Friday Night Lights Season 4, episode 4, “A Sort of Homecoming”, is definitely one of the better episodes this season so far.  Pretty much most of my complaints from earlier episodes have been dealt with.  But it’s not perfect.

 

So Coach Taylor’s plot this episode is that he is going to hold a pep rally for the Lions.  This like everything else he’s tried to do for the team turns out to be much harder than it should be.  Coach’s plot really takes a backseat though.  A lot of this episode is dedicated to our newer characters.  Oh also everyone hates Tami because she had that kid transferred.

Speaking of transfer kid (Luke), he’s still not getting along with Juvie.  They get in a fight on the field and then Juvie steals his wallet.  Cause that’s what Juvie does.  Later on in the episode Luke is driving around with the Panthers and JD and they see Juvie walking along the side of the road so they all get out and jump him but it’s really just Juvie and Luke fighting.  The cops come and arrest the two of them.  By the way it was interesting that they took quite a bit of care to show that one of the Panthers was black so as to not make the entire scene a big hate crime, which really it was.  So Luke is white and he’s fine to get out of jail, but Juvie is black and also is Juvie so the cops tell Coach he’s going to Juvie for reals.  Coach makes Juvie and Luke change their story and manages to get Juvie out.  He then leaves the two of them stranded in the middle of nowhere.  They suddenly work everything out and Juvie somehow has Luke’s wallet on him at that exact moment and gives it back to him.

 

Then we have Julie.  Julie is applying to all east coast colleges and this upsets Saracen.  But the real meat of Julie’s plot this week involves Devin, of Crucifictorious and being a lesbian fame, portrayed by the awesome Stephanie Hunt.  Apparently she and Julie are friends(?) so Devin asks Julie to go with her to a gay bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After making the cutest faces ever during that conversation she agrees to be Devin’s straight accomplice.  So off to the closest gay bar to Dillon we go.

 

It’s here that Julie sees volunteer way too excited Lions coach guy, and Devin sees a potential love interest.

 

I really hope that this isn’t some subplot that just disappears.  I loved Devin when she was introduced in Season 3 and she was an awesome character and a great friend for Landry.  I’d really like to see the show exploring her more, especially her relationships being gay in a small Texas town.

 

Speaking of Landry, he takes his crush to a party and then later on at the big (little) pep rally, held at her dad’s BBQ place, he finally makes his move and kisses her.  This could be interesting, as we also learn in this episode that Juvie and Landry’s crush have a past.  Also the big mystery of why Landry’s crush’s dad who used to play football hates it is strong here.  He doesn’t want to hold the pep rally at his restaurant and won’t go to see his other children play in their pop warner league.  Dude really hates football.  I can’t wait to find out why.  It turns out a lot of the ex-Lions aren’t too fond of their past though.  Coach has a real hard time getting any of them to come to the pep rally.  Finally good ole Buddy decides to step in and just makes shit happen.  Cause that’s pretty much what Buddy Garrity does.

 

The girl who’s crushing on Riggins is apparently a beauty queen and she gets into some big pageant so her mom promises to take her shopping but of course flakes.  This leads to a Riggins goes dress shopping scene.  Also Alicia Witt who plays the mom is back, but this time actually looking like her beautiful self.

Nothing else happens with her this episode.  Riggins however is dead set on going hunting and his brother won’t go with him so Saracen kinda randomly goes.  This leads to a pretty funny Saracen doesn’t know how to hunt scene, but then also leads to a round the fire conversation between the two about their reasons for staying in Dillon.  Lyla’s name is mentioned for the first time the entire season and we learn Tim still pines for her (as do we, Minka please guest appearance?) and that all of Matt’s talking about wanting to stay because of his grandma was really just to cover up that he wanted to stay with Julie, who of course is now applying to colleges on the other side of the country.

 

So up till now the episode has been generally upbeat, except for the whole hate crime thing.  Not too much sadness, just enough.  But just when you think it’s safe to smile the Friday Night Lights team hits you hard.  It starts with an out of the blue scene with Saracen’s mom and grandma, the first time we’ve seen mom this season, and the first time granny’s had real screentime.  They’re talking about half & half.  Then the doorbell rings.  If you’ve been watching this show since the beginning and know Saracen’s whole backstory you know what’s coming and it’s totally out of the blue.  Let’s not even discuss what actually happens.  If you really want to know leave a comment and I’ll tell you but it’s not too hard to figure out.  After a scene of the mom and grandma that is played out in slow motion and silence (Chris Misiano best known for his work on The West Wing directed this episode very well), we cut to Saracen returning from his hunting trip and going straight to Julie’s.  The pic above is how she answers the door.  She breaks the news to him and we end with that haunting credits music.

 

Oh man next week I have a feeling we’re just gonna sit and cry the entire episode, hopefully while being served up some excellent political commentary.  I cannot wait.
Updated: I accidently posted this saying this episode was called “Stay” which is actually episode 6. Sorry.