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Last week, Mandy C. asked what my advice would be to Tyra now that she realized Cash was a mistake, and my advice would be similar to Julie’s: do what you can to make up for it and ask for help when needed.
In the previous episode, Tyra finally got rid of Matt Donovan Cash, which disrupted Tami and Eric’s celebration of Tami’s birthday, the Panthers win their nationally televised game against Arnett Mead, and Tim met up with a college recruiter.
This week’s episode doesn’t require nearly as many drinks as last week, luckily, but we still need to review the drinking game before we dive in!
The Official FYA Friday Night Lights Season 3 Drinking Game
Drink once every time:
You want to give Matt Saracen a hug
Tami Taylor drinks a glass of 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.”
Gracie appears in a scene
You want to punch Joe McCoy in the face
Grandma Saracen gets riled up
Billy and Mindy are too much but you love ‘em anyway
You tear up
Drink twice every time:
The Panthers score a touchdown
Tim and/or Billy Riggins makes poor choices
There’s a classic Coach Taylor pep talk
You think, “Cash is bad news.”
Devin is the shit
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”
Smash gets into college
On to the episode!
3.10 “The Giving Tree”
Tyra complains about how she’s never going to catch up on all the school stuff she missed while making bad choices with Cash, and Julie tells her to do what she can to make it up and hey, ask Landry to be your SAT tutor again. Tyra takes this last bit advice and stops by his band practice to ask him just that. Landry, of course, immediately agrees to help her and is ribbed by his bandmates for it after she leaves. During their second study session, Tyra is bored of vocabulary words, which is fair, and suggests Landry postpone his band practice to take a break, which is not quite fair. Landry has had enough of this treatment and tells her as much with the analogy of him being the tree in The Giving Tree, a terribly sad book about a tree who gives and gives and gives until there’s nothing left of the tree. (Don’t be the tree, y’all, have some boundaries.) He then storms off to band practice. Later, Tyra gets his band a gig at a local bar and tells him to not say she never did anything for him. At the show, Matt, Julie, and Tyra are impressed that the band is actually not bad at all, and seeing Landry on stage does a little something to Tyra?
Buddy is having a business meeting at The Landing Strip, and his first sign that this was not a good business idea is that, you know, the meeting is at a strip club. When he’s told his $70,000 investment was lost but hey, you can invest in this new thing and make it all back, he loses it and proceeds to beat up his (presumably now former) business partner and damage the strip club in the process. Lyla spends the night with the Taylors when he’s in jail (more on that later), and then once home she and her father argue about his recent behavior, especially once she finds out it was her college fund that he lost. She then goes to stay with the Riggins’ and has another argument with her father in their front yard after he shows up and refuses to leave. Buddy eventually leaves a regretful message on Lyla’s cell phone, but it’s possible this is too little, too late.
JD meets a girl, Madison, who keeps flirting with him, and he flirts back. His dad, however, tells him that playoffs are “not the time to be chasing skirts” because he’s the worst, and JD reluctantly agrees. After talking to Riggins, though, JD reconsiders this and goes off on a date with Madison post-football game that was supposed to be a secret but was totally seen through the window by both parents (to Katie’s happiness and Joe’s anger).
Buddy must have used his one phone call to call Eric instead of his daughter because when Eric meets him in jail, he tries to talk about the upcoming Panthers game as if he’s not in jail with pending criminal charges. While Tami goes to tell Lyla the news about her father and then invite her over, Eric goes to pick up Julie from Matt’s and is surprised, to say the least, to find the two cuddling in bed upon his arrival. They drive home in silence, and he later tells Tami about his discovery. The next evening, Tami and Julie have a heart-to-heart about Julie’s new sex life, and they both cry and hug. Another day, when Matt comes by to pick up Julie, he has to wait for her in the backyard with Eric, who gruffly tells him that women are to be respected, especially his daughter, before returning to aggressively clean the grill. It’s a whole moment.
Once it’s time for the game (two games until State!), Eric ignores the advice he’d previously given the team to not get mad at the bad calls expected to be made by the refs and yells at one of the refs enough to get ejected from the game. He watches the end of the game in what appears to be a makeshift bar? and watches Coach Wade bring the team to victory in the final seconds before asking if they have scotch.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
14, largely due to Buddy and Joe McCoy.
Did the Panthers win?
Yes, no thanks to the terrible refs and Coach getting ejected from the game.
MVP of the Week
This week goes to Landry for standing up to Tyra and refusing to be The Giving Tree, part 2.
Most Backfiring Play of the Week
Did Tyra really only get Crucifictorious a gig at Hole in the Wall TC’s and wear the band shirt to said gig to prove a point? Yes. Did that end up making Tyra see Landry in a new light? Also yes. It’s okay, Tyra, it happens to the best of us.
Best Taylor Couple Moment
They only really had the one moment this week, when Eric told Tami about catching Matt and Julie in bed right when she was about to go to sleep. It was a good call to tell her that hey, know what you’re going to say before you talk to Julie, though.
Tim Riggins’ Finest Moment
We also didn’t see much of Riggins’ this week, for shame. However, a well deserved shout out to him for doing his best to de-escalate the situation when an angry Buddy came over to talk to Lyla and make a messy situation even messier.
The Taylor Advice of the Week
Speaking of Buddy’s messy situation, Eric’s advice to him that “money comes and goes, these kids of ours, that’s a one time deal” was advice Buddy should’ve taken instead of making things even worse with his daughter.
Post-Game Breakdown
- Can we have a moment to appreciate the opening credits and song? Because they remain great.
- One thing I have remembered while rewatching this show is how I am very Team Katie McCoy. I’m sorry your husband is so very…the way he is, Katie.
- I, too, have Central Market organic milk in my fridge, Miranda. Texas forever!
My question for Kandis, who is recapping next week’s episode, and for our lovely readers: yay or nay to the book The Giving Tree?
Shop Our Friday Night Lights Themed Merch
Yay for boundaries! Also for Hole in the Wall.
Cheers to both of those!
– That moment when Devin and the drummer are looking at each other and silently judging Landry for bending to Tyra’s whim = 100. (Also, drink!)
– Haha Meredith, I ALSO noticed the Central Market milk! I was like, show, there is no WAY Dillon has a Central Market. Like, they’d be lucky to just have an HEB in 2010.
That moment of them judging Landry was low key one of my favorite moments.
If Dillon is as small as we’re sometimes led to believe, they absolutely don’t have a Central Market or HEB lol
– I loved Tami and Julie’s conversation, awkward and uncomfy as it was. Eric’s face from when he walked out of that house to when he told Tami was hilarious, and then Matt’s face when he was told to go out back to talk to Coach. Everyone was bringing their A game this episode.
– I’m glad Landry told Tyra she was taking advantage of him, and while I could see them together on some level, at this point too much has happened and when she’s like, oh yeah he does look cute up there I just want to shake her and be like, LEAVE HIM ALONE. He needs to get over this obsession and his stalkery tendencies, you need to find a dude you respect, and this situationship just needs to die.
– Aaaand back to being extremely annoyed by Buddy, and now he doesn’t even have “trying to be a good dad” as a character trait that musters up my one shred of sympathy for him!
Landry and Tyra had their moment, and it is now well over and done.
Buddy is such a mess and needs to get his life together yesterday.
– I know Season 2 is memory holed, but Landry 100% would have been justified in adding in “I killed a man for you” when he was calling out Tyra 😂
– Also in things I know: yes, Tami is a white Texas woman in 2008 lol but the UGH I ugh’d when she told Julie that she was hoping she’d wait 💀 Prude Tami is my least favourite Tami! (Or at least tied with House Hunters Tami.)
– So Tyra’s supposed to have good grades (or did at one point), but now she hates tests…? She doesn’t want to study, but she wants to go to college — obviously very motivated by being the first Colette to do so, but graduating means doing those hard things. And she knows she’s already at a disadvantage because of her Cash detour!
– … which brings me to not knowing how to feel that I like Lyla and even Julie upon rewatch a lot more than I thought I would, and how much I’ve been annoyed at Tyra lol
– Oh, and Joe McCoy is forever punchable. If anyone deserves to be cussed out, it’s him (and JD deserving of dishing it out).