There goes the neighborhood. For four blissful episodes, FNL was free of Jason Street and went on arguably its longest streak of greatness in the series's run thus far. It's no great coincidence that the first real clunker of the season features his return a significant amount of focus on the dolt for much of the hour. Smash for Street is disappointing trade, to be sure.
Here, we have Jason needing money so that he can convince his baby mama that he can support her and their child, and convince her to move in and let him be a bigger part of her life. Of course, this means he cooks up a crazy scheme with Herc and the Riggins boys to buy Buddy Garrity's old house and flip it. There's three real upshots to this story, and none of them is good. The first is that we're supposed to see Jason Street display his talents as a salesman, suggesting a way forward for him, when he talks Buddy into selling them the house despite the Rigginses being involved. The problem is that Jason is no Don Draper, and with Scott Porter's poor acting skills, the entire sales pitch seems so weak that it would only work on a true believer like Buddy.
The second is that we're supposed to get pathos from Jason working so hard to get the house sold, and Erin nevertheless deciding to move back East with her parents because it's "too hard." There's something sad about all of this in principle, but it's very rushed, and we barely know Erin, and frankly I the whole house flipping thing seems like a pie-in-the-sky idea doomed to failure anyway. I wouldn't trust this as some sound financial investment, let alone a gesture that would keep Erin around, so it's hard to feel too much for Jason when she leaves, since it seems like a poor plan to persuade her in the first place.
The third is we get more Riggins adventures, this time with a reprise of last season's meth dealer, who was another of the more perplexing story choices from S2. The fact that they chose to go back to that well is very odd, and still feels out of character for the show. But hey, Herc proved useful for once in getting them someone to fence the copper fire instead, so that's something.
In the mean time, Tyra gets saddled with a regrettable bad boy who Tami, of course, disapproves of. While it at least seems like they moved on from the Landry story (however temporarily), Tyra already has a great arc about working hard to get into college and get out of Dillon, and throwing a hackneyed storyline about some hunky jock with a drug problem distracting her from his studies only drags it down. Cash isn't a compelling character; instead he's ripped right from the pages of the stock bad boy beau book of cliches, and it's a shame that Tyra, who's otherwise had an interesting trajectory, is tied up in this nonstarter of a plot.
It's not all bad though. Coach's decision to start J.D. over Matt is handled with grace and intrigue. Coach has to make his decision in the best interests of the team, and he knows he's going to feel bad for Matt about it. Watching him make the right decision, and also the wrong one, and have to deal with the consequences is a nice reminder that the show doesn't shy away from the real complexity of the emotions and interests at play. Seeing Matt deal with this is fascinating and heartbreaking, from his intent to quit, to his telling Coach that he's willing to ride the bench but he'll hate it and coach'll hate it, and the way it allows him to bond with his estranged mom a bit. It's good stuff that builds on the character's journey hereto.
And while Julie's parallel story about getting a tattoo and having to deal with Tami's ire is another prototypical teenager rebellion story, the way it ties thematically into Tyra's storyline is a nice move. I especially love the scene with Tami explaining her own past to Julie, the fact that she herself almost dropped out of high school for being a wild child, and that she's just worried about her daughter. One of the loveliest things about this show is the honest interactions between parents and children (not to mention the comedy of bits like Tami saying everyone's calm in the discussion and Coach immediately saying "what the hell were you thinking?!"), and the sweetness of that moment, not to mention Tami's amusing retort that Julie will remove the tattoo herself when she's 30, is the highlight here.
Overall, there's some good stuff with the Taylors and the Saracens, but the rest of the episode is full of junk. That gets us the first less-than-good episode of the season.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-07-19T00:27:30Z
There goes the neighborhood. For four blissful episodes, FNL was free of Jason Street and went on arguably its longest streak of greatness in the series's run thus far. It's no great coincidence that the first real clunker of the season features his return a significant amount of focus on the dolt for much of the hour. Smash for Street is disappointing trade, to be sure.
Here, we have Jason needing money so that he can convince his baby mama that he can support her and their child, and convince her to move in and let him be a bigger part of her life. Of course, this means he cooks up a crazy scheme with Herc and the Riggins boys to buy Buddy Garrity's old house and flip it. There's three real upshots to this story, and none of them is good. The first is that we're supposed to see Jason Street display his talents as a salesman, suggesting a way forward for him, when he talks Buddy into selling them the house despite the Rigginses being involved. The problem is that Jason is no Don Draper, and with Scott Porter's poor acting skills, the entire sales pitch seems so weak that it would only work on a true believer like Buddy.
The second is that we're supposed to get pathos from Jason working so hard to get the house sold, and Erin nevertheless deciding to move back East with her parents because it's "too hard." There's something sad about all of this in principle, but it's very rushed, and we barely know Erin, and frankly I the whole house flipping thing seems like a pie-in-the-sky idea doomed to failure anyway. I wouldn't trust this as some sound financial investment, let alone a gesture that would keep Erin around, so it's hard to feel too much for Jason when she leaves, since it seems like a poor plan to persuade her in the first place.
The third is we get more Riggins adventures, this time with a reprise of last season's meth dealer, who was another of the more perplexing story choices from S2. The fact that they chose to go back to that well is very odd, and still feels out of character for the show. But hey, Herc proved useful for once in getting them someone to fence the copper fire instead, so that's something.
In the mean time, Tyra gets saddled with a regrettable bad boy who Tami, of course, disapproves of. While it at least seems like they moved on from the Landry story (however temporarily), Tyra already has a great arc about working hard to get into college and get out of Dillon, and throwing a hackneyed storyline about some hunky jock with a drug problem distracting her from his studies only drags it down. Cash isn't a compelling character; instead he's ripped right from the pages of the stock bad boy beau book of cliches, and it's a shame that Tyra, who's otherwise had an interesting trajectory, is tied up in this nonstarter of a plot.
It's not all bad though. Coach's decision to start J.D. over Matt is handled with grace and intrigue. Coach has to make his decision in the best interests of the team, and he knows he's going to feel bad for Matt about it. Watching him make the right decision, and also the wrong one, and have to deal with the consequences is a nice reminder that the show doesn't shy away from the real complexity of the emotions and interests at play. Seeing Matt deal with this is fascinating and heartbreaking, from his intent to quit, to his telling Coach that he's willing to ride the bench but he'll hate it and coach'll hate it, and the way it allows him to bond with his estranged mom a bit. It's good stuff that builds on the character's journey hereto.
And while Julie's parallel story about getting a tattoo and having to deal with Tami's ire is another prototypical teenager rebellion story, the way it ties thematically into Tyra's storyline is a nice move. I especially love the scene with Tami explaining her own past to Julie, the fact that she herself almost dropped out of high school for being a wild child, and that she's just worried about her daughter. One of the loveliest things about this show is the honest interactions between parents and children (not to mention the comedy of bits like Tami saying everyone's calm in the discussion and Coach immediately saying "what the hell were you thinking?!"), and the sweetness of that moment, not to mention Tami's amusing retort that Julie will remove the tattoo herself when she's 30, is the highlight here.
Overall, there's some good stuff with the Taylors and the Saracens, but the rest of the episode is full of junk. That gets us the first less-than-good episode of the season.