My biggest beef with the Season 1 finale is that it fell headlong into the usual sports movie cliche. The Panthers having to face Voodoo, going down by several touchdowns early, and then roaring back to win the game after a rousing halftime speech and a final play that just so happens to involve all of the main characters who are on the football team is right out of the usual Hollywood playbook. It's still nice, because we like these characters and we're happy to see them succeed, but there's a lack of adventurousness and novelty to it that renders it pleasant but not exactly bold.
"Underdogs" is the exact opposite, and it is all the better for it. Losing, and still appreciating how far you've come is one of those important events in a person's life. Likewise, it's a tough reality everyone has to face at some point that you can do everything right, give it your all, and still come up short. Having the Panthers make it to state once more (even in a year where the team's success felt like more of an afterthought than in season 1), mount another thrilling comeback, and watch it fall to pieces before their eyes in the last minute of the game is, by contrast, a very bold choice.
It's made all the bolder by the times when the show zigs where you might expect it to zag. Landry earning his place on the team suggests, like in his first big episode playing football, some miraculous game-saving catch or fumble recovery or some other big move to give a named character a moment in the spotlight. Instead, the episode just shows him making a crucial, but relatively heralded block on a kickoff return, an understated way to show him making a contribution that doesn't get into the realm of the implausible or convenient.
The show also seemed poised to give us the pure happy ending of Saracen and Riggins ending their final year of high school football with a major victory. Saracen coming in as QB after halftime and leading the team to victory would be the sort of storybook ending the show might have done in its first season, especially when it could involve, as the game her did, a trick play where alcohol-fueled jester with a heart of gold Riggins unexpectedly throws a touchdown pass to Saracen. Instead, the show teases its audience a bit, or to put in more football terms, jukes them.
Because when that field goal is being lined up by the bad guys, when you see everyone on the sidelines holding hands, and everyone in blue in the stadium holding their breath, the FNL thing to do would be to make that kick go wide right. Despite the gas-leak year vibe of Season 2, there's a sense in this show that for however many interesting, realistic, or pie-in-the-sky conflicts the show blows through, our heroes are practically destined for success. God himself (or in this case, the writers) will shift that kick to the side, because Panther success is providence.
Except this time, it isn't. This time, the good guys lose. Saracen drops his head as his last game as a Panther will be coming so close to improbably victory and tasting nothing but defeat. Tim Riggins leaves his cleats in the shadow of an unfavorable scoreboard. Rather than jubilation, the Dillon lockerroom is nigh-silent.
It's then that Coach Taylor shines as much as he ever has on this show. It's a cliche to give a halftime speech that spurs your team to victory. It's sports movie 101 to have a coach give some grand oratory after a tough loss that motivates the squad to learn from their mistakes and prevail down the line. It's much less typical, and much more impressive, to show a defeat where, for nearly all of the players that we care about, there's no tomorrow. There is no end goal to it, no greater accomplishment to be achieved. Instead, there is simply pride and grace. Coach Taylor tells these boys about the momentous event they were apart of, that they made him proud, and that regardless of the outcome, he is glad to be their coach. It's a much more melancholy ending to the team's football fortunes in the show's first season, but it's much more meaningful for taking the difficult and complex narrative path over the easy one.
That same principle is at play with Tyra and her college essay. It would have been easy for Tyra to settle, to nudge herself into some uneventful life in Dillon, to end up with some guy like Cash or Billy Riggins, to write a cliche-ridden essay about working at Applebees. Instead, Tyra has been pushed, by the Taylor family, by Landry, and most importantly by herself, to seek out more in life. Her final essay, while appropriate to the sorts of cheesiness that a teenager would engage in, is a beautiful encapsulation of who Tyra is and who she can be. There's an optimism at the core of this series, an animating principle that the road is tough, and sometimes leads to hardship, but that aiming high, giving your all, and putting yourself on the line are worth goals in and of themselves that make us better people, and can lead us to happiness and fulfillment even when those things emerge in unexpected places. Tyra and Landry's rekindling their romance is not, in any way unexpected, but with an essay like that, hopefully Tyra has many more unexpected successes in her future.
But some expected successes deflate at inopportune times. J.D. McCoy clearly can't get his family's domestic strife and his conflict with his coach out of his head. A lot of the story falls into more Lifetime Movie cliches -- the resentful parents, the teenager who's anger is directed in the wrong place, and the unfortunate consequences -- but at its core it also evokes the ethos of the series.
Namely, Coach may hem and haw and tie himself up in knots, but when push comes to shove, he'll pick the right thing over the thing that would help his football team. There's an argument to be made that reporting Joe McCoy's assault cost Eric Taylor state. There's a good possibility that it'll cost him his job, or at least his quarterback, next season. (Again, I smell Wade Aikman becoming coach at East Dillon and taking J.D. with him.) But as Tami tells him, win or lose, the sun will still rise again tomorrow, and even for someone who's devoted his life to the game, there are more important things than football, things that Eric and Tami must do because it's what's necessary to remain true to who they are, even if it comes at a great personal cost.
Sometimes you do everything you can, you put your heart out there in your life and your work and you still lose. The Panthers lost state. The Taylors may lose their relationship with the McCoys. For all her hard work, Tyra might not get into college. But how they got there, the way they went about trying to reach these goals, makes any loss handed to them that much sweeter and that much more noble than any victory achieved by less-savory, less upstanding means, ever could be.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2016-07-29T22:38:42Z
My biggest beef with the Season 1 finale is that it fell headlong into the usual sports movie cliche. The Panthers having to face Voodoo, going down by several touchdowns early, and then roaring back to win the game after a rousing halftime speech and a final play that just so happens to involve all of the main characters who are on the football team is right out of the usual Hollywood playbook. It's still nice, because we like these characters and we're happy to see them succeed, but there's a lack of adventurousness and novelty to it that renders it pleasant but not exactly bold.
"Underdogs" is the exact opposite, and it is all the better for it. Losing, and still appreciating how far you've come is one of those important events in a person's life. Likewise, it's a tough reality everyone has to face at some point that you can do everything right, give it your all, and still come up short. Having the Panthers make it to state once more (even in a year where the team's success felt like more of an afterthought than in season 1), mount another thrilling comeback, and watch it fall to pieces before their eyes in the last minute of the game is, by contrast, a very bold choice.
It's made all the bolder by the times when the show zigs where you might expect it to zag. Landry earning his place on the team suggests, like in his first big episode playing football, some miraculous game-saving catch or fumble recovery or some other big move to give a named character a moment in the spotlight. Instead, the episode just shows him making a crucial, but relatively heralded block on a kickoff return, an understated way to show him making a contribution that doesn't get into the realm of the implausible or convenient.
The show also seemed poised to give us the pure happy ending of Saracen and Riggins ending their final year of high school football with a major victory. Saracen coming in as QB after halftime and leading the team to victory would be the sort of storybook ending the show might have done in its first season, especially when it could involve, as the game her did, a trick play where alcohol-fueled jester with a heart of gold Riggins unexpectedly throws a touchdown pass to Saracen. Instead, the show teases its audience a bit, or to put in more football terms, jukes them.
Because when that field goal is being lined up by the bad guys, when you see everyone on the sidelines holding hands, and everyone in blue in the stadium holding their breath, the FNL thing to do would be to make that kick go wide right. Despite the gas-leak year vibe of Season 2, there's a sense in this show that for however many interesting, realistic, or pie-in-the-sky conflicts the show blows through, our heroes are practically destined for success. God himself (or in this case, the writers) will shift that kick to the side, because Panther success is providence.
Except this time, it isn't. This time, the good guys lose. Saracen drops his head as his last game as a Panther will be coming so close to improbably victory and tasting nothing but defeat. Tim Riggins leaves his cleats in the shadow of an unfavorable scoreboard. Rather than jubilation, the Dillon lockerroom is nigh-silent.
It's then that Coach Taylor shines as much as he ever has on this show. It's a cliche to give a halftime speech that spurs your team to victory. It's sports movie 101 to have a coach give some grand oratory after a tough loss that motivates the squad to learn from their mistakes and prevail down the line. It's much less typical, and much more impressive, to show a defeat where, for nearly all of the players that we care about, there's no tomorrow. There is no end goal to it, no greater accomplishment to be achieved. Instead, there is simply pride and grace. Coach Taylor tells these boys about the momentous event they were apart of, that they made him proud, and that regardless of the outcome, he is glad to be their coach. It's a much more melancholy ending to the team's football fortunes in the show's first season, but it's much more meaningful for taking the difficult and complex narrative path over the easy one.
That same principle is at play with Tyra and her college essay. It would have been easy for Tyra to settle, to nudge herself into some uneventful life in Dillon, to end up with some guy like Cash or Billy Riggins, to write a cliche-ridden essay about working at Applebees. Instead, Tyra has been pushed, by the Taylor family, by Landry, and most importantly by herself, to seek out more in life. Her final essay, while appropriate to the sorts of cheesiness that a teenager would engage in, is a beautiful encapsulation of who Tyra is and who she can be. There's an optimism at the core of this series, an animating principle that the road is tough, and sometimes leads to hardship, but that aiming high, giving your all, and putting yourself on the line are worth goals in and of themselves that make us better people, and can lead us to happiness and fulfillment even when those things emerge in unexpected places. Tyra and Landry's rekindling their romance is not, in any way unexpected, but with an essay like that, hopefully Tyra has many more unexpected successes in her future.
But some expected successes deflate at inopportune times. J.D. McCoy clearly can't get his family's domestic strife and his conflict with his coach out of his head. A lot of the story falls into more Lifetime Movie cliches -- the resentful parents, the teenager who's anger is directed in the wrong place, and the unfortunate consequences -- but at its core it also evokes the ethos of the series.
Namely, Coach may hem and haw and tie himself up in knots, but when push comes to shove, he'll pick the right thing over the thing that would help his football team. There's an argument to be made that reporting Joe McCoy's assault cost Eric Taylor state. There's a good possibility that it'll cost him his job, or at least his quarterback, next season. (Again, I smell Wade Aikman becoming coach at East Dillon and taking J.D. with him.) But as Tami tells him, win or lose, the sun will still rise again tomorrow, and even for someone who's devoted his life to the game, there are more important things than football, things that Eric and Tami must do because it's what's necessary to remain true to who they are, even if it comes at a great personal cost.
Sometimes you do everything you can, you put your heart out there in your life and your work and you still lose. The Panthers lost state. The Taylors may lose their relationship with the McCoys. For all her hard work, Tyra might not get into college. But how they got there, the way they went about trying to reach these goals, makes any loss handed to them that much sweeter and that much more noble than any victory achieved by less-savory, less upstanding means, ever could be.