7.6/10. One of the consistently interesting things about FNL, and about Coach Taylor in particular, is how it explores the divide between what a person projects on the outside and what they’re feeling on the inside. Coach is the poster boy for this motif for two reasons. The first is that he is a man of deep feeling and caring for those around him, but he is not an outwardly very emotional man. That means that little gestures from him – an “I’ll miss this” to Tami and Julie here, a pat on the arm of Tim Riggins there – speak volumes. The second is that he is committed to keep his football team humble and focused, so even if he himself feels aggrieved or aggravated by something, he makes an effort to project calmness and stability, so as not to feed the fires of the young men in his care.
That’s the best part of “Outside Looking In.” There’s an obsession with rankings throughout much of the episode, one that Coach publicly tries to deflect but what privately he clearly feels affronted by. He spends much of the week chastising his coaches and punishing his players for being too invested in some acclimation accounting of how good they are. But at home, he too checks the rankings, and when his team isn’t on them, he tries to get to the bottom of it.
His conversation with Mack to that effect helps give the world of the show a texture, because it has the familiarity and joshing of two people who’ve been through the trenches with one another. But it also reveals that Coach Taylor’s Lions aren’t just the underdogs; they’re the outsiders. There is, as Mack puts it, an “inner circle” that Coach is no longer a part of, and it means he and more importantly his team, will be denied the respect they deserve.
As if that’s not enough, he finds out that Luke’s hit on last week’s opposing quarterback is being investigated by the athletic commission. (I thought it was odd the way the shot last week seemed to focus on that hit, but I chalked it up to the show trying to emphasize that it was enough to sideline the opposing QB and give the Lions a fair shot at a comeback against his backup. That choice makes more sense now.) It results in a suspension, and when Coach goes to face the commission, he realizes that this isn’t a simple safety concern; it’s one of the aggrieved traditional powers strong arming the little guy because they can.
That creates an incredible conflict for Coach. He is a man of great pride, but not one who is prideful. He is also fiercely defensive of his team. So when he makes that small gesture of writing on simple world – “STATE” – one the whiteboard, it’s huge. To be frank, the moment shouldn’t work as well as it does. It’s kind of a cheesy bit of sports movie hokum. And yet that moment is so earned through how much it means for Coach to encourage his boys to look to the stars rather than to keep looking straight ahead, how much he has to have been offended and angered by the way he and these young men are being treated by the powers that to be for him to do even this much. When he looks at the people in the stands holding up a “We’re Number One” sign, he realizes that it’s a sea-change for this team, this school, and this community, who have so often been cast aside and marginalized by the people who worry that their success will mean failure for others, and want to keep them out of the club. It’s a small act of defiance, but given what we know about Coach and his philosophy about himself and his team, the impact is huge.
The rest of the episode is a series of bright spots that aren’t as bright, and low-lights that aren’t that low. The best of them is the story about Vince, Jess, and the generic lascivious rally girl. I initially rolled my eyes at this storyline, because it has the clichés of teen drama: jealousy, fights in the bathroom, and a stock third wheel antagonist. But rather than giving into those clichés (or at least giving into them fully), the show tied it into something a little more nuanced and feminist. Jess isn’t so much jealous as she misses getting to be an equal part of Vince’s life rather than being relegated to a sidekick. She clearly knows more about football than him, and over the summer, she got to be his tutor, not just his girlfriend. Between Coach taking over that job and the rally girl jumping in to be sycophantic to Vince, she’s on the outs. Vince understanding that deepens the story and gives it a nice edge in how it continues to explore how the centrality of football’s place in West Texas affects the women who are destined to orbit but never really be a part of it.
(As an aside, it was really interesting when Tami of all people responded to Jess complaining about the rally girl putting her panties in Vince’s locker by saying “that’s Texas high school football.” You can imagine she’s been through something similar.)
Tami’s story, however, is a little cheesy as well. Again, I like the idea of Tami’s optimism running to roadblocks, and her not being able to just immediately win everyone over with her pluck and grit (even if we admire those qualities in her.) But her doggedly trying to make the school a better place, receiving derision from the teachers, and then winning over her biggest critic at a social event is a pretty standard storyline progression that didn’t put much of a twist on it. On top of that, Epic (an off-brand version of Buffy’s Faith) is watered down bad girl archetype who could eventually be developed into a real character, but for now is a walking bundle of “wrong side of the tracks” clichés. Speaking of clichés, we once again see Julie nursing a crush on a teacher. (Well, a TA is close enough.) There’s something interesting to the subtext of Julie feeling out of place and out of sorts in college, and looking for romantic comfort in a place of authority, but their meetcute and the obvious way the show set the TA up as a love interest had me facepalming. (Though it is interesting to hear and see Julie’s mixed feelings on football as the daughter of a coach.)
And even Becky’s storyline turned out okay! Her and Luke have some solid chemistry together. Plus, Mindy being upset about Becky’s presence turned into something sweet as her anger eventually turned from being worried about Becky as a rival to a more motherly concern for Becky’s well-being. Becky’s response that she’s not used to anyone noticing drives it home, and offers some promise for the character and this plot on the show.
We also get the groundwork laid for future conflicts on the show. It’s an exultant moment when Vince’s eyes light up as Coach tells him about all the letters of interest he’s received from various colleges. It’s even better when his mom comes and hugs him at the good news. But of course, there’s storm clouds on the horizon. Some middleman pays for his meal and gives his mom a job, an event that will no doubt mess up his NCAA eligibility somewhere down the road. (Though it sounded like people could get away with this sort of thing when Buddy was offering it to Voodoo Tatum. That said, I suspect, like Luke, Vince will be a casualty of Coach’s new defiant attitude earning the team greater scrutiny.)
But that possibility doesn’t take away from the fist-pump worthy moment of Coach having his team set their sights on a state title and not just doing their best one day and one game at a time. It’s uncharacteristic of Coach Taylor, but we know that deep down, it’s something he wants, and for once, thinks he and his boys deserve.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-08-18T17:49:33Z
7.6/10. One of the consistently interesting things about FNL, and about Coach Taylor in particular, is how it explores the divide between what a person projects on the outside and what they’re feeling on the inside.
Coach is the poster boy for this motif for two reasons. The first is that he is a man of deep feeling and caring for those around him, but he is not an outwardly very emotional man. That means that little gestures from him – an “I’ll miss this” to Tami and Julie here, a pat on the arm of Tim Riggins there – speak volumes. The second is that he is committed to keep his football team humble and focused, so even if he himself feels aggrieved or aggravated by something, he makes an effort to project calmness and stability, so as not to feed the fires of the young men in his care.
That’s the best part of “Outside Looking In.” There’s an obsession with rankings throughout much of the episode, one that Coach publicly tries to deflect but what privately he clearly feels affronted by. He spends much of the week chastising his coaches and punishing his players for being too invested in some acclimation accounting of how good they are. But at home, he too checks the rankings, and when his team isn’t on them, he tries to get to the bottom of it.
His conversation with Mack to that effect helps give the world of the show a texture, because it has the familiarity and joshing of two people who’ve been through the trenches with one another. But it also reveals that Coach Taylor’s Lions aren’t just the underdogs; they’re the outsiders. There is, as Mack puts it, an “inner circle” that Coach is no longer a part of, and it means he and more importantly his team, will be denied the respect they deserve.
As if that’s not enough, he finds out that Luke’s hit on last week’s opposing quarterback is being investigated by the athletic commission. (I thought it was odd the way the shot last week seemed to focus on that hit, but I chalked it up to the show trying to emphasize that it was enough to sideline the opposing QB and give the Lions a fair shot at a comeback against his backup. That choice makes more sense now.) It results in a suspension, and when Coach goes to face the commission, he realizes that this isn’t a simple safety concern; it’s one of the aggrieved traditional powers strong arming the little guy because they can.
That creates an incredible conflict for Coach. He is a man of great pride, but not one who is prideful. He is also fiercely defensive of his team. So when he makes that small gesture of writing on simple world – “STATE” – one the whiteboard, it’s huge. To be frank, the moment shouldn’t work as well as it does. It’s kind of a cheesy bit of sports movie hokum. And yet that moment is so earned through how much it means for Coach to encourage his boys to look to the stars rather than to keep looking straight ahead, how much he has to have been offended and angered by the way he and these young men are being treated by the powers that to be for him to do even this much. When he looks at the people in the stands holding up a “We’re Number One” sign, he realizes that it’s a sea-change for this team, this school, and this community, who have so often been cast aside and marginalized by the people who worry that their success will mean failure for others, and want to keep them out of the club. It’s a small act of defiance, but given what we know about Coach and his philosophy about himself and his team, the impact is huge.
The rest of the episode is a series of bright spots that aren’t as bright, and low-lights that aren’t that low. The best of them is the story about Vince, Jess, and the generic lascivious rally girl. I initially rolled my eyes at this storyline, because it has the clichés of teen drama: jealousy, fights in the bathroom, and a stock third wheel antagonist. But rather than giving into those clichés (or at least giving into them fully), the show tied it into something a little more nuanced and feminist. Jess isn’t so much jealous as she misses getting to be an equal part of Vince’s life rather than being relegated to a sidekick. She clearly knows more about football than him, and over the summer, she got to be his tutor, not just his girlfriend. Between Coach taking over that job and the rally girl jumping in to be sycophantic to Vince, she’s on the outs. Vince understanding that deepens the story and gives it a nice edge in how it continues to explore how the centrality of football’s place in West Texas affects the women who are destined to orbit but never really be a part of it.
(As an aside, it was really interesting when Tami of all people responded to Jess complaining about the rally girl putting her panties in Vince’s locker by saying “that’s Texas high school football.” You can imagine she’s been through something similar.)
Tami’s story, however, is a little cheesy as well. Again, I like the idea of Tami’s optimism running to roadblocks, and her not being able to just immediately win everyone over with her pluck and grit (even if we admire those qualities in her.) But her doggedly trying to make the school a better place, receiving derision from the teachers, and then winning over her biggest critic at a social event is a pretty standard storyline progression that didn’t put much of a twist on it. On top of that, Epic (an off-brand version of Buffy’s Faith) is watered down bad girl archetype who could eventually be developed into a real character, but for now is a walking bundle of “wrong side of the tracks” clichés.
Speaking of clichés, we once again see Julie nursing a crush on a teacher. (Well, a TA is close enough.) There’s something interesting to the subtext of Julie feeling out of place and out of sorts in college, and looking for romantic comfort in a place of authority, but their meetcute and the obvious way the show set the TA up as a love interest had me facepalming. (Though it is interesting to hear and see Julie’s mixed feelings on football as the daughter of a coach.)
And even Becky’s storyline turned out okay! Her and Luke have some solid chemistry together. Plus, Mindy being upset about Becky’s presence turned into something sweet as her anger eventually turned from being worried about Becky as a rival to a more motherly concern for Becky’s well-being. Becky’s response that she’s not used to anyone noticing drives it home, and offers some promise for the character and this plot on the show.
We also get the groundwork laid for future conflicts on the show. It’s an exultant moment when Vince’s eyes light up as Coach tells him about all the letters of interest he’s received from various colleges. It’s even better when his mom comes and hugs him at the good news. But of course, there’s storm clouds on the horizon. Some middleman pays for his meal and gives his mom a job, an event that will no doubt mess up his NCAA eligibility somewhere down the road. (Though it sounded like people could get away with this sort of thing when Buddy was offering it to Voodoo Tatum. That said, I suspect, like Luke, Vince will be a casualty of Coach’s new defiant attitude earning the team greater scrutiny.)
But that possibility doesn’t take away from the fist-pump worthy moment of Coach having his team set their sights on a state title and not just doing their best one day and one game at a time. It’s uncharacteristic of Coach Taylor, but we know that deep down, it’s something he wants, and for once, thinks he and his boys deserve.