Friday Night Lights: It's Different For Girls

Hell hath no fury like a public scorned by one of its sweethearts. The high schoolers, led by someone I’m guessing is a childhood friend of Lyla’s, continue their campaign of humiliation, making sure the once golden cheerleader knows exactly how terrible she is for cheating on Street. It’s reminiscent of the Scarlet Letter and I wish I could say it felt a little harsher than real life, but it doesn’t. After his game-saving performance last week, Riggs is off the hook and Lyla’s taking the brunt of the abuse. It’s disconcerting for me to find Buddy Garrity even close to likeable, but I love this story for bringing out the supportive father in him. The scene in which his old friend shows up at the dealership to inform him of his own daughter’s involvement in creating a vicious website dedicated to Lyla’s downfall was awkward and awful and awesome all at once. Buddy’s a lot of unflattering things, but unloving father isn’t one of them.

Over in Street’s little corner of Dillon, we see the former QB1 adjusting to life back at home. In my favorite scene he and an awkward neighbor kid race, wheelchair against bike. Street gives it his all, but doesn’t care when he’s beaten. He’s all smiles before turning serious to remind the youngster not to play in the street, that their race was a special circumstance. I could eat him with a spoon. His winning character also comes out in a meeting with the lawyer his parents have retained for a possible lawsuit against the school. When the guy tries to lead Street into blaming Coach Taylor for the accident, Jason refuses, steadfastly taking responsibility for the tackle that led to his paralyzation. Seriously, people: a spoon.

Smash is still on the juice. He’s also after the minister’s daughter, who’s been away in “Africa,” which he believes about as much as she believes he spent the church’s money on an “SAT Prep Course.” I like her, but none of this is going to end well. Though I guess we already knew that on account of the steroids and the stealing…

Julie Taylor has fully embraced her role as ruler of Matt Saracen. He follows her around like a puppy and is used as a pawn in Taylor v. Taylor & Taylor, her own personal war of independence. Poor Matt’s just trying to make everyone happy and in the process nearly shoots himself in the foot by telling Coach that he likes Julie and no one can stop him from seeing her. Bad move, kid. At least he doesn’t participate in the locker room banter about Julie’s V Chip (we called it a V Card in my day; I feel old), which Coach overhears. Taylor does a lot of fretting this episode, apparently realizing that the prospect of Julie dating is a lot different that the actuality of Julie dating. He also coins the phrase “Matt Chat,” which is Dad-speak for “Passive aggressively assigning Matt an ass load of work so he stay clear of my daughter’s V Chip.” Not to be outdone, Matt coins a new nickname for Tami: “Mrs. Coach.”

After last week’s episode, in which Riggs was almost totally silent, merely affirming that he would live after the game, our boy’s got a lot to say. Mostly he acts as a narrative device, going to see Jason to tell him that his indiscretion with Lyla did nothing to sway her love for Street and then telling Lyla that she should compete in the cheerleading competition despite being a pariah. She does, and when she looks up in the crowds and smiles in Tim’s direction, the camera reveals her eye line is directed at Jason, who after an emotional and honest talk, is maybe starting to shine some of his golden boy glow on the prospect of forgiveness.