Just finished Season 3 and 4 of Friday Night Lights (No post-season 4 spoilers please)

Just a plea: I’m a major spoilerphobe, so please no information on anything beyond season 4, boxed or not, whether you consider it trivial or not. Just pretend for now that nothing beyond Season 4 exists yet — Thanks

As I knew when I finished Season 2, I can no longer hold out and I am just barreling through this series. Seasons 3 and 4 were just fantastic.

I note that one of this season’s major plots is taken from a significant issue addressed in the “Friday Night Lights” memoir – that of the districting of Odessa, Texas, in order to ensure that all the good football players end up playing for the Permian Panthers, the high school for the rich, white side of town, to the detriment of the Odessa Bronchos, the high school in the Hispanic part of town (why does there seem to be a paucity of Hispanics in Dillon?) – When the law forced Odessa to integrate its schools, they decided just to shut down the black school – Euclid High – and divvy up the black neighborhoods between Permian and Odessa. (Shout out to Permian – or, rather, the Permian Basin – in Tami and Julie’s conversation about earthquakes in West Texas!)

Now that’s certainly a fascinating issue to tackle, but of course the show had to do it backwards, because at the beginning of the series, there was only one high school for all of Dillon. In order to tackle the issue, they set it up so that there was an old high school, East H.S., which had been shut down some years before – some time after 1983, but certainly many years before 2006, it seem. So in order to solve overcrowding, the state forces Dillon to re-open the second high school.

Now, that’s fine, but it doesn’t seem like they pulled the details off entirely smoothly. Because when Coach Taylor, Landry, Julie, and Devin appear at East H.S., it seems like they’ve been dropped into the classic “ghetto” school. All the administrators, teachers, and students act like they’re jaded by aeons and aeons of unfair treatment. But, wait, just the year before, all these people were at the same high school, weren’t they? East H.S. had to be “brought up to code” before they could re-open it. Surely, it would look less blasted, trashed, burnt out, and wasted on its very first day of being open in a couple of decades?

And then there’s that whole issue of the mailbox at the vacant lot that Luke was claiming as his address. Buddy Garrity said that he had set up that mailbox himself 12 years ago. But why would he have done that? There was only one high school during that time. It was only in Season 2 that the districting lines were drawn in the first place. Why would anyone have needed a fake address years after the second high school had been closed and 12 years before it was re-opened?

Other thoughts:

Big problem with Season 3 – everyone talking about college as if student loans are non-existent.

Didn’t like Tim’s story arc in Season 4. Way too martyry. And I didn’t buy at the end that what’s her name wouldn’t wise up and realize that Tim wasn’t sleeping with her daughter

No appearances by Tyra and Jason at all in Season 4? What’s up with that? Granted it was starting to really stretch disbelief to see those two as 18 and 19 years old.

Julie’s story, as usual, perfectly portraying the pains of growing up. Matt Saracen also done well. Very disappointed that they couldn’t get the same actor to play Matt’s dad. That brought me out of the otherwise excellent funeral story line.

Real villains this year, in the form of Joe McCoy and his brat, J.D. Strangely few occasions to boo them though in Season 4. I guess more appearances would have just made it too moustache-twirly. And I suppose it was realistic that the McCoys didn’t get their teen-movie style comeuppance, other than just being denied a trip to the playoffs. McCoy is still king of the West Side. Real world bad guys don’t fall that easily.

And, I guess I don’t entirely buy that (1) The board would dump Coach Taylor after three seasons – three trips to the playoffs, two trips to the finals, and one state championship and (2) That anyone would believe for a second that any Texas high school – even a brand new one on the bad side of town – could possibly be contemplated not having a football team at all, which is what the principal suggested.

Landry! Dude! He is my absolute favorite character. It’s odd that he could have stepped in to become a decent player without a history of football, but, oh well. Nearly ever word spoken by Landry was golden.

Likewise, all of Buddy’s appearances are welcome.

There were other school districts for other high schools. I assumed the mailbox would be used for kids that should be going to another high school. And the kids that are now going to East Dillon went to the bad feeder schools, so they’re used to the system.