The truth hurts, even when it’s told tongue in cheek.
That lesson became apparent during the surprise birthday roast that Laura threw for Billy on All American Season 5 Episode 8.
Billy’s discomfort was evident. Most wrote his fidgeting off as his being the butt of friendly jokes, but it went deeper than that.
Billy had a secret only AD Barnes and Laura knew about: being offered the head-coaching position at scandal-ridden GAU.
As a result, he was lying by omission to everyone else who was influential in his life. No wonder he was so uncomfortable being the center of attention at a time when he wanted to slip into the background to think.
Laura gave Billy sound advice: talk to Jordan and Spencer about the job offer. Too bad he didn’t follow it.
It was understandable that Billy didn’t. He didn’t want to harsh Jordan’s Willmont buzz. And Billy thought he was betraying Spencer, not to mention his longtime friend and former teammate Coach Kenny, for even considering the offer.
But as Jordan eventually showed, he wanted nothing more than to play college quarterback for his father. And in his roast speech, Spencer said he wanted nothing more than to play for someone like Billy at the college level.
In other words, Billy as their college coach would be a dream come true. But the optics of the situation are horrible: Pushing Kenny for the position only to sweep in and take the post himself.
And there’s no explaining his enthusing to Grace how much he was enjoying being principal at South Crenshaw when he had one foot out the door.
Grace, who didn’t support Billy becoming principal, then admitted she was wrong about him, was right to be upset with him for thinking about leaving those South Crenshaw kids just for the opportunity to become a Division 1 coach.
Billy’s two “sons” are the stars of the scandal-ridden GAU program. But that necessarily doesn’t make him the best choice as head coach.
Coach Kenny is a better option as he knows all the remaining players and has already coached at the D1 level. But perhaps AD Barnes sees him as tainted as he was part of Garrett’s staff.
A significant question, which may be tackled on All American Season 5 Episode 9, is how will the choice of coach affect the type of punishment that GAU will receive for Bountygate? Maybe that explains Barnes’ thought process.
Now that Billy has decided that he wants the job and Jordan is on board, it might be time to loop in Spencer as well. He’ll be confused and maybe a little hurt, but he should come around.
Besides, Spencer has someone else on his mind, Olivia, even though he has trouble admitting it, except to Grace, of course. Momma Grace sees all.
The two of them are still processing their breakup. They’re just at different stages.
That makes sense since he broke up with her. Spencer moved on to dating Alicia while Olivia had to go through her period of moping.
It took a gathering of the extended Baker clan to make Spencer realize that he wasn’t as free of Olivia as he would like to think. It also made abundantly clear to Alicia that being a rebound girl hurts even in a casual relationship. After urging Spencer to make a move, Alicia is likely gone.
Now Olivia has started dating again, several weeks behind Spencer. Noah was happy to be the rebound guy because Olivia was undoubtedly out of his league.
At least Spencer and Olivia agreed to attempt to find their new kind of friendship. There’s hope it won’t be so painfully awkward as the past few months.
Two other couples are also stuck in transition and hit bumps in the road because one partner decided to make unilateral moves.
Jordan and Layla decided it was sexy to keep sneaking around. Eventually, Olivia will come out of her lovelorn fog and ponder why Jordan keeps hanging out at the family home with Layla instead of his ritzy beach house.
For some inexplicable reason, when visiting Atlanta, Layla decided to tell Simone and her and Jordan when that was so much Simone’s ex-husband’s story to tell. Jordan may be a lust-struck puppy, but he was justified in having his nose out of joint.
It must have been painful for Layla to be sitting with Asher and Jaymee, the only couple in the Vortex to have their act together. (That’s because Jaymee was willing to suffer through her crippling condition rather than ruin Asher’s good time.)
Coop was a hoot as emcee of Billy’s roast. It’s a shame she had to drag Skye along.
Skye was pushing Coop to move out of that sweet deal she had at the Baker mansion. Coop set her straight pretty quickly.
It appeared that Skye was nudging Coop pretty hard to move in together in what Coop labeled a casual relationship. It made more sense when Skye pointed out that she was insecure about Coop still living with her ex, Patience.
If Skye had ever seen Coop and Patience interacting as self-absorbed housemates, she would rest easy knowing she had nothing to worry about.
To revisit Billy’s coaching history, watch All American online.
Should Billy feel OK with taking the GAU job? Or would he be turning his back on his people?
Shouldn’t Jordan and Layla admit their relationship?
Are Spencer and Olivia totally through?
Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.