9.5/10. Friday Night Lights, as I've mentioned before, is a show that runs on big moments. The plotting can be a little wobbly and the dialogue can lay it on pretty thick. (see also: "Are we there yet?" "We're getting there"). But that's what makes it so notable, so much a stand out, when the show delivers an episode that isn't plotless exactly, but whose focus is just seeing these people in medias res, just watching them interact without a massive story development powering them along. So much of "Kingdom" is the characters just being. That sounds pretentious, probably because it is, but I loved the way this episode took a step back and just let us see these characters in their casual, daily lives.
The peak of this is the scene where all the named young characters on the team are chatting with one another on the balcony of the hotel the team is staying at. There's such a truth to that moment, a sense in which the boys are talking about their lives and their futures, but doing it in the round about way that people do. There's the camraderie, the knuckle-headedness, that makes them feel like a bunch of dumb-if-lovable teenagers seeing the world at their doorstep. You can draw a direct line between that scene and one of the best recurring motifs on the show -- the young members of the team going out to the field at night to toss the ball around with one another.
Sure, Coach listening in on it and hearing how his boys think and feel when he's not around may put a bit too fine of a point on his "I hear everything that goes on here," speech, but it's still emblematic of the best part of this episode -- the way that the boys joshing around in the hotel, or sneaking off to some hippie party Ruckle knows, or sipping drinks and declaring their unremitting commitment to one another (with idiodic branding to boot), makes it feel like you're just a fly on the wall for a high school field trip.
That's what this show does at its best. The documentary shooting style and quiet in-between moments give it a verisimilitude that can be hard to match when things are clicking. I enjoy the show's big moments too: the miraculous fourth quarter comebacks, the soaring oratory of the halftime speeches, the grand colloquies that have the usual Hollywood dialogue beats, well done though they may be. But if there's something that sets Friday Night Lights apart, it's those bits when it's not trying so hard to advance the plot, or deliver the big line, but just showing us these regular people in regular, if somewhat heightened circumstances. There is an everyman beauty to this show, and it's really elevates an episode like this, where the show is more interested in adding texture to the characters and their world than in moving them around the board.
That's not to say nothing plot-important happens in "Kingdom." There's a big theme about Coach trying to keep the team in line despite the fact that his players, and his coaches for that matter are chomping at the bit to get back at South Kingdom for the infamous forfeit game. It doesn't help that the refs have it out for the Lions. Things get a bit chippy out there, and while it shows that the team can stand up and fight when they're punched in the mouth, it also shows that it makes Coach a little uneasy.
That's another interesting thematic element to the episode that comes through in the editing. There's a sense that Coach wants to create a division between his players and their coaches, between adults and children, and yet that they're united in several ways. The episode cuts from scenes of the boys drinking by the fire, to the coaches drinking and gambling in the hotel, to Tami and her friend from work drinking wine back at home. Coach wants these boys to grow up, to conduct themselves properly, but there's a real sense that they'll be trying to stay within the lines, trying to find the balance between being good and being human, long after they turn eighteen.
There's other little subplots that pop up here and there. It's abbreviated, but Buddy Jr. loses his virginity both on and off the field, finding a girl at the Hippie shindig at Ruckle's encouragement, and making his way past the team hazing by taking and delivering hits on special teams. Coach reveals to Vince that Luke's recruitment was likely a reverse trojan horse or sorts, meant to lure Vince into the building, and Coach finally meets with Vince's dad, seemingly convincing him to ensure the recruitment efforts flow through Coach. And we even see Billy thrown onto the Special Teams beat and get a little moment of victory there.
Oh yeah, and feeling somewhat out of place, there's also Julie falling deeper down the rabbit hole with her TA. It's a lot of cringeworthy stuff, mostly because, as the TA's wife puts it, Julie is a cliche. But while it feels a little trope-y, there's also something true to life about it, which lets me cut it some slack. Still, Tami feeling the empty nest is more interesting than Julie shedding her naivete as the other woman.
But overall, this was almost a travelogue, a road trip flick story, full of the laughs and larks and little moments that make the show something deeper than just those big moments of triumph and tragedy. It's a show that is, at least occasionally, about real people, and the episodes where the realness of it shines through often stand out as the best.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-08-21T19:42:42Z
9.5/10. Friday Night Lights, as I've mentioned before, is a show that runs on big moments. The plotting can be a little wobbly and the dialogue can lay it on pretty thick. (see also: "Are we there yet?" "We're getting there"). But that's what makes it so notable, so much a stand out, when the show delivers an episode that isn't plotless exactly, but whose focus is just seeing these people in medias res, just watching them interact without a massive story development powering them along. So much of "Kingdom" is the characters just being. That sounds pretentious, probably because it is, but I loved the way this episode took a step back and just let us see these characters in their casual, daily lives.
The peak of this is the scene where all the named young characters on the team are chatting with one another on the balcony of the hotel the team is staying at. There's such a truth to that moment, a sense in which the boys are talking about their lives and their futures, but doing it in the round about way that people do. There's the camraderie, the knuckle-headedness, that makes them feel like a bunch of dumb-if-lovable teenagers seeing the world at their doorstep. You can draw a direct line between that scene and one of the best recurring motifs on the show -- the young members of the team going out to the field at night to toss the ball around with one another.
Sure, Coach listening in on it and hearing how his boys think and feel when he's not around may put a bit too fine of a point on his "I hear everything that goes on here," speech, but it's still emblematic of the best part of this episode -- the way that the boys joshing around in the hotel, or sneaking off to some hippie party Ruckle knows, or sipping drinks and declaring their unremitting commitment to one another (with idiodic branding to boot), makes it feel like you're just a fly on the wall for a high school field trip.
That's what this show does at its best. The documentary shooting style and quiet in-between moments give it a verisimilitude that can be hard to match when things are clicking. I enjoy the show's big moments too: the miraculous fourth quarter comebacks, the soaring oratory of the halftime speeches, the grand colloquies that have the usual Hollywood dialogue beats, well done though they may be. But if there's something that sets Friday Night Lights apart, it's those bits when it's not trying so hard to advance the plot, or deliver the big line, but just showing us these regular people in regular, if somewhat heightened circumstances. There is an everyman beauty to this show, and it's really elevates an episode like this, where the show is more interested in adding texture to the characters and their world than in moving them around the board.
That's not to say nothing plot-important happens in "Kingdom." There's a big theme about Coach trying to keep the team in line despite the fact that his players, and his coaches for that matter are chomping at the bit to get back at South Kingdom for the infamous forfeit game. It doesn't help that the refs have it out for the Lions. Things get a bit chippy out there, and while it shows that the team can stand up and fight when they're punched in the mouth, it also shows that it makes Coach a little uneasy.
That's another interesting thematic element to the episode that comes through in the editing. There's a sense that Coach wants to create a division between his players and their coaches, between adults and children, and yet that they're united in several ways. The episode cuts from scenes of the boys drinking by the fire, to the coaches drinking and gambling in the hotel, to Tami and her friend from work drinking wine back at home. Coach wants these boys to grow up, to conduct themselves properly, but there's a real sense that they'll be trying to stay within the lines, trying to find the balance between being good and being human, long after they turn eighteen.
There's other little subplots that pop up here and there. It's abbreviated, but Buddy Jr. loses his virginity both on and off the field, finding a girl at the Hippie shindig at Ruckle's encouragement, and making his way past the team hazing by taking and delivering hits on special teams. Coach reveals to Vince that Luke's recruitment was likely a reverse trojan horse or sorts, meant to lure Vince into the building, and Coach finally meets with Vince's dad, seemingly convincing him to ensure the recruitment efforts flow through Coach. And we even see Billy thrown onto the Special Teams beat and get a little moment of victory there.
Oh yeah, and feeling somewhat out of place, there's also Julie falling deeper down the rabbit hole with her TA. It's a lot of cringeworthy stuff, mostly because, as the TA's wife puts it, Julie is a cliche. But while it feels a little trope-y, there's also something true to life about it, which lets me cut it some slack. Still, Tami feeling the empty nest is more interesting than Julie shedding her naivete as the other woman.
But overall, this was almost a travelogue, a road trip flick story, full of the laughs and larks and little moments that make the show something deeper than just those big moments of triumph and tragedy. It's a show that is, at least occasionally, about real people, and the episodes where the realness of it shines through often stand out as the best.