Friday Night Lights: And so it begins

I don’t know whether to be happy that FNL hast 11 more episodes to go before season 4 is over or be miserable.  If this were any other show I would be worried that it won’t be able to convery everything it wants in 13 episodes, but it’s not any other show.  It’s Friday Night Lights so bring it on I say.  

Those poor Lions just can’t catch a break.  First they get trounced in their first game, then the coach in their words “quits” on them, and finally their school turns against them.  Which is ironic considering how unlike the Dillon Panthers, the East Dillon Lions appear to be one rung above the marching band.  I have to admit after coming from a town where even the PeeWee Football coaches are psychotic about the sport it is refreshing to see that football players have it just as hard as the rest of us.  And if you live in East Dillon even harder.

 

The thing I admire the most about this show from strictly technical viewpoint is the fact that other than that small misshap in Season 2 when they pratically shoved Santiago Herrera down our throats the producers have slowly introduced new characters into the fold.  Maybe they thought we would accept them easier that way, maybe not.  And even though Season 4 has been all about change they are still holding true to the way they introduce the new characters.  As with our old favorites, the new characters are not what we first perceived them to be.  Vince a troubled young man from what I can only assume to be the poorer section of Dillon first appears as a petty criminal who uses his running skills to get away from the police instead of the opposing team.  However in this episode we learn that not only does he see a life beyond East Dillon, but we also learn that he takes care of his drug addled mother.  These aren’t stand out moments in the show, just meer glimpses into the other side of life in Dillon, Texas. 

On the other side of the spectrum we have All American good ole boy Luke Cafferty whose entire life is the Panthers.  In the first episode we saw him for all of 30 seconds which was just long enough for him to defend Julie and make excuses for JD.  If you chalked Luke up to a throw-a-way character well in After The Fall you and I were proven wrong once again by FNL and it’s abilty to tap into the talent of previous lesser known actors and actresses.  Because the scene where Luke broke down in front of our favorite principal and for all intent and purpose begged for his life or more importantly the life that he knew showed all of us that this was a character to expect alot from.  So by the time he showed up at the end and in support of his new team burned his Panthers T-Shirt we knew a new favorite had been born. 

  

Now you would think with new characters coming in and beloved ones growing up and on that we would be forced to watch a show that no longer resembled our favorite little show that could.  But come on people this is FNL!  You know they wouldn’t do that to us and sure enough so far they are not failing to disappoint.  Ok sure Tyra and Lila aren’t back yet but I have it on good authority they won’t be missing for long.  As we watch Tim learn to live in the ordinary we get to watch as Matt discovers his potential to be more than second string.  Along the way they will both struggle with the job of living and unfortunately we won’t be able to see Matt the whole time but I have faith that when we finally are faced with goodbye the writers will serve him with just as much justice as they did Smash and Street when they went on to their lives.   I have a feeling true loves and new teenage nymphets aside our boys will be just fine.

Ok so on to some of my favorite moments of After The Fall:

Tami letting Joe McCoy know exactly who ran things in Dillon and it wasn’t the two of them.  Go Boosters!

Our favorite booster of all showing us that loyality to the Panthers and to his friend don’t always go hand in hand.  I want more Buddy!

Landry letting Coach know exactly how disappointed he and the rest of the team were of him.

Coach Taylor having to deal with the fact that he may not having a winning team, but they were his team and he wasn’t going to abandon them.

Virgil “Big Mary” Merriweather enough said.

Anything with the Riggins boys.  I for one am grateful we didn’t have to say goodbye to Billy.