“Friday Night Lights” — State (Season Finale)
I feel like all comments about this episode have to be filtered through the result of whatever happens next year. If the show gets cancelled, last night’s episode means something completely different than if the show gets picked up for a second season.
I feel like the writers did a good job of making a resolute ending and yet leaving enough room to stretch things out into another season. Given that, I have to admit that this wasn’t my favorite episode. Of any time this season, last night’s finale seemed to fall into the standard TV traps: enemies become friends, the team wins the big game, the coach realizes he made a mistake and decides to stay in the small town and live amongst the people who love him… and slow claps (at least two of them). More after the break…
Amazingly, the clichés never really took me out of it. I suppose that’s what happens when you generate so much legitimacy over 21 episodes. Of those familiar elements, the one that came off the best was the coach’s decision to not take the job in Austin. It was great because his wife called him on it and demanded that he go. This is the one element from the show that will greatly affect the (currently mythical) second season.
If the show is back in the fall things could go either way. The coach could have taken the job and is commuting to and from Austin each week (my pick), or the coach turned down the job and is back in Dillion coaching high school punks. The Eric/Tami marriage dynamic would be endlessly compelling if there were a physical barrier between the two.
Let’s not put the cart before the horse, though, the show still has not been picked up. And what if it doesn’t? Honestly, I’d be very much OK with that decision. If FNL only goes one season, it will be a perfect season and will go down with the likes of Freaks and Geeks and Firefly (and other F shows) in the pantheon of fantastic television. As long as there is no second season, the show can’t get screwed up.
This episode in particular, the cap on the season, did have a lot of great moments. In no particular order:
- Tami telling Eric that she’s pregnant. Her delivery is so subtle. Add this to her discovery at the doctors office and Connie Britton is officially the greatest actress in all of television.
- Landry saying to Saracen, “You may need to tell your grandma to take the damn bus.”
- The small-town cheerleaders doing a routine to the very un-smalltown “Daft Punk is Playing At My House” by LCD Soundsystem
- The curious phenomenon of Tyra looking about eight years younger than she did at the start of the season.
- I love, Love, LOVE when people sing really loudly while driving a car. Why? Because that’s what America is all about.
Friday Night Lights is amazing television. It’s a love-letter to the idea of the middle class. When asked aloud everyone wants to be rich, but privately people just want to be able to live a life that allows them to sit back and enjoy a game of football. The show’s characters cover all walks of life and all economic situations, but their common bond, for better or for worse, is the game of football.
April 15th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Agreed–definitely not the best FNL episode. Still very good, but to me, the whole thing felt a bit rushed. At the beginning of the hour, I was talking to the roommates saying I just didn’t see how they could tie up things in a satisfying way over the hour. The result was that they crammed a lot of info into the usual hour, which took away from the drawn out little moments in between the big ones that makes this show something that makes me want to hug things and weep, if I had the emotional depth to do either. But it felt like none of the scenes really took their own time–except for the Tami/Eric on the balcony scene–perfectly paced, and a dap on the Connie Britton call, even though I barely know what a ‘dap’ is. The game felt rushed, and I felt like this game wasn’t close to the most intense, dramatic football game of the season, even though it should have felt that way.
Also, I feel like if they knew they were coming back for a second season, they would not have won the championship this year. But if this is it, what the hell, let’s go home happy, you know? But I’d imagine it’d be almost impossible to write something exactly the way you want it without knowing yourself what was coming up next, as I’m sure the Arrested Development writers would attest to.