Morning, sports fans. Just popping in to remind you that tonight is the fourth season re-premiere of Friday Night Lights, the tear-jerkiest, slo-mo-iest, awesome-contemplation-of-everyday-life-iest show on television. If you didn’t have access to the first broadcast of the season on DirecTV, now’s your chance to get it on real free television. And you can find our recaps here: Tons and tons of Coach, Matt, and Riggins.

Or here they are by episode so you don’t have to accidentally see what came later:

Episode 1: East of Dillon

Episode 2: After the Fall

Episode 3: In the Skin of a Lion

Episode 4: A Sort of Homecoming

Episode 5: The Son

Episode 6: Stay

Episode 7: In the Bag

Episode 8: Toilet Bowl

And that’s as far as I got. I’ll pick it up again in two months. Enjoy tonight, y’all.

Friday Night Lights this (back in January) week opens with all the dreams we thought we had: Julie’s dreams of a life with Matt, Billy’s dreams of not going broke when his kid is born, Tim’s dreams of land of his own, which we only just learned about last week in December.

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.

You guys, Matt Saracen is gone. Julie doesn’t know what to do, and neither do I.

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

Thank the Lord for small mercies, Friday Night Lights fans. This week’s episode was mostly lighter than last week’s, which is good, because I don’t think I could handle that kind of emotional upheaval two weeks in a row. To recap: Matt buried his father, who was killed in Iraq. Julie struggled to support Matt in the face of enormous and staggering pain and cope with facing mortality for the first time in her life. Becky hit on Tim Riggins and was rejected, which drove her into Luke’s slightly less muscular arms. And Vince went in two directions at the same time, earning player of the week honors and learning to hotwire cars. So, now for something a little bit lighter? Please, Jason Katims, don’t make me cry again.

Welcome back! When last we left the East Dillon Lions and the people who love and antagonize them, Tami was in hot water with the Dillon boosters and fans, Coach still had his hands full with his fractious players and unsupportive school administrators, Tim Riggins had decided to become a personal shopper for idiotic pageant girls, and Matt Saracen’s father was killed in Iraq. This week: I bet there’ll be crying. Some of it might even come from the people inside the TV.

Last week on Friday Night Lights, Tim became an assistant coach for the East Dillon Lions, while Coach struggled to scrape together funds for his scruffy team. Matt learned that art is about being a miserable, unbathed recluse, which understandably freaked Julie out. Buddy Garrity went off the reservation re: the Panthers under the odious thumb of Revoltin’ Joe McCoy. Vince, Landry, and Luke continued to flail about on the ragtag Lions team. And now, on to episode four, Dillon: A New Hope.

Last week on Friday Night Lights, Coach was mocked for forfeiting the first game of the season. Matt met his new “mentor,” the pantless metalworking artist. Tami encountered friction with the Panther boosters and the Dillon students when she turned in fancy running back Luke Cafferty for lying about the district his parents’ home is in. Landry and Vince took a leadership role in uniting the East Dillon Lions, and Tim joined the Lions as kind of an assistant coach. He also moved in with Alicia Witt and her teenage daughter, whose name we think is Becky. Now, this week!

Last week on Friday Night Lights: Coach is at East Dillon. So is Julie. Matt is delivering pizzas, and JD McCoy is a jackass. New people include Vince, who is very fast and quite surly, and bartender Alicia Witt and her National Anthem–singing daughter. The East Dillon football team got whipped so badly in their first game that Coach forfeited the second half. We cried. So: onward!

Welcome back to Dillon, Panther fans. And Lions fans! Because we’re Lions fans now. Okay, to catch up. When last we left the good folks of Dillon, Coach Taylor had lost his job as head coach of the Panthers to his conceited QB’s private coach. He is now the coach at under-funded, athletically gerrymandered East Dillon High. Tami is still the principal at the now-renamed West Dillon High. So: conflict. Matt Saracen has been accepted to art school in Chicago. Lyla has gone to Vanderbilt and Tyra has gone to UT and we will miss their pretty, pretty hair. Tim is…going to college? Kind of? And also: Clear eyes, full hearts.

Can you hear it? Friends, can you? The fourth season of Friday Night Lights is coming to DirecTV at the end of the month, and I AM SO EXCITED I CAN HARDLY STAND IT. I have missed everyone so much! Coach! Mrs. Coach! Tim Riggins! Matt Saracen! Julie, now that she’s not acting like an asshole all the time! All those other people! Hell, I’ve missed Buddy Garrity.

If you’ve also missed the good people of Dillon, treat yourselves to this splendid behind-the-scenes video from the production of a promo (yeah, A PROMO, that is how hard up I am) for the fourth season.

Visually it reminds me of last year’s promos, but with, you know, more exploding. It’s just so blissful to see everyone again, especially three minutes in when Tim Riggins Taylor Kitsch (yes, I know Tim Riggins is a fictional character. I’m working on accepting that) just wanders through the frame. He’s so pretty.

If you’re watching carefully, you’ll see one of the technical fellows showing off the pre-visualization of the spot on a laptop, and I’m pretty sure the pre-viz we see is of the Tim Riggins scene. In which he looks like Prince Valiant, because that hair, it just does not translate to animation. I laughed.

Friday Night Lights returns to DirecTV Oct. 28. I will be writing about it every week here at TiFaux (and I’m saying that so you all hold me to it). Clear eyes, full hearts.