'Friday Night Lights'' Season Finale -- Sweet and Neat

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the Friday Night Lights season finale.*

Considering that this was one of the strongest seasons that this underrated show has had – kicking some serious butt on the Vince Howard storyline with his tale of a teen trying to overcome poverty, drugs and gang violence, and daring to go “there” with a story about teenage pregnancy – I admit that I was somewhat disappointed that the season finale wrapped up some of the stories a bit too neatly for my taste.

Having the underdog East Dillon Lions beat the playoff-bound West Dillon Panthers . . . I’m sorry, as much as I love seeing Joe and J.D. McCoy’s smug noses rubbed in defeat -- especially after the lousy punks vandalized the East Dillon Lions’ field -- that victory wasn’t realistic, though I was happy to see Landry make that field goal. Given that the bulk of this season been marinated in difficult, messy reality, this Lions victory seemed improbable.

As for Tami Taylor, I was cheering when I saw Principal Tami walk out of the school board’s meeting without reading that bogus apology that the board had written for her, leaving those who wanted to scapegoat her for a young woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy, all in a tizzy. “Listen, y’all . . . I’ve always put the welfare of the students ahead of everything else, every action that I made was with that intent and it always will be,” Tami said before she left the meeting, calls for her firing heard in the background.

But to have Tami leave her West Dillon principal’s post, after being told she was being placed on “administrative leave,” to take a step down and run the guidance program at East Dillon (she was a guidance counselor before she became principal), seemed, what's the word . . . off. (Plus it makes the folks who run West Dillon High, as well as the school board, seem pretty stupid, dumping two successful members of the Taylor family from the West Dillon faculty in two consecutive years.)

The rosy ending to Tami’s multi-episode arc – with the warm, homey final scene, the folksy music, Tami’s smile, Eric putting up Christmas lights while the girls played with decorations on the front lawn – made me think that the writers simply had a hankering to leave viewers with visions of a happy and contented Taylor family, with Eric’s team having beaten West Dillon and Tami keeping her dignity and having a job that she’s good at.

The story wasn’t so rosy for the Riggins brothers. “You are my brother and you are all I have,” Tim said. “You have a family now. You are a father. And you need to be one.” Watching Tim Riggins take the fall for Billy the moron was so upsetting. Billy should have known better. Tim already has a ton of obstacles in front of him if he wants to succeed in life, but now having to serve time for chopping up stolen cars, that’s certainly not going to help his cause any. Now this was a story that ended on a realistic note, as was the scene with Jess dumping Landry and Matt and Julie finally breaking it off.

Overall, the “Thanksgiving” episode was a moving the-good-guys-can-still-sometimes-win conclusion capping an outstanding season. I absolutely cannot wait for the fifth and final season to begin.

Image credit: NBC.

'Friday Night Lights' Gets Serious, Emotionally Raw, Controversial

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recently aired episode of Friday Night Lights.*


Becky’s story has become not just an emotionally wrenching one for the pregnant sophomore from a single parent home -- the product of a teen pregnancy herself -- but has made headlines, specifically in the New York Times this weekend.

Why the coverage in the Times, with its writer, Ginia Bellafante writing that FNL “chose to maintain its commitment, above all, to the world it renders . . . that economics dictate everything?” Because it was one of the few TV shows which had a female teenage pregnant actually go ahead and have an abortion.

At first, Tim, who served as Becky’s confidante, tried to convince Becky to talk to her mother, but Becky said she couldn’t because, well, she just couldn’t. So he brought Becky to Tami’s door. “I need your help,” he said. And help Tami did, particularly when Becky asked, “What should I do?”

Tami started to run down a list of her options saying there’s free medical care for pregnant teens and an adoption agency, Becky interrupted her with this question, “What if I don’t want to have the baby?”

“I can direct you to literature,” Tami, a former guidance councilor, now high school principal said, without flinching, though their conversation kept Tami up late fretting about what if that had been her own daughter asking those questions.

When Becky finally went to her mother – who later referred to both herself and her daughter as “trash” for getting pregnant as teens -- the mom reacted similarly to the way in which the pro-life mom on Private Practice, Naomi Bennett, reacted when she learned that her 15-year-old daughter was pregnant, with screaming and tears and the directive that she’s going to have an abortion, no questions about it. “She’s not having a baby; she’s having an abortion,” Becky’s mother firmly and angrily told the doctor, when Becky was still not sure what she wanted to do.

Wavering on the abortion question, Becky returned to the reassuring Tami again, late at night and teary-eyed after the consultation at the abortion clinic. Becky said: “We don’t have any money and I’m in the tenth grade. And it was my first time, and I threw it away and I don’t want to throw my life away. It’s just really obvious that my mom wants me to have this abortion because I was her mistake and she has just struggled and hurt every day and she wanted better.” Then she asked Tami if she thought she’d go to hell if she had an abortion to which Tami said, “No honey, I don’t.”

Then the big question. What would Tami tell Julie if she were pregnant: “I would tell her to think about her life, think about what’s important to her and what she wants and I’d tell her that she’s in a real tough spot and that I would support whatever decision she made.”

The scene with Becky and her mother stood in stark contrast to Luke’s scenes, the first of which had Luke sitting in church with his parents, being singled out in front of the congregation by his pastor and thanked for making them all proud. He was clearly bothered by the notion of Becky aborting their baby. His conscience was so weighed down with guilt that he finally told his father, who in turn told his mother. It was so sad to watch Luke, this naïve young student, call Becky and try to explain how they could make this work out, how he could help raise the child, only to be informed that Becky had already ended the pregnancy, as Becky hung up the phone and dissolved into tears.

The other main storyline in “I Can’t,” was the on-going tragedy of Vince. Beneath that tough veneer and swagger, Vince has a huge, vulnerable heart. Those scenes -- where he found his mother ODed on the sofa and later spoke with her in the hospital when she became conscious (“Mom, why do you keep doin’ this to yourself? Why do you keep doing this to me? I mean, am I that bad? Why don’t ya wanna be with me? Why you wanna leave me by myself?”) and then he believed he had no choice but to turn to the local gangs and crime in order to get the money to save his mother’s life in rehab -- are why I was a big advocate of Michael B. Jordan getting a supporting actor in a drama Emmy nomination. That kid plays both sides of this confused, desperate and scared teen boy extremely, heart-rendingly well.

And can I just say that I love “Big Mary?” Just love that character. (“I understand Vince because he’s me.”)

Friday Night Lights: In the Bag

I’ve never been a huge fan of Friday Night Lights’ Julie Taylor. I usually find her kind of annoying and whiny. Nonetheless, I felt badly for her in the past episode, “In the Bag,” in the aftermath of her boyfriend of three years, Matt, taking off without a word, except to his family. Never told Julie he was leaving or even said, "Goodbye." Julie was left flailing and floundering and wound up signing up for all manner of school club in an attempt to take her mind off of the fact that she’d been dumped. But it was no use, especially when her heartbreak went painfully on public display where the only solace she found was in her mother's arms.

Loved watching Tinker help Luke and the Cafferty family build the fence to keep the cows safe from thieves so Luke wouldn’t have to stay up until the wee hours of the night working on the fence because his dad couldn’t afford to pay anyone else to help out. (It seems like Luke's parents are among the rare football parents who aren't all insanely crazy about high school football, the anti-McCoys if you will. Joe McCoy was the one who fought Luke's transfer to East Dillon, after all, not Luke's parents.) But the twist at the end, when Luke’s hips got crushed in between the metal fence door by the cows, that just can’t be good. Man has that kid had a bad year.

And while I really didn’t like Vince Howard’s character at first because all we got to see of him was his swagger and arrogance, I’ve been warming up to him as of late. In what should’ve been a proud moment, when he was named QB post, he was instead humiliated in the Lions locker room as the police searched his locker for a gun, causing his teammates and his coach to look upon him with suspicion. Ultimately, he did have a gun and, as a show of faith, he handed it over to Coach Taylor to prove that he’s really trying to do the right thing and seize his new opportunities Eric’s offered him. Eric now believes in Vince and Vince in Eric.

As for Tami Taylor and the goofy, drunk Glen kissing her . . . wait ‘til Coach Eric finds out about this. Wonder if he'll be as cool and collected as he was when Vince brought a gun to the Taylor house? Throw in the cute Jess-Landry flirtation and this season has been getting better and more emotionally revealing with each episode.

Are you finding yourself liking this season as much as I am?