Hey, guess who's clogging up the drive-thru lane at the Whataburger, digging through the seat cushions for change? No, not the Riggins brothers. It's the Riggins brothers and Ole Sis. (Props to Drunken Bee for the "Ole Sis" nickname that still makes me laugh.) So Tim digs and makes excuses (if only some starry-eyed high school girl were working that window, he'd be home free), and Billy screams at the honking cars, when Mindy starts yelping. And not her usual "Damn it, Billy!" yelping. These are contractions. "You're seven months pregnant," Billy says, telling her she's not experiencing contractions. But she's sure experiencing something. So they abandon their triple meat-n-cheesers (which would have induced labor anyway, so six of one) and drive off to the hospital.

Back at East Dillon, Landry mumble-whines to a hostile Julie about the kind of nerds who do Academic Smackdown, so of course he rounds the corner and finds Jess in the classroom, being beautifully intense about some question or another. He tries to talk his way out of this being incredibly awkward, but Jess is not about to be charmed. The principal enters with packets for this week's meet against -- who else? -- West Dillon. "Our blue-ribbon sister school," the principal says, with no small amount of little-brotherish envy. Man, whoever made the Academic Smackdown schedule did not have an eye for saving the big drama until sweeps.

Dog shelter. Becky and Deadbeat. Oh, you guys, NO. As if Becky and her storylines aren't awful enough. They have to take a poor dog down with them? So Deadbeat is just about squealing with delight about how Becky's mom is gonna HATE this, which is always the perfect motivation for entrusting your flaky daughter with a living thing to care for. Becky assures her dad she's up for it, though, plus she gets really lonely when her mom's at work. She uses that to segue into the "Daddy, come home" speech, which of course terrifies Deadbeat like it's the chupacabra. His voice says "I'm workin' on it," but his face says "What time do I have to wake up to get on the road without her noticing?"