Friday Night Lights Review: Saturday Night Lights

In this episode, Coach has white guilt, Vince needs a j-o-b, and Becky’s preggars.  Oh, and Julie learns about the pleasures of a good rebound while the Coach and Tami realize they need a date night, like, yesterday.

We begin with Coach looking for Dallas (yeah, I don’t know who that is either), and a young girl at his home tells Coach that he’s probably at Carroll Park.  Carroll Park is a dark, scary place where all the black kids who don’t go to college hang out.  While Coach is there, there’s a gunshot, and a kid is left lying on the cement, bleeding from the shoulder. So Coach gets his do-good hat on, and enlists Buddy and Virgil’s help in getting some lights on in Carroll Park.  Virgil introduces Buddy and Coach to an ex-gang member (who, according to imdb is named Eldon, which is the worst ex gang member name ever), and they decide to have a football game Saturday between the East Dillon Lions and the not-going-to-college kids.  Because, in case you don’t know, football brings people together, at least on TV.

In other storylines, Vince, who has probably spent a lot of time at Carroll Park prior to realizing he’s good at football, is filling out a job application.  Unfortunately, he’s got to check the “Yes” box to the “Have you ever been arrested?” question.  As a result, the manager gives him a “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” reply.  Vince hits up the Coach for a job, who hits up Virgil (aka Jess’s Dad), because having Vince work at Ray’s BBQ alongside Jess while Jess dates Landry is entirely too good a source of tension to not exploit narratively.  And so, of course, we do; Virgil tells Vince that he can’t hit on Jess, and Vince doesn’t, but he does make just enough eyes at her to make Jess look like she kinda wants to rip his clothes off.  Should I just invest in making “Team Vince” and “Team Landry” shirts now?

Landry, thankfully, is not completely ignorant of what’s going on here.  He approaches Vince at the Saturday night Carroll Park game, essentially saying, I like Jess, so maybe we should talk about this, or you can just hit me and get it over with?  Vince looks like he seriously might take Landry up on it, but the lights go on in Carroll Park just then, and he gives Landry a lip curl and a punch on the shoulder instead, cause there’s a game to play, and that’s what matters.  At least, that’s my interpretation of that scene.

More Vince development: While at work at Ray’s, his boys roll up, including Devil Wears Cornrows.  (Man, I wish I made that up myself.) They want free food — Vince is like, no, I totally maybe want to go to college, and his boys leave, without any BBQ at all.

Over at the house of the naive teenager, Becky’s really weird around Tim.  Tim thinks it’s cause of the kiss, because he doesn’t know teenage girls at all.  She’s weird cause she’s pregnant, with Luke’s baby.  She wants an abortion and is scared shitless.  I’d hoped they’d tie this pregnancy storyline in one episode, but looks like it’s dragging on to two.  Tim’s gonna act as adviser, but Tami will get involved too, thank god, because is there no better person to handle a crisis like this than Tami?

As for the junior Ms. Taylor, she’s rebounding with a cute blond boy from Habitat for Humanity.  (You know, if this is a perk to volunteering, they really need to put it on a poster.)  You’ll be happy to know that she’s not making out with Habitat Hottie because she’s over Matt; she’s doing it cause she’s living in the moment and he’s available.  I mean, unless you’re Matt, in which case you probably are not happy to know at all.  In that case, you’d be like, I just left!  What the hell??  But Matt is a fictional character and can’t actually say that, so I’m just going to say it for him, centered and with the proper emphasis:

Matt just left!!!! What the hell????

And in our final Taylor household news, Coach is just finding out now about Glenn’s drunken karaoke kiss.  I sincerely hope that you actually got a chance to watch this week’s episode instead of reading this review/recap, because if not, you didn’t get to see Kyle Chandler give an awesome reaction to this news as Coach Taylor.  Having seen both The Last Airbender and Eclipse in a 72-hour period, I know entirely too well what happens when a director holds a close-up shot to an actor’s face who cannot act.  First, I notice that they can’t act.  Then I wonder exactly how much ice cream I need stocked in my fridge right now.  Then, after concluding you can never have enough ice cream in your refrigerator, I wonder, it’s been 3 seconds – why am I still looking at this untalented person’s pores all up in my face like this?

So, you understand why I was thrilled to have my faith in the close-up restored as I watched Coach’s face as Glenn fumbled out an apology for kissing Tami.  His eyes went from apprehensive to shocked to angry.  He glowered.  That magnificent jaw clenched.  He looked like he wanted to kill him.  It was awesome.

(Not to beat a dead horse, but.. .will someone please tell M. Night and whomever directed Eclipse – and whatever sad sack is tapped to film the next one — that filling up the screen with a talentless face trying to convey nuanced emotion does not actually convey nuanced emotion?)

Anyway, talking to Tami about it later, the Taylors shared a laugh in bed because Glenn is so not a threat to this power duo.  They also hear that the McCoys are getting a divorce, which lights a fire under their romantic butts to get busy ASAP.  They make out in a car by the lake under the Texas sun, cause they are Tami and Eric and they have the best marriage, like, ever.

And that’s all from me.  Your regularly scheduled expert on all things FNL, Inisia Lewis, will be back next week.  Feel free to comment on how much you miss her below, and I’ll try not to take it personally.

Season 4, Episode 9: The Lights in Carroll Park (aired July 2, 2010)

For more on Friday Night Lights, click here.

Fridays at 8/7c on NBC

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal and Bill Records.