#60: Season 2, Episode 20 - "Tight End In Traction"

Donnie makes a “celebrity” guest visit back to Lawrence Jr. High to be enshrined in the Wombat Hall of Fame. Louis starts to feel extra inadequate, so he rigs Donnie’s pommel horse with the motor from a mechanical bull. While demonstrating one of his winning gymnastic routines, Donnie goes flying off the pommel horse and gets a back injury that could cost him his college football scholarship. For this episode’s B-plot, Beans plays pranks on Ren.

This episode opens with Louis & Twitty skipping gym class. Instead, they’re walking around the cafeteria where Donnie’s big Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be taking place. The cafe is decorated with a bunch of photos of Donnie playing and excelling at every sport on the planet basically (ultimate frisbee included). Louis is feeling inadequate yet again, so Twitty rubs salt in the wound by saying “You’re kinda like George Pitt. Ya know… If like, Brad Pitt had a younger brother.. and even if you did all these great things on your own, it really wouldn’t make a difference ‘cause you could never match up to your brother’s accomplishments.” THANKS, TWITTY! Kinda cool that Brad Pitt isn’t a dated celebrity or pop culture reference to have written in. A line like that could still be accurate today!

Suddenly Coach Tugnut appears and yells at them for skipping gym. Saying “that’s something your brother Donnie never did!!” This somehow leads to Tugnut telling a story about the day he first saw Donnie and knew he was gifted. He mentions that it was back when he was working yard duty at Brookwell Elementary. This is a fun tidbit because I’m 99% positive that’s a nod to Brookwell McNamara Entertainment, who produced the series.

Then the subplot is introduced, where we see Beans filling up a Gatorade bottle with pickle juice. Ren comes jogging into the house on her way back from a run, walkman/headphones and all. (Why is a 14 year old, non-athlete, middle school student going on runs anyway? Maybe I’m just lazy? Idk.) But of course, Ren goes to drink the Gatorade and spits it out because… Pickle juice.

Later, Beans puts a bucket of oatmeal on top of Ren’s bedroom door…

Ren gets understandably fed up and kicks Beans out of the house for good. And, that’s it really. That’s the subplot. Beans is the worst. Haha…? (I was never a big Beans fan, I’m sorry.)
Louis expresses to his dad how annoyed he is by Donnie’s accomplishments, and Steve basically tells him “too bad.”

Then, we make it to Donnie’s ceremony. Coach Tugnut gets all emo introducing him, and says that Donnie graduated from Lawrence two years ago… Making him a sophomore in High School. Which I think is hilarious, seeing that Nick Spano was 26 years old playing the role of what should be a 16 year old. But, I’m pretty sure that casting was intentional. Ya know, the joke is that Donnie is obviously too old for High School because he ain’t the sharpest tool in da shhhhh-eeed. (Yes, I just quoted Smash Mouth.) This joke is reinforced by Donnie getting up to say a few short words, written out on two flash cards. Card one: “Thank you, Coach” Card two: “Tugnut.” I can’t. Donnie goes on to say that he hopes to attend Texas State University and play for THE Coach Specs Richardson. Naturally, Richardson sent over a video message saying he’d love to have him on the team and is making a personal visit to Sacramento to talk to Donnie about a full tuition scholarship… and then proceeds to call him Ronnie. Amazing.

Before the ceremony gets underway, Coach Tugnut performs a total “My Way” rip off, entirely dedicated to Donnie. With lyrics like “To sweat, or not to sweat. So many games, I won’t forget. He can score, and so much more… Hats off to Donnnnnn-ieeeeee!” His obsession with Donnie is so disturbing, honestly. That running gag is so… I don’t even have the words, haha.
Louis and Twitty are in the audience and Twitty is all “dude this is boring let’s go,” and Louis says “Hold on my impatient friend, the best is yet to come.” Which I believe was intended to be another Frank Sinatra reference. Also interesting fact: Jim Wise, the actor who plays Coach Tugnut, is actually a composer/musician who wrote and sang a lot of the music you hear throughout the series.

And, now. The moment of truth. Donnie starts to demonstrate one of his winning gymnastic routines when Louis tells Twitty about his mechanical bull motor prank – saying he snuck in last night to add a few surprises of his own.

Don’t know if I’ve said this yet, but I really hope Louis went on to study engineering in college. Like??? How does he do this stuff?! 

It’s all fun and games at first, until Louis’ controller gadget starts to fail.. causing the pummel horse to go haywire. Donnie goes flying and lands face first on the stage. He literally could’ve snapped his neck and died. Good job, Louis.

This leaves Donnie incapacitated for 24 hours in a contraption that helps keep his weight off his tailbone. This is a problem, because Coach Richardson is going to be paying him a visit in a few minutes and if he sees Donnie in bad shape, well… Bye bye, scholarship!

Louis obviously knows he’s responsible, and tries to help out by improvising a plan. He hangs Donnie outside a window in the living room and has him poke his head in. Twitty acts as his body.

Donnie: How do I look?

Louis: Well, I’d like a little more neck… But.

Coach Richardson shows up, and things go south. You’ve probably seen this sort of gag happen on a few TV shows/movies before. Obviously, Donnie has no control over his “body” and Twitty can’t see. Causing Donnie to look absolutely ridiculous. Doing things like dumping a drink all over himself, not being able to shake hands, etc. Some of this is pretty funny, though. Coach Richardson becomes suspicious, asking if Donnie is flaky. So Louis says, “No, no! I can assure you Donnie has got a good head on his shoulders.” And then this happens:

The timing is perfect, accentuated by a “ba-dum-tss” of the swing style comedy music that’s a signature of the show. This bit is actually hilarious. 

But, that’s not all. Beans is mad about being kicked out by Ren.. So he goes up behind Donnie outside and repeatedly smacks him in the butt with a tennis racket. Who raised this child?! SATAN?!?!?! This causes Donnie to scream out in pain, and bob up and down like crazy. Twitty figures Richardson left so he stands up and walks away. Then Louis yells “SIT DOWN, DONNIE’S BODY!” This scene used to have me in stitches and I was obsessed with it, lol. I watched it way too much. Richardson says the place is a madhouse and leaves.

Donnie is pretty upset, but he thanks Louis for helping him. He concludes that maybe losing the scholarship was the best thing that ever happened to him… Until Louis decides to tell him he rigged the pommel horse. Donnie’s back pain becomes mind over matter, and he chases Louis down the street. They end up running neck and neck past Coach Richardson, who’s in his car driving at 40 mph.

Donnie tackles Louis to the ground. This is enough proof of Donnie’s skills for Coach Richardson to pull over and say he’s going to keep a spot open on the team for him. And that’s it. Happy ending! Yay!

There’s honestly nothing wrong with this episode. The only issue is that Ren’s subplot is so weak, Beans is the worst and not funny here. Also, I hate seeing Louis mess up so royally, negatively affecting those around and closest to him. Seriously, he could’ve paralyzed Donnie! Naht cool, Lou. The parts I highlighted are pretty great. But that’s about it! If this was a few years ago, I probably would’ve ranked it much higher, honestly. Like I said.. I think I’ve just watched this particular episode too much.

As usual, I’d love to hear from you! So speak yo’ mind in the comments below!

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