Friday Night Lights, Episode 5.04 – Keep Looking

Mindy continues to become increasingly annoyed by having Becky in her home. Soon, Becky’s father calls her to demand she goes back to her own home, but of course, she doesn’t want to. He’s on his way home himself.

Later, Mindy comes home with baby Stevie. Upset, she asks Becky to evaluate her. She lifts her already short skirt up and asks Becky to judge her ass. Becky is speechless. (“He insulted your ass!?”) Mindy has just come back from the Landing Strip where they offered her a day shift instead of her regular night shift before the pregnancy. Becky encourages her and tells Mindy to go back and fight for her job. Mindy appreciates it.

That night, Mindy drives Becky back home where her father’s wife, Doreen is on the lawn drinking and smoking. Becky thanks Mindy and walks towards Doreen who is very upset that Becky has put her through all this crap. Becky talks back, rightly so, and her father comes out to start ganging up on her. Mindy comes to help Becky when she senses things are going downhill very fast and tells her to get back into the car to take her back.

The next day, Mindy and Billy watch Becky and her father arguing outside. “His wife’s a redneck bitch,” Mindy says. The father gives Becky money and leaves. Before Becky comes back inside, Mindy says they’re the role models for her now.

But… “I swear to God, if you ever accidentally bump into her in the shower, I’m gonna stab you in the face.”

Becky comes back inside and tells them her father and his wife are heading back to Seattle. Mindy says it’s fine and that she will stay with them from now on. They hug.

Buddy Jr. arrives back in Dillon from California. Buddy takes Junior to the mental hospital school where they run into Counselor Mrs. Coach.

“You guys do, like, shock treatment here?” he asks. They all laugh and Counselor Mrs. Coach offers to help him get settled, but he says he’s fine and walks off.

Later in the week, Buddy heads to his bar to find it has been broken into, only to find Buddy Jr. drunk on the floor.

The team teases their new equipment manager in the locker room, but Jess gives it right back to them even harder. Harmless ribbing, but Vince gets overly defensive. Coach sees the two of them have their little lovers’ quarrel and he calls them into his office to tell them that he will not have a relationship in his field house.

A recruiter from TMU comes to practice telling Luke they’re interested in him, especially as someone who can play both offense and defense. Later on, Luke happily announces in the locker room that he’s going to the Longhorns vs. TMU game and will be sitting at the 50 yard line. He’s got six tickets, everyone’s happy and Vince is in.

Vince comes home to see his mom all dolled up. She has a date with his dad.

At the Homework Club, Epic starts being bitchy to the other students which prompts a guy to make a wisecrack about her being retarted which prompts her to hit him with her match book. Mrs. Coach will not have any of this.

Over at Burleson U, TA Derek comes over to Julie and asks if she wants to hang out tomorrow, but she says she has a date. “That’s good,” Derek says. WTF do you mean by good Julie asks and he says sorry to have bothered you and leaves. Julie can’t believe it.

Buddy and Jr. are at lunch. Buddy Jr. says he talked to Counselor Mrs. Coach today.
“She’s got a really nice rack!”
Buddy suggests he goes to the school dance to find girls his own age, but he doesn’t want to go. After lunch, Buddy comes back from the restroom to find Jr. gone… along with his car and credit card.

That night, while Coach drives him around looking for Jr., Buddy suggests that Buddy Jr. can play football for him. “He loves football, he just doesn’t know it yet.”

Vince can’t take the sweetness between his parents anymore and confronts his father about those years he was absent. His mother starts crying and his father leaves.

At the school dance, Luke goes over to Becky. After congratulating Luke on TMU, he goes right to the point.
“I gotta tell you something. You like me.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, you do. And I’m going to take you out sometime, I’m just letting you know.”

Becky smiles and starts to walk way.

“I’m coming for you Sproles!”

Meanwhile, Vince, who is not Hawaiian dressed at all as with the theme, is with Jess. They aren’t talking, until Vince tells her he doesn’t want her working on the team anymore. He doesn’t want to check his teammates everyday. Jess says to just treat her like one of the guys, but Vince feels like he’s being made to look like a chump.

Everything’s about Vince, Jess says. Maybe she wants to have something good on her transcripts for college too. “You look great tonight,” Vince says and gets up and leaves.

Over at Burleson, a drunk Julie knocks on TA Derek’s door. As soon as he opens it, the look on his eyes says he wants her. So he pulls her into his apartment.

Back in Dillon, Buddy finds his son and chases after him.
“You’re going to shape up young man!”
“Who are you!?”
“You dad! How can I help you son!?”

Vince shows up at his father’s door. He asks him to swear that he’s not dealing drugs again and that he’ll never let his mother touch that stuff ever. His father promises.

Vince leaves, but not before telling his father his birthday (which he didn’t know).

“October 9, 1993 pop.”

Next day, at practice, Jess is happy when Billy takes one of her suggestions for the defense and the other coaches like it. On the field, Buddy personally brings Buddy Jr. and tells Coach he’s a quick learner.

Back home, Billy, Mindy, and Becky play games as Becky glances at Tim’s picture.

Up at TMU, Luke along with Vince, Hastings, Tinker, and the others take a tour of the facilities. They get tickets and VIP passes. But as the others head out onto the field, Vince gets approached and is taken into a room full of TMU coaches.

Episode Thoughts
Definitely a better episode than that incredibly horrible episode 3.

The Epic storyline is certainly far from “epic.” It seems to be the most cliché story of this season and seems like it was only conceptualized to give Counselor Mrs. Coach something to do. If only they found something better for her to do.

Buddy and Buddy Jr. should be interesting to see how it develops.

Looks like Vince’s pops isn’t going to get back into his family’s life that easily.

Oh Julie. What is there to say really?

And Luke and Becky… a very interesting dynamic between them and it is good to see. There’s plenty to touch on there after their big season 4 story arc.

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