Recap: Friday Night Lights: Under The Influence

I just stumbled across an awesome intenet ad campaign for KFC. They’re promoting a contest titled “What’s In The Box?”, which is just hilarious because it makes me think of the movie Seven. And it works both ways – either the movie ends with Brad Pitt begging to see what’s in the box and is relieved to see that it’s just a few wings and a biscuit, or a child orders a delicious meal from her favorite chicken restaurant only to find a severed head. Ah, good times. Also, Friday Night Lights was awesome this week.

We begin at the game that, if won, will take our beloved Dillon Panthers to the State Semi-finals. It’s the last few minutes of the game and they’re up by 4. The other team has the ball and if they complete this pass, they’ll get a touchdown and win the game. Aaaand they choke and our boys win! Anyone surprised? The announcer screams “Someone jump start my heart because I think I just died! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” I join in until my neighbors tell me to knock it off.Things are not as joyous over at the Garrity household. The wifey is really giving it to Buddy, screaming that he has ruined the family and that there is nothing he can do to fix this. Lyla notices her little brother and sister listening from the top of the stairs, something that kids universally do, and ushers them into the safety of her room. They’re very upset and crying, so she reassures them that nothing is going to happen to mom and dad and that they have to be strong. Then she puts in a dvd to drown out the fighting, which has culminated in Buddy getting kicked out of the house. Now, I am NOT the biggest Lyla fan, in fact I’ve pretty much always hated her up to this point, but dammit she is being a very good sister and nothing melts my cold, dead heart like love for your siblings. Touché, Ms. Garrity.

Contrast this misery with Jason having a fantastic time with Herc and his other quad rugby buddies in Austin. They’re off to a bar, yet again, when Jason gets a phone call from Lyla. Herc insists that he ignore the call, because if you’re looking for romantic advice you should always take it from Gimpy McDouchebag, but Jason does the right thing and answers it. She can hear Herc yelling “PARTY!! WOOOO!!” in the background. I’m pretty sure those are the only two words that Herc knows. When he lost the use of his legs he must have also lost the capacity for normal human speech and volume control. He keeps nagging Jason to hang up, and Lyla, understandably annoyed and upset and crying a little, tells him to give her a call back later. Little advice, Jason: don’t call within 50, no, 500 feet of Herc. He’s going to destroy this relationship faster than even you can.

There’s a bitchin’ and very loud party going on over at the Riggins’! I’m surprised Herc isn’t there. Some random mouthbreather informs Tim that there’s a woman at the door, and she looks pissed. Tim, intrigued and perhaps a little horny, opens the door. And what do you know, it’s Tina Fey! Well, not really, but she’s got the glasses and everything. She explains that she has just moved in next door, and that the music and party are way too loud and would they please turn it down a little? Tim agrees and turns back into the house, where both he and his brother turn around to look at her walking away. I smell a suburban three-way!

“Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow!”

The Taylors are on the ride home from the game when Tami notices something wrong with their house: “Honey, what is that thing on our front porch? It’s moving.” That thing happens to be Buddy Garrity, who is now homeless and looking for a place to crash. The Taylors realize this before they get out of the car and are completely horrified. Tami is adorable, pleading for her husband to “make him go away” but then is all smiles with “HI BUDDY!!!” as she exits the car. Coach subtley asks what he’s doing there, and Buddy confesses that Pam locked him out. “You know how women are about these types of things.” Tami does an internal eye roll. He asks if he can sleep on their couch for the next couple of nights, and both Coach and Tami look as if he just asked permission to kill their daughter in her sleep. It’s hilarious.

“There is no God…”

Tyra’s trainwreck of a mother is lying around watching romantic movies. Tyra comes in and says that she hopes she’s not watching to remind her of Buddy, as that will force her to “take your life, and then my own.” Tyra is awesome. She tries to get her to eat, but she just wants to sleep. Poor Tyra. In a world where amazing moms like Tami exist, she really got a raw deal. Wonder if she’ll come to this conclusion, say, by the end of this episode?

Smash, in bed, is woken up by a rather horny Waverly, who climbs on top of him and demands that they go somewhere. WTF? Smash protests but after another sexy kiss he gives in. Ah, the mind of a teenage boy. Waverley suggests a moonlight swim. What the hell happened to her? Is she high? Cut to the two of them naked and jumping into a pool. Smash says he’s never seen her like this before. Um, maybe you should investigate this a little further, Smash. You of all people should know about mood-altering substances. They splash around and kiss and, well, you can imagine the rest. I sure am!

Lyla tries calling Jason again but only gets his lame voicemail: “Hey y’all, this is Street. Leave a message.” Ugh. Losing cool points, Jason. Lyla, in a veritable orgasm of bad planning, gets out of bed and starts packing for a surprise trip to Austin. Come on Lyla, I just started liking you for your commitment to family and now you’re up and leaving your little bro and sis at the drop of a hat? It’s almost like you want me to hate you.

After a rather depressing montage of driving through Dillon shots, we arrive at the Taylor household. I’m rubbing my hands enthusiastically, waiting for the hijinks to begin. Julie, bleary-eyed from sleep, shuffles to the bathroom and opens the door to find…Buddy Garrity standing there in nothing but a towel! My eyes! MY EYES!! Julie recoils at the sight and runs away, scarred for life.

The stuff of nightmares

She’s in her parents’ bedroom, doing that cute little “nononono” thing she always does, demanding that he be removed from the premesis immediately. They all start yelling at each other, with no clear winners in sight. Coach extracts himself from the situation, backing out of the room and wiggling his fingers while snarking “you women are very dramatic, you’re very dramatic”. That’s it. Commence the Plan To Kidnap Kyle Chandler. Who’s with me?

Tim Riggins is working underneath a car when a small blonde boy dives down to the ground and asks, “What are you doing, Tim Riggins?” Glad I’m not the only one who prefers to call him by his full name. The kid introduces himself as Bo Miller, the new next door neighbor and second coming of Macauley Culkin, then yammers on about how awesome Tim is. You’re barking up the wrong tree, kid. Tim tells little Bo to shut up and go home because he has a massive hangover. Hmm. I don’t always love you Tim, but your rudeness and general hatred towards children is appealing to me. We’ll have to discuss this further.

Montage of quad rugby tryouts. Aw, Jason’s so happy. Gotta love that smile of his. As he and the team leave the gym he notices Lyla lingering outside the building. He goes over to her and says hi and that he’s surprised to see her. He fails to notice that she has been crying. Come on Jason, that’s a simple Boyfriend 101 skill. Work on it. He corrects himself and says that he’s HAPPY to see her as well, but she starts crying and tells him she thinks her parents are going to split up. You know what would make this better? A naked moonlight swim.

Bo prances around with a football for Tim, proclaiming that he too will be a Panther one day. Tim’s all like good luck with that. Hehe. Tim is able to suppress the vomit long enough to teach the kid to throw a spiral, which he pulls off decently for a half-pint. Eh, I still don’t really like him. He’s a little too shrill, and not in the good Tami way.

Go. Away.

Jason and Lyla are talking in his room. She doesn’t think her mom will get over it, and believes that maybe she shouldn’t. Which is ironic because if Jason had thought that way, they never would have gotten back together. As if to remind us of this, Jason says “there’s no weakness in forgiveness,” which is what Tami told him when he was unsure about forgiving Lyla. Oh, the tangled webs these crazy kids weave! Lyla says that he seems really happy, and he admits that he is, the happiest he’s been since the accident. Um, you also proposed to the woman you love. Remember that? Idiot. He realizes his error and says that he wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for her. Not sure if that is true, but whatever. He strokes her face and she notices the tattoo on his wrist. She has a mini-freakout and calls him “permanently messed up”, which he counters with a playful “I was pretty messed up before.” Ah, spinal cord injury humor. It’s the best. She’s just surprised that he’d do something that’s so not him. But it is now, he smirks.

“Our ratings are HOW low?!”

Coach returns home to find Buddy on his couch watching game tapes. Tami’s making pork chops (“Yahoo!” says Buddy), but Coach pulls her out of the kitchen and onto the front porch for a Taylor Family Chat. Tami sputters forth with all of the horrors of living with Buddy Garrity, but Coach has a more important matter. The athletic director from TMU wants he and Tami to come out for dinner tonight, to discuss “the future”. And we’re not talking flying cars here, people, we’re talking a coaching position with a college football team. Tami is ecstatic and they hug.

Bo the Brat’s mother finds him over in Tim’s front yard and tries to drag him back to the house, but Bo insists he has to stay and learn more football, as he has now “doubled my skill level in one afternoon.” Which I guess brings his skill level up to: 1.5. Tim comes out of the house with a beer and greets the child’s mother. As she pulls Bo away he begs her to let Tim come over for dinner. Tim says if it’s okay with mom, sure, so she relents and pulls Bo away, scolding for wandering out of the house and playing with alcoholic teenagers.

Julie, horrified as always, is begging her mother not to be left alone in the house with Buddy Garrity. “Can you even comprehend the depths of awkwardness?” she cries. Tami tells her it’s good for her father’s career and to stop whining. Julie points out that she won’t let her hang out with Tyra, but she will let her hang out with “a known adulterer” alone in her own house. Hmm, she may have you there. Tami bangs on the bathroom door and Coach emerges, saying “I heard everything your mother said, you listen to her, she’s always right.” Coach really is a fictional character, no man would ever say this. It’s science.

Smash arrives at Waverly’s house to pick her up for a night of bow-chicka-bow-wow, but is greeted instead by her father. Ruh-roh. Smash says that he only has the best of intentions with his daughter, but Rev. Papa waves that talk off. That was easy. He actually wants to ask Smash if he’s noticed anything weird about Waverly lately. Smash says no (LIES), so her father asks him to be on the lookout for any strange behavior from her, and to let him know. What, like kidnapping him in the middle of the night for a skinny-dipping party? No, that’s just a normal Tuesday for Waverly.

Over at Quad Party Central (do these guys do anything else?) Jason and Lyla are hanging out over in the Corner of Lameness, when who should appear but Suzie the Tattooing Harlot, who checks out his ink and tells him he’s a fast healer. Lyla immediately bares her teeth in the presence of another female, so Suzie introduces herself and tells her that she did the tattoo. Oh. Well, Lyla can do one better. “I’m Lyla, his fiancée.” WAHP WAHP. Jason makes a little “oops” face. It’s cute.

Buddy is in the living room, watching television. Julie is literally doing that overexaggerated sneaking around walk towards the refrigerator, but he hears her anyway and attempts to engage in polite conversation, even inviting her to sit with him for dinner. She says she doesn’t eat dead pig. But live pig, bring it on! Buddy asks if she knows where her parents went, so Julie says dinner but denies that they went with anyone. Then she runs up to her room to do homework, “with the doors locked”. Can anyone else see Buddy axing his way through the door, á la The Shining?

Tim is having dinner at Bo’s house. Bo is rambling on about how great it is that his mother needed a fresh start and had to move after her dumb boyfriend did something or other. She cuts him off and tells him to eat. I’d shoot myself if this were my kid. Or I’d shoot him. Just kidding, I love chidren. Or something. Tim is quite amused by all this, and he and the MILF share a sexy Look.

Lyla is slowly but surely getting hammered over at the Quad Party. Jason asks the other guys, for the eleventy billionth time, if he has a shot at starting. Herc, always there with the dose of reality, says he’ll make the B line, maybe, if he even makes the team. Lyla pipes up and says that he will, since he’s an ex-quarterback. Herc shoots this down immediately, and mocks her, which gains laughter from the crowd and Suzie, which Lyla notes with evil eyes. Herc explains it real slow to her: football is not quad rugby. Lyla, the little snot, looks right back and says with purpose, “You’re right. No, it’s not, is it.” Herc catches on and is almost about to actually claw her head off I think, but Suzie jumps in and reinterprets Lyla’s comment in a clear attempt to stop a Quad War. Lyla says, “Thanks a lot sweetie, but I can take care of myself.” Uh oh. “Why don’t you go tattoo someone else’s fiance?” I like Lyla when she’s drunk!

Smash, Waverly and their buddies are over at a diner, talking about poetry. No, really. Waverly points out that they haven’t studied anything at school written by poets of color. She lists some of her favorites, then starts reciting a poem by Robert Hayden. She gets more and more into it, kind of off in her own little world, and Smash looks pretty terrified. She’s totally high. She crescendos into a yell and stands up, still going. Smash tries to pull her down, but she finishes and starts making out with him right there in front of everyone. One guy looks especially pissed. After she’s done, everyone starts laughing and joking around but Smash is clearly creeped out.

“I skipped Idol for THIS?”

So by “homework”, Julie actually meant “party at Tyra’s house”. She’s actually a little nervous, not wanting to piss off her parents any more than she does EVERY SINGLE WEEK. Tyra tells her to relax, that she’s not really doing anything that wrong. Ah, the logic of a teenager. Julie lets it slip that she’s been forbidden to hang out with Tyra, which Tyra sort of laughs off but you can tell it hurts. This awkwardness is ended by the entrance of Matt and Landry. Matt and Julie chitchat while Landry tries to mack it with Tyra. She ignores him and instead makes a sarcastic toast to Julie’s loving mother. Hey. She IS loving. Do not speak ill of my darling Tami, TYRA. Landry makes a toast to Tyra, noting more to himself than anyone that “I am in your house right now, with you, and strippers. God bless everyone who enters. Cheers.” Landry should host New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

It is at this time that I start to get nervous, because the previews from last week showed Julie calling her parents at the restaurant while a dramatic voiceover blares on about “the call that no parent wants to get”. So when Tyra’s mother drunkenly stumbles into the living room, I’m on edge. Matt is concerned that Julie’s going to get caught, because he doesn’t want her to get grounded again. She reassures him that she won’t get caught. Right. Tyra’s mom wanders around amongst the inebriated strippers. She finally takes a seat…on the glass table in the living room, which she crashes through. She’s laughing, but she’s also bleeding. Tyra yells for someone to call 911, and I yell at the godless NBC heathens who led me to believe that Julie would be harmed. Damn you to hell!

Coach and Tami are out to dinner with the football peeps. A very smarmy gentlemen is praising Coach’s efforts with the team this year, saying that it’s amazing how he pulled them together after Jason’s departure. They are interrupted by a phone call on Tami’s cell. She excuses herself and answers it to find a distressed Julie on the other line. She tells her mom what happened with Tyra’s mom, that they’re all at the hospital, and that “there’s no adult here to handle this.” Now, Julie may be immature when it comes to romance and sex, but bless her little heart for realizing that she and her friends are still teenagers and that they’re in over their heads. I love it. Tami is upset that Julie was at the party, but Julie insists she can yell at her later and to just get over there.

Tim thanks the MILF for inviting him over. He points out that her rain gutter is falling off. By which he actually means, “I want to bang you nine ways from Thursday.” She says she doesn’t have time to fix it, with work and Bo and school. Bo shows up to give Tim his school picture, and Tim acts overly thankful, which I have to admit is pretty adorable of both of them. He says good night and walks home, with a coy little smile on his face. Eh. I really couldn’t care less about this plotline. I haven’t enjoyed annoying children since Muppet Babies went off the air.

Smash and Waverly are in the car. Smash asks if she’s okay and she replies that she’s wonderful, why do you ask? She says she’s been feeling different, and she explains that it’s because she’s “alive” and “feeling the world”. Right. Hand over the bong, Wav. Smash isn’t buying it and gives her a look, so she finally explains that she used to take “mood disorder” drugs, but now she’s off of them. OHHH. So she’s OFF her drugs, not ON them. Either way, the poor girl is a certified loony bird now. Smash asks if her father knows, and she says no, he wouldn’t understand, it is her body after all. She tells him it feels exactly like how Smash feels on the field, and she reassures him that it’s the best she’s ever felt. Smash says okay but still looks wary.

Over in the hospital waiting room, Landry tells Matt he thinks he had a real breakthrough with Tyra. Matt calls him retarded. A regular Abbott and Costello, these two. Tami arrives and tells Matt to take Julie home, while she stays and checks up on Tyra’s mom.

Coach comes home and starts looking for Julie, but all he finds is Buddy. Buddy sneers that he knows where he was, like a scorned housewife or something. Coach asks him how he found this out, and Buddy reveals that he did the little trick where you rub a pencil over a notepad to see what was last written down. “A little something I learned on Magnum, P.I.” Coach is appropriately exasperated and tries to leave, but Buddy keeps asking if he’s going to take the job. Coach says he hasn’t been offered anything officially, but if anything happens he’ll be sure to let him know. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” he fails to yell.

Lyla and Jason go back to his room, where she asks if he loves Suzie. Haha. Lyla is such a jealous little drunk. Jason laughs, denies it, and says that it’s funny when she’s drunk. I agree. Lyla starts crying and says it’s not funny, not funny that she drove all the way from Dillon to find him hanging out with scary people and sexy tattoo artists. She’s terrified that he’s changing and she’s not changing with him, and that they’re never going to last this way. He quietly apologizes, so she cheerfully says that it’s okay because “it’s bigger than us”. Jason explodes, “Nothing is bigger than us!” After a nice little speech about how much he loves her, he emphatically insists that he’s not giving her up without a fight. UGH. Fine. I give up. No matter how much I’ve disliked this pairing in the past, I’m pulling for them now. Those crazy kids and their unconditional love have dissolved my hatred. They’re gonna make it after all!

Tyra’s mother is back home in bed, with Tyra stroking her arm. Tami brings in a glass of water, says goodbye, and turns to leave. She sees the frightful state of the living room, so she takes off her coat and starts to clean. You can almost make out a pair of wings and a halo on this woman. Tyra sees her and thanks her again for bringing her mom home. Then she cops an attitude and says she can leave now. She says she knows that Tami doesn’t give a damn about her or her family, and says that she found out that she forbade Julie to see her. She tells her to go home and lock her precious daughter away so that “bad people like me” can’t get her. Now, a lesser woman would leave at this point, but Tami is not a lesser woman. She patiently explains to Tyra that she’s just having problems with Julie and the choices she’s making these days, and that maybe she’s unfairly blaming Tyra for that. This whole puberty thing is coming “like a freight train” and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. She genuinely apologizes to Tyra, who doesn’t really know how to handle these confessions and goes to retrieve a trash bag. Which represents her trashy life. Symbolism!

The next morning, Buddy is packing his things into his car, saying that he’s off to hide out in some hotel. But before he leaves, he’s got some things to say: “I just don’t think it’s very cool for you to be meeting with TMU while I’m living right under your roof.” There are so many things wrong with that sentence I just don’t know where to start. Coach correctly points out that Buddy is too obsessed with football and really needs to start thinking about, you know, his FAMILY. Buddy becomes feral and and grunts that he will always love the Panthers. Restraining order much?

Tami and Tyra have just finished cleaning up the house. Did they clean all night? Tami must have scrubbed the sin out of every one of those couches. She tells Tyra to come into her office on Monday so they can talk about her academic future. Heh. As Tami goes to leave, Tyra stops her with a “Mrs. T?” That’s a nice touch. It’s such a guidance counselor thing to do, go by an initial. My high school had both a Mrs. Q. and a Mrs. Ratface. Anyway, Tyra thanks her again, this time sincerely.

Smash, still in bed, gets a booty call from Waverly. He hops out of bed and is on his way!

We then join a post-coital Jason and Lyla. Jason triumphantly pumps his fist into the air and promounces “Victory!” Aww, he had sex! Good for him. Better for Lyla, I’m betting. They cuddle and he says that everything will work out, he’ll make the team and then travel to Beijing for the Paralympics. Yeah. Because if Lyla doesn’t trust you when you’re four hours away, she’ll surely be fine when you’re on the other side of the world. These kids with their crazy ideas.

Jason finally gets it up.

Tami finds her daugher sitting on her bed and gives her a hug. This is quite reminiscent of the scene a few weeks back when Julie saw how messed up other people’s families can be and then came home and told her parents she loved them. This scene, like that other one, is lovely.

Tim returns to the MILF’s house to fix the gutter. I’m guessing that next time he’ll be back to “rake the lawn”.

Smash shows up at his girl’s house, calling for “Wavy”. That is such a cool nickname, I wish I had one like that. Anyway, he finds her in the kitchen, curled up in a ball and crying. Too bad Smash is going to have absolutely no idea how to deal with this.

At the Taylor Household, Tami sits down at the dining room table with her husband, who informs her that he got the call. “TMU made the offer.” “Wow,” says Tami. They quietly look around the house, not really knowing what to say. Okay, I’ll say something. DON’T GO, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!

We all know he won’t, because without the Coach there simply is no show. Good episode, I thought. Lots of drugs and alcohol and other ways to alter one’s consciousness. I’m not advocating the use of such substances, but they do make for some fine television. Thoughts? Comments? Ever smashed thorugh a glass table? (I have. When I was a kid I sat up under one and shattered it. WITH MY HEAD.)