Season finales are often disappointing - but Friday Night Lights stil among the best

Though final season episodes are almost inevitably a little disappointing - hard to tie so many strands in 41 minutes, so they inevitably feel a bit burdened by the demands of plot, and are often either too arcane (Damages), too ambiguous (Sopranos), or, in this case ("Friday Night Lights") a little too sentimental - Friday Night Lights Season 4 remains among the best. I won't be a spoiler, but I exactly predicted what would happen to principal Tammy Taylor. As to the rest of the plot outcomes, I'll leave them unsaid. Just this: The season beautifully explores some key issues seldom treated effectively on TV or in any dramatic format for that matter: racial tensions (two rival high schools, white and black), moral ambiguity (several characters brush with crime and not all pay a price), friendship (friendship between guys portrayed accurately and sympathetically without recourse to vulgarity or Apatow-like pranks and snarky dialogue, funny as that may be in other contexts), teenage love (Matt's abandonment of Julie was surprising, yet ultimately seemed like just the kind of thing a confused and somewhat immature guy would do - and her sorrow is palpable), marital stress and happiness (Tammy and Eric Taylor cover the whole range of emotions from fury to tenderness all in a totally credible and sympathetic manner). Though most people will say the final game between E and W Dillon is the highlight, I think it's hard to top the Thanksgiving dinner at the Taylors, with the strained dialogue and the awkward toast. The excellence of the scripting, acting, and directing of this scene speaks for the subtle beauty of the whole series.