Friday Night Lights: Bad Ideas

Friday Nights Lights sure is shaking things up this season. With Coach Taylor in Austin, Tami dealing with a new baby, Julie going after the Swede, and of course that crazy plot twist with Landry and Tyra, Dillon is looking a lot different right now.

If I had to pick a theme for this episode, it would be: "What have we just done?" Tami is verging on losing it, Matt is dealing with Grandma's new nurse, and Landry is trying to figure out how to live with himself after killing a guy and dumping his body in the river.

Doesn't that last bit sound a little ridiculous? Even though the Tyra/Landry story was only a small portion of "Bad Things," it's the story line that looms over everything else right now. This murder was intended to bring Tyra and Landry together, and that's what we saw this week: Landry's declaration of love; Tyra's surrender to the person who did something courageous (albeit stupid) on her behalf. It's an interesting place to take the two of them, and they're acting the heck out of it, but really — was this the only way to get them there?

More interesting to me is the way the Taylor family has been shaken up. Tami's really on the edge right now, and she knows that she put herself there. Glenn, the replacement counselor, is probably the last person in the world who should be comforting her, but at least he's in town. (Also: Tami doesn't have any girlfriends?) Julie, meanwhile, is inches away from a full-on teenage girl freefall, dumping her nice-guy boyfriend and rushing headlong toward The Swede — who, by the way, is way too old to be flirting with high schoolers at the gas station.

Matt finally got the help he'd been demanding for Grandma in the form of Carlotta, a live-in nurse who's already managed to unearth his stash of nudie magazines. Things are definitely going to be changing around the Saracen house — no more junk food, way less TV, and this new person telling Matt how things should be done. I seriously hope the two of them don't sleep together.

A few other thoughts:

• Do I really want Jason searching for a miracle cure?
• Buddy Garrity sure has fallen from grace, huh? Not that long ago, he was the guy with the ear of the state champion football coach; now, he's being told he's unwholesome and unnecessary. How perfect that his reaction to being snubbed would be to get drunk and tell stories about his glory days as a Panther.
• There's so much else going on with Landry right now that this seems like a minor quibble, but: I find it hard to believe that he'd make the varsity squad of a state champion football team. That said, I did love Landry meeting his "sort-of" rally girl, who seems just as awkward and out-of-place as he does.
• I'm having trouble getting invested in Coach's TMU storylines, but it was great to see flashes of his brilliance in the way he dealt with Antoine — and I loved how the suggestion that he was "one hell of a high school coach" came off as equal parts compliment and insult.