Several years ago, my friend Dan got my parents and me hooked on Friday Night Lights,
the NBC small-town Texas football drama that has received critical
raves but little Emmy attention and consistently lackluster ratings.
This week, we bid farewell to the show that we followed for five
seasons. The series went out as it came in, low-key and heartfelt, with
the focus on ordinary people struggling to make the best of difficult
circumstances.
As the 13-episode-long fifth season begins, Coach
Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife Tami (Connie Britton), the
couple who serve as the cornerstone of the series, are preparing to see
their precocious daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) off to college. While
she is anxious to fly the coop, they’re not having such an easy time
letting her go, and it’s little surprise when her sense of intellectual
superiority lands her in a quandary early in her first semester. They
both have other pressing concerns, however. Tami has her work cut out
for her as the new guidance counselor at East Dillon High School, and
Eric is under pressure to keep up the good work he did the year before
with the town’s fledgling football team, turning these young men into a
group with actual winning prospects.
Because this is a high
school drama, most of the major players from the first season are no
longer in the mix except as occasional guest stars. This season does
find excuses to bring back almost everyone for at least one episode,
which is nice, but it’s definitely a different group of students getting
most of the attention this time around. Chief among these is star
quarterback Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan), who, having overcome ties
to petty thugs and helped his mother through rehab, now faces potential
setbacks as his volatile father returns home after a stint in jail. By
his side is Jess Merriweather (Jurnee Smollett), a kind but tough
football enthusiast who, in the midst of caring for her younger brothers
in her father’s business-related absence, convinces the coach to take
her on as a team manager.
Hard-working farmhand Luke Cafferty
(Matt Lauria) tries to swallow his jealousy that Vince is getting his
share of the glory and rekindles a relationship with Becky Sproles
(Madison Burge), an aspiring beauty queen whose troubled home life leads
her to take refuge with mechanic and new father Billy Riggins (Derek
Phillips) and his wife Mindy (Stacey Oristano) at the behest of his
brother Tim (Taylor Kitsch), who is serving a prison sentence for a
crime Billy committed. This is probably my favorite of the student
stories this season because Billy, Tim and Mindy have been a part of the
show from the beginning, and this arc really shows how far they have
come. Billy’s desire to honor Tim’s sacrifice and make a fresh start
leads him to seek a role as assistant coach, while Mindy, up until now
presented as a rather shallow side character, truly comes into her own
as she deals with Becky’s intrusion into her life.
Among the old
guard who make just a few appearances, one of the most compelling is
Mindy’s sister Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki), a thriving college
student who, despite overcoming incredible obstacles to make her way in
the world, still feels drawn to Dillon. The other is Matt Saracen, the
standout character of the first season. That Zach Gilford’s haggard
season four performance in The Son, an episode that finds lovable
everyman Matt conflicted over the death of his absentee father in
combat, did not earn him an Emmy nomination is a travesty; here, his
role is understated, but he’s around just enough to serve as a reminder
of how truly beautiful the simple things can be. His beloved, mildly
senile grandmother (Louanne Stephens) also appears in a few episodes,
reminding us of how the show started, mostly focusing on a plucky
underdog with a heart of gold who is thrust into the limelight.
As
always, the show has a realistic slice-of-life feel to it, with comedy
and drama stemming organically from the actors as well as the excellent
writing. All of the characters face challenging obstacles, but all have
come a long way from when we first met them. This is particularly true
of the troubled Riggins-Collette clan and Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland),
the fast-talking salesman who caused Eric so many headaches in the first
season and is now one of his closest allies. These are people who often
make stupid decisions but constantly strive to do better. The Taylors
are stabilizing forces in the lives of so many families, though even the
solid foundation of their marriage is tested in this season as the show
comes full circle. When each of them receives an offer of a dream job,
which of them will yield? Or will the pull of geographically disparate
career paths be enough to separate the spouses in one of the most
touching marriages on television?
When Friday Night Lights
began airing, I didn’t pay much attention. After all, I’m not a
football fan. But the show is about so much more than that. Chances are
that if you go into it with my kind of pigskin ambivalence, you’ll
develop a deeper appreciation for the way the sport can build character
and bring a town together. More than that, though, you’ll find
characters to truly care about whose everyday trials reflect the joys
and sorrows of a life lived in community.
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