Friday Night Lights, "Tomorrow Blues": Something old, something new

Spoilers for the "Friday Night Lights" third season finale coming up just as soon as I use some me time to bid on a fake owl's head made out of a deer's rear end...

NOTE: This and all other "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

"You know what? No matter what happens, no matter where you go, no matter what you do, I'm always going to be behind you. Always and always and always." -Tami Taylor

And you know what? If, by some miracle, NBC and DirecTV both decide it's in their best interests to keep "Friday Night Lights" going for another season(*), I'm going to be right behind it. I've enjoyed this season overall, but these last couple of episodes, and the set-up with Eric taking over East Dillon High, has me for the first time really pulling for renewal.

(*) Obviously, this review was written months before NBC and DirecTV teamed up to order two more seasons of the show. But the sentiments expressed within it all still stand.

"Tomorrow Blues" does a fine job of seeing off several of the graduating characters. If we never see Riggins or Lyla or Tyra again, then I'll be okay with it because their exits (Tim and Tyra's, especially) were handled with such grace. And the developments with both Saracen and Coach work either as thematically-appropriate farewells to both characters -- we've known from episode one that, in the world of "Friday Night Lights," not every person gets the fate they deserve, no matter how hard-working or pure of heart -- or as springboards for a fourth season.

Good as this season has been, we're all aware how much of it was retracing familiar ground from the show's first year. A fourth season with Eric as coach at East Dillon -- with lousy facilities, no boosters, and all the good players gerrymandered into the Dillon High district by Buddy and Joe McCoy -- has potential to not only be very different, but really inspiring. It's one thing to see Eric work in a system where he's the master of all he surveys, and quite another for him to be running a team where "Lance"(**) could conceivably be his most talented player. Eric and Buddy as enemies instead of allies could be great to see, as would a possible story where Joe edges Buddy out as king of the boosters and Buddy winds up re-teaming with Eric to try to make something of the disgraceful East Dillon squad. There are a whole lot of ways this can go, all of them potentially fascinating, all of them very much fitting in the themes of the show, and none of them rehashing what's come before. And unlike Eric going off to coach at TMU, this is a change in the status quo that doesn't ever have to reset. They could very easily get through a fourth season or even (pie in the sky time) several seasons with Eric stuck coaching the runts of the town while Wade Aikman tries to ride JD McCoy's arm back to State, and it would still be "Friday Night Lights."

(**) According to this very interesting interview that Jason Katims did with Sporting News writer Chris Littmann, Landry and Julie were both juniors this year, and would therefore be in play for a fourth year.

And while I don't like the decision that Matt made about abandoning art school so he wouldn't have to abandon Grandma, I understand it from Matt's perspective. It stinks that he feels he has to set his own future aside to stick by the one person who always stuck by him, but life ain't fair, not everybody gets a happy ending, and I can absolutely see the stand-up kid we've watched for the last three years make this choice.

I'm also relieved to know that, in the aforementioned interview, Katims said they didn't have a hypothetical season four in mind when they chose this route for Matt. Again, I get it, and it feels true to the spirit of the series that someone would wind up stuck in Dillon after high school.

And for a good chunk of the finale, it looked like that someone would be Tim Riggins, and that he would be more than happy to be stuck under a hydraulic lift at his brother's garage, drinking beers, fixing cars and forever telling stories of the glory years playing with Six, Seven and Smash. But Billy's speech about how one member of the Riggins family needs to get out of this town and make something of himself so that future generations know that it can be done was a lovely idea. And I like that Tim's exit is somewhat bittersweet. He's really made peace with the world over the last couple of seasons (his emotional journey was one of the few highlights of season two), and I can easily imagine that he'd be much more content staying in this comfort zone than he might be going out into the world, struggling against college competition and real academics (or as close as a party school can get). As with so many things in the finale, it felt right.

Tyra and Lyla's exits were a bit easier. Lyla in particular turns out to have an uncle who can magically solve all her college tuition problems, and Katims and Jeffrey Reiner obviously deemed her inner struggle over whether to stick with Tim or go to her dream school not interesting enough to actually show. But I found the maturity with which she accepted Tim's refusal to hold her back a nice contrast to the girl from the start of season one who had built her whole life around Jason Street.

And with Matt getting the short end of the stick, Tyra pulls off an unlikely but still touching escape when she gets off the wait list and into Texas. Though I often found her stories problematic (even ignoring the murder), Adrianne Palicki always gave this character everything she had; just look at the way she's shaking with equal parts fear and hope as she opens up the admissions letter. That, ladies and gentlemen, isn't a hot blonde. That's an actress. I hope (and expect) to see a lot more of her in the future, as well as Taylor Kitsch and Zach Gilford and the rest of this brilliant young cast, whether the show comes back or not, whether Katims decides to bring back the graduated seniors or not.

If the show somehow continues, I'm excited for the possibilities created by the East Dillon move. And if it ends, we'll always have those moments where "Friday Night Lights" reached deep into our guts, or brushed across our spines, and moved us in a way that few of us would have expected from a show about Texas high school football.

If this is the end -- if the last image of the series is of Eric and Julie holding each other and staring out at that abandoned field that's about to become Eric's new professional home -- then we'll still have our memories.

Last time (or not): Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!

Some other thoughts:

* I joked at the end of season one that a renewed "Friday Night Lights" would feature NBC-mandated changes like murder mysteries and Tyra and Lyla working at a bikini car wash. We eventually got the murder (though it came from Katims, not NBC), and we got the bikinis, too, but the brief glimpses here didn't so much feel titillating as they did wistful, as we saw Lyla with Tim, and Tyra with Landry, enjoying those peaceful and carefree last days of high school and the welcome arrival of spring and then summer.

* Just as last week gave us a Street reference with Tyra's brainstorming session for her application essay, this one gives us one last Smash reference, as Buddy invokes his name as a recruitment tool. That was a nice touch.

* Speaking of which, for the last time this season, it's time for me to call on the high school football experts (Texas or otherwise) to explain exactly how you do recruitment (or whatever Buddy called it) when, in theory, kids go to whatever school is in their district.

* The moment where Eric and Julie gave Julie a new car was sweet, but whatever happened to the used one she planned to buy with her Applebee's money?

* Another nice nod to the show's history: Buddy and Tyra's mom dance at Mindy's wedding, and enough time has clearly passed that they can do it -- and Lyla can watch -- without anyone's feelings being hurt.

* Loved Billy's stupid white tux and ten gallon hat. Just a perfect choice.

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Friday Night Lights, "Underdogs": Clock management

Spoilers for the penultimate episode of "Friday Night Lights" season three coming up just as soon as I find a way to tie every paragraph in this review to Applebee's...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

"You be proud of yourselves. Because gentlemen, you are champions." -Coach

And the chills are back, boys and girls.

"Underdogs" is, like, much of season three, a fairly straight rehash of material from season one -- in this case, the bulk of "State." Among the elements they share:

* On the eve of the state championship against an obviously superior team, Coach finds his relationship with his QB One strained due to a controversial decision made by Coach.

* Tyra and Landry take a memorable road trip together to the big game.

* The Panthers fall deep into a hole in the first half as the QB-Coach tensions get worse, then after a speech at halftime, the anonymous Panther defenders improbably shut down the opposing offense and Matt Saracen leads the team to an equally improbable comeback.

But this is a sadder spin on the same material. Coach is at odds with JD McCoy here, not Saracen, and he and JD remain at odds when the game's over. The Panthers somehow blow out South Texas for most of the second half, but they leave too much time on the clock in the end, allowing South Texas to go down the field and kick the game-winning field goal.

And in many ways, I prefer "Underdogs" to "State." I complained at the time of the season one finale that the game was too storybook even by the show's standards, that Eric didn't really do anything at halftime to inspire the troops into suddenly turning into the '85 Bears, and that the come-from-behind win went against the series' vision that you can have all the talent and drive and effort in the world and still come up short. Here, there was a plausible reason for the turnaround (on offense, anyway; with Santiago gone, we still have no idea who anybody is on defense) in the QB switch, and as happened in the book and movie (and in real life), the team gives a valiant effort but eventually loses to the more talented team.

Beyond the plot and theme, though, what really made "Underdogs" feel special in spite of its familiarity was the work done by director Jeffrey Reiner and his production team, who, like the Panthers, left it all out there on the field. The visual and aural palettes were beautifully used throughout and made everything seem more intense, whether it was the flashing lights at the pep rally while Tami and Eric are debating what to do about the McCoys, or the music nearly dropping out as Saracen and the offense watched South Texas drive for the game-winner, or the eerie silence of Riggins walking back into the empty stadium to leave his cleats on the field, like a soldier laying down his shield on the field of a brutal battle.

If you define the success or failure of a "Friday Night Lights" episode by how high it raises the goosebumps on your arm, then "Underdogs" was a tremendous success, the best episode of the season since Smash left in "Hello Goodbye." It felt right, and moving, and all those emotions we associate with the show when it's clicking.

It wasn't just the game action, either. Moments like Landry coaxing a better essay out of Tyra in the car were just as good -- that one especially because it invoked Street's injury from the pilot, which was the seismic event responsible for changing the lives of every other character on the show. And so even though Tyra can be an incredible drama queen, and even though she and Landry seem to have the same conflicts over and over again (give or take a dead body in the river), it's worth it for scenes like that, or for hearing Tyra read the final draft of the essay over the montage of everybody else getting ready for the big game.

All that being said, "Underdogs" also illustrated an inescapable flaw of the third season, which is that 13 episodes is far too few to adequately chronicle the football season while still servicing every character -- especially since 8 of those 13 had to devote large swaths of time to giving Street and Smash appropriate farewells. Now, the Street and Smash stories were among the season's highlights (Smash in particular), but it's become more and more obvious as we go into these final episodes that the writers are having to use shorthand to tell most of the remaining characters' stories.

JD is a 15-year-old kid, and so I can understand why he might go running back to Daddy's embrace even after Joe smacked him around in the last episode. But to go from him sitting on Eric's patio and flatly declaring that he never wants to see Joe again, to him being happy at home and then angry that Eric and Tami brought the cops into the matter, felt jarring. I can fill in the gaps in my head, but it's the kind of story that could have breathed more in a regular 24-episode season.

Similarly, Grandma Saracen's dementia allows the writers a certain amount of latitude when it comes to her ever-shifting attitude about Matt, and Shelby, and Matt's quest to go to college out of state, but the changes still feel abrupt.

And, for that matter, I still have no sense of why Landry is on the team, how much he really cares about it, and whether Coach would actually tolerate "Lance" missing the bus to Austin and still let him start. As I said for a lot of season two, I think the story of Landry joining the team had a lot of potential, but they passed over the good stuff in favor of the murder arc. This year, meanwhile, what little we've seen of Landry in a football context suggests he's an end-of-the-bench joke and doesn't really mind that status. So for him to be so fired up about the chance to play special teams, and so upset at the thought that Tyra wouldn't be there to see him do it, seemed to come out of nowhere.

I understand that it was 13 episodes or nothing, and I respect and appreciate Jason Katims and company's attempt to do right by both their outgoing actors and the ones who'd be around all season. And these gaps in the story don't really derail the good things that are happening. But they're noticeable, and they've only grown as we're this close to the season finale next week.

Some other thoughts on "Underdogs":

* Lyla's morning ordeal at Casa Riggins -- complete with having to use coffee filters as a cover on the toilet seat, a glimpse of a nude Billy, and then Billy having to piss in the sink (as George Costanza would say, "It's all pipes, Jerry!") -- was one of Minka Kelly's funnier moments to date, and a very candid approximation of what life is like under that roof.

* Another underfed subplot: there's no real comment Mac's return from his heart problems (other than him joking that he can't afford stress) or on the fact that that weasel Wade Aikman is somehow still on staff even with Mac gone.

* Even with the various scholarship possibilities that Shelby talked about with Matt a few episodes ago, I understand that the Art Institute ain't cheap. Still, I thought it was a nice choice from both a character (Matt's always loved to draw) and actor (Zach Gilford's from Illinois) perspective.

* I'm not sure exactly what was the timetable on the production for this episode, but while Matt comparing himself to Seneca Wallace from the Seattle Seahawks -- the backup QB who also frequently plays wide receiver -- was accurate, given what happened to Wallace and virtually every skill position player in Seattle this season, I expected poor Matt's leg to fall off before the interview was over.

* It's been a while since I watched "State," but I don't recall that episode spending so much time lingering on the Austin skyline -- which has been the working home to the show for three seasons now -- but I loved a lot of the shots here, particularly Matt and Tim playing Frisbee against the backdrop of the state capitol building. "Last game, Seven." Damn.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In case you somehow missed the joyous news by now, NBC and DirecTV have teamed up to order two more seasons of "Friday Night Lights." So next week's "Tomorrow Blues" will not be the series finale, and I can't wait to discuss the implications of that seven days from now. For those of you who watched the DirecTV run and know what's coming, please keep it under your hats for just a little bit longer.

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Friday Night Lights, "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall": Honor thy father

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode 11 coming up just as soon as I register for a leaf blower...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

"If you don't want to know, don't ask." -Buddy Garrity

The first two-thirds of this season had to serve two masters: moving forward the stories of our core characters while also giving Smash and Street proper send-offs. Over this most recent batch of episodes, Jason Katims and company have had a new double-mission: to send off the remaining high school characters while also laying the groundwork for a fourth season, even if the chances of one aren't that likely.

So while Matt and Shelby try to find a better solution for taking care of Grandma, and while Lyla and Tyra try to figure out how to get into college, the McCoy family situation explodes and the school board introduces the controversial idea of re-opening the long defunct East Dillon High in order to get more state assistance.

As always, I'm coming at the subject of high school football (Texas or otherwise) from a position of extreme ignorance, but would the redistricting plan automatically lead to the creation of a second football team? My wife went through a similar redistricting in her Long Island town, and the two schools there had joint athletic teams. But whether or not the writers are fudging the reality of this scenario, it's creating some interesting tension between Eric and Buddy (whom I'm always glad to see in full-on Machiavellian king of the boosters mode), and between Eric and Tami. Even if there isn't a fourth season for all this to pay off, I feel like some good stuff is going to go down between now and the finale.

The episode did a great job of laying the groundwork for Joe McCoy's explosion, as he let various perceived mistakes and violations by J.D. just build and build in his mind until he couldn't think straight anymore. As Katie tried to point out to him, J.D. doesn't call the plays, but by the time the game was in full swing, Joe was so far gone that he took every pass, completed or otherwise, as a personal affront, so that he was primed to blow when J.D. talked back for what I'm guessing is the first time in his life. Again, this is a story with potential to work in both the short-term and the hypothetical long-term, though I suppose I could also see a scenario where the McCoys leave Dillon at the end of the season.

The Tyra story was probably the episode's weak point, if only because, like last week, it just felt like a replay of Tyra moments from earlier in the series. In particular, her mom's big speech about Tyra being different from Mindy was really reminiscent of the speech she gave Tyra at the father-daughter dance in season one -- and then, as now, I didn't totally buy it. It's not that Angela's a bad person, but they spend so much time showing how narrow her worldview is, and how she tries to justify her own life choices by nudging her daughters down the same path, that it always seems a little pat when she turns around and gives a tearful monologue about how what she really wants is for Tyra to live a completely different life. People can be complicated, but I see no connection between the woman at the end of this episode and the one who all but told Tyra to skip school to go chasing after cowboy Cash.

Unlike Tyra, Lyla doesn't have to worry about getting into a college; she just can't pay for it. As the reality has sunk in, she's turning herself into an honorary Riggins to cope -- after all, isn't much of Tim's character defined by his ability to shrug off all the terrible things that happen to him as simply his lot in life? -- and you can see how much that's bothering Tim. What drew him to Lyla was that she was the exact opposite of him: optimistic and driven and outgoing. He doesn't want to date the female Tim Riggins, even if she looks like Lyla. My only issue with this subplot is that Minka Kelly is still the cast's weakest link. She's been fairly solid when asked to play sarcastic or disapproving, but whenever one of her stories takes a serious emotional turn, she's never quite up to it.

Definitely up to it? Zach Gilford and Kim Dickens and Louanne Stephens, as Lorraine takes a tumble and Matt lashes out at Shelby because he doesn't want to face the reality of the situation. Grandma's outburst about her slippers felt terrifyingly real; when the dementia reaches that point, what the hell can you do? Dickens in particular has had to carry a very tricky role; because Shelby knows how badly she hurt her son, she's now making a superhuman effort to be whatever he and Lorraine need her to be, whether that's a chauffeur or a caretaker or, in that great scene at the hospital, a verbal punching bag. I think a lot of actresses would make Shelby seem a little too perfect for a woman who ran out on her son, but Dickens always lets you see the wheels spinning, the way Shelby's letting Matt tear into her because she knows she's got 17 years of karmic debt to pay off.

Now, we only have two episodes left, and I'm curious to see how they're going to be structured. Do we get the state championship in episode 12 and then a 13th episode that tries to telescope the rest of the school year and shows us how all the seniors wind up? Or will it follow the pattern of the final two season one episodes, where we had an episode with no game, followed by the championship, with any resolutions sprinkled in and around the football action? Whether or not a fourth season happens, the graduating characters deserve their own send-offs, and even if they don't get as much screen time as either Street or Smash, I hope they each get their moments.

Some other thoughts on "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall":

* Joe McCoy is so nuts that I almost -- almost -- feel sorry for him. Wade Aikman, on the other hand? Total jerk. I don't know what practice he was watching, but the one I saw had JD in complete command of the Panthers offense, and the only time he let Madison distract him was during the water break. When does Mac get back?

* Riggins plays special teams? Is that common for the star offensive player on a high school team? Then again, Justin Tuck did block a field goal a couple of games ago, and he's the Giants best defender, and we've already established that I know little to nothing on this subject. I will say, though, that maniacal as Joe was, I don't know what Eric was thinking trying to throw the ball that much in those conditions. To bring in another Giants analogy, that was like whenever offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride insists on having Eli throw the ball a few dozen times when the Meadowlands winds are swirling at tornado levels.

* I loved Riggins asking Buddy if he was going to have to walk back to his car, and Buddy realizing he had randomly driven them to the middle of nowhere.

* Princess Diana died when Tyra would have been six or seven years old (unless you assume that she and Tim and Lyla have all been held back a few grades); would she really be making a "Lady Di" reference to Mindy?

* Even though a lot of the Tyra/Landry material has been repetitive, I really like the easy banter the two characters have together, which only makes a moment like the one where Landry gives her a pep talk about all her hard work feel even sweeter.

* Have we established the financial situation of Lyla's mom and stepdad? I doubt the health food store is raking in the cash, but surely they could help out a little with college, no? Or does her mother feel so betrayed by Lyla staying with Buddy that she wouldn't help? Either way, that needs to be addressed.

* God, I love stripper names, real or stage. Fashionette?

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Friday Night Lights, "The Giving Tree": Lock up your coach's daughters

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode 10 coming up just as soon as I make sure all my doors are locked...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

"Your punishment is you're going to have to have a conversation with me about it." -Tami

"The Giving Tree" is one of the stronger episodes of season three, but it's also an odd one, in that most of the plots played out like "Friday Night Lights" Greatest Hits. Tami and Julie have another tearful heart-to-heart about sex, ala season one's brilliant "I Think We Should Have Sex." Landry realizes that Tyra takes him for granted, ala various parts of late season one and late season two, and Tyra starts to come around to the idea of Landry as her ultimate man, ala the end of season two. And Buddy again gets shut out of his family's life after a public humiliation, ala what happened after Tyra's mom ratted him out in season one.

Now, there were parts of the episode without real precedent (JD McCoy's minor rebellion against his dad, Eric getting tossed by the refs and leaving Wade to get all the credit for the victory). And conflicts within families or non-blood relationships aren't one and done, but ongoing. Just because Julie didn't sleep with Matt after she and Tami had their first talk didn't mean that it would never happen, or that she and Tami wouldn't have to discuss the deed.

But I think I would have liked only one familiar story at a time, preferably the Tami/Julie stuff, which contained the usual heart-tugging brilliance from Connie Britton and from Aimee Teegarden, as well as some wonderfully quiet work from Kyle Chandler and Zach Gilford. (The decision to have Coach stew silently made his anger feel a lot more powerful than if he'd been ranting and raving at Julie and Matt like they were the referees from the playoff game.) Leave the rest of the deja vu for another hour, okay? I know we only have three episodes left after this one -- probably ever (more on that in the bullet points) -- but much as I like both Tyra and Landry, I think I could have done without them having the same epiphanies for the 18th time, and in the same episode as the sex story.

Some other thoughts:

* Some people have asked what NBC's desperate move to put Jay Leno in primetime five nights a week means for marginal shows like "Friday Night Lights." Well, it sure doesn't improve the odds of a fourth season, unless DirecTV winds up ponying up so much of the production cost that NBC decides to air the episodes on Saturday nights or something, not worrying about the ratings so long as they get some DVD sales out of it. I'm not optimistic.

(NOTE: I'm not making too many changes to these posts from the DirecTV version, but at least one recent news report suggests I may have been too pessimistic on this front.)

* Julie needs to teach her dad about text-messaging, which would have spared him the "Can you hear me now?" ad at the bar and allowed him to send Wade the play he wanted. Things did work out in the end, but I suspect there's going to be a lot of pressure from the boosters to keep Wade in the job even after Mac finishes his recovery. And, depending on how the playoffs go, I could see a storyline (likely for the hypothetical and unlikely fourth season) where the boosters start pushing Wade to take over the team, in the same way that Eric got the main job when his own quarterback protege was coming into his prime.

* I'm starting to really like Katie McCoy, who clearly doesn't share her husband's insane fixation on turning their son into the new Robo-QB. Here's what I wonder, though: she tells Joe she's not comfortable with his football obsession, but why does she think they moved from the glamour Dallas to the middle-of-nowhere that is Dillon, if it wasn't to put their kid with the best offensive coach in the state? Did Joe tell her some lie, or has she just brushed it off until she saw how it was all starting to hurt JD?

* Putting the Buddy/Lyla story in this episode did create an opportunity for Julie and Lyla (two characters I don't remember having a conversation before) to bond a little, and for Julie to have someone to talk to about her great humiliation. And in this circumstance, Lyla was probably a better sounding board than Tyra, who probably would have told Julie to push back against her parents. And I like that, when Julie was actually with Tyra, it was an opportunity for her to point out how self-involved Tyra can get.

* Also, it seems appropriate that Tyra would take a shine to Landry again after watching him rock on stage. Girls still dig guys in bands, right?

* Really, the acting was strong all-around this week. Buddy and Tim's confrontation at the door to the Riggins house, with all that was left unsaid about what would happen if the old man tried to get by the young fullback, and about who was really the stable man in Lyla's life, was very well-played by Brad Leland and Taylor Kitsch.

Being briefer than I'd like because I'm running late and want to get the review up, so I'll ask, what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Friday Night Lights, "Game of the Week": Showdown at Beer-thirty

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode nine coming up just as soon as I pick a theme for the winter formal...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

Street is gone. Smash is long gone. Starting with "Game of the Week," we have five more episodes in the TV season and four more games, at most, in the football season. Shouldn't the stakes feel a little higher?

The episode's teaser suggested that they would be. This has been an up-and-down season for the team following a complete catastrophe of a season the year before. Even with JD McCoy firmly entrenched as QB1 and with the success of the new spread offense, this seems a very fragile team. So the idea that their first playoff game would be shown on national television should have only ramped up the pressure -- on Eric, on Buddy, on JD, on all the seniors hoping to land a college scholarship -- but after the pre-credits teaser, the episode largely ignored the presence of the camera crews. Matt's bemusement at Landry being chosen for an interview, and the running gag about the status of the physics club were funny enough, I suppose, but how could the McCoy family completely recede into the background for this one? How could there not be more tension between Coach and Wade? Why, in all the Saracen family discussion about Matt's college prospects, or in Lyla's attempts to get Tim to want college more, did the idea of this game as potentially life-changing come up. Really, it felt like just another game, which would have been fine if they hadn't introduced the cameras in the first place, or if we weren't so deep into an abbreviated season where every episode needs to count for more than they did in the old NBC-premiere days.

Now, there were still some good things in "Game of the Week," notably the ongoing tension in the Saracen household. Grandma has always been portrayed as difficult but firmly in Matt's corner. For her to announce that she expects Matt to eschew college so he can stay home to care for her was shocking, but not out-of-character. It's scary enough being Lorraine without the safety net that Matt provides, and the continued presence of her hated former daughter-in-law -- not to mention the idea of Shelby becoming the new safety net -- had to terrify her into going to such an awful, selfish place. Some excellent work by Zach Gilford, Kim Dickens and Louanne Stephens, and I like that there isn't going to be a simple solution to this problem. Something has to be done about Lorraine, and Matt probably isn't good enough to get a free ride from a college (at least not a top school), but there are options open to him if he's lucky and applies himself the way we know he can.

Some people defended the Tyra storyline when I complained about it in recent weeks, saying that the push-pull of wanting to get the hell out of this town/life and being drawn into the same self-destructive behavior of her mom and sister rang very true to life. I can see that, but it wasn't until this episode where the Cash arc really clicked for me -- specifically, in the moment where Tyra started looking around the bar full of creeps and realized just where her exotic adventure with Cash had brought her. Adrianne Palicki was very good throughout the episode -- I liked the palpable relief on her face when Landry made her laugh -- and I like when the show gives Tami an opportunity to play hero for the kids in the same way that Eric does for his players (this time, with Eric getting to watch/help).

Riggins college scholarship, meanwhile, came to him as easily as Street's new sports agent career, only with about a tenth the emotion of Street on the steps at his baby mama's house. I like Lyla best when she's used for comedy -- here with Tim noting that if he thinks her breath reeks too much of booze, then she's really had too much -- but this subplot felt very lightweight, as did the episode overall. Not bad, but more filler than I want this late in the year.

Some other thoughts on "Game of the Week":

* I liked the realization on Landry's face when Julie passed along Tyra's "sick aunt" excuse, which he is painfully familiar with the truth of.

* Also leading to the episode's disappointing feel: Eric's underwhelming halftime speech. I know they can't all be "Win one for the gipper," but that moment called for better oratory than Kyle Chandler was given.

* Have they ever established exactly where in the state Dillon's supposed to be? I know it's a flight (or long car trip) from Austin, home to the fictional TMU, but how long were Coach and Mrs. Coach on the road before they got to Tyra's motel in Dallas? And might they have a chance to get back to the hotel suite in time to take a shower?

* Back when Lyla, Riggins and Tyra were all supposed to be seniors like Street, Lyla talked all the time about intending to go to college wherever Jason went. Her relationship with Tim is more mature in a lot of ways (even though Tim is much less mature than Street), and so it makes sense that she wants to go to Vanderbilt, regardless of where Tim winds up. (San Antonio to Nashville: a 14-hour drive, which even Michael Scott wouldn't think realistic for an ongoing romance.)

* Buddy doesn't have any friends, and also the self-awareness to understand this. Nice.

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Friday Night Lights, "New York, New York": I'm rollin' here!

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode eight, coming up just as soon as I peel down to my unadorned id...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

"New York, New York" represented the best and worst of "Friday Night Lights," in that it was all heart and no brains. It had moments that were very sweet (Coach & Mrs. Coach coming to a meeting of minds, Coach and Saracen playing pitch-and-catch out in the street to audition Matt for wide receiver) or touching (Street reuniting his family while a teary-eyed Riggins watched his bromantic partner from a distance) or just plain funny (pretty much every other scene involving Riggins), and yet looking back on it, most of what happens doesn't make a lick of sense.

How is Riggins again getting away with skipping out on days and days of not only school, but football practice? How can an agent be signing a college football star before the college football season (which runs parallel to the high school season) is over? Has Jason Street never heard of cell phones? How are Street and Riggins getting back and forth between Manhattan and "Penn A&M" (really the campus of Drew University in beautiful Madison, NJ)? How is it possible that Tyra has now come up with a dumber idea than, "Hey, Landry, let's dump this dead guy whom you may have justifiably killed into the river"?

Now, when the episode was good, it was really good. Street reuniting with his family was just as genuinely tear-jerking a send-off as Smash's, and Coach tossing the ol' pigskin to Saracen was one of those pure fun moments the show does so well. And good lord was every word out of Tim Riggins' mouth a comic gem, from him talking up the two-suits-for-$125 deal to him quoting Ben Brantley's "Gypsy" review to him declaring "I'm pregnant" during the role-play in the cab.

But an awful lot of "New York, New York" triggered my BS detector -- or, in the case of the Tyra/Cash subplot, my Bad Story detector.

Still better than virtually everything from season two, but not up to some of this year's stronger outings.

Some briefer thoughts:

* The subject line is a riff on the most famous (and improvised) moment from "Midnight Cowboy," the only X-rated movie ever to win the Best Picture Oscar, because Street and Riggins' travels through the streets of Manhattan very much had the vibe of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo. (Other subject lines I contemplated included "Ratso Riggins," "Mid-day Cowboys" and "Everybody's talkin' at me.")

* Even if the rest of the episode had been filled with dead rapists and Christian radio and Swedes, I still would have liked it on some level because they played The Hold Steady's "Stay Positive" during the practice montage near the end. The Hold Steady rule.

* Two lovely little touches in the episode's two best scenes: 1)Coach the old man rubs his arm and needs some aspirin after throwing so hard for so long; 2)Erin's parents' house isn't wheelchair accessible, and so Erin had to hand Noah to his daddy. Sometimes with this show, it's the small touches that make a huge difference.

* Also, I appreciate that, even in the midst of this implausible tale of Street somehow getting his wheel in the door at a sports agency, the writers acknowledge that his salary really wouldn't be enough to support a family on his own in the NY/NJ area.

* It makes sense that QB2 would instantly become the best wide receiver on the Panthers, because if there was a talented receiver on this roster, surely we would have met him over the past three seasons.

* Though I will never complain about watching Coach and Mrs. Coach interact, the real estate story seemed to amount to a whole lotta nothing.

* That story also gave Kyle Chandler the opportunity to do some of his usual silent brilliance, in this case the way his neck tensed up as Tami went on about the house and he realized that, once again, the McCoys were insinuating themselves into his life.

* And annoying as the Tyra subplot is, it did give Connie Britton a lovely subtextual moment where Tami had to let Tyra know that she blew the college interview without ever saying anything remotely like that.

* Speaking of that storyline, with only five episodes left in the season, and with the way Jason Katims insists on starting each new season at the start of a new school year, how are we going to get closure on all of our many graduating seniors? This season will likely end whenever the Panthers season does, so are we going to get much of a sense of how Tyra's going to turn out, whether Saracen or Riggins get scholarships, etc. Or would the fear of losing all of his teen characters in one fell swoop lead Katims to change the structure for a hypothetical fourth season? Spring football, baby! Texas forever!

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Friday Night Lights, "Keeping Up Appearances": Show me the money!!!!!!

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode seven, coming up just as soon as I use some vaseline...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

Okay, that's two duds in seven episodes overall, and two out of the last three. Still a much better batting average than season two, but other than Street and Herc's fight in the backyard, and Scott Porter's performance in general, I found almost no redeeming qualities in this one, where at least I found about half of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" to be good.

I don't want to devote too much time to this one because it's a busy week and I'd rather focus on things I enjoyed, but among my complaints:

* The random introduction of a new Panthers player, with a problem that was easily solved in an episode with virtually no tension and no inspiration felt pointless. Even Tami giving a nice speech about how wonderful Eric is -- followed by Eric opening the car door for a very self-satisfied Tami -- wasn't enough to make it all feel worthwhile.

* Really, the problems in all the storylines were resolved far too easily: Street gets an offer on the house within days of putting it on the market at the higher price, Buddy's forgettable younger children come around through the magic of watching Panther football, Landry very quickly makes peace with having made a fool of himself with Devin the bass player, and a 30-second conversation with a sports agent gives Street an entirely new career path.

* And speaking of which, even if Lyla is convinced he'll make a "great sports agent," it's gonna take Street a long time to achieve his dream of becoming the next Jerry Maguire. Most agents have law degrees, and Street doesn't have more than a GED (if that). If his goal is to be able to immediately provide for his baby and baby mama, this seems like the wrong way to achieve it.

* The actress playing Devin is one of the weaker performers they've had on the show in a while.

* Lyla's been involved in so many other stories over the years that it's hard to keep track of her feelings towards Buddy. I mean, I think they're currently getting along well enough to justify her taking his side against the young'uns, but it's been a while since they've had any significant interaction.

* Joe McCoy has become a cartoon villain awfully fast, hasn't he? The musical score towards the end of his dinner date with Coach sounded like something out of a silent film where the heroine's getting tied to the train tracks.

Okay, now that I think of it, there were a couple of things I liked other than the Street/Herc fight and Scott Porter. I thought Billy getting misty-eyed at Tim's highlight video (particularly at Coach's words of praise) was a nice moment. I thought Kevin Rankin was his usual good self. I liked Tyra's reaction to Landry's premature girlfriend announcement. Oh, and I have a soft spot for that Flaming Lips song, which was big back in my college years.

But overall, it was completely forgettable. Let's hope next week is better.

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Friday Night Lights, "It Ain't Easy Being J.D. McCoy": Streak for the Cash

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode six coming up just as soon as I take down a load-bearing wall...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

A few weeks back, I asked whether J.D. McCoy was bad or just drawn that way. I think we have our answer. And I officially feel really sorry for our new QB1.

After keeping J.D. in the background for the early part of the season as we watched our man Saracen slowly lose his grip on the starting job, episode six gives J.D. more screentime (and dialogue) than the previous five hours combined and shows us that while he may have the perfect arm, his life is far from perfect. He's a misfit on the team, socially awkward and such an obvious daddy's boy that he has trouble fitting in even with extensive (and hilarious) mentoring from Riggins. And his dad has done such a thorough job of sheltering him from any part of life that doesn't directly relate to playing quarterback that it's hard to see this kid coming out okay.

One of the most infamous pro football flops of all time was Todd Marinovich, the so-called "Robo QB" whose father tried, practically from birth, to prepare his son to be the perfect NFL quarterback. And when I say "practically from birth," I mean that his father put a football in his crib, started stretching out his hamstrings when he was one month old, etc. (Seriously, go back and read the original Sports Illustrated story on Marinovich; it's horrifying.) And what happened was, as Todd got older and got a little independence from his old man, he succumbed to every last temptation that was denied him growing up, and he imploded.

And unless Eric Taylor can step in and talk some sense to Joe McCoy, J.D. is going to implode, maybe even sooner than Marinovich did.

I'm glad the writers are going this route and not giving us Voodoo 2.0, and I liked how the episode gave us the flip side of J.D.'s story by showing us how Saracen's life has improved in some ways without the pressure of that starting job. Sure, it's going to make it much tougher for him to get a college scholarship (and I'm glad to hear Matt finally mention college), but he's more relaxed now, and he also has the time to finally rekindle things with Julie, finally taking their relationship to a place neither one was ready for two seasons ago.

People complained a lot about Julie last year, but I don't think the problem was ever with Aimee Teegarden, who, if anything, played Julie's bratty phase too well. Just watch how quietly she plays Julie's afterglow when she's in the Landrymobile and then when she's alone in her bedroom; so much said without a single line of dialogue being necessary. Ditto the expression on Tami's face when she sees Julie and Matt swapping goofy looks in church; if she hasn't quite completed the equation yet, she's clearly doing the math.

(Fienberg, by the way, is convinced that this is heading for a pregnancy scare storyline for Julie. I hope not; that's a very lame teen drama cliche.)

As for our third quarterback, how freakin' adorable was Jason Street singing both parts of "Hole in the Bucket" to his baby on the phone at the end of the episode? They have to give him a happy ending to match Smash's, don't they? Maybe the house flip works, and maybe it doesn't, but looking at Erin's face as she listened to her baby daddy sing to her baby made it clear that she has feelings for the guy that go way beyond shared parental responsibility, and that in turn means that they're going to find some way to be together, most likely far from Dillon.

I also quite liked the uncommented-upon parallel between Coach and Tim Riggins on the night of the dance, where both men wind up disappointing their special lady friends so they can do a favor for a past or present Dillon quarterback. I don't know if they had to cut a scene of Eric helping Street paint the house or if they thought Tami's line about Eric having paint in his hair would suffice; either way, it's good that our two departing characters have been getting some extra doses of Coach love on their way out the door.

Some other thoughts on "It Ain't Easy Being J.D. McCoy":

* Does anyone actually think that Cash is telling the truth about this baby? And if he's lying, how can the University of San Francisco let in a girl as gullible as Tyra? Or is it her fault coming from such a terrible nature/nurture situation with her mom and Mindy?

* For a kid in a middle-of-nowhere school where he's supposed to be a major outcast, Landry sure has had a lot of luck finding kindred female spirits, hasn't he? Even if you leave out Tyra, Devin the singing bass player looks to be an even better match for him than wee Jean (who has since acquired superspeed and is pretending to be in love with Matt Parkman). I also liked that Landry knows his band well enough to know that the drummer would come back, and that Matt acknowledges to Julie what the writing staff should have made clear a long time ago: Landry is strictly a Panther benchwarmer.

* How many episodes was Lyla absent before this one? And did anybody really miss her?

* I want Tim Riggins to play tour guide in my town, don't you? My favorite part of the travelogue was explaining to J.D. that if he ever goes into Smitty's Bar, "You know me as Toby, two-time Iraq war veteran."

* Was Billy always this stupid, or have they dumbed him down to make Tim look smarter this season? I vaguely recall him being somewhat level-headed and responsible (at least compared to Tim) in seasons past.

* I love how, by the time Matt and Julie are done cracking jokes about Grandma's argument with Coach, they come back to find Grandma admitting that she can't stay mad at Eric. The man is very, very charming.

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Friday Night Lights, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn": Flip this QB1

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode five coming up just as soon as I establish the ownership of my ankle...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

Sigh... after the emotional highs of last week -- easily the best episode since the first season, and one of my favorite "FNL"s ever -- I suppose it was inevitable that the next episode would disappoint. But did it have to disappoint in so many ways?

Outside of Saracen's story and the Street half of the Street/Riggins plot, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" was slow and/or repetitive of other storylines the show had done in the past -- and, in some cases, weren't very good the first time around.

Was anyone clamoring for the return of Ferret Guy? (If you're going to bring back a recurring character from season two, you might as well show what happened to Santiago.) Did anyone need to see Tami again worry about Julie becoming too wild, and about Tyra potentially being a bad influence on her? (Yes, parents worry about this stuff with their kids all the time, but this was such an exact rehash of stories the show has done before that it was frustratingly dull.) Is there any way that Cowboy Cash isn't bad news for Tyra? And, if not, can we just skip ahead to the episode where he tries to get her hooked on cowboy candy along with him, or maybe even to the episode where Landry convinces her to clean up and have a little faith in herself?

And yet, the stuff in this episode that worked worked so well that I'm not too concerned. Even season one had a dud storyline here and there, and while that stands out more when there are only 13 episodes instead of 22 -- and when this could very well be the last season of the show -- it's not a sign of imminent creative doom, either.

Because Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton are so great, it can be easy to overlook -- or, at least, to underpraise -- the work of everybody else, but Zach Gilford continues to bring it. The scene on the Saracen porch, where Eric delivered the bad news about JD McCoy getting the starting job right before Grandma and Shelby came home in a cheerful mood, was so intense because both Gilford and Chandler looked like they would rather be jammed with an electric cattle prod than have to stand on that porch one second longer while Grandma went on about how Eric walked on water. The locker room confrontation and Matt telling his mom about the situation were both just as good. It's a hard truth that Matt can give it his all, can do everything that's asked of him, and that still might not be enough when the second coming of Jason Street walks through the door. I suspect Saracen will be back under center at some point before the season is out, but football, like life, isn't always fair.

One complaint, even within that story: they wrote the climactic sequence of the big football game backwards. No way does the QB who just scrambled for the winning touchdown of a close game get ignored while the crowd cheers the name of the guy who moved the chains but came out for the big score. It would have made much better dramatic sense if Saracen were the one who did all the hard work, only for JD to get the glory because Eric sent him in for that quarterback keeper. (It also would have made more football sense; the defense would never expect the QB who runs the spread offense to be the one who scrambles with the ball.)

As for the first coming of Jason Street, it was nice to have the guy back. I suppose it made sense to delay his return until Smash was gone: there's not enough time as it is for all the characters who are going to be around a while longer without devoting two stories in each episode to the short-timers. I'm glad that the baby wasn't ignored -- looks like Erin listened to Jason when he pleaded with her to give the miracle pregnancy a chance -- but also that we didn't get a happily-ever-after scenario already. Jason and Erin had only just met, he's a couple of years out of high school and in a wheelchair, and this is a big mess. That makes sense. I imagine that, like Smash, Street will get his happy ending and wind up flipping Buddy's house for the cash he needs to make this family work, but it seems right that they're showing us the process along the way.

Some other thoughts:

* I was only half paying attention as the credits on my review screener rolled, but I don't remember seeing a picture of Smash, nor Gaius Charles' name at any point. Makes sense, if that was the case. Did anyone see or read Scott Porter in there?

* The return of Street also brings with it the return of Herc, who continues to be comedy gold while not being just comic relief. I like how obviously Herc likes the baby, and that for all his bluster, he knows what he's talking about most of the time.

* More great comedy: Landry listening to "November Rain" in the Landrymobile 2.0 while glaring at Tyra and Cash, while Matt complains that the power ballads are a bad cliche. It's always funny to see Matt with Landry, or even with Julie, because he becomes a much more verbal person when he's around a peer than he is around adults.

* And still more good comedy: Tim constantly quoting Buddy's line about rats fleeing a sinking ship and visionaries, and it working every time.

* And yet even more funny stuff: Grandma is "pretty serious about her cookies."

* I liked Street's pitch to Buddy, playing on the man's obsession with Panthers football to talk him into selling them the house, but I also wondered why he didn't bring up his relationship with Lyla. They dated forever and a day, and Buddy was like a second father to him. I know it ended badly -- and that Buddy got upset when Jason and Lyla were briefly engaged -- but that would have made an easy secondary tug at the heartstrings.

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Friday Night Lights, "Hello, Goodbye": Farewell to the Smash

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode four coming up just as soon as I wear my hair down...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

"Right here, right now, God has placed you to do what you do best. Go all the way." -Eric Taylor

Chills. Massive, massive chills.

"Hello, Goodbye" was easily the most spine-tingling episode of the season so far -- I enjoyed the previous three, but this was the first that felt on the same level as the best of season one -- and nowhere was it more chill-tastic than the moment where Coach charged across the A&M practice field to ensure that Smash got a fair shot at a walk-on job.

We've known for a long time that Eric is an all-around swell guy -- as Tami puts it, "You are a teacher first, and you are a molder of men" -- and his behavior throughout this Smash storyline, and through the quarterback controversy threatening to engulf the Panthers reminded us just how swell he is. Coach isn't some two-dimensional saint. He has flaws, and he doesn't always make the right decision, but the extent to which he puts himself on the line for these kids is one of the main reasons "Friday Night Lights" is so compelling. Eric risks embarrassment (and burning a professional contact) to make sure that Smash gets his tryout, and he agonizes more than your average coach would over a potential quarterback switch, less for football reasons than because Saracen's become like a son to him. Kyle Chandler was superb throughout this episode -- but then, isn't he always?

Just as good, for that matter, was Gaius Charles in what looks to be his final appearance on the series. The look on Smash's face when he got the call from A&M -- surprised, grateful, overwhelmed -- was just about perfect, as was that final shot of Smash at Herrmann Field, glorying in his element and hollering "Where you at, baby? Where you at?" I understand why Smash has to be written out, but I'm going to miss the cocky SOB.

Really, every element of the show was firing on all cylinders tonight. I could very easily have started out talking about how great Jesse Plemons and Adrianne Palicki were in Landry and Tyra's screaming match in the hallway, or how I like how gingerly both Matt and the writers are approaching this possible reconciliation with his mom, or the two wonderful Taylor marital moments (first at the bar where she supports him about the QB controversy, then in bed where he supports her about the Jumbotron). This was the "Friday Night Lights" I fell in love with, and I hope the show can stay at the level for most of the remaining nine episodes.

Where previously Matt has had one problem piled on top of another, I'm intrigued by the way that one potential bit of good news (his mom coming back to help out with Grandma) comes at the same time as some bad news (Eric's no doubt doomed attempt to split the QB job, King Solomon-style). I can see a circumstance where JD winds up as the full-time starter, only Matt will be less crushed than expected because other parts of his life are finally working out okay for once. Whatever happens, Zach Gilford, Kim Dickens and Louanne Stephens did a great job of letting their respective guards drop only slightly. Matt, Shelby and Grandma are all very much aware that this situation could blow up at any minute, and none of them wants to be hurt when that happens, but they can see the potential benefits if it does work.

Unsurprisingly, I'm less interested in Tyra's relationship with Cowboy Cash (whose need to pop some occasional "cowboy candy" painkillers was like a flashing neon "Danger!" sign) than I am in what it means for her friendship with Landry. That situation -- Tyra not feeling romantic towards Landry anymore but not wanting to give up the other aspects of their relationship, and Landry finally standing up for himself and explaining to her that it's all-or-nothing -- felt very real to me. And as powerful as it was to see them screaming their lungs out at each other, it was just as brutal to hear Landry's voice drop to barely above a whisper in the later scene where he asked Tyra to leave his garage.

The episode's only real misstep, I think, is that we didn't get to see the school board meeting where Tami tried to shame the boosters over the Jumbotron decision. Tami sticking Buddy with the charity auction was actually very funny (particularly for the half-smirk on Eric's face when she pulled that stunt), but they had prepared us for a very different kind of scene, and they either should have changed Tami and Eric's bedroom talk accordingly or else inserted some brief later scene where Tami realizes that revenge is a dish best served with a silent auction.

Still, that's a very minor complaint about a terrific, terrific episode.

Some other thoughts on "Hello, Goodbye":

* Okay, put this hour in the "misunderstood" column (instead of "villain" column) for JD. It's clear from his getting-to-know-ya conversation with Eric that his father has never allowed him to have much of a life outside of football. I'm thinking he's as much a victim of all of this as Matt, and that we may be in for some kind of "Bad News Bears" moment later this season where JD deliberately tanks a game to spite his old man.

* I'm also wondering what column Katie McCoy belongs in. Her advice to Tami was spot-on, as proven by the superintendent assuming Tami was getting angry with him when she had barely raised her voice at all. But is she just doing all of this so that her husband can get to Eric through Tami?

* I thought it was a nice touch that Mac wouldn't let the other assistant coaches question Eric's QB choice, but once it was just the two of them, he made the push for JD. That kind of nuance about the politics of the coaching staff is always welcome.

* Anybody know whose cover of "Dream Lover" was playing when Cash and Tyra kissed?

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Friday Night Lights, "How the Other Half Lives": Copper blue

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode three coming up just as soon as I quote "Finding Nemo"...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

So here's my question of the week: Is JD McCoy bad or is he just drawn that way?

Certainly, Joe McCoy is bad, at least within the moral framework of "Friday Night Lights." Throughout the season, but especially throughout "How the Other Half Lives," McCoy the elder is doing everything he can to force Eric into benching Matt and starting JD. By now, he has the boosters and the whole town so caught up in a fever for JD and the spread offense that no one can even recognize that poor Matt left everything out there on the field against Arnett Mead. All they want is the kid with the rocket arm, and given the weaker position Eric's been in ever since he returned from TMU, I suspect he's going to have to give the people what they want, sooner or later.

But again, are we supposed to hate JD for the fact that his dad is overbearing and obsessed with his son's success, that he has an expensive private QB coach who's also a massive douchebag (check out Wade's smirk after Saracen fumbled the ball), that events around him are pushing him into a position to take our beloved Matt's job? What, exactly, does JD want? He's said all of two or three sentences all season, and his one big moment in this episode, where he finds Matt and Julie cracking jokes about his trophy room, could be read one of two ways: either he's just as arrogant as his support system, or he's embarrassed by just how much his father dotes on his success.

The reason I'm so curious about this is in part because JD hasn't had much to do or say for such a central figure to the season, in part because how the writers perceive him (and want us to perceive him) is going to say a lot about where this story is going. Is he just Voodoo 2.0, the hotshot imported QB who will send Matt to the bench for a week or two before his cockiness proves his undoing? Or is the first building block for a hypothetical "Friday Night Lights" season four, in which all of the current high school characters will have graduated?

(And, no, they won't be able to reboot Saracen's age as easily -- relatively speaking -- as they did with Riggins and Lyla and Tyra. While it was always implied that they were seniors like Street, it was never explicitly said, whereas last season Smash pointed out that Matt would be a senior the following year.)

Now, I don't know if Jason Katims has even allowed himself to think about a fourth season -- and before anyone asks about the ratings, it's going to depend less on that than it will on how valuable DirecTV thinks the show is for getting new subscribers, and therefore how much of the budget they'd be willing to pick up next time -- but I'm almost hoping that this is what JD is here for. We saw the Voodoo story already. I think it would be a lot more interesting if JD proved to be not only a good quarterback, but a good kid -- the sort Eric would be proud to coach, in the same way he was with Street and Saracen -- because then we get back into some interesting morally grey territory that the show was afraid to enter last season. Right now, it's easy to root for Eric and for Matt to triumph against the rich meanies, but what if the meanies are right? And what if Meanie Jr. isn't so mean?

Overall, this episode did a great job of building the obvious tension on Eric and Matt, and then they capped it with one of the show's best, most intense game sequences ever. Great editing, sound design, the works. I don't know if Zach Gilford lost his voice halfway through the shoot or if he was just playing it that way, but hearing Matt sound so raw really worked. And then, just when we've been convinced that we're going to get another fairytale sports movie ending for the Panthers on Matt's brilliant scramble, he loses control of the ball and the next thing you know there are For Sale signs scattered all over Eric's lawn. (That's a detail going back at least to the Buzz Bissinger book.)

It helped that Tami is trapped in her own vice grip right now, and I suspect that the Jumbotron and JD stories are going to merge very soon, with the McCoys offering to help Tami out of her jam in exchange for a little rhythm from her husband. And what's great about this story compared to last year's Taylor marital tensions is that we're seeing glimpses of the husband and wife who really love each other at the same time we're seeing them fight, where last year it was just a lot of fighting. Connie Britton did this perfect little squint as Eric began to compliment Tami about how sexy she was, as she could tell how the conversation was going to go and yet couldn't completely hate on the man saying that. And I loved this little exchange between Eric and Tami:

"You know who I miss? I miss the coach's wife."
"You know who I can't wait to meet? The principal's husband."
"Touche."

Last year, I think we get the first two lines but not the "Touche."

Some other thoughts on "How the Other Half Lives":

* I didn't like tonight's Smash story at all. It's like they signed Gaius Charles for four episodes and then tried to figure out how to use him, as opposed to coming up with four episodes worth of material about the Smash. No viewer in their right mind would think Smash would actually take the Alamo Freeze job, not after Coach had spent the last two episodes building his confidence back up, so this just felt like they needed to stall for an episode before he presumably aces the Texas A&M tryout and leaves the series for good.

* After the murder and the Riggins boys stealing from Ferret Guy, I could do without the show ever getting one of its characters involved in felonies or misdemeanors for a while, but Billy begging Tim to help him steal some copper wire felt a lot more natural than the previous crime stories. And I laughed when the guard dogs just kept on running right past the truck and to freedom.

* Also funny: Lyla completely putting her foot in her mouth by laughing at Mindy's use of "Finding Nemo" dialogue for her wedding vows. It's nice to be reminded that Lyla can't always control the mean girl reflex, and that it's probaby not a good idea to let it loose in front of the woman who broke up her parents' marriage.

* Anyone who's ever read "The Tipping Point," admit it: just like Katie McCoy, you too spent the first few months after reading it going around and bragging to everyone about how you're "a connector."

* Saracen's monologue to Julie in the cafeteria may be the most we've ever heard him say in one burst, and that's not necessarily a good thing. It's the first time on the show that Zach Gilford sounded like he was from Illinois (which he is) instead of Texas; the accent just went for a grocery run in the middle of that speech.

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Friday Night Lights, "Tami Knows Best": I like my squab rare, dagnabit!

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode two, coming up just as soon as I enroll in one of Buddy Garrity's yoga classes...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

You know I like to begin reviews of the better dramas on television with some kind of signature quote from the episode, but when "Friday Night Lights" is clicking like it does for most of "Tami Knows Best," it's the moments where nothing's said that tell the story.

Following on last week's B/B+ effort, "Tami Knows Best" continued to retreat comfortably back into the show's wheelhouse -- Saracen's family burden, Riggins' self-destructive streak, Buddy's ruthlessness, etc. -- but it added more than a few of those spine-tingling moments I didn't get from "I Knew You When."

Start with the scene the episode should have ended on (more on the reasons for that in the bullet points): Eric walking out of the Williams house and pausing to enjoy the sounds of joy from inside as Smash, Mama Smash and Sister Smash celebrated the news of his Texas A&M tryout. Just perfectly played by Kyle Chandler, who has Coach's emotional meter so finely tuned that he can wow you just by changing the mood a degree or two.

It was one of two great Smash-related scenes this week, with the other obviously being the bulk of the Panthers roster coming out in full pads to help Smash regain his confidence by feeling part of something larger. I suspected that was what Coach had in mind from the minute Smash confessed his fears, but it was still goosebump-inducing to see them march out. (Even better was the pure delight on the faces of everyone in the scrimmage, including Coach calling plays in the huddle. Because of the big-time pressure of Texas high school football, and current issues like JD McCoy, Riggins' self-confidence, etc., the games themselves always feel really tense; it was nice to be reminded just how much fun these characters can have with the game.)

Or take most of the moments of the Saracen storyline. Even more than the pressure to succeed as the starting quarterback, Matt's home life has been the strongest part of his story (the brief return of Mr. Saracen from Iraq was one of the few season two arcs that really worked). Zach Gilford and the writers (and, for that matter, Louanne Stephens as Grandma) just kill it every time we have to see what a huge and unfair burden Matt has to live with, and to pivot that and have Matt tell Grandma that he's become a good man because of her was really beautiful. Just as good was Matt's brief, tense encounter with his mom (played by "Deadwood" vet Kim Dickens), where the simple line, "It's me, Matt... your son" told us all we needed to know about how long it's been since they saw each other and/or how little Matt thinks of his mom.

It looks like we're heading towards a Matt/Julie reunion, and while I don't have any strong feelings for or against, it was nice to see him get to see the world through her optimistic eyes for a moment, to imagine what it must be like when your biggest problem is whether you'll get to buy a used Celica, and to see that Celica as a life-changing vehicle.

The other stories weren't quite as abundant with the goose pimples, but they were all solid, nonetheless.

I continue to believe that Tami is being incredibly stupid and/or naïve about the JumboTron situation. Ganking the money in the first place was questionable -- she should know by now what Eric tried to tell her about the unstoppable force that is Buddy Garrity -- but rather than continue to stonewall and point to her rights within the bylaws, she should have switched from the stick to the carrot and agreed to return most of the money in exchange for keeping some for badly-needed school programs, and/or sweet talking Buddy and the boosters into making more of an effort to fund the entire school. That said, I believe that she actually would be that naïve in this situation, so it's not a credibility problem. And this storyline is giving Buddy -- who was a pathetic, comic relief character for a good chunk of last year -- his teeth back, which is important in the grand scheme of the show and its themes about the true cost of caring so much (too much?) about this team.

Buddy also got to bare his fangs for poor Riggins, who had let Lyla talk him out of his usual neuroses and was all prepped for a good, well-behaved time with the McCoys, only to have all his confidence stripped away in about 10 seconds. Riggins' refusal to rat out Buddy to Lyla rang true with his refusal to tell Eric the truth about Julie last year: deep down, Tim feels like he's supposed to be punished for things, and also that nobody would probably believe him if he told the truth about situations where he isn't at fault. The usual good work from Taylor Kitsch (and I can't believe how far he's come from early in season one, when I would have been happy to never see him or Minka Kelly again), and I also like that the writers have let Lyla understand Tim enough that she doesn't freak out at entering the Riggins house to find Tim in his boxers watching TV with Tyra.

And speaking of the very tall and politically adept Ms. Collette, Tyra's run for student council president on the slut ticket was primarily comic relief, but it was worth it for the final scene between Tami and Tyra. If she manages to survive JumboGate, I can see Tami getting into more trouble over her pet project, and Tyra's impulsive enough that it may be hard for her to rein in her tendency to make the easy but dangerous choice.

All around, I continue to be extremely pleased with the show's rebound from season two.

Some other thoughts on "Tami Knows Best":

* Chronologically, the final scene with Matt and Julie should have been placed earlier in the episode, since Matt was only borrowing Landry's car for the one night to see his mom, and since we already saw him back in town the following night for the scrimmage with Smash. (Plus, we got a scene back at school, which meant the entire weekend had passed.) So why was it at the end as opposed to the Coach/Smash scene? My guess is that, with Smash on his way out, they didn't want to close the first two episodes in a row on his storyline, but that they wanted to close on some kind of hopeful note, and the bit with the Celica seemed better than Lyla bringing Riggins a cheeseburger.

* Speaking of the Landrymobile 2.0, how understanding is Mr. Clarke to buy Landry another car after what happened with the last one? Or did he just feel guilty for burning the station wagon?

* Yes, that was Janine Turner from "Northern Exposure" as Mrs. McCoy. It doesn't seem that long ago (even though it was nearly 20 years!) that she was going to be the Next Big Thing, but as happens so often with NBTs, it never quite materialized.

* I'm sure I'm far from the only viewer who got a big Tracy Flick vibe off of the actress playing Tyra's political rival. (God, "Election" came out nearly 10 years ago. Somehow, that makes me feel even older than looking up the "Northern Exposure" premiere date.)

* I should say, by the way, that I didn't in any way find Tyra's victory implausible. I was wildly unpopular in my school, and yet somehow I wound up as student council president because the school had recently eliminated parking privileges for anyone who wasn't a senior, and in my speech to the then-sophomores, I promised to do my best to bring back junior parking. Like so many campaign promises, it was harder to achieve than it was to talk about, but it proved as effective a wedge issue as sex at the prom was for Tyra.

* Lyla actually had a bunch of funny lines tonight, including her telling Tim that the only thing he knows about dressing himself is "how to put on a plaid shirt and button one button," and, in response to Google-savvy Tim insisting he isn't retarded, "Sometimes, you act like you are." For that matter, her reaction to Buddy asking the condom question was pretty priceless. I don't even mind Minka Kelly anymore, really.

* The mortification in Julie's voice as she said "Yeah, I work at Applebee's" sounded like it was half about Julie, half about Aimee Teegarden being annoyed to get stuck with the product integration this week.

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Friday Night Lights, "I Knew You When": A man for you in Dillon

Spoilers for the "Friday Night Lights" season three premiere coming up just as soon as I find out whether I deserve a smoothie...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

Now that's more like it.

You all remember the problems I had with season two, and there's no need to rehash them here. While there was nothing in "I Knew You When" that gave me the goosebumps in the same way I got them from, say, Street getting his helmet cut off in the hospital, or Coach talking Saracen into being confident enough to play QB1, or Tami having The Talk with Julie, this still felt very much like an episode set in the same universe as the first season, where too much of season two seemed to be taking place in a parallel world where the faces were the same but nothing was quite right.

There were some bumpy spots -- the press conference felt more nakedly expository than a similar sequence at the start of season one, and the JD McCoy pass that has everyone all agog looked almost identical to the one that Saracen threw right after Street was paralyzed -- but overall, this was a very strong return to the show and its characters.

It was also, somewhat surprisingly, a very funny return. Now, "Friday Night Lights" has never suffered from excess solemnity -- "I've got two words for you: Members Only" -- but the premiere felt like a concentrated burst of all the amusing things that happen in Dillon, including:

* Coach ending the otherwise inspiring practice session with Smash by reminding Smash to pick up the cones;

* Pretty much every moment between Buddy and Tami, but particularly her "Let's not go there" when Buddy tried to do the clear eyes, full hearts bit;

* Landry and Tyra's simultaneous, conflicting assessment of the state of their relationship;

* Coach's patronizing, "Honey, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard" to Julie's insistence on eating free-range eggs;

* Coach righteous indignation about the smoothies;

* Coach's complete and utter cluelessness about how much better he has it than the rest of the Dillon faculty;

* Billy and Mindy's schmoopie talk while Mindy's dancing on the pole, and especially Billy's take on Tim and Lyla's relationship: "She went to bed with Jesus, and woke up with you. Jesus, you. You're a rebound from Jesus."

It almost felt like Jason Katims and company wanted to be absolutely clear that we were over and done with the gloominess of the murder, and Julie's rebellious phase, and everything else that went haywire last season. "Come back!" the premiere seemed to say. "It's fun to watch again!"

Which isn't to say that the premiere was a non-stop laugh riot. This is "Friday Night Lights." Heavy stuff goes down here. But the drama felt much more organic than it did last year, in part because so much of it was tied to the football team.

I suppose they could have pinned the failure of last year's team on Smash's suspension (which happened in the last episode before the strike shut down production), but an injury later in the season allows Gaius Charles to stay in the picture a bit longer than if Smash were healthy and off at college. I'm going to miss him once he's gone (in case you missed it, Charles and Scott Porter -- who wasn't in this episode -- will be doing four episodes apiece to get a proper send-off), but he'll still be around for nearly a third of the season, and he did some very nice work here. In particular, I liked seeing Smash's posture completely change once he donned the Alamo Freeze manager's uniform. That's not the kid who was going to dazzle Mack Brown, go to the NFL and endorse two rival sneaker companies simultaneously; that's just another poor Dillon soul whose life peaked in high school, and he knows it.

Eric's explanation for wanting so badly to help Smash -- "Cause I need something good to happen" -- speaks not only to the turmoil on the team in this episode, but all the bad things that happened last year. He made the right decision for his family in quitting the TMU gig, but nothing seems to have gone right for the team since he returned. They couldn't survive Smash's injury, Saracen and Riggins are feuding for reasons unknown (maybe Tim's just bitter that Saracen stopped ditching class with him to go to The Landing Strip?), and even a blowout season-opening win (easily the most plausible game we've ever seen on this show) winds up controversial because of JD McCoy's big throw. (Though, again, that particular beat would work better if we hadn't seen Saracen do something similar a couple of years ago.)

One of the things that's always distinguished "Friday Night Lights" is its use of silence, the way it asks its actors to tell you so much more than the characters will verbally tell each other. Kyle Chandler is arguably the best at that, and he gets a lot of opportunities to be expressive here. Other than that one line to Smash, Eric doesn't say much about the trouble with the Panthers, but you can see it on his face throughout the episode.

The re-focus on the football team not only brings the show back on-mission, but forces the characters to all interact with each other in a way they didn't last year. Even Tami's promotion, while probably not that realistic (she had apparently been a stay-at-home mom from the time Julie was born until early in the first season), places her in a situation where she'll be more involved in Eric's professional life, with Buddy, and maybe with the rest of the team.

(I also think that Tami made a mistake by appropriating Buddy's Jumbotron check, but it's a mistake I wasn't surprised to see her make, as opposed to last year, when characters often did stupid things that also seemed wildly out of character.)

Again, not a "wow" premiere, but a reassuringly solid one.

Some other thoughts:

* I will complain this once about the characters' ages and then be done with it, because this is the choice that's been made, right or wrong: I had a hard enough time buying Riggins, Lyla and Tyra still being in school last year, as they had all been established as contemporaries of 12th-grader Street, but asking me to believe that they were all sophomores in the first season is original recipe "90210" levels of silliness. Aside from the plausibility of it, it gets in the way of Tyra's storyline, since Tami made Tyra her pet project very early in what we now learn was her sophomore year, which should have been plenty of time to erase whatever GPA damage was done as a freshman. I like the story -- and I'm glad that the writers have remembered Tami's role as Tyra's mentor -- so I'll go with it, but with gritted teeth.

* Much better exposition than the press conference: Buddy rails about Lyla's mom moving off to California with her tree-hugging new husband (and, presumably the younger Garrity kids). Explains why Lyla and Buddy are now co-habitating, but in a funny way. On the other hand, they didn't explain what happened to Santiago -- and, based on Katims' surprised reaction when I asked about him at press tour, I'm not expecting them to.

* D.W. Moffett, who plays Joe McCoy, has had a career that's largely interchangeable with Brett Cullen (who plays Riggins Sr.) -- and, in fact, he replaced Cullen as the dad in the CW's short-lived "Life is Wild." So it's funny to see them both wind up as very different

* I liked that Riggins was so eager to support Smash's desire to give up. One of the few strong threads from last year was watching Riggins let his life fall apart because he didn't think he deserved any better, and the one disappointment of seeing him together with Lyla is that he's now sort of content, and even trying to better himself. Growth is good, but I hope we don't lose the epic self-destructive streak that made Riggins so compelling.

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