Confession time on 'Friday Night Lights'

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare is over.

That's what it looks like, anyway, after an episode of Friday Night Lights that appeared to put the Incident -- at least the actual, police-investigating fact of it -- behind us. To which I can only say: Half a season (there are seven finished episodes left, until such time as a strike gets settled) was sacrificed to that?

(Right after I feed the ferrets, you'll get the spoilers.)

For as far around the bend as the Incident has taken the show, I suppose we couldn't have asked for a much better resolution than what we got tonight -- Landry finally realizing that maybe he didn't have to martyr himself, and that, in fact, he probably did save Tyra. I don't for one second doubt that Tyra was legitimately and immediately fearful for her life when the rapist showed up, and she seems to convince him of that as well; he finally states to police that he feared for his life when he hit the guy with the pipe.

I'm still a little bewildered as to why Landry was so intent on taking the fall here: Had he twisted it in his head somehow so that he was the aggressor? I mean, yeah, carrying around guilt like that can do strange things to a person, but he seemed so caught up in his notion of doing the right thing that he'd lost sight of what actually happened, when in truth no jury would ever likely punish him that harshly.

Un-enamored as I've been with the whole thing, though, it's worth saying once again just how much conviction Jesse Plemons, Adrianne Palicki and Glenn Morshower brought to the story. To the extent that this plot was bearable, it was almost entirely because of their uniformly strong acting.

The rest of the episode -- even, to some extent, the eye-rolling Saracen-Carlotta plot -- felt mostly like vintage FNL, starting with some more beautiful scenes between Tami and Julie, who are at loggerheads over Gracie's christening.

It's not really about the christening, of course. It's about Julie feeling neglected with the new baby in the house and her dad only back home for the past few weeks, and Tami wanting desperately to get her family back and, as she put it, getting Julie to "grow up and grow into the person I know I raised." That entire scene, with Tami and Julie talking over one another and trying not to scream in front of the baby, was one of the strongest Connie Britton and Aimee Teegarden have shared this season -- which is saying something. Tami's speech about how Gracie is lucky to have Julie as a big sister was pretty fantastic as well.

In Panther World tonight, we saw something we almost never see on this show: defense. Santiago is clearly not dealing well with the concept of being accepted in this new environment (note to Coach Taylor: When dealing with a former juvie inmate, perhaps you might consider removing the term "jailbreak" from the defensive lexicon), and having people expect him to do well.

In that context, his lashing out at Buddy -- who, truth be told, was treating the kid like a bit of a commodity -- makes sense. On the other hand, though, Buddy wasn't wrong to tell his ward that if Santiago didn't at least try to step up tonight, he probably never would. And step up he did: Yeah, the scenes with Santiago on the field were calculated for maximum heart-in-throat effect. And yeah, they totally worked on me. I was a little afraid his worst instincts might come out after he got pounded the first couple of plays but happy to see him shed his blocker and make a sack legally.

While Buddy was bucking up Santiago, Coach was meting out his own tough love to Riggins, enlisting him as a team manager for the girls soccer and gymnastic teams (which gave us to the line of the night, as Riggins watched the latter group perform: "Stacy should be hitting those double-backs, she's been her own worst enemy all day." 

Tim eventually has the sense to move out of the creepy meth cooker's apartment, ending up asleep in his truck in front of the Taylor house. Coach probably knows better than to take him in, but it was a sweet moment to see him offer Tim a sleeping bag from the garage.

Elsewhere in Dillon:

Still not a huge fan of the Saracen-Carlotta hookup, but I do enjoy that the show is handling it with a fairly light touch. Seriously, though, Matt should never, ever listen to Smash again when it comes to romance.

Similarly, Street could find a better love guru than his now-roommate Herc (with Bionic Woman essentially done, here's hoping we see more of Kevin Rankin after the new year). As soon as the waitress spoke her first line, I muttered that "Street should date her instead," and darned if that isn't what ended up happening. Not that I'm psychic or anything, but a girl who calls you out on wanting to bail on a blind date -- even if, in this case, the circumstances came closer to justifying it than usual -- is a girl worth knowing.

My other favorite line, uttered by Tami as the family was headed out the door for the christening: "Who has the baby, y'all?"

So is this it? Are we finally putting the incident behind us on Friday Night Lights, and if so, how's that sit with you?

E-mail

• Digg
• Facebook
• Fark
• Yahoo Buzz
• Stumbleupon