Friday night lights – Episode 12 – “What to do while you’re waiting”
Ya’ll know what? Last week Mikimouse said that it’s funny how I start of each week’s episode recap with “this is the best episode ever!!” – because it is true, and it keeps getting better as the time goes on. But really?! This was just SUCH a great episode!
It’s seriously starting to compete with Galactica as the best show on (for me personally) at the moment! Each week the cast, writers, directors, everybody involved, just BRINGS it! If this keeps up, I cannot imagine just how much the finale is going to blow our minds away!
Okay, so
what to do while you’re waiting?
Well… You can sue the coach… Nah, he’s too nice a person (and I still want to have his babies – or be his baby…)
You can get a job for your dad, who’s not going back to Iraq… Nah, too boring
You can keep referring to yourself in the third person, thinking it’ll get you laid… Nah… just Nah…
You can go after your mom’s abusing boyfriend with a tire-iron… Has promise… but I’ll probably break a nail ;)
Or you can tell your parents you love them, that they’re the best in the world, and just generally be a great girlfriend. Now
that’s more like it!
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The panthers have to wait for the result between two other teams (Arnett Mead and Buckley’s), which will decide their future. Are they going to the playoffs, or are they missing out on the chances for State.
Of course, after much angst, and problems, and worries, everything turns out beautifully, the underdogs Buckley’s beat Arnett Mead, and they make it to the Playoffs! Go Dillon!
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Jason’s parents sue Coach Taylor for… I have no idea exactly
what the charge is – but it boils down to Coach not teaching Jason how to tackle properly – which led to Jason’s injury.
Coach – understandably – is flummoxed at this development, and when the town finds out, everybody is standing behind him – and in effect shutting out anything and everything Jason Street.
It’s sad to see how this town can turn against their own at the slightest disagreement, or wrong judgement call. Unfortunately, this is a very human trait, it’s “
just what people do” – Something Coach said about the lawsuit; that could so nicely be seen throughout the episode. People do stuff that others consider inconsiderate or wrong, not because they
want to be inconsiderate or wrong, but because
it’s what people do.Coach confronts Mister Street at his pharmacy, but doesn’t get far with the man. He does learn that they’re suing because of the bills they’re facing and all the other shitty things that’re wrong in their lives.
They need someone to blame, to take responsibility, because *bleep!* like this doesn’t just happen, an accident isn’t supposed to take away the entire future of a young man (although this is arguable, since he's still alive, his future has just been changed, it hasn’t been taken away); you need a “bad guy”.
Unfortunately, sometimes, *bleep!* just happens, there are no bad guys, no “big bad” plot, an accident happens, and your life changes, it’s how you let these circumstances effect you that develops you as a person. – It’s sad, but it seems Jason is the person that best understands this at the moment, not his parents. He has accepted his fate; his parents are the ones still living in the past, who can’t get past this and see that they still have a son, a son with ambitions and drive, a son that wants to move on with all his heart… Yeah, I read a lot into that conversation – So what?! ;)
Jason finally gets to talk to Coach, and tells him that the suit is absolutely out of his hands, that he had no choice in the matter, and that it was the last thing he wanted. He tells him that Eric will always be his Coach. Let’s just say that little speech left both Coach T. and a certain recapper choked beyond words. Just beautiful! Man, this boy is a man already; he’s one of the most “adult” characters on TV at present!
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Smash tries to “wow” Waverley, but unfortunately, he’s only able to wow her away. His constant football ramblings, and “ooh… The Smash is THE MAN!” talk, only manages to send her running in the opposite direction. However, there is some irresistible force that surrounds “The Smash” and Waverley always returns. Smash tells Waverley that he goes out with Matt and Julie all the time, talking about Global warming, Iraq, Shakespeare, the first moon landing, Astro-physics, Kyle Chandler’s Hair… Okay, okay, so I can’t remember exactly what they’re supposed to always be talking about, but you get the picture! He arranges for them to double date, at the rodeo, but Waverley isn’t stupid and she quickly figures out that this isn’t something that often happens, and that Smash is as culturally challenged as she had at first expected.
She leaves him at the rodeo, where Matt tells Smash, that maybe he should try to change his habits, and his “way with women” if he wants the relationship to last. On the one hand, yay for compromise, on the other… Never change whom you are just to fit in with others, that tends to only lead to more problems as the relationship progresses.
Luckily, these writers are very good at their jobs, and Smash tells Waverley exactly that. In one of the cutest, most awesomely “cool-guy” moments of this show, he tells her that he LOVES football, that he loves talking about himself in the third person, that he loves the Smash, and he can’t change that, but that he also doesn’t think that she wants him to change that, that he thinks she likes those parts of him as well. “The Waverley” seems to agree with that assessment ;)
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Tyra’s mom’s boyfriend is an abusing, pedophilic (come on you SAW the way he looked at Tyra) jerk! When he hits her mom in the face, Tyra can’t stand it anymore and goes after him with a tire-iron. She hits him a couple of times, before he gets hold of the weapon, but she stares him down – got to love the eyes of death – heh! Her “come on… do it… do it…” when he holds the iron in his hands looking ready to hit her with it, is just so damn brilliant, you can clearly see that she doesn’t care, that she won’t sit back and let it happen like her mom, she wants any evidence to have him locked away for life.
My kinda girl. And Adrienne Palicki shone brightly in this episode, absolutely stunning performance.
When jerk-face boyfriend wants to return, Tyra has had enough, and speaks for all of us when she tells her mom it’s the boyfriend or her daughter, she can’t have both. Later it seems for a moment as if her mom had decided on jerk-face, and I’m ready to give her a bitchslap, but she turns out to be a very good mom (as Tyra had earlier gesticulated), and tells her that there was no question, of course she’d never choose a man over her daughter. The emotions on Tyra’s face… Urgh, indescribably painful and hopeful, and just plain beautiful.
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Then there was Matt and his dad. Matt’s face when his dad told him that he wasn’t going back to Iraq... Like a little boy who received an early Christmas present. Matt speaking with Buddy, and his elation that his dad was going to get a job there was just so beautifully acted, aww, wanted to hug him to death.
Unfortunately, daddy Matt was a bit out of his comfort zone, although who can blame him, would
you want to sell cars for Buddy Garrity? So it became quite clear that this was not daddy’s forte, but hey, why look for another job, that he may excel in, there’s always Iraq, I mean, that is such a more fulfilling, great place to go to, than to be with your son! Okay, so that was tongue in cheek, I can kinda understand how somebody that’s only known Military life his entire adult life, wouldn’t want to spend his days in a boring desk job, or sell cars for Buddy Garrity. But really, if you get the chance to stay out of a war zone, I think most of us would say hallelujah, and never look back.
Oh well, it seems Matt’s dad was born and bred to be Military, like the saying goes, once a Jarhead, always a Jarhead, and that was what he did well. So Matt’s dad, after having a Matt Chat (TM. Coach Taylor), decides to return to that place, and leave his son in his mom’s care once more (although, it’s pretty clear that it is more a fact of leaving his mom in his son’s care...)
Oh yeah, one final thing, that porch scene, where Matt and Julie sat together, and Matt goes from pity potty, to hopeful, was just so beautifully shot, oh man, these two are totally breaking my heart into tiny, teensy, little pieces!
Okay, okay, absolutely last thing, the cutest scene, that honestly could have been shot in my childhood, was when Julie came home and told her parents that she loved them, and that they were the best possible parents, ever. Coach Taylor’s proud look, in comparison with Tami’s look of comprehension, that something was up, perfect! That really happened, exactly like that in my own home, a few years ago, when I found out about certain circumstances at a good friend’s home. This show really does get those small moments right, along with the bigger, flashier ones.
So, what else is there to say, than to quote Drunken Bee, the recapper on TWoP... “If the world can make shows this good, why does According to Jim exist?”
Too true!