Season 3 of Necessary Roughness opens with new coach giving the Hawks a pep talk about the team’s future and changes that are going to be made to ensure their position as champions. Matthew Donnally, played by Marc Blucas, explains to Dani, played by Callie Thorne, why the Hawks had to let the previous coach, Coach Purnell, go. He wasn’t helping the Hawks win any championships.

After a dismal introduction to the new coach, Coach Tom Wizinski, played by David Andrews, during which he belittled Dani’s ability as a therapist and questions the need for a therapist at all, Dani is fired by him after she tries to defend herself and her job.

A week passes and Dani still hasn’t heard back from the Hawks. Dani’s friend, Jeanette, played by Amanda Detmer, comforts her with wise words and alcohol. During Jeanette’s custom therapy, Dani receives a call from Nico Careles, played by Scott Cohen, tells her a limousine is waiting for her in her driveway.

The limousine takes Dani to V3, an all-in-one sports marketing, fashion designing, public relations powerhouse corporation. There, President Connor McClane, played by John Stamos, and CFO Troy Cutler, played by David Anders, ask Dani if she’d like to work on a special case for them. Darryl Hutchinson, played by Johnathan Keltz, is a pro-baseball hopeful who has a fear of flying. Connor asks Dani to help him overcome his fear or else his future in baseball is doomed.

Terrence King, played by Mehcad Brooks, is disappointed he can’t go to Dani for therapy anymore. Matthew suggests he goes to see the new therapist hired by Coach Wizinski.

After getting slapped by her, Nico apologizes to Dani for leaving without a word and not responding to any of her attempts to talk to him and explains that he got a job at V3 instead of going to Dallas like he was planning.

Dani and Connor go to see Darryl at the V3 athlete academy where he’s practicing his perfect pitch. Upon getting to know him better, Dani learns Darryl’s problem started recently. Dani plans to use his scheduled interview later in the week in Philadelphia as an opportunity to improve his flying mental state. To begin the therapy, Dani takes Darryl on a stationary plane with the door open. Nico and Troy join them to observe. Darryl starts to have a panic attack, but Dani calms him enough to take a pill to calm his nerves. Once he’s calmed down enough, he tells her he’s ready to close the door and take off.

Meanwhile, Terrence hates Coach Wizinksi’s therapist because instead of having a comfortable couch and jelly beans, the new therapist just asks him vague questions while writing notes down in a journal.

While on the flight, Dani attempts to talk to Nico about what he’s been up to the last few months with no success. The flight is about to land when Darryl wakes up and starts panicking. His pitching arm has gone completely numb. Back at V3, Troy accuses Dani of saying something to Darryl that made his arm go numb, but she defends herself and explains to Connor that she believes Darryl has some sort of psychosomatic conversation disorder where his stress expresses itself in many different ways.

Dani finds out that Darryl was absent from the academy for a couple weeks in the previous year, and after doing some research, she finds that a promising pitcher dropped out just before the draft started. Upon doing some research and getting a police report from Nico, Dani learns that Darryl was the primary witness in a case involving the pitcher that dropped out last year.

Meanwhile, the Hawks are having an incredibly hard time dealing with Coach Wizinski’s practices - the players are actually getting sick on the field while Wizinski demands more from them. Terrence attempts to help one of his teammates, and because of that, Wizinski demands more running from the team. Frustrated by the new coach and blaming Matthew for letting Dani go so easily, Terrence quits the team. Matthew shows up at Dani’s begging her to come back to the Hawks and help Terrence rejoin the team. Dani refuses.

Dani talks to Darryl about the pitcher that dropped out last year before the draft started. Turns out the pitcher was a legend at the academy and just a week before the draft, Darryl watched the pitcher go nuts. Dani believes that from that experience, Darryl is experiencing post traumatic stress disorder, and his fear that he’ll end up like the drop-out pitcher is exacerbating his PTSD. Dani reassures him that the biggest difference between Darryl and the drop-out is that Darryl is getting help before anything terrible happens.

Terrence shows up at Dani’s house that night, tells her he’s quit the team so now he can go under her care again. She refuses him and says that “therapy isn’t a forever thing” and that maybe he’s safe to move on his own.

After helping him through his trauma, Dani finds out from Connor that Hutchinson didn’t get the draft they were expecting, but instead the New York Yankees are interested in drafting him. Terrence goes back to Coach Wizinski and gets his place back on the team. Connor offers Dani a full time job at V3 as long as she works exclusively for them and closes her private practice. Matthew shows up at her door, apologizes for everything, and tells her he’s leaving the Hawks for a job in Boston. They hug and part ways.

The final scene shows Dani being welcomed as a new employee at V3. Troy is hesitant to see her working there full time, but Connor reassures him he’s made the right decision. The episode closes with Nico on the phone, watching the welcome party from a balcony, and telling the person on the other line, “We have a problem.”

Overall, the episode is definitely giving Necessary Roughness a new feel and putting out main character Dani in a very interesting position.

New episodes of Necessary Roughness air Wednesdays at 10pm/9c on USA.