A Walsh Family Christmas

Mark here... we're on to the next episode of 90210...this one is the christmas episode, titled "A Walsh Family Christmas".  And ugggh!! Apparently the writers decided they needed something christmas themed and yet "whimsical"...there aren't enough quotes to put around the term whimsical.

Anyway, the Walshes aren't going back to Minnesota this year and are feeling down. Their tree is dead and when Cindy tries to invite the gang for christmas, everyone has plans. Of course she invites her kids friends because she has none of her own. Well, through a series of wacky events, everyone does ending up showing up at the Walshes' for Christmas eve. Also, there's a side plot of Brenda inviting a weird guy dressed as Santa Claus to dinner.  Really, it's not worth going into.

Steve also tries to find his biological mother...BORING! Really the "wackiness" of christmas is more interesting.

Hey Laurel here.  Not much to add except for my usual Andrea rant.  I'm Jewish, I'm Jewish!  Yeah we get it.

Also Steve's bio mom is dead.  He finds his grandfather though, and they make plans to stay in touch, visit each other, etc.   Funny, I don't think Steve ever mentions him again.  Ever.  Maybe him, Brandon's "little brother" and the gang's black friend are all hanging out together somewhere.

Style award this episode goes to...Cindy!  For her Christmas eve ensemble, crazy neck scarf worn under even crazier apron.  You go Cindy!

The cocktail moment is every time the homeless Santa says "MERRY CHRISTMAS"  Until he gives his little speech at the end I thought that was all he could say.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Mark here... we have just watched the next episode of Friday Night Lights, called, "Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes" (boy that's a pain in the ass to type!)...Laurel has made us meatball subs with a kale salad, perfect for the heat we're experiencing right now!  This episode is more a continuation of the last few episodes, in a good way.  Tami has followed through with her desire to help Tyra succeed with school and move on to better things.  Unfortunately this involves reaching out to Tyra's mom, who is so self absorbed she can't deal with the revelation that her daughter may be destined for better things.  She immediately freaks out.  For one she doesn't think they can afford college for Tyra, but the subtext is that she's afraid Tyra will leave her Tyra who has been her rock to depend on.  She finally comes around at the end of the episode but even this is all about the mom.  She chooses to bring Tyra to a father-daughter dance as a way of supporting her.  Meanwhile, Tyra isn't missing a dad, the mom is!

Separately, we see Lyla's family is breaking down.  Buddy attempts to bond with Lyla to bring the family back together, claiming he screwed up once.  Lyla, reflecting on her own one time screw up with Jason, naturally supports her dad.  So when he shows up at her moms door she defends him, leading the mom to bring up past indiscretions by Buddy.  Lyla loses it at this point, telling her dad to go.  She put her faith in him and saw it to be a lie.  Next we see her crashing cars at Buddy's dealership!

The only bad storyline is the continuation of Tim Riggins with the next door neighbor.  I have to say this is the first storyline where the writers of the show have let me down!  The neighbor is of course this sexy 30-something who looks 20-something.  Of course Tim wants to hook up with her, but their interactions are ridiculous.  He's clearly the adult and the writing of their interactions is not realistic, given that he's a teenager.

One good thing about the episode is Smash, Tim, Jason, and Matt getting drunk one night on the field.  I think this is the first time we've seen the 4 of them interacting just with each other and it's a nice scene.

Hi Laurel here...again I agree with Mark on all counts.  The one other story line of this episode is that Coach Taylor gets a job offer from a college in Austin.  It has always been his goal to coach a college team, so of course him and Tami are both on board with moving, but Juli has established roots in Dillon so for her it's a different story.  She has built a life for herself in Dillon including an awesome boyfriend so of course she doesn't want to leave.  At first neither coach or Tami anticipated her objections but by the end of the episode they both get it and it seems they are trying to include her input in the decision whether to stay or go.

The other revelation of this episode is that Jason gets rejected from the Paralympic murderball team, and is devastated.  The girl in Austin who has a crush on him is of course there to comfort him.  She offers him a ride back to Dillon because she has to drop off a fridge for an aunt or whatever near there, and they end up kissing at "stone henge 2"  some kind of stone henge roadside attraction.  He insists to Lyla that "nothing happened", but clearly something in brewing here...

Extended Families

Mark here... Laurel and I have just watched the next episode of Friday Night Lights, "Extended Families".  This was a really good episode.  First of all we deal with the fall out from last episode.  Buddy Garrity fights with his wife and ends up being kicked out.  Where does he end up?  The Taylors!  Tami is none too pleased with Buddy on the couch and neither is Julie.  Next thing we see Tami making Buddy pork chops.  She is pissed about this and Coach Taylor is a bit dumbfounded as to what to do.  At the same time, Coach receives a dinner offer from TMU, a college.  Thinking this may mean a job offer the Taylors take them up on the offer.  This leaves Buddy home alone with Julie, who is not happy about it.  Tami tells her to get over it in a funny moment.  Julie ends up at a party at Tyra's...  Buddy discovers where the Taylors are and, having no boundaries, sees no problem giving the Coach hell about it later.  Coach tells him he should be thinking about his family, not football.  What we see though is that Buddy can't stop thinking about football, it's really the only constant in his life.  He's also oblivious to what's going on in his family, or to the fact that he's imposing on the Taylors.

Meanwhile, at Tyra's, her mom is not handling the break up with Buddy well.  We're see she's taking too many pills.  In the middle of the party she emerges from her room to collapse on a glass table, leading to an ambulance.  Julie of course has to call her parents at their dinner.  Tami rushes to the hospital and takes Tyra and her mom home.  This lead to a bit of a revelation.  Tami has banned Julie from hanging out with Tyra because she's supposedly a "Bad girl".  Seeing Tyra's home life makes Tami realize Tyra is actually the sane one barely holding her fractured home life together.  There's a tender moment between Tami and Tyra where Tami apologizes for not wanting Julie to hang out with her and helps Tyra clean up her house.

There's also a plot line where Lyla runs away to visit Jason and realizes they are growing apart...  And Smash realizes his girlfriend is behaving weirdly.  As the episode progress she shows signs of manic behavior, which seems ok to Smash until the end, when we realize its bipolar behavior and the depression sets in....

Hey Laurel here and again I agree with Mark on all counts.  The only thing I would add is that we see Lyla go through some tough times for a change when she realizes her and Jason are growing apart.  It's obvious that she has lead a charmed life up until the point that Jason hurt his back, but now she is really getting it from all sides.  Her fiance is permanently paralized and is finding a new life without her within the disabled spots community, and now her parents are getting a divorce.  She has 2 younger siblings that she has to take care of while her parents are super vocally fighting in front of all of them.  Tough pill to swallow.  Lyla has had it easy her whole life and now things are finally catching up with her.  poor girl.

April Is The Cruelest Month

Mark here...well another snorefest with this episode, called "April Is The Cruelest Month". Things start out interesting enough with Brandon attempt to interview the school tennis star while "Would I Lie To You?" by The Eurythmics plays. Turns out said tennis star is played by Matthew Perry. Things sort of go downhill from there. Matthew Perry is yet another poor little rich boy who wants Brandon to read his screenplay. Turns out his screenplay is about a son killing his famous dad, which Brandon interprets as a cry for help (Brenda, on the other hand, can't be bothered past page 2 when Brandon shows it to her). So who does Brandon go to for advice...Andrea?! Ug, please. Anyway, the whole episode has this weird cheesy noir/horror attempt going on with some of the lighting, etc. Unfortunately it doesn't really help things. Brandon at one point suspects his friend of being about to murder his father and proceeds to get fingerprints all over the friends gun and break in to his house.

Meanwhile, we get to see Ms. Teasley for the first time I remember. Previously the actress played a school shrink I think, but here she's back as principal. There's a subplot about Donna not doing well on the SATs. Turns out Donna has a learning disability. Ms Teasley helpfully tells her that she's not stupid. From now on the school will just have to read out every question to her and give her as much time as possible to answer. Presumably they will talk as slow as possible too.

Laurel here...poor Brandon! He always has to solve everyone else's problems. He almost always bares the burden of these "very special" episodes, save for the one where Brenda finds a lump. Even then he's the one who keeps it together, while Brenda turns into a bitchy mess. (see pervious episode, "it's just a test"). Also he makes all these great friends during each of these "lessons", none of whom we ever see again. In this episode he becomes bff's with Matthew Perry's character, but you know he's headed to the 90210 guest star graveyard, just like Brandon's black friend, his latina girlfriend, his actress friend, the homeless kid who hangs out at the peach pit, etc.

Style award this episode goes to...Dylan again! This time for his weird purple priest outfit. I get it about the semi-clerical style what with papa don't preach and all that, but was super long shirts on guys ever a thing? It's hard to tell from the photo but really it's dress length.

Cocktail moments: When Brenda finds Donna at "Fred Segal" the inside of which actually looks like the fashion 21 at the Eagle Rock Mall...

When Kelly says that in college she's going to major in "Pre-Wed"...