'Friday Night Lights': Julie Taylor should get back in the game

See what happens, Friday Night Lights, when you forget about the Incident and you let the stories of your characters and their regular lives take center stage? You get maybe the best episode of the season, is what you get.

(Spoilers coming -- and sorry, but I'm not cutting 500 words from this recap.)

More than any other episode this season, "Pantherama" felt like it was in the FNL wheelhouse -- even though there was no game and we spent all of maybe two minutes on the field. It did, however, delve into family issues, deeply felt emotions and a fine, healthy dose of humor. Pretty much the whole episode sang.

Even the part I felt kind of queasy about -- Matt's relationship with nurse Carlotta -- came off better than I expected. Carlotta clearly likes Matt, but I can't really see any evidence that she like-likes him. It's just that Matt is, you know, a 17-year-old kid and therefore not so good at reading those signals. (There's also the question of why he'd even want to go there, as things seem to be going fairly well with New Girlfriend. But, then again, he's a 17-year-old kid.)

Smash, and the always wonderful Liz Mikel as Mrs. Smash, were at the center of one story. It's recruiting time in Texas, and the hucksters are all over Smash, much to his delight and his mom's dismay. He casually dismisses an emissary from a historically black college, explaining that he'll be in the NFL before his four years are up, and is rapt at the stories told by a former Panther's little sister (it doesn't hurt that she's, you know, hot) about how her brother now drives a Porsche and is the king of fake school Miami Southern.

Smash may be full of himself and not giving an ounce of thought to life beyond football, but you can at least see where he's coming from: He probably does stand a better chance of being drafted if he goes to a powerhouse school, and he doesn't have time for anyone telling him he needs a Plan B (even though that's the sensible thing to do).

Once he gets wind of what's going on, though, Coach Taylor is having none of it, shaming the Miami Southern recruiter away from the table at a restaurant and sitting down for a vintage Coach Taylor speech about his dad being on him with "every damn decision" he ever made. "I'm here. I just wanted to remind you of that," he tells his star player. "You got money? ... Good, you can buy your own meal."

Coach was also involved, albeit tangentially, in the other main story, that of Julie starting to fall for her new journalism teacher, John from Cincinnati Noah Barnett. He has an iPod, he challenges Julie on her story he lets her call him "Noah" -- "Mom. That's his name," Julie informs a curious Tami -- and Julie, still hurting from her breakup with Matt (and seeing how he's moved on), is smitten but good.

Tami is already seeing a couple of red flags -- having already mistaken Noah for a student and seeing the way her daughter looks at him -- while Eric is more concerned with a story Julie writes about Pantherama, the athletic department (which is to say, football) fund-raiser, in which he "refuses to comment." Cue one of the funniest lines of the night: "She asked me through the bathroom door, what was I supposed to do?" he fumes. "I was busy."

Speaking of funny: Pretty much everything involving Tyra tonight was gold. Maybe Landry taking the Incident on his shoulders has lifted a weight off her shoulders, but Tyra was back to being the sassy smartass she was much of last season, teasing the football team into performing at Pantherama and, along with Lyla, choreographing a semi-striptease that had Tami's jaw on the floor for a good minute of screen time (and every single cut to her was fantastic). That's what Mrs. Coach gets, though, for roping two girls who'd rather not have anything to do with the Panthers into running the entertainment portion of the show.

Much more good stuff from Friday's episode, including:

• Tami's resistance and eventual acceptance that Buddy, however mercenary his ulterior motives might be, probably gives Santiago a better chance at success than working through the social-services system. Loved the look that passed across Buddy's face as he started to realize the responsibility he's just taken on. The moment where Santiago admitted the bunk in Buddy's spare room was his first real bed was incredibly touching.
• Riggins bunking at Tyra's house, which was just as funny as it should have been. Tim splits his house after seeing Jackie (Brooke Langton, moonlighting from Life) with Billy one too many times and winds up on his ex-girlfriend's doorstep, where Tyra is ever so displeased to see him ("What's all this?" she asks. "My clothes," Tim tells her. "That's nice. What are they all doing here?"). It ends on a bit of a sad note, though, as Tim checks out of the Collette household and into some ferret-keeping loser's apartment at the close of the episode. Somehow I don't think that's gonna last too long.
• The following lines: Tami to Lyla: "Oh honey, you are not using Jesus Christ our Lord as an excuse not to help your counselor, are you?" Eric to Tami, as they argue about Santiago: "Don't whisper-yell at me." Tyra's sister, talking about another dancer stealing her "signature song": "I will kick her ass in boots and chaps and a thong. What was she thinking?" To which Riggins replies, "I don't know. But that's a good costume."

The show looks like it will come back around to the Incident soon enough -- the episode scheduled for Dec. 7 is called "The Confession," after all (at least according to the NBC press site; the teaser for the next episode made it look like the network might go out of order). We'll deal with that when it comes; I go into this weekend more than happy with what transpired this week.

How about you? Were you feeling as good about Friday Night Lights this week as I was?

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