Deep in the "Full Hearts" of Texas
"Does it get better than this? I don't think it does." So says Coach Eric Taylor (the marvelously understated Kyle Chandler) as he shepherds his team, the determined Dillon Panthers, into Dallas' Texas Stadium, where the kids even have assigned lockers. Awesome. Don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys? Not in this show's universe.
TV really doesn't get better than
Friday Night Lights, which airs its season finale tonight (NBC, 8 pm/ET), a rousing and tremendously satisfying hour of high stakes, high emotion and deeply defined, honestly earned human dignity. As Coach says during a pivotal pep talk: "Pride and character cannot be reflected on a scoreboard." Almost as good a motto as "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose."
Watching this final episode, my eyes were full (of tears), and my heart was clear (with unsullied admiration). Ratings aside, and once in a while they really should be,
Friday Night Lights is a winner. It scored a season-long touchdown among those lucky enough to find and embrace it. I have come to believe in these everyday dreamers of Dillon, to cheer them in victory and mourn their setbacks. The show hits close to home, wherever you live or wherever you're from.
Though most of the episode's focus is on the big State championship, and whether the Panthers can keep focus after news leaks out of Coach Taylor's impending move to Austin (and a college job at TMU), this really is, as always, a show that's less about keeping score than about maintaining character, about playing through the pain, about being true to oneself and keeping an eye on the dream. "There are no losers on that field tonight," says Coach.
Or in the stands, for that matter.
This episode very generously gives us one last chance (for now) to savor all of the characters who have come to mean so much to the
Friday Night Lights fan. Not just the Taylors, although there are key scenes between Eric and wife Tami (the luminous Connie Britton) that will leave you gasping, once again blown away by their chemistry and their compassion for each other. I'm also thinking of the players, their friends, their parents, each rendered so real and so unaffected. Matt Saracen, his grandma; Smash Williams, his mom; Lyla Garrity, her dad; Tim Riggins, his hero-worshiping neighbor boy. I could list them all, but for now, I'd rather just smile thinking about the full car of women that Landry (the geek as hero) ends up driving to the game, much to his dismay. What a road trip that turns out to be.
And what a terrific series this has been. I so want to believe the rumblings (including Michael Ausiello's report of an additional script order) that indicate how strongly NBC is leaning toward renewing the show. It would be the best sort of miracle finish, even better than a Panthers victory, although I can't help fearing the worst should there be a sophomore slump. (Recent NBC example: the brilliant
Boomtown, spared the ax initially but which vanished quickly in its second season and burned off its last episodes over a New Year's weekend.)
At this point in the game, though, let's accentuate the positive. Even if the bleachers weren't as full as they deserved to be, NBC and
Friday Night Lights produced a full season of meaningful, memorable television entertainment, the likes of which are exceedingly rare even in this so-called golden age of TV drama.
