Friday Night Lights – Recap & Review – In The Skin Of A Lion

photo: directv

Friday Night Lights
In The Skin of a Lion

Original Air Date: Nov 11, 2009

Andi – Associate Staff Writer
andi@thetwocents.com

This week, Dillon serves up several signs of the apocalypse: Coach takes advice from Tim Riggins (Advice! From Tim!), Julie decides that church is lame, FNL went there with the race issue even though they made such a big deal about not going there in season one, Matt’s storyline is kind of – gasp – dull, and Coach lied to Tami for the second week running! Plus, Tim’s crazy fangirl gets even crazier and Landry likes a cute girl who likes Landry back!

We open on some shots of the lesser seen side of Dillon, Texas, sliding along churches and shops and houses until finally the camera drops us in East Dillon High’s parking lot with the Coach and the Lions. They’re all gathered around an old convertible that’s dressed up like a parade float in some kind of wacky effort to raise money for the team. Also, still no Tim Riggins in sight, so I’m not sure just what he’s doing to help.

While that’s happening, the Taylor women are pediconferencing about how no one likes Tami anymore and church has become hypocrite central, what with the smiles and niceties that don’t exist outside those holy walls. Julie explains that this is all ridonculous and she’s happy to worship at home, away from the bullcrap, but Tami, of course, tells her that church is more about self, God and family than about all that other stuff, no matter how ridonculous it is.

Oh, I was wrong! Tim is there! So, Coach, Tim, Ass. Coach and the Lions lumber on down the road, bitching and whining and collecting cash and… oh no. Coach is slipping Tim cash to slip to townies so it looks like the team is collecting money from the community. How sad! Even worse – half the people aren’t even giving the money back.

Matt’s artistic mentor, Richard the Grumpy, is arc welding some sculpture or something and Sir Grumpy tells Matt that he has to take a day off work to drive him a few towns over for some more metal, which is not Matt’s idea of a good time.

East Dillon’s principal tells Coach he’s “sorry,” but there’s no money for any football related activities because Coach wasn’t even supposed to take the job in the first place. “You’re the only one who didn’t get the joke,” the mean, snaggle-toothed principal says. And instead of knocking out his boss’s horrible teeth, thereby making himself and us feel better, Coach just looks annoyed and determined.

That irritating #33 fangirl who is going to cause so much trouble for Riggs that I hate her a million times infinity already, and whose name is Becky, as it turns out, raps annoyingly on Tim’s door, waking him from his underwear-clad sleep. I guess she’s good for something, anyway. Tim is not excited about this at all, so when she tells him she’s brought breakfast and can she catch a ride to school since, you know, he’s up anyway, Tim’s really not amused. He tells her a flat no and then… then I about lose it. Becky, which seems to be the name of all crazy fangirls, RUFFLES HIS HAIR and says she’ll be waiting in the truck. Holy mental instability, Batman!

Over at the Coach Household, Gracie is still annoyingly well-behaved, while Tami gets to make her wide-eyed OMG face when Julie tells her that if it weren’t a family thing, she wouldn’t go to church at all. Thus follows a storyline throughout the episode in which Julie does not want to go to church anymore and Tami has issues with that, but Coach has bigger fish to fry.

At the Boosters meeting, McAikman (because Joe and Wade are now one entity no matter which one is present, don’t cha know) insinuates that Buddy blabbed to Coach about the mailbox, which he did, as you’ll all remember, but Buddy hauls out the I-Been-A-Panther-Longer-Than-All-Y’all Card and the issue is dropped. Dodged a bullet there, Buddy. Eep.

Lions practice. Vince gets bitched at, Luke gets switched to Defensive Back and Tim helps out! Yay, Coach Tim!

Not so yay – Coach writes a personal check to the uniform guy for $3000, so the Lions can get their damn jerseys. And there’s still 2k due on Friday. So, naturally, he totally lies to his wife about it. D’oh. Then, at school, he totally harshes Luke’s apology by being kind of mean to the kid when the kid’s attempting, albeit poorly, to say that he’s just there to play football and he didn’t mean to get off on the wrong foot. I guess I can’t blame Coach, though. He is on the line here and he is giving them a lot, only to get grief in return.

Tim, who has to use the bathroom in the real house because the trailer bathroom doesn’t work, gets accosted by Annoying and Crazy Fangirl Becky about which dress to wear to an upcoming beauty pageant. Tim, who takes total issue with her mom’s constant absence, like he would, has no idea which dress is better, because he’s Tim Riggins and the guy hasn’t done anything with dresses except take them off since he was twelve. Speaking of, Crazy Becky says she can try them on if that would help him decide and because I really think Tim’s learned a thing or two, he runs for the frikken hills yelling, “Pink, git the pink. Pink, you’ll win with that, fir sure. Good luck,” over his shoulder. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but not by a whole hell of a lot. Good man, my TV boyfriend, good man.

Coach swallows his pride and asks Buddy for help getting money from the Boosters, but Buddy tells him no way he’s sticking his neck out any more. I think Coach and Buddy just broke up again. Poor Buddy, is there anyone in town that’s still his friend?

Lions practice has Vince screwing up left and right, presumably because Luke’s the new star player. But Luke complains to Tim that he feels invisible and Tim kindly explains that that’s because he’s an awesome player and doesn’t need to be yelled at. Luke’s all, “Oh, right then, uh huh, ‘kay.” And then Tim has to flee the premises because his crazy fangirl shows up all, “OMG HI TIM, HI!” Later in the training room, Luke asks why Tim doesn’t wear his State Championship Ring and Tim claims to just not like rings, but I bet you a million dollars it’s currently living in the Vanderbilt dorms with Lyla. Anyway, Tim tells Luke to trust in Coach and everything will work out.

But later, Tim appeals to Coach about letting the kid really shine on the field and paying closer attention to him, which, of course, makes Coach get all defensive about Luke’s entitlement issues.

Vince shoots some hoops after school with That One Kid and laments how lame Coach is and how Luke is totally all up in his shit and what-the-frak-ever dude. Quit your complaining, you ungrateful little twerp, and just accept what Coach is trying to teach you. Jeez. But, in all fairness to Vince, Coach is going about this the wrong way – these kids don’t react the same way to all those kids that he coached before; they’re not eager to please him, they don’t want to play as much, they know they suck – there’s nothing to really make them care.

Landry, whose been switched to punter of all lame-ass things, is practicing when Jess shows up with three younger kids, whom I am assuming are her little brothers, and totally teaches Landry’s sorry butt how to punt. Hee hee! Also, they make an adorable couple.

Coach comes home, drunk, from his wandering, failed attempts as soliciting local businesses for money and confesses that he lied about the check and then gets angry at Tami for getting angry at him and oh my God, this is terrible. Coach thinks so too, because at two in the morning he’s still awake with his thinking face on and then he’s gone when Tami wakes up at six.

Coach takes a drive out to the Cafferty Ranch to have a heart-to-heart with Luke, because something that Tim said the other day seems to have resonated and I cannot believe I just typed that. Coach is taking advice from Tim Riggins! Mark it on your calendars, boys and girls, the end is nigh. Anyway, Cafferty explains that he doesn’t want to work on a ranch and that he’s trying really hard to play great ball so he can get the hell out of Dillon, you know, like every single player before him except Riggs. Coach pulls out his old Smash Williams Cheat Sheet and reads off a few lines about making that happen. Then he tells Luke that he needs to help lead the team in exchange, so Luke’s like, “A-Okay, Captain, My Captain.”

Across town, Tim is giving his crazy fangirl a ride again and she makes a bad joke about him being her boyfriend and his reaction his priceless – simple head-turn and stare like he’s both disbelieving and homicidal at the same time. Then he does his very best to pawn her off on Luke, which sends her into many facial expressions of disappointment and woe.

Tami swings by East Dillon High and she and Coach make amends and it’s kind of heart-breaking, what with his puffy eyes and stressed-out lip purse and her open disappointment and empathy.

Meanwhile, McAikman is lounging in the backyard of their upper-class track house lair of doom, talking about getting Tami fired, when Buddy loses his shiznit and goes off on everyone about what gross people they are and how McAikman has ruined the Panthers. He also confesses that he was the one who blabbed about the mailbox because he put it in in the first place and it’s his to do with as he pleases, dammit. It is glorious.

Friday night. Lions are losing, but they’re looking good in their new uniforms and they’re playing decently, but Luke’s carrying the entire team. Vince isn’t even trying and at one point, he even moves out of the way to let an opponent tackle Luke. What a douche. At any rate, after a screwed up snap, Landry and Vince manage to get the Lions on the board at the last minute. Awesome!

While all of that other stuff is happening in Dillon, Matt and Richard The Grumpy do some stuff with metal and talk about art and existentialism. At one point he tells Matt to drop everything in his life and focus only on art, which is terrible advice. Later, he insults Julie, which leads to Julie being insecure about whether or not she’s holding Matt back. Julie’s issues with all of this seem to be the only part about this storyline that I find compelling, which makes me flippen miserable. I love these people, why is Matt boring?

And we end on Coach and Mrs. Coach in bed, her smiling, him looking pensive. I wasn’t worried about it, I just expected Coach to pull out of this like a champ, but now, having watched that scene, I’m very concerned.

What do you guys think? Will they survive the season? Will Coach make it out with his sanity? Will Tim ever get rid of his crazy fangirl stalker? If you drop your two cents in the box below, maybe we can pay Coach back his three grand.