Monsters of Television

The recent episode of Friday Night Lights, entitled “The Son,” begins with Matt Saracen watching an old video of his father sending a holiday message to his American family from his base in Iraq. His father wears a Santa hat but speaks with such stoicism that the gesture conveys awkwardness instead of humor. His speech is a bit halted, but more from discomfort with addressing his family than from emotion. Based on previous episodes, fans are familiar with Henry Saracen’s inability to connect with his son. But because of the perfect execution of this short holiday message, new viewers, too, would understand with equal clarity the enigma that Matt studies as he repeatedly plays this video.

This episode of Friday Night Lights has been critically acclaimed. Featuring a grieving Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) struggling to come to terms with the death of his many-years-absent soldier father, the program spotlights the depth of Gilford’s performance, the classically underwritten style of the program’s best scripts, and the right amount of poignancy mixed with patriotism.  Gilford has long been a key player in FNL for his believable performance of a teenager—easily capturing a mix of youthful naïveté and awkward sincerity. In this particular episode, he demonstrates a facility with the more adult emotions of anger and horror.

In one of his best scenes, a drunken Matt is encouraged by his friends to demand the mortuary director show him the body of his IED-victim father. Despite the director’s protests, Matt insists.  Matt’s eyes well with tears as the casket opens, but he quickly wipes them away.  Instead of showing a reverse shot, the camera cuts to a clearly frightened Tim Riggins. What Matt sees, neither Riggins nor we the viewers see.  And we don’t want to see.

In a later scene, Riggins tells a clueless Becky, “I saw something that … rather, I saw someone see something … you ever just feel completely useless?”  Through these words, Riggins summarizes the feelings of many of the episode’s characters, including the entire Taylor family. When someone suffers a terrible loss, it is difficult to know how to support them. But when someone loses a person for whom he has felt a complex mixture of longing and hatred for multiple years, there is no way to help.

Towards the end of the episode, Matt turns up at the coach’s house and finally breaks down completely. The coach, ever the master of the world’s quickest pep talk, simply suggests he walk Matt home. The camera cuts to a long shot and we see the coach put his hand on Matt’s shoulder. There are no words, and the writers of FNL recognize that.

Okay, I could praise this program’s handling of the death of Matt’s father all day. I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful eulogy Matt offers during his father’s funeral, structured with perfect symmetry yet delivered as a culmination of all Matt’s impossible to answer questions.  Or the small payoff moments of Matt slamming the door in Joe McCoy’s face and Lila’s surprise appearane at the funeral.  I’d like to focus instead on the secondary characters in order to present a fuller portrait of this episode’s careful balance.

Following weeks of struggle between African-American football player Vince Howard and white player Luke Cafferty, forced to be teammates after Luke’s true zip code has forced him to leave his privileged position as West Dylon High School, we now see the two young men learning to be partners. On the field, they take the plays into their own hands and score two touchdowns, earning the coach’s grudging respect.  Off the field, they edge towards a new awareness that their “friends” are not their true friends.

Luke’s break with bratty quarterback J.D. McCoy suffers a more complete rupture as J.D. nails Luke’s truck with repeated paint ball gunshots.  Vince’s break unrolls more slowly throughout the season but begins to pick up speed when the Dylan Gazette awards him the designation of “Co-conference player”. Asked to address a group of children, Vince follows up McCoy’s boastful speech with a classic understatement, ““Stay cool. Don’t panic. And you get paid.” Despite his seeming tactlessness, as the children crowd around to shake his hand, his face demonstrates a new recognition of the possibilities football affords him.

Becky continues to wander rather amiss in this episode as she fails to place high enough in her latest pageant.  Last week her mother rejected her.  This week both her father and Tim Riggins reject her.  These moments seem of the direst importance to young Becky, but the episode doesn’t allow the viewer to feel empathy for her.  Instead, Becky’s repeated failure to acknowledge the importance of Saracen’s father’s death shocks.  Becky has never met Matt Saracen, so she has no reason to feel for his loss.  Nevertheless, as a viewer, these characters become so dear that the logic of Becky’s youthful insensitivity grates.  Her casual handling of Riggins’ own feelings regarding the death foreshadow Becky’s risky inability to sense the gravity of adult situations.

I wrote that last week’s episode offered a number of character’s turning points, but as this week’s episode demonstrates, the outcome of those paths sometimes take time to reveal themselves. The most controversial storyline of FNL’s fourth season begins to take shape this week—in a moment that I completely failed to appreciate when I watched the season on DirecTV.

After being rejected by Tim Riggins, Becky runs into Luke (rejected by McCoy) at a gas station quick mart. He buys her beer and asks, as an afterthought, if she’d like to join him at the car wash. Seeing this moment again, I was struck by the barest hint of tension in this scene. Two high school kids suffering their own small high school disappointments try to grow up by making poor adult choices (beer and sex). The results are catastrophic.

FNL is very much a show about growing up, as most family dramas featuring high school students tend to be. Yet the deep humanity at its core grounds even the most melodramatic moments.  This episode toggles from the banal to the sublime, tied together by an unflinching acknowledgment of the characters’ flaws that supports the veracity of their experiences.