What can you do when it comes to predictability? For a good show, it shouldn't matter if you know the destination; what matters is how the series gets you there. And Friday Night Lights is a good show, filled with good performances and nice moments along the way to the end of an ambitious season. The problem is that the inevitability of those end-points left me feeling cold in places.
Nowhere is that truer than with Tim's story. I had it in my head that Tim was going to take the rap for Billy, thus helping him to be the father that the two of them never had, since he let Billy "be a dad for a day," and displayed the kind of happiness and pride that invariably means bad things are a'coming on a television show that needs conflict and drama. It's still a touching moment when Billy tears up to hear Tim's plan and the two of them hug, but all of the hemming and hawing about it before hand doesn't land as well as it ought to since it's obvious where Billy's grief about having to leaving his son and Tim's usual terse smolder is headed.
The puzzling thing about Tim's story is Becky railing against him for "betraying" her. The whole Becky character has been one big misfire, and this is no exception, with her being mad at Tim for practically no reason. I'm not sure how Tim being arrested for running a chop shop affects or even involves her, but whatever. It's par for the course for this frustrating character.
But not every new character is a dud. Some have been roaring successes. The way the episode resolves the Jess-Vince-Landry love triangle worked quite well for me. Everyone is very mature about it. Jess doesn't pussyfoot around about her feelings for Vince; Landry is professional enough by understandably sore at both of them, and Vince shows both joy and guilt about it. It's a very tasteful alternative to the Tim-Lyla-Street nonsense from Season 1. And it puts Landry in position to need a win.
And he gets it! Look, the set up was too perfect and too obvious for the game against the Panthers to end up anyway other than it did. You don't spend three episodes pumping up Landry's doubt about whether he can make a long field goal without him coming in at the last minute to make the game-winning kick. You don't have Vince question whether he can give Coach what he wants, and what Vince intuits Eric Taylor needs, without having the most striking addition to FNL come through in the end for his coach and his team. You even get a nice moment for Luke, who gets the rare apology and explanation from Coach, continues to play good soldier, and gets a nice moment in the sun (er...stadium light) to get his piece of the big win. Yes, some of the oomph is taken away from the seeming foregone conclusion of the Lions making a big comeback in scrappy fashion (though the show gets a little cred and a little legitimacy for the possibility that they come up short after how last season ended), but I still held my breath when Landry's kick was in the air, and that's not nothing.
The only resolution that really didn't work for me was Tami's. I like that Tami got to the moment of truth, and couldn't deliver her phony apology. Tami is a woman of principle, and I appreciate her sticking to her guns and standing up for what she believes in despite public pressure to the contrary. What I don't like is how the episode basically cushions the consequences of that difficult choice. It's believable that Tami wouldn't want a protracted lawsuit that would cost the school thousands of dollars and it's believable that she'd want an opportunity to still provide support to the kids of Dillon, but her parlaying this whole mess into a counseling job at East Dillon just reeks of convenient plotting. I would much rather have seen Tami have to deal with administrative leave and being removed as principal and having to actually suffer for her beliefs rather than softening the edges of this storyline by giving her a soft landing at her husband's school. Giving characters tough choices often makes for great TV, but weakening the impact of that decision makes it feel empty.
But we do get much more meaningful closure with Matt and Landry and Matt and Julie. It's nice to see Matt taken to task by his friend and paramour over the somewhat callous way he just bailed without telling or speaking to them, but it's also nice to see them reconcile. Matt's final scene being him sitting next to Landry is a nice touch, and I missed the pairs repartee. And the scene with Julie and Matt was even better, from the comedy and sweetness of it (Julie ribbing Matt for him calling their spot special because "it's where you deflowered me?" shouldn't be as funny as it is, but Aimee Teegarden's delivery and Matt's blase response were hilarious), and the realness and sadness of Julie deciding that she needs to live her own life apart from Matt's decisions. It's a touching, affecting break up from the best and most lived-in relationship on this show short of Eric and Tami.
Overall, it's not a superlative finale, firmly behind the heartbreak of S3, and the glory of S1, though probably better than the abrupt limbo of S2. It provides a great deal of resolution in meaningful ways, but the clear end points for all of it rob those conclusions of some of their power. Still generally well executed stuff, and an interesting new direction for the show in a unique, semi-uneven, but ultimately successful season.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-08-16T04:21:48Z
What can you do when it comes to predictability? For a good show, it shouldn't matter if you know the destination; what matters is how the series gets you there. And Friday Night Lights is a good show, filled with good performances and nice moments along the way to the end of an ambitious season. The problem is that the inevitability of those end-points left me feeling cold in places.
Nowhere is that truer than with Tim's story. I had it in my head that Tim was going to take the rap for Billy, thus helping him to be the father that the two of them never had, since he let Billy "be a dad for a day," and displayed the kind of happiness and pride that invariably means bad things are a'coming on a television show that needs conflict and drama. It's still a touching moment when Billy tears up to hear Tim's plan and the two of them hug, but all of the hemming and hawing about it before hand doesn't land as well as it ought to since it's obvious where Billy's grief about having to leaving his son and Tim's usual terse smolder is headed.
The puzzling thing about Tim's story is Becky railing against him for "betraying" her. The whole Becky character has been one big misfire, and this is no exception, with her being mad at Tim for practically no reason. I'm not sure how Tim being arrested for running a chop shop affects or even involves her, but whatever. It's par for the course for this frustrating character.
But not every new character is a dud. Some have been roaring successes. The way the episode resolves the Jess-Vince-Landry love triangle worked quite well for me. Everyone is very mature about it. Jess doesn't pussyfoot around about her feelings for Vince; Landry is professional enough by understandably sore at both of them, and Vince shows both joy and guilt about it. It's a very tasteful alternative to the Tim-Lyla-Street nonsense from Season 1. And it puts Landry in position to need a win.
And he gets it! Look, the set up was too perfect and too obvious for the game against the Panthers to end up anyway other than it did. You don't spend three episodes pumping up Landry's doubt about whether he can make a long field goal without him coming in at the last minute to make the game-winning kick. You don't have Vince question whether he can give Coach what he wants, and what Vince intuits Eric Taylor needs, without having the most striking addition to FNL come through in the end for his coach and his team. You even get a nice moment for Luke, who gets the rare apology and explanation from Coach, continues to play good soldier, and gets a nice moment in the sun (er...stadium light) to get his piece of the big win. Yes, some of the oomph is taken away from the seeming foregone conclusion of the Lions making a big comeback in scrappy fashion (though the show gets a little cred and a little legitimacy for the possibility that they come up short after how last season ended), but I still held my breath when Landry's kick was in the air, and that's not nothing.
The only resolution that really didn't work for me was Tami's. I like that Tami got to the moment of truth, and couldn't deliver her phony apology. Tami is a woman of principle, and I appreciate her sticking to her guns and standing up for what she believes in despite public pressure to the contrary. What I don't like is how the episode basically cushions the consequences of that difficult choice. It's believable that Tami wouldn't want a protracted lawsuit that would cost the school thousands of dollars and it's believable that she'd want an opportunity to still provide support to the kids of Dillon, but her parlaying this whole mess into a counseling job at East Dillon just reeks of convenient plotting. I would much rather have seen Tami have to deal with administrative leave and being removed as principal and having to actually suffer for her beliefs rather than softening the edges of this storyline by giving her a soft landing at her husband's school. Giving characters tough choices often makes for great TV, but weakening the impact of that decision makes it feel empty.
But we do get much more meaningful closure with Matt and Landry and Matt and Julie. It's nice to see Matt taken to task by his friend and paramour over the somewhat callous way he just bailed without telling or speaking to them, but it's also nice to see them reconcile. Matt's final scene being him sitting next to Landry is a nice touch, and I missed the pairs repartee. And the scene with Julie and Matt was even better, from the comedy and sweetness of it (Julie ribbing Matt for him calling their spot special because "it's where you deflowered me?" shouldn't be as funny as it is, but Aimee Teegarden's delivery and Matt's blase response were hilarious), and the realness and sadness of Julie deciding that she needs to live her own life apart from Matt's decisions. It's a touching, affecting break up from the best and most lived-in relationship on this show short of Eric and Tami.
Overall, it's not a superlative finale, firmly behind the heartbreak of S3, and the glory of S1, though probably better than the abrupt limbo of S2. It provides a great deal of resolution in meaningful ways, but the clear end points for all of it rob those conclusions of some of their power. Still generally well executed stuff, and an interesting new direction for the show in a unique, semi-uneven, but ultimately successful season.