Note: This recap of Season Four's second episode ("After the Fall") originally ran here in November 2009, when the episode first aired on DirecTV.
Coach Taylor must face the aftermath of last week's forfeiture. His lawn is covered by white flags that say "Quitter," and the team stops showing up to practice. They're upset and embarrassed he didn't let them finish the game. Even complacent, agreeable Landry says he's done.
SPOILERS ahead...
Coach has never looked more discouraged or hopeless than at this moment. Without a team, he'll be out of a job. But more than that, when have football players looked down on Coach, let alone not show up for practice? Buddy Garrity shows up to cheer him up. They drive to an empty lot, the registered address of newcomer Luke Cafferty, Dillon's star running back. Luke's real address? In Kilroy, sectioned off for East Dillon. "He's supposed to be yours," Buddy says.
Telling Luke he must transfer over to East Dillon earns Tami some very loud boos at the pep rally. Despite some initial tears of disappointment, Luke seems like a good kid who just wants to play some football.
But the boosters won't let him go that easily. Joe McCoy and Coach Aikman bribe and blackmail Tami in the school's parking lot. They accuse her of favoring her husband and insinuate that Coach Taylor knew about the mailbox and empty lot the whole time he was coach. "I think you're going to get lynched," Joe tells Tami. If someone did some digging, state titles could be revoked, rings taken away. Tami's face falls.
Meanwhile, Julie attends her first day at East Dillon - she volunteers to go, and it quiets some of the personal attacks made by redistricted parents on the Taylors. She's there with Landry, who is having a hard time adjusting to the urban (read: less white) environment. But after running over her bike (sounds complicated but it wasn't), he meets another newcomer, Jess Merriweather. She's upset because she worked hard for that bike but Landry promises to pay for a new one. He later stalks her at the diner she works at and, in typical form, embarrasses himself in front of Jess and her father. I smell future interracial, interclass dating tension here.
The most perplexing story arc is Matt's. Matt's art teacher at Dillon Tech decides to hook him up with an internship with local artist Richard Sherman. This comes after she told him he wasn't an artist last week. But, "you have what every important artist needs - pluck," she says. Sherman is an antisocial metalworker, who prefers to work in his underwear. He uses Matt for manual labor, which eventually causes Matt to snap and question Sherman on what he's doing here/what he's learning about art. Sherman offers a little nugget of abstract advice. I don't know where this plot is going, and I'm not sure I like it. It's the most disjointed from the rest of the story, but I suppose that'll set up for Matt's departure in a few episodes.
Riggins, now homeless, is sleeping in his pickup truck and finding solace on a bar stool. He reconnects with the one-night-stand bartender from last week who offers him the trailer in her backyard. She's not interested in pursuing anything else, though, which works for Riggins, who is fundamentally a simple man. Riggins must deal with Becky Sproles, however - the bartender's daughter who bizarrely asks for rides to school and says stuff like "Hey, Tim Rigg
ins, who used to be a Panther." Becky is my least favorite of the new cast members so far, and I sincerely hope Tim doesn't hook up with her down the line.
For now, though, he seems uninterested and visits Coach to offer his assistance to the barely-there team. Coach graciously accepts.
This episode marks the return to the show's classic spousal arguments where Tami asks a question, Coach raises his voice, Tami says "Don't raise your voice at me," and then Coach denies raising his voice. Both parties then storm out. After her run-in with the good ol' boys of the Dillon Panthers boosters club, Tami had to confront her husband and ask if he knew about the mailbox in the empty lot. Coach denies it but it's not altogether believable.
Desperate for a team, Coach Taylor visits Vince's drug-addicted mother to see if she can help him connect with her son. She asks for $20. He obliges.
Coach eventually finds Vince at a basketball court but is ignored. Vince comes to Coach's desk a few days later and hands him back the $20. "You're not my father. I support my family. She had no business taking it from you. You shouldn't have gave it to her."
About to walk away, Coach hurries with his pitch: "This team is broken all to hell. I could use somebody to help me put those pieces back together." Talk to 'em, bring 'em to a special Saturday night practice, Coach pleads.
After a few nail-biting seconds, the team does show up to the field with Vince leading the way. Luke's already there.
Coach offers a mea culpa: "I apologize for not giving you the chance to finish your fight...Let's finish it."
He lights a bonfire and starts burning the team's tattered uniforms. The rest of the team joins him. Luke burns his Panthers t-shirt.
They showed up; it's a start.
"I just gotta find a way to get us some new uniforms," Coach muses.
Sadia Latifi has been a reporter for The News & Observer since June 2009. She currently covers the town of Cary. 
