Yeah, yeah, I know this isn't a genre program, so it's sort of out of place on a blog that features action figures, trading cards, and reviews of cult movies and Saturday morning cartoons. But what the hell? Friday Night Lights is great television, so at least for the moment, I'm blogging it. (Especially since I keep missing Heroes due to baby feeding and parent sleeping issues...).
"Wind Sprints," The October 17, 2006 episode of Friday Night Lights, picks up a week after quarterback Jason Steele's paralysis during the first game of the season. Matt Saracen is the new quarterback and as the hour begins, we watch as the Panthers play their first full game with the new line-up. In quick-cut montage, we watch a succession of violent tackles as the Panthers go down again and again, failing miserably. These violent moments are intercut with views of Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) screaming at his team in the locker room. "They've all but self destructed," the announcer says of the team, in a game in which the team should have easily "dominated."
For the folks in Dillon, Texas, this loss is the apocalypse and has serious repercussions the next week. That's the theme of the episode "Wind Sprints" as the coach, his family and the players go from being conquering heroes to big time losers. "You shamed your good name," one player is told. The quarterback, Matt is labeled "a loser" in graffiti. The blowback is so bad that anyone associated with the loss might as well wear a scarlet "L" on their jerseys for daring to let down the fans. Poor Saracen is threatened too. He failed during one game (though he played valiantly...) and now recruiters are looking to replace him with a Hurricane Katrina refugee from New Orleans. Nice? What does this teach young people? Fail once, and you're out!
As for Coach Taylor, he's now second guessed and manipulated by everyone, and even his fifteen-year old daughter is accosted over his failure to lead the team to victory. After just two games (and just one loss), Taylor's first season is officially dubbed "disastrous."
Talk about your fair-weather fans. If you lose in Dillon..watch your back. Hell hath no fury like angry football fans, I guess, yet what this episode points out nicely is that the team's loss actually builds character and helps these young men come to grips with grief, mourning and their feelings of anxiety. There's a great, climactic moment here, as Coach Taylor gazes at all the moping, whiny team members and decides they've been too indulged. They've been treated like Gods for so long by their peers that they've forgotten that victory is something that they have to work for. So what does he do? Tough love. He drives them out on the school bus to the middle of nowhere during a pounding rain storm - in the middle of a cold night - and makes them run laps through standing water and up and down a steep hill. There's nothing to take your mind off defeat like a physical challenge; like a little hard work, and the coach realizes this truth. The rain purges his team, his soldiers, and revives their spirit. Of course, in real life, such a stunt would likely have parents complaining in droves, and also result in a number of sick players (oopsy...), but it's just the right dramatic touch for the episode. If these boys want to win, they're going to have to fight. It's not going to be easy...
Also in this episode, Lila comes to realize that Jason is never going to get better, and that their dreams of Notre Dame and professional football (and a happy, wealthy marriage) are totally destroyed. It's a hard reckoning, but I love television programs that don't flinch from the truth, and Friday Night Lights gazes at this Texas football sub-culture - the good and the bad - with eyes wide open.
Why do I find this series so appealing? It's fast-paced. It's well-performed, and I just love that visual palette; the "stolen" cinema-verite, you-are-there moments that make the moments on the field (and everywhere else...) look like a battle field. This is one of the most distinctive looking series in a while, and though I hate football, the subculture of football fans is fascinating to me. I hope others are watching. I haven't fully formulated this thesis yet, but in some sense, Friday Night Lights is about war - about winning a war on the playing field. And since America is fighting a war in Iraq right now, there's a weird synchronicity. I don't know, that could be a "big time" reach, but there's something under the surface here that I want to scratch at just a little more...
"Wind Sprints," The October 17, 2006 episode of Friday Night Lights, picks up a week after quarterback Jason Steele's paralysis during the first game of the season. Matt Saracen is the new quarterback and as the hour begins, we watch as the Panthers play their first full game with the new line-up. In quick-cut montage, we watch a succession of violent tackles as the Panthers go down again and again, failing miserably. These violent moments are intercut with views of Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) screaming at his team in the locker room. "They've all but self destructed," the announcer says of the team, in a game in which the team should have easily "dominated."
For the folks in Dillon, Texas, this loss is the apocalypse and has serious repercussions the next week. That's the theme of the episode "Wind Sprints" as the coach, his family and the players go from being conquering heroes to big time losers. "You shamed your good name," one player is told. The quarterback, Matt is labeled "a loser" in graffiti. The blowback is so bad that anyone associated with the loss might as well wear a scarlet "L" on their jerseys for daring to let down the fans. Poor Saracen is threatened too. He failed during one game (though he played valiantly...) and now recruiters are looking to replace him with a Hurricane Katrina refugee from New Orleans. Nice? What does this teach young people? Fail once, and you're out!
As for Coach Taylor, he's now second guessed and manipulated by everyone, and even his fifteen-year old daughter is accosted over his failure to lead the team to victory. After just two games (and just one loss), Taylor's first season is officially dubbed "disastrous."
Talk about your fair-weather fans. If you lose in Dillon..watch your back. Hell hath no fury like angry football fans, I guess, yet what this episode points out nicely is that the team's loss actually builds character and helps these young men come to grips with grief, mourning and their feelings of anxiety. There's a great, climactic moment here, as Coach Taylor gazes at all the moping, whiny team members and decides they've been too indulged. They've been treated like Gods for so long by their peers that they've forgotten that victory is something that they have to work for. So what does he do? Tough love. He drives them out on the school bus to the middle of nowhere during a pounding rain storm - in the middle of a cold night - and makes them run laps through standing water and up and down a steep hill. There's nothing to take your mind off defeat like a physical challenge; like a little hard work, and the coach realizes this truth. The rain purges his team, his soldiers, and revives their spirit. Of course, in real life, such a stunt would likely have parents complaining in droves, and also result in a number of sick players (oopsy...), but it's just the right dramatic touch for the episode. If these boys want to win, they're going to have to fight. It's not going to be easy...
Also in this episode, Lila comes to realize that Jason is never going to get better, and that their dreams of Notre Dame and professional football (and a happy, wealthy marriage) are totally destroyed. It's a hard reckoning, but I love television programs that don't flinch from the truth, and Friday Night Lights gazes at this Texas football sub-culture - the good and the bad - with eyes wide open.
Why do I find this series so appealing? It's fast-paced. It's well-performed, and I just love that visual palette; the "stolen" cinema-verite, you-are-there moments that make the moments on the field (and everywhere else...) look like a battle field. This is one of the most distinctive looking series in a while, and though I hate football, the subculture of football fans is fascinating to me. I hope others are watching. I haven't fully formulated this thesis yet, but in some sense, Friday Night Lights is about war - about winning a war on the playing field. And since America is fighting a war in Iraq right now, there's a weird synchronicity. I don't know, that could be a "big time" reach, but there's something under the surface here that I want to scratch at just a little more...
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