Notes on Pop Culture: FNL's Matt Saracen's Heartbreak, Harry Potter 'Deathly Hallows' Trailer, Summer TV

FNL's Matt Saracen's Heartbreak


How good was the actor, Zach Gilford, who plays Matt Saracen on Friday Night Lights in the recent episode, “The Son?” He underplayed his role as the grieving son very nicely and to great effect.

For practically the entire series, Matt has been the character who’s had to act more mature than his age, like the responsible authority figure in his house when he was just an immature high school kid. He took care of his ailing grandmother and, only recently allowed his previously estranged mother to help them out. At the end of last season Matt was planning to go to Chicago to pursue his promising art career. He prepared by getting his grandmother all set up in a home that would keep her safe.

Then he was beset by horrendous guilt. Guilt about leaving his girlfriend Julie behind. Guilt about leaving his grandmother in a group home. He, once again, put himself and his desires on the backburner, took a job delivering Panther pizza and enrolled in community college classes where his art teacher didn't think his work was all that special.

Now, in this recent episode, his largely absent Army father was killed in Iraq. The normally even-keeled Matt felt utterly lost and unhinged, particularly by his mixed feelings about a dad who he believed was so afraid of responsibility and child-rearing that he kept re-enlisting and going to Iraq to avoid being with his son.

That scene with Tami and Matt at a strip mall funeral home, so upsetting. If that scene, where Tami dressed down the funeral director after Matt left -- chastizing the man for how much he was trying to charge Matt for the funeral services -- doesn’t demonstrate that the Taylors are the central, beating hearts of this show, nothing does. (Why, by the way, was Tami there and not Matt’s mom? Is it because he’s closer to Tami? That doesn't say much about Matt's mother.)

Will this event become a major catalyst for the drifting Matt? We'll see.

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Trailer



I live in a house full of Harry Potter fans. My 11-year-old twins have read the Potter series over and over again and have seen all the movies. My husband – who’s not a big reader – was coerced by the twins into reading the entire series last summer.

Currently my husband and I are reading the series aloud to our 8-year-old son – we’re in the middle of the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire. So whenever there’s anything new on the Harry Potter front, there’s tremendous excitement.

While my kids have been asking when we’re going to go down to Florida to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, I think I'm going to try to distract them with this new trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Summer TV



Who says there’s nothing decent on TV in the summer? You’ve got FNL still airing new episodes, Mad Men coming up next month, Weeds and couple of new shows including ones starring Betty White and Laura Linney on tap.

My Pop Culture column this week is all about summer TV and I highlighted what’s in store for shows like Mad Men, Rescue Me, Hot in Cleveland, The Big C, Weeds and HawthoRNe.

When it comes to Weeds, what’s your take on the teaser Showtime put out? Do you really think that, after Nancy’s son killed Esteban’s evil, criminal political “consultant” with a croquet mallet in the season finale last year, that Nancy’s really going to be able to “bury” her connections to Esteban, especially given that she had his baby, oh, and she married him last season?

'Desperate' Mondays: Nice is Different Than Good

* Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Desperate Housewives.*

Welcome back Lynette Scavo. I really missed ya. After several lackluster seasons which took a once, razor-sharp send-up of suburban motherhood in the person of Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) and made her a silly, grating joke, the Lynette from Desperate Housewives’ first, award-winning season is back . . . or at least she made an appearance in the sixth season premiere.


Pregnant with twins with four kids already at home, fortysomething ad exec Lynette is distinctly ambivalent about the pregnancy. When she was getting her ultrasound – for which her husband Tom took the day off from his university classes to attend (he's going back to school) – she could’ve cared less about seeing the grainy gray and white images of her unborn babies on the screen. “When are you going to start getting excited about our kids?” Tom asked, incredulous about her disinterest.

“I don’t love them,” she said, looking ashen as she confessed that she didn’t feel this way when she got pregnant with her other children, all by accident. “None of them were planned, but I loved each of our kids the moment I knew they were coming. It’s different this time. I don’t love these babies.”

“Stop saying that!” Tom said. “When you hold them in your arms, you will care about these kids just as much as the others.”

Having a lead character be so blasé and indifferent about her pregnancy, to admit that she’s concerned that she isn’t feeling the love, is brave and risky. “Do you realize that when these twins finish high school, I’ll be in my 60s?” she said, lamenting the fact that they’d already gotten past all the sleepless nights and diapers and she didn’t want to go back “. . . At their graduation I’ll be a crazy old lady with oatmeal on her chin.”


In addition to Lynette tapping into something that’s usually not discussed without fearing being tarred and feathered for being an unfit, undeserving mother, the season premiere gave us the return of the quick-witted Lynette, particularly when she let the happy, shiny first-time mom-to-be in the ob-gyn's office hear some ugly truths about motherhood that she said mothers are reluctant to share with one another: “Your children will hate you and steal from your purse. Your husband will begin to buy your birthday presents at the car wash, and the kicker, for the rest of your life there will be so many moments when you’ll feel lonely but you’ll never be alone.”

She held up the cover of a magazine with a woman in a bathing suit. “You see this? You’ll never wear a bikini again,” Lynette said, adding that while she might look good with her clothes on, “you haven’t seen me naked. My stomach looks like Spanish stucco. And my breasts resemble two balloons you’d find behind the couch a week after the party.” As if on cue, the young mom-to-be wept.

Which Season Premieres Have Gotten Your Love (or Contempt) This Week?

There have been so many TV premieres this week that, despite the fact that I write about pop culture for a living, I haven't been able to see all of them. Sitting on DVR awaiting my attention are: FlashForward (pilot episode), Heroes and Curb Your Enthusiasm (actually I'll watch it On Demand). Medium, which will be dealing with the impact of Allison DuBois' brain surgery, premieres tonight on a new network, CBS.

I WAS, however able to watch a slew of other premieres, some of which entertained me, others which made me bored to tears.

Among the best:

The House season premiere was two hours long. And it used every minute, well, in a very un-House-like way. It wasn't your typical medical procedural episode (patient comes in with medical mystery, House & Co. argue over how to treat the person, they try a few things, they don't work, then something triggers a brainstorm in House's head and, five minutes before the episode ends, he figures it out). This was a purely character-building two hours, not simply seeing the dramatization of House's diagnostic capabilities, but of his internal emotional terrain as he spent weeks in a mental institution into which he voluntarily committed himself. We saw many different aspects of his personality: The scheming House, the wise-acre House, the good friend House, the rapping House, the besotted then heartbroken House, the scared House. Will this insightful trend continue or will the show return to a medical procedure next week?

Modern Family was kooky and fun in its pilot episode. (Favorite part was the dad shooting the kid with the BB gun, then accidentally shooting his daughter's boyfriend.) While some parts were over-the-top and a wee bit forced feeling, I think this has the makings of being a staple in my house. My fingers are crossed.

I hope that The Good Wife with Julianna Margulies as the cheated-on political spouse who gave up her job to support her husband's career and raise her family, which had a strong pilot, doesn't devolve into a legal procedural, a la a Law & Order. I'd really like to see a genuine peek-behind-the-curtains view of the lives of high profile women whose political husband have publically humiliated them. When I read in New York Magazine that Silda Spitzer recently threw her husband a birthday party, despite everything he's put her and their family through, I was intrigued about why she stayed with him. This show could provide a plausible explanation. Unless it becomes a ripped-from-the-headlines legal show, in which case, I'll be sorely disappointed.

The New Adventures of Old Christine premiere was silly and made me laugh out loud. All I could think of as I watched Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Christine attempt to fly to the Bahamas in an unsuccessful bid to help her friend Barb and, in the process, cause a series of scene on the airplane, was that Julia Louis-Dreyfus has become Lucille Ball.

Among the worst/mixed bags:

While I'm working on a column about Courteney Cox's Cougar Town, I have to say that, putting aside the odious, predatory "cougar" dating references, I found this show unfunny and painful to watch. If it weren't for the fact that I was going to write about it, I would've turned it off after 10 minutes.

Eastwick. Saw and liked the movie, The Witches of Eastwick. Never read the book. The pilot episode of the TV show only elicited a lukewarm response from me. However I'm willing to give it one (maybe two if I'm feeling generous) more episodes to establish whether it's going to be fun and light, or whether it's going to just be another mindless, crappy show.

What did you think of this week's premieres? Any favorites? Any ones you hated?

Image credit: Fox via this web site.

'Army Wives' Monday: Best Laid Plans (Season Premiere)

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the season three premiere of Army Wives*

Teenaged angst that almost led to teenaged matrimony. Seeing your spouse move across the globe while you stay behind, unsure of where you and your kid are going to live. Losing one's job in a scandalous manner which causes you to become socially ostracized. Almost getting scammed out of your business. That's quite a lot o'drama for one episode of Lifetime's Army Wives . . . unless it's the season premiere, which is typically front-loaded with drama. So let's dive into the melodrama of the first installment of season three:

The Holdens: Gen. Michael Holden went to Brussels to work for NATO, sans his family after showing a stunning level of cluelessness as to why his 16-year-old daughter was acting out, running away with her boyfriend just as the family was supposed to head to the airport to leave Fort Marshall permanently. Almost getting married at age 16 isn't simply a minor incident. Clearly something deeper is going on with Emmalin, but to Gen. Holden, it just seemed like an inconvenience. He headed for the plane while Claudia Joy, who refused to leave as he wished, was left to deal with the mess.

With the exception of the death of their daughter Amanda and how Claudia Joy has handled her grieving (last season's scenes of packing up of Amanda's room and visiting the cemetery were tear-jerkers), I normally find Claudia Joy one of the dullest characters on the show. In a way, she reminds me of those perfect Wisteria Lane suburbanites who -- at least surficially -- look like everything's just peachy in their picturesque homes filled with delectable eats. But to see Claudia Joy (who possesses one of the most awkward names on TV) uprooted, searching for a home for the first time since her law school days and dealing with an irascible teen is providing Kim Delaney something more meaty to do than furrow her brow. Which is a good thing.

Denise Sherwood: I genuinely felt badly for her. She'd separated from her husband -- they were even staying in separate quarters before he left for Iraq -- and she's the one who's portrayed as a modern day Scarlet O'Hara. Booted from her job for violating the code of conduct (something she should've thought about before plunging into an affair with an injured soldier to whom she tended as a nurse) and then dumped by her lover, Denise returned home to find that her so-called friends give her the cold shoulder after heartily encouraging her to evolve into her own person and pursue her own interests . . . which is what led to her marital estrangement in the first place. For Claudia Joy to simply close the door in her face, man, that was just icy, and unnecessary, particularly given how frequently Denise had been there for her friends when they've been in need. I'm wondering if the writers will explore the possibility of Denise getting booted from base housing if she and Frank remain estranged.

Roxy LeBlanc: Thankfully, Roxy is friends with an ex-cop, or else she would've been taken in by a slick con man because, from Trevor's perspective, quick money for her half of the bar is better than none at all. Of all the stories in the premiere, I thought this one was wrapped up a bit too quickly and cleanly. (I find it hard to believe that the prints would've been processed that swiftly.) It would've been more dramatic for an awkward business partnership to have been drawn out more, but I got the feeling that a decision has been made to emphasize Roxy's conflict with Trevor over having a baby and his growing distaste for her long work hours as the bigger story, not ownership of Betty's.

Roland Burton: Aside from his bad boy extra-marital fling in a previous season, Roland is consistently portrayed as the good guy who's always there for all his gal pals, his infant daughter and his wife, who's going to be deployed to Iraq in a few months. He wasn't given much to do during the premiere other than counsel Claudia Joy that Emmalin is coping with unresolved grief, but, as with Roxy, I see future conflict over his role in the Burton household being his central theme.

Pamela Moran: The fiery Pamela didn't have much to do in this episode either except for sleuthing for Roxy. I was waiting to see her cope with the abrupt loss of her radio gig at the end of season two, a job from which she literally and figuratively regained her own voice. Seeing that Pamela adored doing the show -- and was even courted by radio stations -- to not even really address it seemed like a glaring omission. I'd love to see the writers have Pamela explore the possibility of joining the Charleston police force. Could provide compelling work/life tension, and pump some much needed cash into the Moran household.

Overall, I thought the premiere set the stage for some potentially interesting stories this season, though I hope all the problems faced by the Army spouses aren't wrapped up as tidily as was the con man/Betty's plot.

That being said, what were your thoughts on the Army Wives premiere? Were you surprised to see Denise fired and Claudia Joy shut the door in her face? Be sure to read my Pop Culture column on Army Wives at the Mommy Track'd web site.

Image credit: Lifetime.