Hellcats: We Can Do Better. With Pom-Pons!

The Hellcats are practicing a combo they’ve been working on in a different gym than we’ve seen in previous episodes. And erm, call me crazy, but I thought cheerleaders at this level were supposed to stop dancing like Britney Spears and actually do stuff that requires talent, like flips and shit. Alice, Marti and Savannah are all bumping and grinding like Timbaland is in the house. They finally start doing some actual stunts and Coach seems pleased, but then some unwelcomed guests show up. It’s the volleyball girls, and they are currently on the Cat’s shitlist since they filed that lawsuit that got their funding pulled which forced them to make the bid video.

The HBIC throws a volleyball at Alice while she is on top of the pyramid and it hits her in her wrist and she goes tumbling down. She gets up ready to kill a bitch and asks which of them threw it. No one says anything but one of the girls nods towards a girl who seems to be the captain. With no facial expression at all, she says in a monotone voice, “the ball slipped”. This girl is a bad actress, just saying. Alice makes a “balls fly at your face” joke about volleyball and they totes grabbed that from Clueless, except they were talking about tennis. The volley girls call cheerleading “dwarf tossing” and I must admit I chuckled, however Savy doesn’t find it the least bit funny. They get into an argument about whether or not cheerleading is a sport and Alice says that they are ten times the athletes the volley girls are. So in order to settle things, they are going to have a flag football game. Alice wants to do this and then asks Savy to back her, which she does, though she hesitates.

Athletes?

Turns out the volley girls are intramural flag football champions. Haha, and of all people, Mama has seen them play and calls them beasts. Woman, you know you should be working, why are you watching flag football and may I ask, where did you watch it? Whichever team loses will have to cheer in their underwear for the winning side. None of the guys are allowed to play, obviously. Marti calls it suicide and Savy keeps telling herself they can pull out the victory. She claims that no one can say they aren’t athletes when this is all said and done and Mama laughs a little bit and says that she thinks of cheerleaders as, “special dancers”.

“You mean like strippers?!”

Lewis and all his beautifulness is coaching the girls and trying to see who can actually do what. Turns out, Alice is the only one who can throw so she is named quarterback and Marti is the only one who can really catch so she is named…catcher? I don’t know football terms, I would be more lost than any one of these cheerleaders if it was me out there. The gays don’t catch or throw very well.  Lewis gives the girls a nice little speech about teamwork and then QB Jakes shows up and makes fun of him. He says what I want to say whenever any of these coaches give inspirational speeches on this show because they are always so lame. I still don’t like Jake though, annoying character to say the least.

Alice tells Jake to stop provoking Lewis so much but he says he can’t help it and continues to make fun of his little speech. He then says that the best part about beating them is that he’ll have easy access when Alice is in her panties cheering. Hold up. He’s helping the volley girls?! Alice is piiiissed about this but he says he has to because one of the girls writes papers for him so he owes her. Well, after hearing that news Alice decides to close down the muffin shop until further notice. In other news, I still can’t decide if Jake is cute or not.

What do you guys think?

Lewis seems to be going to his parent’s house and it dawns on me that he is this week’s storyline that has nothing to do with cheerleading. Let’s see if I’m right, shall we? Lewis’ mom isn’t home but his dad is and he throws a football at him and compliments him on his quick reflexes. At first I thought this was going to be one of those, “I hate that my son quit football to cheer” stories, but thankfully it’s not at all. Lewis opens one of the letters from the mail and it’s full of money and he starts wigging out that it’s happening again. Seems as though the football team used to send him money in order to get him back on the football team a couple years ago and now he thinks Red is doing it again. Duh-rama!

Despite the fact that his father told him he’d handle it, Lewis decides to pay a visit to Red. This is TV, there would be no drama if people actually listened to each other and used their heads. Red is in ultra douche mode today though and calls Lewis a quitter and says he has no intentions of trying to get Lewis back on the team. Red actually doesn’t know anything about the money so he takes Lewis to Bill Marshall’s office. Bill knows about the money and insinuates that Lewis’ father has been talking with him and knows exactly what the money is about. Uh oh!

Julian (aka Teach or Brian from Queer as Folk) is telling the law kids all about some special law trip that is going to take place in Nashville over the weekend. Once again, this interferes with Marti’s cheer plans because it’s the same days as the intramural football game and the team definitely needs her for this one.

Law people just don’t look like this. It’s a fact.

Lewis shows up to his again, but this time he’s looking like someone out of an X-Men comic, ready to kick some serious ass. His dad is surprised to see him again and Lewis immediately asks him about the money. His dad gets on his high horse and tells him not to take that tone with him and to not come into his house accusing him of things. Dude, shut the hell up and answer the question. He does, and the answer is yes and Lewis is extra angry about this. I think…

He might just smell something stanky.

Marti is in bed and Savy tells her its time to practice. M starts coughing like there’s no tomorrow and says she can’t get up and that it hurts to talk. Must be the flu! Savy freaks and runs to go get some hot tea because they’d be dead without Marti at the football game. Marti starts feeling guilty about lying.

Lewis’ dad lied to him about taking vacation hours and tells him the reason is home is because his hours got cut at work and that the whole neighborhood got hit with predatory mortgages and some people lost their homes. He said it was all okay until his hours got cut and then that’s when he went to Bill Marshall and the envelopes started showing up and he started using them. Lewis calls this hush money because Marshall didn’t want them to expose the fact that they offered Lewis money in the past. Then Lewis turns around and tells his dad that he is blackmailing them because the money is keeping them quiet and his dad tries to defend himself but really can’t. If you didn’t quite understand that, it’s cool because I really don’t know what I just wrote.

Marti is packing up stuff for the law trip and is shocked when Savy shows up. Homegirl is such a good friend that she took a break to bring M some chicken soup from the snack bar. Marti starts coughing again and says she is on her way to her moms house, nice cover up girly. But Marti, if you’re going to lie about going to moms, hide your stilettos. Savy sees these and is confused as to why Marti needs those to go to her moms for the night. Marti confesses to her lies and tells Savy about the trip and this breaks her little heart. Marti says her law degree comes first and that she needs this trip and says that she has never seen Savy crack a book. Savy kindly reminds her that cheerleading is her major. Wait, what? Is that even possible? The other girls ask how Marti is doing and Savy actually covers for her and tells them that she is still sick and is going to her moms. Hey good buddy, how you doing?

Since they seemingly won’t have Marti, Alice decides they need a new way to win this game. So she puts on her Sunday best and pays a visit to Jake, who is a little surprised to see her. He didn’t think he’d be getting any muffins anytime soon! He claims she is just there to torture him but little Alice left her tools at home, so they’ll just have to improvise. I must admit, that was well played. This sends Jake over the edge and now he must have her. After they are done, Jake falls asleep and Alice does the one thing that a girl can do to almost turn me on besides being Megan Fox. She puts Jake’s oversized button down shirt on while she is still wearing her lingerie. Girl, you better work! She then proceeds to get out her rather large camera phone and takes pictures of the plays Jake has come up with for the football game. Clever.

Hey girl, hey!

Coach is in the Hellcat’s gym having a good time dancing around by herself. I think she looks a bit crazy, but to each his own. Of course, Red shows up and starts acting creepy, watching her in the shadows. She finally sees him and he is in the mood to talk and she is the closest thing he has to a friend. Wonder when these two are finally gonna hook up? Anywho, Red is feeling down because the Lewis stuff has brought to light that the football program is still “dirty” and a lot of players are being paid to play. Red doesn’t like it but doesn’t know how to stop it either.

It’s finally time for the football game and the cheer girls are freaking out a little bit. The other team has even brought a camera so they can tape the whole thing! Savy is freaking but then Alice shows up with the stolen plays. Lewis of course, can’t bring himself to cheat because of his own personal drama and Savy doesn’t want to do it either because it wouldn’t really prove anything. She asks to back her. Alice goes, “really?” and I start to like her even more, her character grows on me more and more every episode.  She ends up ripping the plays and tells Savy they are going to regret doing that later.

The game is pretty much a complete massacre and I’m guessing that they’ll continue to get beat until Marti miraculously shows up to help them win it after all! How much do you want to bet I’m right? Well however much you bet, you should hand it over because I was right. Marti shows up and tells everyone she is feeling much better and then proceeds to tell Savy that she is there because she heard her cover for her. The cheer girls start their inevitable come back and Marti is catching everything and scoring all the points. They even do a little dance every time they score a touchdown.

This isn’t really helping your cause girls.

Lewis decides to call a timeout because the game is almost over and they are still down by, like six or seven points, how every many you score in football. He decides that Jake has figured out that Marti is their best receiver, so he wants Alice to throw it to Savannah in this last play because she’ll be wide open. She freaks a bit because she hasn’t caught anything all day but Alice tells her, “positive outcomes only”, and then gives her a little smack on the rear. Savy tells her to never do that again. I giggled a little bit because I know people who would freak if I was to smack their behind.

Of course, Savy catches the ball and they end up winning the game, proving to everyone that they really are athletes. Red, being creepy again, comes out of nowhere behind some bleachers and congratulates Lewis on his coaching abilities. He also lets Lewis know that his dad asked Bill Marshall to stop sending the money. Back at Cheertown, Lewis is looking for a job so that he can help his family out when Marti stops by to chat. The two have a heart to heart and connect over family issues related to money. After a lot of talking, Marti grabs Lewis’ hand and then kisses him on the cheek. He likes it, and then he leans forward for a real kiss and Marti leans in too! Yay! It’s about time!

I would sing “Ebony and Ivory”, but it’s so cliche!

They show three insanely short scenes in a row, so I’m just going to run by all of them really quick: 1. Jake and Alice go have sex. 2. Lewis and his dad make up. 3. Red gives Lewis a job helping him out as sort of, an assistant coach but not really.

The volley girls are at the bar cheering in their underwear and there is one particularly peppy Cat who is up on stage with them dancing and mocking them.

“Bitch I hatechu!”

Alice is taping them and everyone is having a good time and Savy lets them know that Coach is back at her office because the bid video results are about to be posted. When she shows up, she lets them know that out of the 15 spots, they placed 16^th. So that means there’s no free ride to Nationals and they need  a new way to get the money. Please don’t do a carwash!