TV Recap: ‘Friday Night Lights,’ “East of Dillon” and “After the Fall”

Image courtesy of SpoilerTV

I know I said I’d recap each episode of FNL, but with all my other responsibilities, it might be better to do two at a time. Just be on the lookout.

Anyway — isn’t this show just beautiful? With the first two episodes of this season acting much like a two-part pilot, you have to give credit to the writing staff for creating some compelling television while introducing a slew of new characters. And though it’s sad to not see Tyra and Lyla*, get less of Buddy and have Matt wondering around in what feels like a completely different show, the Taylors are still at the heart of things — and that’s how I like my Friday Night Lights.

*Not that upset about the lack of Lyla.

With East Dillon re-opening and Coach Taylor taking over the football program, the town is clearly divided. Students are being sent to East Dillon against their will and away from their friends, which sucks. Both Landry and Devin are forced to go to East, even though Devin avoids it until Tami and the police make her.

Of course, the East football team is non-existent as Joe McCoy and the booster made sure that the district lines were gerrymandered as much as possible. Coach Taylor holds an open practice, and after 18 minutes all the wannabe QB1s are exhausted. He sends them home and tells them to come back if they really want to play. The team is so bad, Landry might actually have a chance to play all the time. Luckily for Coach, the police bring him what looks to be his only talented player, Vince (Michael B. Jordan aka Wallace from The Wire). Vince can either play football or continue down the wrong path, so obviously he chooses the former.

Meanwhile, our two favorite former Panthers Riggins and Saracen are having trouble with their post-grad lives. Riggins tries to survive college, but that lasts less than a few weeks. He walks out, goes straight to his POS truck, drives home to Dillon and throws his books out the window. Well, that didn’t take long. The bad news for Tim is that brother Billy’s life actually looks to be in order: he and Mindy are happy and she’s preggers. The new Riggins family isn’t quite happy that the prodigal brother has returned. And after Rigg makes fun of the baby room’s paint job (it does look like puke), Billy kicks him out.

So Tim does what he always does — go drink his sorrows away. There he picks up an older bartender cougar, has a night to remember and then wakes up the next morning to see that his partner has a high school-age daughter who both knows Tim and needs a ride to school. She mocks him while he’s down, asking him how it feels “to be the guy who used to be Tim Riggins.” Ouch.

This is from episode two, but let’s just Tim out of the way here — After slumming around Dillon sleeping in his truck for a few days, Tim finds himself without any money (Billy’s waiting for some to come in) or direction. But when he has to take the cougar’s daughter to school again, he runs into Coach Taylor and it looks as though ole 33 might have himself an assistant coaching job. Plus, the cougar lets him rent out the trailer in her back yard, no strings attached. So things are looking up for Tim. Who needs college?

Matt’s in a different position, as he’s still going to school — just not the one he wants. Instead of going to the Art Institute of Chicago,  he’s still in Dillon to help Grams and be with Julie. This means he’s delivering pizza and going to Dillon Tech. He’s frustrated by the fact that his “lowly” DT art instructors don’t think he has much direction and even more angry when the now-dickish J.D. McCoy taunts him about trying to get with Julie. His emotions boil over when he actually gets into a scrum with the golden boy.

However, I guess the DT art instructor thinks Matt has something, but she applied to an internship with a local artist for him — and he got it. Of course, it’s not what Matt thought it would be, as the local artist is really just a kook who does stuff with junkyard parts in his underwear. Matt would rather discuss his future than get tetanus, but when he pushes the issue, the artist rips up all but one corner of his drawing, telling him that little piece doesn’t make him want to puke. Man, can Matt ever catch a break in this world?

Back to the East Dillon, well, you can imagine how the first game goes. As West Dillon dominates for their first win (even though Tami screws him over with the coin toss that they only wanted her to do to humiliate the Taylor family), the East Lions get smashed on every single play through the first half. With only a handful of players on the team in the first place because so many left after Coach laid down the law in the middle of the week, Coach sees that his players are too hurt and getting too embarrassed to carry on. Shockingly, he walks out to the refs and forfeits the game.

This obviously doesn’t sit well with the townsfolk — or the team. With people putting white flags all over the Taylor’s lawn and in the player’s lockers, the players decide that they don’t want to play for a coach who quits on them. They don’t come to film session, they don’t come to practice. Thankfully (and a little too conveniently) they have a bye week, but Coach is having a bit of a crisis. They’re actually so pissed that Landry is jacked up enough to stand up to Coach right in the middle of the cafeteria.

Meanwhile, Buddy lets Coach in on a little secret: One of West Dillon’s best players, tailback Luke Cafferty (Matt Lauria), is lying about his address so he can play for West. Coach Taylor lets Tami know, who confronts an earnest Luke. He lies at first, but eventually tells the truth, cries and apologizes for lying. What a guy. However, once Joe McCoy and WD coach Wade Aikman catch wind of Tami’s actions, they threaten to look back into the West Dillon books, as it seems the fake address has been used previously — meaning Coach Taylor knew about it anyway. Tami confronts Coach about it and he more or less lies, which doesn’t go over well, obviously. Thankfully Tami holds her ground and confronts Joe about his possible “investigation” in front of the rest of the boosters, who aren’t too happy with the idea of losing their rings. BOOM.

Coach figures out that the best way to get the team back in his good graces is to get Vince on-board first. He goes to Vince’s home* to find his drug-addicted mom looking for handout. Coach stupidly gives her money as Vince watches from afar. Thus, when Coach goes to try to convince Vince to re-join the team, he’s not having it. But eventually, Vince gives in due to Coach’s threats about how he has nowhere else to go but prison — and because he has some actual talent.

*One bad thing about this Dillon division: Suddenly there’s a whole new side of town that features a bunch of poor black people we never saw. Let’s hope it’s handled well

In the end, Coach holds a special practice on Saturday night, hoping the team will show. Good guy Luke is the first to show, but he’s oblivious to the issues plaguing ED so far. Eventually, Vince brings the rest of the team to Coach Taylor and he apologizes. He’s ready to move on, and wants to burn some game tape and jerseys to prove it. The team buys in and comes together, leaving East Dillon ready to work — but without jerseys. LOL.

Other observations:

• There was another new castmember, Jurnee Smollett, who plays a potential love interest for Landry. She’s fine and it’s cool to see Steve Harris as her dad, but I just miss Tyra — for so many reasons.
• It’s pretty weird to see Zach Gilford not in the credits, and perhaps even weirder to see Jesse Plemons listed fourth. I kind of hope that we see Smash and Jason before the series ends (next season), don’t you?
• Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton still rule. That is all.