TV Club

Week 1: Where’s Lyla?

Friday Night Lights

Meghan, that’s such a good point about how it’s process that TV, in comparison with film, is so good at capturing. A serial drama like this one fulfills our craving for the quotidian, incremental details that movies just don’t have time for. And so while I suppose you’re right, Hanna, that we know the ending even now at the beginning—that the East Dillon Lions can’t be this sad-sack forever—I didn’t pitch myself into the future while I was watching. I was caught up in the moment of Eric and Tami grappling with their split-schools dilemma and the mess that Tim once again is making of his life.

Dramas like this one also, of course, draw us back because we’re taken with the characters. Hanna, you said at the outset of the last season that you felt like you were living with Tami and Eric. I have a feeling this season is going to get under my skin in the same way. I’m ready to transfer my Tyra affections to Becky. (May she stay away from that blow-dryer forever—actually, her hair reminds me of yours, Hanna.) One of our commenters, ScotLand, is rooting for Julie and Matt to stay together. On Twitter, many of the posts are about favorite characters, present and absent. adamwc is mourning the absence of Lyla Garrity (“Come on. Say it ain’t so. Where is she?”). erinx3 captures my own sentiments: “Tim Riggins, never leave me again.”

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