Friday Night Lights - Episode 114 - Upping the Ante

Hey! I'm Ran, your new armchair quarterback. This is my first recap for popculturejunkies! I'm dragging along my old friends from Fandom Talk and MediaBlvd -- we're all BIG fans of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.

Since the football-crazy town of Dillon is a big, sticky spider web of interconnected characters and ongoing plots, for simplicity's sake, I'm going to break down "Upping The Ante" by storyline, rather than by scene. Park your behind on a bleacher and hang out with me as the Panthers prepare for their first playoff game. Watch as, for a fleeting moment, Life trumps Football. Shocking!

Jason & Lyla's ONE TREE HILLish Engagement: At a backyard barbecue, Buddy ridicules Murderball, calling it a "hobby." That doesn't sit well (pardon the pun) with Jason, who gets furiouser and furiouser with Buddy and finally announces that he and Lyla are engaged. Stunned silence from the entire Garrity family -- including Lyla -- might not have been the impact he was hoping for. Lyla stands up for herself later as she and Jason sit in his for-sale Wrangler (I'm hand-waving how in the heck he got from his chair up into the driver's seat) and tells him she thinks they're too young to get married. Coach Taylor agrees, and it's his voice that Jason really seems to hear when Taylor risks censure at the courthouse by talking to Jason, who's taking part in the suit against him. It's nice to see that the coach still has sway with his former quarterback.

The Worst Idea Ever (aka Julie & Tyra hook up): Back at my old recapping gig, I called Tyra "Trouble" and nothing she does in this episode changes my mind. When Matt ends up pulling QBEffin'1 Duty and reluctantly abandons Julie at the Applebee's, Trouble takes her under her wing. This leads to: 1) Julie going to the strip club where Trouble's big sis, Toil, works, and we learn that Buddy Garrity is Toil's biggest customer; 2) Julie and Trouble shoplifting cosmetics; and 3) Julie inviting Trouble to the Saracens' house while she baby-sits Grandma, where Trouble gets Grandma soused on white wine and paints her toenails black. Okay, the girltalk and pedicure are cute, but just picture the look on Tami's face if she knew what was going on. Yeah, pretty scary, huh?

Smash & the Steroid Stash: Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Coach T has Smash folding towels and copying game plans as part of the post-'roid drama. Smash "yessirs" him, practically groveling, but he's struggling with the poison seeping out of his body, and the harder he tries, the more pissed off Taylor seems to get. The coach's anger management issues culminate in a hysterical scene where he plays Tom Cruise to Saracen's Matt Lauer in an interview for a local TV broadcast. Tami finally calls Taylor on his shit and he goes to Smash's house, where, with help from a heavy-handed metaphor in the form of a pee-wee Will-Be-Smash, Coach T remembers that football is a game you're supposed to enjoy. So he reinstates Smash for the playoff game. Is all forgiven? Has the 'roid rage been flushed out of his system? Seems awfully tidy to me.

Chip and The Old Block He Came Off Of (aka Tim's reunion with his dad): In order to keep his driver's license after getting a ticket, Tim has to get his dad's signature, last seen on a postcard from two years' prior. Tim's undaunted and heads down to Corpus Christi to find his dad, despite voluble cluck-clucking in his ear from Mother Hen Billy. An endearingly open Tim finds Pa Riggins (played by Brett Cullen, and ohhhhhboy, I wouldn't mind being the bologna between THOSE two slices of Wonder bread!), and they bond over bowling, a campfire and mutual dismay over the state of the Cowboys. Tim stays over and the next day wagers a game of golf with his dad -- if Tim wins, Pa Riggins has to come to the playoff game. But Pa wins, showing his jerkish underbelly, and Tim retreats to Dillon with his gorgeous heart broken yet again. But wait! Guess who shows up at the playoff game? Pa! Think this will end well? Billy sure doesn't.

Hot Tub=Hot Water (aka Matt screws up bigtime): The good news? Matt calls Julie his girlfriend! But then he gets abducted at titpoint by Rally Girls and ends up Mr. November in the Panther calendar, stripped to his boxers in a hot tub and possibly dosed. Damn those Rally Girls! The next day at school, Matt LIES to Julie about what happened, making her cry and vaulting himself momentarily onto my shit list. But don't worry, y'all, I'm sure they'll work it out. The cute cannot be stopped!

We have to wait until next week to find out whether the Panthers win the playoff game, because the episode ends with the team running onto the field after Smash leads them first in prayer and then in a rousing round of "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!" Go, Panthers!