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Wow. And it's not like we haven't seen this story before. It wasn't intricately plotted or all that inventively written. But it was organic, it earned its emotion, it stunned the eyes and rang the ears. Call Ginny Heffernan, because if she's looking for a buddy who'll drink wine with her and make painful comparisons between FNL and The Iliad, I'm her gal.
So the episode rushes through five days of preparation for the big game on Friday with a sort of unstoppable force. The signature Peter Berg handheld camerawork just as readily peers and jerks its gossipy glance across a packed Applebees as it unfolds the horizontal Texas landscape that's by turns bleak and sublime.
We meet the football players, most living in various states of disarray in shadowy ranch houses or cramped A-frames with grandmothers or older brothers. Jason Street, the golden boy quarterback, is the best the Notre Dame scout has seen in twenty-five years; Tim Riggins, a young drunk, has dead eyes but a joyfully violent presence on the field; Smash Williams, the fast-talking African-American running back, gives the whites what they want (big smiles, sassy attitude), hoping to take what he can get from them; and Matt Saracen, the unassuming second-string quarterback who we know will get called upon later in the episode. We also meet the girls, the coltish town bad girl Tyra Collette; the upper-class cheerleader Lyla Garrity, Street's girlfriend who will be tested when the golden boy tarnishes; and the coach's daughter, the bookish Julie Taylor, who can extend a metaphor with the best of them. Add the restrained and anxious coach Kyle Taylor, his wife Tami, who's game for it all, and a whole town full of drawling close-talkers wearing Texas hospitality on their sleeve while hiding knives in their pockets, and you've got the ensemble.
The main focus in the pilot is on the heavy expectations the town (the fictional Dillon, Texas) has for its seemingly state-championship-bound football players -- from the Pop Warner kids looking for heroes, to the tough-talking lady mayor (who instructs Street to listen to Black Sabbath to help him get a little meaner), to the reporters who swarm the kids before, during, and after school. When we finally get to the big game about 2/3 through the episode, it isn't much of a surprise that these put-upon kids start choking in the second half, and it isn't really a surprise, exactly, that someone gets seriously injured during this season opener. But it is visceral, the moment when an entire town loses hope as Street is rushed off the field on a backboard in an ambulance. Sometimes people come together and focus their energy so forcefully on one thing that they destroy it. By the time Coach Taylor makes it to the hospital (after Saracen steps in and leads the shaken Panthers to a win) and slips his hand into Street's (still anesthetized after spinal surgery), I'm hooked.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Let's get a few things out of the way here. I don't know too much about football. I know a lot about eating nachos and sipping beer while football is on in the background, but because I usually I have my nose in a book while reaching for those nachos, I must confess that I am not the person who'll be able to elucidate the more arcane matters of, um, whatever arcane football issue that I don't know anything about. But, I do know lots about beautiful things, and this show -- for however long or short its run may be -- looks to be a beautiful thing.
We open at dawn, the camera -- which we may as well agree to discuss as if it were a character on this show, because it has about as much to say about the story as anyone -- rolls through a town full of electricity towers, telephone wires, the visual white noise of modern day sprawl. A spare and processed guitar strums in regular rhythm, the word "Monday" floats on the screen, and a radio announcer's voice fades in, wishing its audience good morning and reminding them all that Monday morning just means "four days until Friday night." The camera keeps moving; the eponymous "lights" glow in the grey dawn light, a man climbs the enormous light pole, we cut to the football field, an empty stadium looms around Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) -- who we find out, as a female caller exposits to the radio host, is "new," under a lot of pressure to win, and being followed around by news crews everywhere he goes. Taylor gazes downfield at a news van as the female caller asks, "Who does he think he is? Mack Brown? He's no Mack Brown!" An anonymous man stands high up on the bleachers, arms folded, looking down on Coach Taylor.
The camera continues driving through town, casts a passing glance at a shabby ranch with a sign out front declaring it the home of "Riggins / Running Back / #33." We cut inside to find Tim Riggins shirtless and sprawled on a shoddy black leather love seat in the now-golden morning light, coffee table laden with beer bottles in front of him. The radio host continues conversing with the woman (and with us), saying that Taylor has stepped onto the number one team in Texas, and suggesting to her that the news crew is there to remind Taylor how important his job is.
The camera keeps blowing through the worn-out town, shooting a quick backwards glance at a junky shotgun house with a cock-eyed sign (Saracen / #7 / Quarterback) out front. The sign is just one more collectible amidst the broken wrought-iron chairs and empty flower pots, poverty's estimation of the American dream. Inside the house, an older woman sits watching the Home Shopping Network. Saracen peers at her without her knowing; his expression is hard to read, he's totally impassive. He finishes rinsing out his glass of orange juice and tells her, "O.K., grandma, I made you two tuna fish sandwiches and put your medicine in the green gatorade." She sits in her velour pull-over robe -- the one with the ruching at the bust, the one your grandmother wore, too, unless you've been so unlucky as to not have had a grandmother who wore a velour pull-over robe with ruching at the bust -- and taps her foot (a foot wearing a sock inside a slip-on Isotoner or Payless slide) on the linoleum floor.
(You guys. I'm trying to reign it in here, but that foot, that grandmotherly foot, tapping on the linoleum floor. It's killing me.)
She tells him she only wants one tuna fish sandwich, he says she can eat just one, she wonders why he made two, he says he'll eat it after practice. At this reminder, she breaks into a smile and comes alive: "You'll be hungry. After that good ol' practice." He smiles back as he hears his ride honk for him outside. She holds out her arm, pointing at her grandson and says "You..." and then winks and smiles, "...I adore." He hugs her goodbye, his taut youth and mobility poised against her age and fleshy stillness, her pride and dependence. It's perfect. She's simultaneously vaguely threatening and totally endearing. She's a grandmother; she has nothing but love to give him, a teenaged kid who could probably use a variety of other things in a guardian.
Outside the house, Saracen pauses to straighten the tipsy sign and, on the soundtrack, a crystal guitar melody starts playing over the slate bass line. Inside an old wood-paneled station wagon, Saracen's buddy jokes: "You know, I was thinking about getting me one of those signs. It'll say 'Landry Clark: Utterly Useless. All State Jerk Team.'" Heh. I can think of some folks that belong on the All State Jerk Team, myself. Landry is a misfit-lookin' kid, that's for sure. Pale and ruddy, beady little eyes and mucklemouthed. Sticks out like a sore thumb among these thoroughbred Texans.
Saracen unfolds the sports section of the paper to reveal a headline asking "The Best Ever?" with a picture of Coach Taylor and his already-familiar stressed-out squint. The Dillon Panther Radio morning host continues blabbing in the background, going on about quarterback Jason Street's 72% pass completion rate and how that makes him the number one quarterback in the nation. Landry boils it down for us, asking Saracen, "You even gonna play this year?" He continues, telling Saracen that he can't keep driving him to practice like this, if there isn't even a hope of him playing that year. Saracen counters by reminding Landry that he's an insomniac and is up anyway. Landry: "Now, that was mean, Matt. That wasn't nice." These two have the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Cut back to Tim Riggins's house, where he's still sprawled on the couch, shirtless. And I just have to say it: the body on this kid. Jeez. I love a story about wasted potential, so I'm particularly looking forward to his storyline. His older brother walks in (also shirtless, rrawwr!) and claps his hands to get his kid brother up. Older Brother looks like he might have his own story of wasted potential, with a bad case of the facial beer puffs in the unforgiving morning light. He lectures his brother that "they'll kick you off the team" as Tim just sort of moans and turns his head into the couch. The coltish Tyra (played by my old friend Adrianne Palicki) walks in, wearing a flannel shirt and not much else, and gets on the couch on top of Tim. Older Brother snaps, "You ain't that good" and Tim snaps back: "Twice the player you ever was." Another story there as well. Older Brother isn't amused, "This is life, this isn't Maxim magazine." I take a moment to pause and consider what sort of Brueghel-esque nightmare world that would be. Tyra looks at him and purses her full lips: "What's that s'posed to mean?" She is perhaps not thinking about Brueghal at this moment.
Cut to an altogether different part of town. A large, but typically misproportioned, brick suburban home. Inside, a tiny blond woman speaks in the high pitch of a suburban lady who lunches, only probably in this town she's more like a lady who boosters. She tells her daughter not to go out with Jason Street tonight, and to be home for a family dinner. The daughter, brown hair pulled into a ponytail, bangs unfashionably curled, sprays canned frosting onto cupcakes (problem #247 in the way life in a town obsessed with football might impact young girls). She reminds her mom that she has "rally rehearsal" that night; her bratty younger brother calls from the breakfast table "Yeah, rehearsing how far she can get her tongue in Jason Street's mouth." Her father -- full-figured in the way of rich men used to steak lunches with clients are -- tells the kid to "nip it." And that's the first nuclear/traditional family we've seen so far.
Cut back to the football field, where Coach Taylor sits in a director's chair to Jason Street, getting interviewed for "NBC Sports." During the interview, we find out that Taylor's been coaching the Panthers for six years but has just been promoted to Head Coach. Taylor nods toward Street and tells the interviewer that "He's a good boy." The interview continues as Street exposits that Taylor has coached him since Pee Wee days, and when Coach Taylor talks about how fortunate he is to be able to be Head Coach during Street's senior year, he declares he feels fortunate because of Street's talent and "moral strength." Every time Taylor mentions Street's morality or strength of character, the camera cuts to Scott Porter who shows a deep trepidation in his face. It's like, if this were about his ability to throw a football, it'd be one thing, but it's clear it's about so much more, and that makes it all an entirely different story.
Meanwhile (and the music has cut out during the interview scene), up in the stands, a Notre Dame scout and Mr. and Mrs. Street discuss the future of the kid whose ability to throw a tight spiral is read by a whole town as a morality play about good and evil, values and principles. The Notre Dame scout tells the Streets that Jason is the best quarterback he's seen in twenty-seven years. Cut back to Taylor, who is speaking in perhaps more cautious tones than the Streets themselves, but who is also loading the poor kid up with more baggage than he could ever possibly carry: "We expect a lot out of him and he produces."
The sounds of photographs being snapped take us to the interview. A black kid named Smash talks big about Heismans and Pasadena. Cut between the interview and slow motion shots of him running the ball on the field. The interviewer tries to ask him about his father, who passed away a few years ago. The open-faced Smash closes down, narrows his eyes, and says he won't talk about it. The interviewer switches to the topic of racism on the team. Smash says he keeps his blinders on and keeps moving because he's got things to do.
Cut immediately to a close-up of Tim Riggins. He raises his head and tiredly claims that "That's not racism, man, I just don't like 'im." His voice is gravelly as he presents himself like he's clearly done a thousand times before, a rehearsal for a commercial that, odds are, won't ever be produced: "My name is Tim Riggins and I play fullback." When asked about his legendary aggression on the field, Riggins, still sort of hunched over in his chair, claims "I just like to hurt people." Cut to a shot of him taking someone down on the field.
Cut to Street, who looks like a peach pie in comparison to Riggins, saying all the right things about how well the team knows one another. Cut to an assistant coach telling Saracen to go paw around a trash can for a play sheet he accidentally threw in there. Okay, we get that Saracen is useless as long as Street is on the field...I don't think we need to see him being instructed to paw around in trash cans.
Back at the Riggins interview, his hair blows in the wind like sheaves of wheat. I break into that hymn about bringing in the sheaves. The interviewer asks if he smells alcohol on the kid's breath. Riggins denies it, totally unconvincingly, and then we cut to the field where Riggins, #33 fumbles a catch. His older brother, looking on, turns around in disgust. The assistant coach drags Riggins up by his shirt and screams at him. Riggins kneels in exhuastion, his hair soaked and stringy, and the camera switches focus between his kneeling figure and Coach Taylor, standing behind Riggins, looking on with a set mouth and serious sunglasses, totally masculine and in charge for the first time in the episode. A hard blues guitar and drum beat start up (the song is "Black Betty," an old Leadbelly song that's been covered a million times...this version is by...Ram Jam? I think?) and we get launched into a little mini-music video I like to call "The Hydra," and which I feel is pretty much impossible to recap because of its absolutely untranslatable energy and sheer fucking devil's horn awesomeness. It's like we started out cupping this beautiful and delicate flowerbud in our hands -- all crying over grandmothers and gorgeous indie rock -- and then that beautiful and delicate flowerbud suddenly ripened right before our eyes, and it ripened into a mothereffing flaming dragon roaring and being AWESOME all over our living room. Or something like that.
Taylor starts ripping shit up, gets the boys in a circle, and has them tackle Riggins one by one as he screams at him about understanding what's going to happen in five days. He screams and then says, with disgust, "Get up, Riggins" and then screams some more. Cut to Taylor in an interview, smoother and more in charge than he has been, like a veteran not a supplicant, and then to Street who assures the media that "we're a very good team," and then to Smash who says what's really in his heart, "Man, this is the best team. They've got me." Back to Taylor spitting on Riggins and telling the kids, "They're gonna attempt to do this to you in front of your mothers, in front of your fathers, in front of your brothers, in front of your sisters." Riggins is on the ground and Smash stands above him: "You're making us look weak." Cut to Riggins in interview: "I hate that guy." Smash: "If one person fumbles the ball, we all fumble the ball. If one person shows up to practice half-drunk, we all show up half-drunk." Taylor, quietly: "Twenty." Riggins goes down again. Smash: "We ain't got time for your games, Rig." Riggins goes down yet again and the camera jerks up to Taylor, standing calm and scary, arms crossed, "Get up, son. Get up." Guitar, guitar, credits, dun dun.
See? The Hydra, is what I call what that shit just was.
Okay. I just went in the restroom and recomposed myself as I had gotten a bit disheveled there for a moment.
The camera speeds past a fast food diner and then we cut inside. Hip hop plays in the background, and the camera wanders voyeuristically around the inside of the packed room. We sort of peer over some shoulders at Jason Street being interviewed yet some more. Lyla -- she of the cupcakes and brown ponytail -- is seemingly surgically attached to his side as Street just sort of boringly narrates what he is doing that very second: "Uh, this is pretty much where everybody eats. I come here, get, uh, the Aztec Burger, uh, every day," and so on. The interviewer teases him about that being his first professional endorsement, and Lyla says (her face literally shadowed by Street's shoulder in which she is nestled), "No, no way, no endorsements." Her accent is fucked. Smash, from a few booths away, calls out "I got some endorsements," and the camera swings back to show Street laughing and Tyra, a few booths behind him, tossing her hair and looking across at Smash. Smash goes on about how he's got Nike and Reebok, and how that's no conflict of interest the way "Smash does it." Yes, he talks about himself in the third person. We'll let it be for a moment. Tyra loves Smash and his smash mouth. Street shakes his head.
Cut a few tables over and all of a sudden we're, sonically at least, in a coffehouse in Silverlake in the '90s, Beck's "Debra" playing in the background. Why is the music three tables over so different? Maybe Smash creates a hip-hop forcefield around him so that everywhere he goes, he brings a little soul? Beck might be mad at me for implying he has no soul. Little man wants so badly to have soul. So Landry and Saracen are discussing whether to go talk to a girl. Turns out, the girl Landry wants to talk to is the coach's daughter, who is sitting at a table, gasp! reading, gasp! a book. They sort of loom over toward her and when she looks up and asks "Yes?" Landry just stutters, "I'm in your English class." Why are they acting like they've never seen each other before? Coach's daughter -- Julie -- is very cute (with blunt-cut bangs the likes of which I have coveted for years) in a "less-tarty version of Elisha Cuthbert" sort of way. Landry's plan isn't working very well as she replies to his suggestion that they sit together and talk about Moby-Dick by asking them if they are football players. Again, how big is this school? My high school had like 2000 kids in it, and I would've known which kids were on the football team and which weren't, and I was into poetry writing back then for god's sake. Saracen stutters, torn between talking about being on the football team (surely a form of currency in this town) and trying to assure her that he's really not that much on the football team. They don't fool her, and she basically just tells them to shoo.
Back on The Street Show, Lyla is still attempting to perform the world's first conjoined-twin attachment surgery as she tells the cameras that her little schmoopy handles the pressure so well. I cannot express to you how fucked Minka Kelly's accent is. Is she from Boston? Or like, Prague? Or is Marlee Matlin her speech coach? Wait, was that ruthless? I'm afraid it might have been. Remember when all I wanted to write about was the heartbreaking beauty of a grandmother's art-directed foot? Should I go back to that? Or do you prefer the deaf people jokes? ["I believe the pull quote on this page will declare my preference just fine." -- Joe R]
While Lyla continues to make me a bad person, I find that I have good company in Tyra, who is eavesdropping on Lyla's schmoopiness and echoing her quite cleverly, "Oh, really? How interesting. That is so interesting, really. I'd be hard pressed to remember anything in my entire damn life that's ever been so damn interesting." Beat. "Whore." Awesome. Tyra gets up and stalks over to Smash's table, all bare-bellied and low-cut topped. She scoots into his booth, asks for a bite of his burger, and he says "Baby you can get a bite of anything you want to." Tyra takes a big, hearty bite of that burger, and the whole thing is pretty sexy in a slutty joie de vivre
That was a gorgeously choreographed scene; Peter Berg really knows how to create depth of field in the frame. Peter? Call me and let's talk about depth of field.
In a dark office, Coach Taylor watches footage of the team the Dillon Panthers will play on Friday. His wife, Tami, comes in, big hoop earrings and fussily-grommeted leather handbag, and pauses to ask him how the other team looks. In a word, they're fast. She tells him that she's heard "a rumor" about her attendance at a certain car dealership opening. Taylor rubs his face and apologizes for forgetting to tell her. Tami says "Alaska, that's all I'm saying. A much more relaxed lifestyle." Sure, if by "relaxed" you mean "dead from your own suicidal depression over four hours of sunlight half the year."
Saracen throws footballs through a hanging car tire while Landry free-associates to him. Landry says he looks at the town like it's a smashed up guitar, a big crossword puzzle. "Satan's horns" is what he sees growing out of Street's mom when she's near the Notre Dame recruiter. "How about 33 down, 8 letters, for "state of bliss?" Saracen doesn't have much patience for this verbal play; Landry fills in his own blanks, "Try 'serenity,' a quality in short supply out here." Landry fetches a ball for his friend and, in handing it over, tells him that none of it matters because "I'm thinking of starting a Christian speed metal band. You in?" Saracen's grandmother's been watching all this from her porch in the background; she comes into focus and calls out "Matthew. You need to get a new friend." Landry, the ironically-named unknown quantity, the Christian punner, the insomniac optimist.
Our friend the sad, melancholy guitar starts back up in the background as Saracen chuckles with very little joy in his face.
It's possible that Saracen's joylessness comes from his having some foreknowledge of the scene that follows, which just makes me feel a bit of "ew" and a lot of "sigh." At least the melancholy music keeps playing in the background as a counterweight to all the treacle. Street drives Lyla home in his Jeep. They both hop out of the car, and Lyla starts a whole bunch of tucked-chin cute-speak, pretending to interview her boyfriend. A series of "Mr. Street, is it true that you can throw forty yards..." blah blah anti-feminism cakes, responding to his affirmative answers by affectedly saying, "Then you must kiss me." They keep this up, and sure, we get it, they have a sweet relationship, they're nice kids, not too smart or interesting, but hard working nice people and zzzzzzz.
Back across town in a modest ranch, the Taylor clan sits together in the family room, each doing his or her own thing. Tami is scanning real estate listings in an Alaska paper, Julie is reading Moby-Dick, Coach is, you guessed it, watching football tapes on the TV. Tami finds a house that sounds real nice, with "his and her closets." She keeps repeating "his and her closets" until her husband, leaned back in a white pleather recliner, asks her to "relent." Meanwhile Julie starts a little free association of her own (Julie! Call Landry!), declaring that Moby-Dick is the "perfect metaphor for this town." Slight misuse of the descriptive "metaphor," but I'll let it slide for the sake of whatever saintly teacher is having his or her students read Melville at sixteen. She goes on, saying that the cold, black sea is the football season's uncertainties; the magical white whale is the holy grail -- the state championship; the whalers are the team; Smash is Queequeg, the African warrior... Her father jumps in, asking if that makes him "Coach Ahab." She's psyched, "Absolutely! Coach, captain, hunter, hunted." You go, girl. If only kids really did read literature so imaginatively. From the kitchen Tami calls out, "His and her closets" while Coach asks his daughter if she's really his.
Tuesday, finally. More early morning AM radio takes us driving across town, more beautiful landscape splashed across the scene. Coach Taylor walks through the school parking lot in his bright blue windbreaker and stops to talk to an older African-American man who's leaning against a beat-up old sedan. Coach Taylor calls this man "Coach" and asks what he's found out about the Panthers' upcoming opponent. They run fast counters and have a tall front line. He advises Taylor to play his tallest kids as defensive ends to give the team some height. Taylor says he likes the idea. Parking Lot Coach tells him it doesn't matter what he "likes" -- it matters that he wins the game. Expectations are so high, and the team is so good, the only place to go is down. He calls it a "lonely place to be startin'" I like that phrase. As Taylor goes to leave, PLC tells him his family life is going to be rough this season. Taylor pauses and says "It ain't that bad -- it's only football." He grins mischievously, and PLC repeats back, "It's only football." Taylor: "[chuckle] It's only football." PLC: "[guffaw]It's only football." The morning sun glints off the camera lens as Taylor walks off.
Nighttime. The camera drives by a balloon-festooned car dealership as we ready for another tour de force extended scene. Inside, Mayor Lucy Rodell starts the night off with a few remarks. She's a tough, tiny woman in a glitzy suit with shellacked grey hair. Very Ann Richards (pourin' some out for my bitch right now). Under hundreds of blue and gold balloons and in front of an enormous "Panther Pride" banner, Lady Mayor welcomes them all and then offers a special welcome to Coach Taylor and the Dillon Panthers. They come up on stage, and Coach Taylor says the same words that a hundred coaches before him have probably said, about honor and duty, while the boys on stage look like deer in headlights, and the girls (Lyla, Julie, Tyra) in the audience look by turns enamored, pensive, and enragingly bored. He promises the crowd that the team is "fully prepared to represent this community this Friday night. And every Friday night. Until we bring home the state championship." Big cheers and applause; cut to Julie telling her mom, "Let's see where that love is if he loses a game."
African-American Sonic Forcefield is in effect as Smash takes the microphone to do a little school spirit rapping. The soundtrack provides beats that most assuredly are not present inside the car dealership, but anyway. Smash raps about how "Panthers gonna get diabolical. Hold up, hold up. Like Tom Cruise gets Scientological." Awesome. The crowd loves it, and Smash loves being the center of attention. The camera editorializes a bit by panning across to a super clean-cut white guy leaning in to whisper something to the guy to him. What about, nobody knows, but for the attentive viewer, it's a nice suggestion about some of the darker forces behind a group of whites cheering on the antics of a black person.
Julie and Tami stand together as two big-haired Texas ladies walk up to say "hi." All of the actresses just nail this interaction. Going back and forth about three times apiece, each woman says, in a deep drawl, "Ooooh, how are yooouuu?" "How are yooooou?" "Oh, now how arrre yoooouuu?" I love it. The ladies have come over to bully Tami into coming to their book club, no doubt because if Tami comes to their book club, they can brag to their other lady friends that the coach's wife came to their book club. Now what in the hell book do you think this book club is tackling this week? I'm thinking probably not Moby-Dick. As they leave, victorious over the initially hesitant Tami, one glances at Julie and declares her "the cutest thing I've ever seen." Julie plasters a smile across her face and flirtily shrugs her shoulder. As the ladies leave, she says through her teeth that it's going to be so awful, and her mother -- likewise with the fake smile on her face -- brightly asks her to "stop that."
Across the room, Tyra and Tim stand around making out. Coach Taylor comes up and pushes in between them, asking Tim "How 'bout a little space, huh?" Unsurprisingly, the minute he's gone, the two sex-crazed kids go back at it.
Inexplicably, the backing soundtrack switches from a standard radio-issue country song to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Gold Lion." On first viewing, I was sort of annoyed, because no way in hell would this song be playing at a car dealership opening. I mean, the band isn't obscure or anything, but still. The more I think about it, though, I think the show isn't really going for a veritas soundtrack, i.e., playing songs that would really be playing in the background of whatever scene, but instead as a way to further develop character or atmosphere. This song is totally frenetic and sort of claustrophobic sounding, so it works for this stressful and close-shot scene. For the few minutes, the frame never gives us more than about an inch or two of space around its main figures. It gets totally claustrophobic.
Mack Brown (cameo!) and a few other silver foxes walk up to Taylor, flashing Brite Smile up top, while wielding a shiv down low. Mack's all glowing pearly whites and "nice" words, but you know he's telling Coach, basically, to meet him out back of the Tastee Freez if he loses on Friday night.
Meanwhile, Street has been cornered by Lady Mayor, who literally has her arm pinned against a door frame as she leans in and gives the yesboy a few lessons in doublespeak. He answers her every remark on his superior skills with a "Yes, ma'am," but when she tells him he's nice and has nice manners and he replies "Why, thank you, ma'am" her face goes venomous, "Knock it off. You can't go into the game tomorrow night like that." Pow! But, wait, I thought it was Tuesday still? Whatever, no time for literal-mindedness here when we've got tough talking broads to contend with.
We start doing some quick cutting. Taylor's still getting knocked around by the silver fox boosters, who have all kinds of suggestions for Friday's game. Street's still cornered by Lady Mayor who instructs him to "carpet bomb 'em." Um, okay Lady Mayor. I'm not sure I want to think so much about you and any kind of carpet bombing. She's talking so quick Street can't even keep up, nice boy that he is. "You listen to early Black Sabbath?" "Black...Black Sabbath?" "It'll make ya' mean." Cut over to Tim Riggins who is also now unfortunately reaping the darker rewards of being such a damnable Adonis: the attentions of sexually-dissatisfied older ladies. A woman with one hell of a terrible librarian haircut wails, "I am so confused about what a blitz is. It sounds a little sexual."
Mack Brown keeps cutting Taylor up with his buzz-saw of a voice, letting him know that he's driven by the school a few times and been concerned to see the lights off. Then back to Tim getting propositioned: "You ever blitzed an older woman? You could you know."
Louie Louie synths up in the background as Tyra walks up to Street and wonders if being with Lyla is like drinking milk all day every day. She suggests that maybe he try a milkshake once in a while.
Back at the Mack Brown Piece Dye Company, the man will not let Taylor get a word in edgewise, asking him what he's going to do the night before the game, and then before Taylor can open his mouth, drawling and clanging "You don't know what yer gonna do, you never been head coach before, you don't know do ya?"
A photographer starts taking shots of Tyra and Street just as Lyla walks in. He asks Street if Tyra is his new girlfriend -- nice detail, in a world where the photographer for the local paper needs to know who the girlfriends of major football players are -- and Street manages to disentangle himself from Tyra and run up to Schmoopy to apologize. Here follows some more Schmoopy lip-pouting and chin-tucking nonsense from Lyla as Street fast-talks his way through an apology. As if he even needs to bother. Like she'd ever break up with him for anything short of a massive football career-ending injury. Ooops. Spoiler! Street does a terrible Bill Clinton impression, "Hilary, I did not have sexual relations with that woman," which is so quaint of a scandal for those Texans to still even remember.
Tyra approaches Smash, looking rather lost. She sweetly says hi and then tells him she's bored. He gives her a big smile and earnestly says he's on top of the world, picking diamonds from clouds. He asks if he can pick one for her. Now here is some buttercream frosting dialogue that works (unlike that between Street and Lyla), these two shining through their respective personas in order to make an unlikely connection. Riggins isn't too happy, though, as he hulks up (hopefully after going to the bathroom and scrubbing the creepy-old-lady residue off) and tells Smash to get away from Tyra. She asks them to stop, but they keep at it, Smash asking Rig to "bring it," Riggins telling Smash he's just a mouth.
The Kingsmen amps up in the background as we cut back to Mack Brown buzz-sawing his way through Coach Taylor's dreams. The shots are incredibly tightly framed, as Brown asks Taylor if he can bring championships home, and Taylor just sort of grimaces and furrows in reaction. Just as you want to run screaming away from the television, so trapped do you feel, The Kingsmen wail "Let's go!" and we cut to black.
Commercials. That scene was exhausting.
Wednesday. Explosions in the Sky. Melancholy. Pensive. This scene is clearly filmed in winter time -- grey light, leafless trees -- but we will forgive. Slow motion shots of cheerleaders cheering and little kids suited up on the football field. I haven't really had any firsthand experience with little kids in shoulder pads and helmets, but something about it just automatically makes me want to cry. Proud parents look on as the little boys play with the older boys, little girls play with older girls. It takes twenty seven-year-olds to tackle one eighteen-year-old. The melody propels in the background, and everyone lines up for a "team" photo, one irrepressible kid getting up and doing muscle man arms with a grin that could crack worlds on his face. Beautiful.
In the locker room, Street stands in front of a play-diagrammed chalkboard and tells the boys that if they learn these plays now they'll be ready to play for the Panthers when they get old enough. The kids are on the floor, looking up with those little craned necks. One boy tells Street that he should play professional football. Street, himself a man-in-training, responds correctly (as always) that he'll go through school first, "son." That "son" gets me; it's too old a word for Street. It makes you feel for the high school kids; they aren't kids anymore but they aren't adults either. Street, his face literally glowing with all-Americanness, says "Let's pray," and then kneels to do so. The boys clasp hands, but not before yet one more Tiny Tim moment, as one of them asks, "Mr. Street? Do you think God loves football?" Street says he thinks everybody does, and they all launch into the Lord's Prayer. Off-putting or not, the prayer-in-school-sports seems like verity here, and certainly not an aspect of contemporary life that gets all that much representation on TV. In any case, the scene is all about continuity, about how traditions get passed on -- often unthinkingly -- from one generation to the . Football is to godliness. The desperate hope for conversion happens just as readily on Friday nights as it does on Sunday mornings.
Thursday. Coach Taylor stands outside a two-story brick house, a definite upgrade from the ranch they're currently in, with the nasty Blitz Lady from Tuesday night. He says Tami will love it. She asks if he's going to make an offer. He says he has to wait to see what happens on Friday night. Jesus, talk about having a lot on the line.
Nighttime, Coach Taylor drives home listening to disheartening commentary on the radio, complaining that he'll probably rely too much on Street on Friday, that he passes too much ("This ain't the West coast, this is Texas football!"), and that he under utilizes Smash Williams as running back. He furrows and frowns.
A ticking clock takes us across town to where the kids are hanging out, having a bonfire. Street and Lyla recline together as Tim Riggins holds a little bit of sad court. The topic they discuss is a little depresso -- how Tim just wants to stay in town, waiting for Street to get done playing college and then pro, getting a ranch ready for business so when Street comes back they can run the ranch together. Street is all big smiles back at Tim, and he is sincere, but you can tell he already has all kinds of expectations for his life that Tim Riggins doesn't have, so he's just humoring Riggins's modest little dream. But the kids at least seem relaxed here. A little beer goes a long way. It does not, however, go quite far enough to make one forget the slight cringe one feels when Tim caps his little Street 'n' Rig Sittin' In a Tree fantasy with the declaration that "Here's to God, and football, and 10 years from now, Street, good friends livin' large in Texas. Texas forever. Yo everybody, listen up. Let's do it! Let's touch God this time boys, let's touch God." Okay, there's only so much sincerity and grandiosity one recapper can take, and that line just about sent me over the edge.
Friday. GOOSEBUMPS! The camera drives through town, all the stores are closed for game day. Sunset. The lights flash on the field. Shots of the uninspiring streetscapes of Dillon. Locker room. Saracen sits dejectedly in his blue hoodie. Crowds and cheerleaders file into the stadium (and it is a serious stadium; big money here). Tim Riggins sits hunched over, his legs bouncing up and down in either nervousness or bloodlust. The soundtrack builds, Smash tapes his wrists, Street stands tall and handsome, shots of more shaking feet. The radio hosts tell everyone to "sit down and shut up, cuz it is game time people, woo!"
Cut the soundtrack. Coach Taylor stands in front of his team and addresses them in a quiet and preacherly tone. He's prepared tonight's locker room sermon on the theme of "expectations." He tells the kids that he doesn't "expect" to win, because he knows they will. He tells them that he expects them to not take the game lightly, he expects them to play football. Pause. And then quickly, "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose." The boys screw their faces up into contortions and respond to his call, "CAN'T LOSE!" and then file out of the locker room, touching the "P" decal on the cinder block wall for good luck. All these talismans.
Coach Taylor pulls Street aside and tells him that he has earned this win tonight. Street turns it around and tells Taylor that he has earned it too. You can see in Taylor's eyes, though, that he knows it isn't quite as simple an equation as "hard work + talent = success," that he knows there are all sorts of horrible and random things in the universe that muck everything up.
Quick cut to play on the field, which is already underway. I will here remind you all of my earlier disclaimer about not knowing too much, technically, about football. I'll probably make a few mistakes here. If you feel the need to email me about how it was a zone blitz instead of a safety blitz, I may feel the need to tell you to cram it. Okay. So Smash gets the ball, presumably off the kick, and carries it to the forty yard line. Huddle. Lots of words. "Huh!" The cheerleaders kick their legs. It looks great. I love it when human beings get into lines and do the same movement. Thus, I inherently love how cheerleading looks. ["Yeah, you know who else stood in straight lines and did the same movements? The Nazis. Drunken Bee is a Nazi!" -- Joe R] Coach Taylor looks SMOKING HOT in his headphones.
Street hands off to Smash, who runs it a little ways. Then a handoff to Riggins, who does the same. Taylor calls a "Barracuda 550." HE LOOKS SO GOOD. First and ten at the thirty five, and Street passes for a touchdown. And! The! Crowd! Goes! Wild!
Westerbury, though, counters with its counters -- which I can explain, thanks to the forum, is basically when a running back takes the ball, pretends to go in one direction to draw the defense toward one side, but then runs the other direction where there is now no defensive coverage thanks to the drawing everyone onto the other side of the field -- and runs quickly to a touchdown as well. Gorgeous shot of the Westerbury Chaps celebrating in slow motion, and enormous red and blue flags spelling out "C-H-A-P-S" being run down the length of their stands.
Second quarter. Tim Riggins kicks somebody's ass on a block, and Smash runs the ball downfield. play, Street completes for another touchdown, this one quite dramatic with diving and total devil's horn guitar licks wailing in the background. This is some good photography of this game, I have to say.
The Chaps coach is pissed and yell-y and heart-attack-y. Westerbury counters with a pass for a touchdown. The announcers voice-over that "Coach Taylor has got to do something to get his defense into the game" as we pan in on Coach "Is It Getting a Little WARM In Here, Or Is It Just Me" Taylor and his luscious head of hair doing some -- guess what? -- furrowing. Awkward fade to commercials.
Half-time. In the locker room, the (I think) defensive coordinator screams at the kids, telling them to get their heads out of their butts. The trainer seals up some nasty-looking nail scratches raked down Tim Riggins's neck. Even-more-frenetic-than-usual camerawork. Meanwhile, another coach is picking Street's brain about what he's seeing out there, and Street is spewing out all kinds of complicated jibberish about how, exactly, he is getting killed out there. Outside, the marching bands toot and march like there isn't a mothereffing BATTLE going on. Back inside the locker room, Saracen sort of lurks behind Street, looking daunted by how much information Street has to be able to keep in his mind, in addition to his, you know, superhuman athleticism.
Taylor is totally tuned in to Street, who is just rattling shit off: "We can fade if I can get some time, but they gotta beat that jam off the line. Plus I'm gettin' blitzed like crazy off the weak side." I don't know exactly how they are doing it, or even who exactly is doing it, but I'm finding it crazy that this show is making me totally RESPECT football from an intellectual point of view. The brute defensive coordinator is still screaming at his guys and yells back at Taylor, "We have not been communicating. We are gonna communicate now." The boys respond, "Yes, sir!" and we cut back out to the field.
Not a good start, as Smash gets stopped pretty much at the line of scrimmage (I have to pause here to tell you that I believe I might know a little more football than I thought I did, cause this "line of scimmage" shit is rolling out my fingers onto the computer screen). On the sidelines, Taylor is a cool cucumber: "That didn't work." In the huddle, Street tries to psych his team up, but even the passing game isn't working. Quick cuts between Taylor muttering "Jesus, they're fast" to Lyla pouting on the sidelines along with the other cheerleaders, back to Street begging the boys to "Run your routes, have faith in your routes. You will catch the ball. It will be there." More incomplete passes. More nasty tackles. More booing. Taylor really loses it and tells the ref, "That was horse crud!" Aw. Horse crud.
Okay, so if you've ever watched a sports movie, you know that when things go bad, they usually then go even a little worse, so if you're watching this game, you start to get a little understandably tense. And for all the accusations that the story arc of this episode was predictable, I have to say this is some masterful building up of tension and expectation and fear. The Chaps stands are rollicking and joyful; Westerbury takes the ball to the one yard line, and then on the play they run it over the top into the endzone. 24-14, Westerbury ahead.
Crazy fisheye cam starts with a few off-kilter shots of the Panther cheerleaders and fans, giving you just enough to start feeling visually disoriented. The Panthers make some progress down the field, a tiny bit, and there's a slight boost in atmosphere. Oh no. This can only be bad. Third and five, Street has given his team a talking-to, and they're poised to take the ball somewhere. Snap, pass downfield....interception! Chaps #20 runs it back toward Street, the announcer exposits for us that Street'll be the only one back there able to stop him. Establishing shot of Street, looking slim like a quarterback, not like somebody built to tackle, tries to position himself to block, quick cuts back and forth between #20 and Street when....BAM!...Street puts his head down and blocks the kid, they both go flying in the air and Street lands on the ground with a thud. #20 fumbles and the Panthers recover it, but still. Not. Good.
Street's mother puts her hand to her mouth. Taylor sort of stalks toward the action, the announcers state the obvious, that it was a gigantic hit on Street. He's not getting up. The crowd starts going silent, slowly at first. At least one Panther player kneels as the trainer rushes out to Street. The crowd has now gone totally silent. The trainer calls for the doctor, up in the stands, as Street's parents rush to the field. The announcers rush to blather some tremendously useless blather to try to let some of the pressure out of the situation. Lyla pleads to no one in particular, "Why isn't he getting up?" On the field, the doctor quietly asks Street if he can hear him. Street, on his back, looks through his helmet and says yes. He's terrified.
Mrs. Street makes her way onto the field, takes one look at her son, and starts wailing, "Jason, get up! Please!" An ambulance siren sounds, the entire crowd of thousands looks on, hands clasped, mouths gaping, holding their arms up, index and middle finger crossed in a pagan prayer for healing. The EMTs get there, the doctor says he thinks its a spinal injury. The EMT asks Street to squeeze his hand, which he can, and wiggle his feet, which he can. They lift him onto a backboard. Taylor looks down in total despondency. As the EMTs work, yet another completely heartbreaking detail: Jason Street says, forcefully, "Thank you." Thank you for not breaking my spine any more than it already is? Thank you for putting such expectations on me so that I would risk anything to block someone from carrying a ball from one place to another? Thank you. For what? Polite to his grave.
Everyone on the field now is on their knees. As Street gets put into the ambulance, a weak applause ripples through the crowd. The Panthers look irreparable. Fade to commercial.
The announcers exposit that the game has to go on, and as Taylor calls for Saracen, they wonder if he's even taken a snap during practice. They call attention to the stunned look on his face as he nervously straps his helmet on. The rest of the team does the same and the ref asks for the team captain. Taylor yells out "Captain!" and then realizing that Saracen doesn't know a lick, clarifies, "Saracen. Quarterback's captain." The team kind of cheers for him, and a bunch of arms reach out and tap him on the helmet for good luck. He and the other two captains walk out to midfield, hand in hand.
In the captain's huddle, the ref speaks paternally, reminding them to play hard and fair, instructing them to tell their players to keep their heads up. He wishes them luck, the captains all embrace and wish one another good luck, and we get a shot of Saracen from behind someone else's shoulder, and his face is pure "WTF? No, really, WTF?!"
The teams get into huddles, jumping up and down to get psyched up. Then we cut to the hospital where a team of nurses matter-of-factly untie Street's shoes, like they've done this a million times before. On the field, Saracen tries to call a play in the huddle, but calls it wrong. Smash steps in to remind him. He calls it, his voice shakey. Break! In the hospital, the nurses unscrew Street's helmet. On the field, Saracen takes the snap, turns to hand the ball off to the right, when the runner has gone left, and gets sacked. In the hospital, the nurses saw Street's helmet off with a bone saw, as Lyla leans against the wall, listening and crying. On the field, Saracen takes another snap and throws the ball. Too low, it bounces off the helmet of one of his own guys. The crowd cringes. In the hospital, Street gets rolled carefully by the impassive nurses so that he's on his stomach. On the field Taylor calls Saracen over and tells him to "breathe, slow down." In the hospital, Street's breathing is traced by beeping monitors, possibly slowed down forever, as the surgeon cuts into his spine. On the field, Taylor reminds Saracen that all he needs to do is "read the coverage." When Saracen clearly doesn't know what he means, Taylor clarifies, "Just look. And then throw the ball to our guys." In the hospital, more incisions. On the field, Taylor: "Do your best." In the hospital, a full-on drill into the spine. On the field, Saracen takes a snap and tosses it to Smash, who gains some yards. The crowd takes a collective breath and flashes a collective smile; it's so happy to have something to take its mind off what it's just seen. Snap to Smash, who runs it into the endzone with a spectacular leap. In the stands, Tyra lets out an animalistic scream of joy and release.
Less than a minute to go, so the Panthers go for an onside kick. There's a scramble and it's unclear for a moment who's recovered it, but I think you can probably guess who has. Insanity in the stands. Taylor calls the play to Saracen and then grabs him, "Son! We got a chance to win this game." Snap. Saracen fakes a pass and hands the ball off. The ball is run a good bit downfield, and the carrier gets out of bounds to stop the clock. Very little time left. Saracen is a mess, everybody is offsides, Taylor's screaming plays out to the field, the soundtrack swells big time, and after the snap, the camera goes slo-mo as Saracen stumbles and then runs into the backfield -- like majorly, unrealistically into the backfield -- to get away from two defenders before launching the pass -- a perfect spiral -- from, like, his own thirty yard line, complete to Smash at the Chaps' thirty yard line, who runs it in and PANTHERS WIN!!! Okay, so probably not the most realistic or most unexpected play in the entire world, but when we cut to both Taylor and the Panther stands just gaping in awe at Saracen's gorgeous pass, it's enough to experience that sublimity by proxy. Or it's enough for someone who cares more about artfulness than truthfulness.
Some honestly-felt celebration in the endzone and in the stands. Coach Taylor walks toward his jubilant team, but casts a -- what's that you say? oh, yes! -- furrowed glance at his wife in the stand. Quickly enough, the celebration tones down as both teams gather in the center of the field to kneel and listen to Smash's prayer for Street. "We know that you work in mysterious ways, and we just want to send our spirit, and our love, just to heal him in whatever way you see fit." As far as prayers go, a nice one. Not cajoling or begging, but just asking. Acknowledging weakness, asking for help. The camera roams around the stadium, the same people who had held up their crossed fingers before, now with heads bowed in Christian prayer, and I can't help but think that all of these rituals -- the game itself, the kneeling, the finger crossing, the bowing, the clapping, the cheering -- are just among the innumerable ways that human beings come together to wish something was different than what it is.
Coach Taylor voice-overs his own prayer, a prayer about the fragility of life and the vulnerability of humans, as we cut from an aerial shot of the crowd at the center of the football field, to the crowd of people gathering at the hospital. Taylor: "We will all, at some point in our lives, fall. We will all fall." Taylor makes his way to Street and continues voice-overing: "We must keep this in our hearts. That what we have is special. That it can be taken from us. And when it is taken from us, we will be tested." Taylor comes around the corner to see Street, still under anesthetic, in a hospital bed, wearing a halo and chest cast. The soundtrack is set to "insta-cry" and he continues, "We will be tested to our very souls." In the hallway, Julie awkwardly approaches the popular Lyla, who looks just so slight in her little cheerleading uniform. The whole team is gathered in the lobby. Coach Taylor slow-motion walks into Street's room and hugs Street's despondent father. Outside, Julie walks in close to Lyla and offers her shoulder, upon which Lyla collapses in silent sobs. In the lobby, Tim and Smash clasp hands, and then, back in the inner sanctum, Taylor approaches Street's bed and slips his hand into the boy's. Meanwhile, Drunken Bee is sobbing, even though she has already seen this damn scene. We end on Taylor's face, inscrutable, gazing on his best hope, his best thing, the thing he never should have put so much upon.
You guys. Our souls! We will be tested to our souls! How can you not watch the rest of this season?