The Prestige TV Podcast - Did ‘Friday Night Lights’ Stick the Landing?

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Andy Greenwald is joined by Mallory Rubin to discuss “Always,” the series finale of ‘Friday Night Lights.’ They open by setting the scene, providing background info on the show itself, and contextualizing the TV landscape that it was released in (3:43). Next, they discuss the stakes of, instant reactions to, and various criticisms of the final episode (25:33). Along the way, the two talk about the finale’s legacy and how it’s aged for them personally (80:39). Finally, they answer the titular question: “Did it stick the landing?” (97:41). Host: Andy Greenwald Guest: Mallory Rubin Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Theme Song and Other Music Credits: Giancarlo Vulcano Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili, and host of What About Your Friends? A podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the Ringer dish feed, I talk to my best friend Stephen Othello and your favorites from within the ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed where we try to answer the question TLCS back in the day. What about your friends? Hello, welcome to Stick the Landing, the start of a brand new show. about endings. My name is Andy Greenwald. I'm a writer. I'm a showrunner. I'm a podcaster. Perhaps you're here because you listen to me and Chris Ryan Weekly on the Watch. Each episode of this show

will do a deep dive into a series finale from throughout the history of television. We'll look at the good, the bad and the very, very almost unspeakably ugly. In the process, we'll uncover a lot about this favorite medium of ours, how it's changed, how it's surprised, and I just think maybe a little bit about where it's going. Okay, so let's begin. And by begin. I mean, let's talk about endings. For a long time, the idea of ending a TV show was bizarre. TV shows were not about answering questions or even telling a single story. Episodes were episodic. Our favorite characters got into a pickle or a jam or another lazy food metaphor of your choice, and then they got out of them, usually in time for a freeze frame with everyone laughing.

TV shows didn't end. They got canceled. And everyone then went about their lives and tuned into whatever started airing at 8.30 p.m. on Tuesdays instead. The rare series that got to write its own ticket or call its own shot was either A, already a pantheon beloved show, or B, not something that really could ever refer back to itself in any profound way. After all, before VCRs, reruns were the only way to ever catch up on something. And so writers were discouraged from making anything too serialized or too self-referential. And the truth is, even after VCR's, you were much more likely to find footage of your eight-year-old birthday party on an old tape

than you were the memorable episode of LA Law that your parents thought they were archiving forever. I speak from experience. When I was a kid, an announced series finale was an event, sure, but one made of equal parts curiosity and sentimentality. It was the last time you get to see your TV pals, not to find out if they were actually in purgatory the whole time or not. I promise we'll get to that. So, the finalees I remember were either highly rated celebrations or jaw-dropping stunts. Either the gang flew off together in a helicopter, or they all got arrested for the rude things they had done over the years.

We talked about finales, we laughed about them the next day, but we didn't really remember them, except maybe the same. Elsewhere finale, which was fucking insane. And yes, we will get to that. All of this changed for the advent of prestige TV and then it snowballed with streaming. Increasingly, TV shows were less entertaining diversions and more existential gambles on risky IPOs. Would all the time audiences invested in this expensive program offer a worthwhile return? Would all the questions posed by the pilot be answered? Would they ever get off that fucking island? Sorry, Damon, I promise we'll get to lost eventually and we'll be fair. As with everything else in our reactionary culture, it's all become wildly overheated and ridiculously supercharged, as if one wrong move in this past summer's succession finale could have

somehow invalidated all of the marvelous acrobatics with the previous three seasons. So in the end, what do we even really want out of our beloved television shows? Who do the characters belong to? And in a week when Fraser Crane started tossing salads and scrambling eggs again, what does any of this matter when nothing and no one ever really dies? We're going to figure it out, one fade out, at a time. This is Stick the Landing. And no, that is honestly not an Oceanic 815 reference. And so, for our very first episode of our show about endings, I couldn't be happier to be joined by my good friend, podcast queen, Mallory Rubin. Thank you so much for being here. Andy, it's the honor of my life. I feel like you said that to me before, but maybe...

Yeah, it's always true. I'm the one who is honored. Do you want to tell the people what show we've picked for our very first episode? Here's a little clue for you. Yeah. Clear eyes, full hearts, can pod. Oh, that's good. See, this is why you're here. We picked Friday Night Lights. Friday Night Lights is a favorite show of both of ours. The ending, the last episode, always, I feel like we don't need to spoil it.

A beloved episode. Sensational. For many good reasons. I also think, among the other reasons why we pick Friday Night Lights for this, it's one of the best shows of the century, without a doubt. But I think it's kind of overlooked. it's too easily forgotten despite the fact that it has

and I think we'll get into this a rather out-sized footprint that it left in its wake I mean it made a lot of stars made a lot of vibes made some pretty good memes and just the intensity of the affection for it is almost unparalleled

don't forget the merch are you a merch person wow podcasting famously a visual medium so everyone can see that I'm holding up my East Dylan's Vince Howard jersey it is shiny Yeah, I don't have it on because I don't know how well it's going to breathe in the studio,

but I did feel that it was important to have it here with us today. That's not game worn. Is it? Not yet. That's what today's all about. Fair. I think the other reason why we pick Friday Night Lights is, you know, I think inevitably this show is this podcast is going to be about the changes in TV over the past few decades.

And I think the interesting thing about Friday Night Lights is that it lived the changes in real time. So to go through the numbers, the show says, started as a pre-Prestige network show. It was adapted from the movie, which I believe was a 2004 movie, and then it was designed to be an NBC show that would run, like all NBC shows, potentially, forever. But almost immediately, when it premiered, it kind of chafed against that dynamic. First episode, perfect.

We'll talk about that, even though this is a show about finale's. But pretty quickly in the second season, it started to wobble for plot reasons, and then also, this also makes it relevant, got hit by a writer's strike, and so the second season was curtailed. The show was then saved, and it was saved in a way that was felt wildly modern at the time, which is to say NBC was like,

we cannot make this show anymore. This isn't working for us. The ratings aren't there. And, if we're being honest, which networks often are not, creatively, maybe this beautiful gem shouldn't be pushed to 22 episodes a year forever. in came our friends.

Our friends, right, at DirecTV. Yeah, of course. Flush with Sunday ticket cash. And they were like, hey, we want in on this burgeoning TV landscape. And we will partner with you to fund additional seasons of the show provided we get them first. So Friday Night Lights began as a 22 episode a year network show. And then beginning with season three became a limited,

what was it, 12, 10, 12, 15 episode of season. Season 1 is 22, season 2, is 15, and then seasons 3, 4, and 5 are all 13 episodes. 13 episode show on DirecTV's much-beloved 101 network. The episode premiered there and then aired later on NBC. So it started as an old-fashioned show

and became a modern show mid-run. Were you there from day one? I was there from day one. I was. What was your relationship with the show, Mel? So the show started in 2006 when I was still in college.

I hate this commentary. We're going to go through what else was happening when the finale aired and both of our producers. We're like, oh, yeah, sure, high school. That was a rough moment for both of us. Just violence. That was a painful way to start our day. So I began watching, like, midway through the shows run after I had graduated, caught up on everything, and then was watching in real time over the final couple seasons. And one of the incredible things about revisiting this, and this is always the case with, like, a beloved story, whether it's a book you pick up that you haven't.

revisited in years or a show or a movie, it instantly ports you back to the experience of consuming it for the first time. But the thing that surprised me most about returning to Friday Night Lights is that it felt like it had been preserved and embedded in amber. And like in our era of multiversal storytelling was universal and timeless and could have existed at any moment in a way that felt like kind of shocking. So much felt fresh, even though I hadn't seen it in years. And if this had aired six months ago, you would have believed that completely, even though it's been almost two decades.

I know. This began, which is a really long time ago. It's shocking. I want to take two things that you said and separate them out. One is the emotional part, which is pretty much going to dominate the rest of this podcast. So let's put that aside for a moment. Setting it over under on tear shed today? I'm not going to say that I have any money in this, but there is a prop on Fandual that I think has a Chris Ryan boost.

so I can show you that way the action's been going after we finished recording. You said that you were not aware of the show when it started, but you caught up. That is a very modern phrasing. How did you do that? Binged it. On DVDs. That's what I wanted to hear from you. Which I still have.

Yes. And I know that you actually had, not to jump ahead, but you tipped me off to an edit in the finale in terms of what is currently streaming on Netflix. And so one of the things that my husband and I did when we were revisiting the finale was like, should we, should we break out the old DVD? You know, I wonder which version is on the DVD. I said, wait, do we still have the box set DVD? And the answer, folks, was yes. Physical media.

Still present in our household. This is great. And we shouldn't leave this for the end. So what Mallory is referring to is at the time of recording, we're recording this in September 2023, Friday Night Lights is available to stream on your Netflix service, which is a great thing. However, we did both notice that the episodes from season three, four, and five, which originally aired on Direc TV and then came to NBC. The versions that are streaming are the NBC versions, which means they are missing scenes, which is brutal. The DirecTV versions

didn't have to conform to the advertising standards of NBC at the time, so they ran a little bit long. So you are not getting the full experience. I don't understand why they would do that, since there are no standards to conform to on Netflix, clearly. That's the other thing. There's a little bit of internal dissidence watching something on a streaming platform that aired in the cable era of commercial breaks. And even just like the little cut to black between scenes, you know a commercial is supposed to be there,

but mostly the succinct compact. Yeah. I mean, I'm saying this as somebody who occasionally records, you know, two and a half hour podcasts on one and a half minute trailers. And like 42 to 44 minutes per episode. Oh, my God. Yeah. And that was part of what a.

allowed me in addition to just obviously like the sublime quality of the show to instantly mainline all of it. It's like your crunching game tape. With the coaching staff, you can blaze through half a season comfortably in a weekend. Well, what's incredible about the show and I like, well, I was going to say I did something like you. I didn't. I started and then I did not complete it, but I did rewatch the pilot again. I've watched it many times and I still think it's one of the most perfect pilots ever made. Exceptional. I think it's, one of the things that's remarkable about it is that it still does feel

exceptional. All credit to Pete Berg, who came in, wrote this pilot, directed it, and it doesn't look like TV. Now, again, in 2023, a director saying, I don't make TV, I'm just going to make a shorter film, is standard. Less so in 2006, certainly less so for NBC. and the way that he storyboarded and then blocked and then shot the show was pretty revolutionary, which was, I'm going to have some cameras moving around you and you guys are going to do the scene.

We are in it. We are with you. You can feel that from the beginning. Two main things, takeaways from rewatching the beginning of the series to me. One, despite the fact that this is a filmmaker coming to NBC, the economy of this thing is masterful. It is beautiful. within a few short moments with thanks to some helpful radio voiceover

we are introduced to like seven to eight major characters we are see who they are how they live their lives Saracen with his grandmother Riggins waking up drunk all these characters and we get the sense of the town the community and the stakes and it's beautifully done and we're off to the races and there's no more handholding necessary

the other thing is I'm watching this and I'm like I am in love again and being in love with a show It's the best. Is the best feeling and is a crucial television feeling. And it is out of fashion. I feel like there are fewer and fewer shows. There are many more shows to admire.

There are a lot of shows to like. There are a lot of shows to be excited about. But just loving something, that doesn't seem to be the goal as much anymore. And with Friday Night Lights in particular, because I often feel that way about the shows and stories that linger with me, like they get their claws in me,

Panther or Lion Clause, up to you, right? Maybe we'll discuss where our final. Allegiances came down there. Well, you're a cat person, so you're happy to matter what. It's true. I love a cat, as you know. There was a meta quality to that with Friday Night Lights where so much of what is central to the text, family, community, the relationships that you build with other people, the way that somebody can work their way into your heart and your soul in a shocking fashion, but one that is almost instantly permanent, that's like what the show was for us. The bonds that the characters are building with each other

is the bond that we're building with the story that we're watching. And it was really amazing to watch, to revisit the pilot and then revisit some of the more general run of show and then get to the finale. And the pilot and the finale are these beautiful, perfect mirrors and bookends.

Their bookends, yeah. That was one of the things that struck me most to the number of characters who not just are present in the first couple episodes of the show, but who are the story, the focus for the bulk of the run. They're there from the beginning. And I love that you brought up the cameras because that like shaky handheld, you're in it,

you feel like you're in the huddle, you're there in the play. But what does it translate to just as perfectly? The dinner table, right? Yes. Riggins Riggs, buddies car dealership or garage, whatever the case may be, there's this intimacy in how it is presented that allows you to latch onto those characters and the sense and flow of rhythm of their day and their life. But then you have this grand scope.

You're driving through the town, the plains, the open spaces, that high, big Texas sky. Everything feels massive, including, of course, the stakes and the expectations. But so much of the actual time we're spending with the characters, we're in their lockers, we're in their faces. We're at the chair next to them as they're watching tape or eating brisket. And so it has this, like, unbelievable blend of the little and the intimate, right? the big and the vast, and you start to realize that those terms don't apply because, like, quote, unquote,

little, no, that's the whole point. The show is about those moments and those quiet, personal things, much more ultimately than, like, did you win state? The show is also a deeply American show. Yeah. Made for America. And that is a more complicated statement, I think, at this particular moment in time. but I think that one of the reasons the show was celebrated, is celebrated, and I still wish it could be a model, was for all the hand-wringing over, certainly in Hollywood, like, are we making shows for the coasts? Are we making shows for elites?

How do we reach the heartland? Should we have more violence in Yellowstone to get them on board? This was a show about rural Texas, about people whose politics may have differed from yours and mine on occasion. I don't want to presume, but that doesn't matter, because the show focused on the things that were much more universal, and I think that that is actually harder in practice than it is in theory, to actually pull off.

The show made a number of seemingly small choices that guaranteed its legendary status. And to go specifically into the NBC to DirecTV, the 22 episode into 13 episode model, the joke that everyone points to with the show, the moment where it could have been canceled, it could have been forgotten, and it could have just squandered everything and been like a, well, it started strong, but what did we get?

Legend was the killing spree of one Landry. Infamous. Played by Jesse Plemons. I'm using this as an example of what the show was heading towards and yet then the creators were able to draw it back in. Do you want to set the scene for this? Because season two, immediately when it started, and I believe it started with like a big pool party at the end of summer, a lot of energy, a lot of action, a lot of fun.

And then you're like, wait, we're just going to do this again. and the writers were like, oh, no, we're going to keep things busy. Just maybe not keeping with what you thought you were going to get. Yeah, when you revisit the overall run of the show, it's striking how many of the truly baffling things happen in a concentrated burst. Yeah, in the second season, right? Yeah, which is part of why it's kind of a fabled period in the show's history and the TV history. And I think that it's like now with some distance, you know, it's just part of the history of the show.

It's part of the legacy of the show to adapt and adjust. I think that part of like starting season four where you get in essence a second pilot and this complete reset around the lions, like the ability to start over and start over and like learn from things that didn't go right. But also like there are other shows that do something like Landry kills a guy, right? And then they say Landry doesn't work as a character anymore. We have lost the ability to deploy Landry as like a central part of this text. But Landry is one of the heartbeats of the show.

Like, part of Landry's role in the story as a guy who will eventually go on as a member of the East Dillon Lions to kick an astonishingly improbable 46-yard field goal despite basically having never successfully kicked the ball, period. Just quick sidebar. Is that less likely than him murdering someone? Of a piece, maybe they didn't adjust as much as we're claiming they did. But he wanted that glory. He wanted to participate. Football is religion as much as religious. and his religion in this town, but what is Landry also there for?

He's there to, like, pull Matt Saracen back in when he starts to lose sight of who his true friends are and what his priority should be in life. And so, like, do we spend some time at some point as Friday Night Lights viewers, journeying with Jason Street to wonder about splicing shark DNA? We do. But you know what? We sure do. That's okay.

Yeah. And there are just far, far, far, far, far fewer moments like that. And this show, then, and many others that run for this long over this many episodes. Isn't it amazing, though? I mean, again, this is such a unique test case because the finale that we got, and I promise we're going to get to it in fewer than five seasons of a podcast, the finale that we got, we were not promised. This was well on its way. It's not like it just could have gone off the rails. It was fully going off of the rails in a way that I don't blame.

Peter Berg who created it or Jason Cadems who took over a showrunner I don't blame them for it this was TV what were you supposed to do and honestly I know I made some some joking references to Lost in the intro but Lost is the only other show that I can think of off the top of

my head that gave us evidence of what was going to happen if the creators weren't empowered to tell the story they wanted to tell in the manner that they thought was best to tell it you know Nikki and Paolo and Landry and Murderer are of a piece because that's just what TV shows did.

Expoise, what a time that was. Yes, and it doesn't diminish the show at the beginning, but the reason we're talking about shows at the end is because they weathered these things and they got through these things. And perhaps no bigger upheaval once Landry went back onto the straight and narrow was the fact that they recognized, and some of this may have been budgetary. In fact, I'm certain some of it was budgetary,

but the move to DirecTV also gave them a chance to say the Jason Street storyline, the Tyra storyline, the Lila storyline, smash, we've told these stories. Right. What we have is a beautiful engine that we can reload and gas up again with something new. And so before we pivot to the very end, we have to talk about that middle point where two things happen and they are not small. One was the casting directors bawled out and brought in, I mean, Michael B. Jordan, one of the true undisputed movie stars of our time was a mid-season replacement.

He joined the show when it came to DirecTV. He joined in season four, so in its second DirecTV season. Journey Smollett, who was on Lovecraft Country, and it's a wonderful performer, joined then as well. They, in addition to Matt Lurie and others

who we'll speak about, they reloaded in an almost absurd way and saved the show in the process. But the other show-saving decision was something that was, I think, again, pretty radical. They looked at what they had. They looked at the Dillon Panthers. They looked at this town where, you know, the boosters

and everyone were always conspiring for this one engine that would fuel their sense of self-worth and their town's value. And then we got cast out of Eden. They said, actually, there's another part of town that's less privileged, that's less boosted, that's less celebrated. And we are going to take the town,

the school that was the town, the hero and we're going to make it the villain. Yes. And here comes East Dillon. Yes. This is one of the great achievements in the history of television, I think without question. And part of what made this feel right so quickly is what you outlined, just charisma and starpap. When you're with Vince, when you're with Jess, you were so instantly invested in these characters,

much like you instantly became invested in Matt Saracen or Tim Riggins. But speaking of Tim Riggins, who is still there, who is still very, very present? I mean, obviously the tailors are the great through line of the show. But you're with Tim. You're with Billy. You're with Buddy. I think Buddy is an interesting, quiet MVP for the reset because he is an avatar for viewers in a lot of ways where it's this lifelong allegiance to the Panthers. And often in the earlier seasons, he's another example, I think, of if you just, like, strip away the experience of watching the show and just explain plot points and characters.

And you talk about season one. Running back, who thinks he's too small, takes steroids. Booster who is too obsessed with glory and can't let go of the good old days forsakes his family for the ring on his finger. And you're like, eh. And you watch it, it's magnetic, right? And so for Buddy to be able to embrace the lions. And part of it is selfish, right? He has to find some sense of worth and belonging again because he has been cast out by the Joe McCoy takeover of the Panthers and the boosters.

You start to believe. And like, Coach Taylor, Eric Taylor, Mrs. Coach, Tammy Taylor, they. choose Dylan, East Dylan. They choose the lions. Julie chooses the lions, right? So there's that great moment early in season four where Eric is chatting with Levi, the principal of East Dylan, and he, and I'm paraphrase. Levi, always angry.

Furious. Always. Great character. He's like, you're the only one who didn't get the joke. Like, you're the only one who didn't get the joke. You weren't supposed to say yes to this. You weren't supposed to come here. You weren't supposed to try to do this.

but that's the whole heart of the show. Like, clear eyes, full hearts can't lose has become a lasting quotation among pop culture consumers, not just because it is a great highly quotable line. I think it's because, like, it genuinely taps into something fundamental about giving a shit, right? About trying to achieve something meaningful for yourself, but also for the people that you care about and giving them something to strive toward. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zetbound.

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Let's talk about where they were going. The end of season five is building towards Coach Taylor is a wonderful wife, Tammy. We haven't even said the words Connie Britton on this podcast yet. We're going to. Callie, Connie Britton, the whole season of a podcast could just be about that. I would love that.

Coach Taylor has rebuilt the East Dillon Lions to a powerhouse. They are going to state. Yes. The tension is coming from two sources heading into the finale. One is that due to budget cuts, the larger municipal area of Dylan

has decided it can only fully fund the athletics department of one school. There will be one football program. There will be one football program across the two schools and which will it be. And there's some jockeying and pushing and pulling and hard feelings, obviously, about that. The other tension is that Tammy Taylor,

the hero to all, has been absolutely improbably and ludicrously offered a job in the greatest city in America, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. No wonder you wanted to start the season with this episode. It's all about Philly at the end. I just want to say

the most romantic words ever said in a television show are, would you do me the honor of bringing me to Philadelphia with you? I, that's when I cried. In front of Father Christmas, Nicholas. I know. What could be more touching? I expected Baby Gracie to whip up some batteries and just throw them at Santa in honor of the home that she will soon have.

Did anybody in that little Santa setup eat shit off the ground like Eagles fans after Nick Folls won you a Super Bowl? I think the issue is that none of the polls and Dylan were properly greased. Although that could have been done. Tell that to the landing strip. Great call. Great call. So, yeah, we should talk about that. I mean, Tammy is at this point only recently a guidance counselor at a rural high school.

And when she gets a call to go to essentially like Bryn Maw College, like an elite private college on the East Coast. And they're so impressed with her. They're like, why don't you just run our admissions department? Yes. from guidance counselor at Dylan, to principal at Dylan, to guidance counselor at East Dylan, because there was supposed to get her fired,

to come interview after a conference. Yes. Right? Ran into at the conference. Casually. Very compelling showing on the panel. Yes, she was dynamic. Very compelling showing on the panel.

Should we talk to you're implying, we should talk to all students? I am. Mike drop. Come interview for. assistant dean of emissions. And once again, embarrassed a curmudgeon in the room and was offered his job by the end of the evening. Philly. It's an open-minded place, welcomes in from all over. Also, Tammy Taylor, still basically mother of a newborn. I mean, Atlantic Magazine, shout out,

ladies, you can have it all. She is unbelievable. So anyway, she has this job offer in Philadelphia, and suddenly there is a level of friction in the otherwise peerless. Taylor marriage that we've never seen before. So that's what's going on. And of course there is still the finals, the state, and what will happen in addition to what will happen for some of the seniors moving forward. So that's where we are going into the finale. I want to set the scene a little bit with just where were we as a people.

The finale aired on DirecTV on February 8, 2011. That was, I believe, four months before Grantland.com launched. So that's basically my personal timeline, BG or AG. It was called Always. It did air on NBC later in the summer. It was 61 minutes, Mal. And we saw a version recently that was 44 minutes. We lost some crucial scenes.

It was written by showrunner Jason Cadams, who also did Parenthood. And we can get into his CV later if he wanted. It was directed by a frequent director on the show, Michael Waxman. The episode description was, look, the Lions advanced towards state, as many decisions are made with implications that could change the player's future. I love this. The best. There is a whole, I mean, a dedicated study into episode descriptions. I mean, no one ever got as good as Matt Weiner on Mad Men, but this is still pretty vague in a wonderful way.

One thing that's interesting, just for the context, I know we were talking about NBC versus Direc TV. The pilot of Friday Night Lights on NBC in 2006 brought in seven. million viewers. Seven million viewers. That would be the number one show on television if it aired today. The finale, when it aired on NBC, six months after it aired on Direc TV, brought in three million. That would also be close to, that would be a top 10 show today. That's how far we done fell. Direct TV at the time had 17 million subscribers and NBC had 100 million homes that it was in. I've asked our producer Kai to provide some other, just like, context things. It looks like the Republicans in the House battle turmoil in their ranks.

was the headline in New York Times, so plush ashaunch, pretty much could run that today. The top shows in America that year that did not include Friday Night Lights were NCIS Los Angeles, the mentalist, criminal minds, the Big Bang Theory, and Castle. Yeah, Castle Hive right here. Number one movie was Sanctum. I don't know what that is. Interesting. King's speech was still bringing in dollars, though.

Where were you, Mao? Set the scene. Where were you in 2011? You were not at Grandland yet for another year. No, yeah. 2013 was when I joined in Grantland, yeah. So I was in New York City editing college football at Sports Illustrated. So I was very much in the headspace to be consuming Friday Night Lights as both a lover of football and a lover of story, a lover of family, a lover of community, and definitely a lover of Texas barbecue.

It's funny. I was, and I know this is a little off topic, I was recapping Friday Night Lights for New York Magazine. So I was dialed in. There you go. Dialed in. I think it's worth saying, though, and especially as we go through a future finalees on this pod,

like to do a vibe check. And there are some that we're going to be talking about because of where they fell in the culture or how they aired or the era in which they aired where all eyes were on them. That was not the case here. Right. The move to DirecTV allowed Friday Night Lights

to do the kind of specialization that now is what all shows do almost from the start. They self-select their fan base and then they cater to the fan base. That was not a Disney plus Star Wars dig, I promise. Friday Night Lights finale was of enormous importance to Friday Night Lights fans and the Friday Night Lights faithful. That means that the pressure it was facing was really not as great as it would be for a mass market mainstream phenomenon. And it was in the era of, to your point in the beautiful opening essay, keen microscopic attention because the law

finale was the year prior. That was 2010. That's right. Finale that I ride for and a show that I adore and a show that I rewatched during the pandemic. And let me tell you something. It's fucking great. You've just booked your spot on our upcoming inevitable lost episode. If you think you've heard me say, it would be the honor of my life before. Wait until you get my line on that one. And yeah, so the expectations could have been different. But I think like it's a, it's a really good point. But I think it's like also one of those things where I don't know that there was a version of this finale that wasn't going to work based on how the show had, the show had been structured. especially in the final couple seasons.

And I don't know that there was a version of the finale that wasn't going to ultimately give us the plot elements that we need around state, around the job offers, etc., but hinge and center and full on the tailors, their marriage, their family, their relationship. Like the dynamics, Matt and Julie, I'm actually like, maybe it'll surprise you how interested I am in spending a couple minutes later

on Tim and Tyra. Having them back together in the finale and why I think that was really brilliant. For the people who love this show, though, like regardless of the broader interest and attention, it mattered so much for this to be good because you weren't just saying goodbye to a show. You're saying goodbye to your friends, right? And like when a show works and when it's good and you've spent years of your life, watching other people live their lives on your screen, that is the gift that it gives you. Yeah, you're saying goodbye to a feeling more than anything else. And I think one thing that struck me in rewatching the finale

was how little there was left to do. A lot of that plot coal that I was talking about had been dealt with or it falls by the wayside. And I do think that's worth putting a pin in for future episodes because I think that that's a recurring theme that you notice on a second viewing of a finale. You remember how on pins and needles you were on the edge of your seat, what's going to happen.

But really skilled shows and skilled showrunners kind of deflect a lot of the stuff leading up to the finale, clearing the space for the thing that they want to do. It shouldn't surprise any of us with a show as deeply emotional as Friday Night Lights that what Jason Cadems and his staff wanted to do was take care of us. We were serviced in it. So if you think about some of the major questions going into a final season or questions that had been asked over the previous few seasons, most were resolved. Smash was no longer on the show. Street story was pretty much settled. Lila story was settled. Landry was mostly off the show.

he remains off the show if you watch the Netflix cut of the finale, which is a devastating one, but otherwise comes back just to sort of be in a similar supportive role that he was before. Really, what was left are the points that we mentioned before and the larger question of how do we say goodbye to an emotion. Did you have any other lingering, I mean, either to put yourself back into your 2011 brain or going back into the finale,

was there anything else that you felt was on the table that was, ultimately not served. It's a good question. Like I would say I'm self-aware enough to admit that I'm a bit of a glutton and also have a really hard time letting go of things I care about. That's weird. That doesn't track, but maybe we'll unpack that. Sounds right to you as a person who's known me for a decade now.

So I'm always inclined to want to spend more time in the universes that I love with the people that I love. That is part of why I think this is one of the five or ten best friends. finalies ever, because there is not a moment watching it, genuinely, where, and this has nothing to do, this is not like to discredit the bonds that we formed with any of these characters, but there's not a moment watching it where I'm feeling, we really needed to see Jason Street one more time. Like, we had closure along the way in the appropriate moments with everybody. And the show is, I think, very deft and clever of still giving us those little

moments, right? Like Street does come back for the Panthers versus Lions game. He's in the season, yes. He's there to, he sparks the Shane, the, the recruitment, the latest dalliance that Coach Taylor is having with the college, right, Shane State, this college in Florida, they've got funding,

they sent to creative oranges, there's a pool at the house they'd be living in. He ultimately turns down that offer. That's part of the richness of, oh, the college move is actually going to be for Tammy, not for Eric at the end of the day, smashes scoring touchdowns for the on our television screens in the background of a scene.

We get these little nuggets where we know how people are doing. Tyra comes back and it doesn't feel like it's shoehorned in an unnatural or strange way. It is like totally fluid that she would be there to visit Stevie and Mindy and the family. And of course she'd see Tim and they'd fall back into their old patterns with each other and then talk about whether that was the right thing. And the pull of a hometown is universal. And particularly for these characters, I mean, there is a sense that there is a familiarity and a pleasure in being pulled back, but then there's also a bit of claustrophobia. Well, and a number of the characters, including Tyra Saracen, who eventually does go to Chicago, like spend time talking about how they can't wait to leave, right? This is another thing that if you just described it, a lot of the young people on the show can't wait to leave this small town that they think suffocated and stifled them in some way and that never understood them.

And then when they go, they're drawn back in a way they kind of can't believe. And the town has its grip on them. And there are things that they have escaped and grown beyond. And then there are things that they haven't. And I like that we get that in different ways over the series. Like there's the moment with Julie earlier on where she hates Dillon and she couldn't believe they had to move there. She was sickened by it.

Why do we always have to go just wherever dad's job thinks us? What about me? And when the prospect of Eric taking the job at TMU and them going to Austin arises, it is inconceivable to Julie that she would go because she found that. She found belonging. She found friendship. She found a sense of self

as a young person in the world. She found the lunch menu at the Alamo Freeze, the greatest restaurant. I was so glad that we got to go back to the Alamo Freeze in the finale. To your question of like, was there anything you needed, that was it. You needed that?

And the fact that Matt Saracen proposed to Julie Taylor in front of the Alamo Freeze is one of the most pitch-per- Hold on, we're getting to that. I would say that what you're talking about in terms of being pulled back, If I have a light criticism, it would be the show, I think, struggled finding a opinion or point of view on one of its central themes, which is faded glory, which is nostalgia, which is, are we ever more than who we were at a memorable moment in our lives? What's the morning after like? I think the show wants it a little bit both ways, which is fitting because this is, you know, it is a emotional television show. It isn't a gritty drama of the 2020s, which is all about all of these

characters living like a worst post-euphoria life after their game happened and they didn't ever achieve those heights again. But there is that kind of push and pull over whether this is really good for them or bad for them to be there. And I feel like the show kind of wavers on it in the finale. We can talk about that maybe when we're talking about the two couples. That's a really interesting point. And I think it's part of the part of the show. of the genius of the Tim Riggins figure. And there are a number of things that are brilliant about the Tim Riggins character and about Taylor Kitch's performance.

And that's another one where you go back and revisit Friday Night Lights and you're like, yeah, right, he just jumps off the screen and is like the most dynamic, charismatic, like, holy shit, who is this kid, instant star in some time. When you start season four and he leaves college and decides it's not for him and throws his books out of the window. You're going through part of what Billy ends up going through where you're like I wanted to see Tim try. But the genius of the end of season five

is the moment where he pulls Luke in and says, play state, and again, I'm paraphrasing, like give it everything you have and then let it go. And like, it was important for some characters, and I think especially for a character like Tim, who truly

had achieved like god-like status in the 10th. to say, this is actually not something that I wanted to chase anymore. Yes. And I always would have been chasing like a phantom version, a hollow version of the thing that I knew. And that's there, you're right. It's there from the very beginning. You know, part of the power of season one is Tammy being the voice of the, this town props up these kids and makes them gods.

And then they don't know how to live their lives. Yeah. What is the anthem of the show? Devil Town. Yeah. Right? And like you brought up the in the penultimate, the decision with the school. board to go with one football program.

And then they drop Devletown again. They drop Devletown. Oh, God, I'm getting chills thinking about it. Every time they drop Devil Town, the first time we hear it is when Saracen is running out with all the pressure in the world on his shoulders, certain that he will fail, certain that everybody in the town he grew up rooting alongside will blame him and hate him. Right? It's all my friends are vampires, right?

And the East Dillan Lions allow themselves to believe that they will be chosen. they aren't and like that's devastating. Yeah. Devastating that the same people who propped them up in two years they got to state are the ones. And of course there are people like Eric and Buddy who are like, we're going to fight, we're going to make this happen. We believe they're not going to tell a state team playing in state or state champion that they can't take the field next year. You know that that's not how it's going to go. You know it.

I think I agree with you ultimately. I think that's a really good read of it. If you rewatch the pilot, the moment before the big game, the first game of the season, when Street and Lila and Riggins are drinking beers and they're toasting and they're saying Texas forever. Yes. And they do not know that this is the last best night of their lives. Right. And the show makes us sit with that.

You know, I texted you when I rewatch the finale. I cried more watching the finale on my fifth or sixth rewatch at the age that I am. Yeah, same. Because now I'm watching, and this is cliche, but I'm watching it with kids. I'm watching it a little older. And the show is made by older people with a reason. And the kids are living it and being punished. Their bodies are punished for it.

Their futures are uncertain. And it's also fragile in the beginning. And I think the thing that brings me around to you is, to your point of view on it, is twofold. One, for every Julie and Matt in the finale moment, which I want to get into with you, there is a Tim and Tyra scene. And ultimately, though, the show does not give us the victory because it doesn't matter. It's about who these people are and what comes next. So let's pivot back to that to say, the finale begins. like the pilot.

You were saying it's a bookend, it's a mirror image. Once again, local NBC news trucks have descended upon a campus. Once again, the local journalists are asking wildly pointed expositional questions. Downright cruel. Tinker deserved better. Although, to be fair, when I rewatch the pilot,

the local sports guy is like, Tim Riggins, are you drunk right now? I smell alcohol on your breath, Tim. Are you sure you're not drunk right now? which is hard hitting. Yeah. But she's like, no. No, I'm not.

But yeah, they go, what does the guy ask Tinker? Like, what are you going to do next year? This is a super team. They're taking the best. Right. Let's be real. What are you going to do? Because you will not be on, you will not have a place on this combined, combined super team.

Terrible. And it, so, okay, so the show, so it begins that way. The Matt return. Let's just get right into this. Yeah. So Julie is back from... Julie is back

so many times in season five. It's less that she's back and more that after everything with T.A. Derek, she just... She's just kind of here. There were a lot of

inappropriate relationships on this show. If we were talking about, like, you know, I'd like to be more high-minded and be like, you know, the thing that keeps us

from having Friday Night Lights on the air in 2023 is just a lack of vision, a lack of ambition. It's definitely that Tim Riggins fucks his adult neighbor in season one.

He fucks his adult neighbor. Saracen fucks his grandmother's nanny. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Did Tim and Becky ever actually... No, there's a kiss. There's a kiss.

Becky kisses him. Right. Beyond that, though, of course, as you know, Tim had before the Becky kiss. Stop me if you've heard this before. Fucked Becky's mom. Yes. That's the neighbor.

Right. I forgot about that. The bar pick up and then ends up living in their airstream on their property. There's just a... It's a great show. It's funny, too, just like there's a casualness of some things. Like, morality shifts so intensely that there are things in the pilot that I'm like, oh, my heavens. Yeah.

But then there's also like, they're just fully drinking all the time. Oh, constantly. And it's not even an issue. It is. You mentioned Euphoria a few minutes ago. It is kind of, I actually had a few minutes where I was like, it's funny to think about Friday Night Lights in the Euphoria era. And like, if this had, if we were getting Friday Night Lights now on a streamer and, it, it's, we have plenty of sex and like lots of sex, lots of drinking,

but like, is it just euphoria if we get it now? I mean, that wasn't the heart and soul and attention of the show, but it would have more of a... I mean, there's a little bit, like in the... It doesn't end this way. It gets more in line with its overall hopefulness. Like, the Pete Berg version is a little like... Like a lot of filmmakers when they make something for TV,

it's like, I'm going to throw this all on the table and I'm going to bounce and make battleship. So, like, you guys sort it out. Yeah. Like, Tyra's behavior in the pilot, where she's just like eating smashes french fries in front of Tim you know like there's a lot more like

oh things are loose in this high school or this is the way you know and by the finale she's like I've been in love with you since kindergarten it's like okay by the end teenagers are marrying each other so everything this is a theme I think in a lot of TV shows where things just get a lot more moral as they go along and start to align with what people supposedly want in terms of like a very straight and narrow

but the Matt part yeah so Julie's back yes Matt comes back back. Yes. And Matt has had enough of, you know, just the experimental art scene in Chicago. He's drawn enough hands. Enough hands to know that he wants someone's hand in marriage to steady him. And he comes back and he proposes to Julie Taylor in front of the Alamo freeze.

Where else? And I want to start here both because I think this is, I'm trying to think big picture if, like, if I'm just allergic to this sort of thing in all finale's, because, you know, fast-for. when we do the Mad Men finale, the Stan Peggy, like one true shipping all along thing has always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. But this is the thing in the finale that I bumped against the most. And so I kind of want to start there because it... The proposal. No, that this is, not the proposal, because that's super Saracen. Yeah. That Julie's like, yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's like, yes, this is what I want. And that their potentially irresponsible actions become the guidepost for

or the senior tailors salvaging their marriage felt a little, a little too something for me. Because I felt like Julie is like Tammy in that she knows that this is silly. This is silly. Am I right or am I wrong? I agree with you, actually. I think that Julie's response to the proposal is my least favorite part of the finale. The thing that I was actually bumping on to drill on even further. And I get it. like in some ways it's a traditional family, a traditional town. But when she says to Matt, like, what did my dad say? I'm like, is Julie a character who wants her betrothed to ask her father's permission?

I don't think that's the Julie. She suddenly becomes very old-fashioned. Yeah, like the Julie that we spent multiple seasons with is the, I actually wouldn't go to church with you unless you made me. Yes. And I think that part of her season five arc is like an additional, degree of rebellion so that she can make her way back home, whether home is mad or Dylan or whatever the case may be. But I would say that like, and I don't know if this is an unpopular

or controversial opinion, Julie's never been my favorite character on Friday night. Julie's a tough character. I mean, there are things that, this is no disrespect to Amy T. Garden, but like there are markers put down in pilots that showrunners and writers then struggle with for years. Yeah. And I think Julie, the way she was written and the way that she played in and out of some of the major storylines was continually a challenge. And yet she was someone who was in, you know, when we're looking at the cast list, there are only three people who were main cast for all five seasons and it's the three tailors. Right. Yeah. So, you know, I believe, and I don't have trouble believing that Julie would get to the point by the end of the show, even though she is a freshman

in college at this point in 18 years old, where she would say, Matt is the person I want to be with. And you know what? Like, beyond anything that's specific to Julie and Matt, I think that's part of being, like, young and in love. And, like, this is my first love. And, okay, I went off to school and I slept with my TA and I was embarrassed and I was, I was destroyed and I was distraught. And this is actually the thing I wanted all along. And, like, they both have a moment. You know, Matt decides to stay, right? He stays in Dylan because of Julie. And then he's absolutely heartbroken when He sees her list of college applications. He's like, you're not going to do the same thing for me that I did for you.

And that's, of course, one of the through lines of the show and very present with the tailors and the finale is like, are you going to do the thing for me that I have always willing to do for you? Like, has it actually ever occurred to you to be that generous with me or you just always expect this to go away? I know we'll talk about Tammy and Eric more in a minute, but I will just say to you that like one of my favorite moments in the history of the show is in the penultimate episode when Eric gets the job offer from Dylan, gets the big contract office. and goes home and tells her about it, and she is, of course, heartbroken, but says to him, like, I'm going to do the thing for you that you haven't had grace. Exactly. And say congratulations. And that word grace is like, that is just devastating.

And he is shattered in that moment to have to confront the fact that he wasn't capable of that, right? And so Julie and Matt, like, feeling that safety and sense of belonging with each other makes sense for me. but some of the particulars around it, I agree, don't work as well. That said, it is the launching path for some of the most emotionally moments, emotional moments in the finale. Most of all, the conversation dinner, which I know we'll talk about, but even some littler things. Like, Tammy doesn't want this proposal.

She thinks it's a mistake. She thinks they're too young. When she goes into Julie's bedroom and sees the ring on her finger, Connie Britton puts her hand on her chest and is overcome. home when Grandma Sarison sees the ring on Julie's hand and is like quietly shaking with the tears of emotion, you feel the way that these people are connected not only to each other but across time. And so the proposal unlocks a lot inside of the finale, but that is ultimately a shout out to Luann Stevens who played Grandma Saracen across all the seasons and she's brilliant. The best. I mean, in that sense, it serves like the kind of storytelling Cole I was saying before.

Like you may not agree with it if you think about it in a vacuum, but it's, It does allow all of these, it gives the room for all these other things to happen. I also think the show kind of had it both ways. I think they understood that this was a little stodgy, even if it got them moving, because the actual result of that proposal is they are each other's person. Right. They are in no hurry to get married. There are no wedding bells.

They are going to continue their would-be professional or artistic careers. They're just going to do it in tandem with each other, modeled after the incredible Eric and Tammy. Yes. I want to twin that scene with the, with the Tyra and Tim stuff, but I also just want to say that, like, you're referring to Connie Britton in that scene, and it's leading to Kyle Chandler's performance

in the asking for the handed marriage scene. Historic. I do as a side note, I asked this in 2011. I'm going to ask it again when he's like, let me ask you something. How old are you right now, Matt? The single most compelling question of the finale, because longtime viewers of the show will know

that Matt Saracen began the series as a senior and then is immediately retconned into, like, a freshman or a sophomore. And then when he said 19, I was like, that's some interesting factual information we've gleaned here. Had no idea. It has been an open question for multiple years. But just to say,

Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton's performances, as these characters are Hall of Fame performances in the history of television. Yes. It is almost impossible to articulate in the bounds of a podcast that is already, I'm sure, running over long. to even describe the way that they brought fully evolved, fully alive, fully alive, fully three, four-dimensional people into existence.

I think that the moment in Julie's bedroom is a really important one, because Connie Britton just seems to intuit and understand, and it's also worth mentioning, Connie Britton's from fucking Boston. Connie Britton is not a Southern Bell, even though she will always be remembered as one or thought of as one. You know she loved when she got to finally say, like, are you sure we're not these ghost people? I know. She's like, I've been fooling you guys for five years. That's great. That she can play someone who is thoroughly modern, thoroughly independent, strong, intellectual, feminist woman who is also, and I'm already regretting my framing because it's not as if all those things can't also be emotional, but she can do all of them at once. Yes.

She is not toggling settings where she can, where she goes from, you know, thinking about her career to being like, oh, my baby girl's going to be married. All of that exists in her. Yes. She, neither of these actors ever, it's not that they would speak down to something. They never performed down to what was in front of them. Absolutely. And it's there from the very beginning. Like another great Tammy Julie example is when Julie is considering losing her virginity in the first season.

And there is the shock and horror and like nauseous, nervous feeling that Tammy is a mother and Tammy and Eric's parents feel. But ultimately, when it comes time for Tammy to talk to Julie about that, there's no lecture. There's guidance. There's counsel. But there's just tenderness. Like, everything is about that tenderness. And across all of the relationships that Eric and Tammy have, obviously with each other most of all. but Tammy and Julie, Tammy and a number of the students who she positively impacts along the way, Tammy and Tyra, et cetera,

Eric and Vince, right? It's like the ability to be able to shape and mold and guide and say my role as guidance counselor or coach or this figure who is not only literally an adult in your life, but like represents some sort of archetype of authority. I will be able in the moment when it comes to like looking you in your eyes to understand your circumstance. isn't your reality and the thing that makes this a particular challenge for you. Like, if it's just platitudes, it doesn't impact us or the people on the screen. And I think that I totally agree. And I think that one of the reasons I could say both of us, because we're both, quote, unquote, East Coast people, if you know what I mean. But I think I could just use eye statements is to say that, like, one of the things that's most moving

and just has made such an enormous impression on me is the modeling of those two as characters and as parents. And also, which speaks to the way they were performed and rich. which is to say there's a lot, there's talking on the show, there's dialogue, but they never lead with talking. They never, the writers didn't give Eric a big breakdown scene where he finally cries and the tough exterior is revealed or where he overly explains his thinking to get to one point or another. What you get from him is what you get. And when you get it, it means everything. So when Jess comes to him and says, this was the greatest experience of my life,

and he says, brusquely, because he's thinking about all these other things, he says, you know what, it was mine too. She is, you know, she's a wash in sunlight because she got the full beam coming from him and she knows what the value of it. But similarly, the way that they model throughout is through their behavior. And I think that in a lot of modern shows, there's this disconnect, especially as you've gotten more genre, where characters say clever things that you and I as writers and readers enjoy and they're snappy or entertaining or fun. And then they model. how they feel about people by going to war and lopping off a dwarf's head with an axe to show how much they meant it or whatever. And then those are the two perhaps disparate poles of the character's existence.

In a less genre show like Friday Night Lights that deals with real people and real situations and, you know, I guess in that sense, smaller stakes, at least from a budget standpoint, the behavior is just what you do. And in this finale, you think about what the characters actually do more than what they say or what they say they're going to do. Tim says he's going to Alaska. They say all this bullshit. But in the end, he sits with his brother and he builds a house. In the end, Coach Taylor knows in his heart whose turn it is. And he turns to Tammy and he turns a page. And that's what knocks us off our feet.

Absolutely. I mean, the look on his face, once again, awoke him by Buddy Garrity. the wee hours. And he's puffy-eyed and you can tell he just woke up and got out of bed. And he's looking at the offer that Tammy has on the table. And it's like, very clear. From college to Texas lady, please come have important job. It's just very clear that he hadn't even like looked at that or taken the time to do it before. I really like that you highlighted the Jess scene in the Jess moment because that's such a, I mean, her performance is fantastic. And that She's just, I love Jess.

I think she's a great character. And again, her arc. Let's take this character. She's not a girlfriend. She is at times Vince's girlfriend, but she loves football. This is what I was just going to say. The moment when Vince does actually like apologize and make his brand declaration of love. And we cut to Jess's cheek and there's a tear rolling down her face over Vince's thumb.

It's happiness, gratitude for what he's saying. Sure. No. it's about having to leave that behind. And though the reason that I love that is because I think there are certain stories that are less deftly told where the characters are not as fleshed out

and not on those complete arcs where it's just at the end of the day Jess was the girlfriend again. But there's not a second where you feel that way or think that because you understand what her ambition is. You understand what this means to her. And it's not about Vince saying,

I want you back, I fucked up, like, will you be with me again? It's him acknowledging that he didn't give, he didn't lend the credence and credit to the thing that she cared about. So it's another microcosm of the Tammy and Eric equation. And what's interesting to consider it in that context is Vince's story is not over. Oh, no. Vince's story in some ways is just beginning. Yes.

In terms of even like the story being what we have been watching to this point. I don't mean to say people's stories are over, but a lot of the major characters are beginning new stories. at the end of the series. And I think that that distinction and the maturity with which that relationship is framed is really important. Yes. Because there's never a shout out to Julie Taylor, Matt Saracen. Jess is never like, I'm going to sit here for two years and wait for you for my boyfriend to graduate from high school to be with you. That's not at all what's happening.

So we get to the, do you want to talk about the conversation scene, the conversation dinner? We have to talk about Tim and Tyra and then we have to talk about the game. Yeah, let's do the conversation dinner. Okay. Pantheon scene. You know it's a good scene when Tammy Taylor has her glass of white. Well, all good scenes. Many scenes Tammy Taylor has her glass of white.

In my memory of those years of television, I conflate the image of Connie Britton as Tammy Taylor with the Amy Schumer with a glass of wine that's bigger than the Heisman trophy from her show. They are similar and one and the same to me. Incredible stuff. There's that one, when the Lions have the road trip and Tammy's home drinking, there's that one shot where you see, this is a in a prior episode, like, I believe, four empty wine bottles on the table. Just astonishing stuff. What a role model.

She'll fit in in Philadelphia, let me tell you. So the conversation dinner, or as we would call it here, a podcast, is an incredible scene in so many ways. It stitches together so perfectly where these characters are and the decisions that they need to make. And I think, again, like we were talking about earlier,

it's not like Eric or Tammy, and you, of course, understand. It's a longtime viewer of the show at that point. Tammy probably had to say it. Eric, we'll take them to dinner. We'll sit down. We'll hear them out. We'll talk to them.

Because Eric would have just said, no, right? Let's have a conversation. Is it a celebration dinner? Julie asked, no. It's a conversation dinner. We're going to talk about this. We're going to try to understand. That's part of that grace that Tammy talked about.

It's like taking a minute out of your day to actually try to understand what somebody else wants. Not a podcast. At least not one I've ever done. prior to today, but please. And Eric, as is as is want, as a speech prepared. And it's not that he's wrong, right? It is that he is too wrapped up in his certainty and in his fear and his anxiety.

And we should remember that even though he is often deployed in the show as the character who is helping somebody else break through that, he has plenty of that of his own. That's why it works, right? and he is saying marriage requires maturity. Marriage requires two people who for the rest of their lives are willing to listen, to really listen to each other. And marriage requires the greatest of all things, which is compromise. Now, marriage is very hard.

And there are a lot of people watching that scene who are going to bring a lot of their own feelings and their own stuff to that, right? That's part of why it's, like, incredibly powerful. you can project yourself into that moment. We look at Tammy's face, and she is watching the person who she loves most in the world say this thing without any ability to recognize his own hypocrisy, and it is shattering to the point where she has to get up and walk away, and the look, I mean, you've done a beautiful job of identifying a number of moments

or just the things that Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler are doing with their faces are, like, astonishing. It's like an instant. Kyle Chandler looking over seeing her face and realizing the turmoil that she is in and that he is the cause of that. And you think of the number of great moments in the history of the show that are just like have nothing to do with the cold, the plot, right? It's like the two of them like nuzzling their heads against each other in bed in the morning, right? Wrapping an arm around the other person from the back of the couch, just like taking time to pay attention to each other and remind them that no matter how bad your day was. no matter what another person did to you to make you feel unworthy today,

like, I am here for you. And this scene puts them in the position of being the person who didn't understand. Yeah. And it's just like, it's really, really, really intense. It's really interesting to think that a long-running show would take its biggest risk in the finale, and the biggest risk involves the main characters squabbling. Yeah. You know, that speaks to what kind of show this is, that that, the success,

of that union matters a lot more than what happens in state. Yes. That said, I don't think anyone watching the show ever thought the marriage was truly in jeopardy, but I think it took it was a pretty remarkable decision to put the onus of the series on the masculine hero football coach giving up his dream. I think part of the genius of it is it feels at once like an elevated, oh my God, I can't believe this is what we're watching, what is going to happen, what is on the line here, end of show circumstance, and also like a totally believable and organic evolution of everything we've watched

in their marriage. That's part of why, you know, I love the way, I'll quote you to you now, I love the way you described the show when you were covering in real time as a Trojan horse, right? It's a show about football. It's a show about connection and about their marriage. Their marriage is the real way into that. And there are plenty of moments over the course of the series where they disagree where there's something that is jeopardizing the harmony that they seek to maintain with each other right from the beginning is eric going to take the CMU job it Tammy is telling him it's not i don't support your dreamer i don't want you to achieve this meaningful thing it's i'm going to stay i'm going to stay and dylan and there are number of things along the way and like there are moments where they

talk about is it it it should be date night tonight like we actually need to take the time to nurture our relationship again. I think that's a moment that like you're watching that. You're just like it's like a little quiet thing that feels as true to life and as relatable as anything that happens on the show, right? Like you what do you need to do to make sure that you're there to be the support network that you want to be for that other person? And so like for Eric who turned down the college job in that season and has this big offer to remain the kingmaker, right, this big offer from the Panthers. And has heard Tammy say to him, like, these aren't even people you want to be around, right?

And so he has to, like, it's two things. And that's part of it. It connects to both of those big questions. What does he actually even want? And also, how can he ensure that she gets to take her turn? Because she's been there for him so many times. She's so much of our understanding of their family is that Tammy and Julie and then Gracie go where Eric goes. And, like, Tammy's role in the show is that she has just as much of a bearing on people's lives as he does.

So, like, why shouldn't it be her turn? Well, you did mention the alien baby, Grace, who... Wild. Yeah. Truly... And I respect all decisions when it comes to making one's family. But that is some real, like, we're going to have to do this for six years. Should we better find some new plot.

Like, if they had always been a prestige direct TV show, I do not think there would be a second Taylor Show. child, you know, I just feel like that was, but they dealt with it. She was around. She certainly existed. At the time, I was commenting constantly on how I just felt like she was observing her terrestrial host family in an attempt to build pods and take over the world beginning in South Texas. But, you know, who can really say? There's a larger, I can't help myself, TV metaphor to be drawn from what Eric realizes in this episode, which is that ultimately it is a journey not destination thing. That what he loves most, and we see this when he is working out his rag tag Philadelphia

squad. I imagine that he was coaching D'Andre Swift or something. I'm not sure if the timing works out exactly, but I'd like to think that. He says we have a long way to go, gentlemen, and I'm looking forward to it. Yes. It's an interesting tension in the series because ultimately what he decides is what he loves is building something. Yes.

winning things, maintaining things, protecting things is less interesting to him and less compelling. I think that's a good model for life. Now, that's very different from TV because we're talking about a finale and we're talking about putting markers on it much in the same way that you would put a marker

on a football season. And that's a little bit of a different message that the show is sending us. I love that we get the moment with the Philly School at the end, clear eyes, full hearts, nothing in response. And then he has to take a beat and say,

we'll deal with that later because they don't know. It's clear John's, actually. He hadn't really picked up the local parlance yet. Clear eyes, full hearts, head to Wawa? Go birds.

It's the third part of that. That's like an evolution, right? So when we're hearing clear eyes, full hearts can't lose for the first time in season one, it's this chorus. They all know. It's this anthem.

It's this embrace of their destiny. When he says it for the first time to the Lions at the beginning of season four, Landry says it back, but nobody else knows what to say. And so it's like this progression. Everyone, one person, no one. And in some ways that feels like the inverse

or contrary to what Coach Taylor's, like, arc of achievement is as a coach, but I think you're right. It's about, it's not about like the second ring for him. It's about recognizing what he cared about when he chose to do this in the first place, you know? And like, will he end up at Temple or? somewhere eventually.

Is he Bill O'Brien in this? What is his long-term trajectory here? Look, there's different ways finalees can go, obviously, and they can steer towards, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You can steer towards fan service, or you can do a more radical thing, which often leaves audiences feeling sort of jarred, which is when the creator grabs the wheel and says,

I've been in control the whole time, and I'm going to show you what the story was. This is a unique example of, I think, the creators grabbing hold of their story and it being exactly what everyone wanted and what they signed up for. And no greater moment than that is there's a beautifully shot and staged state where you get

everything you want in terms of Vince airing it out and tinker blocking and even, what's it, Hastings catches a ball even though I don't even remember who that guy was. You see the faces in the crowd. You understand the relationship to each other. The ball sails high, high, high up into the night and it lands in Philadelphia.

Incredible. Because the moment of celebration, what is that going to teach us? That is not what the show is about. There is not going to be a next season. And to use the larger point that we've been trying to sort of suss out, that's not going to define these people. It can't define these people. In order to have hope for them as an audience,

we have to be shown that this isn't going to be the defining moment of their lives. So we're not shown the moment. Instead, we're shown the after effect, and then we cut to everyone's... Everyone. And we see the rings. The first time you saw it, did you know they won? What was your tell?

I would imagine some people didn't, might have been a little discombobulated at first. Yeah, the moment when we cut to Vince, and he's in the Panthers uniform, and he's receiving the ball, and we see the ring on his finger. And it lingers for a second. And you do, I mean,

because I think everything you said is right, and I agree, and it's beautiful. And then there is the part of you that's like, but did they win? And you kind of like can't help it. And you're a little bit complicit in that respect. You see as they're tearing down that you still in field, which has literally become a parking lot, there are cars parked along the hash marks, and they're pulling down like the state championship banner. So, you know, we know.

But I love what you're identifying about how it isn't ultimately about whether they won or not. It's like the genius of the ball and the spiral and following it from night to day from Texas to Philadelphia is the embrace of that idea that the thing that feels like the most. monumental moment in your life. And even in this episode, Eric goes to Vince's dad and drops that ticket on the pool table and says, like, a young man gets a chance of that maybe once in his life. We understand that this is something seismic and defining. But the football through this guy, it reminds us that this is all a continuation. And it is not over for you if it didn't go your way. You know, what's one of the great moments is not in the finale, but in the history of the show, it's like Tim putting down his shoes and like walking.

away and this recognition that something definitive did happen to you in that moment, but you still, this is what you were saying earlier, like you wake up the next day and you go about your life. Yeah, their lives have to go on, even if a TV show doesn't. And I think that that was a really artful way of communicating that. And especially considering, you look back on it, this is a show with no villains. You know, there was no Darth Vader type to slay at the end here. The villains of Friday Night Lights are a lot more quotidian. It's age, it's injury, it's heartbreak. The enemy is time. Yes. But you haven't, and especially for these young people, they have an awful lot of it.

And I think that the show was just so deeply respectful of its characters, particularly its second batch of characters with whom it had more time to consider that care. So like Luke's journey, we haven't talked a lot about Luke, great character. I love Luke. Can I give you my I swear this isn't a bit. My like biggest note on the show. Yeah. Yeah. On the end season. Sure.

As a football fan, it is just it is unthinkable to me that Luke couldn't get a D-1 scholarship offer. I'm sorry. It just simply does not make sense. Because of his versatility on the field, he's catching, he was a tight end, right? He's a running back and a linebacker, and he's supposed to be one of the best

running backs and two-way players in Texas. It has no bearing on getting a college offer if Luke has the size and speed to make it in the NFL one day, there's just simply no way he would not get an offer. That's always, that's made me crazy. But it unlocks to your point some interesting, dramatic and narrative tension. And it is, it is like that moment where Luke, that's another ring moment where he gives Becky the ring and they say goodbye and he's getting on the bus and he's enlisted and you realize the choice that he's made. Like it hits you. But I think it also speaks to, again, this is what the show had to do to get what it wanted. And

the real story that they wanted to tell is that maybe Luke doesn't want to play football. Do you know what I mean? So if it had been a flashy D1 school, then being recruited and with all the attendant possibilities, he would have taken it. But in order to condense the heart of that story, which is that that isn't his path and he knows it in his bones. It had to be a less than ideal offer. Yeah, he sits down, Warrenfield State, and he's not getting that feeling. Right? And he has to, like, reconcile with what that means about the only thing that has any, like, had any bearing on his life. to that point. And when we're introduced to Luke with the mailbox plot and he's, you know, all of the drama around Tammy saying, you got to go to East Dillon, you can't be a Panther anymore. And it's been Luke's dream to make his way onto the Panthers. And his parents don't

care about football. And he's got to work on the farm. But like, this is his life. This is his ticket. This is the only thing he wants. And then he has to realize like, okay, it's a progression, right? Well, what if the thing I want isn't on offer? Like, what if it is not something that I can actually achieve. And then from there he builds to maybe I didn't ever want it at all. Like maybe it's not the thing I want next. And like I think that's where even though we don't have a ton of scenes with them together over time, the Riggins-Luke relationship is really interesting. Like you were a god. You were worshipped. And you have to find some other way to bring value. Forget to the world, like to your own life. Like to find purpose in mind.

meaning. And Luke is a really a great character for that, and I like him a lot. I'm just always like, I mean, like, TCU didn't give Luke an offer, really. Like, Luke couldn't be a horned frog, really. I think as we turn towards... This is not in 2023. This is in 2012. So Coach Prime wouldn't be called, you're saying, it's sort of a different thing. I think in the sense that the finale, I love that you started with this, is kind of an inversion of the pilot. I just want to just consider the fact that one of the most memorable and lasting and affecting things in the pilot is that a horrific, horrific reality happens. Crashes into the game, street crashes to the turf, and then the game has to go on.

In the finale, life has to go on. There isn't a horrific event, but the game is cut short and life goes on. And I think that that is ultimately what the show was trying to show us. I think there was, if you will, some baby grace in that as well. that we see that Dylan functions just fine without the tailors. They're not forgotten. They will be connected to it. I'm sure they'll come back or they still have friends.

I'm sure buddy's going to call Eric all the time. At inappropriate times, not remembering the time change. But there's something that shows can get locked into, which is a very, very precious sense of we've built something that we cannot. Simply no one could survive this. Characters, audience, audience affection, if we shook it up. I was going to say shake up the snow globe, but we're not talking about St. Elsewhere this week.

There's something kind of freeing, and I think very mature and profound about the way this show ends, not with a bang, but also not with a whimper, but simply with a turning of the page. Yeah, I love that. And I think, like, it's interesting to me that it is also true inside of that, that despite the Devletown conversation we already had and how very present that critique of this kind of culture is,

I don't think the show ever deifies or undermines football as like a team building exercise. And coach Taylor is always like very earnest in his conviction that this is about character and this is about building connection. And he actually does think there's meaning there. And to your point, like, embraces that maybe more than the end goal. And so I think like part of the really lasting impact of the finale is that it's not like a tradeoff. It's not, oh, the characters had to let you. go of this thing that they believe to be true the whole time, that, like, football was a part of how you built your identity. That actually is still the case. It's just that, like, maybe you

grow beyond that, you know? And maybe you can find some way to feel okay about that and find other people in your life who will help you. Yeah, because football can't be an escape. You cannot escape your actual life. You cannot outrun it forever. Right. Just ask Tim Riggins. Just as Tim Riggins. But it worked out for him. He's, I'm so glad we're with him at the end. Let's talk about, so the finale aired. I don't think it would surprise anyone to hear that it was an absolute love fest. I don't think there is much criticism about this finale.

I don't think there's that much criticism about this show, which makes it a less controversial topic for this podcast. Did you learn anything? Did you feel in any way different about it watching it now? Good question. I think that I I don't think I felt differently about the show. I think I felt differently about myself.

Like you were saying earlier, it's just, it's one of the great gifts that a story you care about can give you is like you grow with it over time and you revisit it over time and you see something different in it or different in yourself

than what was there before. You know, when I watched Friday Night Lights for the first time, I was in my early 20s. I turned 37 last week. Everyone's taking shots of me in this podcast. I turned 37 last weekend.

Like, I've been married for almost a decade. Thank you. And I'm just in a different place in my life than I was. You know, I was much more inclined, I think, when I watched it the first time to think, to relate to the kids on the show.

And now I'm like, an old person who's been married for a decade and thinks about how hard it is to, like, make it through your life every day and, like, balance all of the different circumstances and, like, try to believe that it's possible to do better the next day than he did the day before. So I think it was more about,

that. I was just like, man, I always found Friday Night Lights incredibly moving and emotionally raw, but I was like, there was not an episode I rewatch that didn't make me cry. Not just in the, like, did Mallory cry, like, kind of like classic right on QA. I was just so deeply moved by the depth of like humanity that they managed to capture in every frame of this story. That was my takeaway. I missed the show more than I expected because I forgot that this used to have a space in my media diet. I forgot that there was something that you could love this deeply.

And not that the show wasn't complicated, but the love for it was very simple. It was a very primal show in terms of its emotional language, how it communicated to you the way it respected itself, its characters, and its audiences, and that it brought everything home.

And I'm not saying it's easy. I don't mean to be prescriptive, but why don't we have shows like this anymore? Like, what is wrong with us? Right. That we don't do this. that we don't aspire to do this more. Yeah.

There is actually like a, I think a real deceptive depth and complexity. Because, like, again, I think this gets back to what we were talking about earlier. If you just kind of sketched out the plot points and whether you read the log line like you did or explained to people what the character arcs are, small town with big dreams, you know, is the coach the one who's making the dreams happen or who's having them crushed? It can sound almost like cliche, but it is so utterly immersive in its sincerity. And, you know, like, I think, again, like the tailors are the best example always. But the Riggins clan is, like, I think one of the other most successful renderings because there are moments in the first season.

It's like, hot shot who hasn't made on the field but, like, can't get out of his own way. And then we learn at some point, like, maybe not surprisingly that his parents. and starting around, and then you're just citing the plot points. You're like, sure, I've seen this before. But Tim Riggins is an original article, irrefutably, how Billy becomes that over time, a character who was initially there to, like,

give us some shape and sophisticity around Tim, becomes this fully realized figure in his own right. And, like, when he's there to make a joke about Tim raw-dogging Tyra in the finale, you're like, yes. That was some language, I think, wouldn't have been used in the 20-20th I did note, I did note raw dog. I was, like, in tears laughing so hard because I'm like, this is just so perfectly Billy.

Billy, that's your sister-in-law. I love them. We had minty. I was like, this is like incest. And they're like, there's no bloodline. They say that real fast. There's something you're kind of taught that early. Save your notes for the Targaryans.

That's right. So it was a different time in television. Yeah, it's worth noting, too, in terms of like legacy of the show, the show itself, what's wrong with everyone? Everyone's on strike. Use this time to figure out how to do this again. Get the spirit, get this right. But in terms of what we expected coming out of it,

I think everyone expected Taylor Kitch was going to be the next great American movie star. Peter Berg certainly did. He put him in battleship. And then there was the reason he wasn't really in season four is I think he was shooting John Carter from Mars. I think I would be a tradeback. I think that maybe that wasn't the right decision at the time.

But now there's been some stories written about him. He's in a new miniseries. again with Pete Berg on Netflix. Like he's more of a character actor, it turns out. This was one thing about TV, when actors play a character over a long period of time, sometimes they give you all the juice.

Not to say that they can't do other things, not to say that they're not talented, but they show you so much of themselves so consistently and so frequently, it almost feels reductive to ask them to do it again, you know? And in that case, everybody wants him to do Riggins again, but how would you do, Riggins is Riggins.

Right. I still don't understand why Taylor Kitch didn't become one of the most famous people alive. It is weird to me. There is some sense, too, that, like, he was reticent about it. You know, what made him so great at playing Riggins was more him, I think. Like, in the sense that there's the haunted melancholy. And then you don't always want that smoldering melancholy on the big screen. You want someone to be, like, more action hero.

I don't think anybody had Jesse Plemons emerging as the most significant act. I mean, I remember watching the pilot being like, That's a weird looking dude. Oh, yeah, sure. He just must be a local Texan that they hired. Jesse Plemons is now about to star in his, what, third Martin Scorsese movie and is one of our great American actors. Yeah.

Shocking. But, like, that's another thing where you revisit the show and you're like, is it shocking? Because he is just so good the whole time. Michael B. Jordan, we discussed at the very beginning, an absolute star and with so much charisma on the show. It was insane that they managed to capture it for a while. And then there's people like Adrian Pallickey who played Tyra,

who I adore. and I still feel like hasn't been given the opportunity to do this again. She was infamously cast as Wonder Woman on a TV show that never made it to air. She'll always be my Wonder Woman. Same. Same. It's a little Friday Night Lightsy in that we're talking about these people, all of whom are alive and successful.

Minka Kelly just wrote a memoir, but we're talking about the show the way they would talk about the glory days, where they had this moment. And I'm sure they've had many beautiful experiences since and may still professionally as well, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton went on to do, continue to do amazing stuff all the time. They are never bad, but they are never this.

And maybe that's just the way it is. There's something just indelible about the performances and the roles and the associations. And I do, I agree. I think every time I see Kyle Chandler, who I can't believe we've made it nearly two hours into the podcast without saying is one of the five best-looking people who's ever walked to the earth

and Connie Britton is one of the other five. I can't believe we've made it almost two hours into this podcast, frankly. Can't you? Can't you? Every time you get to be with them again, it's great. But yeah, there are so many stars in the show. And then there are people like, like,

Zach Guilford's just like on our TVs. And it's great, right? And they're always in our lives. And it's just a, it is a special, like, one time capturing this magic and this particular alchemy with each other. But I hope to get to watch these people for the rest of my life.

Well, so let's just briefly talk about that. There has been, as is often the case when something is beloved by a very intense fan community and or by Mallory Rubin. Also, when shows clearly were good vibes. Yes. And there's a lot of, we didn't spend a lot of time talking about it, but the very untraditional shooting style, the fact that they shot in Austin away from Hollywood,

people have very fond memories of their experiences. And actors will talk about not ever again having the sort of the freedom to move while they're performing, to say things outside of the script that they got on the show. Anyway, in situations like that, inevitably, people are like, well, can we do it again? Right. And so there was a pretty, robust conversation, let's say, about continuing the show. There was talk almost immediately about there being a movie that would pick up from the end of the show. This was almost as soon as

the show was canceled. Cadence was telling the Hollywood reporter in 2011 that he was serious about doing something like that. He said, right now we're trying to figure out the story that we want to tell, that something we hope will happen. We want to make sure we have a great story. Two years later in 2013, Pete Berg's is on record saying he doubts that it'll actually happen. We talked, about it. Some people thought it would be a good idea. Some people didn't. I've come to believe it's probably not a good idea, and I seriously doubt it's going to happen. When Pete Berg was on our boss Bill's podcast in 2017, he talked about it. And he said there was a whole pitch. I don't know if there was ever actually a script written, but there was a pitch and that it was based on Mike Leach,

the college football coach, getting in trouble for allegedly doing something that he most likely didn't do. So I guess this would follow Coach Taylor. It seems like, and again, this is probably smart, that it was not going to be a continuation of all of the characters or the town, but maybe the ethos and the adult characters. How do you feel about this probably being, at this point, it's almost definitely DOA?

Just completely and totally at war with myself over this one. Yeah. Almost always, I want more of a thing I love, like I said earlier. and the idea of getting to be back with the tailors, however briefly, like, feels like this precious opportunity to get to, like, say hello to an old friend again. How would we not want that? However, I think that we have to acknowledge that this was perfect and contained in a way that you risk jeopardizing if you go there again. Now, I think you trust the pull of the characters and our investment in their lives and the hands that would shape the story enough to say, like, they probably wouldn't do it unless they felt like they had a story that was telling. But, you know, I like what you were saying earlier about, like, with Vince, you really had the sense that it was at the beginning of something.

You were early in that arc, right? So do I miss the Taylor's desperately? Of course. Do I feel sure that every month and week and day in their lives is full of something that would be compelling to watch? Yeah, because again, sometimes the most interesting stuff was just watching them, like, decide whether they had set their alarm clock properly. And it's been, what, 12 years, it's almost time for them to have another baby. It's a generational talent, you know, every... Exactly. You know, they definitely are hosting a new team for dinner.

I would think so. Definitely talking about how many, how many slabs of ribs to pick up at the grocery store. That's what they do. It has come home yet again. Well, they're in Philly, so it's cheese steaks and Huggies. Do you think they're bringing in the adjustment, though, or do you think part of their shtick is like, we're going to... Oh. We're going to have a barbecue in the yard. Oh, no, no, no.

They're ordering Wizzwit. They're like, they know. They know what's up. How could you ever leave, said the person who left there many, many years ago? What do you think, though? Is this something you would want? I think ultimately, no. And I think that, you know, we're in an era where any, there's a chance for anything.

And I'm sure someone has pitched like, well, there's a more grizzled Taylor thing, or we're just going to pick up a side character. We're going to bring someone into the larger universe and not deal with all of it. There's a lot more flexibility and creativity in terms of picking up franchises now that makes me feel interested in hearing people's takes, which I'm sure the people who control the property feel the same. But watching the finale now, especially considering how much we have of everything, one of the things I was really struck by was just its economy. And it was particularly economical because it was missing 14 minutes. But even with the extra 14,

bringing it to the 60-minute runtime, it's bang, bang, bang. We're not going to disrespect you or these people by overdoing it. We are not going to add extra mustard to anything. And it's interesting to note that, that we think about the show as so emotional, as super emo, makes us cry all the time, the soaring, not explosions in the sky because they didn't pay them enough, but WG Snuffy Walden ripped them off and it sounded pretty good score. But the show earned the emotion through its reticence.

We were already talking about how Coach Taylor never really, adds, he's never extra. You cry because of his restraint. And so I think restraint was key to our understanding of the show and our love of the show. And so instead, the reboot conversations have moved as they inevitably would because this is not a show that is controlled by Jason Cadem's. This is a show that's controlled by Universal and by Imagine. So they are 100% taking meetings. And as recently as 2021, Brian Grazer of Imagine, of Imagine,

has said that they are working on movies and a TV show, potentially set more on the border, which would be a different version of Texas and perhaps a more relevant one to this current moment. Something that captures the spirit and essence of Friday Night Lights is, of course, very appealing. Do I want to know what happened next for all of these people? Of course, but also part of the beauty is that we get to fill in that blank space in our minds.

Yes. Like, okay, Tim and Tyra, here's why I love that so much and why I think it's germane in the context of this point about potentially glimpsing the future for these people. In the early seasons, I was never, I loved both of them as individuals. I would never have claimed that I was invested in their relationship. Not once, right? The empty space and the pain and the resentment

and how that shaped each of them, sure, but the idea of like shipping them being back together one day, not top of mind for me. the look on Tim's face when he hears from Tyra that Matt and Julie got engaged. And he is looking at her holding a baby and thinking about whether that could happen for them. And he takes her to his plot of land and everything that that plot of land has represented. And you think back to another reunion he had a moment in season four when Tim and Lila hooked up again. She's like, what do you want? What are your dreams?

And all he can manage to say is you. And there's something about that. There's something about that that's like, this is the pure. essence of Tim Riggins imaginable, and like this is part of what's sweet and charming about him. And then there's a part of it that's, like, so disappointing for us and for Lila because you want him to want something more than that. And so when he takes Tyra to that hillside and they open their lawn chairs and they crack a beer, I always think about, I won't spoil the specifics of another finale that maybe you'll talk about one day, but I always think about Adama on that hill and Battlestar and, like, thinking about a thing you could build. And I love the idea that Tim and Tyra in particular, characters who always thought they had to outgrow each other

and move beyond each other can maybe make their way back to each other without feeling like they had to compromise whatever progress they had made. And so when Tim is like, I want to build a house and like I want to do it with my own hands. And I want to live here and build a life and I want to have a job.

And I want to make sure I'm not in trouble again. even though he just spent his whole evening serving beers to underage high school students. That's just like the fabric of the day. That's just Texas. That's just Texas forever indeed. It is like almost unbelievably moving to watch him say the simplest thing. I want to have a house and like a job and like a life with people I'd love. But that represents so much evolution and growth for him, even though it is also simultaneously where we started with him. Like you noted that last great night of their lives and cracking a beer and saying Texas for him. forever because he had to work himself his way back to a different version of like peace with that circumstance. I love that. And I think, and as a way to kind of wrap up, I'm going to use a phrase

that you just use and use it in a slightly different context, which is that all great artists understand the value of negative space. It's not everything that you say or you paint or you write. It's all the stuff that you don't. And that lingers in the air too. And we live in an era that is so a to uncertainty that we fill in every blank with as much as possible. We want to answer every question. We want to let people know that everything's going to be okay and hold every hand and just push all our chips to the middle of the table to say, we thought about this too. And it's going to be fine. And I think, especially in retrospect, the beauty and the success of this finale is that it doesn't even raise the question of whether things are going to be fine.

It puts people in a position not necessarily to succeed, but to enter into the next phase of their lives. We don't see that phase. There's not a television crew following them like the Kardashians for the next decade. But that's the contract that we have with these shows. We have to let them go. We have to let them move away. And I think that aspect of the finale has gotten sweeter, honestly, over time. And I think it will allow it to hold up in age well, which leads me to the final question that I think is going to be part of this podcast going forward. We already know the answer, but I'm going to set the tone of it here, which is when Bill and I were discussing the shape of this pod kind of agreed that there were about five types of finalees.

The five finalities you meet in, well, purgatory, or at least a church that's non-denominational. Here are the five. They took a big swing and it was super fucking polarizing. This is Bill's list. They fucked it up. That's number two. Number three, they just limped to the finish line and it ended. Number four, it seemed in the moment that they didn't land the plane, but in retrospect, maybe they did.

Number five, stuck the landing. Number five. Obviously, number five. Just like Vince Howard, number five. Never a doubt that that ball was coming down to the hands of a receiver and they were scoring to take the win, right? Yeah. I mean, this is a Hall of Fame finale. It perfectly concludes our journey with the characters, honors our time as viewers, their time as characters.

It builds and opens up the possibilities for this great beyond and this great future. It celebrates Philadelphia. It celebrates Philly, most crucially of all. It takes the idea of Texas Forever and honors and recognizes that that was always about the future while embracing the fact that for us in this moment,

these 60-4-4 minutes of television, Texas Forever is about the past, and it's about the time we spent with these characters. and a thing that finished and that was beautiful and perfect. And we've got tears in our eyes watching it, just like the characters on the screen, and we'll think about it forever.

We'll always love revisiting it. It will somehow become more enriching and rewarding to revisit over time, but not in a way that feels like it's like, oh, we have a new, the appreciation was always there. It is just like an eternal, beautiful thing. It's the state ring.

It is. And we'll never mention voodoo. The whole podcast. I almost mentioned voodoo earlier. You said there were no villains. It's like, what about Ray Voodoo? Tatum, man. And J.T. Yeah.

I completely agree with you. What Luke calls J.D. McDick, quietly, just one of the funniest things that's ever happened. Mallory, I can't thank you enough for this. I feel like we both agree. It's a clear voice, live mic. Good pod. The absolute thrill of my life. Thank you.

Texas forever. Texas forever. This episode of Stick the Landing was produced by Kite. Mike Mullin and Kai Grady, and our theme music was composed by my good friend Giancarlo Volcano.