Friday Night Lights Review: The One Where We Visit The Dillon Projects

Alright güeys, it’s Friday yet again, which means another review about the football telenovela known as Friday Night Lights. This week’s episode, “After The Fall”, features more of what white people think black people are like, which is always worth a good laugh. Let’s kick things off:

Episode two was weaker than the first one. There are too many plot lines going on, and it’s a pain in the ass to pay attention to the minor stories. We’re looking at you Tim Riggins and Matt Saracen. Can the writers get them out of the way already? Nobody cares about washed up players anymore. To its credit, “After The Fall” had some good moments and we’ll focus on that instead. We’re making the decision to not talk about Riggins and Saracen anymore unless they become very important to the show later on. Fuck those guys.

All is not well in East Dillon High. When the team doesn’t show up to the next practice, Taylor, huffing and puffing, starts looking for an explanation. How dare these kids challenge his authority? He’s a state championship-winning coach and that should mean something, damn it! Landry, however, isn’t having any of it. In a surprising display of testicular fortitude, he tells coach what the team is thinking. Coach Taylor gave up on them, so why should they want to play for him? We like the fact that the Taylor is being challenged. His “always right” persona was getting to be annoying and too self-righteous, so it’s good that they’re making him come off as an asshole who is in the wrong once in a while.

The highlight of the night was Texas Tech coach Mike Leach’s cameo. Leach runs into Taylor at a gas station and tells him he needs to get his mojo back. “You’ve lost your inner pirate,” Leach says. The speech had us laughing so hard we may have pissed ourselves. The show runners felt it was important to let Leach be his crazy ass self, which, for us, means unintentional comedic gold.

After the pirate talk, Taylor feels he needs to win his team back by convincing Vince, who all of a sudden has become the de facto leader of the team, to play for him again.The coach drives over to Vince’s house, located in the Dillon projects. Who knew that a mid-size town would have an inner city?  It’s at this point in the episode where we meet Vince’s mom, a spaced-out crackhead. Does Hollywood think all black people live in the projects and are addicted to crack? We would expect a smart show like Friday Night Lights to avoid these ignorant stereotypes. Things get even worse when Vince’s mom convinces Taylor to give her a $20 bill in exchange for information about where to find Vince. We’re just glad the creators had the decency to not have Vince’s mom say she’ll suck him off for the money.

Despite these pitfalls, the show is really letting Vince grow. There is so much the show could do with the character, and he’s already paying off dividends. Honestly, we’re now watching the show because of him. Our favorite scene was when he shows up at the coach’s office and throws a $20 bill on his desk. “I can take care of my own family,” he says. Though this could have been a very cliche moment, it actually worked for us. We were glad to see a minority character finally show some backbone. Vince may have a criminal record and be from the projects, but he also has pride.

Meanwhile, in West Dillon, Principal Tami Taylor discovers that one of the star players has been lying about his address so he could play for the Panthers. Admittedly, we first thought the player in question would be a black kid, since in reality that’s usually the case. But no, much to our surprise, Luke Cafferty is white. The name should have tipped us off.

Bringing a white star player to East Dillon will be an interesting move. No doubt the race relations will heat up, though we’re not sure who will be the instigator. Cafferty, after all, appears to be a genuinely good kid. At the end of the episode, we see him show up at the East Dillon practice and tell everyone that he just wants to play, even if it’s for a bad team. We would have been moved by this display of passion for the game had we not seen it already before in 1992’s Mighty Ducks.

Still, despite it’s drag-ass moments, “After The Fall” manages to put together a pretty compelling story. The racial tensions seem to be growing and growing, and we’re excited about it. Hopefully next week will escalate the racial tensions even more. This show, after all, is a drama, and what could be better than a show about white kids versus black kids?