So there's some drama in Dillon this week: promises broken, innocence lost, goodbyes said, and lots of high school boy nudity all rolled into one fun-filled episode. Let's get started...
This week the seniors on the football team are putting the freshmen through their paces, forcing them to run through Dillon naked but for their football cleats. Newly instated starting quarterback, JD McCoy, has to run twice as far to prove himself worthy of such a lofty position. Truthfully, we couldn't be less interested in JD McCoy -- he's just like a big ball of bland. Regardless, Coach Taylor catches him naked in the locker room with only a framed picture of last year's state championship team to cover his manhood. In light of this humiliation, Coach Taylor enlists the help of Tim Riggins to encourage the rest of the team to respect JD McCoy as their leader. We're sort of annoyed by Tim's lack of reluctance to get on board with this plan. Does no one have any lingering loyalty to poor Matt Saracen?
Tim takes JD on a playa's tour of their fair township that includes the strip club, the drive-in, and the bar where they serve football players no questions asked. As we get to know JD better, we realize he's not only bland, but also a nervous wreck pretty much all the time. Turns out scary football dad has him asking permission to breathe.
Meanwhile, Erin's taking off for New Jersey with Noah, and Jason's devastated. He promises Erin that he'll flip the Garrity house and bring them back to town. In reality, the wheels are coming off the cart a bit with the Garrity house. Nobody's really willing to take direction from Jason who's trying desperately to keep them on task. Billy Riggins couldn't be a bigger horse's ass, blustering around and stapling his own hand to the wall.
Landry's alienating his band members and holding auditions for new ones. New girl Devon auditions to play bass, kicks ass, and then steps on Landry's toes by grabbing the Mike and improv-ing her own vocals. Landry tries to take it in stride until Devon reads over their song lyrics and tells him they'll never be a great band until he gets over Tyra. Turns out Devon is both awesome and perceptive.
Tyra's hard at work on college applications, and picking up extra shifts to pay the fees. Cash kicks her down with some extra money for the apps so she can work less and concentrate on school. Tyra tells her mom about Cash's supportive gesture, and Mrs. Collette does a quick about-face from skeptical to dollar signs in the eyes. Mindy models her wedding dress for Tyra and Mrs. Collette, and Tyra tries to find a tactful way to tell Mindy that she looks a little like the corpse bride with wings.
Just as Tyra's basking in the glow of finding herself a good man, a mystery girl shows up at Tyra's door with a toddler on her hip, demanding that Tyra make Cash pay up on his child support. Tyra confronts Cash, tossing her applications money back in his face to get him started on his payments. Cash tries to explain himself -- turns out the baby's not really his and the woman was never his girlfriend/wife. We're not 100% sure we believe Cash on this, but we're going along with it for now.
Meanwhile, in an ongoing effort to break JD free of the stranglehold of scary football dad, Lyla and Tim take him out to a party to get him wasted. Scary football dad doesn't take this well, and forces JD to apologize to Coach Taylor at church in front of God and the Dillon panthers. Scary football dad is fast graduating to creepy football dad.
Tami's trying unsuccessfully to con Coach Taylor and Julie into coming to the school dance. Coach Taylor stops by the Garrity house to find a very discouraged Jason. He grabs a paint brush to help out which makes us feel like all will be set right, even though Coach is risking Tami's wrath for being late to the dance. Turns out Tami's wrath only entails a few idle threats on his job.
As the episode winds to a close, Julie agrees to go with Matt to the lake to swim, roast hot dogs, and lose her virginity. Nary a mention of the hot hospice nurse to be heard -- guess Matt's planning on taking that to the grave.