Friday Night Lights: Clear eyes! Full hearts! Can't lose.

[All My Shadows]

I just finished rewatching the first season, and the only thread we have here is on the NBC board and it hasn't been posted in since 2011. WTF!

Okay, upon viewing this season again, I have oodles and oodles of comments to make, and they probably won't be in any discernible order, so just go with me here.

~ Jason Street is probably my #1 favorite character throughout the entire season. Boy went through hell, yet everyone around him was acting as if THEIR problems were bigger than his. Oh nose, Lyla's boyfriend is crippled, how will her life go on!? Oh nose, Mr. and Mrs. Street's son is crippled and won't play football anymore, how will their lives go on!? Oh nose, Tim's best friend is crippled, how will his life go on!? Oh nose, Coach Taylor's star quarterback is crippled, how will he and the team go on!? Granted, I love this show, and I love all of the storylines that came out of Jason's accident, but damn! They never really did take us inside the mind of Jason and how he came to deal with his situation - not as much as they went in with the others, at least. For the most part, he kept a cheerful demeanor, and, most importantly, he found ways to move on. He stopped viewing his paralysis as the end of the world and started to look for new options, and it just makes him such an appealing character. His dedication to coaching Matt for state cemented my love for this character that I didn't pay too much attention to the first time around.

~ Lyla Garrity is a hot mess. I was fine with her through everything in the beginning, even her moment of passion with Riggins, but she got to be very high and mighty after she got her kitty scratched. I wasn't a fan of the way Lyla and Jason were written as a couple in the latter half of the season. It's like TPTB forgot that these were high school kids and started writing them as a 20something couple. The marriage angle was too much, but then having Jason with the tattoo artist and Lyla throwing a huge bitch fit over it was the lowlight. Her inability to support him beyond what "supporting Jason" meant for herself really painted her in a bad light.

~ Buddy Garrity really has no life. I used to view his dedication to the Dillon Panthers as an admirable thing, but really, it's just sad. I get that his dealership was a huge sponsor of the team, but he was constantly on the sidelines at practice, constantly in coach's office, busting in to meetings, etc. And of course, when he was living with the Taylors, he just wanted to sit on his ass eating pork chops and watching game film.

~ Voodoo was HOT. Lawd jesus.

~ The Landry/Tim friendship is something I wish they would have kept up in the ensuing seasons. Landry/Tyra, in the long run, just wasn't worth it. Tim got a lot of heart as the season progressed, and his disappointment in his dad was heartbreaking.

~ I love Smash's mom, but her dialogue was so stilted at times. They should have done a lot more with her as far as integrating her with the rest of the show. As much as Eric and Tami were definitely the papa and mama bear for these kids, how awesome would it have been to have Mrs. Williams as sort of a surrogate mother figure for someone like Tim?

~ I've always liked Julie/Matt, but after all these years, I finally "get" them. Their love story was a very innocent, refreshing thing when compared to the melodramatics of Tyra/Tim/Lyla/Jason.

~ The Tyra/Tami bond was flawlessly laid.

~ One of the things I always wanted more of was some depiction of Dillon High outside of the football program. Obviously, that was the center of the show, but we rarely got to see any of the teachers or even the administration, and presumably, Eric had to work very closely with them. Even beyond that, we never got to hear the Dillon High fight song or alma mater, which are songs that probably everyone in a football-loving town like Dillon would known by heart.

I'm sure I'll have more things to say as I make my way through the infamous second season, which I have not watched since it originally aired. My goal is to get through the entire series before summer ends. I'm not a natural binge watcher, but I did manage to watch 11 episodes in two days, so we shall see.

[London]

I miss Smash's mom when we lost Smash.