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Friday Night Lights - Season 2, Episode 15 - “May the Best Man Win” 
Sat, Feb 9
So, not even the Maven is perfect, and apparently he forgot to set his tivo for the series finale of FNL. When he asked me to write about it, I sadly informed him that the show had ended 4 weeks ago and been replaced by a show about a lady who coaches high school volleyball while living with her sister, her troubled star player’s personal anguish over whether or not she can publicly date a crater-faced bizarro Matt Damon looking dude, her daughter being one of the least redeemable characters ever on TV except for two very big reasons, and her husband, who coaches the local high school football team. A brief look is also given to the football team and a few of their offensive players. When he told me that the show I had watched for the last 4 weeks was, in fact, Those Lights, I was stunned. Where has the football been? Riggins spends all his time hung up on Lyla? Where did this obsession come from? What has happened to the show we all used to like? I even held out hopes that the series finale would somehow do a little bit of justice to the show that preceded. Season 1 of this show was simply great, but season 2 has been all wrong from the start. No need to have a big drama like Landry cracking that guy’s skull with a pipe. That happened in the season premiere, and in episode 10 he confessed…and then nothing happened to him! 10 episodes of 15 spent with all this Landry anguish, and nothing even happens. Oh, and he joins the football team. Which leads to the truly epic moment where he catches a short pass on a play with a little bit of misdirection, gets one block and jogs into the end zone to put the Panthers up 40 in their last game ever. In the last 5 episodes, we saw about 1 minute of football and 20 minutes of girls volleyball. Oh, don’t forget 3 minutes of dodgeball, 15 seconds of the assembly of Rock Band, and 4 minutes of mini golf with Lyla’s Christian boy (There’s a whole other question - They’re making out, she rips off her sweater, and he immediately bounces so he “doesn’t do something to hurt her”? Because he’s Christian? Pretty sure you’re allowed to do more than that buddy. Try a looser interpretation of that sex before marriage thing.) Now that I’ve ranted on things all over the place in season 2, I’ll move on to the finale. I call it the finale because, even though nothing’s official, it’s not a very good sign when the president of your own network disses you and the 2nd season dvd is about to be released with only the 15 episodes already produced. Hopefully, the writers saw the light and altered this episode to be a lasting reminder of the great characters we got to know over the previous 2 seasons. As I watched the episode, it soon became apparent that wasn’t close to happening. Click this to read all about it.
This whole episode revolved around three love triangles. Of the 9 people involved, I cared about 4 of them. Let’s break them down Maven style!
1. Riggins/Lyla/Christian Boy - Lyla meets this all american church boy, and all the sudden Riggins is craaaaazy jealous. This has been going on for a couple episodes - Riggins always going to church, getting a radio show, being as charming as possible to Lyla. But why? They hooked up allll the way back in season 1, and all the sudden they go to Mexico together and hes in love with her? Oh, and since we’re speaking of the Mexico trip, I remember being all excited for the “threesome” that was going to happen. You whiffed pretty bad on that one Ausiello - unless you’re using Christian boy’s definition of a threesome, in which case that was some wild orgy!
2. Coach Taylor/Mrs. Taylor/Moe
Great, a guest star in the series finale that takes up needless screen time. Did a single person watching think that Coach and his wife would suddenly break up in the last episode? Not a chance. Yet we have 4 scenes building up to a fight, that doesn’t lead to anything. In my opinion, the scene with the helicopter was just completely worthless. Yeah, hes rich now, and I’m sure she wondered what it would’ve been like with him. We get it. But they couldn’t have worked that face into the dinner? And some fight scene guys - it was 2 guys hugging each other for 4 seconds.
3. Landry/Tyra/Jean
One scene with Landry and Tyra walking by holding hands. One shot of Jean, walking by at the same time and looking uncomfortable, like usual. One shot of Landry assembling a Rock Band guitar while his dad talked with a woman we haven’t seen yet in the show. One good conversation with Saracen about his “Mexican Nanny”. What a perfect example of how this show has gone down the tubes. It’s come full circle from when Saracen was the main guy, Landry the sidekick used sparingly, and the show was good. Now its all about Landry, our last episode includes an appallingly low amount of Saracen, and the show is terrible. Landry even got a “dramatic” touchdown at the end. Shocking! A player scores a TD, and we see his girl and/or guardians(since no one on this show has parents except for Julie, and she turned out the worst of all) in the stands with a big smile on their faces.
The other main storyline was Smash thinking about where to go to college. Nice scene where he begged the Alabama coach(why pick a school with a famous coach though? Nick Saban famously bolted from the Miami Dolphins to Alabama before last season. That man was obviously not Nick Saban. Just make it Alabama Tech - we know its fake. When you try and make it “realistic” and its clearly not its much worse.) An even better scene down at Whitmore College. If you watched this on Tivo you had never heard of Whitmore before. However, if you were bumming it live with commercials you heard it in this poll, asked during the commercial break before Coach mentions the visit. Where will Smash go to play football? A. Alabama B. Arena League C. Whitmore College. Great look NBC. The one actual plot development, affecting the characters for a long enough time where we can say “the show’s over, but I know what that character is up to” was Smash going to Whitmore. And you ruined it. Have to mention the scene with the Whitmore coach. The best of the episode, it was nice to see how quickly he got through to Smash. He was also so kindly and so dedicated to football. Great coach scene there.
On the other hand, we have our hero, Coach Taylor, letting the other team score to make them feel better. Presumably, this was to get Moe to yell about the shutout, making him look like a big meanie completely inconsiderate of the other team’s feelings. Too bad there were only about 30 things wrong with this scene. Although we know it to be their last game, the Panthers were theoretically playing in their 3rd to last regular season game, needing to win out to make the playoffs, and of course needing to keep winning to advance in the playoffs. They would be looking for any psychological boost, and a goal line stop to preserve the shutout by the 2nd stringers would be the perfect thing to get the team together. There is nothing that improves team morale like the starters on the bench cheering on the scrubs while the scrubs get some rare time to show what they can do. Also, Santiago is in the game when you’re up 40-0? He starts at outside linebacker, but with the 2nd string plays in the middle? You’re the defending Texas State Champs, you can’t field a full 2nd string? Thats how you act with sportsmanship when you are winning big - put in your backups. You never tell anyone on the field to hold back. If your backups are still running up the score, put in their backups. Or, try and look like a great guy in front of a woman you are already married to, in an effort to win the petty battle you have with another guy she used to bang.
Another annoying thing - 55 minutes into the episode, when I realized just how unsatisfying it was, I started to really get annoyed by the giant advertisement that was there for the whole episode in the lower left corner of the screen. Mind you, this above the large peacock already there. It was a legitimate distraction from the episode, seeing, in all caps, “MY DAD IS BETTER THAN YOUR DAD” for the entire episode. It also had the date when this show started. I did not make a mental note of it.
The final story line to discuss was by far the most pathetic. At the beginning of this show Jason Street was an all world QB prospect, going to college wherever he wanted. He also had a smoking hot girlfriend. Now? Pathetic. And I’m certainly not talking about the wheel chair or the job. When he was in the chair, playing murderball, hanging with his funny friend he was great. When he was trying to marry Lyla, it was a nice story arc. Him selling cars was also interesting, even though that completely separate story arc was simply worthless. Why not keep him with the other characters? What did it lead to? And finally, his quest to have this girl keep his baby. This girl he went out with one time, that he met while on a date with some other girl. And shes pregnant, and he is demanding she keep the baby…why? Because he has a 20% chance of impregnating a girl? So, to expect to have one baby, he would have to get with 5 more girls in his life. Yet he thinks this girl is his only chance? Have some confidence in your game, J! He’s 19 (hilarious when he said he was 19… I looked it up, Scott Porter is 28 years old.) Also, its the 21st century. If you can’t get it up regularly they can cut open your balls, grab some swimmers, and freeze them until you need them. You do not have to worry about not being able to “be a father”, and apparently he doesn’t have to worry about not being able to conceive one either. Why is he desperately chasing this random girl he met once to have her baby? It just didn’t make any sense, especially as a big part of the final episode of the show.
While I am forced to give this series finale a C, I will leave you with a little bit of hope that it wasn’t actually the finale. So, not even the Maven is perfect, and apparently he forgot to set his tivo for the series finale of FNL. When he asked me to write about it, I sadly informed him that the show had ended 4 weeks ago and been replaced by a show about a lady who coaches high school [...]
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