Since I was out of town all weekend, I didn't have a chance to catch Friday Night Lights (aka The Perfect Show) until tonight. As many of you that have been watching know, the show has been good this season, but there have been some problems (Tyra and Landry, I'm looking at you). In the past couple weeks, the show has gotten back on point, but this last episode concerns me. Here's why: FNL has always (and when I say "always" I mean "the perfection of Season 1") been about subtle drama. The things we loved were the little things: the nervous way Matt used to talk to Julie, the small moments between Coach and Mrs. Taylor, that one episode where Tyra has dinner at the Taylor's house and she's both delighted and disappointed at the same time, etc., etc., you get the idea. By contrast, this past episode hits you over the head with exposition. Here's the rundown:
The small town event of the week this episode is Pantherama, which from what I can gather is some kind of pep rally on steroids. Mrs. Taylor, who planned the whole event last year, is far too busy now with the new baby to be able to do it again this year, so she enlists the help of Tyra and Lyla to plan the entertainment portion of the event. The girls, making great use of their natural gifts, i.e. their hot bodies, get the football team to perform a striptease at the event, pushing the boundaries of decorum for many of the adults in attendance, who ultimately seem to like it, and Mrs. Taylor, who does not. Matt, who for the first half of the episode interacts cutely with his new girlfriend (although I'll be damned if I can remember her name.....Leslie, maybe?), has trouble with the dance and gets help from his grandmother's sexy Latin nurse. Her reward? A kiss from our QB 1, which should be totally inappropriate, but doesn't seem to be given the looks they were shooting each other the next morning over breakfast. Yeah, that relationship definitely ain't kosher and is way too soapy for my liking. There's enough of a story with Matt just dating the new girl and getting over Julie, no need to add the older hot Latina into the mix.
Speaking of Julie, she's apparently part of the school newspaper, where her assignment this week is to write an article about Pantherama which is supposed to focus on the seedy underbelly of the event. You know what I'm talking about: one of those articles that's supposed to expose school corruption that would definitely never get published in the real world b/c the faculty adviser would be too afraid of pissing the administration off. Speaking of the faculty adviser, he's a new young teacher who went to Columbia and worked at a newspaper and is supposed to be all cool and interesting. He and Julie become friendly after she ducks into his classroom to avoid Matt and his new girlfriend and then starts crying and tells him the whole story, blah, blah, blah, we all know where this is going. In fact, I knew where this was going as soon I saw her go into that room. I swear I could "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by The Police playing in the background. It wasn't? Well it should have been. Even Mrs. Taylor thinks so because she does not respond well to finding the two of them talking alone together in his classroom. Have I mentioned how awesome she is?
In a plotwise unrelated but episode-theme related coincidence, this week also happens to be the first week that college recruiters can talk to senior Panther players about scholarships and the like. Smash is as excited as a geek on a visit to the Lucas Ranch (what, you thought I was going to make a sports reference?) He sees this as his first step towards the pros and he'll do anything to make it happen, even if it means going against Coach's instructions and possibly damaging his high school eligibility. Some might say Smash crosses a line here. Are you sensing a theme yet?
Tim decides to move out his house because his brother and the older lady from next door that he used to do the nasty nasty with have been spending too much in the house. He stays with Tyra for two nights, but she makes him leave after that because if he stayed any longer it would be crossing the line (did I just say that again?) So he moves in with some guy with ferrets. Yeah.
And finally we have Santiago (Lyla's project, remember?). It turns out he has no legal guardian, which just makes me feel even worse for this guy, because he seems ok. Until he gets one, Mrs. Taylor won't clear to play on the team as Tim's replacement. Coach's solution? Let Buddy Garrity become his legal guardian. Great idea coach, given how much his other kids still like him. The episode ends with Santiago moving into Buddy's apartment and Buddy apologizing for the room being so small. Santiago doesn't mind, though, because it's his first real bed. Way to make choke up, show, way to make me choke up.
I think the Santiago and Lyla/Tyra storylines were the strong ones tonight, as they were believable but not over the top (some might say the Santiago one is, but given that Buddy's always been over the top, I think it fits). The Smash plot was also fairly realistic, but I didn't like b/c I don't want Smash screwing things up for himself. The weak storylines: Julie's and Matt's. Can we stop having these two hook up with inappropriate people, please? This is not The O.C., thank you very much.
So what do you guys think? Is the show staying too soapy? Would you like if it did? (If you answer yes to this question, we can longer be friends). One final piece of good news: FNL will have 15 episodes completed once they finish filming all of the scripts that were written before the writer's strike, meaning that the show will stick around for a while after all of your other favorite shows go off the air. That's something to make sure your thankful for as you gorge yourself on turkey on Thursday.
