Friday Night Lights

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

In this weeks episode we said farewell to Jason Street. Saw Saracen embrace a way to regain his place on the football field. Tyra saw how hard the path to success would truly be and ran away from it. And we saw another example of how amazingly well written this show is with regards to how it treats the relationship between the Taylor's.

It was a good farewell for Street. Yes it was more than a little contrived, but it was a good farewell anyway. It was good to see Riggins stand by him, keep his head up and provide the little epiphany that was needed. Like Smash before him it was good to see the show handle his departure with class and not just have him disappear.

Saracen realized that he can't just sit back and watch others do a poor job while he does nothing. It doesn't matter that he has been on the bench, and seemed resigned to that, he knows deep down that he can't just sit and watch the team fail. So he stepped up and basically forced Coach to accept his chipping in at wide out. And it is a time honored football tradition really, for coaches to let program veterans who have given their all have a shot at helping the team no matter what.

Poor Tyra, her role is just a stereotype of someone afraid of letting go, and lack of self esteem. She just doesn't realize how smart she really is and what she can really contribute, no matter how many times Tammy tries to reinforce her. So, given the choice between just running away and living out some dream, or working to fulfill her other dreams and possibly losing her man, she runs. Poor thing.

And finally the Taylor's and the 'Dream House'. Just another amazing example of how the writer's seem to really understand how a husband and wife work. Tammy sees what she wants, and tries to get Eric to want it too. But he has to be the voice of reason. And since she doesn't want to hear that voice she just chooses to ignore it and try to press him. And in the end they both realize that they both just want each other, but to see what the other wants from the perspective. And while the voice of reason 'wins' the day, the real winner is again their strong marriage.