Friday Night Lights S4 finale
I have to post about this.
This show. I MEAN. THIS SHOW.
OK, so, I've always been a fan of Tim Riggins. Sure, he's drunk... pretty much always, and it always seems like he doesn't care about anything. But he does. It's there every single time. He cares about people. He cares about cute lil' puppies named Skeeter. But more than anything else, Tim loves his brother. And even though it was predictable from the previous episode that he was going to take the fall for what he and Billy did, that does NOT, repeat NOT, make it any less heartbreaking to see the scene where Tim lays it out. That was a moment, like most moments in the finale, that... I just have no words. Tim Riggins has to be one of the most noble characters in television.
But big ditto to Vince as well. I'll admit, at first I wasn't sure where his story was going. But as the show continued to pile the stakes on top of him, Vince rose to the occasion and beyond. For him, it started as being simply a choice between football or prison. But he took that choice and ran with it -- supporting his mom, getting a job, and in one of my all-time favorite moments, he turns his back on revenge at the last second, at great personal risk to himself (the dude had a gun! HE FIRED AT HIM!). He was even trying to be the better man for Jess and Landry, though that unfortunately blows up in his face (as many good-mannered actions do in this show).
...Um... let's just say I wrote a whole paragraph here about how freakin' amazing Tami and Eric Taylor are and how awesome Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton are. They always are, always have been.
So yeah. I'm so ready for S5 now.
Jason Katims has totally sold me on his style. From the sound structural quality of the episodes to the messy, realistic dialogue, he has a way of capturing family life (on FNL and on Parenthood, another show I enjoy quite a lot) that feels authentic. He knows more than anything that when you have amazing actors working on a show, you don't need to give them big, weepy speeches that Cicero himself would be jealous of in order to draw out true emotion -- sometimes all you need is for Kyle and Connie to be together on a balcony, or in their bed, separately thinking about their own problems but facing them together. Or you just need Derek Philips to break down while Taylor plows on with his speech, about how Billy is his brother and he has a family now, etc. Or the best example from this season: The Son. The sheer horror on Matt's face when he sees his father in the coffin, or his total meltdown at the Taylor house. (Zach Gilford does more with one second of screen time than most TV actors can do with a full season worth.) And I gotta give it up for Becky, who never knows just how to approach what she's saying but does so anyway because she knows that if she bottles it up, it'll just explode later.
I'm just... overwhelmed. I'm so glad for this show though. It reaches for every emotional button I've got and presses them over and over again. I cannot wait for the final season.
This show. I MEAN. THIS SHOW.
OK, so, I've always been a fan of Tim Riggins. Sure, he's drunk... pretty much always, and it always seems like he doesn't care about anything. But he does. It's there every single time. He cares about people. He cares about cute lil' puppies named Skeeter. But more than anything else, Tim loves his brother. And even though it was predictable from the previous episode that he was going to take the fall for what he and Billy did, that does NOT, repeat NOT, make it any less heartbreaking to see the scene where Tim lays it out. That was a moment, like most moments in the finale, that... I just have no words. Tim Riggins has to be one of the most noble characters in television.
But big ditto to Vince as well. I'll admit, at first I wasn't sure where his story was going. But as the show continued to pile the stakes on top of him, Vince rose to the occasion and beyond. For him, it started as being simply a choice between football or prison. But he took that choice and ran with it -- supporting his mom, getting a job, and in one of my all-time favorite moments, he turns his back on revenge at the last second, at great personal risk to himself (the dude had a gun! HE FIRED AT HIM!). He was even trying to be the better man for Jess and Landry, though that unfortunately blows up in his face (as many good-mannered actions do in this show).
...Um... let's just say I wrote a whole paragraph here about how freakin' amazing Tami and Eric Taylor are and how awesome Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton are. They always are, always have been.
So yeah. I'm so ready for S5 now.
Jason Katims has totally sold me on his style. From the sound structural quality of the episodes to the messy, realistic dialogue, he has a way of capturing family life (on FNL and on Parenthood, another show I enjoy quite a lot) that feels authentic. He knows more than anything that when you have amazing actors working on a show, you don't need to give them big, weepy speeches that Cicero himself would be jealous of in order to draw out true emotion -- sometimes all you need is for Kyle and Connie to be together on a balcony, or in their bed, separately thinking about their own problems but facing them together. Or you just need Derek Philips to break down while Taylor plows on with his speech, about how Billy is his brother and he has a family now, etc. Or the best example from this season: The Son. The sheer horror on Matt's face when he sees his father in the coffin, or his total meltdown at the Taylor house. (Zach Gilford does more with one second of screen time than most TV actors can do with a full season worth.) And I gotta give it up for Becky, who never knows just how to approach what she's saying but does so anyway because she knows that if she bottles it up, it'll just explode later.
I'm just... overwhelmed. I'm so glad for this show though. It reaches for every emotional button I've got and presses them over and over again. I cannot wait for the final season.