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Welcome back to our Friday Night Lights rewatch! Last week, Lyla and Tim become social pariahs as news of their dalliance spreads throughout the school (“affair” doesn’t seem right for a pair of horny teens); performance enhanced Smash returns to his hometown for uncomf truths about his late father while the team faces — and defeats! — Gatling High; Julie and Matt go on a disastrous first date that was somehow salvaged by an interruption from his grandmother; and Tyra and Jason bond over Le Betrayal.
Speaking of which: Stephanie asked for my thoughts on Tyra and Jason as a potential couple. And look, while I can understand and appreciate the perfectly reasonable case for pass that Meredith B. and Sarah both made in the comments, and at the risk of turning this heartfelt drama into a full-blown soap opera, I invoke Dillon’s Number 20 himself — as in, SMASH. (Apparently an unpopular opinion according to the the arbiter of all things shipworthy aka Archive of Our Own, which only has 10 works under Tyra x Jason.)
Unlike the couple that never was, I don’t need to drown my sorrows, but I do need our drinking game!
The Official FYA Friday Night Lights Season 1 Drinking Game
Drink once every time:
You want to give Matt Saracen a hug
Tami Taylor drinks a glass of white wine
Tami Taylor says “y’all”
Landry Clarke goes off on a tangent
You’re Team Tyra Collette
Buddy Garrity makes you roll your eyes
You think, “It’s JUST football, people.”
The quick camera cuts make you reach for the Dramamine
Drink twice every time:
The Panthers score a touchdown
Tim Riggins makes poor choices
There’s a classic Coach Taylor pep talk
Grandma Saracen says something sassy
Take a shot every time you hear:
“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”
“Texas Forever.”
Finish your drink when:
Hands slap the Panther “P”
Jason’s incident happens
Book club admits they don’t read the book
On to the episode!
1.10 “It’s Different for Girls”
Dillon’s football team (who score an easy win over the geographically unknown Timberwolves) takes a backseat to the cheerleaders, who are making final preparations for the Cheer America Championship Classic — which apparently include making their own teammate Lyla miserable and unsafe. Between the ostracization at school and the light stalking outside of Jason’s house not yielding the desired result, Lyla quits cheer just before the Classic — until Tim Riggins shows up on her doorstep to convince her to stay on the team. And so Lyla joins her hater teammates for their big performance, as both Tim and Jason look on from the stands.
As for Jason, he’s finally moving back home! His parents have started modifying the house for more accessibility, but they’re already running low on funds. Good thing that it’s free to be litigious — unless they win, anyway — because the Streets are trying to build a legal case against the school. But Jason gets bad vibes from the lawyer, who’s trying to find evidence of wrongdoing by Coach Taylor.
While Eric might be innocent in Jason’s eyes, the Taylor patriarch is certainly guilty of impeding YOUNG LOVE. After the big post-game smooch, Julie and Matt are on like Donkey Kong — but not if Eric has anything to say about it! Alas, all the Matt chats in the world are no match for the will and determination of a teenage girl, as Julie outmaneuvers Eric’s every attempt to keep her and Matt apart.
In other romance news, Smash gets reacquainted with old friend Waverly Grady, the pastor’s daughter who just returned from Africa (allegedly). Despite him repeatedly hitting on other girls while he’s with her (which tracks with his speech against monogamy in English class), they reconnect over family dinner and mini golf. The latter is interrupted by Smash getting a steroid induced nosebleed, which have become more regular and profuse — including one that happens right in front of Eric.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
15 drinks
Did the Panthers win?
Yes, but the game wasn’t even the most important competition this week!
MVP of the Week
It was a VERY tough road (and majority of the episode), but this could only go to Lyla Garrity. Despite rampant misogyny, mostly dispensed by her asshole teammates who were mean girl-ing to the point of physical endangerment, Lyla persevered to keep doing what she loves. (Also: go fly a kite, Brittany!)
Honourable mention to the queen of our hearts, Tami Mothercussin’ Taylor. She might not have had a lot to do plot-wise, but she still had some standout scenes (as evident by the rest of this post).
Transphobic Play of the Week
Every episode, I’ve been lowkey horrified by the more dated aspects of the show, which I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I was watching back during the original run. While the show handled slut-shaming fairly well, the same can’t be said about using cross-dressing as comedy when the football players show their “support” for the cheerleaders at the pep rally. Just because it was socially acceptable at the time doesn’t mean it was ever right.
Best Taylor Couple Moment
This is really more Tami than Eric (he was just Ken there), but when they’re hiding in their bedroom during Julie and Matt’s couch date:
Eric: “What do you suppose they’re doing in there?”
Tami: “Probably having sex.”
Tim Riggins’ Finest Moment
Riggins making the sacrifice play to bring Lyla and Jason closer to reconciliation was fine in both senses (esp. dripping wet in the rain?!???!), but I’m partial to the cafeteria scene with the sultry growl of “Let ’em look, Lyla. I don’t care.”
The Taylor Advice of the Week
Tami continuing to look out for and comfort Lyla would be the sentimental pick, but I’m going with the lulz when Julie gets a ride to school from Matt and Lance — er, Landry:
Tami: “Watch the curb, whoever you are!”
Post-Game Breakdown
- This rewatch makes me so appreciative of the long TV seasons of yesteryear that had the time to give complexity and depth to characters that I don’t usually care for. Like, this show has me feeling sorry for Lyla AND Buddy??!??!
- Obvs Eric took offense to the gross locker room talk, but I doubt he’d act the same if Julie wasn’t involved. (Case in point: his indifference to Lyla’s ordeal.)
- Cheerleading coach Ms. Der is either the most oblivious person on the planet for not knowing what’s going on within her own team, or in desperate need of even an ounce of empathy that Tami has.
- Speaking of Dillon High faculty: OH. MY. GOD. Janis is the English teacher!
- More dated marker: Buddy’s Bluetooth dongle, or Julie and Matt watching first-run The Office?
- Did the Lyla slambook website use the same graphic designer as the mean girl from A Walk to Remember?
- Who’s more obvious with having a secret: Smash or Waverly?
Join us next week as Mandy C. recaps “Nevermind” and presumably rocks out to Nirvana. At the risk of courting controversy, I pose this final question: on a scale of Dan Scott to Keith Mars, how would you rate Eric Taylor as a father at this point of the show?
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I lost my MIND when Janis showed up!
This is such a great episode. Every single Lyla scene was moving and impactful. Totally agree with giving her the MVP!
lol, the Dan —-> Keith scale is a perfect dad ranking system. Gotta put Coach at like 60% as good as Keith, but that feels generously proportionate since Julie is maybe 30% the daughter that V is.
Even giving Julie 30% in comparison to Veronica might be too generous tbh.
I might be the lone Julie contrarian defender lol or at least for now, because I don’t think she’s that bad! She’s obnoxious in the way that teenagers are, and how a completely-over-it daughter of the football coach would be. (Basically, the character seems doomed to be a dud lol especially when she’s constantly paired with more compelling ones like her parents or Saracen. And now even Lyla is surpassing her on the “maybe not that bad” competition.)
I’m conflicted as to how much the offspring should affect the parenthood score, because Nathan Scott is great (from the parts that I vaguely remember), no thanks to Dan. Although I do agree with the slightly more Keith than Dan assessment! I’d probably go with like 55% Keith.
– I LOVEEEEE that you went to AO3 to look up their ship, bwahaha. (What I also think is interesting is it’s not just 10 fics by like 1 obsessed author; they’re all different writers!) I personally think they just needed like a one-and-done smash to bang out their frustrated feelings over their exes and then will always think back fondly on that night.
– I’m glad we finally clocked what Janice was doing in Dillon, TX (I spotted her in the very brief cameo during the wine (I mean “book”) club in episode 2). I wonder how much more she will show up. I need to pay attention now.
– Yessss, it’s so refreshing for longer-season shows to have time for the characters to just BREATHE and BE. I think that’s really the simplest reason why so many people are binging what the ‘web is now calling these older “comfort shows”, because we want to spend time with the CHARACTERS we like and not just break-neck plot points (or worse, shitty pacing, plots, AND puddle-depth characters).
– I was also screaming at my TV whenever the cheerleading coach just “what’s going on now??”-ing everywhere. USE YOUR EYES, LADY. Definitely no empathy, lol.
– Ooh, I love that scale. Eric as of right now is probably…I want to say middle but Dan Scott is really horrible, lol, so a scoootch more than middle. He’s not a very safe space sometimes for Julie to unload her troubles on if Tami wasn’t there to smooth things over, so he’s got a ways to go before he’s Keith-level. And YES, I have also noticed his very selective give-a-fucks towards certain situations if they don’t impact him. (Which, to be fair, many of us are like, it can be exhausting to CARE about everything/everyone all the time, but as omniscient viewers it is more noticeable than it may be when we’re privy to just one perspective.)
– The AO3 Tyra x Jason community is the epitome of “There are dozens of us!!!”
– I had to pull up credits to confirm that it was Janis, since she’s practically unrecognizable without the voice.
– YES, Tami is carrying the Taylor parental unit!
Agreed, this episode was good on good on good. So much to unpack!!!
– I love your secret question; uh, the inferior secret-keeper is definitely Waverly (and her dad). Like, c’mon guys. As Smash pointed out, anyone who had gone to Africa to work on service projects IN HIGH SCHOOL would never shut up about it.
– Tami’s lines about sex and then the curb = 100.
– In hindsight, I wish we had a drinking game rule for “Lance.”
– When Tim says, “Let ’em look,” I think I fainted.
– I had the same thought, re: Ms. Der. Like, how could she NOT know? Our high school cheerleading (and drill team) coaches were like, more aware of gossip than I was.
– Re: your dad question, I’d give the same score as Meredith.
— Re: Lance, all those little things you don’t remember before going into it. (I’m not against retroactively adding relevant rules either, lol!)
— Yes, that was a FOINE moment for Tim, I will give him that!
— As soon as Waverly said she came back from Africa my first thought was HIDDEN PREGNANCY, gave the baby up for adoption. (Tell me you watched soap operas as a child without telling me…)
I also thought hidden pregnancy for Waverly 😂 Between this and Tyra x Jason, we might as well just start writing our FNL fan fic.
– Re: Lance rule — maybe we didn’t want to overdo it on the Landry-specific rules lol but that could definitely be a future addition! (Same with Mrs. Coach!)
– I didn’t bother looking for GIFs because of how difficult it’s been to even find decent screenshots, BUT LO AND BEHOLD — I found one of the “Let them look” exchange! (And will promptly add it to the post lololol even though it’s missing the GIANT CLOSE-UP OF TIM’S FACE)
I’m not sure where I’d put Eric on the scale, but I just wanted to hop on and give immense appreciation for said scale 😂
At this point, still below Keith (and Sandy Cohen, who is obviously unimpeachable)…what other fathers are there??
I’m ahead in the rewatch and I’m pretty sure my favourite scene of all time is coming up in the next episode. Will check back next week. Thanks for doing this! Love this show so much.
Sandy Cohen, I love him so much!
Yay — thanks for joining us, Emmanuelle! And glad you like the scale. Can’t wait to find out what your all-time fave scene is in the next ep!
As for ranking fictional dads, we did consider doing best YA parents in a March Madness tournament before. (I don’t think we’ve done it yet lololol but we’ve done so many that I’ve lost track.) For best TV dads, I’d put Uncle Phil up there with Keith and Sandy. I feel like I could come up with more names for moms than dads lol