Friday Night Lights Season 4 Episode 11 – Injury List Recap

Another week another Friday Night Lights. This week’s episode is called Injury List. It features a surprise return of Matt Saracen and since the season is almost over all of our storylines are coming to a head. A lot goes on in this episode. Also for the first time ever I’m gonna try to bring you some video in this one.
We start off with Luke in a pharmacy telling the pharmacist he lost his entire bottle of pills and needs a refill. The pharmacist isn’t stupid and refuses and tells him he should talk to someone. This is a bad sign.
Next we’re transported to the big city where we find Matt Saracen, who’s been MIA since he just drove off. We’ll find out later this city is Chicago. He’s got himself a little crappy apartment. We see that he has a photo of Julie on his wall.
That’s a perfect segway to Julie who is applying to be a full time Habitat For Humanity worker. The guy tells her since she’s 17 she’ll need her parents to sign off on it. She puts on that cute “Julie is lying” face and tells him that won’t be a problem.
When we last left Juvie he was being handed a gun. Now with the same people he’s being taken into a house to help collect some money. He’s told to beat up a guy but he can’t cause he’s such a good guy.
Coach is interviewed on Buddy’s radio show and is asked about the upcoming game against the Panthers. He avoids the question and says he’s just focusing on this game. Later he stops and stares at his old home. He really is concerned about that game (which is not this week, I suspect it’s the season finale).
Back on the field Luke is playing poorly because of his injury and we get another look at it.
It’s pretty gnarly. You can’t see it real good in the screencap unfortunately. He’s having a lot of trouble, especially now that he’s running out of pills. That night his mother tells him not to forget his prayers and he prays that he finds more pills by Friday night.
It’s time to get to some Riggins story. He goes to the real estate lady and puts his down payment on his land from his adventure in running a chop shop. Then he goes back to his trailer and meets up with Alicia Witt who tells him she never thought it when she first picked him up but that he’s a really good guy and he’s part of the family. He tells her he’s going to treat her and Becky to dinner because he has some news.
We now find out that Tami is in trouble for counseling Becky last week. Luke’s mom paid Becky a visit and she told her about the abortion and crazy religious Luke’s mom goes crazy. She complains to the school board that Tami told a girl to get an abortion. This of course is not true. Tami’s advice was exactly the right thing to say to the girl. But now she’s in danger of losing her job.
In the middle of this Julie receives a phone call.
She doesn’t know how to react since she hasn’t heard from him in a long time and has recently just started getting over him so she just sort of says she can’t talk and hangs up.

Note the giant drink Alicia has.
Riggins is now out at dinner with Becky and her mom. He tells them that he’s just bought a piece of land and that he’ll eventually be building his own house on it. He also says that for now he is going to stay with them though because he’s enrolled in technical school to increase his mechanical skills for working at Riggins Rigs. Everyone is happy and Alicia drinks a huge drink.
After dinner she stops by Riggins trailer and full on goes for him. Somehow he manages to reject her. I don’t know how this is possible. I mean look at that picture. She says they could date and then she says they don’t need to date and basically she just wants to get laid but he manages to still turn her down. So she leaves.
It’s Tami’s big day when she is confronted by the school board.
There’s one woman who is very mad and intense but Tami holds her own and tries to explain how she did everything right. Then she storm out. Later she will find out that they voted for her to keep her job, but they don’t want this incident getting beyond the school board (this is called foreshadowing).
Luke’s mom finds out about the decision and is not happy. Luke comes home and finds out what she’s done and is upset. So he leaves. And goes to Carroll Park.
Remember Carroll Park from a couple of episodes back? How they were turning on the lights and cleaning it up? Yeah same place. It’s not lit and not cleaned up. Luke tries to get some Oxycontin but they all think he’s a narc so they won’t sell to him. Also real great job taking back the park.
So we’ve arrived at another attempt from Matt to call Julie. She actually talks this time. And ends it for good. Hopefully this works. I bring you a bit of that scene since Aimee Teegarden is so wonderful in it. Sorry in advance that it cuts off.
If that video doesn’t work I’m very sorry. I tried. If it does work enjoy.
Anyway it’s now game time. Luke is having some problems but Coach keeps running a play that keeps him getting hit on his bad side. Tinker has discovered Luke’s problem and tells the rest of the team so Juvie runs the play to the opposite side but Coach screams at him for it so they have to run it to Luke’s bad side again. Unfortunately this ends badly.
Finally Coach discovers the injury. It’s apparently a fractured hip bone. When Luke tells him he’s had it for 4 weeks Coach is crazy mad, but you can tell it’s because he is upset that this kid was playing like that. So that’s the end of Luke’s season. Right before next week’s big game against the Panthers.
The Lions lose the game and Juvie is forced by his gang buddies to help them again. Things do not turn out very well and one of them is shot to death. Juvie manages to escape.
Back to Riggins who against his better judgement agreed to watch a late night movie with Becky because she said she was lonely. When Becky’s mom comes home from work and finds the two of them laying in bed she assumes the worst and kicks out Riggins while saying horrible things about him.
Tami is at home waiting for Coach to get home, but he’s out drinking with Buddy and doesn’t want to go home quite yet. He’s not in a good mental place. Tami receives a phone call from a newspaper asking what she has to say about her telling a girl to get an abortion.
Finally Jess arrives home to find Juvie sitting outside her house. He’s crying and in shock. He tells her what happened. She holds him and we fade to black.
Another episode down. 2 to go. Next week’s episode is entitled “Laboring” so I assume we’re gonna have some baby talk. Probably find out what the tension is between Jess and Juvie (they dropped a big hint this episode that I left out here) and I have a feeling that Tami is not getting off as lightly as it seemed.
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