Moving toward melodrama in a series that doesn't need to go there

Episode 9 of Season 4 of "Friday Night Lights" OK but not up to standard as most of the others, as it brushes dangerously close to melodrama - we follow the Riggins-Becky-Lance subplot as Becky, 16 and pregnant, decides for an abortion, which kind of rocks the father, Lance, who's from a fundamentalist family and is wracked with guilt and concern. To me, this plot strand is stretched too thin and I don't care particularly about these characters, especially Becky, who is hard to read. At the same time, Vince's mom ODs and he struggles to send her to rehab and has to send her to a private facility at $4k - and the only way he can get that money is by edging back into thug life. OK, it's a good social theme and things like this happen all the time I guess, but again it seems a melodramatic element in a story line that's appealing because it generally takes on themes of ordinary kids and families and their ordinary lives - that is, the college trip and the spat over a girlfriend (described in previous post) much more moving to me and more thoughtful than the complex plot lines about life & death. Episode does give Tammy/Connie Britton and her writers to once again make her a fount of wisdom and clear-headedness, as Becky wisely goes to her for counsel. We'll see where this goes - Vince obviously headed for trouble as, strangely, the racial tensions among the older generation are healing as the old guys come together in support of the E. Dillon football team.

Very real, right, true to life : How can you not like Friday Night Lights?

Two examples of the excellence of "Friday Night Lights" (Season 4, episode 9[?]) in that it shows the way people really do act and (usually) not the way characters act on tv and in movies. Much build-up toward the tension between Landry, goofy and intelligent and very average white-guy football player, v Vince, excellent player, black, a step away from going back to juvenile detention (juvey). Landry's become really interested in a black girl in their high school who it turns out was a long-time girlfriend of Vince's and a particular fave of Vince's mom. We've seen a few scenes of Vince staring down Landry as he's begun to date the girl. Landry seems oblivious - keeps waving to Vince, etc. We expect a big showdown on the field, perhaps ruining the team spirit and sending Vince back to juvey. Landry goes up to Vince, says in his goofy way hey why don't ou hit moe or something or whatever you have to do cause I know you're angry and so on - and Vince pauses, stares, taps Landry on the chest with the side of his fist: as if to say, you're okay, end of story. Very real, very right. Similarly, Glen awkwardly confesses to Coach Taylor that drunkenly he'd tried to kiss Tammy. Taylor seems really angry. That night he asks Tammy, she says she meant to tell him - we're expecting some big and pointless fight, Coach says he's then kissed Glen by proxy, and this whole thing becomes a running joke between them - again, very true to life, very right. How can you not like this show?

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.

Just One Kiss: The highlight of this episode of Friday Night Lights

Best scene in Friday Night Lights (season 4, episode 7?) has to be the teachers at (West) Dillon at a karaoke night - more more specifically, the aftermath of same, when bumbling young English teacher who's obviously long had a crush on Tammy (understandably) and obviously interested in her in part because she's out of reach - married, and in any case out of his league, he a confirmed nebish, embraces Tammy at curbside outside restaurant/bar, friendly, congratulating her on her award, she thanking him for the fun evening, and the embrace lasts just a moment too long and as they break he leans in to kiss her on the mouth and she pulls back astonished. Even better, she goes up to him the next day to talk about this - tells him not to feel bad or guilty but it can't happen again. That's just one of the things so smart about this show - they really know how to write for Tammy, making her the smartest and kindest person without in the least being wimpy or simpering or supercilious. She just always seems to know what to say to put things right. A cheaper, dumber show would have made a huge plot point out of this and would have her guilt and anger simmer and maybe the teacher would have done something stupid leading to a fight with Tammy's husband - stupid melodrama. But FNL writers understand how people should act and how they do act, and maybe nothing more will come of this kiss, but they used it very effectively to illuminate character and to create a revealing moment - revealing primarily about Tammy and her poise and wisdom.

Sorkin has found his perfect subject : The Social Network

Never was a big fan of Aaron Sorkin and The West Wing, though because M was an avid viewer I probably saw the equivalent of many shows just by passing through the TV room. My plaint was that all the characters sounded like smart screenwriters - nobody talks that way. But Sorkin has found the perfect subject for him in the geeky and intellectually arrogant Harvard world of The Social Network. These people - from all I know of them - really do talk like Sorkin, and it feels he has perfectly caught the inflections and the caustic syntax of Mark Zuckerberg (credit also to Jesse Eisenberg). Director Fincher who put me into a novacaine coma with Benjamin Button has figured out how to pace a story, too, with a fast narrative and very effective cutting from present (legal depositions against Zuckerberg regarding the provenance of Facebook) to past (as we watch as Zuckerberg step by step conceives the idea [or steals it?] and develops it). He's a horrible but troubled kid - amazingly, we learn not a single fact about his life before Harvard - and though the irony is a bit thick here we come to see the sorrow in his life, the guy who created the world's biggest social network, based on "friending," has not a single friend in his life - at least that's the Zuckerberg of fiction, the movie treads a line between biopic and pure fiction, and makes no attempt to be a true documentary. The tone and the playing is exactly right, down to the small scenes - the two rich jocks coming to Larry Summers and expecting his help is a great moment. Film should win lots of awards and one would hope a wide audience, though the theater was not filled.

Two social outcasts but with a weird twist: Kimberly Akimbo

Didn't know much about and don't know much about David Lindsey-Abaire but last night saw his (2000?) play, "Kimberly Akimbo," at the always good Second Story Theater (Warren, R.I.) - a fine production of a very good, unusual family tragi-comedy, a contemporary take on the Williams-O'Neil tradition of families tearing themselves apart - with the twist that in this case the only sane one in the family is the teenage daughter. The real twist is that the eponymous daughter has progeria, she's 16 but looks about 40 (played by a 40ish actor), though dresses and talks like a somewhat precocious teen (it's not broadly comic like Freaky Friday, but just touching and a little strange). Kimberly of course is a social outcast at school, and also facing her mortality - average life expectancy is 16 - and at the heart of the play is her relation with a geeky classmate who befriends her, another outcast. Lots of plays and movies have this theme, too, but handled very well here, with the odd twist of the obvious gap in age between the two actors. One of the best lines is K says people at school ignore her and her friend says he wishes they'd ignore him. One amazing scene: The two get a ride to school from K's alcoholic, bumblingly protective father. Don't touch her tits!, the father screams, leading to an argument about Dungeons and Dragons, finally, after much shouting, awkward silence and then: Look, we're here! Which brought down the house. Most touching scene: when K has to dress as her friend's grandmother (to pull off a clumsy bank heist), and she steps into the light in an old lady's dress and with a powdered wig and she really does look 70 or so, and everyone in the audience and on stage is startled and moved. Can he still be friends with her? Attracted to her? Or does this ruin everything for them? Very good play, sharp and lively production by Second Story.

Which actor in Friday Night Lights has matured the most?

Episode 6 season 4 of "Friday Night Lights" is somewhat quiet compared with many others, a transitional point in the middle of this season of episodes - the E. Dillon Lions begin to come into their own as a team, playing a heartening game and proud in defeat. Strangely, none of the players have fully emerged the way the players did on the Dillon Panthers in previous seasons, but there are tremendous plot opportunities in the racial tensions on the team, an issue rarely explored in previous seasons - the racial tensions regarding Smash Williams resided largely off the field. This episode more about people leaving Dillon, Lyla (Mrs. Derek Jeter) comes back for a brief turn with Riggins - I do think she's one of the weakest actors in the show - and then she's back to college leaving Riggins morose. I think she's out of his life for good, or ought to be - he's a guy destined for nothing good, I'm afraid. In parallel plot line, Matt takes off in his beat-up old car - there's nothing left in Dillon for him, now that his grandmother doesn't need him and all he's doing is delivering pizzas - except for Julie, but he knows she'll go off to college, too. Very sad moment, and very true to life, as so much is in this series. Landry increasingly emerging as a very good character, his dialogue with Matt as they toss around a football, after the funeral, just great - smart and thoughtful and boyishly awkward and true. Not sure what range the actor has, but seems to me he could potentially be a very good actor in a bigger part, especially with some comic possibilities. He's grown and matured as an actor more than any other in the series.