Recaps: Friday Night Lights, Season 5, Episode 7

This year has been different; for the first half of the season, it has been hard to know what the season was about. Given the focus on Vince, you felt he would be at the centre of things, but his father’s role was not really clear until last week, as he turned into Vince’s manager, something that cannot result in anything good.

Now, so long as we’re focusing on football, there are pretty much three questions that we know the rest of the season is going to focus on, all of which were made clear this week in what was an absolutely pivotal episode in the truest sense of “pivotal.” 1) Can Eric corral his team, turning them from unruly (something he helped foster) to a morally upstanding team? 2) Can Eric save Vince from screwing up his future, which his dad is helping him do? 3) Will Eric leave Dillon, as he is being approached for a college head-coaching gig?

The common thread, of course, is Kyle Chandler’s Eric Taylor, and that is the way it should be. Michael B. Jordan has been spectacular this year as a centrepiece, but this show, ultimately, is about a good man trying to be a good man while everything in the world of high-school football encourages him not to be. And this is setting him up to make some huge decisions down the stretch of the show’s final season.

The show still hasn’t reached that hair-raising earnestness that it trades in, but this episode was so well plotted that it makes you forgive some of the sloppiness (which was charming, at times) that dominated the first part of the season. The great thing about Cress Williams’ Mr. Howard is that he honestly believes he is doing right by his son, even as he’s in encouraging his son to run up the score on the Dillon Panthers in this year’s rivalry game. It’s just that we’ve seen Eric go through the process with Smash, and we know he’s the guy to handle it. And by the end of this week’s episode, we know that Mr. Howard is essentially Cam Newton’s dad. In terms of real-world timeliness, FNL has come up with a masterstroke, if a lucky one.

'Friday Night Lights' Season 5, Episode 3 Recap

When you have a show with a cast as large as the one on 'Friday Night Lights', it's hard from week to week to continue with some stories. Tonight, some plot lines were dropped, while others were intensified. It's making for an inconsistent season thus far. Not that 'Friday Night Lights' isn't still a fine show. It is. However, it needs more focus if it's going to rise to the level of last season. Tami had a more formidable task. She tried to convince the rally girls to respect themselves and avoid parties like the one on the video. She told them to be better and respect themselves, but most of the girls laughed at Tami's authority. Maura (Denise Williamson), in fact, was later found making out in the storage room. Clearly, she thinks being a rally girl for any boy will make her popular. Perhaps because she got nowhere with most of the East Dillon girls, Tami was anxious for a small victory. That's what she got when she convinced Eric to let Jess (Jurnee Smollett) be the equipment manager on the football team. Tami knew how Jess loved football and wanted to be part of the team, so while this was just a crumb, it was something. And Jess was psyched. Vince hated it, but so be it. Vince couldn't talk to his father -- or his mother. But he could talk to Coach Taylor. He was angry and surly and Eric let him vent. Eric reminded Vince of how far they'd come together, and that Eric was proud of him. But Eric expected Vince to be better. Vince blew a gasket at that because he didn't know how to be a better man. Nobody had taught him. Eric filled that role. He is his teacher. He told Vince that striving to be better is the essence of character. Another father story was the subplot about Buddy's son. What can Buddy (Brad Leland) do for his child who's living 1,500 miles away with his mother? Well, like Eric told him, instead of seeing Buddy Jr.'s rebellion as a problem, Buddy had to see it as an opportunity. With resolve, Buddy called his ex-wife and told her to send Buddy Jr. home to Dillon. His father was ready to straighten out the son.

Friday night lights, a town, a team, and a dream

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