Friday Night Lights: The Giving Tree

Posted by: Sarah Miller  •  March 22, 2009 @ 9:11pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

This week: Tyra has to deal with the consequences of her trip on the rodeo circuit and she asks Landry for help, Coach walks in on Matt and Julie at an inopportune moment and Buddy makes a financial decision that will have big consequences for Lyla.

Tyra is back from the rodeo and she's starting to realize what an idiot she was to take off in the middle of her final year with a cowboy with a gambling problem. She is way behind in her classes and not sure how she is going to make up for all her lost time. Julie tells Tyra that there is another SAT test on Saturday and if she gets a great score her grades might not matter as much to the admissions people at college. Julie also suggests that Tyra get Landry to help her study.

After school, Landry is mid band practice (is it just me or is Crucifictorius getting better?) when Tyra stops by. She asks him to help her with the SATs and he agrees, much to the amusement of his band members. Devon points out that it's like Landry is a prostitute except he doesn't get paid, Jimmy the drummer chimes in that Landry doesn't get laid either. "Well how many times have you been laid in your entire life, Jimmy!?" Landry shoots back. Two.

While Landry is at the Collette house helping Tyra study, her mom walks into the kitchen in nothing but a towel and asks him to take a look at their water heater because she thinks the pilot light is out. When Tyra asks Landry to cancel his band practice so that he can stay and help her study longer he has finally had enough. He tells her that she is taking advantage of him because she knows how he feels about her. He asks her if she's read the book The Giving Tree, it's about tree who loves a boy more than anything. The boy takes and takes everything the tree will give him until there's nothing left but a stump. Well, Landry is the tree and Tyra is the boy in this analogy. He says that they do not have a friendship and walks away.

So Tyra sets out to do something nice for Landry. She heads down to the local pub to try and get Crucifictorius a bona fide gig. It takes some serious negotiating but the bar owner finally agrees. Tyra designs a flyer and goes over to Landry's house to give it to him, she also tells him not to call her selfish because it hurts her feelings. At the gig on Saturday night Crucifictorius actually sounds kind of good much to Matt, Julie and Tyra's surprise. Julie leans over and mentions that Landry looks kind of cute on stage, and Tyra agrees.

Some of the football players wind up at a party at Madison's house and they drag J.D. along with them. Madison is a cute redhead whose parents aren't home, in case you were wondering. She takes a liking to J.D. despite his general awkwardness and unwillingness to drink alcohol. She gives him a glass of milk instead and then helps him to get rid of his milk mustache (this is not a euphemism).

A few days later, Madison shows up on the McCoy's doorstep asking for J.D.. Katie is excited that her son has finally found a friend other than his dad, but Mr. McCoy is not happy. He takes J.D. out behind the house for a game of basketball and to tell him that he has to end his relationship with Madison until football season is over. J.D. agrees, and breaks up with Madison before he gets on the team bus to go to the game. But Riggins is waiting for him on the bus, and tells him that he can't keep letting his dad make all his decision for him if he wants to be a leader.

After the game Katie and Mr. McCoy are getting ready for bed when and she laments that J.D. is in bed and not out on a date. Mr. McCoy tells her not to worry, he put a stop to that already. Katie is incensed and a little bit freaked out that football has taken over every aspect of their lives. But then Katie looks out the window and sees J.D. riding off with Madison, she is over the moon, Mr. McCoy is not.

Through a small change in plans, Coach ends up being the one to pick up Julie from Matt's house instead of Tami. He shows up a little bit early and heads on inside where he finds Matt and Julie in bed together. Julie screams at him to get out and then puts on her clothes in a hurry. The two of them have a very silent and awkward drive home together. I think this is pretty much everyone's worst nightmare, parents and kids. Coach waits until he and Tami are both ready for bed before he tells her what happened. Tami is appropriately horrified and gets up to go and talk to Julie, but Coach tells her to wait until she knows exactly what she is going to say first. Tami waits until the next morning to have the conversation with Julie, she tells her that her punishment will be that she has to have a conversation with her mom about it.

At school Matt is a little apprehensive about picking Julie up from her house for their date the next night. Julie tells Matt she's not letting him off the hook, and he needs to man up. Matt should really be more concerned about seeing Coach at football practice that afternoon. Landry gives Matt some solid advice: "You are basically a dead man walking right now. Whatever you do, don't look him in the eye." Matt needn't have worried though because Coach seems to be following the same advice.

Tami and Julie finally have the sex talk after dinner that night. Tami asks Julie if she loves Matt and if he loves Jules, they do. They also have the super awkward mother-daughter birth control talk and the talk about how Julie can stop having sex anytime she wants to if she feels like it's not right or she's not enjoying it. And Tami starts to cry because she wanted Julie to wait- just because she's her little girl and she wanted to protect her. But tells Julie she can always come and talk to her even if it's something so hard and awkward. As if you didn't know before Tami Taylor is an awesome mom.

Eventually Matt does man up and comes to pick Julie up at her house for their movie date. Tami sends him out into the backyard to wait for Julie with Coach. Coach's father-son talk with Matt is a little more concise than Tami's talk with Julie. He gives two pieces of manly advice: 1) Women are to be respected. 2) That's his daughter, act accordingly. Matt understands and will live to see another day.

Buddy has a business meeting at the strip club and it doesn't go so well. It seems that an investment Buddy made in a strip mall few months ago went belly up, and he's lost $70,000. He gets in a fistfight with the guy he made the investment with and ends up tearing up the landing strip and causing another $30,000 in damage. Coach has to bail Buddy out of jail, but the cops want him to spend the night and sleep it off first. Buddy also asks Coach to have Tami break the news to Lyla.

Tami heads over to the Garrity apartment and tells Lyla that her dad is in jail and she is welcome to spend the night at the Taylor's if she wants the company. Lyla and Julie have some bonding time while they are brushing their teeth over the whole Coach-finding-Julie-in-bed-with-Matt thing. It's nice for Lyla to think about someone else's problems for a little while. Julie tells Lyla that she feels like everything has changed and she's not daddy's little girl anymore. Lyla knows how Julie feels.

Buddy is charged with drunk and disorderly behavior, assault and battery and inflicting $30,000 of damage to the Landing Strip. The judge sets Buddy's bail at $10,000. Somehow Lyla bails him out, and when she brings him home she demands he give her the whole story. He tells her about losing the money on the risky investment and then he gives her the worst news of all: the money he lost was Lyla's college fund. She immediately packs a bag and heads off to the Riggins house.

That night Buddy comes over banging on the Riggins' door. Lyla tells Tim that she has nothing to say to him, but when Buddy won't stop banging on the door she goes out to meet him and they have a yelling match on the front lawn. Buddy calls her a spoiled brat and Lyla tells him that he promised her that money was hers and he didn't even ask if he could use it. She runs back in the house and this time when Buddy bangs on the door, Tim answers. He sends Buddy home and tells him he can't talk to Lyla right now.

At the game on Friday night, the Panthers are in tough with some refs that don't like them, they are missing calls on late hits and interference. Coach preaches to the team before the game that they need to just ignore the refs and play a clean game, but Coach gets so mad that the refs end up ejecting him. He calls Wade Aikmen from the locker room to keep calling the plays but Wade can't hear his phone over the crowd noise. Luckily Wade manages to call a few good plays and the Panthers win anyway. Now they are only one more game away from state.

Tags: Friday Night Lights, S03E10, The Giving Tree

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