Writer: Bridget Carpenter
Director: Patrick Norris
Grade: A+
Yet another beautiful episode this season. I intended to watch Season 2 again, but this season is doing such a good job of making me forget that train wreck ever happened, why ruin a good thing?
I finally see what the writers are doing with JD McCoy, which is introduce a new character properly. Joss Whedon was usually good at this, too. Introduce someone new as a peripheral character so viewers can get used to them (and if you’re lucky, become curious about them, too), keep them in the background for a while, and then finally give them something meatier to work with. It definitely worked on me—I’ve been curious about JD all along, and despite how much I adore Matt, I didn’t hate him. Bravo, show!
I got the impression, just from his short scene with Matt and Julie in “How the Other Half Live,” that JD thinks his parents are a little cuckoo, and his behavior here seemed to back that up, at least as far as his father is concerned. He seems to be on slightly better terms with his mother, joking around with her about proposing to two different cheerleaders. His mother wants him to succeed, but more than that, she wants him to be happy. His father just wants him to succeed. The man is downright menacing. I loved seeing how appalled Coach was when JD’s father made him apologize for getting drunk.
I also liked it that JD was smart enough to ask Riggins, “Coach put you up to this?” after the little nighttime tour of Dillon. Nice to see that even if he’s a little naïve and trapped under his dad’s thumb, he’s still no dummy. Also, apparently some moments were cut from the NBC broadcast, including JD saying that Lyla’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen and that she and Riggins would make pretty babies. Hee.
Tim and Lyla were actually pretty cute in this episode. It was a nice change that even though she was pissed about Tim wanting to leave the dance, she didn’t use it as grounds for having a “talk” with him. It also seemed like she eventually understood that Tim was trying to help JD rather than blow off her wishes.
The four morons renovating a house storyline has played out as expected. Still, when the other guys overheard Jason singing to Noah, it seemed like they realized how much Jason has at stake. Maybe things will go a bit more smoothly now.
I’m not sure what to make of Cowboy Junkie. Either he’s telling the truth, or the actor is really good at playing good liars. His explanation sounded pretty unrehearsed, particularly the bit about how he hooked up with the girl once five years ago but the kid is two. The fact that it did sound unrehearsed kind of backs up his assertion—if he knew he didn’t do anything wrong, he would have been more likely to trust his ability to make her believe him without practicing a speech. Still, even if Cash is lying, it means he’s a deadbeat dad and he’s bad for Tyra, not that he doesn’t care about her. Because he pretty clearly cares for her a great deal. It’s hard to tell where that storyline is going, but perhaps the more interesting story would be for him to be telling the truth. If Tyra falls in love with him, she’d have to choose between him and going away to college. And besides, there's still the pill popping to worry about.
And finally, Julie losing her virginity is easily the most tasteful handling of such I’ve ever seen. It was maybe a little idealized, but it wasn’t sensationalized or exploitative of Julie in any way. It made me think back to Buffy losing her virginity to Angel, and how sexy and sweet that scene seemed to me as a teenager, and how gross that sensualization of a sixteen year old girl has come to feel as I’ve gotten older. This was not about showing us the romance or awkwardness of the deed itself, but rather about the build-up and the aftermath. It was completely rooted in character. Gilford and Teegarden also seem to have more chemistry than they did back in Season 1—the way they were looking at each other the next morning almost took my breath away, as corny as it sounds.
I suppose there should be some question about whether Matt used protection, and if he did have a condom with him, does that mean he was planning to seduce Julie. My take on it is a) Matt was QB1 of the Dillon Panthers for a couple of years, so I’d guess he would carry condoms around, and b) it probably occurred to him that something might happen, but I doubt he actually intended to seduce her. And if he did, he didn’t carry it out, because joking around about the ingredients of hot dogs was definitely not a seduction technique! In any case, even if he did take a condom with him just in case, it doesn’t make him a horndog. It means he behaved like a responsible teenage boy. If Matt hoped something might happen, it wasn’t about getting laid, it was about having sex with Julie. What on earth is wrong with a nice, healthy, well-mannered teenage boy wanting to have sex with a girl he loves? Isn’t that how it should be, ideally?
So yes, well-done, show!
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