The show brings us back to Dillon eight months after last season's finale and times have changed. Coach Taylor has apparently been in Austin for the better part of that time. Mrs. Taylor is about nine months pregnant and still looking like the best MILF in town. Julie is a lifeguard at the pool where everyone hangs out and she and Matt seem to be on the outs even though they haven't broken up. Julie only seems to have eyes for someone called the Swede but isn't Swedish but grungy and in a band. Whatever. Tim seems to have spent the better part of the summer drunk and Lyla found Jesus. Landry is still pining over Tyra, but they at least seem to be friends now. We don't hear much about Smash, except for the fact that he's on the cover of Texas Football magazine. Ok, so Tami is at the pool when she goes into labor, then she Julie are at the hospital in the delivery room waiting for Coach to show up, which he does right before the baby is born and its beautiful and touching and AWESOME, all at the same time. Things don't stay AWESOME for long though. Julie's apparently been acting up at home, mostly because she resents her dad for being away. Didn't see that one coming, did you? Eric finds out that he's going to have to go back to Austin much earlier than he thought, which results in a tense and heartbreaking scene where he asks Tami to talk to him but she can't and then she breaks down in tears right after he leaves the room. Julie sneaks out to a bar to go see the Swede's band play (really sweaty bad emo band, by the way. I mean this guy instead of Matt? Come on.) only to find out that the Swede has a girlfriend. Having sent her fried Lois home (I think is the first time we've actually seen Lois, so it was nice to finally put a name with a face), she had to call her Dad for a ride home. Coach starts to rip into her, but then Julie goes and plays Daddy's Girl card and starts crying and tells her dad how it sucks that he left and that she's afraid to be with Matt because he's perfect and he's afraid she'll wind up like her parents which she knows isn't bad thing but she wants to see the world an is afraid of getting trapped at 16. I can remember feeling the same way at that age. Coach goes AWESOME again and tells Julie that everything is going to be ok and that if she doesn't want to keep dating Matt she shouldn't. I still can't understand how this show got no major Emmy nominations and Boston Legal did. I mean, BOSTON LEGAL?!!! Come on.
Ok, now it's time to address the other major plotline, the one most people have been having a lot of issues with. Tyra's being stalked by the guy that attacked her at the end of last season. He almost runs her over with his car and she's basically scared shitless for most of the episode. One night she thinks she hears noises outside, so she calls Landry to come over and check. It turns out to be a skunk, but since he's there they watch a movie. Landry thinks this is his shot, so he calls Tyra from Matt's bathroom while trying to freshen to up. Matt, having been ditched by Julie (she went to go see the Swede, sorry for not mentioning it earlier) tells him to brush his arm against hers and if she doesn't freak out than he's probably ok. Landry, after a long buildup, lays his fingers on her arm. Instead of freaking out, Tyra decides she hungry and they head out for food. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. At the deserted convenience store, Tyra decides to wait out by the car while Landry goes in. She's not even sitting in the car. If I was being stalked, I would think being alone in a deserted parking lot might not be such a great idea, but that's just me. Sure enough, we see Stalker's car pull up behind her. He gets out, calls her, and then grabs her Landry comes out in the nick of time, and gets stalker off her. Stalker walks away but says that he'll get her eventually. As he's walking away, Landry picks up a pipe and hits him in the back of the head, then hits him a couple more times for good measure. Tyra starts to freak out b/c Stalker is good and dead. Instead of calling the cops, they get Stalker into the car and dump his body off a bridge. At least that's what the editing makes it look like, but this show has always been about the cool editing, so I can't be sure. I talked about this for a while with a couple friends and to be honest, Landry hitting the guy with the pipe didn't really bother me. He did what it took to protect the person he loves. What did bother me was the completely uncharacteristic move of trying to dump the body instead of calling the cops. It doesn't fit with what we know about him and Tyra as well. I think the reason this bothers people so much, aside from being kinda gruesome, is that its not the kind of drama we're used to from this show. I read one article that called the show a subtle drama and this storyline soap operatic. It's totally true. Think about the scene with Tami and Coach earlier where they don't talk; they don't make any noise. Think about how Matt and Julie talked to each other last season. The best moments on this show are often about what's not said, what's not done. The show is believable as real life. Throwing the guy off the bridge? Not so much.
A few other things I liked:
- Lyla ripping into her Mom and Mom's new boyfriend while saying grace.
- Lyla and Tim's quick little interaction. I have funny feeling these two will be getting back together somewhere down the line. They're chemistry is too good to be wasted.
- The new coach, only b/c he's such a jerk that's going to get fired and Coach is going to have to come back.
