I think I might start writing here again. Tumblr is fun, but it isn't exactly writing friendly.
Every week I watch Friday Night Lights and marvel at its ability to portray true human existence, emotion and love in one forty-five minute episode. I watch its sheer emotional brilliance and I wonder how a television show can be so perfect week in and week out. I wonder how it is they’ve portrayed marriage and it’s complexities so spot on, how they capture the importance of the relationship between a coach and a player and how the former has the chance to shape the latter in forms of character, resilience and their life choices. I am awed by the way Coach has become a father figure to so many young men, helping them to become the men they are meant to be, helping them when life has dealt them a really bad hand. And I love how Tami has played this same role with the female characters of the show, how she’s become a mentor to characters like Tyra and Becky and Epyck. I want to hire her as my life coach. I want to be her.
I simply am in love with the way the writers have written these adult characters and weren’t afraid to discuss real life problems, rather than just the typical TV drama problems. I admire the stories they’ve told, especially with the Riggins brothers, and I am happy to have Tim out of jail and back on my screen (and not just so I can ogle Taylor Kitsch again.) I love that he is shattered and holding a grudge against Billy. He sacrificed himself so his nephew didn’t have the life he had, growing up without a father, but what seemed noble in the beginning definitely made Tim a changed man, and I think I am actually happy to see this change - because if he had come out the same old Tim Riggins I think the show would have lost its creditability. But seeing him try to protect Becky from becoming Mindy (though, she herself has grown exponentially from the character we first met in the early seasons) at the Landing Strip showed me just how much Tim is the same. Not in his fighting and bad attitude, but in that he still has people he cares about and wants to protect. He’s a great man with a big heart, and I wasn’t sure we’d see that after the departure of Minka Kelly’s Lyla. Taylor Kitsch has surprised everyone with the way he’s played Tim over the last five years and his story never stops making me gasp, both with joy and with pain. He’s undoubtedly my favorite character on this show, right along side Coach and Mrs. Coach.
Every week I wonder how the writers have managed to create one of the greatest ensemble television shows in the history of the small screen and still have very little award recognition. I watch this show every week knowing that it’s ending, knowing that I have to say goodbye to some of the best written characters and I cry. This show will always be amazing. It should be the show that other shows strive to be. It’s real. It’s beautiful (not just in the cinematography, but in the writing and the acting.). It’s down right heartfelt and it represents what American life is really like. It shows just how wonderful it can be to have something to rally around (in this case, football), and how it can change a person for the better. I’m going to cry like a baby when the series finale airs, but I do it knowing that Coach and Mrs. Coach have taught me how to be a better person.
Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.