Grid Effect

“Homecoming” is the title of yesterday’s Friday Night Lights episode, and it is exactly that for Jason making his return to the field and an old Dillon QB legend named Lucas (An homage to that awful 80’s movie by chance?).

The episode opens with a G-rated version of the tailgates I am accustom to from four years of Ohio State. In this we see the unabashed obsession this town has with high school football. There’s a stage, with a band, raffles and everything else you would expect from a small town like this one. We are introduced to Lucas, who gives a pep-talk to, the town, I guess. He claims to be working for an insurance company in Dallas, though he is very reserved when talking about it.

Lyla, is giving her own pep-talk to Riggins, however, and when speaking about his drinking habits, “Its not charming, its just pathetic. And gross. And I feel sorry for you.” Ouch. Its a shame Lyla didn’t take this initiative earlier, because Riggins doesn’t drink for three days and in the homecoming game turns into Mike Alstott.

Lucas, our resident Dillon football legend, introduces Smash to a college football recruiter of sorts named Grady Hunt. When Smash introduces himself, well, when Lucas introduces him, Smash just rattles off his physical and numerical stats. Hunt replies, “Well I am kind of worried about his confidence … I hope you can play as good as you can talk, now’s your time, son”.
When Lucas makes an appearance at practice, they have him throw a few passing routes, the scout is considerably smitten when he watches Smash catch a deep pass.

Regardless, the pressure of this one game begins to mount for the usually over-confident Smash, and he even shows up to the game four hours early to study the playbook. Taylor shows up to reassure him, “Grady Hunt (the recruiter) is not going to make or break number twenty-one. You’re a prospect.” Obviously he chokes. And as a result, since the recruiter and everyone else his entire life has been harping on his diminutive stature (at least for college football running back standards), we are privy to watch him juicing up at the end of the episode. That means he is on steroids.

We learn why Lucas was so reserved in discussing his current job: he made it up. He confides to Taylor that after busting his knee sophomore year in college he pretty much bottomed out and has been meandering around all this time. He asks Taylor to put him on staff as an assistant, when Taylor says he is unable to for budget purposes, Lucas dejectedly storms off. The resentment probably stems from feeling used by the “program”, since he is no longer useful on a football field, no one caters to his whims. Now I might be going out on a limb, but this mentality probably adversely affects a lot of high school athletes.

After being invited to the homecoming game by Coach Taylor, Jason goes back and forth on what exactly it entails. He doesn’t want to be a sideshow to the game yet doesn’t want to disappoint those closest to him. It actually send his parents into an argument, reminscent of Herc’s combative/motivational rant about how Jason’s spinal injury will eventually drive his parents apart from a few weeks back. Lyla eventually persuades him into making an appearance and after Taylor presents Riggins with the game ball for his Jim Brown 2nd half performance, Riggins subsequently presents it to Jason. Clearly Jason does not want the attention, but is flattered all the same.

In “stories that have virtually nothing to do with the main plot but are still necessary to illustrate how not everyone in towns like Dillon is enamored with high school football” news, Tyra and Billy (Tim Riggins’ older brother) are planning on throwing a decadent, depraved party loaded with booze and strippers. Tyra and Billy hit it off, though I cannot tell if Tyra genuinely likes him, or is doing it to make Tim jealous. For the most part he seems indifferent. The shindig they put together is the party at the moon tower from Dazed and Confused. Alright, Alright, Alright.
They end up profiting around four grand from the entire thing.

Other notes:

-At the party, Matt in a drunken, less flustered than usual demeanor asks Julie out. The camera doesn’t allot them enough time for her to respond.

-While in a pool with Lyla semi-holding him afloat, Jason inquires about her and Riggins spending more time together. She answers and quickly changes the subject, which is very conspicuous, Jason makes his suspicions known with Herc.

-No follow up to the Castor story from last week. Hopefully they will return to it now that the series has been picked up for a full season.

All in all, not the strongest episode, everything felt unnecessarily hurried. Most likely a bi-product of the paranoia to getting their season cut prematurely. Since that is no longer an issue, I doubt it will continue to be a problem.