Friday Night Lights: Humble Pie

This messy season of Friday Night Lights continued with an installment that had some pretty big events continue in the lives of many of the main characters. But I have to begin with Jason Street, who actually, gasp, had a good storyline and plenty of screen time this week!! Yes, I know, it's amazing.

Badly needing money for car repairs, Jason was offered a job as a dealer by Buddy, who between Jason and Santiago, has become quite the one-man job provider for these characters. The scene in which Jason was first introduced to his coworkers was rather ridiculous and felt utterly false – yes, there might be some worry and resentment about losing sales to the Panther quarterback turned sympathetic wheelchair kid, but that everyone would be so open about it and not one of them would greet Jason? That was just silly and unbelievable.

But the rest of this storyline was handled much better, as Jason had to figure out his new job and how to handle it. This show has always done so well in the little moments, represented here as Jason gets some words of advice from Buddy and politely responds "yes sir", in just the manner it's obvious Jason has behaved his whole life. Yes, I guessed Jason would prove himself by selling a car to the guy who keeps coming in and not buying, but it was still a well done sequence… even if it was followed by some really corny product placement replay at an ad break later.

Lyla's romance with Chris is fairly boring, but Tim's proclamations of love also seem too forced and unmotivated. Lyla ultimately told Chris she was over Tim, though I'll have to see if that's the truth. However, she did decide to help Tim out by bringing him $3000 to repay his old drug dealing landlord, who'd already beaten up Tim, demanding his money. How Lyla got this money herself is a question it doesn't seem I'll get an answer too, which is a bit frustrating. Thankfully though the writers didn't belabor this drug dealer story too long, as Tim and Billy had a scary situation repaying what they stole, but seemed to have gotten away unscathed. After Landrygate, this show doesn't need another extended crime story.

True, Smash's current storyline has some legal ties, but it's not played in the extreme manner those others are. Here, he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and make a public apology to the boy he hit. Except when that boy kept pushing Smash in interviews of his own, Smash let his true feelings known to a reporter, ruining his deal and finding himself suspended for the final three games of the regular season. Smash asked Eric how they are supposed to get to State in this situation, and my guess is the answer is… they won't.

After some time on the sidelines, Tyra had a lot of screen time here, with one subplot that made her quite unlikable mixed with one engaging one. In the first, Tyra was truly mean and nasty to Landry's cute new friend, Jean, in a petty and jealous way that makes her very hard to connect with. Sure, I get Tyra has feelings for Landry, despite not being able to commit to him, but come on, leave the poor little funky Freshman gal alone a bit!

Much more fun was the storyline that had Tami taking over as coach of Dillon's volleyball team, which was a task made all the more difficult by the fact that the team absolutely stank. But the five foot eleven inch Tyra was Tami's saving grace, as she got the reluctant girl to join the team, and in a very funny running joke, fuel a killer spike by aiming at either Tim or imagining Tim. When the volleyball team won a game, it was a really sweet moment, as Julie rolled her eyes at the fact that the team was still one and seven, while Eric pointed out that be that as it may, Tami was one and one.