Grid Effect

We open this weeks Friday Night Lights with Tim and his dad hustling a couple guys in pool at a bar. They are with Tyra and the guy is noticeably agitated. Papa Riggins (Walt) is drinking and starts shit with the guy when he is pissed that they are playing him. They get in each others face and Riggins lightly throws a pool ball at him from behind, which results in everyone laughing. He figures it was Tim and goes after him. The bar guy breaks it up, throws random guy out, and the guy flings the money at Tim, then challenges him to a fight outside. Tyra is concerned, Walt reassures her that he can handle himself. And no one mentions that this sick fuck is picking a fight with a high schooler.

Tyra goes to Billy for help with Tim, there is some women screaming to him from inside about Deal or No Deal, Billy says Tim has made his bed, now he has to lie in it. Tyra is, as always, unimpressed, though rightfully so. Doesn’t look good for this faction of Dillon.

Tim’s dad is standing on the sidelines at his practice. He suggests that Tim should get more carries, as he is just as capable as Smash. See, even absentee fathers are still concerned with their sons status on the football team. Taylor, clearly not his first time fending off such suggestions, tells him they can discuss it after practice. And this sends Daddy Riggins off into full-fledged drunk and insecure Texas guy mode with the, “You think you’re better than me” retort.

Mac reports too coach that a camera is missing from the audio/visual room and that someone saw Walt go in and out of the room earlier in the day (wouldn’t they have seen the camera in his hand?). Taylor promptly pays the Riggins household a visit and hints that he believes Walt is the culprate. Tim, unknowingly vouches for him and gives Taylor an earful for even hinting at the notion.

So naturally, after a night of boozing with the old man Tim goes ut to fix his headlight and finds a misplaced camera on a high shelf in the garage, prompting him to throw his dad out of whoever’s house him and Billy are living in. As Walt begins his exit, he gets in Tim’s face and says, “Watch how easy this is.” Ouch, that is going to leave some psychological marks. Also, is this, like, an epidemic in Texas? Every dad (short of Coach Taylor), if he is even around to act as such, is a total scumbag.

Anyway, Tim’s lack of self-worth eventually fester’s away at him. He goes to tyra for a shoulder to lean on, but she is preoccupied with work… so he turns to the bottle. I figured it would be that or Lyla. And with Street out of town, it would have been too much for her to cheat on him again and still expect the audience to have any sympathy for her. In his drunken stupor he returns to the bar the episode opened with, makes eye contact with the man from before, and motions him outside, where said guy proceeds to beat the living shit out of Tim, who is, again, a high schooler.

In the last scene of the episode, with his face cut and bruised pretty severly, Tim makes his way to Taylor’s house and returns the camera. Coach invites him inside without asking any details (though between returning the camera and the noticeable beating, we assume that Taylor assumes his dad is responsible for the marks on Tim’s face), and Tim cordially declines, with his voice of the verge of breaking, “I’ll see you at practice, coach”.

Everyone’s favorite post-adolescent couple, Matt and Julie are studying/locking lips when grandma walks in, the go into a frenzy and she demands that Matt stay away from her Tapioca (she supposedly has alzheimers so that’s not intended to be innuendo, she really burst in on her grandson and his girlfriend about pudding), he apologizes, they giggle. While walking out, Julie propositions Matt with sex, he is flustered but eager.

Don’t let your friends buy cheap condoms

At work, Landry is giving him some amateur advice, Smash steps in and gives him some player advice, neither of which suits him. I also find it weird that two people as different as Smash and Landry can coexist in the same room. Anyhow, Matt and Landry heed Smash’s advice and go in search of a condom that’s suitable for the occasion. Landry is overly analytical about it. For the sake of plot development, Tami happens to catch Matt and Landry in the grocery store, and looks on with much trepidation for her daughter.

Tami is understandably sitting on the couch waiting for her daughter to arrive, as Julie tries to walk to her room, Tami drops a bigger bombshell on Julie than Julie dropped on Matt: “I saw Matt Saracen buying condoms at the grocery store”. A couple of things here, one, using his last name to be perfectly clear is a nice touch; two, I like how everyone immediately rules out the notion that the condoms were for Landry. Julie waits for at least ten agonizing seconds before she turns around to confront her concerned mother. The two have a non-melodramatic version of “The Talk” and Connie Britton has yet another stand out moment. I won’t delve into details because as a guy, it just seems presumptuous to pretend like I have any idea what’s at work here. But whatever it is, it’s perfectly executed by the writers, actresses, camera men, director and everyone else involved.

Despite how moving the scene may have been for every woman over the age of twenty, Julie remains unconvinced about the significance of her mother’s speech, or at least she is pretending to be unflinched. Even Tyra reassures her she need not yet put out, but Julie protests saying this way she can have control over the situation while she “computes and gathers data”. Which leads to Tyra flinging a pair of underwear at naive little Julie while saying, “throw him a bone while you’re collecting your data”.

When the moment of truth arrives, Matt has gone from hesitant to fervent and Julie from confident too scared shitless. She conjures up a variety of excuses just to give herself a moment and hopefully deter Matt’s interest, which obviously isn’t going to happen. Anyway, being the holier than thou kid we all know him to be, Matt gives Julie an out, “We don’t have to do this”. What a strapping young lad. She at first protests, but he then suggests, “No, we can just hang out and… eat, or something”. This line is a callback to an earlier episode when Taylor was advising Julie on dating, “They are either thinking about sex or they’re hungry”. They spend the rest of the night hanging out doing innocent boyfriend-girlfriend type things, in fact they are so lost in the moment, Julie loses track of time and she shows up at supposedly an ungodly late hour. Before she gets out of the car, the two proclaim their love for each other, Julie goes inside and swears to her parents that she wasn’t doing anything untoward. They seem to believe her.

In the lone story completely unrelated to the town of Dillon, Jason arrives in Austin and Herc is showing him the glory that is 6th St. Jason is disinterested and more concerned with making first day of tryouts in a timely manner. When they show up to check in, Herc immediately starts flirting with a girl at the registry. Street goes up to the women adjacent to her and gives his name. She asks if it’s his first time here and because Herc and the other check in girl are being so personable with each other, Street interprets her inquiry as idle chatter, to which he responds, “Look, I don’t have time for a conversation I just need to check in”. Ends up it was a mandatory question for check in. Street, wheels off to some random coach screaming random motivators.

Disabled men prefer blonds

Later at a party, apparently only for paraplegics and moderately attractive women, Jason talks on the phone with Lyla, whose attention is deterred by her suddenly overly-affectionate parents. Street is eventually pulled off the phone by Herc and Street reluctantly starts up a conversation about which CD to play with the same women he scorned at check in. They have a long, personal conversation in which Street rehashes the moment of his spinal injury, which seems to encompass every single minute detail, and they share a moment until Herc barges in with some drunken interruption. They head out to visit her tattoo shop and this story is left open ended.

As a side note, Tyra’s mom had sex with Buddy. I am sure its not the first time Buddy has cheated on his wife, but it is really close to home this time around and after reassuring her that she’ll have another job with a friend and handing her some “walking around money”, she leaves as cordially as she possibly could have. Only to later confront him in front of the local church post-mass and smack him across the face along with some other added hysterics. According to the previews, this is going to be an issue next week. Until then…