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Welcome back to the rewatch! In the previous episode, Matt told his dad to go back to soldiering, Tyra tried to get her mom to show some backbone by kicking her abusive boyfriend to the curb and showed some of her own by turning down Tim’s attempt to rekindle their relationship. Smash crashed and burned with Waverly. And Mere B. asked whether I am more like Waverly in not caring about football, Julie in warming up to the sport, or Smash in being all about football. Thanks to the Taylor Swift Effect, I’m definitely more of a Julie and have warmed up to the sport considerably. I’m sorry there are no Kelce brothers in Dillon to make things more entertaining, Waverly!
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!
1.13 “Little Girl I Wanna Marry You”
Smash’s mom finds his steroid stash and drags him into Coach Taylor’s office to demand to know what kind of team he’s running. A shocked Eric tells her he didn’t know anything about it. When they get home, Smash tells her she’s ruined his life, because if Coach reports him to the athletic commission, his scholarship offers are gone. She tells him that he can get out of her house until he can show some respect. Coach benches Smash for Friday’s game and demands the team respect his privacy. Everybody from the press to Buddy Garrity and Grandma Saracen want the scoop, but nobody knows what’s up. Smash comes to the Taylors’ door at 11 pm, desperate to know if he’s off the team. Eric said he should have reported him but for now he just wants Smash to keep his mouth shut. Smash goes home to apologize to his mom, who wishes he didn’t have so much pressure on him. She knows pro football is his dream, but she doesn’t want a big house one day if they can’t come by it honestly. After the game, Coach takes Smash out for a burger, a lecture, and a list of demands he has (including regular private drug testing) for Smash to earn his trust back.
While out for dinner at the diner, the Collette ladies are all having excellent hair days and Mama Collette (aka Angela) thinks Tyra should give Riggins another chance because he’s just so cute. Unlikely voice of reason, Mindy, calls Angela out for being full of bad advice. Tyra sees in the paper that Buddy is hiring a receptionist at the dealership and hits up Lyla for more details, but it’s obvious Lyla is less than enthused about the idea of Tyra’s mom working for her dad. Tyra gets Angela the job interview but she and her mom arrive at the dealership so late that Buddy tells Tyra he already filled the position. When Angela and her big blonde hair and cleavage show up next to Tyra, apologizing for being late, Buddy suddenly has time to talk to her and offer her the job.
Tami and Eric are over for dinner at Mayor Rodell’s house when it becomes obvious that she and her companion are a couple. The Taylors share awkward looks over that instead of the more shocking fact (to me) that these lesbians seem to be Republicans. Mayor Rodell thinks Tami would be a major asset to her reelection campaign, and she’s not wrong. Tami says she’s flattered but will have to think about it. While watching the news in bed, Eric says the Mayor chose them to open up to them because he’s “such a forward-thinking individual”. I snorted. Tami seems interested in the Mayor’s offer but Eric points out she already has a lot on her plate and she also voted against the Mayor. Tami believes these to be minor details.
Billy sets Lyla up on a date with a college student who’s doing a psychology paper on cheerleaders. Jason is uncomfortable with this development, and normally, I wouldn’t condone that jealous crap, but this is shady as hell, so I’ll allow it. Jason confronts Buddy about not wanting his daughter with a “cripple”. Buddy admits to concerns about Lyla’s future with Jason, like how they’d make money, if Jason can have children, and how he would even help care for children. It feels like he’s maybe jumping eleven steps ahead considering they’re still in high school, but Buddy gonna Buddy. After a day of hanging out with Herc, Jason seems to be leaning towards breaking up with Lyla for her own good, but when he goes to her house to tell her all of this, he ends up proposing instead. A tearful Lyla smiles and kisses him.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
14. Buddy was around a lot this week and Matt Saracen needs a hug like 24/7.
Did the Panthers win?
Matt figures out a potential strategy while watching game tape and is excited for his dad to see it Friday night, but his dad confesses that he’ll be shipping out again before the game. When Matt goes to Eric’s office to tell him about the plays he came up with Eric is already stressed out from Smash and Buddy and tells Matt to just let him do his job. But thanks to Matt’s strategy, and Coach finally being ready to listen, the Panthers pull out a victory over South Pines and are headed to the playoffs!
MVP of the Week
Tyra and her mom have a tire blowout on the way to Angela’s job interview. Frustrated by trying to change the tire, they end up yelling their fears at each other, like how Angela doesn’t think she’s cut out for this and maybe she should get back together with terrible Bob. And Tyra tells her mother that she loves her more than anything, but that her greatest fear is becoming her. It’s heartbreaking. Tyra decides the flat tire is a metaphor for their future and thinks if they don’t manage to deal with it on their own they’re doomed. For the second week in a row, Tyra is just fighting for her and her mom’s independence and it kills me.
Toxic Masculinity of the Week
When the Saracens (plus Julie) go to see Henry off at the bus depot, Matt hugs his father and this poor, emotionally stunted man is going away to war for months or longer and can barely even manage to hug his only child back. It’s a miracle that sweet baby Matt turned out as functional as he did.
Best Taylor Couple Moment
When Tami decides she wants to work for the Mayor’s campaign, Eric insinuates that the Mayor probably only wants Tami because she’s the coach’s wife. He’s also worried when Mayor Rodell’s secret gets out, it’s going to taint her reputation in town and that of everyone close to her. So now that he’s revealed he’s mostly uncomfortable with the lesbian thing, Tami tells him he’s just going to have to be uncomfortable. And even though they were just shouting at each other, they end up laughing and hugging while teasing each other. THE CUTEST.
Tim Riggins’ Finest Moment
Tyra asks Tim to get her mom a job interview at Garrity Motors, informing him there will be no reciprocal sex of any kind for this favor. (He tells her it’s not all about sex for him, and her eye-roll can be seen from four counties away.) When Tim goes to the dealership, Buddy gives him shit about asking for a favor after the Lyla debacle (as if she had no agency of her own in that affair), but Tim stands up to him and says all he’s asking for is for Buddy to give Tyra and her mom a break. There was nothing in this for Tim except to be a decent person and even Buddy recognizes this and tells him he’s a good man.
The Taylor Advice of the Week
“You are in control of your own destiny.”
I love that Eric stole his advice to the team from the radio psychologist that Tami and Julie made him listen to in the car when he’d have rather been listening to Sammy Meade stress him out about game predictions.
Post-Game Breakdown
We saw all different kinds of parenting this week, and one of my favorite things is seeing how often the kids of Dillon get life lessons or positive reinforcement from the adults in their lives who aren’t their parents. It really does take a village, y’all.
Sadly, we didn’t see Landry at all this episode. My question for next week’s recapper, Meredith B. is: what do we think Landry Clark is up to when he’s not on screen? Join us next week for “Upping the Ante”!
I miss Landry! Loved getting such great, meaty Tyra arcs in the past couple eps.
SUCH good Tyra content! But I am not a fan of the Landry drought.
Yes, the show got (even) better with the addition of Tyra as a fully realized character!
I really underestimated the “drink when you want to give Matt a hug” rule when we started this because it is consistently the one that makes me drink the most. Cheers to you, Matty Saracen!
For real, the Rally Girls should have been lining up just to give the poor guys hugs.
LOL, Meredith, as I was reading the post I was thinking, whoooops look at me out here getting everyone wasted (because this was totally the rule I added first, not thinking through how tough he had it this season!).
— Landry is definitely writing more Crucifictorious bangers when he’s offscreen.
— Congrats to Dillon for getting a “new Oriental place” 💀 with a third restaurant in town.
— I know times have changed, but 50 words per minute for a receptionist?!? Are they hunting and pecking?
— Lol at Eric’s trepidation about opportunistic lesbians.
I clocked that “Oriental place” reference too. I’m choosing to hope that was the writers making Buddy obliviously offensive on purpose. And 50 wpm was what I could type at 22, when I was looking for my first grown-up job. So, that checks out as the type of receptionist Buddy would be looking for.
Oh, the “Oriental” comment is *definitely* the writers purposefully making Buddy racist.
For sure, given how Jason talks about the new Japanese restaurant shortly afterwards. But it was just like, wow, remember when I briefly liked Buddy 3 episodes ago lololol
He really tries his hardest to make us hate him, FER SURE.
– Gah I fist pumped for Tyra SO HARD in this episode!!!! I also settled in for the stretch ahead (mild spoiler) of Handling Angela Collette. In hindsight, we should have had a drinking game for how much that woman causes me to HEAVY SIGH.
– Ahhh I LOVED when Tim met with Buddy to ask him to consider giving Tyra and her mom an opportunity. What a stand up thing to do, Riggs!
– I completely agree, re: the best Taylor Couple moment. That is just… so how they are.
— It’s a delicate balance of watching ahead, because I definitely forgot about Tyra’s mom’s subplots before we started rewatching and it would help with the drinking game to know what’s coming up, but I don’t want to watch TOO far ahead because then I forget the little things I want to comment on each week!
— Definitely a good-guy Riggins moment; look at that growth!