. He kisses her and she looks up at him, clearly at a loss, muttering "Congratulations."
Julie and Head T.A. Derek Bishop are at a restaurant. He smarms about meeting her father the way he did and then tells her that he's quit his job and is going to go up to his family's cabin in Tennessee to finish his dissertation. She's quiet because, good lord, how boring and abject this man is, having his 30-year-old grad student crisis all up in her nubile 18-year-old face. Head T.A. Derek Bishop then launches his clammy face into telling her about how he thought that they had a real connection, and then--WORST OF ALL!-- that the older she gets, the more she'll realize how rare such a connection is. Julie has been RAISED RIGHT, though, because she gets angry here. Is he talking about the kind of connection he has with his wife? With the girls who came before her? She points out how humiliated she is over this whole thing until he breaks in and tells her that he's getting a divorce. And she is taken aback for a moment. "Because of me?" Head T.A. Derek Bishop says he doesn't know, just that he's not in love with his wife. He tells her to go back to school....and then hands her a piece of paper with his address in Tennessee on it. "If you ever need anything, my door is always open." She takes it, tears in her eyes, willing herself to not feel electricity coming off his hands. Oh, Julie. He's an ass and she knows it, but he appeals to her because he is older, seems (key word there) sophisticated and intellectual and free. And we understand everything about why she's doing what she's doing, while also seeing straight through this weak and manipulative man who is drawing this wonderful girl into his orbit of self-hatred and insecurity and smallness. So we want to tell her what to do. But we can't. We have to just wait and see.
The morning, Julie appears in her parents doorway as they sleep. She tells them that she's going back to school. She says that she talked to Derek, and she realized that she really belongs at school and is wasting her life here. And then apologizes for the "B.S." she put them through. Tami sits up and says that they are proud of her and Julie asks if she can make breakfast. Coach requests coffee and she turns and leaves. Coach: "When is she leaving?" which earns a small little admonishing "Honey!" from Tami, who looks into the sun, make-up free and gorgeous in the morning light.
Commercials. Coach catches Vince in the hallway, asking him how he's feeling, wondering if since he missed practice, he "damn well better be dying." Vince avoids his eyes and then launches into probably the worst, most hateful, most karmically-tempting lie ever: "It was my mom." He implies that his mother's drug problem is back and Coach is quick to reassure him, "You don't have to explain yourself." Vince can barely look at Coach when he tells him that if Vince needs anything, he should let someone know and as Vince leaves to get to class Coach looks after him, obviously not completely at ease with what just went down.
Tami walks up to a small white house and rings the bell. She introduces herself and gets invited in by a woman with a mass of strawberry blonde curls on her head. Inside the kitchen, the woman tells Tami that this isn't the first time Epyck has lied about her situation at home. She calls "kids!" in for lunch, and four young kids, about eight or nine years old, come running. She instructs them to eat their apples first and they do. And because I am conditioned by an obsession with nineteenth-century fiction (and also Annie) I am SO suspicious of this lady, even though she had no time to set up a big deception like this. Tami remarks that this isn't exactly what Epyck described. The foster mother says that Epyck can be sweet, but has had a hard life. Both parents died of AIDS, she lived on the streets, was abused, addicted. She deserves a lot of credit, but can be a handful. One of the boys spills his water and we get that hard-wired gasp because maybe now is when the whole charade will crumble! But no, the foster mother just calmly goes over to wipe it up. Tami asks if any older boys live there and the foster mother laughs and gestures to the kids, "These are the only boys here."
Vince knocks on Coach's office door. He's been called in. Coach asks him to sit. Then: "How's your mom doing?" Then: "Let me ask you something?" and turns his laptop around, asking Vince if he recognizes a photo: a picture of Vince and Ornette at OT with the caption "Howard Unofficially to OT?" Vince scrambles to explain, but he has used up his chances on this subject. Coach tells him that he's sure his father has Vince's best interests at heart, but he's driving them in the wrong direction. The "offer" or whatever it is, "I guarantee you is worth nothing." Vince asks what he wants him to do, his father is the only one looking out for him right now. Coach just calmly tells him that he's knocking on the wrong door, and he has nothing else to say on the matter.
Over in Wichita Falls, Becky is in a dressing room full of moms and daughters and....strippers! They make her up and talk boobs and take pictures and sip from flasks and just generally have a great time.
Tami walks into an empty little diner and finds Epyck there, eating. Tami asks her why she lied and Epyck looks at her with slightly dead eyes. Tami tells her that she doesn't have to lie to her. "I actually like you." She asks Epyck to look at her, and she does, with slightly less dead eyes. Tami: "You're strong, you're smart, and you're feisty." She tells her that she has a future. Epyck tells Tami that she can't make a difference, she is who she is, but Tami begs to differ. Tami declares that she's going to try some soup and asks Epyck to not leave. She goes to the buffet and Epyck cranes to keep looking at her. She sort of smiles to herself.
The winners get announced at the beauty pageant and Becky only gets second runner-up. Out in the audience, her personal stripper fan club boos and boos at this news, garnering all kinds of judgey looks from the prissy moms. The lady who hands her her flowers tells her that she should "take a hard look at the company you keep." Becky screws up her face at the old blue-hair, and I hope she's thinking that the company of strippers is worth more than a Chrysler Sebring any day.
Lions practice, rainy afternoon. Ball gets snapped and they run a play. After Vince throws the ball, Luke keeps barreling towards him and tackles him. Coach runs over there shouting at Luke "What are you doin'? What are you doin'? You don't hit my quarterback when he's wearing that [red] shirt!" Luke meekly apologizes, but then runs back over toward Vince and they start mixing it up. Vince is pissed he got hit, and Luke demurs that they went over that play in practice yesterday, the practice that Vince missed. They start shoving and Coach pushes his hat a bit up on his head, giving his hair a little bit of breathing room, both of them exasperated and at wit's end over this problem with Vince.
Commercials. Richard Buckner's "Raze" plays as Julie wordlessly says goodbye once to her parents in the driveway. Eric's hair is skeptical and askew, but he hugs his daughter with deeply felt emotion. She pulls out of the driveway, and we head out onto the road with her. Fields, rivers, trees. She makes a call on speaker. "Hey, you're up early." Julie says she needs to know something. Did he come to Dillon just to get her to go back to school or to get her back? Head T.A. Derek Bishop answers: "The second thing." Julie says that's what she thought and we watch, horrified, as she turns the car around and starts going the other direction.
Pep rally in the cafeteria over at East Dillon. The band is there, and the cheerleaders, all revving everybody up. Out in the hallway, Ornette shoots the shit with Billy and Traub, the two doofus-y coaches. They're all smiling and reminiscing about last week's game when Vince refused to take a knee and instead decided to "air it out." The decision that made Coach Taylor and Crowley cry because of its tackiness. Coach asks Ornette if he can speak to him a minute. Coach is misleadingly pleasant when he asks Ornette how Oklahoma Tech was. The pleasantry quickly devolves as Coach tells Ornette that he will not have any one player bigger than the team and that if Vince misses another practice, he'll bench him. But Ornette came up on the streets and knows how to scrap, so without missing a beat, he wonders if that's the same thing Coach told his boy at Shane State--the university trying to recruit Eric as Head Coach. Ornette laughs, thinking he's got the upper hand with this knowledge that Coach didn't know he had. He tells Coach to quit with this bullshit about how he's all about the team. Coach, face tight, just looks at him hard and says "Mr. Howard. I don't have any more to say" and walks away.
In the school parking lot, Becky writes a note-- "Luke-- I want to start over-- xo Becky"-- and puts it on his windshield.
Back in the hallway, muted behind instrumental music, Crowley and Billy are getting into it, presumably over Billy's flashier approach to coaching. They have to be separated. Luke and Vince are getting into it, Luke telling Vince he's not acting like a part of the team. Everyone bickering, fighting, coming apart. Coach, his back turned to them, squeezes his eyes closed listening to all this nonsense until he swings around and screams, "SHUT UP" at the kids. The doors to the cafeteria open and the kids head in, scuffling and fighting, and then finally putting on the appearance of being a team to absorb the adoration being directed at them. Principal Levi takes the microphone to honor "our own Coach Taylor" the man who has taught them all, and Coach reluctantly comes forward, obviously uneasy with playing this role. Ornette stares at him from the audience, Eric is no leader of him. Coach takes a breath and then leans in to the microphone, "Can you say victory?" and everyone goes wild and a little bit of your heart dies when you watch this man of integrity play it so fake.
But the heart is a wonderful thing, because as much as it dies, it also regenerates and so we cut over to Julie knocking on a door and we all hold our breath because we really don't want her going back to that clammy weasel of a man, Derek. And the door opens, but we only see the male form from behind for a while, watching Julie take him in, relief and love and comfort washing over her. Then the camera swings around and we see....Matt Saracen. And if you did not shriek at this, please excuse yourself from the living and loving hordes of humanity, because not only do we get Matt Saracen, but we also get that little Matt Saracen crooked smile. And then we cut to black.
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