Friday Night Lights - Are On!

Friday Night Lights - Game of the Week, The Giving Tree, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, Underdogs - Eps. 309-312

With only one more episode for this brilliant season to finish airing on NBC and hints at huge expected (and some unexpected) changes to come, it's nice to know that at least we will GET those changes and that the third season finale won't be the series finale! Wahoo!!! I'm still elated that Friday Night Lights has been renewed for 2 more seasons with 26 more episodes total to come. After next week's finale, you'll know why, and why even with Saracen, Riggins, Lyla and Tyra essentially graduating and possibly moving on, there is SOOO many stories still to tell in Dillon, Texas. And Tami and Coach Eric Taylor's adventures have only just begun.

And now with a definite nemesis in Joe McCoy (D.W. Moffett), who now has not only started bossing Eric around on the field, he's slapping around his kid J.D. off the field, causing the huge moral rift in the adults. I'm glad that Eric wasn't comfortable with the district splitting the town up and the Boosters attempts to reap the best players from the town division. And when did town council planning become a HUGE plot twist? Give it to this show to actually make it riveting.

And Tyra. Oh Tyra. From the hunky but abusive cowboy (who admittedly was HOT, but BAD BAD BAD), to reuniting with Landry, Adrianne Palicki has seriously given her character Tyra, once written off as merely a pretty plot device, an amazing emotional depth and the writers have propelled her ups and downs into a tearful and joyous rollercoaster ride of drama.

Will Riggins actually go to San Antonio State? It helps that Lyla is coming along now, especially after Buddy lost all of her college fund on a bad investment (why does that not surprise me?). While Taylor Kitsch may move onto movie stardom, I'm secretly hoping he stays on in Dillon. His character, like Tyra's has also grown by leaps and bounds.

And Matt's journey this year, being pushed aside for the younger prodigy J.D., then reuniting with the mom that left him, and continuing to deal with Grandma, whose health and mental state continues to deteriorate, is all heartbreakingly real and raw. It's what this show does best, but for the uninitiated (who I doubt will have read down this far though), this show still manages to make it all extremely dramatic, compelling and in the end, emotionally entertaining.

Vance at http://tapeworthy.blogspot.com