Grid Effect

Not a lot of new territory from “It’s Different For Girls”, yesterday’s episode of Friday Night Lights. We get some more Julie/Matt/Taylor/Tami awkwardness, particularly for Matt, who can only manage to complicate his life moreso with this pursued love interest. A lot of Lyla being harassed in school but a bulk majority of the harassment seems to be at the hands of a fellow cheerleader. Jason is in the best spirits he could possibly be in and is affable with his neighbors, his parents and anyone not named Lyla Garrity or Tim Riggins, really.

On the other hand, we are introduced to one new character, a preachers daughter who serves as Smash’s new love interest. The two are also acquaintances, I imagine from Gatlin She apparently has a litany of secrets she is hiding, as everytime anything discrete is mentioned she either shy’s away, changes the subject or makes a peculiar facial expression. The most intriguing of the secrets involves an alleged trip to Africa, which is really intriguing if she actually went there (It’s hard to tell given her reluctance to talk about it), you ever seen The Constant Gardener?

Two refreshing changes came about from her introduction last night: One, someone finally called out Smash on how conceited it is to constantly refer to himself in the third person. Two, a potential counterbalance to Smash’s hysterics, as she seems very levelheaded. The latter is appealing to me because the Smash persona is bordering on cliche at this point, not necessarily the actual conflicted, behind closed doors Smash, that’s a great character.

On the football side of things, Smash is being complimented on his forty time by Taylor and the offensive coordinator. Only problem is, the improved forty time is accompanied by a nosebleed, multiple nosebleeds in fact. He actually sustains one on a date/outing at the minature golf course with the ministers daughter. She actually suggests that the money he got from the church was not for SAT courses, because she wants to be pre-med, and wanting to be pre-med in high school means you are privy to all the side-effects of steroid use.

The Julie-Matt-Coach Taylor/Julie’s Dad conundrum is a little more combative this week. I am not sure if it was derived from that exceedingly awkward kiss at the end of the Gatlin game, but jesus would it be pathetic if it was. Anyhow, Taylor catches his team engaging in the standard locker room talk only this time it is directed at his daughter. Essentially, Smash baits Matt into a “I’ll tag the Minister’s daughter before you do the same with Julie”, but he refers to the female genatalia in question as a V-chip. So it is tawdry, vulgar and exactly what Taylor has heard about dozens of other girls in his locker room, but just not about his daughter.

Of course, Matt “holier than thou” Saracen says nothing of the sort, but just his association with it has Taylor in overly-protective mode. Obviously Taylor wasn’t there to overhear Matt’s dumbfounded reply to Smash’s, “Saceran hasn’t been down south since he was with his mom on his first birthday” comment with, “My mom lives in Oklahoma”. Nicely done. Not only did the writers convey Matt is more clueless than we initially believed, it also answer the question as to where his mom is.

Anyhow, this is followed by a series of inimidating bravado from Taylor towards Matt, followed by him giving Matt an extensive amount of research to do over the weekend, in order to put a wedge in between his daughter and his quarterback. Needless to say, it doesn’t work as the calculating move motivates Julie to take an interest in game preparation.

Onto the upperclass men, Lyla is continually harassed by random students, but a nasty piece of work named Brittany (also a cheerleader) seems to be leading the helm. Lyla’s locker is spraypainted with such deragatory remarks as “slut” and “whore”, when they practice routines or whatever they’re called, Lyla is subject to multiple catty remarks that actually interfere with practice. She quits, then at the Riggins insistence shows up at their competition at the last minute. The whole scene is very “after-school special”, which a show like this always teeters on the brink of being.

At this point the entire school is now well informed about the Riggins-Lyla torridness. While Riggins is relatively unaffected, Lyla is berated with insults and unwelcomed advances from classmates. Hence the title, though Riggins did get punched out by his best friend and his car beaten to shit by the offensive line, Lyla’s perscution certainly has more longevity. Tami references The Scarlet Letter in describing the lunchroom scene, and its pretty apt.

Street’s parents have him talk to a lawyer who works solely for comission about potentially suing the school. When he asks frivolous questions about Taylor’s coaching procedure that no one could feasibly adhere to, Street agressively retorts that he doesn’t want Taylor bearing any penalty, legal or otherwise. Which kind of shows his naivete, because how could the school be culpable and not the immediate authority on the football field? I don’t know either.

Jason is still unable to forgive either of them, and rightfully so. He actually returned last night to a handicap accessible home. Raced their neighbor’s son on his bike and repeatedly turned down advances from Lyla, even after Tim spoke on her behalf. He even admits towards the end of the episode that he wants to take her back, but can’t allow himself to do so. At this point I was hopeful the writers would not get them back together.

In the closing scene we see Lyla do her routine at the competition in slo-mo, with everyone in attendance including her family, Riggins and Street. So much for my initial optimism.

Other notes:

-No Herc this episode, I hope they bring him back as someone who can actually relate to what Street is going through.

-At the Cheerleader competition/showcase, they were playing that awful “Man Eater” song by Nelly Furtado. While I am obviously not a fan, I like the upkeep by the music coordinator, as this song is a fairly new single.

-While on their date, Julie and Matt watched The Office her living room. Nice self-promotion on the behalf of NBC, I don’t mind product placement if it’s for things I enjoy.

All in all, a fairly ho-hum episode, it really just felt like they were going through the motions with no real advancement in plot. Everything outside of the Smash storyline was fairly uneventful or engaging, still not complaining though. It is definitely a much more enjoyable hour than the one I spent watching the season finale of Nip Tuck last night. Which I’ll be recapping later.