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Friday Night Lights “Expectations,” Season 5.1 Review

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

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

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Where has all the “Glee” gone?

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

I remember the evening fondly. It was May of 2009 and I tuned in to the end of American Idol so that I could watch this show I had seen commercials for. It looked a little kooky, a little fun, and had a little music. From the minute Mr. Schuster’s beat up car, with the Ohio “Birthplace of Aviation” license plate, pulled into the school parking lot I was hooked. As a born and raised Ohioan I have very little resistance to anything that references the Buckeye State. But as I watched this quirky little comedy I realized that being set in Lima, Ohio was a bonus, not the sole reason to befriend Will, Emma, and crazy lady Sue. I was there, every Wednesday, watching, laughing, crying, and singing along to the madcap adventures of the McKinley crew. There were hiccups in the first thirteen episodes, but I was so enamored with my new favorite obsession that I figured missteps like April Rhodes and her drunken stupor was like a new boyfriend burping– an inconvenience, not something to break up over. I told countless friends about Glee. I practically shoved Glee down their throats. And then came the break… .

After a multi-month break, Glee returned with their back nine episodes. What I had feared would happen did– Glee sucked a little. I’m fully aware that ‘sucked’ isn’t very scholarly, but it truly is the best word to describe the slow-demise of such a gem. I knew the Glee downturn would take place; I felt it in my core the moment I found out that Ryan Murphy was the show’s mastermind. Murphy is the brains behind a show I, also, once loved but then turned my back on when it lost its creative center: Nip/Tuck.

Season One of Nip/Tuck was a biting, thought-provoking investigation of neuroses, hubris, and the daily collision course amongst the ego, super ego, and id. It was a guilty pleasure of the highest order. Oh to hear Sean and Christian utter those fateful words, “What don’t you like about yourself?” — it was like a sinister invitation to watching a traffic accident. Nip/Tuck was a television treat of great acting, writing, and directing. It was a finely crafted small-screen machine. And then Season Two began and things started to get a bit wonky, off-kilter. And then the hurricane that was Season Three hit shore and I couldn’t bring myself to watch anymore.

I quietly calmed myself and thought Murphy couldn’t, wouldn’t do to the Glee high schoolers what he did to the plastic surgeons of Nip/Tuck. I was wrong. Of the Season Two episodes, only “Duets” has had the sincerity and humor and range of the finest episodes from Glee‘s first season. The music selections of “Duets” made diegetic sense, as opposed to the troublesome Britney Spears-centered episode that relied on laughing gas as the main narrative device. And there was genuine emotional revelation from Brittany in “Duets” as she yearned for a relationship with Artie, as opposed to the spoiled brat behavior of Kurt in “Grilled Cheesus.” Sorry Kurt Hummel fans, but Kurt has become a jerk. We get it Kurt, you’re gay. But your incessant berating of your father, that he doesn’t love you as you are, if off-base and immature.

As I listen to Finn and Rachel and the remaining original six members of New Directions sing “Don’t Stop Believin’” I can’t help but be nostalgic. Tonight Glee will try their hand at The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Although not the finest example of musical theater ever, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has a clear vision and intent, something Glee has lost along the way. I have set the bar pretty low for this episode. After all, the CD of this week’s episode features Amber Riley’s Mercedes Jones in the role of Frankenfurter. Hearing Aretha, as Sue Sylvester calls her, sing “Sweet Transvestite” is just a sweet tragedy. After all, “Sweet Transvestite” isn’t a song that you belt and wail on. No “Sweet Transvestite” is a song that demands a purr from your throat and a strut in your body. That is not Mercedes.

And while I’m at it, let me just say that the photo spread (no pun intended) of Cory Monteith (Finn), Lea Michele (Rachel), and Dianna Agron (Quinn) in GQ magazine is just one more disturbing exploitation of beautiful young women as even further disturbing male school-girl fantasies. It speaks volumes that the clothing credits for the shoot feature lots of information about what kind of bras and panties Michele and Agron wear, as opposed to the several layers of clothing the lone male, Monteith, is allowed to don for the shoot.