There’s no question that Thursday is my TV day. The DVR fires up at 8 pm and doesn’t finish recording until 12:30 on Friday. I can last for a week just on what I record on Thursdays.

The centerpiece of this weekly marathon is obviously the NBC Thursday-night sitcoms: Community, Parks and Recreation, the Office, and 30 Rock. And, on days when I can’t sit down to watch all of them, I find it really hard to decide which ones to watch. It used to be that I’d head straight for the Office and 30 Rock, but Community and Parks & Rec have really grown into strong comedies, while conventional wisdom says that 30 Rock is slipping, and sometimes the Office is just too harsh.

This constant horse-race of the four shows jockeying to be the best each week have given me the idea for a new weekly feature: Who Wins Thursday? Each week, it’s a toss-up as to which of the four sitcoms is the best. I’m determined to crown a winner each week.

And, since I can’t wait for this week’s Valentine’s Day slate of episodes, I’m going to start with last week. The rundown:

Community: Romantic Expressionism

Jeff and Brita conspire to keep Annie from dating a “gateway douchebag,” while everyone else tries to Rifftrax b-movies in Abed’s dorm. Jeff and Brita work better as co-conspirators than each others’ romantic interests. But Troy steals everybody’s thunder in both plots, trying awkwardly to seduce Annie away from Vaughn while maintaining that his relationship with Abed is totally cool.

Parks and Recreation: Sweetums

A candy company tries to sponsor Leslie’s park, and she crusades against their high fructose corn syrup and tries to get Ron to start living a healthier life. Meanwhile, Tom Haverford gets the rest of the gang to help him move out of Wendy’s house. While it does have a hilarious cameo from “DJ Roomba,” the episode’s plot feels more like a Simpsons-style corporate parody, and b-story with Tom is a downer.

The Office: Sabre

When Michael Scott has trouble transitioning to working for Sabre, the company that bought Dunder Mifflin, he visits David Wallace. The resulting misery is the Office’s bread and butter, but I still find it difficult to watch. When working at Dunder Mifflin is demonstrated to be the better of two options, nobody wins. The b-plot involves Jim and Pam in a situation where neither of them are allowed to be cute or make silly “what?” faces.

30 Rock: Verna

Jack tries to help Jenna get over her mommy issues, which somehow don’t include the fact that Jan Hooks is her mom and looks totally frightening. While they’re walking around oblivious, Liz and Frank move in together and have a Paranormal Activity-style camera set up to show how Liz eats in her sleep. A lot of it is funny, but both plots have elements that are gross and off-putting.

So…

Who Wins Thursday? Community

This episode really plays to all of its character’s strengths. I don’t find Jeff to be as charming as the show would like us to believe, so for me it’s better to keep him down in the muck marauding around and misbehaving. But while the show keep strying to sell us Jeff, Troy is quickly becoming my personal favorite. It’d be really easy to make his character a cliché, by making him too much of a typical jock or by trying to make him “urban” or something. Instead, he’s just a different kind of nerd, and this episode really showcased that, especially in his scenes with Annie (“I have the strangest boner”) and Abed (“they’re just jealous”).

All photos courtesy of NBC

Ashton Kutcher has now hosted Saturday Night Live four times. Does that seem weird to anyone else? I wouldn’t immediately guess that he’d be the That ’70s Show cast member to host most often, or that he’s hosted more than, say, Scarlett Johansson or Justin Timberlake, who both have their own recurring characters. Looking through the invaluable SNL transcripts site, I see that none of his episodes have been particularly memorable, though he did appear in a Falconer sketch as “the Muskrateer,” and his most recent appearance, in April 2008, was surprisingly decent.

This week’s episode, then, fits right into the Ashton Kutcher SNL oeuvre that we all forgot existed. It was surprisingly good in the sense that it was one of the least recurring-character-heavy episodes of the season, with only a typically middling and pointless View sketch and some amusing Update appearances representing the retread factors. The first post-monologue sketch wasn’t The View or a Kristen Wiig tic-fest, but a very funny bit with Kutcher playing a golddigging pool boy spurned by his departed 110-year-old lover. It exploited a funny idea without just hitting a single joke over and over; that sounds simple, but isn’t always as easy as it looks.

But also like some of his past appearances, the episode was a bit rote; nothing else matched that early high. The sketch with Will Forte as a Roman leader taking creepy pleasure from grape-feeding was appealingly weird, but thin; same goes for “What Is Burn Notice?” — the game show that challenges contestants to describe the apparently popular USA network series. Personally, I’d have more trouble with “What is Criminal Minds?” — a couple of my regular SNL-watching buddies actually love Burn Notice and it’s certainly among the top three or five cooler-sounding cable shows that I never watch but suspect I might like if I did, whereas I have no idea what separates Criminal Minds from its cop-show brethren apart from it not being set in the Navy, not involving crazy forensics or cold cases, and not, as far as I know, taking place in Miami. But anyway, it was still a kinda-sorta funny sketch poking fun at the show’s admittedly vague ad campaign.

The kinda-sorta-pretty-good stuff kept on coming all night. Andy Samberg’s Rahm Emmanuel impression isn’t one of his most dead-on, but the laughs it gets are certainly the most cathartic the show, which hasn’t been specializing in political humor since late 2008 at best, can offer these days. The Oscar nomination bit was funny enough. I liked that band of dads reuniting their eighties punk band at a wedding at the very end of the show. Kutcher didn’t do much to help or hurt, apart from a downright puzzling Mel Gibson impression — he got Gibson’s weirdo defensive posture right, but the voice was a gravelly mess.

So I guess Kutcher is a kind of gap-filler, inconsequential host; he hasn’t worked up enough strong material to qualify as a hosting event, like a Steve Martin or Alec Baldwin appearance, and he doesn’t give off that Jon Hamm major-repeat-host-of-tomorrow vibe, either. He just does pretty typical episodes that you probably won’t remember when he hosts again in a couple of years.

Episode Grade: B-

Look, I’m not saying this is as bad an idea as the season 2 murder. I’m just saying it makes me want to scratch that girl’s eyes out.

In Dillon, land of broken hearts, the Taylor household is melting down over Julie’s clothes. Gracie doesn’t have any pants, which has Eric befuddled, because apparently a two-year-old can’t wear just any pants you find that fit her, and Julie is all in a snit because none of her clothes for her college interviews, as if those happen any more, will go together unless she finds this one shirt. Eric is still wearing Coach Shorts, but he’s the only man on the face of the fucking planet who can wear them and not look castrated.

BUDDY! BUDDY IS BACK! The East Dillon Lions are facing the Campbell Park Timberwolves, the other worst team in the league, in the game that gives this week’s episode its name. We cut to Luke’s W.C. He yells to his mom about a follow-up with his doctor, but apparently Luke’s abdominal smushing in the cow fence last week was no big deal. Yeah. I so bet it wasn’t.

OH MY GOD FLASHBACK TO SEASON 1. Tim is talking to the real estate lady who was all suggestively asking him about the blitz back in the pilot. Seriously, I cannot believe either the show or I is bringing this up again. He’s talking about the property he and puppy Skeeter checked out this week, and I’m still concerned that that lady there is going to shove her hands down his pants. The real estate lady says the purchase price is $85,000, but $75,000 if he can pay half up front, and has she ever met Tim Riggins? Next shot is of him loosening his tie outside, and then of him shaking hands with the real estate cougar, and oh man, I am worried he has just promised her ten bundles of copper wire and a bucket of meth.

Landry is trying to talk Jess into a date, and someone, namely LANDRY, has forgotten that Landry got Tyra in the sack in season 2 so he should stop acting like such a godforsaken pantywaist. He explains how if they were on a date he’d be wearing some sort of button-down shirt that does not involve the periodic table, and this appears to win Jess over, because she is an Academic Bowl slut.

In the locker room, Coach is being all inspiring and shit, and I don’t know if any of y’all grew up with a football coach for a parent, but if you did, you know about how you aren’t individuals, you’re fighting for the good of the team, and this game right here is your greatest destiny of all time, ever. Shots linger on Vince, Luke, Tinker, Landry. As the team takes the field for practice, we gradually focus on the object on the 50-yard line: a toilet. This is what people think of East Dillon.

What…? And suddenly we’re in Boston. I’m confused. Julie and Tami are on their college tour, which seems a bit odd after Julie has applied to all those schools, but whatever. I’m still in my periodic coma of just how awesome the Explosions in the Sky credits music is. Seriously, no one will ever write a better theme song.

Coach and Tim are coaching. Tim notices Luke’s hip injury from the aforementioned cattle pen squishing, but as any manly man would, Tim just asks Luke if he’s okay, then gives him a casual smack in the belly when Luke assures Tim he’s fine. Of course, Luke probably has seven hernias or whatever. His abdominal area did not look okay, y’all. But Tim is wearing aviators, so I forgive Luke for being distracted, because DAMN.

BUDDY. BUDDY IS BACK I HAVE MISSED BUDDY. OMG, you guys, I have seriously missed Buddy Garrity. What is wrong with me? Buddy commiserates with Eric about the toilet bowl issue, and then says that he used to be something with the Panthers, which Eric of course knows, and then says that he wants to be that something, that power, that importance, with the Lions. Eric is all, sure. If it keeps me from buying uniforms myself, knock yourself out, fella.

Jess and her little brothers are getting food at the store and the young’uns are losing it when Vince pops up and shows one of them how to run a post route with a bag of Funyuns, which kind of throws Jess for a loop, because last we saw Vince interacting with her, he was all jealous of the Landry issue. But the two teenagers don’t have time to spar before Vince’s mom pops up to talk to the younger boys, who prove they’ve been raised right by calling Regina “ma’am.” She invites them over to dinner, and Jess demurs, possibly sensitive to Vince’s embarrassment, but Regina insists. It breaks my heart to see this poor kid trying to trust again and knowing this show is just cruel enough to rip out his tender heart.

Tim is having a manly discussion with Skeeter about this week’s game when Becky knocks on his trailer to tell him insane Mindy is on the phone about a blocked toilet. We are certainly all about the plumbing in this episode. Next thing we know, Becky is driving drunk Tim in his manual-transmission truck over to Billy and Mindy’s, grinding the gear box the whole way. Becky asks why Tim was wearing a suit (for his appointment at the bank), and he blows her off. While he’s fixing Mindy’s john, he pretends to know all about Billy’s “job,” which will probably land Billy in jail, because Billy is a moron. Mindy immediately assumes that Billy is having an affair, because he’s secretive and unavailable, and Tim, poor Tim, with both hands in the loo, tries to convince his sister-in-law that things are both not as bad and not as good as she thinks they are.

Buddy has apparently picked up a little Spanish from his Santiago adventure, and he’s trying to convince the proprietor of a local Spanish-language radio station that it would be awesome to broadcast East Dillon Lions games. Neither Coach nor the radio guy is impressed.

Tim is sleeping in the garage when Billy gets home, and he confronts him about cheating on Mindy. Because Billy is totally stealing copper wire with Bug Eyes, you know? Billy explains that he’s totally only taking chop-shop jobs from Bug Eyes because it’s what’s best for Mindy and the baby, but Tim, for once, knows better, and stalks out.

Julie and Tami. Julie is being an ungrateful, miserable little shit just because it’s become clear that Boston College was Tami’s first choice (and she…went to CC in Dillon? Unclear) and Julie is a wretched teenager. Yeah, that’s the gist of it.

Crucifictorious practice. Show of hands, who missed Devon? No one? Yeah. Her hair is cute, but it’s not Shane-on-The-L-Word cute. Landry is coming unglued because Jess has stood him up. Meanwhile, over at Vince’s house, Regina is microwaving food and Jess is trying to be polite as Regina explains her job problems. Regina comes to the conclusion that Jess is gorgeous, about which she is correct, and Vince, his face half in shadow, agrees. It bodes ill for Landry, is all I’m saying.

Coach has taken Gracie to a football coaches’ strategy dinner at Virgil’s, which is kind of adorable, because that kid is totally going to be able to read a spread offense before she can walk. Also, VIRGIL’S BARBECUE. Have I mentioned that I want to eat it? I do.

In the hotel in Boston, Julie is having a meltdown about how she’s more preoccupied with her breakup with Matt than with colleges, and that she’s letting Tami down by flubbing her interviews, because college interviews are still a thing that happens. Tami steps up to the Mom of the Year plate and is all, you don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, because Matt didn’t get you pregnant so everything will be fine. Okay, I made that last bit up. But come on. What has led you to believe that Dillon High does comprehensive sex ed? It’s a fucking miracle we haven’t had a teen pregnancy storyline on four seasons of this show.

Bug Eyes is at Vince’s house, trying to convince our kid to come to the dark side. Vince is committed to his Coach-taught doctrine of Study Your Plays, Don’t Steal Cars, though, and he blows off Bug Eyes’ plans on account of how he’s still on probation, remember?

Becky is trying to teach Tim about pageant walking. Oh dear. God, Legion made me miss Adrianne Palicki so much. She’s so pretty and so calibrated, whereas this actress playing Becky is kind of all or nothing. Tim is working out his job application speech and Becky basically reaches in and rips her tender teenage heart out of her chest and splays it, bloody and pulsing, on Tim’s lap. He’s all, …and? They’re interrupted by Luke knocking on the sliding door, looking for Tim to teach him more punishing but effective ab exercises. Luke’s here to tell Tim about his unbearable crushing injury from the farm, and Tim, bless his heart, is completely in the wrong when he tells Luke how to lie to a local doctor for more pain meds. Seriously, this is going to fuck this kid up.

Landry has driven Jess and the Cosby young’uns somewhere because they have swords and are chanting “Jess likes the punter,” which I think shows a great grasp of field-position strategy for kids their age. It took me till I was in college to understand the importance of special teams. Jess gives Landry a kiss good-night on the cheek, and he talks to himself and a plastic shark for awhile. Oh, Landry.

In Boston, Tami tries to give Julie a come-to-Jesus talk about being a grownup and not letting a breakup derail her entire life. Julie reverts to season 2 and is a complete twat.

Julie has her interview. Tim interviews for a job at Sears. On the balcony of their hotel, Julie tells her mother that she kicked ass in her interview, and that she’s sorry she was such a fucking brat about applying to Tami’s dream school. Tami explains that she went to a perfectly fine school herself, and met Eric, and had Julie, and that was her dream. And it is suddenly all kinds of dusty in here. Does no one else recognize the dustiness?!

Luke is getting his phony prescription from the doctor Tim sent him to. I’m praying this doesn’t turn into a post-stabbing Dr. Carter–on–ER storyline.

Tim takes Becky to the property he’d wanted to buy. He’s still wearing his interview suit, loosening his tie, untucking his shirt. I have lost all cognitive function. Tim starts plotting out where he wants the house to be on the land, how he wants the deck to look, and oh God, it’s so hopeful and so unlikely and so not with this girl, and it’s all heartbreaking. She is a child, Tim. A child. He’s explaining how the treeline works with his vision and the sun is caught on both of them, and he thanks her for her help, and oh, for the love of GOD he’s just encouraging her. Becky leans in and kisses him, and it’s just wrong it’s wrong OH MY GOD IT’S WRONG. She breaks the kiss as the sun slips below the horizon.

Game night. Buddy (Buddy!) is calling the game on 1040 AM, El Fuego, because apparently he got in good enough with the Spanish-speaking radio fellows. It’s kind of odd to hear someone other than Slammin’ Sammy Meade calling the games. The Lions and Timberwolves are playing in a driving rain, churning up the field and reminding us of the glorious season 1 episode “Mud Bowl.” The sound design here is half rap and half mariachi, which tickles me. It’s so Texas. I imagine. Vince hucks one into the end zone, but there’s no receiver, and it just bounces dully off the mud. It’s 14-7, Lions, when Coach calls Landry in for the field goal. THE KICK IS GOOD. THE KICK IS GOOD!! Score is 17-7, Lions.

Tim has to force the door on Billy’s chop shop to get in. He asks Billy how much money is at stake, and while Billy initially protests, he eventually gives in and tells Tim he can make more money chopping cars than he can in two years at Sears. But…no! Tim! God. Stop listening to fucking Billy! Remember the meth dealer?! Does no one on this show have an institutional memory?!

Back at the game, Vince’s pass is picked off and run back for a touchdown, making the score 14-17, with the Lions still in the lead. On the next (?) play, with no explanation of how the Lions regained possession, Vince pitches it to Luke, who gets socked and fumbles the ball, because let’s not forget he’s got a wee bit of his intestines poking out through his abdominal wall. A Campbell player scoops up the ball and runs it in for a touchdown, bringing the score to 21-17 Timberwolves. If the Lions could afford trainers, maybe someone would notice that Luke has a piece of his guts sticking out and that’s why he’s playing like shit. I’m just saying. One bright spot is that the Lions faithful seem to have grown in numbers; there are actually enough people chanting “Let’s go Lions” to make it audible over the rain.

Snap. Vince falls back and passes to Luke. Luke sucks his innards back in and gets clobbered by a Campbell lineman. Coach calls a time out. With 30 seconds left on the clock, he asks if Luke is okay to go for the next series. Luke, all grit and Texas manhood, says he’s fine. Or maybe he’s flying on Oxy, I can’t tell. Third and goal from the 2. Vince hands off to Luke, who fakes left, then right, shrugging off Campbell defenders like they’re peewees. He runs through the line, oblivious to the rain, oblivious to the mud, oblivious to the pain, and the crowd is roaring, and even Bug Eyes is on his feet screaming, and Luke falls across the line into the end zone, putting six on the board to bring East Dillon its first win of the season and if you aren’t crying for that kid and his ruptured abdominal wall and that school and its litany of sadness then sir, I do not know who you are.

In the booth, Buddy is rejoicing. On the field, Tinker and the other D-line guys are sliding in the mud like children. Coach is backslapping his assistants, and the gay one is super excited about it, because Kyle Chandler is so hot. After the game, Bug Eyes and Vince are celebrating, and Jess is torn between the victorious men: Vince and Landry. She goes to Landry, because let’s not forget, 23-21 isn’t a win without that field goal.

Tim and Billy are taking a car apart. It looks like an SUV, and I’m not sure if we’re supposed to find that significant—was it stupid-ass JD McCoy’s SUV? We end there.

Photo courtesy of DirecTV’s The 101 Network.

If you’re like me and forgot to do a Lost refresher, here’s what you can read to get back up to speed.

TV Guide has been doing “catch-ups” about all of the characters, so you can see where we left off with Jack, Kate,  Hurley, Richard, Sun & Jin, Sayid, Sawyer, etc.

New York Magazine’s Vulture blog does a good job of collecting theories about this season that have been floating around the Internet. They mostly sound like BS, but some of them are entertaining.

The AV Club does a great “pre-game” post from the point of view of just having re-watched seasons four and five. The writer grapples with whether the story all hangs together, lists our most pressing outstanding questions, and even includes a recap video.

I easily tire of “Doc” Jensen’s Lost interpretations, but people seem to love him, and those people would probably be interested in Entertainment Weekly’s Lost package. The best feature is a list of 10 episodes you need to see to basically get the gist of what’s going on. It’s all very Locke-heavy.

Just for fun: Jersey Shore’s popularity means that people are all about Italian-Americans now, so this one Italian-American family seeks to capitalize on that with their video recaps (via Flavorwire). And New Yorkers might be tickled to see the island mapped out, NYC-subway-style.

And, though everyone might be flipping out that “the first four minutes” of the season premiere were leaked online, two of those minutes are really the last two minutes of last season finale. If you’re really super-impatient, you can watch that to get your “previously, on Lost” fix.

*Groundhog Day. Does this mean that our favorite Losties will have to keep re-living their days until they get them right?

Jon Hamm’s first gig hosting Saturday Night Live, around this time last year, was held in almost weirdly high regard. It was a decent episode, to be sure, but I feel like most of the appreciation stems from (a.) general Mad Men love, (b.) the fact that January Jones made him look even better in retrospect, and (c.) the hilarious ad for “Jon Hamm’s John Ham.” But as with Justin Timberlake, who hosted a completely mediocre episode that was inexplicably well-liked, only to come back and host a second episode that was nearly as good as everyone thought the first one was, Hamm made a triumphant return to the SNL stage this week, backed by some of the season’s best material.

I was afraid that Hamm’s quick return would mean a lot of clumsy rehashing of what worked about last year’s episode (or maybe even what didn’t), but the writers found an excellent way of sorta-reprising “Jon Hamm’s John Hamm” with “Hamm & Buble,” a pork-and-champagne-themed restaurant based on Hamm’s creepily insistent mispronunciation of musical guest Michael Buble’s name.

Throughout, the show played up Hamm’s capacity for well-dressed menace and/or sleaze, as in an unusually excellent monologue showing clips from his pre-Mad Men career, including a hilarious reference to Martin Lawrence’s ill-fated monologue from some fifteen years ago. I have to give it to Hamm: something about his dashing good looks seems to inspire the writers; they even attempted a second political sketch after the characteristically limp opener about the State of the Union address. The Hamm-assisted riff on newly elected Massachusetts senator-hunk Scott Brown was probably the most inventive political sketch they’ve done since The Rock Obama.

The show got even better and weirder after a strong Weekend Update. For example:

This is the kind of weird quick-hit sketch the show really nails but doesn’t attempt often enough. Stranger still, the sketch was chased ten or fifteen minutes later by a follow-up:

OK, not as laugh-out-loud hilarious, but put together, these sketches definitely have a Kids in the Hall/The State sort of vibe — that sense of well-earned confidence in what makes the writers laugh, rather than hacky devotion to certain sketch formats or familiar characters.

Though the episode was refreshingly low on those — only “Game Time with Randy and Greg” came back, and though I’d still be happier if they didn’t redo this one, the third time was funnier than the second — it did contain a few terrible bids for new characters. Kristen Wiig practiced a new catchphrase with her “don’t make me sing!” lady, though the combination of old-timey-ness and bizarre dancing cats at the end made it more tolerable than some of her other thin-premise wonders. Fred Armisen, meanwhile, continues to rifle through his drawer of bad-drag characters, this week finding an incompetent court stenographer (although, again, as far as lousy sketches go, this one at least had an amusing touch, in this case an aside from Kenan’s judge about how “no one is good at their jobs”).

Those overlong bum sketches and some uninspired Buble music (apart from his fine sketch singing) kept the episode from A-range territory, but it was probably the funniest 90 minutes SNL has managed so far this year. Hopefully Hamm’s inevitable third go-round will be funnier than Timberlake’s.

Episode Grade: B+

So y’all know there are a lot of things I love (it’s true! I’m not angry at everything), like cheese, Tim Riggins, American whiskey, moderately expensive writing implements, yoga pants, Triscuits, and shopping at mostly-empty Targets. And you know I love Craig Ferguson, puppets, and musical numbers on TV. Here’s something else: I also love Rosie O’Donnell.

I do. I never watched her daytime talk show, because I had to go to school, or her on The View, because I have a job, but A League of Their Own is one of my more frequently quoted movies (along with Ghostbusters, Top Gun, Moonstruck, Mrs. Doubtfire, and, of course, Center Stage and Bring It On) and I love her in it. I want to see the sequel when Doris not only rips up the picture of her ugly, mean boyfriend and throws it out the window of the moving bus, but also makes out with Lori Petty a little. I’ve always liked Rosie’s willingness to put herself 100 percent behind whatever she believes in, and to say what she thinks even if it gets her in trouble. I admire that in a lady. And I’ve always wanted to bitchslap Elizabeth Hasselbeck, ever since Dan handed me a layout of a Survivor story a thousand years ago and her smug, pointy little face was staring out of it. (Sadly, that page is not online in the vast digital archive of the work we did a long time ago that now embarrasses us. But I found a feature story Cristin wrote!)

Which is all a very long way of saying that Rosie O’Donnell was on Craig Ferguson’s cold open tonight, and they lip-synched Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love,” and there were puppets. It was great. Please to enjoy.

Yes, welcome back to our regularly-scheduled Friday Night Lights recap, only, like, a month late. Sorry.

How much you want to bet Mindy puts Dr. Pepper in the baby bottle?

So Julie is in her room, devastated, as I think we all are. Matt Saracen, to my mind, is as much the heart of the show as Coach is; it was through his eyes that we really saw Season 1, and with him that we grew up in the show. I am hopeful that the writers and actors have some awesomeness in store for us without him, but I sure am going to miss Zach Gilford. At school, Julie decides that the way to salve her broken heart is to sign up for every club East Dillon has. (They can afford clubs?!) Landry interrupts and says that it’s cool that she wants to join the book club, except that this week they’re reading Twilight. Ba-zing! He indulges in a little mope over how Matt was his best friend, too, and Julie’s all, yeah, that’s why I signed you up for It’s Academic, er, Academic Smackdown.

Down on the Cafferty farm, Luke and his parents are herding cows, which I thought people usually had, you know, dogs and horses to do. Luke’s dad tells him he’s going to have to miss some school this week to help out around the farm, and when Luke protests, saying he won’t be able to play in this week’s Big Game of Destiny if he misses too many classes, his dad is all, dude, this is a freaking cattle farm in west Texas, we are broke.

Over at Dillon, Tami has apparently overcome such crippling budget problems that last year they could afford either toilet paper or chalk to bring the school’s academic achievement up to an award-winning level this year. That’s realistic! Also realistic: Becky’s deadbeat trucker dad just showed up. And…erm, he’s white. Am I the only one who thought Becky was biracial? Just me? Okay. So Becky’s dad meets Tim. Oh, I have missed Tim so much.

At East Dillon, Coach names Vince the Lions’ new quarterback. Finally! I’ve been thinking Tinker was snapping to Luke or the ghost of Jason Street or someone all this time. In his office later, Coach is on the phone with someone, arguing about an invoice, when Luke walks in, evidently having missed school. Luke tries out his lamesauce excuse about fixing the fence so the cows don’t get out, and Coach gives him his WTF face and is like, fix the fence whenever, this is football. It’s like Sparta, but slightly less homoerotic.

Tim, Billy, and Mindy are in the truck at Whataburger, scrounging for change while another patron behind them leans on the horn, seemingly on the verge of some Texas-style violence. Mindy suddenly announces that she’s having a contraction and demands to go to the hospital, even though Billy hilariously insists she’s only seven months pregnant. SURE. I’m convinced she’s gestating an elephant in there.

Landry and Julie head to Academic Smackdown as Landry mocks the irony of the name. The caliber of idiot they find there? Jess, last seen smacking Landry in the face in the middle of his I-like-kissing-you-but-I-also-would-still-like-to-be-having-copious-sex-with-Tyra soliloquy. We learn from Principal Levi that this week’s Smackdown is at West Dillon. Of course it is.

Becky has talked her deadbeat dad into getting her a puppy at the pound, because Becky is five years old.

One of the assistant coaches is challenging Vince to do 50 situps in 30 seconds, which, ow, when Principal Levi and two cops walk into the locker room. They tell Coach they’ve heard that Vince has a gun in his locker, so they need to search it. Coach, seeming reluctant, gives the okay, although it seems odd that anyone would be stupid enough to keep a firearm in his gym locker which has a see-through mesh door. The cops toss Vince’s stuff and come up empty-handed. Vince watches with a combination of—what? Sadness, anger, superiority?

At the hospital, the doctor has stopped Mindy’s pre-term labor, and tells Billy and Tim that she’ll have to go on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy, which freaks Billy out. He doesn’t have insurance, and chases after the doctor to see if they can work something out other than keeping her in the hospital overnight, or, like, a payment plan. Oh, Billy. Write Martha Coakley a letter and tell her what an asshole she is, why don’t you.

Coach and Tami are discussing the police raid at dinner while Julie pokes aimlessly at her plate and generally acts out that part of New Moon where Bella ceases to exist. Hey, maybe she will enjoy the book club! At school the next day, Julie flips out on her Academic Smackdown teammates over the battle of Stalingrad. Landry tries to talk her off the ledge, but she just screams “Nyet!” and stomps off.

Coach calls Vince into his office for a manly tête-à-tête over l’affaire pistolet. Vince looks betrayed that Coach would even ask him, and it appears to me that he lies when he says no, he doesn’t have a gun.

Over at Alicia Witt’s house, Tim is lounging urbanely in his Airstream while Becky’s deadbeat dad paces the back patio, talking on the phone. And it sounds like Papa has a second family, including a baby, which would seem to indicate that he won’t be moving back to Dillon to provide the kind of male guidance that will keep Becky off the pole. Pity. Tim, wearing another of his ten thousand impeccably weathered garments emblazoned with the number 33, comes out of the trailer and Papa Deadbeat advises him never to get married or have kids. Tim inquires about the baby he’s heard so much about, and Papa Deadbeat confesses he’s had another kid with some girl in Seattle, and “there’s never enough to go around.” What a gem. In the house, Alicia Witt is losing it over the dog.

Julie gets to her breaking point and heads to the Saracens’, where Grandma is thrilled to see her. She says Shelby has been taking good care of her, which is refreshing, since just last season Lorraine so loathed Shelby that she threw herself out of a moving car. Grandma rambles about how she was worried about Matt but now that he’s called to say he’s settling in, she’s reassured. Julie is visibly wounded by the news that he’s called his family but not her, and when Grandma totters off to rustle up some ice cream sandwiches (what, no tapioca?), Shelby pats her hand and says that Matt will call. Julie looks like she’s about to scream.

Landing Strip. Tim and Billy are commiserating about their brokeness and resolving not to sell Kit Kat (!), their prize longhorn. One of the strippers brings them a couple of beers and says that she wants to throw Mindy a coed, benefit baby shower, at which the other Landing Strip girls will dance and the gentleman attendees will pay a cover charge. Well, it can’t be any tackier than the bridal shower poor Tyra threw last year. Judging from stripper pal Hannah’s acting, she must be Method.

Tami is going over a reading list with a fellow who appears to be a Dillon English teacher. I’m pretty sure he’s not Glen from Season 2, but he sure is acting like him, inviting Tami to a celebratory teachers’ evening in honor of their new blue-ribbon academic honors whatever it is, which I’m sure will turn into the English teacher being all, “I guess no one wanted to come! Oh well, Tami, just you and I…would you like some wine? And to go to Omaha with me?” You know those English teachers. Untrustworthy. Oh wait, he just suggested karaoke. So maybe he’ll end up crying in his beer and coming out to her.

Luke is napping on his lunch table, as you do, when Tinker comes over and asks if he’s drunk. Luke confesses that he’s been up all night and won’t be getting much sleep any time soon, since someone is still stealing the Cafferty cows. Yes, he alliterated it just like that. And I am suddenly convinced that the cow thief is J.D. McCoy. He’s just enough of a mean little shit, and he certainly doesn’t know the value of hard work or what the Cafferty family is going through, struggling to make a living. Tinker suggests that he can get some of the guys together to help Luke repair the fence, and I have a flashback to one of the final episodes of Season 1, when the Panthers built a field in a cow pasture and it was awesome. Luke goes back to sleep and Tinker eats his lunch and Luke’s.

Vince’s mom, looking cleaned up and much healthier than last time we saw her, shows up in the locker room to see Coach and thank him for making Vince quarterback. You can see Coach’s regret at asking Vince about the gun spread across his face as Regina tells him how happy Vince was to get the news. “You should have seen the look on his face when he told me…it was like he was a kid again,” she says, and it breaks my heart, because Vince should still be a kid, and for that matter so should Luke, and Landry, and Matt. Sob.

High school teacher karaoke, generously lubricated with Texas-size margaritas and shots provided by Glen—it is Glen! Oh, man. That weasel. Coach is going to punch him. Glen makes a maudlin toast that all but says “Tami, I love you and will never talk about football, let’s run away to Tucson” and then gets up to sing that song from The Breakfast Club. Glen really thinks he’s Bender, doesn’t he, and Tami is Claire. Oh, this is going to end in tragedy. Hilarious, awesome tragedy. All I can say is that Coach totally is not Emilio Estevez. Waiting for the cab later, Glen hugs Tami goodbye and it goes on just a little too long, so she gets the uncertain eyes over his shoulder, and then he tries to kiss her and somewhere, Coach’s hair goes on high alert. And she’s all, just because this one time two years ago I leaked breastmilk all over you?! And then Glen commits ritual suicide outside the karaoke hut.

Coach shows up at Vince’s apartment, which immediately puts Vince’s back up. Coach begins a little speech about how the quarterback has to be a leader, has to be clear about his and the team’s goals, and Vince interrupts to detail just how difficult his life has been—he’s lived in this crappy apartment for 10 years, has seen three of his friends killed on their way to school, doesn’t know if this day will be the one he’s robbed, beaten, attacked. Basically, he’s defending his decision to have a gun without actually showing it. Coach says that if Vince gets in trouble with the law again he’s going straight to juvie, and then who will put food on the table, pay the bills, and take care of Regina? The line between man and child that Vince is walking here, and the way Coach has to treat him, halfway between man and child, is truly an amazing piece of writing and acting. Coach says that everything he has is supporting Vince, but that this is about more than football. Vince gives another one of those long, considering looks, picks up his bag, and walks away.

Glen is testing the microphone at Academic Smackdown when Tami walks in and asks how he’s doing. Seriously, they did all that on a school night? I mean, I get drunk like that on school nights, but I don’t mold young minds for a living. Tami asks how he’s feeling, and he blurts out this insane paragraph of verbal diarrhea about how he practically mouth-raped Tami and what kind of liberal does that and on top of it she’s married and oh God, Tami, just knee him in the balls if that’s what it takes to make him stop talking.

In the car, Julie finds a mix CD Matt made her. She puts it in the stereo, and rips the scab off again. At the Academic Smackdown, the judge asks East Dillon the first and last novels Thomas Wolfe wrote, both of which deal with the theme of the American wanderer. Julie takes the question and starts to lose it at the mike, weeping the titles: Look Homeward, Angel and You Can’t Go Home Again. The correct answer puts East Dillon in the lead, and Julie goes backstage to hang herself. Tami walks in and the scene eerily mirrors that early Season 1 episode where Coach brings Matt to Julie’s dance recital and all four of them are backstage, only here we have melancholy and heartbreak rather than nervous euphoria. Julie stammers that Matt called his grandmother and Shelby, and that she thought he was the one, and God, it’s just wrenching, because who hasn’t felt like that?

Tinker shows up to help Luke and his dad repair the fence, because Tinker is wonderful. It’s late, and they’re working by portable lights. Luke’s dad asks Tinker where he learned to build, and he says his grandfather was in construction. Luke’s dad thanks Tinker for his help, and Tinker says that Luke is holding the team together, that he’s a star but doesn’t act like it, “but you probably know that.” Luke’s dad does not. Tink continues, saying that by helping Luke, he feels like he’s helping the team. You guys, I think I love Tinker.

Landry is by the side of the road, talking to Tyra’s voicemail about how they’d agreed to meet but obviously she isn’t here, and he’s going off onto one of his insane Landry tangents (which have a lot in common with Glen…poor Landry) about the guards at Buckingham Palace and how he’ll wait until he’s old and shriveled because the sex was just that good, but because this is Friday Night Lights and not One Tree Hill, Tyra doesn’t magically show up. Eventually Landry talks himself into the realization that it’s over, she’s moved on, and he needs to as well.

Stripper baby shower! Tim is pouring beers and the Landing Strip girls are gyrating with their clothes on, because this is still DirecTV, not HBO. Vince’s troublemaking bug-eyed friend is there, and he ominously tells Billy that he knows a good money-making opportunity. Oh, Billy. Did we learn nothing from the meth dealer? The copper wire? The house-flipping? I pity that kid in Mindy’s belly already, because unless it comes out looking like Tim, it’s behind the eight ball before its first breath.

And of course Becky shows up! Because what is a benefit baby shower thrown by strippers without a few needy high school kids with daddy issues? Insufficiently redundant, that’s what it is. Becky gloms onto Tim like a remora, and the weight of his knowledge gets the best of Tim. He tells Becky about her dad’s other family in Seattle, and quite eloquently compares her father to his, telling her that they buy their kids things just so the five minutes a year they have to interact with them are less awkward. But I bet Becky’s dad never abandoned her in the parking lot of a sleazy bar to get the living shit knocked out of her. Becky is dissolving into a puddle of self-pity, and she runs off. I don’t know that Tim has ever looked more burdened.

Back at the Daddy Issues Ranch, Becky’s dad bangs on the door of the Airstream, yelling at Tim about how he said he’d tell Becky about his other family. Tim cuts through the bullshit, and then twists the knife, telling him that he slept with Alicia Witt. And then they fight and roll around in the mud, ending with Tim on top, giving Becky’s dad the beating he hasn’t been able to give his own father.

Vince, in the grandest tradition of Coach’s lost boys, shows up at Casa Taylor and apologizes for the lateness of the hour. I’m surprised Coach can’t sense when this is happening. Vince hands over a bag and says he’s sorry, and extends his hand to Coach. They shake. In the morning, Coach and Tami are still staring at the bag with the gun in it. Tami asks what they’re going to do. Coach says that Vince trusts him, and that the gun is going to disappear. Tami observes dryly that it’s been a strange week.

Becky’s horrible dad leaves. Tim goes back to the pound to get the dog Alicia Witt returned, and the lady there asks if Tim is going to return it the next day. “People aren’t always very responsible about these dogs. Are you going to be a responsible person,” she asks. Tim replies, “Yes, ma’am.” Who would’ve thought three years ago that Tim Riggins would be the voice of adult responsibility and emotional maturity on this show? Damn.

Luke and his dad are branding the cows. Something happens as Luke is climbing between the pens and his leg gets pinned in a gate and pretty banged up. He says it’s nothing, but appears to be in a lot of pain. I’m sure that won’t come back to haunt us.

Landry, newly unburdened of his pining for Tyra, walks into the barbecue joint where Jess is behind the counter, and very prettily asks her out. She asks why she’d do that, and he wins her over by arguing that he plays the guitar, so he might write her a song one day. Tell me, Cristin, would that work?

Tim is talking to the dog in his truck, asking what his name is going to be, because Julian is a super boring name. Tim Riggins can talk to dogs, babies, inanimate objects, it doesn’t really matter, it’s all amazing. They agree on Skeeter, but even with an appropriate moniker, the dog is still whining. Tim pulls over so Skeeter can do his business, and as the dog piddles, he surveys the rolling countryside, murmuring, “This is pretty great.” The wide shot reveals a “For Sale” sign, 25 acres. Tim Riggins, cattleman?

I’ll be trying to catch up over the next week or so. Thanks for reading, y’all. Clear eyes, full hearts.

Outside forces boosted this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live; it wasn’t particularly stellar in the area of writing or even of regular-cast performance, but the host and musical guest both pulled more weight than usual. More surprising: the Ting Tings, whose songs have always struck me as the bad kind of catchy, the nyah-nyah approach to earworms. They were semi-inexplicably booked to play a couple of songs that have been making the rounds for like two years now, but given that old-news quality, their stripped-down performances were actually quite engaging, seeming to shrink the SNL stage to a more intimate size. The live version of “That’s Not My Name,” with its minimalist beginning building into a more familiar, noisy climax, was actually more fun than the radio cut; “Shut Up and Let Me Go” was less transformed, but included an enjoyable cowbell shout-out.

Less surprising, due to her general awesomeness, was Sigourney Weaver as host. I speculated last week that Charles Barkley might’ve had the longest gap between hosting gigs, but Weaver actually broke that record this week; she last appeared in 1986, fresh off of Aliens. Fitting, then, that she matched her second collaboration with James Cameron with another go at SNL — and hey, the show finally managed to book the star of an already-out movie that hasn’t bombed and has in fact grossed a bajillion dollars. I guess they did that with Taylor Lautner, too, but Sigourney Weaver is a sixtysomething lady — not exactly the demo SNL chases.

The break from the usual starlets and Twilights and novelty hosts paid off; Weaver was game and often delightful throughout. Even when playing herself, as in the sketch about reading asinine internet comments, she made a great show of sincere silliness, wondering aloud if a YouTube comment consisting of “dat ass” was a good thing, and threatening to use her unusual female height in a scuffle with any haters. Weaver also did a nice job singing through a couple of enjoyably weird (if somewhat thin) sketches: a routine about a distressed nightclub singer to close out the show, and a Kenan-hosted disco show with the good sense to feature more than one type of joke, even if the reason for its existence may have been a willingness to greenlight any Kenan-hosted retro-singing sketch in the wake of the puzzling success of “What Up with That.”

Avatar, as expected, loomed: Weaver flat-out reprised her role in that film for a Navi-sex sketch that took a good idea about halfway there, if that, and just sort of trailed off. The better James Cameron homage came with the low-budget world of Laser Cats, accompanied by not just Weaver but Cameron himself; Andy Samberg and Bill Hader packed an excellent number of DIY references into their latest basement-quality sci-fi epic.

So that’s a fair amount of amusement, really; just a lack of massive laughs. As such, there were a couple of okay character reprisals — Kenan’s Grady Stiles and the fumbling ESPN Classic commentators who get stuck covering obscure female sports sponsored by feminine care products — that didn’t particularly help or hurt, and only one really horrible bit. In a frightening bid for a recurring character, Fred Armisen played Riley, a grade-schooler with the voice and personality of an aggressively haggard drag queen. The idea of a kid talking with such a near-demonic voice and awful personality was sort of funny for a few seconds, but Armisen’s special affection for one-note characters is wearing thin. This is what happens when people routinely stay on the show for seven or eight years rather than four or five; they have time to develop and establish themselves, but they also have the time to break out their third-tier material. On the flipside, Weaver brought an A-game after a nearly 24-year gap. She should definitely return before 2034.

Episode Grade: C+

I applaud the show’s decision to reign it in at one song, instead of an entire musical episode. Musical episodes of shows can be fun, but they often employ some kind of gimmick to explain away the presence of the songs (magic spells, weird aural diseases, and the like). That wouldn’t really fit on How I Met Your Mother. I love that they have the guts to just break into song, even if they Rob Marshall it at the end. For your pleasure (after 30s of commercials):