Pencils Of Light

In some way, this second episode of the final Friday Night Lights season felt like a mini-sophomore slump—the taught season opener gave way to a looser second episode. Of course,anything in comparison to last season feels loose and wandering. After last week’s come from behind victory (is there any other kind?) the East Dillon Lions realize that they are on the outside looking in when it comes to rankings, respect, and fair play in Texas football. The issue of football rankings becomes the driving emotion behind the episode—from Coach Taylor’s own frustration with not being ranked after defeating a top 10 team, to the players not being able to concentrate on preparing for the second game of the season. Even Tami appears under a similar pox of not being appreciated as she tries to get the faculty of East Dillon to sign up for after-school tutoring.

I continue to be struck by the ebullient Vince Howard played by Michael B. Jordan. What a difference nine months, a girlfriend, and a sober mother makes in a young man’s life. I mean he offered to give Luke a hug when Cafferty’s sullenness started to become a daily occurrence, for pete’s sake. In the requisite FNL emotionally-moving-scene-of-the-week, Vince shows his now-clean mother Regina the letters of intent a dozen Division I schools have sent his way. As the realization of what those letters mean sinks into Regina, Vince simply asks, “Where you wanna live? The city? The beach?” Despite every indication last season that Vince and Regina wouldn’t make it, so far it looks as if they just might. Cue next week’s preview of Vince’s father out on parole, and I wonder how long the effervescence will last.

Luke Cafferty appears to be emerging as the new Tim Riggins—a boy with an affection for beer, a quick temper, and a girl who doesn’t return his love. What’s interesting is that Luke’s unrequited love is Becky Sproles, who of course, pined away for Riggins in Season Four, creating an odd love triangle à la the Street-Garrity-Riggins trifecta of Season One. Although there was much ado about Vince’s letters of intent, there was no indication that Luke received any letters from universities. Given his lack of playing time last season with an injury, and now being suspended one game because of an ‘illegal hit,’ I wonder if Luke will get his chance to leave Dillon. One of the key storylines from last season was Luke’s stringent home life that prioritized God and cattle more than Luke’s education. I have high hopes for Luke, and like I said last week, would like for he and Becky to reach a positive place whether in friendship or something more intimate.

Becky’s mere existence causes strife at the Riggins household, where she’s temporarily living. After an interesting baking lesson between Becky and Billy, Mindy exclaims that having Becky in their home in her short-shorts, is akin to “a fox in [her] hen house.” That whole Riggins-Collette clan is just a bunch of knuckleheads, but I love them nonetheless. When Becky comes home late at night to find Billy and Mindy have waited up for her, it reminds us that even knuckleheads get it right now and again. I have high hopes for Billy. Mindy, despite her own neuroses, is a steadying force on him. And as evidenced at a football practice, Coach Taylor may be coaching Billy the most this football season. Billy wants the life-coaching Eric has to offer, and Lord knows he needs it.

In reality, perhaps East Dillon, on the whole, is just a bunch of knuckleheads. We have Stan Traub who can’t decide if he’s jealous of Billy joining the coaching staff or if he’s happy he’s not the only crazy one on staff. We have Buddy Garrity (who we need much, much more of!) and his partnership with El Fuego. We have Tinker in love with marshmallow treats and Luke’s pig Maribel. And we have honor roll student Jess getting into a fight with the rally girl trying to seduce her boyfriend Vince. The whole lot of characters on Friday Night Lights is a mess and yet, their hardscrabble lives make us tune in each week. There is some kind of inspiration in watching them slowly but surely get their lives together. So, at the end of the episode when Coach Taylor writes “STATE” on the team board before their next game, we say to ourselves, “Why not? Why not the East Dillon Lions in a state championship game?” There’s no finer band of misfits worthy of the journey.

Grade: B

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Cast & Credits

Friday Night Lights, Wednesdays 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central, DirecTV

Eric: Kyle Chandler
Tami: Connie Britton
Vince: Michael B. Jordan
Luke: Matt Lauria
Billy: Derek Phillips
Becky: Madison Burge

Official website: http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/friday_night_lights/overview

Tuning into the Season Five premiere of Friday Night Lights was truly bittersweet, tonight. I only just discovered this gem of dramatic television this summer and it’s far too early for me to be thinking about the final 13 episodes that will bring this award-winning series to a close.

This summer I feel as though I gained membership to the most exclusive club—that of devoted Friday Night Lights fans. I take my newfound membership seriously and am grateful that my initiation into the final season was so incredibly rewarding.

We left Season Four with Tim Riggins taking the fall for the Riggins’ Rigs chop shop, Matt Saracen leaving on a jet plane to Chicago, and Tami Taylor moving into the loving arms of her family and into the role of guidance counselor at East Dillon High. Season Five begins in August, nine months later. Because of his John Carter of Mars shooting schedule, Taylor Kitsch’s Tim Riggins will be seen little this final season, which made the small scene between he and Billy all the more discomforting. Tim’s request that brother Billy and friend Becky not visit him as often as they do, was a bit of a hit to the gut. His lack of eye contact wasn’t in the normal Tim Riggins hang-dog, look-at-the-ground way. It was an empty, off into the distance look that felt completely hollow. Equally disconcerting was Tim’s disembodiment towards the photograph of his nephew Stevie that Billy brought with him. One of the most touching moments from Season Four was when Uncle Tim eagerly waited for the birth of his nephew, smiling broadly as he strode into the hospital room and whispered “It’s a boy.” Now, Tim is stiff and stern, as he looks at the photo and is equally curt when explaining to his brother that photos “have to be mailed through.” He seems to be a lifetime away from the enthusiasm he exerted on the side of a Texas road when he first found out that “little football.” But I guess that’s just it… it is a lifetime ago that Tim Riggins was just an affable good ole boy instead of convicted felon.

This season opener had a very different feel from the beginning of Season Four, which I believe is the best season to date for Friday Night Lights. “East of Dillon” had to bear the weight and brunt of the assault brought upon the Taylor family by Joe McCoy and the Dillon Panther Athletic Boosters. Season Five’s baggage didn’t feel nearly as heavy. Dour Vince Howard was practically effervescent tonight. Jess Merriweather was breezy and luminous, even when disciplining her brothers. Dallas Tinker was as smile-inducing as last year, especially as he ate a cheeseburger while driving the pace car for Vince and Luke’s workout. And Luke Cafferty was just enjoying everything around him, especially his new prize hog, Maribelle, that he adoringly showed off to the new kid in town Hastings Ruckle. (If there was a down side to this episode it’s that there is a character with that name.)

But this season opener really was about goodbyes. The first set of goodbyes occurred during the opening credits. Gone were the images of Tim Riggins, Matt Saracen, and Panther blue and yellow. Instead, against a palette of red and white a new chorus of Dillonites welcomed the episode into our homes. In particular I was struck by footage of Luke and Becky laughing and touching and teasing one another in the opening credits. That, in particular, was good to see. After the tortured pregnancy ordeal the two of them endured last year, it was nice to see them on good footing. I don’t need for them to be in a romantic relationship, but to have them reach a place where they can live in the present and not the past would be good for them, and us, their audience.

There, of course, were the tearful, extended goodbyes between Julie Taylor and her dutiful parents. First, came Eric’s furtive efforts to have one last “championship ping-pong game” with his eldest daughter. But ultimately, it was about the driveway goodbye between the Taylors. Tami holding onto her daughter, as if she was trying to remember every shape and curve of a young woman in her mother’s arms; and the mandatory fatherly emergency fund that Eric hands over to Julie, with the hopes that his daughter’s worst days could be solved with the money inside. In typical Friday Night Lights fashion, this goodbye was honest, simple, and resonant. I once read an interview with Kyle Chandler where he said that the first thing he liked to do with his Friday Night Lights scripts was to see where he could cut dialogue, making Eric’s verbal responses a sparse as possible. This goodbye is a perfect example of why it’s a great model to follow. Of all the ways in which the writers could have made their goodbyes full of schmaltz and insincerity, the sparseness of dialogue rang of truth.

The goodbye that I most appreciated was that between Landry Clarke and Grandma Saracen. These two characters have had their ups and downs- from Landry thinking Grandma was a witch, to Grandma describing Landry as an “odd little creature.” Yet watching Landry sit in the Saracen house quietly sharing the space with Lorraine was the most heartfelt sequence of the night. Watching Landry visually consuming the contents of Matt’s bedroom and the small living room reminded me of times when you sit in a space desperately wanting to soak up every piece of matter and energy of that locale before moving on. I didn’t want Grandma Saracen and Landry to break their hug. It pained me to think of Grandma alone with her nurse Heather. Something seems very wrong for no one to be in the Saracen yard throwing a football.

Expectations and hopes are high in East Dillon. And I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Grade:  A

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Cast & Credits

Friday Night Lights, Wednesdays 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central, DirecTV

Eric:  Kyle Chandler
Tami:  Connie Britton
Julie:  Aimee Teegarden
Landry:  Jesse Plemons
Billy:  Derek Phillips
Tim:  Taylor Kitsch

Original Air Date:  27 October 2010

Official website: http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/friday_night_lights/overview