Writer: Ron Fitzgerald
Director: Stephen Kay
Originally Aired: 06/18/2010
Grade: A
I’m starting off with a bit of a retrospective: I didn’t notice until this episode that the Matt’s storyline with Sherman was dropped at the end of the third episode. The last time we saw the guy, Matt had come to confront a piss drunk Sherman about his little talk with Julie, and ended up being dumbfounded by his lovely, symbolically perfect sculpture. I actually assumed that we’d still get some interaction between those two, with Matt coming back to talk to a sober Sherman, but in retrospect, their final scene is a lovely ending to that relationship. Matt is intelligent and thoughtful enough to at least intuitively understand how that sculpture represents Sherman’s world view, and that’s what Matt needed to learn from him—your life and your art are unavoidably intertwined.
As for Julie, her breakdown on stage at the “Smackdown” was poignant without veering too far into “only-on-TV” melodrama. I can somewhat understand why Matt hasn’t called her (because he’ll miss her and want to come running back), but there’s no way Julie understands that yet. She just feels abandoned, and his refusal to call makes her wonder if he ever loved her at all. I would think that the always-wise Tami might have some understanding of Matt’s motivations and try to help Julie understand, for the sake of making her feel better, but I’m not a mom. Maybe Julie just needs to wallow in her pain for a bit longer before she can listen to a rational explanation of Matt’s seemingly heartless behavior.
Landry seemed to imply that Matt hadn’t called him, either. That might have been a show Landry was putting on for Julie’s benefit, but Matt and Landry have been besties since they were five, so talking to Landry could carry just as much emotional weight for Matt as talking to Julie. Girlfriend of three years vs. best friend of thirteen years? They’ve both got plenty of motivation to feel hurt and betrayed, and I hope the writers continue to give us some glimpses into them supporting each other. I really enjoyed seeing them interact so much, especially since Landry was one of the reasons Julie gave for wanting to transfer to East Dillon.
I was also happy to see Julie pay Matt’s grandma a visit, even if it took on a bittersweet note. I hope that’s not the last we’ll see of Grandma and Shelby.
I wasn’t sure whether Tami’s Blue Ribbon school storyline was intended to show her being welcomed back into the fold, or whether the people doing the congratulating and celebrating were never pissed at her in the first place. Was it someone from the school board who chastised her before, when she was trying to discuss the school library? And these were just the teachers and administrators who never blamed her at all? It’s too bad I’ve been deleting the episodes after my second-viewing!
I’m assuming the point of Glenn kissing Tami was to show us (again!) that she’s cool under pressure, because surely she’s not going to embark on a steamy affair with Glenn. The scene with the two of them talking about it the next day, on the school stage, out in the open for anyone to see and overhear, was really odd. I was so uncomfortable, wondering who could be listening. (Glenn’s dialogue, however, was hilariously perfect. Hee, “mouth-raped.”)
There’s no way the strippers’ baby shower/kegger/fundraiser was legal, especially with all the underage drinking (including a drunken 19-year-old Tim serving the booze), but it’s not implausible that they might have gotten away with it.
The stuff with Tim, Becky, and Becky’s dad was pretty straightforward—Tim over-identified, saw his own father in Becky’s, and now he totally relates to her daddy issues on a conscious level. I wasn’t exactly riveted by that storyline, but the scene at the end with Tim naming the dog was like some kind of divine intervention, with the dog yawning at “Julian” and perking up at “Skeeter.” I wonder if Kitsch and “Skeeter” miraculously ad-libbed that, or if the dog was following training cues of some kind. Although now that I think about it, maybe it was just good editing? I can’t remember if Tim’s lines and the dog’s reactions were in the same shot, or if there were cuts. Whatever the case, it was perfect. Tim’s so charismatic that he even has good chemistry with dogs!
The most jarring aspect of this episode was Luke’s storyline vs. Vince’s storyline. In my experience, a town is either the sort of place where kids have to miss school to help their parents on the farm, or it’s the sort of place where a kid can see three of his friends gunned down on the way home from school over a ten year period. In moderately sized cities with surrounding farming areas—places like Nashville, Sacramento, Austin—I could see both things happening, but I’ve always been under the impression that Dillon was a pretty small town, and not particularly prone to excessive violence outside of drunken redneck squabbles and domestic abuse.
This East Dillon storyline came out of nowhere, doubled the size of Dillon, and added gang violence, and none of those things are far from my mind when it comes to Vince’s storyline. When he tells coach about his hard-knock life, I think two things. 1) Since when is Dillon the kind of town where people get shot going to and from school? 2) If East Dillon is troubled by such violence, why had not a single character even so much as mentioned that side of town until midway through the third season (or whenever that redistricting storyline began)? The writing is still sharp, the acting is still top notch, but the way they set up the season abruptly changed viewers’ understanding of Dillon in a pretty extreme way, and that feels contrived.
I was also confused about what actually happened with Vince’s gun storyline. When the cops initially came to search the locker, I assumed the “tip” was called in by one of the McCoys or some other Panther-ite as a racist power-tripping prank, and that interpretation was supported when Vince did not, in fact, have a gun in his locker. Then it turned out that he did have a gun, and I’m not sure if it was just a coincidence—a prank turned into a classic trickster move where an action with negative intent ends up with a positive outcome—or whether someone Vince knew narced on him.
The only person we’ve seen Vince interact with who might do that is Angry Necklace Guy (as he’s commonly referred to on the interwebs, although I think his name is actually Calvin). He’s seemed be both missing Vince’s friendship and resenting Vince’s second chance at life, but only the resentment part could have motivated the betrayal, because getting Vince tossed into juvie wouldn’t exactly get him his friend back. In any case, someone called that in to the police, and surely the writers had some idea who did it when they came up with it, so maybe we’ll find out in a later episode.
Other Stuff
-Seeing Becky try to adopt a shelter dog, I feel pretty validated in my interpretation of her as a “lost puppy” type.
-Vince’s sobered-up mom kind of broke my heart. She’s seems to be a capable and thoughtful person without the substance abuse, and the actress was so good that I found myself rooting for the character despite her sparse screen time.
-Between ooh-ing and ah-ing over Luke’s leftover French fries and helping Luke and his dad build the fence, Tink just hit a new level of awesome.
Quotes
Glenn: “I practically raped you.”
Tami: “No you didn’t.”
Glenn: “No, not literally, but like, with my mouth. It’s like I mouth-raped you.”
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