I don’t know why I am ever surprised when Friday Night Lights follows one fantastic episode with another one of equal caliber. For instance, the final four episodes of Season 4 are so deftly wrought that they leave you gasping for air under the weight of it all. And then there is the genius ending to Season 3 that leads into the brilliant season opener for Season 4…. I think you may understand, by now, that I’m a fan of this show. The sixth episode of the final season is aptly named “Swerve,” as six characters attempt to swerve out the way of literal and metaphorical dangers. Julie and Eric, Vince and Ornette, and Luke and Billy are drawn to each other like magnets, in a pull that precariously approaches complete destruction.
Eric Taylor, professionally, is heralded this week as a “kingmaker” on the football field. Despite being the cover boy for Texas Football Monthly, his home life crashes, literally, into a stone mailbox when daughter Julie wrecks her car so that she can stay in Dillon, rather than return to Burleson University and the repercussions of her adulterous affair. Let’s recap the turmoil Eric Taylor has endured in four seasons in Dillon, Texas. He has survived: 1) his Notre Dame-bound quarterback’s spinal cord injury in the season opener; 2) a lawsuit regarding said paralyzed athlete; 3) a running back dabbling in performance enhancing drugs; 4) an alcoholic fullback who misses at least a week of practice every season; 5) racist comments from an assistant coach; 6) the most interfering athletic booster in the history of high school athletics; 7) living four hours away from his wife, daughter, and newborn child for eight months; 8 ) an investigation into recruiting violations; 9) losing his job to an even more annoying/malfeasant athletic booster’s coach du jour; 10) inheriting a derelict athletic program at East Dillon high school; 11) forfeiting the very first game of the East Dillon football season; 12) coaching a team where the quarterback and team leader is a juvenile delinquent on his last chance to get straight; 13) an inquest and witch hunt to fire his wife after she counseled a pregnant teen through her family options; 14) various rivals that have destroyed his playing field, trashed his locker room, and beaten up his players.
Football coaches have had easier times. Yet in all of this turmoil, nothing has brought Taylor to his knees like the news that his oldest daughter Julie has had an affair with a married teaching assistant. Taylor leaves practice early and arrives to the game late. For the man who is everyone else’s rock to be so adrift—well, the Lions are unsure and nervous as to what it all means.
Watching Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton’s work in this episode is proof positive of what an alchemy casting really is. The chemistry between the two in undeniable, but what is particularly effective is watching the two of them work off of one another. During the scene in the Taylor bedroom, when they first talk to one another about the Julie ‘affair,’ there is not an ounce of artifice on-screen. Follow this up with another scene where Eric numbly stares off into the backyard and you understand this marriage—not these characters, not these actors, but this union—this marriage of actors and their respective characters. As purely as can be, Eric says, “She needs her butt kicked,” referring to their daughter. To which Tami simply replies, “You might be right.” Her answer isn’t sarcastic, isn’t placating. It is an honest assessment that perhaps their daughter does need a swift kick to her ass. Finally, as we watch Eric try to force his daughter out the door to face her troubles, we see this man we’ve grown to admire and care for over five seasons arrive somewhere he’s never been. Eric Taylor knows a lot of things, but he does not know how to fix this problem. He swerves at the disaster in front of him, and hits it anyway.
Although Ornette Howard sees the danger in front of him, in the shape of a local thug who’s trying to collect on a debt his son Vince owes, Ornette doesn’t swerve. Instead he braces himself for the crash and hits the accelerator. At the beginning of this season, Ornette arrives in Dillon after serving time for dealing drugs. Howard left behind a crack-addicted wife and son desperate to get his mom clean and to himself out of jail. The ‘solution’ for young Vince was to begin working for a local car thief who was responsible for the death of Vince’s friend Calvin. When Vince accepts the $5000.00 needed to send his mother to rehab, Kennard utters, “I got you. I got you.” In desperation, Vince appeals to his dad for help when Kennard calls in the loan. Ornette agrees and there is a sense that he will take care of ‘it’ and do so above board so as not to screw up his parole. When Ornette and Kennard meet Friday night, in the shadows of the East Dillon football field lights, Ornette returns to his old ways, viciously beating Kennard and threatening him with worse should he come after Vince again.
The final pair trying to avoid a collision is Billy Riggins and Luke Cafferty. Billy, we see, is finally (?) bearing the weight of his decision to allow his younger brother Tim to take the fall for their chop-shop doings from last season. From paying his monthly mortgage bills to tearfully watching the highlight reel Tim and Billy put together for college recruiters, we’ve not yet seen Tim’s incarceration weigh so heavily on Billy. When Billy notices that Luke is spiraling out of control, it’s as if Billy is able to correct some of the wrongs he committed with Tim. Whether Billy’s aware of it or not, Luke is his chance at redemption. We’re aware of it, of course, as Luke stands in front of Tim’s beat-up truck as Billy protects him from doing more damage to himself. As he later confirms to Luke, Billy is taking Luke under his wing, something both of them desperately need.
“Swerve” was a dizzying display of emotion and drama. And I loved every minute of it.
Grade: A+
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Cast & Credits Friday Night Lights, Wednesdays 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central, DirecTV
Eric Taylor: Kyle Chandler
Tami Taylor: Connie Britton
Julie Taylor: Aimee Teegarden
Vince Howard: Michael B. Jordan
Luke Cafferty: Matt Lauria
Billy Riggins: Derek Phillips
Ornette Howard: Cress Williams
Official website: http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/friday_night_lights/overview