Friday Night Lights: State

Last night was the (hopefully) season finale of one of the best shows that I've ever seen on broadcast -- no, actually, on t.v. -- in general. I can't imagine that, despite the flimsy ratings, they won't find a way to renew this vibrant, vital, life-affirming show. Seriously, could anyone who watched the pitch-perfect season finale last night imagine a world where we don't get to visit the denizens of Dillon, Texas for at least an hour each week? I know without them, my world will be a little bit smaller.

When I watched last week's episode, Best-Laid Plans, I had assumed that they were wrapping up the non-football storylines to leave this week's finale open for the big showdown at the State finals between Dillon and Voodoo and his new team. I should have known that this show doesn't ever take the easy road out.

I loved that while State was the centerpiece of the story -- as well it should have been (and if you'd told me six months ago that I'd be jumping up and down like a lunatic on my couch as fake tv people ran plays that I could actually identify on my screen, I would have directed you to the pharmaceutical of your choice) -- I also loved that the life of the people and the town outside of football went on.

What Friday Night Lights has done exceptionally well from the beginning is not be a show about football. It's a show about life, that uses football as its focal point, sort of like a wizard uses a wand to focus his energy. It could have been quilting-bees or rodeo or chili cookoffs -- the point was, it had to be something that brought a whole small town together with passion and pride, which imparted life lessons in ways that sometimes weren't obvious for years. And in small-town Texas, there is no greater love than high-school football.

The Dillon Panthers climactic trip to Dallas, and the State Championships, was certainly about football, and the coach and his team. They sacrificed themselves -- literally, in Jason Street's case -- at its altar. They had a season that started in tragedy and ended in triumph. But the real, true accomplishment for every boy on that field was his year-long journey closer to manhood.

I loved and adored that silent moment of awe, as the boys walked into the Cowboy's stadium for the first time, and saw their names on the lockers, as official as an NFL game. It captured so much -- the idea that, for many, this was the pinnacle of achievement -- a dream they'd never touch again. For a few, it was just the beginning of something new, of a place they'd return to again and again. But for each boy there, it was a moment of recognition, a startling realization that someday, his name would be official -- it would be his passport and his calling card and his reputation. It deserved a moment of silent awe.

I loved, too, watching Jason Street, whose crippled body betrayed him even as his football-genius mind continued to whir and turn, wheeling himself out onto the Dallas Cowboys' field. It was heartbreaking -- a look at what might have been -- but also heartening. Jason found a place with his beloved team in the end, and doing that restored his inner light. He won't be a professional football player, but finding a way to reignite his passion means that whatever he does, his life will be filled with meaning, if he wants it to be.

But for all the hype around the game, I loved that the story began and ended with family. While the coach dealt with the hoopla and the tumult, Tami found herself, a little desperate and a lot alone, at the counter of a Planned Parenthood, contemplating her future.

The idea that she was, in fact, pregnant, delivered with such awesome compassion and tact by Mama Smash, who continues to be one of my favorite character, was so terribly complicated. They didn't, of course, pull any punches. Who hasn't had a friend or family member in that situation -- having wanted, perhaps even tried desperately for years, to have another baby, finally laying aside that dream and picking up another -- making a difference, having a career -- only to be blindsided when it does happen. You could see it in her eyes -- two years from when her daughter leaves the house, she and her husband poised on the brink of enormous change, trying to learn each other anew, contemplating new roles, only to be tossed back into a situation they thought they'd long left behind -- it wasn't that she wasn't happy, it was that she was in shock.

Of course, Coach Taylor's response to the news was spot-on, too. Seriously, I waver between wanting him as my daddy and as my husband, but his reaction to the news was so sweet and sexy that I think I've pretty much been swayed to the husband side.

I loved, too, that his reaction to it -- but not only because of it -- was to decide to give up his own dreams and make it all about the family. But even better was Tammi's fierce refusal to let him. She knew, as soon as she heard the news, that her life was going to change forever, and not all of it in ways she may have wanted, but she wasn't willing to give up her dreams, or her husband's, without a fight. She has faith such as moves mountains, and I have no doubt that should there be a second season, she will have found a way to make it all work somehow.

And Coach Taylor? What a man. Seriously. He is a man's man -- and a woman's man, too. I adore that they've found a way to let him be a strong, even a stereotypical, man in some ways, but have gone to such lengths to show the nuances of what that means. This is a man who knows right from wrong, and struggles mightily not only to do right, but to show right to others. From the moment the news was out that he had accepted the TMU job, he was honest and straightforward with his boys, talking to them in language they could understand, and honoring them by asking them to see the world through his eyes, trusting that they could do so. No boy on the Panthers will grow to be a man untouched by the Coach's example.

His speech at half-time, too, was note-perfect. Look inside yourself. Recognize that the fight, not the outcome, is what molds you. See, in the small stillness of your center, the people that really matter to you. And God bless the editors, who took the time to show who it was that really mattered to these boys -- their mothers and sisters and grandmothers and fathers. Their wastrel older brothers, and the nerdy kids who worship them. Their Amazon ex-girlfriends, with stripper sisters and messy mothers in tow, and their gangly best friend with the best intentions. The whole town of Dillon was there to support them, and it was a lovely way to showcase some of the actors who have done such outstanding work with their small, background parts all year.

And what of the boys that the Coach led to that field, that moment?

Matt Saracen became a man, and a leader, by allowing himself to be angry, and then finding a way to channel it. He knew when to ask for help -- embracing Jason's tutelage -- and when to ask for space -- rejecting the Coach's attempt to talk to him about the future. But in the end, in a wonderful echo of his first game of the season, his eyes were wide open, and the play he called, he called on his own.

Smash Williams became a true team player, and in doing so, became a better player than ever. He learned to care about one girl, and to deal with her problems. He learned to see himself as a leader, but also as part of a larger whole -- not only as part of a team, but as part of a legacy. He backed up his arrogance with determination and grit, his fast words with hard work and a full heart.

Tim Riggins took a step away from being a Lost Boy and towards being a man. He may have lost the MILF, but he kept his sweet, intense relationship with Bo, her son, and in doing so learned how easy it is to hurt those we love, even when we don't mean to. He made steps towards mending fences with Tyra, but still doesn't seem to understand her true worth. But he found a spark in himself -- as protector and teacher and even leader -- that may save him from himself someday.

And Jason Street -- who perhaps had the longest, hardest journey of all -- found himself again on the football field. The look of joy and relief on his father's face as he realized his son hadn't been defeated after all was perhaps even sweeter than the actual football victory. It was like watching a phoenix rise from the flames. I like that this seems to mark the beginning of his journey, not his end, and that he still has a long, long way to go. But as we saw at the end, as he gently and naturally stepped into Coach Taylor's formidable shoes, he may actually have the beginning of what it takes to stay there.

The other characters, too, had their moments. Landry, who's been moving from comic relief to star player in his own life, got to shine, showing that he really is a good boy, trying hard to be a good man. The poor kid, trapped in estrogen hell, did the best he could -- cheering on his best friend, taking care of his grandma, putting up with strippers and cheerleaders and all sorts of hangers-on, but never making it less than clear to Tyra that he was a man worth having.

In contrast, Buddy Garrity had it all and let it slip away. Not only did he lose his marriage, he lost his relationship with his daughter, and at what should have been his moment of triumph, he was truly alone.

But really, at the end of the night, the women of Dillon kicked a little ass and took some names. This season has been -- as much as it was about the boys of the Panthers becoming men -- about the ways that women and girls are defined and confined by small towns, and how they go about breaking free.

I love the newly feisty Lyla and the newly vulnerable Tyra, and can't wait to see them as a collective force to be reckoned with. Even Julie, who spent the year learning to be her own person not apart from her boyfriend but from her parents, found a way to stand on her own two feet last night, to find love and still love her family. To dare to believe that she could find a way to keep what she loved about Dillon. These are not the girls -- the women -- they were at the beginning of the season, and their whole life stories remain to be written.

Finally, could there have been a better, more perfect way to sum up the season than with the homemade victory parade down Dillon's main street. There they were, those princes of the gridiron, those kings of West Texas, shining in the sun like the gods they will never be again. But even in that, what came through was not the arrogance of the winning athlete, but the sheer, innocent joy of the boys they still were, and the pride of the community they represent.

The whole town -- the whole cast -- was there at the parade. Tyra and Lyla, smirking and angry, then grinning despite themselves. Landry, the good friend, the good man, standing next to Tyra, waiting for her next move. Tim's ersatz family -- his big brother who loves him and the little boy who's teaching him to love; Smash's family -- Mama and sisters and his whole church community; Grandma Saracen, beaming with pride, and the Lady Mayor, swelled with joy. And Buddy Garrity, all alone while his family looks on, pitying. It was a perfect microcosm.

But of course, life, like football, goes on and on. The last tracking shot of Coach T, driving through town, pulling into his space for perhaps the last time, listening as Jason stepped up into a new kind of leadership position, left nothing resolved, and yet everything said. In the end, no matter what happens, we know that Coach will make the right choice, do the right thing. At the end of the day, Tami and Julie and the little Taylor to be will always center his universe, their orbit strong enough to spin out and teach everyone around them to fly.

Here's to a second season. And more poetry in the mundane of all of our lives.

Remember, Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!