Friday Night Lights - General Discussion

[Danny Franks]

My dh and I just started watching FNL in May. Tonight we watched The Son. That was at least a 25 tissue show. I am blown away by the acting. It was so believable and felt so genuine. Goodness, I am a mess. We love this show so much.

 

Oh man, that scene at the Taylors' dinner table is so tough to watch. Intimate, uncomfortable, raw. It's a great combination of these powerful emotions and the mundane reality of a boring old chicken dinner. No one knows what to do, and there's nothing they can say to make it better.

 

Matt and the drunken Kings of Bad Ideas (otherwise known as Tim and Billy Riggins) deciding that Matt should really see his dad's body. Tim having his moment of introspection, only to be pounced on by Becky (who I did like, because I felt she was understandable). Matt telling that funny, not funny little story in his eulogy, as a way of avoiding saying any of the mean things he'd planned to say.

 

I will say, I'm not a fan of Matt filling in the grave at the end. It felt like too much. Something that was just a bit heavy handed, after the graceful way they'd handled the idea of losing someone you loved but hated, through the rest of the episode. I wish they'd toned that down, and just had Matt watch the gravediggers as they worked.

[Guest]

Well, it is the Unpopular Opinions/Criticisms thread.  I'll bow out and let the 'positive comments only' preference prevail.  

[scowl]

Back to the unpopular business... I watched that second episode last night and man the shaky cameras, extreme closeups, and cutcutcutcutcutting still drives me nuts. The series about a town where things don't happen very often and the energetic editing doesn't fit that. Generally you want fast cuts in scenes of tension and action. Doing it in every single scene, even quiet scenes, makes that technique pointless.

 

I'm sure lots of viewers quickly decided that this was just too jarring to watch and gave up on the show.

[swtrgrl]

I ugly cried at Smash getting in to A&M. UGLY cried.

 

Jason to Tim S1:

Point is this Timmy, while I’m in here dealing with all this, by myself, and my best friend is out there putting a four barrel carb in his damn truck. Is that what’s important right now? Answer me this Timmy, what happened to Texas forever? Huh? What happened to living large? What happened to that eternal bond that you used to love to throw around when I was still healthy and headed towards the NFL? Huh? I need you here Tim! I need you here. I expect---I expect you here. You are my best friend. Grace period's over.

Indeed, Street. Indeed. 

 

I think that throughout all his seasons, Gilford just nailed his portrayal of Matt. He was so understated in his choices and it was just real. His fake eulogy of his dad to the guys on the field the night before the funeral was just spine tinglingly (I swear that's a real word) good. His "breakdown" at The Taylor's later was some of the best acting I've seen, ever. Gilford understands who Matt is and what his struggles are. 

 

I just put all my hate on him so I don't have to hate anyone else so I can be a good person, you know to my Grandma, to my friends, to your daughter. That's all I want to say ... I'm sorry, Mrs. Taylor. I'll see y'all tomorrow.

[swtrgrl]

Tami Taylor is my spirit animal. If a fictional person can be a spirit animal.

I want this on a tshirt or a plaque. 

Edited June 19, 2015 by swtrgrl

[swtrgrl]

Their relationship is real. They argue and fight and have real problems. They just work through them however they can. Love wins in the end. I love them. Relationship goals!

[Indy]

Tami Taylor is my spirit animal. If a fictional person can be a spirit animal. 

 

When I grow up, I want to be Tami Taylor.  

 

When we looked at our house for the first time, I got to proclaim "his and hers closets!!" to my husband, using my best Tami Taylor inflection.  He didn't understand the reference, but I amused myself so that's all that matters.  

[scowl]

I'm rewatching the first season. The vandalism of rivalry week reminded me of the "vandalism" that happened back in the 70's at my school. We had a road game against our rival. Someone rented a plane, flew over the enemy school, and dropped hundreds of "Surrender!" notes. Dropping garbage out of a plane must have violated several laws and FAA regulations, but as far as I know the only thing they had to do was spend a couple of hours picking up all the paper. 

 

Why was the punishment so light, you ask? Because it was high school football, you fool! It supersedes all laws and all common sense.

[scowl]

I love how they both talk at the same time yet never miss a word the other one says.

[MyFavShows]

Recently discovered this amazing show - I've binged watched it from the pilot to the series finale over the past month. My overall comments on the characters are:

LOVE tami, coach, buddy, lyla, Jason, trya, Tim, Landry, Matt, grandma serecen and Smash. Herc from season 1-3 was great too - any scene with him was amazing in ways that made you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

HATE Julie. She was most spoiled selfish entitled brat character of all and I really wanted to fast forward anytime she hit the screen (but unfortunately she was usually always in scenes w/ people I liked so I had to watch her). She didn't deserve her parents, Matt, and even Tyra as a friend - she was so spoiled and selfish. Ugh - I hate how the wonderful character of Matt ended up w/ her, he deserved such a better ending than that :(. Billy Riggins was another one I couldn't stomach - he was selfish and stupid, and the epitome of a "loser" if there ever was one. Mindy could have done better and I would have preferred an ending where Tim was at least 1500 miles away from him.

I liked the idea of the characters of Vince and Becky, but the acting skills of the two actors who played them were so substandard compared to the rest of the cast that they were hard to watch. Especially any scenes w/ Becky and Tim together - it's like a Nickelodeon kid doing a scene w/ Al Pacino the difference between those two's acting level is so extreme. They needed a much better actress to play her - she did not fit in. Vince's acting wasn't as bad as Becky's, but it was still inferior to the rest of the cast and it made me unable to grasp/feel the emotion in a lot of his key scenes.

Jess, Luke, JD and his parents were good supporting characters at the end - JD's dad's character was pure evil incarnate, and he played it to a tee. Mindy played her role well too.

This was such a good show that I can't believe I missed it entirely when it was on live, but I'm glad I got the opportunity to finally see it. It made me cry more times than I can count, especially in seasons 1-3. I think the actor who played Tim Riggins is an amazing talent, and his character was the lifeblood of the show. Jason, Tyra (who I liked better as a blonde) and Buddy were my other favorites.

I was also glad to see the Taylor's give the panthers/west Dillon the bird at the end and leave - after how they treated both of them in the previous seasons I would have hated for the coach to go back there. Also, did I miss something, or did they never really explain what happened to JD, his dad and his coach? Why were they not even in the running for those positions? I know the parents got divorced, but did they leave town or something and I just missed that info?

One little thing I found slightly off in the whole series was all of the public underage drinking that went on - is the drinking age only 18 or something in Texas? There was a scene at the end w/ Julie, Matt, Tim and Tyra drinking beers at a table in a restaurant like it was nothing? I can see a store selling to go cases/six packs to a kid or two w/ a fake ID, but well known 18 year olds drinking beers at a table in public view a restaurant? Does that type of thing really happen in Texas?

[scowl]

I managed to get a cold so I'm watching them all on Netflix. I'm up to season three. I forgot that the writer's strike eliminated the end of season two just when it was starting to recover from the awful Dawson's Creek plots and got back to...what's the show about? Oh yeah, football.

 

Gracie was an ugly baby.

[DianeDobbler]

I've been watching FNL for the first time, and I think it's a fallacy that improvisation produces better acting, more raw, or more real moments. It produces more improvised moments that may or may not be better quality, depending. Scripted and blocked doesn't = stilted. Lots of times fantastic blocking, even in cinema, assists the actor the same way any foundation or structure facilitates freedom. I believe on Friday Night Lights the camera style gave it a documentary feel and that immediacy, but I believe creative blocking, or even a more conventional way of shooting wouldn't have inhibited the acting. The acting from the cast ran the same spectrum of excellent to mediocre as any other show. Since actors are actually pretending, an improvisational style can sometimes get in the way because they have more to think about when the blocking is up to them. I've seen that happen.

 

Unpopular opinions or reactions of mine that surprised me: I've always been "she's okay" with Connie Britton while semi-worshipping Kyle Chandler despite not having seen FNL before. Now, watching FNL, I'm not loving coach the way I thought I would, and I love love love Tami.

 

Mika Kelly is terrible. Upthread someone says that the camera work may prevent them from continuing with FNL. The realization that Lyla is going to stay on the show as a major character could be my bête noir with FNL. In the early going I wanted to scream in every scene she shared with Street, and when Higgins was taking Street AWOL and they ran into Lyla and invited her along, I wanted to scream some more. Damn it!

 

Another - watching this show is sort of solving the - OH, these are the actors whose names I know from gossip sites and stuff but have no idea what they've ever done. Taylor Kitsch in particular. You know with Taylor Kitsch, when I was watching Higgins I had no idea whatsoever Higgins was supposed to be hot instead of some missing link type guy. On second look I'm, okay, he's got symmetrical features and a jawline and cheekbones - but something stopped me from noticing any of that until I realized his name as one of the up and coming heartthrob guys of the past five years.  To me he's flat faced with teeny eyes.

 

I think the style of FNL can mask the fact that some of the story ideas are pretty conventional. But it does have nice, naturalistic dialogue. Some early stuff, though, can be seen coming up the road miles away, like the type of guy Street's rehab roomie was, and exactly the sort of role that guy would play in his rehab, and the sorts of scenes between them. The scene where he "provokes" him into using his hands and says "I knew you had fight in you." could have been scripted by a grade schooler.

[scowl]

I've been watching FNL for the first time, and I think it's a fallacy that improvisation produces better acting, more raw, or more real moments. It produces more improvised moments that may or may not be better quality, depending. Scripted and blocked doesn't = stilted. Lots of times fantastic blocking, even in cinema, assists the actor the same way any foundation or structure facilitates freedom. I believe on Friday Night Lights the camera style gave it a documentary feel and that immediacy, but I believe creative blocking, or even a more conventional way of shooting wouldn't have inhibited the acting.

 

FNL didn't have much improvisation. Every scene was scripted and blocked although it wasn't always clear to the actors where every camera was.

 

What made FNL production unique was the use of three and sometimes four cameras and they did most scenes in a single take instead of shooting coverage from multiple takes. This allowed the actors to speak natural overlapping dialog which would have been impossible to edit together from multiple takes. When you're acting, normally you always have to worry about how the scene will be edited together. If you don't put neutral pauses in between the lines for easy cuts, someone is going to be pissed. The FNL actors didn't have to worry about this.

 

 There are some scenes edited from multiple takes, especially in the last season. They seemed like different actors.

[DianeDobbler]

Thanks, that makes sense. Honestly, the acting in FNL doesn't strike me as extraordinary. There are some obviously outstanding efforts - Zach Gilford in The Son, most obviously from what I've seen (I've jumped ahead). I think Connie Britton is a great match with her character. I'm not as taken with Kyle Chandler as I anticipated, and some of the older character actors whose names I'm not familiar with do great work. I really think the direction and the camera work set the tone because IMO there are a whole bunch of weak links, acting-wise, and even some of the story concepts are trite, but the execution is sophisticated and visceral, the stories are told confidently and don't appear actor-dependent. IMO the camera work helps the scenes flow more than it helps the actors flow (although the number of cuts are dizzying). And the cuts help protect the actors IMO.

[scowl]

I thought the ordinary acting was what made the show. They really seemed like average teens in a small town. It's tempting for actors to try to make their character stand out in some way, but these actors remained true to their dull characters even when handed sub-par material (most of season 2). This could be the result of strong direction since it was very consistent all through the series.

 

I still think the hyperactive cutting probably turned viewers away from the series more than anything else. I can't watch more than ten minutes before I have to rest my eyes.

[Prairie Fire]

He's back! Sort of.

 

[Syme]

Coach gets a new job!

 

<https://tvline.com/2015/07/31/kyle-chandler-friday-night-lights-alamo-drafthouse-video/>

 

Kyle Chandler has brought back Coach Taylor for Alamo Drafthouse’s new no-talking-during-the-movie PSA that includes the phrase, “Clear eyes, full hearts… turn your g-ddamn cell phones off!”

 

In the “inspirational message” — the type of which airs before feature films at the Austin, Texas-based chain’s movie theaters — Coach delivers one of his signature team pep talks only to be interrupted by members of the audience chatting and mobile phones ringing.

The spot ends with a warning for those who dare to ruin one of Coach Taylor’s speeches.

[JackDee]

Julie Taylor, season 2, is a 15-hour ad for why teens need to be spanked, and I don't even support that. 99 percent bratty with little rays of sunlight 1 percent of the time. She is a beautiful girl, but how the Taylors raised such a moody, spoiled daughter is a mystery to me.

[JackDee]

The marriage scenes they show are great, but how did season 2 Julie happen?

[JackDee]

I thought the Mac racism thing was handled bravely. Everybody expects certain outcomes on TV shows and FNL defied those expectations. The two cliches would have been either 1) Mac is a purely evil and stupid villain who is fired and is last seen losing his house or being sued and we are supposed to gloat at his defeat, or 2) Mac realizes how wrong he was, and converts 180 degrees, in the process winning forgiveness.

Reality in these areas is more complicated and is often more about perspective than a clear, irrefutable reality. Mac integrated the team (per dialogue), defended Smash from the police, and made some stereotypical comments. Do the comments outweigh the actions? Maybe, maybe not ... It is a matter of opinion, and people rarely do 180s on major topics at Mac's age.

[JackDee]

I would like to see the alternate reality version of the show with Street never getting hurt, starring at QB, then he and Lyla going on to success together. Not saying that would be a better show, but it makes me happy to imagine it.

I don't understand why the show went from 25% football, 75% relationships in season one, to 2% football, 38% relationships, 10% preaching, 20% murder (?!?!?) and 30% irrational teen shrieking in season two ... How did it get so far off the rails?

[JackDee]

The way I took it was that Jason was searching for his identity. Dating Lyla made him feel he had to be the quarterback she loved. Maybe quad rugby was a way of trying to duplicate his football persona. When that didn't work out, he was torn between building a new identity, and Lyla, and in the end, he had to build a new identity.

I also think what Buddy told him about Lyla affected him, even if he and Herc ridiculed it.

[Price17]

Signed up specifically to post this unpopular opinion. Or maybe it isn't? Let's find out.

 

Lyla Garrity was my favourite character on the show, no lie. I figured she would cheat on Street when he was injured, but I wanted their relationship to work. When Jason proposed, I thought maybe there was s slim chance, but alas, it was not to be. 

 

I was also hoping she'd get a role in the series finale, but again was left disappointed. 

 

Lyla FTW!

 

Also wanted the relationship between Tim and his older neighbor to work out. 

Edited September 11, 2015 by Price17

[Athena]

Signed up specifically to post this unpopular opinion. Or maybe it isn't? Let's find out.

 

Lyla Garrity was my favourite character on the show, no lie. I figured she would cheat on Street when he was injured, but I wanted their relationship to work. When Jason proposed, I thought maybe there was s slim chance, but alas, it was not to be. 

 

I was also hoping she'd get a role in the series finale, but again was left disappointed.

 

Welcome! I grew to like Lyla too so you aren't completely alone. I also wish she had showed up in the finale even for a short visit mostly because I did like Lyla/Tim.

[hendersonrocks]

60 Minutes Sports (on Showtime) did a story in the last week about the original Friday Night Lights - interviews with two of the main players (Boobie and Chavez) and Buzz Bissinger, and a visit back to Odessa. I can't find a clip online to share, but it's worth watching if you can find it.

 

In my la-la land, I'm still going keep believing that all of the fictional FNL'ers have a happy ending. 

[Mama No Life]

I liked Lyla except during her Jesus freak phase.

 

Mostly I loved how much Riggins loved her. I wish she had returned.

[Mama No Life]

Don't know if it's unpopular, but I hated Epyck and I hated Julie's affair with her TA.

[Indy]

Don't know if it's unpopular, but I hated Epyck and I hated Julie's affair with her TA.

I completely agree with you, so it's not 100% unpopular :)  Both story lines were annoying at best.  But then again I rarely liked Julie so anything she did bugged me.  

[Artsda]

Friday Night Lights reunion: Scott Porter, Gaius Charles, and Matt Lauria are livin' large

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/29/friday-night-lights-scott-porter-gaius-charles-matt-lauria-reunion?hootPostID=427c1cbf46300049414883e28f3d8918

 

 

[Indy]

Not sure I'm digging Luke Caferty's facial hair - it took me a beat to recognize him.  But Scott Porter's baby is adorable. It's always fun to see the cast members back together. 

[Readalot]

http://celebritybabies.people.com/2015/10/09/zach-gilford-kiele-sanchez-miscarriage-baby-boy/?obref=obnetwork

Sad news for Zach and his wife.

[Bryce Lynch]

Don't know if it's unpopular, but I hated Epyck and I hated Julie's affair with her TA.

I also hated Julie's affair.

I didn't mind the Epic story and liked that it didn't have a happy ending.

[Bryce Lynch]

I thought that Tami was a bit of a hypocrite for saying she "couldn't leave the kids" and go to Austin with Eric and the end of season 1, but was determined to leave them and make Eric leave his kids behind at the end of season 5.

Seems like when Eric has a big career opportunity, "the kids come first", but when she gets one, it's "Screw the kids! It's MY turn!"

[Bryce Lynch]

The more times I watch the less I like Julie. She is constantly whining and complaining and disrespectful to her parents. She also is very judgmental towards anyone who disagrees with her, while thinking of herself as very open minded.

She also was horrible with relationships. She dumped Matt for the Swede (the most detestable character in the series) and slept with her married TA. She also had that inappropriate relationship with her high school teacher.

Matt should have moved to Guatemala with Carlotta or stayed with that girl he dumped with Smash's open relationship trick. :)

[Danny Franks]

I view the state of Julie as correlating with the state of the show.

 

In season 1 I thought she was great, as the show was great. She was cute and fun and had wonderful relationships with her parents and with Matt.

In season 2 she was a nightmare, with the bitchiness to her parents, dumping Matt, chasing after that greasy Swede. But the show was pretty terrible that year, when compared to season 1.

In season 3, Julie was pretty good again. She rebuilt her relationships with all the characters she'd pissed off in season 2. She grew up a lot, in terms of getting a job and working at a relationship and saving for her own car. 

 

Then season 4 started well, but she went off the rails when Matt left. Well, I've long been of the opinion that the show should have ended when they lost the original cast. I didn't care about the Lions or East Dillon, or the fact that Dillon was now apparently big enough for two schools and a ghetto. Didn't care about Vince or Luke or that girl who wanted to be a coach. So Julie being awful in the tail end of that season, and for most of season 5, completely matched my view of what the show was doing. It was ruining itself.

 

I only watched those two seasons, under protest and after the fact, because I felt a misguided obligation. And even though there were some great moments in those seasons, for me they all revolved around the old characters or the original sense of what the town was (like the final, devil town montage, showing the Dillon Panthers as the only team again).

[scowl]

I'm halfway through rewatching season five and, yeah, Julie's affair with her TA is too predictable for this show. And Epic's story is approaching After-School Special material. 

 

Fortunately there were plenty of other good plots to follow. 

[scowl]

Another problem with Julie's affair plot is that it never ends. Every time it appears to be resolved, someone hops into their car and drives over to restart the drama. 

[Hava]

Matt should have moved to Guatemala with Carlotta

 

 

Could it be?? Another person who actually liked Matt and Carlotta??

[Kazia]

My unpopular opinion is that I actually LIKED the Epyck plot. I know it was kind of outrageous, but I think it all boiled down to one thing: sometimes kids (even teenagers) just need someone to care about them. Tami is a big nurturer, and I feel like she always needs to be needed. Epyck was definitely in need of a lot of things (food, tutoring, an attitude adjustment, someone to simply give a damn about her), and I thought it was touching how Tami was there for her (when she told Epyck "you've got me now," I was seriously tearing up. It was just so sweet and so nice to see). Also, that scene with Epyck and little Gracie Belle at dinner was one of the cutest scenes EVER, as well as Gracie's biggest scene of the series.

 

To talk about the camera work and edits, I think the style worked for the most part. I noticed that a lot of Gracie's scenes were edited, especially in the later seasons when Gracie was older. That's understandable since they were working with a baby/toddler, but it was distracting sometimes when I noticed that it was edited. It just contrasted with the rest of the editing style.

 

I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I actually thought it was kind of hilarious how the actress playing Gracie would be wiggling around and chatting so much when everyone was just trying to get through their scenes. Coach and Tami are in the middle of a deep, emotional conversation, and Gracie is just sitting there chanting "no no no no no no no." You could tell the kid wasn't so much of "acting" as reacting to the actors around her. I feel bad for Connie because she had a lot of scenes with the kid, and I could just imagine her thinking "OMG, kid, please stop wiggling and let me just pretend to be your mommy so we can finish this scene," lol. That little actress never stayed still, but Connie, Kyle, and Aimee handled it well when they were with her.

[Bryce Lynch]

Could it be?? Another person who actually liked Matt and Carlotta??

More like I hated Julie. :) I didn't mind Matt and Carlotta, but I thought it was only slightly more realistic than Riggins and Bo's mother. I loved Bo, though. That kid always made me laugh.

[Danny Franks]

Okay, I honestly have no idea who 'Epyck' was, and wonder what unimaginative, sub-par fantasy novel transferred one of its characters to Friday Night Lights. I assume she (it was a she, right?) was in season 4 or 5, when I was bored shitless by most of the stuff around the Lions?

[Kazia]

Yeah, Epyk was in season 5. When Tami went over to East Dillon as the new guidance counselor, she was introduced to all the problems of the school and quickly heard a lot of teachers complaining about Epyck.

She eventually found Epyck smoking outside and tried to pull a Tami Taylor "get back to class" act, but Epyck merely rolled her eyes and ignored her, thus making Tami determined to "change" her and make a difference.

I think the writers were trying to play off the Tyra-Tami relationship. Tami was able to truly help Tyra and change her life, but when it came to Epyck, it just couldn't be done; Tami couldn't just work miracles on people like perhaps she thought she could. Some people can't be saved, no matter how personally involved you get.

And also, sometimes bad things happen when you meddle. The only reason Epyck got thrown out was because she accidentally slammed Tami into the window, which seems kind of like an implausible way to expel someone one. I mean, if Tami insisted it was an accident and explained that to the police, wouldn't they have believed her and let Epyck stay? Like if she really made a stink about it? I get that they wanted to write her out, but that wasn't the best way to do it.

[Kazia]

I do like Jason Street's character and I felt so bad that he had to go through the entire accident and recovery process, but toward the end, I kind of felt like they were running out of plot ideas for him.

I mean, really, buying a house and flipping it at, like, 20 years old? I wouldn't DARE do that, especially in a small town where there might not be as many buyers. That story felt a little extreme to me, as did Jason having a baby and sacrificing everything for his girlfriend/whatever. Didn't he ever talk to his parents about it? They seemed to truly love him a lot, so wouldn't they have tried to help him with his kid and the finances?

I'm sure with all of this the writers were just creating a well-developed exit plan for Jason, but still, some of it rubbed me as kinda mehh. Loved it when he was a coach, though! And a car salesman! Since Jason is so personable and optimistic, he's someone I could see sucessful in starting a new life in Dillon. He wouldn't have let football define him, and I've always liked that about him. He was so complex and evolved.

[scowl]

Okay, I honestly have no idea who 'Epyck' was, and wonder what unimaginative, sub-par fantasy novel transferred one of its characters to Friday Night Lights. 

 

I had also completely forgotten about her until I rewatched season five. Epic, or however she spelled it, was a completely paint-by-numbers subplot. There was no good acting and nothing surprising about it. I waited and waited for a twist but it never came. Instead of making me interested in the character, I waited for her to buy a meth pipe and get on with the rest of her life. When I went to my ten year high school reunion, these were the people who were in jail or already dead. 

[scowl]

I was surprised by the number of people who said they watched the pilot but immediately gave up on the show. Why? They couldn't figure out how the show could go anywhere with the quarterback not playing on the football team. That's right, the show starts with a completely shocking and unexpected twist and television viewers assume the show had made a mistake.

 

I guess these people stopped watching Lost after the plane crashed. 

[Kazia]

Okay, so I have been trying to figure this out because the show is not clear on this! The beginning of the series led us to believe that the Taylors were new to town (they picked out a new house, Coach was getting filled in on how things worked, Tami was introduced to all the Book Club gals, Tami found a job, Tami kept on talking about "how crazy the town was" as if she hadn't known about it before, Julie mentioned a few times that they had moved around so much in her life, Eric said that Jason Street had been his "meal ticket" to the job and that they'd be packing their bags if they lost games, etc.).

 

HOWEVER, other episodes make it seem like Tami and Eric grew up there and had been there for a while!! I remember Buddy telling Eric how happy he was that he was coaching the high school team instead of the middle school team, Tami told Tyra's mom that the doorbell "had been broken for YEARS" when she barged in one time, Mo had referred to himself as a "3rd generation Dillon citizen" and he had went to high school with Tami and Eric, Tami took Eric over to a lake spot and said "this was where we had our first daaaate,"etc...

 

So, I've come to the ultimate conclusion that the writers originally intended for them to be new residents but then somehow made them long-time Dillon peeps who moved back to town after traveling around for Eric's job. Does that sound about right? What do you all think??

[scowl]

In the end when Tami wants to move to Philadelphia, Eric says "But we've lived in Texas our whole lives. All our friends and family are here" so that implies that they've lived somewhere else in Texas at some point. There's no discussion about Dillon being their home town however that might not be something to be proud of at that point in the series.

 

The Gary Gaines character in the movie which Coach Taylor's character is based on had moved a lot. I assumed he was the same character but then those hints that he's originally from Dillon started showing up. It was probably smart to keep that information hanging since it could have future plot potential.

[Danny Franks]

From the second episode, they established that the Taylors had been in Dillon for a fair few years, when Buddy told Eric "I've always liked you", and mentioned how Eric used to coach at the junior high school (I think). But their parents aren't ever shown, nor extended families other than Tami's sister, who doesn't live locally.

 

So my take is that Eric and Tami grew up in another small Texas town, and Eric's career has taken them to a few different places in the state. One of those was Dillon, a number of years ago, where he coached younger players before leaving to coach elsewhere. He proved his chops as a QB coach given Tami's talk about how he took that kid in Macedonia (a town, rather than the country, one would assume) who "didn't know the difference between a skinny post and an out-and-up" and "made him the best quarterback in the league". And then I think he was brought back to coach Jason as soon as people started to realise that the kid might be something special.

 

But I think it's just something that will forever be unclear, because you've got Matt and Landry acting like Julie is the new girl, while Jason acts like Eric is his mentor. To be honest, the show is vague on a fair few backstory issues, but it's never bothered me because I like to make up my own backstories for a lot of the characters and relationships on the show.

[Danny Franks]

I was surprised by the number of people who said they watched the pilot but immediately gave up on the show. Why? They couldn't figure out how the show could go anywhere with the quarterback not playing on the football team. That's right, the show starts with a completely shocking and unexpected twist and television viewers assume the show had made a mistake.

 

I guess these people stopped watching Lost after the plane crashed. 

 

It's funny, because even from the pilot episode, I immediately got that Jason wasn't going to be the main protagonist of the show. He's too perfect and bland to be the one the audience all connected with. Even without being spoiled, I knew something bad was going to happen to him, at some point. Because if you've got this perfect kid, with his perfect life, playing great football and winning, then where's the drama?

 

Hell, they even introduce Jason's lowly, never-gonna-play-a-game backup during the opening scenes. Who could have watched Matt and Landry talk about how pathetic he is without realising that this kid is going to be the one with all the pressure on him, really soon?

 

Jason's story isn't about football, it's about what you do after your life takes that unexpected, stunning, irreversible twist. How do you put yourself back together when all of your plans are just gone forever?

[Danny Franks]

Oh, I think I remember the character now. Did she look a lot like the girl from season 1, who had a single scene where she confessed to Tami that her Panther "wants me to do a threeway. He says I'll be his girlfriend if I do"? It's funny how that single scene has stayed with me more than this entire storyline of druggie girl.