Time for this week’s Friday Night Lights recap.  This week is episode 10, entitled I Can’t. It’s a perfect title for this great episode that shows off some tremendous acting skills from both Michael B. Jordan (Vince Howard aka Juvie) and Madison Burge (Becky).  Also Alicia Witt is back this week and she’s more than just looking pretty.  Before we get started remember to so you can support this site and these recaps.  I’m working on trying to incorporate video clips for the final 3 episodes of the season, so keep your fingers crossed. Basically there are 2 important stories in this episode.  So I’m gonna try to write about those and I’m gonna try to keep this recap short.  Instead of going chronologically and jumping around I’m just going to go through the various plotlines. Let’s start with Virgil.

Virgil observes Coach Taylor trying to teach Vince some plays.  Then he walks up to Coach and pretty much tells him he’s an idiot and what he’s trying isn’t going to work.  It’s interesting how starting with the last episode Virgil is suddenly all into the football he hated so vehemently earlier in the season.  They should have done something to better ease him into it.  This is an awful sudden turn around.

The next time we see Virgil, he’s come to Lions practice for the first time.  This is a big step for him.  Basically he’s there to see Coach’s plan fail.  He and Coach who are now really good friends (when did this happen also?) go and get drunk together and he tells Coach that he doesn’t know how to coach Vince.  Coach asks if its a color thing and Virgil is like “Are you retarded?” basically.  He says that it’s because he used to be Vince and the secret to someone like that is to just let them do their thing with their natural talent.  So Coach does and Virgil’s idea works.  There’s also a bit with Virgil where his daughter Jess is upset that he is taking such an interest in Vince who he used to hate and still doesn’t come see her dance or see her little brothers play little kid football.  So at the end of the episode he goes and cheers at the little kids football game. Alright moving on…let’s see now we should deal with Julie since she has like a microscopic storyline.

Julie’s storyline this episode is that she brings her new boy toy who she was sorta slutting it up with in the last episode to dinner and he talks about traveling all over the world with Habitat For Humanity and also that he’s leaving for Arizona next week.  The Taylors are very happy about this.  Then he takes Julie to the top of a water tower and they talk more about traveling and seeing the world and then they make out.  That’s all for Julie this ep.

Get A Riggins Jersey

Moving on to Riggins, or actually the Riggins brothers.  Last we saw them they were running a chop shop.  But the place that took the leftover frames of the cars and crushed them gets worried about getting caught and won’t do it anymore.  So Billy comes up with the bright idea to bury them.

Billy actually declares it the stupidest thing they’ve ever done.  It’s gotta be real dumb for that.  Tim is starting to worry too.  He makes Billy agree to stop with the chop shop and go back to repairing cars.   That’s all for that plot too.  Tim makes some appearances in Becky’s storyline though.  Speaking of let’s get started with her, since she’s one of the biggies.

Last week’s episode ended with Becky telling Tim of her pregnancy.  Their story gets picked up with her telling Riggins she doesn’t know what to do.  He tells her she needs to tell her mom.  She doesn’t want to do that obviously.  So Tim goes to the only place he knows:

To the Taylors of course.  Tim is pretty much out of the story after this.  Tami gives Becky the same advice as Riggins, which is to go to her mom.  She advises her of the healthcare that’s available and all that kind of stuff, but mainly that she needs to tell her mom.  So over dinner that night that’s exactly what she does.

Obligitory sexy Alicia picture

Alicia Witt does a great job with this reaction. At first she thinks she’s joking then it really sets in. The scene is wonderful and so real and Madison Burge brings it again. I wish I had the video working cause you need to see this. Once again Emmy’s all around.

Meanwhile we’ll just dip into Luke’s dealings with the situation (will we ever be able to use that phrase again without thinking of Jersey Shore?). His family is super conservative. One night while he can’t sleep his father notices this and asks what’s wrong. He lets it out. This leads to a family discussion.

His family wants to meet her and of course is against abortion.

Let’s get back to Becky. Her and her mother are now meeting with the abortion doc. He’s trying to tell Becky a bunch of stuff the state mandates, basically right wing stuff. Her mom doesn’t want her to hear any of it, she just wants to get the abortion over with. They storm out of the office. The mom is all mad now that everyone thinks they’re white trash.

Becky is really a girl in crisis. She doesn’t know what to do. Once again Burge is acting the shit out of this character and this situation. She is so confused. She winds up back at the Taylors in the middle of the night having another kitchen sit down with Tami. She breaks down crying and asks Tami what she’d tell her daughter and Tami says she’d give her all the information and then fully support whatever she chose to do. Becky asks if she’d go to hell for having an abortion and Tami tells her no.

So Becky’s mom takes her for the abortion. We don’t see any of that stuff, just the car pulling out from the house and the look of terror on Becky’s face. Later Luke calls her and tells her he’s there to support her and the baby however he is needed. She tells him it’s been taken care of.

I think it’s time to check in on our other big storyline. Juvie (Vince). Juvie has seemingly cleaned up his act over the course of the season, really starting with episode 7 when he gave away his gun. Now he has a job and is earning honest money and playing good football and staying out of trouble. His drug addict mother seemed to have cleaned up her act rather magically. Well until Juvie comes home from work one night.

Juvie finds her OD’d. There’s a tense moment where you start to think they might have actually killed her, which I honestly wouldn’t put it past this show to do (and I mean that in a good way). But the next scene is her waking up in the hospital and Juvie explaining the situation to her. She OD’d on whatever drug she takes that they’ve never told us.

He goes and sees someone at the hospital about getting her into a rehab program. He’s told the earliest they could get her in would be the beginning of the year because they’re totally booked. But that there are private rehabs. Of course those cost money and he doesn’t have any.

Juvie does a surprising thing that shows us his growth. He goes to Virgil and asks for an advance on his pay. He explains the situation and Virgil tells him he’s really proud of him and supports him but he too doesn’t have that much money. It’s quite a nice scene.

The next time we see Juvie though he’s checking his mom into rehab.

It’s heartbreaking as his mother promises to be home soon. She just looks so ashamed. Did we miss something? How is this happening? I thought he had no money? As they lead his mother to the back the receptionist tells him it’ll be $4000. He hands over an envelope full of cash. This is highly suspicious. But then the camera follows him outside where he gets into the back seat of a car. In the front seat is this bad looking dude:

Bad dude hands him a gun and that’s how we leave Juvie.

That concludes another FNL recap. Only 3 left this season. I predict some big stuff goes down.