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Coach Taylor! Man of the Year! Of the Decade! Of the Universe! Put him in an astronaut helmet and send him into space to make piece with alien species! Coach Taylor! Healer of Interspecies Warfare!! This episode is one big huge sloppy love letter to Coach Taylor and I, for one, am not complaining. Also? Tim Riggins gets out of jail, allowing him to at least run a little dry shampoo through his greasy locks.
Coach gets an offer from Shane State and he and Tami seriously consider taking it, as it seems to come with a house and a pool. The town is abuzz with rumors about this offer, and everyone quickly whips out their poster board and sparkle pens to create signs asking Coach not to leave. Valid strategy, I think. Buddy gets Levi to turn the yearly athletic banquet into a tribute to Coach Taylor, and so we get to hear all the boys offer a few words about why Coach Taylor is the best. Tami and Eric realize why they're doing this, but are touched nonetheless. Eric is most touched when Vince -- whose offer from OT has predictably disappeared but whose father keeps pursuing shady deals with ever shadier institutions -- comes to him and tells him that Eric changed his life. When Coach gets interviewed before their final away game, he decides to announce to everyone that he is not leaving Dillon, and Tami takes this all pretty damn serenely for someone whose partner did not consult them before making a major life decision. But, anyway!
(Okay, okay, there are some seeds being planted that Tami is coming to the attention of the larger Texas secondary educational community, so hopefully she'll get some great promotion/new job soon because she's nobody's wilting, passive wife).
Also needing the support of a community is Tim Riggins, who is up for parole. Billy fudges and fumbles (his job not made any easier by Tim's clear anger at and disdain for his brother), but manages to get both Coach and Buddy Garrity in the room to say their piece about Tim. Tim tears up as he listens to these men talk about his character. We end the episode with Becky coming home to The Playgirl Ranch to find Tim there; annoyingly, sparks still fly.
The sparks will be problematic for Becky and Luke, who had been getting closer and closer. Luke, finally realizing that he's not going to get a football scholarship to college is challenged by Tami Taylor to identify what he really loves and is good at. He realizes that it's farming, even though he spent his whole life wishing to get away from his parents and the farm. And I say, good on him. Pay the dysfunction forward, son. Make your children unhappy in all the same ways you were. It's the way of the world! He goes so far as to ask Becky if she could imagine living her life on a farm, and she says yes and then we all have to remember how Becky and Tim got all kissy kissy looking over his land that he bought with his hard-earned chop shop money. Barf.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Coach Taylor is meeting with the guy at Shane State that's trying to hire him as head coach for their newly Division I football team. Please note Eric's hair in this scene: totally tamped down interview hair! The Shane State guy thinks that Coach Taylor has an impressive narrative and don't we just all agree, hmmm Emmy people? He hands Eric a folder with their offer in it. Cut over to Buddy Garrity and Principal Levi in Levi's sad public high school office. Buddy is wearing a tremendous fish-print Hawaiian shirt and moaning over a box of oranges. "This is bad" he says, "This is bad." Levi tells "Mr. Garrity" that he doesn't have time for this, but Buddy cuts him off, "It's Buddy, Levi. Buddy." He tells Levi that this box of oranges marks the end of the East Dillon Lions led by Eric Taylor, and that the oranges mean two things: 1) year round sunshine and 2) college funding. Levi oddly puts on his reading glasses to take a closer look at the enormous box of oranges. Like, they aren't clementines, Levi. Buddy tells him that they "have a fight on our hands." Levi, no nonsense as always, asks him, "You got all this from a crate of oranges?"
Billy Riggins meets with his lawyer about Tim coming up for parole. The lawyer informs Billy that he needs to round up some character witnesses, then hands him a parole package to study. Which, oh dear, Billy Riggins studying? I think he needs some of those Principal Levi glasses. Billy feels confident that he can stand up and give a speech on behalf of Tim. The lawyer is like, great, but, uh, also don't forget to get actually articulate people to come say something on behalf of him as well.
Ornette and Vince mess around playing basketball and trash talking each other and the whole thing is really sweet. Ornette's phone rings and he runs to his bag to get it, getting Vince excited when he tells him that its Oklahoma Tech calling. Vince's smile goes wide as he hears his father answer the phone...but the smile barometer responds accordingly to Ornette's increasingly unhappy mien as he continues talking. "Hold on, you joking right? You kidding me? What the hell was the visit for then, huh?" He impotently "slams" his cell phone closed and tells Vince the bad news. They gave an offer to the other kid, the lefty. "I thought you said we had it in the bag, Pop!" Vince cries out as Ornette chucks his phone and storms off.
Credits. The camera drives around town as Slammin' Sammy exposits that there are rumors floating around town that Coach Taylor is considering leaving East Dillon. Tami, in the car, smiles ruefully as she and Gracie pass businesses and homes bearing signs saying "Don't Go!" as they are on their way to the airport to pick Eric up. There's something incredibly verisimilitudinous about how he puts his bag in the backseat and leans over to give Grace a kiss on the head, "Gracie Bell!" he exclaims. Further verisimilitude in the rather bug spattered side windows of the Taylor family car as we peep at them driving along, catching up with one another. Tami asks how the visit was and Coach says he met just about everyone there was to meet and that it is, he supposes, "a pretty solid opportunity."
Over at the Howard's, Vince and his mom chat when Ornette comes in and claims to have figured it out. He's going to go back to TMU to "generate a little heat, play them against Mississippi Central." Vince interrupts his dad's scrambling to suggest that they get Coach involved again. Vince says he feels like he needs to focus on getting back into a starting position on his high school team, before they run around "generating heat" from college teams. Ornette just smiles and says that the starting position is his, no question, "You a Howard." Vince doesn't have quite the same amount of swagger as his father and he suggests that they just take a step back from all the meetings. "Play it cool." Vince's mom is in the background, listening quietly. Ornette swallows his pride and tells Vince that he's the boss.
Tami is at a faculty meeting at school trying to drum up more support and volunteers for the "Homework Club." Some bitchy teacher other than Laurel giggles and jokes about Epyck being expelled and asking if she gets a "flak jacket" if she volunteers. Tami brushes it off. Levi moves on to the upcoming Athletic Banquet, reminding teachers that attendance is not mandatory, but it does show good support if they attend. Also: free dinner. That whole conversation makes me real sad about high school teachers.
Out on the football field, Buddy continues to buzz in Levi's ear. Now he's suggesting that Levi turn the Athletic Banquet into an "impromptu" honoring of Coach Taylor. Levi deadpans that "impromptu" means "unplanned," but Buddy persists, saying that they need to make a case for keeping Eric there and not off chasing oranges. The kids, for their part, are also all abuzz about the rumor. Tinker asks what everyone thinks about Coach Taylor leaving. Luke, ever the Pollyanna, insists that Coach Taylor isn't going anywhere. When Vince walks onto the field, Hastings mentions that OT didn't offer, but Luke, weirdly, comes to Vince's defense: "At least he had an offer." Though I suppose you could read this as Luke's moroseness, the other side of his Pollyanna-ism. Luke leads the team in warming up, while on the sidelines, Buddy's now onto suggesting to Levi that they erect a STATUE in Eric's honor. Levi guffaws and Buddy revises: "How 'bout a plaque?"
Levi has Tami in his office and informs her that he's sending her to a conference in Lubbock in a few days, where she'll be on a panel about getting kids into college. I have a heart attack about someone telling me I have to be on a panel in two days when I have not prepared anything to say. But then, I am not Tami. Perhaps I should focus more on letting my cowboy boots do the talking. Levi tells her that he thinks this conference will be good for her as well as for East Dillon. Then Tami asks about Epyck and we all sort of fall asleep. Levi helps us out by saying that no, they haven't heard of anything, and also he's got 500 other students to keep track of. He tells her to take a personal day for the conference and she trills, "Oh, Levi, you are TOO much!"
Eric comes into his office where Buddy is lying in wait. Eric doesn't let him get too far into his Orange Investigation, distracting him by asking about Buddy Jr. Which, I've been wondering: I haven't read anything about the actor Jeff Rosick being actually injured, but I've found it slightly weird that Buddy Jr. has been so sidelined. Though I suppose the same thing happened with Hastings Ruckle, who I guess will never actually have a story line (besides those mysterious eyebrows that is). Buddy takes the opportunity of his son's injury to steer the conversation back to Law and Order: Oranges, telling Coach that it's sad that Buddy Jr. won't ever have a chance to play under Taylor. Billy interrupts their frenemous conversation, asking to have a word with Coach. Buddy makes no move to get up, which Coach and Billy roll their eyes at, but fully accept. Billy asks Coach to be a character witness for Tim and he agrees, but more surprisingly, Buddy offers to be a character witness as well. But not for nothing. Buddy's payment for standing up for the "best fullback the state of Texas has ever seen...the boy my girl fell in love with" is Coach Taylor having to sit there and listen to his spiel on loyalty. "Yeah. I believe in loyalty. In sticking with your people through thick and thin." Billy leaves, Coach purses his lips and stares at Buddy, his own sweaty albatross of a friend.
Luke, Hastings and Tinker try to get Jess to tell them what she knows about Coach Taylor leaving East Dillon. She's like, "Uh, my breasts do not receive gossip messages via satellite, guys." Taylor comes out and they start hectoring him a bit, asking if he's leaving. Coach, getting into his truck, tells them he's just planning on going home right now. They go back and forth a little bit as Coach sits in his truck. He tells them that, besides the playoffs, he doesn't really have any other plans.
At home, Tami marvels over a real estate listing included in the Shane State offer package. Basically, it looks like they could live in Blanch Devereaux's house, plus pool. Which is to say, my own personal wet dream. Tami is on my same wavelength, totally excited about this offer now that she sees a bit of what their life would look like there. She asks how long the contract is for and Eric says three years with a two year option. "We could do three years with that pool, couldn't we, Gracie Bell?" Eric sits on the edge of the couch, adding "domestic happiness" to the "pro" list in his mind.
Commercials. Buddy -- now wearing a pineapple-print Hawaiian shirt -- greets Vince with one of those fancy handshakes in the East Dillon parking lot. He tells Vince that all the players are going to say a little something about Coach Taylor at the Athletic Banquet, but Vince says that he doesn't think Coach cares what he has to say. Buddy quietly tells Vince to stop feeling so sorry for himself. He tells him that, even if he didn't start last week, he is one of the leaders of the team, the heart of the team. It's something Vince needs to hear, as frustrating as that sort of teen self-centeredness is.
Luke and Becky frolic in the late afternoon light on the football field. Luke's legs pretty much go on for miles in those Wranglers. She walks the fine, flirty line between girlishly helpless and strong womanhood and he tackles her gently. "Unfair size advantage" she coos....except when they stand up they are actually almost exactly the same size, thanks to fashion and capitalism and the way men are now subject to their own damn gaze, hooray! She asks if Luke is going to "do the whole college football thing" and Luke looks down and earnestly acknowledges "probably not." He realizes that other people are better and nobody wants him. "I want you," Becky says. But seriously, thank god for this show and how it makes its teenagers actually reckon with a world that doesn't just hand shit out to people.
Billy practices his speech on Tim's behalf, but keeps stuttering and messing up and saying things like "He's a true American." Mindy stands and listens to her lovable Nacho Man until he realizes she's listening and snaps at her. She tells him that he sounds real good, but he sits down and tells her that he's supposed to memorize this stuff by tomorrow and we all know that Billy doesn't have much hard drive space left over even if you do erase all the Bob Seger lyrics he's got stored in there. Mindy tells him that he's a good brother, but he just gets up and wanders off to stress some more.
Vince approaches Coach in his office. The kid tells him that he knows why he got benched, but he wants back in and he wants to take them to State. Coach tells him that he heard about Oklahoma Tech and Vince just nods his head, yes. Coach tells him that he'll have to work his way back, the team comes first and they don't play to get Vince offers. And then -- because this is a world of grand gestures that we all aspire to in our own small, sad, gesture-less lives -- Vince takes his red jersey out of his bag, slaps it on Coach's desk and declares, "I'm gonna earn it back."
Luke meets with Tami, telling her that he's just trying to be realistic, that he knows that football is probably not going to be the thing for him after graduation. Tami nods and says that she hears him. She tells him that he's not too late, but asks if he's started at all thinking about college applications and Luke -- and here the grandmother in me wants to exclaim "Precious!" -- says that well, no, he hasn't thought much about it, because he figured that he would just go to whatever college football program recruited him. Which, he now realizes, is nowhere. Tami says okay, well what are your interests, what are you good at? And Luke is like, ".....[crickets]...." because the world outside of crazy NYC/fancy suburbs college-focused parenting is one where parents sort of let their kids go free range, asking only that they don't impregnate anyone (ahem, Luke) and don't focus too much on forcing "interests" onto their kids. And, actually, it's the world I came out of and which I guess I respect more, because all it really takes is not SAT tutoring or crazy strategizing, but just a solid "Be good, get good grades, we love you and support you in whatever weird art thing you're doing these days."
Tami brings Coach some water in bed and talks cute about Gracie and reading books to her for a bit. She sighs and says she has no idea what she's going to say at her conference, then asks him what he thinks about Shane State. He changes the subject, mentioning that Tim Riggins is up for parole and he's serving as a character witness. Tami says "That poor kid" and we leave the Taylors to continue shouldering the weight of the world.
Vince walks in to meet Ornette at a restaurant, clearly thinking that he's meeting his father and mother for dinner. But instead of his mom, Ornette has gathered together some guys from Mississippi Central. Ornette gladhands a bit until Vince asks to talk to him for a second and pulls him aside. Vince is pissed, but Ornette does some quick talking about ticking clocks until Vince clench-shouts at him about how he needs to stay on Coach's good side and can't be taking these quasi-illegal meetings anymore. Ornette tells him that he's only got so many choices and he needs to sit his butt down and lose the attitude. Vince walks out the door. Ornette then lie-shouts, "Okay then, go ahead and work on that paper" and then goes back to the table telling the guys that Vince has a big paper he has to go work on. Now the thing here is: Ornette is kind of right, right? I mean, at least until Coach Taylor actually starts advising Vince, rather than just telling him cryptic things about "knocking on the wrong doors." Vince has a blind sort of trust in Coach, which the show will obviously reward....but as far as how this world of college football recruiting goes, I'm sure that Ornette's approach is the more results-oriented. I would love if there were some way for the show to acknowledge this, rather than just give us the Great Men = Secure Futures narrative that is, well, just not really real.
Luke, Tinker, and Becky and Luke's pig hang out a bit. Luke is giving Tinker a lesson in how to show the pig at whatever weird pig show those Middle America perverts attend. Lots of close-ups of Becky's face telling us viewers that "DING DING DING, HERE IS LUKE'S TALENT AND INTEREST!" In case you didn't get it, Tinker vocalizes it: "Luke, you sure are good at this."
Tami registers for the conference and gets approached by a Nancy Pelosi-ish lady from Graymore (?) College. They've met before and are both going into this panel. Actually Tami is one of the panelists!
Lawyer goes over how the parole hearing will go. Billy, shocked, asks "Wait, you're not going to be in there?!" The camera pulls back and we see Tim, in a white jumpsuit and seriously disastrous hair (I guess there's also an aesthetic reason most prisons make men keep their hair short) staring out the window with dead eyes. Listening to Billy and the lawyer talk, Tim notes, in a sad monotone, "I don't want Billy to speak." He turns around and addresses them, "He's done enough damage." Billy is hurt, but obviously incapable of registering said hurt, since he'll pretty much be in Tim's debt for the rest of his life. The lawyer reminds Tim that Billy's words are really important, he's the family member he'll live with when he's released. "Besides, how badly can he mess it up?" and Tim replies, "You'd be surprised."
Over at the Admission Directors conference, we listen to one of the panelists drone on about standardized testing and accountability. Now where most of us would just go to that special monkey-picking-bugs-out-of-another-monkey's-fur place in our minds to get through such an experience, Tami Taylor cannot. So she leans forward and interjects that she would love to shift the conversation away from standardized tests and toward the students -- that a focus on testing fails the students. The droning man calls her naive for this stance and she notes that she isn't ignoring the importance of the tests, but just that the students have different needs that aren't being met. The droning man sarcastically asks, "What would you have us do? Meet with every student in the state?!" and Tami is like, "Well, yes! Yes I would!" and the audience goes wild. Well, as wild as audiences go at academic conferences, which means, polite clapping and knowing head-nodding. Special attention should be paid to the Nancy Pelosi lady, who is nodding especially vigorously.
Parole hearing. Billy's hands shake as he holds his notes and stutters about Tim being a good American and how much he's changed. He interrupts himself to clarify that it isn't like Tim isn't a good American anymore, it's just that.....He looks up from his notes and speaks extemporaneously for a moment (let's not ask Billy to define "extemporaneously" any time soon), saying that he has a family who will support him when he gets out. "I've got a son who needs to know who his uncle is." The officers call on Coach Taylor to speak and we all breathe a sigh of relief. A man with a plan! It's Coach Taylor! He stands up and tells them he is a high school football coach and there's no other better position from which to be able to judge a young man's character. Eric tells them that he asked Tim to be an assistant coach because of his character, not his prodigious football skills. Taylor notes that Tim made a mistake, but that mistake is not representative of his character. "He is a good young man. That's how I know him." Tim's face is pained as he listens to Eric talk about him.
The officers begin to wrap up the hearing when Buddy pops up and asks to speak. He's not on the schedule and this is "highly unusual." Tim's face is almost comical here, one part "Oh no" and three parts, "For fuck's sake, Buddy." Buddy convinces the officers to let him speak by reminding one of them that he sold him a car way back when. Buddy just steamrolls over their objections and talks about how long he's known Tim, how many things he's done wrong (uh, okay....?), and how very much he is NOT a bad young man. He dated Buddy's daughter and they took him in like family. "This kid right here has got more heart than almost anyone I know. And I can promise you that when you let him out, he will have a full time job working for me." Tim looks down and smiles a very small smile to himself. Buddy: "It's time for you to let Tim Riggins come home." All the ladies in the house, say "Heeeeyyy!!"
A few minutes later, Coach and Tim sit together with heads bowed talking quietly. Coach mentions "good behavior" and Tim echoes the sentiment in such a way that "good behavior" becomes revealed as the prison of the soul. They pause and then Tim, pain on his face, asks if Coach received his letters. Coach says he did and then apologizes for not coming to visit him more often. Tim: "I'm sorry I let you down," but Coach tells him in no uncertain terms that he did not. An officer comes in, cuffs Tim and leads him out.
At home, Ornette peruses a brochure for Alabama football when Vince comes home. His dad approaches him and asks, with a smile, for him to hear him out. Then launches into how he's got a call in to Alabama and, and, and....Vince snaps, shouting that he's done with college recruiting stuff and he told Coach Taylor the same thing. Ornette tells him to quit focusing so much on Coach Taylor, because "he's got one foot out the door." Vince naively tells his father that Luke asked Coach point blank if he was leaving and he said no. Ornette tries to wake the kid up, saying you think he's going to tell you guys he's leaving? With the playoffs coming up? Ornette tells him that Coach has an offer, he's got it on authority from an assistant coach at LSU who was up for the same job. "Offer's on Taylor." Vince's face gets murky. Not only is he considering the possibility that Coach will leave him, but he's up against the truth that Coach can get offers when he can't. Some seriously Freudian penis envy stuff going on right there. Ornette, sensing Vince's vulnerability, shouts, "I'm your father, I know what's right." But right before he can really go in for the kill, Vince's mother comes out and tells Ornette, "that is enough!" She shouts at him for smothering Vince all week and then yells "He needs a father, O, not an agent!" Ornette, with some difficulty, restrains himself from saying anything else and storms off. Regina comes over and embraces her son, who quietly asks her if she thinks Coach is really leaving. Oh, this kid! With these damn fathers! One distant, the other insistent, neither really giving him what he needs.
Becky asks Billy how the hearing went, probing for details until Billy snaps at her and starts yelling. He doesn't know anything, he said what he had to say and he has no idea what's happening now. Mindy comes out of the bathroom wearing a great dress -- all "business up top, bottomless on the bottom"-- and tells Billy to back off Becky. Billy criticizes what she's wearing, she yells at him, he yells back, she goes over to him, holds his face and tells him that he did the best he could and he calms down. Becky watches them be all weird and adult.
East Dillon Athletics Banquet. Red plaid tablecloths, lots of smiles. Levi introduces the various athletic teams -- who knew there were such things! Girls volleyball! Boys basketball! Cross country! Dude, the cross country kids in high school were intense, am I right? Then he introduces the football team and everyone goes extra wild. Buddy goes over to the Taylors and gives Gracie Bell a little East Dillon T-shirt and then says slowly, "Clear eyes, full hearts.....?" hoping that she'll fill in the blank. But she just sort of furrows her brow and looks adorable until Buddy and Eric both say, in a low tone, "Can't looooose!" Over a ways, Vince and Jess talk. She says she was sorry to hear about Oklahoma Tech, he brushes it aside. She talks some more until he interrupts her to say "Jess, I miss you. I miss you." She scurries off, either unable to deal or getting more and more unable to have a story line in which she is even just tangentially related.
Meanwhile, Luke, Becky and Tinker have more perverted pig talk, which ends with Luke and Becky kissing to mend a potential implication that Luke prefers the pig's company to Becky's.
Buddy takes the podium to honor the football team for making it to the playoffs for the first time in 25 years. He says that none of this could have happened without Coach Taylor. And everyone stands up and cheers as Buddy introduces all the players who want to come up and say something special about Coach. Cut to a variety of boys making jokes ("When I first met Coach I was just a fat kid. I'm still a fat kid, but he made me into a player"), talking sweet (Luke: "Playing for Coach is like a dream." Tinker: "You really have changed my life. I love you for that."), and being just plain descriptive (Hastings: "Coach told me I would like football and he was right.") Vince takes the podium last and keeps it extremely brief, "Coach Taylor, he's the best." Everyone claps, Tami makes appreciative mom faces and Coach stands up to give them all a pantomimed tip of the hat.
Later that night in bed, Eric massages Tami's shoulders as they go over the evening's events. She tells him that the night was such a nice honor. Eric wonders if it was too much on the nose and Tami laughs. She thinks it was obvious what they were doing, but that it was heartfelt and that it probably had the desired effect. "Sure it makes you think twice about leaving Dillon." Eric says that the Shane State offer is mighty tempting. They go back and forth about all the good things: recruitment dollars, oranges, fresh-squeezed orange juice, fresh-squeezed orange juice by the pool. "Oooh, that pool," Tami coos. Eric lowers his head to his wife's shoulder and says "You know what I want more than anything? To bring these kids to State." Tami smiles her "Molder of Men" smile and then gets that ice-cold pragmatism that only wife-moms have: "And once you do that? This offer is something to think about."
Commercials. Luke moves stuff around on the back of his truck when Becky saunters out to him, proud that his mother said hello to her. They sit together on the back of the truck and Becky sighs that it's so pretty here. Luke tells her that he always wanted to get far, far away, but now he's starting to think he should get used to the idea of staying here. Try to imagine it. The camera swings around and shows us the two kids, looking out at a very pretty vista and Becky says she has a good imagination. She says that she's seeing him win the game, making all these plays, scoring touchdowns, she sees it like a movie. Luke looks at her intently and wonders if she could imagine living on a farm. She says "Sure" but neglects to say that she imagines living on TIM RIGGINS' farm. They kiss.
Coach scrambles to get out the door on his way to the game. He finds Vince on his front lawn. Vince tells him that he knows Coach has an offer at Shane State, but he's asking him not to go. Coach, as usual, doesn't let himself get sentimental in front of his players. "You're supposed to be at the fieldhouse." But the great thing about not being sentimental with kids is that it somehow authorizes them to go that way themselves. Vince tells him that he doesn't know where he would be without Coach, either in jail or in a ditch somewhere. And if Coach lets him come back season, he's going to be focused, no mistakes, no drama. Coach: "You know you're late, don't you? Get in the damn car." As they hop in, Coach asks Vince if he knows that he's starting tonight. Vince gets his "hooray!" face on and wonders when Coach decided that. Coach tells Vince that his main problem is that he asks too many damn questions. They both smile and laugh as Coach tears out of the driveway.
Billy scrambles to get out the door in his own way -- by taking one last shot of whiskey (while holding his kid in his arms). The camera ranges around and we see the lawyer getting a champers refill from Mindy. Becky comes in the door and we cut over to Tim Riggins, looking at her from the kitchen. Oh, dear god. You know how I feel about this pair. They stare at each other while Billy blabbers in the background. As he heads out the door, he tells Tim that it's good to have him home, throws him some keys and then asks the lawyer Eddie to keep his hands off his wife. Becky, to Tim, quietly, intently, like an emo girl's LiveJournal come to life: "Welcome home."
Over at East Dillon, lots of fanfare as the kids arrive to load up the bus for their away game. And this marks the third episode in a row without a televised football game. I smell playoff football drama, y'all! Coach gets caught by a reporter and he gives good coach interview: "The word that comes to mind is 'pride'" She asks what he wants to say to his fans tonight (his fans?), and he responds by telling her that you look around and see the strength of the community coming out to support these kids even at an away game, that this community is strong wherever the team goes. And he knows that there's been a lot of speculation about what his plans are, "And I can tell you tonight, I plan on coming home to Dillon. And that's where I plan to stay: in Dillon." Everyone cheers, Tami does her quiescent wife smile as she embraces him and whispers "Well, you're full of surprises, aren't you?" and I will not end this recap by pointing out that I find the way this "decision" got made rather irritating, as if Tami Taylor waits around for her husband to make choices so that she can just accept them. I will not end that way! COACH TAYLOR! WHAT A GUY!!! TAMI TAYLOR!!! LADY TIME!!! There, that's better.
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