FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS - 3x13 “Tomorrow’s Blues” - Episode Review
The end is the beginning is the end…
Plot Summary: Five months after the State Championship, several college-bound (or not) seniors (Tyra Collette, Lyla Garrity, Tim Riggins, Matt Saracen) prepare to leave Dillon and their loved ones behind; Coach Taylor faces a serious threat to his position as Head Coach; Billy Riggins (Derek Phillps) and Mindi Collette (Stacey Oristano) tie the knot.
I didn’t envy the hurdles writer/show runner Jason Katims had this week; he had to construct an episode that served as both a season finale, as well as a potential series finale. It had to be conclusive enough to wrap up the stories of most of its characters, and yet some how be open-ended enough in case FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS completes that Hail Mary pass and gets a fourth season pickup. In both cases, Katims succeeded, writing yet another heartfelt goodbye to his characters in what seems to be a season full of great ones.
The night before State, as Eric worried about the game, Tami told him: “You’re gonna win. Or you’re gonna lose. Either way, the sun’s gonna come up the next morning.” Well, they did lose, and the sun did come up. Life goes on, as it did in the sublime “Five months later” montage that opens “Tomorrow’s Blues”, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS Season Three finale. Eric and Buddy play a lazy Sunday game of golf, teenage couples enjoy each other’s presence, and the Dillon Panthers still get no love (the baseball team, that is). And yet there’s trouble brewing under the surface of this idyllic lull.
For Coach Taylor, the bill has come due for crossing Joe McCoy (D.W. Moffett) - humiliated and angry over the incident with his son, McCoy’s been working behind the scenes and under the radar to have Eric removed from his position. In a quietly ugly scene at McCoy’s mansion, the arrogant booster tells Eric he’s willing to let him stay on, albeit under serious restrictions (barring injury, he has to run J.D. every week, and can’t even call his plays). “You’re not just messing with my livelihood, you are threatening my family,” Eric states.
Well, Joe’s family got threatened too (and it was always and all his fault, the asshole), and he’s got the power now. Coach Taylor, initially reluctant to defend himself (and why should he, the man has one State championship under his belt, and almost got them to victory in last week’s game), eventually has to beg for his job in a shameful scene in front of the school board (one of the nice touches of the episode is that the redistricting of Dillon did happen in the five month gap, and it wasn’t depicted as this week’s focal plot point).
Between McCoy’s money and the fear of losing J.D. (and therefore any potential future championships), the Board unsurprisingly votes in favor of ousting Coach Taylor; the moment is conveyed brilliantly in a wordless exchange of glances between Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. It has to be said once again what fine actors those two are, and how great a relationship they have on the show.
Relationships drive the decisions of the college seniors’ stories this week, and each of those stories is given the appropriate, heartfelt, and somewhat tidy conclusion.
• Buddy turns to a hated brother (Gary Garrity, who magically has enough to cover the $80,000 savings he lost) so Lyla (salutatorian of her class) can go to Vanderbilt, instead of slumming it with Riggins at “party school” San Antonio State. Meanwhile, both Lyla and Riggins conveniently, separately come to the same conclusion: that she needs to go and he needs to stay.
But in a nice surprise, when Tim decides to stay in Dillon and help his brother run Riggins Rigs, the new repair shop, the seeming good-for-nothing Billy furiously rebukes this (and this is right as Billy's leaving the wedding reception for his honeymoon), pushing Tim to get out of the destructive cycle that feeds this small town and actually make something of himself. Good for Billy.
• Matt Saracen gets into the Art Institute of Chicago. This means leaving Julie behind (who, distraught over losing him, tries to the do the right thing and “break up” with before he leaves), but more importantly, it also means leaving Grandma (Louanne Stephens) behind. Matt puts Grandma in a dreary retirement home (which, honestly, is where she’s been heading all season) but it’s a tough call for both of them. Both of them are convinced they’re doing the right thing for each other. Both of them are dead wrong.
And as Julie tries to breaks up with him, Matt makes his decision -- unable to leave “the only person who never left” him, he marches from the wedding reception, removes Grandma from the home, brings her back for a dance and vows to stay with her (and by extension, Julie). Given their history (remember the heartbreaking Season One scene when he sang to Grandma, pretending to be her dead husband to get her out of the closet during one of her panic attacks?), his actions were also inevitable.
• Tyra ends up on a 1000-person waiting list for University of Texas, and encouraged by Landry, she makes an impromptu visit to their admissions officer. This brash ploy must have ended up in her favor, as she gets her acceptance letter the next day. I may not be a Tyra/Landry fan, but both of them have played all the beats they’ve been given brilliantly.
Once again, these endings were both season and series finales, so they may have seemed a bit rushed and tidy, but they worked in the context of the show, serving the character, not plot. I also have issues with Coach’s seemingly abrupt removal, but can understand the show’s rationale behind it.
The show ends on one of its patented perfect grace notes, as Coach Taylor and Tami survey the dilapidated field of West Dillon High - as a consolation prize, the Board had offered him the head coaching position there. The two of them wordlessly tour the site with its broken fence, tiny bleachers, and ill-maintained field. We don’t have to hear their discussion, we know it already in our bones.
Husband and wife hold each other as the sun sets in the distance. A decision is made. Life goes on.
Other Notes:
• I think Tami definitely would have been forcibly recused from the hearing.
• An Owl Head made from a Deer’s rear end!!! That would have been worth buying! I got a bit worried for the longhorn those Riggins boys bought (exactly what kind of animal care do those guys have?)
• Now that was a Texas wedding! Loved the ten-gallon hats!
• I wonder if car insurance in Texas is as much as it is in PA for under 21 drivers. Applebees sure won’t pay those bills for poor Julie. God willing, next year, she might get a job at the Landing Pit…. : )
• If the show does come back, I imagine there will be a whole bunch of new (West Dillon High) characters to replace the old ones. Nice mention of Smash by the way, during the recruitment trip.
Episode grade: A-