My thoughts about movies and TV shows I've been watching

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Has any mother-daughter pair been better cast than Britton and Teegarden?

"Friday Night Lights" season 4/episode 8 brings us on the college tour with Tammy (Connie Britton) and daughter Julie (Amy Teegarden) and you have to wonder whether mother-daughter have ever been better cast - impossible to believe they're not truly related. Also, better scripted (and acted, for that matter, especially Britton) - any parent who's gone on one of these tours and lived through the process as ambitious daughter applies to top colleges and struggles with desire to leave hom and anxiety about doing so, will recognize that they get all the notes and nuances right. As noted, much of this season - and perhaps an underlying theme of the whole series - is getting out and getting away: who leaves the small town of Dillon and never looks back? Who'd drawn back to it? Who can never leave, and what does that do to them? The town has its beauty and charm, as we see when Riggins surveys the 25 acres he hopes to buy. He could, maybe, have a good life there, if he can stop drinking and stay out of trouble. And the camaraderie surrounding football is a (mostly) good quality, that brings people together, across class and (to a degree) racial lines. But we also see that it's a big world and Dillon's a small town. Amy will have to go, and she's able to go - but what about the others, some of whom count football as their only possible way out? We see a few issues developing on this sidelines, so to speak: The Riggins brothers getting into the chop-shop business, Vince staring down Landry as Landry starts to date Vince's old girlfriend, Lance playing through a serious injury sure to get worse.

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