Writer: Lix Heldens
Director: Jeffrey Reiner
Grade: A
I’m giving this episode an A for the simple reason that it was very warm and made me feel good, for the most part. And considering how bleak BSG is right now, that’s worth a lot.
Lyla’s far from being my favorite character, but the fact that she immediately wanted to go get her laptop to write a response letter for Tim’s college offer was endearing. Their later fight was not so endearing, but at least Lyla had the sense to see that nothing was going on with Tim and Tyra when she came over to apologize. And it’s a minor thing, but Kitsch and Palicki did a really good job of showing just the right level of nervousness—there’s a difference between being nervous about being caught at something that looks bad and being caught at something that is bad.
Matt’s grandmother is already breaking my heart. It seems like that storyline is going nowhere good, but Matt getting emancipated feels like a somewhat empowering step to me, so I hope at least that much is good. The scene between Matt and Julie was weirdly adorable. On the one hand, Julie was a twit for not taking his family drama seriously enough and cracking a joke, but it was also obvious that she still cares about him a great deal, so I can’t fault her too much. And wow, that was one killer flirty smile he flashed in her direction. Even I almost swooned.
Smash’s little monologue about performing as an individual vs. performing as part of a team summed up the heart of the show pretty well, and it was touching to see Coach actually do something kind and get the entire team to show up and practice with him. I also love his friendship with Tim Riggins, possibly even more than I like the Jason/Tim friendship.
As for Tyra, I almost didn’t believe that she would campaign that way. She’s grown so much over the past two seasons and seems too smart to give in to that temptation, especially after asking for Tami’s help and obviously wanting to prove her worth and intelligence to the Vice Principal. If she’d actually been willing to work hard, she could have beaten the other candidate fairly, based on knowledge and an actual platform. I can’t blame Tami for giving her hell over her campaign methods.
As for this Jumbotron funds fiasco, the Mayor is dead to me. I expect that kind of shit from Buddy--it’s his MO, and even within this episode, he’s somewhat redeemed by his talk with Lyla (it wasn’t perfect, but at least he cares and his fear about Riggins is understandable). The Mayor is an elected official who is supposed to be in charge of the well-being of the entire town, and her stance is absolutely shameful. I will admit that Coach had a point about the fact that Tami chose to use the full amount of booster money for the school. For diplomatic purposes, she could have said, “Okay, there’s no way I’m letting y’all spend this much on a Jumbotron when we’re using outdated school books and our teachers are buying their own chalk. You can use some of the money for other minor improvements, but most of it is going into educational resources.” In any case, I’m guessing we’re going to get a badass speech from Tami when the hearing rolls around.
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