Plot - Coach Reeves attends a faculty meeting and implores the teachers to show more school spirit by attending the basketball games. This however was not the key moment of the meeting. Just before Reeves' impassioned plea, Prinicipal Willis told the teachers about the Mainstream program, where disabled/handicapped/special needs students would be assimilated into the Carver student body. Only later does Reeves take an interest after one of the teachers committed an autistic boy named Tom Hendricks to the team despite his repeated refusals. The experiment did not go well as the team was less than supportive and Reeves thin on patience.
Finally Reeves, made a "breakthrough", getting Tom to dribble after badgering him with passes and talk. By the time he realized what he'd done, Tom was tranferred back to the school and then Reeves worked to get him back, culminating in Tom getting into a game at the end of the episode.
Observations - I don't think the episode realized its potential. There could have been more exploring of the Mainstream program at the school and less about Tom and the team. However, this was a basketball-themed show so we did get to see how it might have played out in that arena.
The best part was the end, which was classy. Carver had a dominant performance, and at the end of the final timeout, Coolidge carried Tom onto the court. Then Coolidge passed the ball to Tom and screened off what seemed like the entire other team. Tom finally took a shot but the camera froze just as the ball left his hands, with some type of crowd cheering noise in the background.
No comments:
Post a Comment