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Episode recap: Friday Night Lights, “Tami Knows Best” (S.3, E.2)

While the National Football League season is coming to an end, Dillon Panther football is just getting started for the third time around (or at least, for those of us not lucky enough to have Direct TV). If the first two episodes are any indication, this beautifully acted, wonderfully scripted dramatic series will likely retain its status as one of the few consistently good shows on television.

The latest episode to air on Friday, January 23, 2009, actually isn’t the first, so I’ll briefly get you up to speed on “I Knew You When.” Tami (Connie Britton) has taken over as the new principal of Dillon High School, immediately finding herself bombarded with budget issues, not to mention, Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland) and his request for a new Jumbotron.  Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) is forced to face the hard truth that she may not get into the kind of school she wants because of her poor grades. Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) and Lyla (Minka Kelly) seem to be back on. Matt (Zach Gilford) finds competition in a talented new freshman quarterback. And Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) makes it his mission to find a spot on a good team for former superstar Smash (Gaius Charles).

“Tami Knows Best” is a title that speaks for itself. Seeing how four teachers have already lost their jobs, and that needed school supplies and textbooks have been foregone for way too long, Tami sticks to her guns and denounces the idea of bringing in a new Jumbotron. But Buddy gets the mayor on his side, and Tami’s convictions are really tested after she faces an outright threat from the city official for not doing what is expected of her, which is, essentially, the booster club’s bidding.

But Tami’s ideals are tested in other areas, too. Tyra has been consistently dumped on by the school’s vice-president, yet Tami backs her up once she brings a few scantily clad girls to school to help her bid for class president. But it’s after a school meeting in the gym, where Tyra claims that she’ll help students get laid if they vote for her, that Tami loses a lot of faith, and she warns Tyra of how close she is to giving up on her. It’s a hard piece of reality of take, as evident by the change in expression and demeanor Palicki channels so effectively.

Meanwhile, Coach Taylor continues to push hard for Smash, who is a far cry from the cocky, enthusiastic, positive personality he was before. Now downbeat and broken, he seems to be more and more convinced that his once bright future is gone. The relationship between the two is really something to see. The deep, sincere devotion Taylor has for Smash is both realistic and touching, yet it never crosses into the realm of sentimental mushiness. It makes it all the more special when near the end of the episode, we find out that Taylor has scored a walk-on tryout for Smash at Texas A&M.

Matt is forced to confront new problems involving his grandmother (the always fantastic Louanne Stephens). She hasn’t been taking her pills, and the doctors are suggesting she be put in a home. Matt decides it’d be best if he became her legal guardian, so he travels to visit his estranged mother and gets her to sign emancipation papers. Poor kid, you got to feel for him. He’s awkward, he’s never the guy on top, and when he is, it’s pretty ephemeral. But he never feels sorry for himself, and maybe that’s why we can like him so easily. Or maybe it’s because Zach Gilford plays him so well, with so much absolute honesty, aligning ourselves with the character feels so effortless.

There hasn’t been much of Julie Taylor in these first few episodes, and I have to say, as much of a brat as she was last season, I’m not exactly upset about that. Yet so far, she seems to have matured and gotten her ego in check. Maybe it’s the new job at Applebee’s, or the drive she has to get a new car. Or maybe it’s because she doesn’t have a boy in her life, and if the exchanges she and Matt had in the last episode were meant to foreshadow anything, it looks like that will be short-lived.

Lastly, there’s the always complicated relationship between Tim Riggins and Lyla Garrity. Now that they’ve established they want to be together, of course, some force has to drive a wedge between them, and that force would be Lyla’s dad, Buddy. He has a dinner with Joel McCoy (D.W. Moffett), the father of rising quarterback prospect, J.D. McCoy. To his dismay, Lyla brings Tim along. Buddy tells Riggins, flat-out, that he doesn’t like him, and he then states that if anything with the dinner goes wrong, he will hurt him. Needless to say, the dinner doesn’t go well, and Lyla and Riggins are left to question how much their relationship is worth. But before the episode ends, they make up, or at least, Lyla brings Tim a cheeseburger while he’s sitting on the couch with Tyra. . .with his pants off. Yeah, it sounds bad, but nothing happened, and Lyla seems to accept that idea. Now, how many more times she comes in on a situation like that and handles it in the same way, I can’t say, but I doubt it would bode well for Riggins.

As someone who enjoys outstanding primetime television, I can really appreciate this series. As someone who played football in high school, I can appreciate it all the more. There are probably 999 ways to screw up a show about football, and the team behind the series picks the one way to do it right. They do it right each and every time.