So I've been ignoring it for as long as I can but, you guys, this show is almost over. Like forever. And you might think that an episode this good would soothe the pain, but really it just makes it all worse. I'm feeling very morose.
East Dillon steamrolls its way through the State quarterfinals into the semifinals and on to the State championship, all under the pressure of drinking and drugging parents (Ornette), Cain and Abel brotherly betrayal and angst (Billy and Tim), women stirring the pot of various patriarchies (Tami and Jess), and a budget cut that threatens the very existence of the East Dillon team.
Ornette goes back to dealing drugs and starts drinking hard, disregarding Regina's need to keep a sober house. He gets handsy with her, she changes the lock, and when he literally tries to break in, she calls the cops and it looks like Ornette is Mr. Recidivist. But when, at a surprise celebration Coach has arranged for the winning team, we see Vince hug his mother, there is no mistaking the make-up of that family, and that Ornette really never was a part of it.
Meanwhile, the Riggins makeshift family is having a damn hard time putting the pieces back together. Tim, as Mindy notes, "has changed" and he cannot forgive Billy, no matter how lovably macho-ish his older brother acts. Displacing his anger onto the fact that Billy allowed Mindy to waitress at a strip club, the two brothers get into an intense, physically and emotionally, fight outside The Landing Strip. Tim leaves The Playgirl Ranch and heads back to the Airstream trailer in the backyard of Becky's mom's house. Which is this like totally crazy overdetermined space for me, because it's where Tim had his last weekend of perfection with Lyla (TYLA EVA!!!!111!!!) but it also serves to remind us that he totally slept with Becky's mom! And that the narrative is driving Becky and Tim back together. Which I hate even WITHOUT the Game of Thrones/Gossip Girl incest connection.
And to top all of THAT off, we have an incredibly sophisticated narrative take on how gender works in the world, with Jess pestering Coach to help her learn how to become a high school football coach ("14,000 high school coaches in the country and one of them is female. You like those odds?" Coach asks his protégé) and Coach responding pitch perfectly: no dreamy gender-doesn't-matter storyline here, but ultimately a fine willingness to help a young person try to realize a goal. And Tami -- at first playing it down lady-style with a demure "oh, it'll be a hoot!" -- gets an interview at a good liberal arts college in Philadelphia for Assistant Dean of Admissions. Coach is prickly at the timing of this all (during the semi-finals) and we are left wondering how he'll react when he finds out she got an even better offer than she could have dreamed. In the end, we have these two scenes of both Tami and Eric doing what they are good at -- Eric coaching a rowdy crop of kids, Tami talking student potential -- and the knowledge that, as in life, it is going to be difficult for them to figure out a way to both keep doing work they love, while also keeping their family world intact. Life! It's really hard! This show helps us know about that!!
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Riding around town, big horizons, hay bales, rundown strip malls, the outside of the Playgirl Ranch festooned with "Welcome Home Tim" handmade posters. The labor going into all of the posters being made in Dillon over the past few episodes should surely be entered into our GDP figures. Inside the Playgirl Ranch, Luke eats a cookie kind of aggressively. Poor boy. What else do you expect him to do when faced with the reality that his romantic rival is Tim Riggins? Tim drinks beer over by the sliding glass door when Becky approaches him and tells him that he looks lonely. Tim asks her what her boyfriend thinks about her working at The Landing Strip. She says he's fine with it, and tells him that it's good money. He tells her that there's better money in stripping, but she quickly says "I don't do that." Tim mutters, "Gotta do what you gotta do," in that special, judgey way of men who enjoy strip clubs but cannot deal with the women in their life having anything to do with one. Billy calls Tim over to blow out the candles on his welcome home cake, one of those primary-color-frosting Costco disasters.
Head over to the football field where East Dillon has just won the area playoffs a sweet 38-6. Major locker room celebrations, including some seriously nonchalant hair on Coach Taylor's head. He tells the kids that, at this point, State is theirs to lose, they are that good. They've got some problems, but -- and here Kyle Chandler gets real folksy, just like I like it -- "That was one hell of a performance out there, fellas." Coach calls the hobbled Buddy, Jr up to the whiteboard to change the number of games left until State. They all shout out the count, only 3 more games.
Levi walks purposefully into a meeting with East Dillon faculty and basically informs them that some of them won't have a job semester. He's been in education for 27 years and he's never seen it like this before, there's no money. Crazy educators, always complaining about their gleaming coffers of gold. He asks department heads to go through their budgets and find ways to trim. Then he tells them to pray. As if God cares what teachers need; he's too busy changing Wikipedia pages to reflect whatever weird, inaccurate thing Bachmann/Palin just said. Cut over to Tami's office, where Laurel is fretting while Tami tries to calm her down. Tami's phone rings and she gestures Laurel out of her office. We hear her say "Oh! The Assistant Dean? Oh, well, yeah, I'm pretty open." Looks like Tami's feisty performance at the conference she went to last episode is paying off in job interviews! Later that evening, she's at home with Gracie and Coach talking about the "small school, kind of like the Ivies but not one of the Ivies up in the Northeast there...well Philadelphia, really." Coach mutters a bit in response while Tami keeps chatting on. They'll fly her up, and it sounds kind of fun, and it's a good college, and it's very flattering, and "Well, it might just be a hoot!" Coach is like, "Did you just say 'a hoot'" like probably teasing her about the old-fashioned usage, but all I heard in that phrase of Tami's is a woman trying to downplay her own potential. A noise outside the door has gotten progressively louder, sounding like boys shouting. Tami sighs and asks Coach to tell them they're just about to eat. He tells her to come to the door with him and she complains that she's got tomatoes all over her hands and he asks if she needs to do her hair all up, too. "Come on, honey!" The three of them open the front door to find the football team on their front lawn, running in place chanting "State! State! State!" The boys are all grins and sweat and Coach is all put-on curmudgeon, "What are y'all doin' in my yard?!" Luke shouts that they're getting stronger for him and Coach tells them to get out of his yard. Vince calls out for them all to break it down for Miz Taylor and they get into formation, waiting for Coach to start the play, at which point they all take off running down the street. The Taylors smile. And you marvel at how many different forms family can take.
Credits. Vince comes home to his parents arguing. Ornette is bitching about Regina telling him he can't have beer in the house. Ornette has his bad-man face on, no sympathy in there for miles, as he shouts about working for 9 hours in a slaughterhouse and just wanting to come home to a cold beer and a hot shower. Vince intervenes and explains once again that Regina can't have beer in the house with her addiction issues. Ornette complains that the six-pack isn't drugs, it's just beer. But Vince shows him the door, sending his father out to a chair on the balcony for his beer.
A patron at Buddy's asks Tim to turn the volume up on the game playing on the television. He does so just in time to see Smash Williams run a ball into the end zone. Buddy exposits a bit, "Smash an Aggie, can you believe it?" Tim is SUPER subdued, all quiet voice and "Mister" Garrity. Tim Riggins may be home, but he's not At Home.
The assistant coaches bicker as they go over the football budget. Coach comes out and asks what they're doing, reminds them that they need to be working on the game plan for week. Jess taps Coach on the shoulder and, all smiles, tells him she's got something he'll love. She's drafted a scouting report on a team they might play in the quarterfinals, as well as a video of them playing. Coach looks at her sternly and tells her he did not ask for that. Her smile disappears. He reminds her that it is illegal to tape; she clarifies that she's not a coach so it isn't illegal. Coach: "Yeah, you are NOT a coach, you are an equipment manager." She tells him that she wants to make the transition into being a football coach. And finally! Jess has a plot of her own! She tells Coach she wants to shadow him, but he just wordlessly goes back to his office while Coach Crowley tells her, "Jess, you'll NEVER be a football coach." Jess: "Why? Cuz I'm a girl?" She heads back into Coach's office, where he sits having listened to that exchange. She shrugs and quietly says he can look at the report if he wants to.
Luke is at the crucial three-buttons-undone stage on Becky's blouse when Tim comes in the front door of The Playgirl Ranch. Becky does her blouse up a bit, offers Tim some cookies (wink wink) which he refuses, in favor of heading back into his room, snarking at them to use protection. She follows him with her eyes, and Luke follows her eyes watching Tim. Luke says he has to leave, Becky obviously doesn't really care.
Out on the football field again, we catch the very end of another win -- this time the regional playoffs. Cut over to Buddy's bar, where he gets red-faced shouting about heading on to the quarter finals. Not having such a great time are Coach, Tami and Levi, who sit at the bar talking numbers. Coach talks about the revenue football brings in and Levi notes that it isn't enough revenue to offset the cost of the program. Football is a big target, he says, when the board meets week. Now, is this realistic? I highly doubt it. Given the education I have received over the course of a few decades in the effed up ways in which our country works, it's never the football program that is in danger. But, as with most things, this show has created so much goodwill by being so thoroughly REAL in so many ways that I can let this pass as a feasible threat. Coach asks Levi if he's got his back and Levi assures him he does. Meanwhile, the kids celebrate, not realizing that their dreams and passions are being held together by only the thinnest thread of social convention and advocacy by adults who aren't paid enough to do it.
Commercials. Morning at the Taylor's. Coach is running his mouth the way he only does at home. He's worrying about what Levi is asking him to do, cutting the budget down to bare bones. He's worrying about his assistants, all on stipends, and feeling whiplash from Levi throwing him banquets one week and taking away his budget another. Tami cuts him off and tells him that she had another conversation with Dana, the woman asking her to come up to Philly to interview. "And I think I'd really like to do it." Coach stops scrambling his eggs (not a euphemism) as he realizes that she's really serious. Tami tells him that the only thing about the interview is that it is scheduled for two Fridays from now -- the night of the semi-finals, Coach fills in. She knows its bad timing, but it's the only time they've offered and she thinks this is a really exciting opportunity after all these years in high school. Grace calls for her mother and Coach is left mulling and scrambling. So actually, maybe that is a euphemism.
Football practice in the rain, Coach has a mouth full of sunflower seeds and a heart full of exasperation as he yells at his boys to get it together. Jess approaches him with a newspaper clipping: Natalie Watson, first female high school football coach. He glances down and then says "You know what you are? You're a pest" and walks off. Jess smiles to herself because she knows she's getting to him and she doesn't want some sort of kid glove lady treatment. He's talking to her the way he just talked to Hastings on the field -- like she is a larval human that's lucky to even get the scant attention from him that she does. I.e, he talks to her as an adult who does not worship callow youth. (This is a good thing).
Billy blabs about the budget cuts to Tim, who can barely stand to listen to him, despite a few good lines by Billy about Stan Traub's weird repeating of everything everyone says. Tim cuts him off with a cool "I get it" and they sit in silence until Billy can't stand it any longer. He tells Tim that Coach offered to let him ride on the bus to the game, but Tim says he has to work. But Buddy will let you off for the night, Billy notes. So Tim clarifies, he doesn't want to go to the game. What was working for him before -- making a life in Dillon, TX, living amidst the ruts he wore down when he was in high school -- is not working for him now that he's out of jail. Billy probably doesn't really get this about his brother, yet, so he chuckles and tells him to come on outside to look at something. He's heard the team out on the front lawn. They head out and Billy gives the kids some business, then asks them to do a war chant with him. They all get into their crouches and shout together, and Tim, despite himself, stands back and smiles a small smile.
The war chant takes us across the state to the walkway from locker room to field, where the kids chant together and then listen to Coach tell them that 5,000 people are out there ready to take their dream away from them. They shout that they will not let their dream be taken away and then Coach leads them in prayer, asking God to allow the kids to achieve their goals with the gifts with which God has blessed them. They shout "Amen!" (and obviously the school/team prayer thing is slightly problematic, but I kind of love a sportsmanly shouted "Amen!' as it kind of condenses exactly what people are doing when they pray anyhow -- imagining themselves into a team that they think really deserves to win) and then walk out onto the field to boos and popcorn being thrown on them.
Cut to the barbecue joint where Vince recaps the Lions' victory for his mother. And if this episode doesn't exhibit exactly how much this show uses football as a narrative structure (the arcs of struggle and reward, joy and sorrow), rather than just a simple plot point, then I don't know what would. Regina laps up Vince's excitement and promises him that she's going to go to the rest of the playoff games. Interrupting this lovely, warm evening of success and tasty meats is Ornette who drunkenly lurches up to them. Vince asks if he's been drinking, but Ornette just thrusts some leather jackets at them. When Regina points out that he doesn't make enough money to buy the jackets, he gets handsy with her. Vince jumps up to stop his father from escalating the lady-toss routine and Jess's aunt comes out to tell Ornette he's got to leave or she'll call the police. During the scuffle, a bunch of tiny Ziploc bags fall onto the ground in front of everyone. Ornette is dealing again. "This is just grown man stuff now" he tells his son. Vince chucks the jackets at his father, who then stalks off and leaves them be. Regina sits back down on the picnic bench, but soon breaks down into sobs. And this episode is kind of full of slow, quiet scenes like this, allowing emotion to gather and bloom rather than cutting away quickly. Nobody says much. Vince makes comforting noises toward his mother, his mother cries in his arms as he slowly helps her back up and they walk off together.
Commercials. Some Slammin' Sammy exposition that only four teams are left in competition for the State Championship as we watch the boys chant and cheer in their locker room, passing a marker around until it reaches the front of the room, where the whiteboard is corrected to show 2 more games.
Cut to Coach driving Tami to the airport. Driving and bitching, that is. He's annoyed she's going away when he needs her the most. She can't believe he's going to bring that up right now, and he counters that she's the one that "Put out that feeling, that feeling that 'Eric, you need to be quiet.'" Tami's mouth opens in disbelief and she tells her husband that he has lost his mind. She reminds him that she's been very straightforward with him, how sorry she is about missing the game, but this is really important and she just could use some support. Coach petulantly points out that he's driving her to the airport and she boomerangs back with "Like I've done for you a million times." Coach goes quiet for a minute and asks if she got the window seat. She smiles and tells him not to change the subject and Coach lets out one last burp of querulousness, "Well, you're kicking my ass! Who's gonna cook dinner for me?" This really breaks it open for her and Tami smiles and jokes "Ooooh, poor baby!" Marriage lesson #3,245,410 of this show: You can act like babies to one another, but you have to make sure to let your partner know that you KNOW you are acting badly.
In the locker room, Coach squeezes his eyes before approaching Jess (backed by slightly mischievous banjos) and asks her "14,000 high school football coaches in this country and one female. You like those odds?" Jess admits that the odds stink and Coach, in a conspiratorial whisper, tells her that football is a man's game. Men play, fierce men, tough men, angry men. She looks him square and says she's not asking to play and Coach quietly tells her that shadows are silent, they don't talk back, you barely know a shadow is there. Jess can't believe what she's hearing when Coach says "Alright, welcome aboard." He heads in to his office for a meeting with the assistants, but Jess stays fixed to her spot until he calls her in. Oh, right! And maybe this is an example of a man -- Eric -- made better by women -- Tami, Julie, Grace -- but that would be to say that men are bad and need taming/educating, so maybe it's better to say that this is just an example of a good man, the new baseline measurement.
Over at The Landing Strip, Becky is waiting tables while Tim sits with Billy and judges him. He points out that Billy's pregnant wife is working the room, his son is in the back getting bottle-fed by a bunch of strippers, "and you're on your seventh beer." Billy, winning my heart forevermore: "You're not gonna hear me complain!" I mean, seriously, Tim. What kind of classes did you take in prison? Humorlessness 101? Tim asks why Billy let Becky start working there and Billy plays dumb about when she even started, but then pointing out that the money she earns goes to her rent, which goes toward helping pay for the land Tim bought before he landed in jail. Meanwhile, Tim's watching one of Becky's customers put some bills into her panties. Tim gets up and goes over there, inserting himself into the situation, telling the customer that he's not allowed to touch a waitress. Becky tries to tell him that this is her best customer, but Tim hauls off on him and then quickly gets restrained by the bouncers. As they carry him out, Tim flails and screams "She's seventeen! A high school junior!!!" And Iron and Wine starts playing in the background, so you know we are in for a poignant fistfight outside.
And, yes, outside Tim keeps flailing around. (And maybe my morals are shot or my perspective warped, because I guess maybe working in a strip club when you are seventeen isn't, like, ideal, but Judgey Tim is not my favorite AT ALL.) Billy comes out and follows Tim to his truck, shoving him around a bit. He shouts -- and both of them are SUPER sweaty and spit-faced in this scene -- that if Tim has a problem with him, he can take it out on him not on "that little girl." These two are real confused about exactly what Becky is - a capable, rent-paying, scantily-clad adult or a little girl -- and I suppose that's pretty much the party line on teenage girls in America. Tim shoves Billy back and shouts that the idea was that Tim goes to jail and Billy fixes his life. Billy shouts that he DID fix his life and, well, he pretty much did, though obviously not to Tim's liking. Tim hauls off and totally knocks Billy down with a major right cross. Billy crawls along the strip club parking lot, looking back into Tim's eyes as he sits in the truck. Billy asks, through tears and spit, how long Tim is going to hold it over him and Tim delivers the blow: "The rest of my life if I feel like it," and then peels off. Billy weaves through the parking lot, standing and then falling to his knees, shouting "I'm sorry!" after Tim over and over.
Ornette tries to get in the door to the apartment, but his key won't work. He shouts through the door and inside we see Vince and Regina sitting in wait. Regina's changed the locks. Ornette is clearly drunk or high or whatever and he starts pounding on the door and shouting. Vince tells him that he's not allowed in like this, he has to get himself right. With two decisive and violent strikes, Ornette starts busting the door in. Regina gets on the phone with the police, while Vince holds the door closed from the inside, shouting at his father that he's "blowing it" and need to get out of there. More shouting and banging and Vince basically having to deal with a lot more shit than he should, until Ornette finally drifts off and everyone cries.
Outside The Playgirl Ranch, Becky stands to the driver's side of Tim's truck, wearing tight pink capri sweatpants. I don't know why, but that detail really gets me. He apologizes for getting her fired and she tells him that she needed the job and plus he humiliated her and also "you don't even talk to me anymore!" Again, the details there -- teenaged girl going from serious and standing up for herself to totally needy in like 0.5 seconds -- is just perfection. Luke drives up in HIS truck, sees Becky talking with Tim and drives on. Oh, the trucks. The competition. The one girl. The two boys. Who wants who. It's all a glorious mess, all mediated through those two trucks, idling side by side.
The phone rings late and Coach rouses himself from the couch to get it. It's Levi, just out of a budget meeting, needing to deliver some news: There's only going to be one football program in Dillon year. West Dillon and East Dillon are going to share a team. Coach's hair rubs the sleep out of his eyes and is like "Whaaa?!" Coach asks which program they're planning on cutting and Levi tells him that that's week's fight. Coach hangs up the phone, jaw slack.
The light of day, the East Dillon team emerges from the locker room in jackets and ties, headed for the bus. Coach follows them, looking preoccupied. He gets stopped by some reporters on his way to the bus and talks frankly for once. When asked about the rumor of the football teams merging, Coach notes that one of these teams is going to State and will win and he can't imagine anyone cutting a State Champion program. Which is true, but definitely more on-the-nose than Coach usually puts it.
Becky stops Luke on the way to the bus and tries to apologize, but he just walks on by without giving her the time of day. Vince hugs his mother, who tells him that she's not going to go to the game. She asks if it's okay, she has a meeting she needs to get to. "I need to take a meeting." Vince is disappointed, but tells her that her AA meeting is more important. The boys load on the bus amidst all the cheers and commotion of their supporters and head off to the semi-finals. And the way the camera takes some time to linger on all the people in the crowd, each with their own drama, and how the camera lingers on the bus going, all kinds of expectations loaded up inside, makes me feel like this show is ending and IT CERTAINLY IS NOT, IS IT?
Commercials. In Philadelphia, Braemore College. Dana gives Tami a rundown on who will be interviewing her. She tells her that the committee is mostly small and pleasant, but that the Director of Admissions is "humorless," so Tami needs to focus her positive energy in his direction. Ladies! Talkin' business! Wearing suits and heels! Ladies! Ahem. They head into the interview. Cut to Tami talking her talk about the inaccuracy of standardized test scores. Mr. Humorless wonders if she thinks they should just ignore those scores; Tami assures him not, just that they be used more minimally and she has noticed that Braemore has rigid cut-off lines when it comes to those scores. He points out that they get 18,000 applicants for 900 spots and Dana jumps in, trying to run interference for Tami. But Tami doesn't need interference! She speaks her mind! Like a lady in a suit talkin' business! She re-interrupts Dana and notes that they must have flown her all the way from Dillon, TX because they thought she knew something about high school students, and she just sees a chasm opening where they are not getting the best students because of the test score cutoffs. Tami keeps talking, even over Mr. Humorless's "humana humana humana" muttering, and she mentions something about the college being in competition with "the Ivies," which REALLY rubs him the wrong way, so much so that she says she "retracts" that statement. They are just missing great students, she wants to reiterate. And that's when Mr. Humorless pulls out the big guns. He asks her to explain exactly why she went from guidance counselor to principal to guidance counselor again. And Tami goes speechless for a moment. Because of the culture wars? One crazy lady's anti-abortion platform? What to say?
Tim chugs a beer and zips up his duffel. Mindy begs him not to go. He says there are too many people in the house. Mindy tells Tim how guilty Billy feels, how he sits up at night in bed and cries and she can't help him. Mindy says she is so thankful for what Tim did for them, that he gave Stevie a father and he tells her that he is glad that they are a family. He pauses at the door and Mindy tells him that he's different now and Tim looks back at her before heading out to say, "Yeah. I am." And thus shuts the door on my ability to watch other television shows in which people NEVER change, no matter how many vampires attack them or how many times they go to fancy charity events at the NYPL.
At the semi-finals game, the Lions are down 13-9 with only two minutes to go. Coach's hair is like NOT GOING OUT LIKE THIS NO WAY. He gives Vince a bunch of football play gibberish and Vince heads out onto the field. The ball is snapped, Vince tosses it to Hastings for a completion, but the clock is still running, so they get another play going, and make up a little more ground, but the clock is still running, so there's another play and Vince tosses a beauty, and then another play, and the clock is still running and they are still just moving the sticks. Vince gets the ball to Hastings, who catches it, toes just barely staying in bound, and then one last huddle where Vince tells his jittery guys to calm down. They don't have much time, but they do have time. And the play starts to unfold and it's unfolding slowly, which makes a viewer wonder, of course they'll win, it's the end of the show. But maybe they won't win, because this show doesn't pull punches (c.f., Tim Riggins scene just above and how deep of a gut punch it is to realize that a kid doesn't come out the same after he's been sent to jail). Vince takes the snap and tries to jump over the big mess of players jammed in the center, but falls backward and Coach looks concerned, but Vince pops back and tries another route (the way Vince does in his life), around the side, and TOUCHDOWN! The Lions are headed to State!!!
Commercials. Tim returns to the Airstream Trailer of Love. The one in the backyard of Becky's mother's house. The mother he had sex with (just sayin', Becky). Also the trailer in which he spent that one last idyllic weekend with Lyla, which I will link right here, because DAMN do I love some Lyla Garrity. He cracks open a beer and sits on the bed, turns on the radio to hear nothing but static. Tim Riggins. Totally alone. Um, Tim? You can call me if you want.
Tami and Dana talk over the interview at dinner. Tami demurs Dana's praise, saying she's sure that Mr. Humorless was not impressed, when one of the men from the interview shows up, giving his apologies for being late. I'm unclear who exactly this guy is, but it seems like he's the president maybe? They small talk a bit, until the man cuts to the chase, "We're not offering you Assistant Dean of Admissions." Tami, always quick, starts responding immediately, she understands, it's not something she expected, it was just such a great opportunity to come up there, blah blah blah. But he cuts her off: "Because we're offering you Dean of Admissions." Tami is rendered speechless once more, which makes me worried about her move to the Northeast! Don't lose your honeyed tongue, Tami Taylor! She expresses surprise and asks about Mr. Humorless. "I want people like you at this college" he tells her. Tami continues to be completely speechless. She tells them that she doesn't know what to say, she's just a counselor at a small school in Texas. So the guy says it for her: "Say, 'I know this is a tremendous opportunity, but I need to go home and talk to my husband.'" She nods and thanks him as he blows back out of the restaurant, her eyes totally wide in disbelief.
Back in Texas, Coach stands at the front of a bus full of rollicking kids and erases the numbers on the whiteboard (which he's brought on the bus....?) and then just writes State, circles it and leads the kids in a chant of "State!" We're going to "STATE!" and they all go nuts. Luke stands up and points out that they just missed the turn to the fieldhouse and Coach tells them that they aren't going to the fieldhouse. The bus pulls up slowly to the East Dillon football field, where crowds of family and fans are gathered cheering the boys on. The smiles on these kids when they see this make me want to offer Coach Taylor the position of Dean of Life. The kids file off the bus into the loving embrace of their community and we follow Vince, in particular, as he searches the crowd for his mother, who he eventually finds. She jumps in his arms and there they are, their own family. Coach swims through the crowd, this community that he has nurtured, this community that doesn't remember that they didn't even exist before this man came along and built something out of nothing. And so we end with Coach Taylor and Tami, both doing what they do best, but most likely only briefly until the world intervenes and tells them "No," there are budgets to be met, and all kinds of reasons why doing what you do best is not always what you are allowed to do.
It's Tubey Time! Make sure that your favorite shows, actors, reality stars and characters get the recognition they deserve by voting in our annual Tubey awards. It's where fans have total control over what rates as the best and worst of the past year in a variety of categories. Vote now!