Blog #7, "Homecoming," "Crossing The Line," "School Days"

As we make our way through this season of "Friday Night Lights," it can be helpful to have a central source for episode summaries, so, of course, here is the Wikipedia entry on season one. You can't use it for the test, but you can use it as you write your entries here. It's up to you whether you want to look ahead to see what happens.

It's not out of character for the series that doing the right thing doesn't make life any easier.  Lyla and Tim have (seemingly) broken off their relationship; Tim is actually being the friend he's supposed to be; and, accordingly, the roof falls in as Jason figures out what really happened. The repercussions are going to be big; those offensive linemen who visit Street aren't going to buy Riggins an Alamo burger, and Tyra has informed Lyla that rumors are flying.  Meanwhile, Smash, like Boobie in real life, sees his way out of the ghetto and ability to provide for his family tied to football, leading to his injecting steroids. And there is the cameo by Lucas Mize, the former Panther great, who can still rocket the football down the field but is reduced to begging for an assistant coaching job, which Eric either can't or won't give him (it's never clear if Eric really did ask his superiors about Lucas's request). Again, the metaphor and importance of football in this world: it's the one place in this universe where one can unambiguously win. And losing is never as bad as the losses everyone seems to suffer off the field.

A few questions:

1. What moment or scene from what we watched today has stayed with you, hours later—and why?

2. Go back to yesterday's blog and the definitions you all came up with for what the show is "about." Look them over again, yours and everyone else's, and say which definition you think works the best for this show. It may be yours, it may be someone else's. And say why you picked this definition.

3. As I wrote yesterday, we are going to go back to the book for a bit tomorrow to talk about Chapter 7, "School Days." For me, it's the most important chapter of the book, for it gets us, finally, inside the place which is central to every teenager's life, school. And it's not a pretty picture that Bissinger paints. What struck you about this chapter—what is the most important, for you, part of this chapter? Why? Go ahead and quote three times from the book in your response. And, finally, have we seen any of this in the series so far? I think we have—but you might disagree. There's a lot here, so please, don't simply repeat what others have said before you, okay?

Finally, without giving anything away—no real plot spoilers—below is the wisdom of Tim Riggins through the entire series. Pay particular attention to his explication of "The Scarlet Letter" to Tami.

Blog #6, Episode 6, "El Accidente"

Your reading of the series so far has been rewarded by the show itself.  Eric comes out and declares— surprise, surprise—that he loves football.  And as we were talking about in class today, his love of football has made certain ethical decisions a little too easy for him. And there is still enough ambiguity in his character for us to ask whether he believed Bobby Reyes because he knew the kid so well, as he told Tami (he's coached Reyes for years), or because Reyes was a key defensive player. Or perhaps it's a little bit of both.  And then Coach Taylor, who seems to care very much for his players, kicks Reyes off the team. "It's all I got," or something along those lines, is what Reyes says (something that no doubt most of the players could truthfully say), but Eric is adamant: "clean out your locker." Now Eric just a few days earlier declined to punish Matt when Matt admits to having trashed their rival's car. Eric won't even punish Matt for not saying who was with him. In this sense, Eric mirrors to some degree Gary Gaines in that Gaines has two sets of rules: one for Boobie and another for the rest of the team. As Bissinger writes, "The preferential rules Boobie received sometimes caused resentment among the other players. The coaches were aware of the gripes, but the bottom line was that Boobie had the talent and they did not" (66).  Sounds like why Eric started Voodoo over Matt. 

In addition, we hear from Tyra how she has plans to go to California, diploma be damned—anything to get out of Dillon.  The surprise is that Tami reveals that she was Tyra in high school: the pretty girl who hated school. In all these cases—Eric, Tyra, Tami—they all prove to be complex, complicated figures. And our main boy Matt Saracen, at least for a little while, goes over to the "other side," as Landy says, while Landry proves to not be as much a nerd as we may have first thought him to be.  These characters can surprise us.

1. Which character do you feel most drawn to?  And why?  Write several sentences answering this.

2. This episode was about being forced to choose whether or not to do the "right" thing.  Pick one of the characters who faced this decision and argue for whether or not he or she did indeed do the right thing. As always, don't simply repeat what others have written, but try to create your own original reply, while acknowledging what others have said if it is important to your argument.

3. If someone were to ask you what this series was about, how would you answer that question?  Don't just say "football," though clearly it is "about" football.  Think about all our characters. Then answer the question in several sentences.

Tomorrow we will watch two episodes.  On Friday I definitely want to talk about the book, in particular, Chapter 7, "School Days."

Blog #5, Episodes 4&5, "Who's Your Daddy" and "Get'Er Done"

What started out as a show about football in small town Texas has managed to now branch out—yet still remain true in spirit to its "inspiration," Bissinger's book.  What happens at the end of Chapter 6 could fit right into the series: "There was a keg and a couple of cases of beer. A fight erupted for entertainment. A girl everyone agreed was about the toughest shit-kicker in Odessa knocked another girl to he ground with a few punches and then started slamming her head against a stone floor, leaving blood all over the place" (126).  Okay, maybe that's a little extreme for the series.  At the same time, the parties we see are pretty wild, with players puking on Julie's nice boots, and Voodoo and Smash almost coming to blows.  This is not material for ninth grade Making Healthy Life Decisions class.  And the players at the end of Chapter 4 mirror the Dillon Panthers in their arrogance and cockiness.  Who cares if they lost—"they would still be gladiators, the ones envied by everyone else, the ones who knew the best parties and got the best girls and laughed the loudest and strutted so proudly through the halls of school as if it was their own wonderful, private kingdom" (127). This is exactly the attitude, as several of you noted in the previous blog, that makes Coach Taylor drag the team's sorry asses out in the middle of the night and makes them run wind sprints in a driving rainstorm. 


This is a rich series, "Glee"-like as it might appear to be on the surface.  Like the Berg film, it's not afraid to let the viewer figure things out; it trusts in the intelligence of the viewer.  With that in mind...

1. Being coach at Dillon is often hellish for not just Eric but also for Tami, as she points out at the party sprung on her suddenly.  For Eric, as we see at the end of "Get'Er Done," life is great when he wins; when he loses, though, he's being run out of town by fat guys at the burger joint. And the pressure of winning, as we've talked about, is terrible. So why does Eric coach at Dillon?  Julie lets him know there are a lot of other places he—they—could go.  But as he tells her, they aren't Texas, which is a blessing and a curse.  So with all the negatives that coaching at Dillon has, why do you think Eric stays?

2.  Short question: should Eric have started Voodoo or Matt?  Answer in a sentence with a reason for your answer.

3. So much of the series revolves, of course, around the teenagers. And sure, some of the teens look awfully old to be playing seventeen year olds (Scott Porter who plays Jason Street was 27 at the time; Aimee Teegarden, however, who plays Julie was 17, just two years older than the sophomore she plays).  That said, for you what does the show get right about the lives of these kids?  Take specifics, okay—name a couple scenes that especially capture well authentic adolescent life.

4.  The character we have probably the least information about and contact with, Tyra, finally gets real screen time.  What was your reaction to her in this last episode? 

Blog #5, Episode 3, "Wind Sprints". Chapter 4, "Dreaming of Heroes."

Today's episode had one of those great, possibly improbable, moments in the series when Coach Taylor gets the entire team out on some lonely country road and has them do wind sprints (hence the episode's title) in the driving rain. Or not. Is it any more improbable than the stories we get in the book of players who "leaned the much-admired lesson of no pain, no gain" (44) like the player whose testicle "swelled up to the size of a grapefruit and by the time the doctor saw him, it was too late; it had to be removed" (44)? We also see, as Sam predicted, Lyla and Riggins get together; dramatic but, again, possibly improbable.  But again, there is Don Billingsley's mother, who lets her son live with her train wreck of an ex, "but since she herself had been a Permian Pepette during Charlie's senior year, she understood" (82).  People do funny, improbable things, do they not?

So as you think back on the episode which we left as Jason is being moved to a special care facility and Lyla has just given him a kiss, and as you think back on the last couple chapters of the book, but in particular for today, Chapter 4 (Chapter 5's examination of racism in Odessa we will address soon enough), answer the following questions in the following order: the first four of you who blog, answer number 1 ; the second 4, number 2; nine through twelve number 3; and the final four number 4.

1. Why did Eric drag his team out in the middle of the night for wind sprints? Did he have a specific purpose? Or was it simply anger? And if he did have a purpose, did he achieve it—and how do we know he achieved it?

2.  Tyra is one attractive young woman—not surprisingly she is with Tim Riggins, over whom every female he runs into swoons. Yet Tim unceremoniously dumps her. Why?

3. It's a powerful moment when Lyla finds Riggins walking back from the wind sprints.  She slaps him, tells him—not incorrectly—that he's being selfish for not visiting his best friend in the hospital; she also reveals her own growing self-awareness about her own self-involvement and naivety, maybe even arrogance. What do we see her realize about herself her—and how did she get to this realization?

4.  This scene ends with, as Sam predicted, Lyla making out with her boyfriend's best friend.  Whoa!  What's up with this?  Explain this.

Now all of you answer the following:

5.  We determined pretty quickly that Peter Berg based Matt Saracen on Mike Winchell and Tim Riggins on Don Billingsley.  Pick either Saracen-Winchell or Riggins-Billingsley and draw the connection between the fictional character and his real counterpart.  Quote a couple times from the book in your answer. Please, in doing this, don't simply repeat what others before you have said.  Pick a different quote than others have, if you can; try to make another original point, ok?

6. Finally: what is your reaction to Don Billingsley's comment at the end of Chapter 4?

That's it.  Everyone has three questions to answer.  See you tomorrow, where we'll finish the episode and try to get two more in before the end of class. 

Blog #4, Friday Night Lights. "Pilot" and "Eyes Wide Open"

So now we are into the series. "Pilot" is written and directed by series creator Peter Berg, the writer and director of the film, and you can see the clear influence of the film on this episode (the bull ring directed toward Riggins is an almost carbon copy of what we see done to Ivory in the film, and still effective).  "Eyes Wide Open" is written by Jason Katims, the main producer of the series. So just to get us started on our discusion of what will be, ultimately, 22 episodes, as well as the book...

1.  Your reaction(s) to what you saw today.  Like? Dislike?  What scene or moment especially jumped out at you, stayed with you, from the first two episodes (we have still to finish the second)?

2.  What so far distinguishes this from the film—what, to you, is the main difference between this and the film?  Yes, there are the obvious differences—characters, plot, etc—so think about the way the show deals with the big themes that were brought up in the film.

3.  There are several story lines being presented to us in the series: which one do you particularly find yourself drawn to at this moment, and why?

4.  There are many characters in this show—you have the list that I gave you on the first day of class. Pick one of them and characterize her or him so far: the word or phrase that best describes the person and how do we see this person fulfill this characterization? Until we run through the entire list of characters (Coach Eric Taylor; Tami Taylor; Julie Taylor; Jason Street; Lyla Garrity; Brian "Smash" Williams; Matt Saracen; Landry Clarke; Tyra Collette; Tim Riggins), each of you do a different character.  So whoever blogs first gets to pick anyone; the next, what's left; the third, what's left minus two; etc.  The eleventh blogger gets to start again.

Go ahead and respond to what your classmates write. Be sure to answer all the questions. Try to not repeat what has already been written: add to the conversation. Enjoy the weekend, do your reading, and we'll see you Monday.

Blog #3, "All I Wanted To Do Was Make It To The Pros."

So says Boobie Miles in Chapter 3. One of the things we didn't really get to today in our discussion was the differences between Peter Berg's film and Bissinger's book.  Both works put Boobie dead center in their narrative. Several of you mentioned that incredible scene of Boobie and LV in the car after Boobie has cleaned out his locker as one of the most powerful, albeit saddest, moments of the film. In just one brief shot, we see Boobie's entire life come apart. Nothing like this happens in the book, yet Bissinger clearly sees the pathos of the injury that will change everything about this young man's life.

"Boobie lay down and several student managers took off his pads.  In his uniform, with all the different pads he fancied, he looked a little like Robo Cop.But stripped of all the accoutrements, reduced to a gray shirt soaked with sweat, he had lost his persona. He looked like what he was—an eighteen-year-old kid who was scared to death." (57)

1.  So why do you think Boobie is given such a central position in both the film and the book?  Why give such an emphasis on a figure who plays such a small role in the central narrative of the story (in real life, Boobie got hurt in a preseason game)?  Go ahead and quote a couple times from the book in your answer; and don't simply reiterate what we said in class today.  Expand on what we said; better yet, take your response in additional directions from what we said today.

2.  One of the major points I wanted us to get to in our discussion today was how the film is on some level a confusing mix of messages.  On one hand, as we said in discussion, it is a clear critique, criticism, as is Bissinger's book, of Permian football culture.  At the same time, it is also a feel-good, uplifting, let our boys win the big game against those big bad guys from Dallas-Carter.  What part of the film's narrative or message is, for you, most contradictory?  This doesn't mean you have to dislike the film, not at all; but it does mean you have to be analytical and critical of what the film does.  I would argue that the film wants to have it both ways: to criticize what is clearly a corrupt high school football culture and to have us cheering for a team that is neck deep in that culture.  So look at a way that the film tries to have it both ways.  And how does this work for you? 

Finally, a little preview of where we go next.  This is the opening of the pilot for the series "Friday Night Lights".

We'll watch the rest of this tomorrow.

Blog #2, "This Must Not Be Planet Earth."

"'This must be hell."
But it wasn't.  It was just Odessa. (30)

Two chapters into Bissinger's book, you should be seeing how Peter Berg has softened or sweetened his cousin's take on small town Texas football.  Which is okay: the film works well enough on its own, in its more conventional view of sports (in my opinion).  But you should be seeing by now what has been changed.  Boobie's story for one. Look at pages 17-18. And then:  "Boobie officially quit the team two days later.  But no one paid much attention.  There were a lot more important things to worry about that that pain-in-the-ass prima donna with a bad knee who couldn't cut worth a crap anymore anyway. There were plenty more on the Southside where he came from" (20),

This is not Berg's story.  That said, there are parts of the film that approach the messiness of the "true" story.  For one, the relationship between Don and Charlie Billingsley, whom we meet in Chapter 4 of the book.

This is one of the most uncomfortable moments in the film; note the reaction of Coach Gaines, who does not say a word during this awful moment.  What I really like about the film is its willingness to let Gaines be a bit of a mystery, to let him be a complicated man who can alternately punish his players mercilessly, as he does Ivory in the bull ring on the first day of practice, who can scream at his sensitive quarterback Mike Winchell, yet can give that beautiful half time speech below:

So, with all this in mind:

1.  What is your reaction to the film separate from the book?  What do you like about it and perhaps dislike or question?  What scene or moment in it especially stayed with you, and why? What character has especially struck you as we get toward the end of the film?

2.  Now to be more critical:  do you think Gary Gaines is a good coach?  Do you think he is a good human being?  Why or why not for both questions?

3.  You've read the first two chapters of the book.  What do you think the film gets right about the book?  For you, where is the perfect intersection of the text and the film?

4.  And finally: Odessa in the book. A place you'd want to live?  Why or why not?

We'll finish the film tomorrow, talk about it, and the book as well.  Then onto the series.