8.8/10. At some point you have to decide how much you're going to ask a television show conform to the demands of reality and how much you're going to accept that it has to conform to the demands of being a weekly television show. The former requires a certain amount of realism and believability, to where the events your watching feel like they could happen in the real world to real people. The latter requires a certain willing suspension of disbelief, where you're fine with somewhat improbably events that heighten the drama or keep the main characters within the orbit of the show's universe.
To some extent, you have to give credence to the latter, or else it's hard to enjoy anything but the most meticulously plotted and constructed TV series. Is it really plausible that a school district would fire a coach who'd been to the state championship two out of the last three years, and who gave up a seemingly lucrative and coveted college job to come back to being head coach there? Probably not. You can, as one must, handwave the fact that the boosters or whomever see their best hope for success in J.D. McCoy, and that, coupled with his family's wealth and financial contributions, give them the leverage to oust Coach Taylor. And hey, we certainly know that they have the motivation.
This is the part of the review where I, like reviewers often do, wonder if Coach Taylor feeling pushed out after doing a great job is a thinly veiled metaphor for the creators of this show, which I understand was perpetually on the bubble, feeling like they put together great television and were on the cusp of being kicked to the curb by NBC or other powers that be which threatened to replace them with some other flavor of the month. Or maybe I'm digging to deep and it's just meant to be a commentary on how fickle the world of Texas high school football is. Or maybe even that is digging to deep, and it's just a convenient way to make Coach Taylor have to start from scratch next year, with a natural rivalry against his old school and old nemises already in place.
But you still feel Coach's love and his pain at what happens. When, against his wants and integrity, Coach goes to the board meeting to make a brief but convincing case to keep his job, it's clear how much it's a struggle for him to be there, that it's not something he wants to do, but that he's biting the bullet because as he says, he loves his job and he loves that school. And Tami's face walking into Billy and Mindy's wedding says it all, and Coach's expression in response communicates his hurt at being turned out after giving his everything to the school just as well. But their stop on the (East Dillon) field afterward is a lovely final image, a symbol that even if the Taylors were shooed out of Dillon, even if the show itself was kicked off the air, their time on and around that place were meaningful, something to hold onto, and worth remembering.
The time jump that leads us to that point also allows us to see the fates of the named characters on the show. The most heartwarming of them is likely Tyra. Her arc this season has been so much about achieving her dreams of going to college that it would have been a complete gut punch if she didn't get it. The show drags it out a bit, including an ill-advised trip to Austin to surprise the admissions officer, but the moment where she opens her letter, reacts to the good news, and shares a wonderful embrace with her family and Landry is one the best moments on the show, and it's beyond earned for the series and the character.
Lyla's story, on the other hand, feels like much more of a quick fix. The whole conflict with Lyla not going to Vanderbilt because of money troubles and defaulting to San Antonio State with Tim was introduced very quickly, the just as rapid resolution of it, replete with a mysterious "Uncle Gary" doesn't feel very meaningful when it leads to Lyla sticking to her original plan. There's something to be said for Buddy's modicum of redemption for swallowing his pride and calling his estranged brother (even though the fact that we've never heard of this brother before mitigates that), and Tim telling Lyla that she should go and he wouldn't want to be the thing that keeps her from her dream school is one of the most decent thing's Tim's ever done, and a sweet moment to boot. It just doesn't have the overall impact it should given how out of nowhere the beginning and resolution of this storyline was.
Tim's story, on the other hand, works a little bit better, if only because one of the most persistent notes the show's played is how Billy is a screw up, but genuinely wants his brother to get out and do better than he did. The show absolutely swerved me, I admit. Lyla going off to Vandy, and giving Tim a readymade excuse to help Billy in his car shop seemed like the show bending over backwards to keep Tim on the show for next season. But the twist that Billy won't have it, and his speech about Tim doing it for his kids and Billy's kids to show them that there's more that can be had in life was a nice direction to go that ends Tim's story (if this is the end) on a very hopeful note.
Matt's note is less hopeful, but still real enough to work. It too seems like a way to keep one of the show's core characters around past graduation. That's not a bad thing necessarily, because it feels very true to his character. When Matt tells his grandmother that she's the only one who never left him, and he's not going to leave her, it's incredibly endearing, because it connects with his emotional arc in Season 2. He's right, at various times Matt's mom, his dad, his Coach, Julie, Carlotta, and other important people in his life have left him to fend for himself, but his grandmother, as much as she was dependent on him, was always there. It's sweet when he returns the favor, but it's also sad that Matt is giving up his dream and his future, at least for the time being. The fact that Loraine is willing to go to an assisted living facility, and that Shelby is willing to look after her in his absence, takes some of the sting out of it because it means that Matt has options, that this isn't something he's being forced into, but it's still unfortunate that someone like Matt can't go explore his talents and his dreams, even if it keeps him with three women in his life that he loves very much.
And that's the strange intersection of television and real life. Would a real life Matt Saracen go to Chicago or stay to be with his girlfriend and look after his grandmother? Would a real life Billy Riggins welcome his brother's discount labor or send him off to college? Would a real life Tyra Colette be able to get into Texas or would she too have to figure some other way? Would a school really run its championship coach out of town after taking his team to the state finals? I don't know the answer to these questions. The truth is likely that some of these things might happen, but probably not all of them, especially at once. But that is, in some ways, the beauty of storytelling. It allows you to weave together the possible with the improbable, and wrap it around characters you come to feel for after so many hours of trials and tribulations. No, not all of it's plausible, and not all of it's happy, but it all matters, because it matters to these characters, and that's what makes it, and this season of Friday Night Lights, something great.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-07-30T02:51:27Z
8.8/10. At some point you have to decide how much you're going to ask a television show conform to the demands of reality and how much you're going to accept that it has to conform to the demands of being a weekly television show. The former requires a certain amount of realism and believability, to where the events your watching feel like they could happen in the real world to real people. The latter requires a certain willing suspension of disbelief, where you're fine with somewhat improbably events that heighten the drama or keep the main characters within the orbit of the show's universe.
To some extent, you have to give credence to the latter, or else it's hard to enjoy anything but the most meticulously plotted and constructed TV series. Is it really plausible that a school district would fire a coach who'd been to the state championship two out of the last three years, and who gave up a seemingly lucrative and coveted college job to come back to being head coach there? Probably not. You can, as one must, handwave the fact that the boosters or whomever see their best hope for success in J.D. McCoy, and that, coupled with his family's wealth and financial contributions, give them the leverage to oust Coach Taylor. And hey, we certainly know that they have the motivation.
This is the part of the review where I, like reviewers often do, wonder if Coach Taylor feeling pushed out after doing a great job is a thinly veiled metaphor for the creators of this show, which I understand was perpetually on the bubble, feeling like they put together great television and were on the cusp of being kicked to the curb by NBC or other powers that be which threatened to replace them with some other flavor of the month. Or maybe I'm digging to deep and it's just meant to be a commentary on how fickle the world of Texas high school football is. Or maybe even that is digging to deep, and it's just a convenient way to make Coach Taylor have to start from scratch next year, with a natural rivalry against his old school and old nemises already in place.
But you still feel Coach's love and his pain at what happens. When, against his wants and integrity, Coach goes to the board meeting to make a brief but convincing case to keep his job, it's clear how much it's a struggle for him to be there, that it's not something he wants to do, but that he's biting the bullet because as he says, he loves his job and he loves that school. And Tami's face walking into Billy and Mindy's wedding says it all, and Coach's expression in response communicates his hurt at being turned out after giving his everything to the school just as well. But their stop on the (East Dillon) field afterward is a lovely final image, a symbol that even if the Taylors were shooed out of Dillon, even if the show itself was kicked off the air, their time on and around that place were meaningful, something to hold onto, and worth remembering.
The time jump that leads us to that point also allows us to see the fates of the named characters on the show. The most heartwarming of them is likely Tyra. Her arc this season has been so much about achieving her dreams of going to college that it would have been a complete gut punch if she didn't get it. The show drags it out a bit, including an ill-advised trip to Austin to surprise the admissions officer, but the moment where she opens her letter, reacts to the good news, and shares a wonderful embrace with her family and Landry is one the best moments on the show, and it's beyond earned for the series and the character.
Lyla's story, on the other hand, feels like much more of a quick fix. The whole conflict with Lyla not going to Vanderbilt because of money troubles and defaulting to San Antonio State with Tim was introduced very quickly, the just as rapid resolution of it, replete with a mysterious "Uncle Gary" doesn't feel very meaningful when it leads to Lyla sticking to her original plan. There's something to be said for Buddy's modicum of redemption for swallowing his pride and calling his estranged brother (even though the fact that we've never heard of this brother before mitigates that), and Tim telling Lyla that she should go and he wouldn't want to be the thing that keeps her from her dream school is one of the most decent thing's Tim's ever done, and a sweet moment to boot. It just doesn't have the overall impact it should given how out of nowhere the beginning and resolution of this storyline was.
Tim's story, on the other hand, works a little bit better, if only because one of the most persistent notes the show's played is how Billy is a screw up, but genuinely wants his brother to get out and do better than he did. The show absolutely swerved me, I admit. Lyla going off to Vandy, and giving Tim a readymade excuse to help Billy in his car shop seemed like the show bending over backwards to keep Tim on the show for next season. But the twist that Billy won't have it, and his speech about Tim doing it for his kids and Billy's kids to show them that there's more that can be had in life was a nice direction to go that ends Tim's story (if this is the end) on a very hopeful note.
Matt's note is less hopeful, but still real enough to work. It too seems like a way to keep one of the show's core characters around past graduation. That's not a bad thing necessarily, because it feels very true to his character. When Matt tells his grandmother that she's the only one who never left him, and he's not going to leave her, it's incredibly endearing, because it connects with his emotional arc in Season 2. He's right, at various times Matt's mom, his dad, his Coach, Julie, Carlotta, and other important people in his life have left him to fend for himself, but his grandmother, as much as she was dependent on him, was always there. It's sweet when he returns the favor, but it's also sad that Matt is giving up his dream and his future, at least for the time being. The fact that Loraine is willing to go to an assisted living facility, and that Shelby is willing to look after her in his absence, takes some of the sting out of it because it means that Matt has options, that this isn't something he's being forced into, but it's still unfortunate that someone like Matt can't go explore his talents and his dreams, even if it keeps him with three women in his life that he loves very much.
And that's the strange intersection of television and real life. Would a real life Matt Saracen go to Chicago or stay to be with his girlfriend and look after his grandmother? Would a real life Billy Riggins welcome his brother's discount labor or send him off to college? Would a real life Tyra Colette be able to get into Texas or would she too have to figure some other way? Would a school really run its championship coach out of town after taking his team to the state finals? I don't know the answer to these questions. The truth is likely that some of these things might happen, but probably not all of them, especially at once. But that is, in some ways, the beauty of storytelling. It allows you to weave together the possible with the improbable, and wrap it around characters you come to feel for after so many hours of trials and tribulations. No, not all of it's plausible, and not all of it's happy, but it all matters, because it matters to these characters, and that's what makes it, and this season of Friday Night Lights, something great.