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- [00:02]
A
This episode is brought to you by SoFi, the all in one finance app. The sooner you start investing, the more potential you have to build your money. Even for beginners. Sofi makes it simple with an easy to use app to get you going. SoFi is offering up to $1,000 in stock when you open and fund a Sofi self directed brokerage account. Learn more@sofi.com Spotify Brokerage offered through SoFi Securities, LLC. Member FINRA, SIPC terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Prime Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus. Elle every year. After the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more, slow burns, second chances chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime Foreign. Hello. Welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Jordan Robinson.
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B
I'm Rob Mahoney.
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A
We're here for another installment of of our look back at teen shows. Cue the explosions in the sky. Shaky up that camwork. It's Friday Night Lights time.
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B
Give me a sunset. Give me some power lines. Give me an oil.
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A
Derek, I need a chain link fence. Preferably slamming Sammy Mead on the Lone Star. Come on. Yeah, let's do it. We're here to look at the pilot episode of Friday Night Lights and just sort of talk about the show in general and its legacy as a teen drama.
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B
I just cannot believe my life has led to this moment.
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A
Is it the teeniest of all the teen dramas? No, it's not really, but it's a ringer. It's a ringer corps show.
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B
It is.
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A
It's a sports show that I love. And it's Texas, which gave us Rob Mahoney. So thank you, Texas.
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B
Thank you, Texas. Thank you to Sports. Thank you to Sports Joe. I'm always glad when Sports Joe makes an appearance here to, like, explain concepts and option strategies and, you know, just really get into the game.
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A
I definitely know what a tailback is. I know exactly what a tailback is. What is.
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B
What is your understanding of the positions of the characters on this show? Not to put you too much on the spot.
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A
Well, easily enough. Jason street and Maddie Saracen are our quarterbacks. Yes. Smash is a tailback.
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B
Yeah.
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A
What that means, I'm not entirely sure.
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B
That's okay. I think the show sometimes doesn't know what they all mean. Especially I would say Tim Riggins position.
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A
And I don't. I feel like. I think Tim Riggins is like A linebacker.
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B
He honestly would be a very good linebacker, I think. I think that's probably what he should have been.
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A
What is he.
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B
But they wanted all of their main guys to be on offense together. So he's a fullback.
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A
Okay.
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B
Not a glamour position. And yet Tim Riggins makes it glamorous.
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A
Okay. And that's been sports corner Matty Saracen. Great arm on him.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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A
But untested.
- [03:13]
B
Well, he can't get a ball through a tire. But. But hurl that thing 40 yards downfield when it counts.
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A
He does it. All right. We're talking mainly about the pilot episode, the first episode of Friday Night Lights, which debuted in 2006. The reason, if you did not catch this before we covered Skins UK we're doing this is to sort of check in on some teen dramas as they compare to Euphoria. Friday Night Lights was never a show that sort of famously shocked and appalled people with its treatments of teens. But what I would say about Friday Night Lights, other than the fact that it's a sports show and we like it in Texas, is the way in which the teens, especially like these incredibly talented football players who are on the cusp of going to college, et cetera, the way that they are pushed into adult roles before kids would be ready to be pushed into adults roles is sort of how I was thinking of comparing it to Euphoria.
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B
Yeah, they have a lot of absentee parents or parents who are distracted in their own rights. The difference between Euphoria and something like Friday Night lights is like Mr. And Mrs. Coach kind of become their surrogate parents in a lot of ways.
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A
Yeah, let's. I mean, we're getting a little ahead of my plan, but like, let's talk about the way in which adults are used on this show. Because unlike a lot of other teen dramas where when we talked about Skins uk, we talked about the way in which often they will introduce adult characters in the first season and then, like Sandy Cohen becomes less of a character in later seasons of the oc Et cetera. But this show is oriented around Eric and Tammy Taylor.
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B
Yes, they are the backbone of the story.
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A
Right? So the coach and then she becomes a counselor, you know, inside of the school, but the. The sort of surrogate parents. And unlike other shows where, you know, teens can age out or whatever, they are eternal. You know, they might switch schools, but they are eternal.
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B
Go and switch jobs. Tammy Taylor, I mean, counselor, volleyball coach.
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A
What can't she do?
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B
I ask myself that all the time.
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A
His and hers closets, that's all she Wants.
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B
Okay, let's just say it right now. Connie Britton dancing in the kitchen.
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A
Yeah.
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B
His and hers closets.
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A
Dear Lord, very important. Dear Lord, very formative. Mom Pony, where were you when you watched Friday nights the first time?
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B
Well, this may be part of why it's formative. I was there day one. I was locked in on this show.
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A
And you were how old?
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B
I was a senior in high school for season one, watching with my parents. We, I mean, saw the commercials, were like, okay, let's check out this show. And holy shit. I mean, this pilot just grabs you by the scruff and drags you along into the most emotional journey you're gonna have with a sports oriented teen show.
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A
Had you seen the film?
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B
I actually, at that point had not. And I went back to it. And it's particularly shocking in many ways if you've never seen the movie and you start with the show to see, like, what Connie Britton's up to in the movie, for example, it's a slightly different tone harden, hardly anything at all. Barely a speaking line in that thing. Becomes a huge part of the show, and tonally is different. But I think the movie does have something in common with the pilot in particular. The show hasn't totally figured out its style yet. Hasn't totally figured out exactly how it wants to tell the story. There's this construction with like the camera crews that are around the team that feels a little closer to the movie in some ways. And then eventually we just kind of discard all of that stuff and keep the naturalistic shooting style, the kind of like guerrilla camera work that's happening, but use it to kind of ground a very teen, very highly emotional story.
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A
So this is an unusual story pipeline kind of project because it's Friday Nights was a book which became a movie.
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B
Yeah, a nonfiction book which became a
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A
nonfiction book which became a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton, directed by Peter Berg. Peter Berg is brought on to write and direct the pilot episode of the show, but the show is run by Jason Kadums, who will go on to do Parenthood, et cetera, et cetera. And so the DNA. And then Connie Britton is in like the same role, basically, but a much better version of that role. So there's just an interesting degree of overlap between the movie and, you know, it's not an exact continuation of the movie. It's. It's almost the same story, but not quite the same story.
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B
And we should say it's a pretty good movie.
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A
Oh, it's a great movie. Yeah, it's great. Movie. It's an even better TV show. If you've never seen Friday Night Lights, what is Friday Night Lights about? What's the log line of Friday nights?
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B
I don't even know where to begin. And this is part of the problem because it's such a great sports show, but it's such a great small town show. It's such a great family drama. It is a great teen drama. In theory, it should be an easy one to pitch, but this is something I encountered at the time as I was literally trying to rally people to watch this show to save it. Some people's eyes just kind of glaze over as soon as you tell them it's a show about football.
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A
If you weren't there, you don't know what it was like to try to chase Friday Night Lights around the schedule. Because what night is it airing? Unclear. It's gonna be on. It was on Satel.
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B
Yeah.
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A
For a season.
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B
So this lined up perfectly where it's like my senior of high school.
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A
Yeah.
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B
The show debuts. My senior of college is the finale. And I am watching it on DirecTV at that point in time. And again, like trying to get people to watch this show because it is, it is very important to me.
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A
For many different ways around the same time that, like Community went to Yahoo, we were just like chasing our shows all over NBC. What were you doing?
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B
Very legally, I can assure you.
- [08:21]
A
Yeah, very. Must much so. Okay, so, but this is Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton and like, we talked about some of the tropes of a teen drama. Oftentimes it's like the first day of school. We're back from the summer. What are we doing for Friday Night Lights? It's not quite that, but it's sort of. It's coach's first game as head coach. And so in terms of you're orienting your perspective of like, who is brand new. Yeah, Matt Saracen is going to be our brand new quarterback. But it's really like Eric Taylor's first day.
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B
It's his trial as much as anything
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A
to a certain degree. And so I think that's an interesting orienting perspective. And we do meet the. We do meet a lot of parents. You know, we meet the streets, Jason's parents. In this episode. My guy, Buddy Garrity here, Billy Riggins, who's, you know, essentially Tim's dad. His, his big brother is here. There are ways in which the show involved like Billy Riggins or Mindy, Tyra's sister or Buddy Garrity because he's a booster is not just Lila's dad. He's in the show as an invested party inside of the the Panthers organization.
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B
Very much so.
- [09:37]
A
That's a thing that they did with the parental figures where it's not defined by the absence of parents. Even though some of you know, Tim's parents, where are they? But, like, the presence of adults and the way in which Eric Taylor and Tammy Taylor can help shape the future of these kids is an important part of this show. So it's not what do the kids get up to when the parents aren't looking. It's how do the educators parent and entire generations of kids who comes to their school and onto their football fields.
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B
I mean, it turns out it makes for great tv. And I think it's playing with that presence and absence, right? It's like it's not your actual dad, but it's the person you need at that moment giving you the inspirational speech
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A
of a kind to shove you into a shower if you need it.
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B
Sometimes you do need that. But I do think, like, their quality is, to me, what separates Friday Night Lights from the million different other kinds of shows. It could have been like, if you just boil it down to its plot points, right? Like, lead cheerleader is dating the quarterback. Quarterback gets hurt, cheerleader cheats on him with the bad boy, best friend. That's like, could be Riverdale, could be like any other teen show.
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A
You've never seen a second of Riverdale.
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B
I have not. Is that what happens on Riverdale? It could be any other team drama.
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A
I say jingle jangle. So that's how I know you haven't seen Riverdale.
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B
Genuinely have not. But, like, if you boil down those plot points and just put them on any teen drama, it could play any number of ways.
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A
I think brand new quarterback dates, dates the coach's daughter, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
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B
The plot points are not revolutionary. But I think the grounding of the style of the show and the grounding of Coach and Tammy Taylor in particular, like, is what brings it down to earth. It regulates some of the, like, very intense teenage emotions we were talking about in the Skins episode. It's like, it doesn't feel so extreme when you have actual adults in the room to rein everything in.
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A
On the one hand, it doesn't. But on the other hand, for especially Jason street in this pilot episode, like, the amount that is riding on his shoulders, an entire town, you know, the idea of the culture of this town, which is what the book Friday Night Lights is about, is like, what if you lived In a place, yeah. Where the entire culture is oriented around high school football.
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B
Shout out to the Permian Basin and like, a true hellhole of a kind.
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A
And like, businesses shut down on Friday nights because we're all going. Everyone's there at the game. That's what we do. And, you know, there is this news crew here that is talking to these kids about their futures and sort of endorsement deals or, you know, the scout from Notre Dame is here talking to Jason's parents. You know, like, what is your call? You know, are you gonna play professional football? Are you gonna make a ton of money doing that and have a huge ranch that your burnout friend can be the, like, you know, keeper of, etc. Etc. Groundskeeper. Who knows? So, like, that amount of pressure, that amount of, like, the way capitalism has it's. It's like clutches on these kids is a heightened and extreme way in which they move through the world for sure,
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B
but capitalism, but also just the culture of this place, the gravitational pull of what it means to come from a place like Dylan, there's so much happening there. Some of it craven, some of it wholesome, some of it just whatever it is.
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A
One might say it's a devil town.
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B
I would sometimes describe it as a devil town, but this, to me is what makes it such a great sports show, is that all of the sports stuff is just intensifying what's happening with these characters. You're spot on. This pilot is about the weight of expectation on all these different people, how it manifests for them very differently, how they're dealing with it, how you're getting cornered at the mixer by the mayor who's like, you need to throw the damn football over and over and over.
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A
Real close talker, that one.
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B
I mean, she's definitely had a couple. Couple drinks at that thing.
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A
That lady doesn't go to an event without a bottle of chardonnay in her two starts.
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B
Absolutely not. But so you have all that to set it up, and then the football is just kind of catalyzing all of that development, all of that feeling, all of that emotion. And that's why, you know, I think you could criticize the realism of the sports. Like, this is a very Hail Mary oriented show in a way that like, a real football game would not be. But it's a Hail Mary oriented show because you've done all the legwork to make that feel like a good payoff.
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A
You have to make it exciting for the Joanna Robinsons of the world who don't watch sports at all.
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B
It's exciting for anyone.
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A
I can understand what's going on in Friday Night Lights. Yeah. And it is in that way also, not just like a teen drama or a story about a distinctive culture of a place, but almost like a workplace, not comedy, but like in its own right.
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B
Yeah.
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A
When Tim Reagan shows up drunk to practice, like, you know, what are his co workers thinking and how much is riding on the various. You know, can you handle the promotion, et cetera, et cetera. But, like, you talk about this when you talk about Euphoria season three a lot, which is sort of like, what's the analog of the bathroom where everyone can gather? And high school itself is an easy framework in that you can run into someone in the bathroom or the hallway or whatever the case may be. With Friday Night Lights, you have an even stronger framework around it, because we're all going to show up on Friday for the games. You know, Grandma Saracen's going to be there, et cetera, et cetera. But we're also all going to show up to the opening of Buddy Garrity's dealership or whatever the church function might be. You know, there are these various institutions that they're all sort of locked into this pipeline in a way that, you know, Julie Taylor hates.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Et cetera, et cetera. But like this, this is the culture of the town where we're locked into high school, but it's not leaning on class classes and test performances and all of that to keep everyone together, because there is this overall goal of winning the football game, winning the state championship, et cetera, et cetera. Every. Every season. The show is one of my favorite shows of all time.
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B
We love to hear it.
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A
One of the best things I've ever seen. Yeah. I would not call it a consistently great show.
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B
No, it has. I mean, look, it has some real valleys.
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A
It ebbs and flows. Where do you think? It's sort of like weakest points. I mean, infamously. Infamously. There's a plot line in season two. If you've never watched Friday Night Lights and this is the first year, and you're like, huh, Should I watch Friday Night Lights? You should. I'm not going to get into the specific, but there is a writing choice partially informed by the writer story. Unclear. There was a writing choice that happened in season two that everyone agrees is one of the worst things that's ever happened on. It's like it's shorthand for terrible Season 2 decisions of a really promising freshman show.
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B
Yes.
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A
And we should say Friday Nights was an underdog from when it started, it was a critical darling, but not heavily viewed as even.
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B
Even that. I would say, like, the critical darlingness came a little later, despite the fact that, for my money, I think this is my absolute favorite pilot of any show I've ever seen. Yeah, I think it's, like, a almost perfect construction as far as how to hook someone into a show. And it came out and it was like, all right, that was pretty good. And even a lot of critics kind of moved on or kind of cast it aside or put it into a separate bucket.
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A
I kind of disagree. Like, it got really good reviews, and then it wasn't popular.
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B
No, definitely not.
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A
And then it took on this sort of, like, protect and defend it, or if, you know. You know.
- [16:29]
B
Yes. A secret handshake.
- [16:30]
A
Yeah, sort of thing. And so my experience, I wasn't a TV critic at the time, but I was sort of, like, getting into that world. And my watching the way in which TV critics went from, like, this is a good show to this is the kind of show where right now, in this particular TV landscape, we talked about this with Skins, because they came out around the same time, this, like, huge influx of reality tv, There was this real sense of, like, moving away from narrative television. This is the kind of storytelling we want to defend. Yes, right. And so it became a critical darling in a sort of like, please protect this. Let this show exist. Let it breathe, let it survive. Does it win some Emmys? Yes, but not the Emmys that it deserved to win, I think, across the board. And did it grow in estimation afterwards? Yes, and part of it has to do with this phenomenon we're talking about, where some major stars came out of the cast, both, like, immediately in the movie stars that they attempted to make out of this show. And then the slow burn, sort of. These are the actors of our generation, talents that emerged out of the show that. That sort of burnishes it in hindsight and makes it feel like required viewing to a certain degree. And it. And it goes up there in the pantheon. And it was a really unusual. In this golden age of prestige storytelling. Mad Men, Sopranos, the Wire, et cetera. Friday Night Lights was an NBC show. So the idea was, like, if this was on HBO or FX or AMC or another place where it could be protected and it wasn't as beholden to ratings and advertisers and stuff like that, it wouldn't have felt so fragile in its existence, you know, I would say.
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B
And is even more accessible than those shows if you give it a chance. The good news is the evangelism has already been done by time. Like, the reputation of Friday Night Lights has been burnished in a way where I don't need to come on this podcast and sell people to watch it. If you're going to watch the show, you probably already have. And if you're not, I think once you watch this pilot, you will be just like fully in this world and ready to see where it goes.
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A
What do you think is. Is the. The aspect of the pilot that most stands out to you as, like, undeniable?
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B
I mean, everything that happens in the football game at the end, from, especially from the moment that street gets hurt, is electric. And it's electric because all that groundwork has been laid emotionally. But in particular to me, the magic pixie dust is all of the Coach Taylor Saracen stuff during the game. The, like, slow down.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Do you know how to read the field anymore?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Do your best. And it's like there's so many moments in this episode where it's like you expect the tropey thing, you expect like the big yelling moment, and it turns out to be a very quiet one. And I think Friday Night Lights plays with the dynamics of those kinds of emotions really, really well in a way that backfoots you and wants you to lean in.
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A
It's a subversion of expectations. Right? Because if you don't know the. And I don't consider what happens in the pilot of spoiler, because this is the premise of the show, which is that Jason street, who is the number one teenage player quarterback prospect in the
- [19:30]
B
country, probably in the.
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A
Eric Taylor has been his coach since Peewee, so has been with his kid since he was small. And most crucially, I mean, there's so many crucial moments inside of this episode, but he's just like this all American nice guy kid, has the nice girlfriend, has the nice parents, is gonna go to Notre Dame or something like that, and. And Coach Taylor loves him as much as he sort of like needs him for his coaching career and his coaching moment, he loves this kid. And when he has a conversation where he's like, you've earned this. This is your moment. You've worked so hard for this. All these expectations are on you. But also this wasn't handed to you. You worked for it and you earned this and all of that promise and all of that hype, and then he has a career ending injury, a life altering injury inside of this episode. And so even though we don't get like the full story of what his future will be outside of this, it's clear from this episode that all of these expectations, all of this reality that these people have been dealing. Eric knows that his. A lot is riding on this, his first season as head coach of the Dylan Panthers. But he's got Jason street and so he is going, you know, and all, you know, and I'm going to buy a new house for my family and all these things are going to change. And Matt Saracen, backup quarterback, knows I'm just a young kid here. I'm gonna sit on the bench for the whole season.
- [20:57]
B
I'm gonna hold the extra points sometimes
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A
that's gonna be my reality. And, and Tim Riggins is like my best friend is a star quarterback and I'm a fuck up and I show up. But, but Jason's here and that's fine. He's holding it down. All of those, you know, all of the legs of all those things get cut out. Lila Garrity knows her entire future and all gets changed in this pilot. And the way in which you contrast, especially in the final moments of the game, Matt's trial by fire as having to step up as quarterback and the fact that they have to finish this game when everything knows, knows something horrible has happened to Jason and he is at the hospital. You hear the saw going through the helmet that they have to cut off of him in order to try to help this young kid whose life is forever changed. You hear the saw while you're watching the game and you're watching people cheer. And I actually think the real juice of this whole episode is the way in which they're losing with Jason.
- [22:01]
B
Yes.
- [22:01]
A
And then Jason leaves and they're winning and there's this excitement and there's this. And the whole crowd is roaring and cheering with the reality of what it cost to get here, which was the end of this young man. This version of this young man's life
- [22:18]
B
in particular, like I think you nailed it as far as them losing with Street. And he like the play that gets him hurt is he throws an interception and then does like a very selfless but ill advised thing.
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A
He's the only one who could stand between this guy and a game winning
- [22:34]
B
a game saving tackle, but one executed very dangerously, which, I mean when I was growing up, especially in Texas, this was like PSA season for like this is the exact thing you do not do on a football field is blind tackle with your head down. Because this exact things can happen. And it's just, I think the, the, the whiplash from the excitement of an incredible dramatic sports movie. Type comeback into all the players kneeling at midfield. I mean, I've seen this pilot so many times. I've seen the show so many times. I well up every single time I watch it. And I don't know how it can continue to access that power when you know exactly what's coming. And as you said, Joe, it's the premise of the show. It's not even the dramatic turn of, like, season three. Your favorite character died. This is what the show is. And I think how artfully they introduce the formula of what a teen show often is. Right. It is the star quarterback. It is the lead cheerleader. It is the bad boy. It is like the people on the edge of cool, like Saracen and Landry, who are like, just outside of all of it's right there. And it takes about, I think, 10 to 15 minutes to do that in a way that feels so lived in. And then it takes about 10 to 15 minutes at the end of the episode to completely deconstruct it and say, the main characters of this show are not who you thought they were.
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A
Right.
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B
And we're gonna change the stakes. We're gonna change all those expectations that you had, and now you're gonna go into episode two, and it's gonna feel like a whole new show.
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A
I think the interesting thing, you know, to go back to my earlier question that we got away from, because I got distracted by that season two blunder that they made, but, like, the way in which the show struggled sometimes was I. I think there's. So. There's such compelling drama in what happens to Jason street after this.
- [24:09]
B
Yeah.
- [24:10]
A
And his relationship with Lila and with Tim and with Coach and with football and with life.
- [24:16]
B
Yeah.
- [24:16]
A
Is compelling. But then when you're in a TV show, they sort of. They burned through it earlier, I think, than they. Faster than they expected. And so they wanted to keep Jason in the mix, and they couldn't always quite figure out how to do that. Yes. Or they wanted to. You know, they've got someone in Jesse Plemons playing Landry genuinely. I'm not kidding. My favorite character from the start. I love Landry.
- [24:41]
B
He's amazing.
- [24:42]
A
They have Landry, someone who was not meant to be so central, but they're like, oh, look what we got in Jesse Plemons, a literal Texas teen that we, like, picked up and put in the show. And, uh, oh, he's really good. And so they made some miscalculations on how to center him in the story going forward. And then I think some of, like, the teen, the Teen melodrama is not always their strongest suit.
- [25:07]
B
Of course not.
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A
You know, and so. Well, I just think that, like, when we think about this in relation to other teen dramas.
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B
Yeah.
- [25:14]
A
You know, the way that other shows and. And. And this is. I mean, Bill and Juliana and I talked about this a lot with O.C. the way that O.C. just, like, burned through four seasons of plot in its first season, like, its first season is incredible. And then they're like, oh, we did it all. So, like, this is an ongoing problem of teen dramas that they just, like, burn hot and fast, and then they're sort of like, how do we sustain this? Or how many times can we go around this particular love triangle or shuffle up, like, you know, the players on the board to keep you engaged? So this is an issue that a lot of shows have, but, like, Friday Night Lights was always so strong with Eric and Tammy, that central relationship, and. But was unafraid to really shake up its premise. When you move Eric from the Dylan Panthers to the East Dillon Tigers, like, that's a scary thing to do in some show. You know, when you start cycling in new cast members, and I would say not always very successfully. No, that's. That's epic. Tough.
- [26:18]
B
There's a lot happening.
- [26:19]
A
Really tough, you know, but then you get Michael B. Jordan showing up on the show, and that forever sort of burnishes your legacy. So, like, it was unafraid to try things and was not always successful at it. But I think it's interesting to talk about it in the teen drama bucket, because I just don't know that I think the teen drama of it was its most successful aspect.
- [26:40]
B
I think it can often be quite good. But you're right, the need to continue to draw more and more plot out of these characters exhausts even the characters you may love the most. Even someone like Tim Riggins just gets pulled into all sorts of corners and subplots. It's like, all right, you're sleeping with who now? And you're like a surrogate dad and also the girl next door. It's like, there's just a lot that they have to do again, to keep those characters on the edges of the story. But it speaks to something we talked about with Skins, which is like, how do you continue to tell a high school story as your characters are getting older? And the decision of Friday Night Lights, I would say it is like a, you know, Eric and Tammy Taylor anchored story, fundamentally. But really, it's like you have to make the choice of, is the show going to follow characters or is it going to follow the construct?
- [27:23]
A
Right.
- [27:23]
B
And the construct of Friday Night Lights is Dylan, Texas.
- [27:25]
A
Yeah.
- [27:26]
B
And it's just like, we are going to stay here. Lila's going to go off to Vanderbilt. We're going to kind of see her pop back once, once in a while. Smash is going to go to Texas A and M. You're going to, like, see his highlights on tv, but, like, we're not really going to hear from him again. We're going to stay here. And so there's some characters who make sense to stick around because they don't have places to go or they don't have a life to chase or, like, you know, a college degree to go after or whatever. But, yeah, you have to manufacture reasons for them to be there, and I think, most importantly, manufacture reasons for them to still bump into the characters that you actually do care about.
- [27:57]
A
Right. In your final season of the show. The only characters who were main characters in the first season who are still main characters.
- [28:06]
B
Yeah.
- [28:07]
A
Are the Taylor family, Eric, Tammy and Julie.
- [28:10]
B
And that's a good season. It is a good season, I would say. You know, it hits the highs earlier, but it pretty successfully gets through the reboot learning curve of bringing in that new cast that you mentioned at East Dillon.
- [28:25]
A
Yeah. I would say, I think that the show developed a bit of a Tim Riggins problem in that Taylor kitsch was like, such a popular, you know, Tim Riggins was such a popular character, but it's. Yeah. Like, what do you do with the character who's supposed to peak in high school and how do you keep him hanging around after he's done? There are some things that are built into. They cleverly built in the story. And it's always smart to do this in the teen drama. You know, we talked about it in Skins. They've got, you know, Effie Stone, I'm Tony's younger sister. So you can have another generation and, like, Julie and Landry and Matt Saracen are all younger than, you know, your Jason Streets and your Tim Riggins and your Smashes and stuff like that, and your Lila Garrity's.
- [29:11]
B
Although in classic teen drama tradition, it's often not very clear exactly what.
- [29:15]
A
A little confusing.
- [29:16]
B
Yeah. Like, are you a junior or senior or what?
- [29:18]
A
A little confusing. But it's like thinking about, could they have done this on Euphoria? Like, they kind of. In the first season, you've got Rue's younger sister, played by Storm Reid, who's Gia, who's like. And she's hanging out with some Young, young kids, like in the carnival episode and stuff like that. Like there is this seed that they planted where they could have done. And if they were doing like the Skins version of Euphoria, season three and season four would be the Gia and Her Friends season, you know, which is like, how do you let go of Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi and Zendaya?
- [29:50]
B
That's the problem.
- [29:52]
A
And then if it were the Friday Night Lights model, you would keep those older characters outside of high school, but you would still follow Gia and her friends and try to sort of blend in the younger characters into this and you get your, like Luke Caffertys or your Jesses or your Beckys, etceteras. Yeah.
- [30:12]
B
May she live in infamy. I do think the difference in the thing that Friday Night Lights has working in its favor relative to something like Euphoria in terms of that kind of handover is it does make narrative sense that someone like Tim Riggins would just be kind of like stuck in this Dylan black hole a little bit, that he would have a hard time escaping the orbit in a way where if you wanted to continue telling the story of seasons one of two, Euphoria, like, you have to really. You have to really tie yourself in knots to get there.
- [30:38]
A
Yeah. And it's just a way in which they were like, trying to make Tim connected to the high school characters.
- [30:44]
B
Yes. He's a coach now. He's around. I don't know.
- [30:48]
A
Let's. Questions.
- [30:50]
B
Don't ask too many questions. Let the fuck up be a fuck up is generally my policy on these things.
- [30:55]
A
Yeah. Did you know about one in three people with plaque psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling. Does this sound like you listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away? Trymphy Guselcomab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who may benefit from taking injections or pills or form phototherapy. And for adults with active psoriatic arthritis, serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or if you need a vaccine, imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trimfya. Tap this ad to learn more about trimfaia, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Sweetgreen. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweetgreen's new wraps have got you real ingredients, zero shortcuts, everything you love in one hand. Think Green Goddess chicken, garlic aioli, crumbled bacon, corn salsa. 40 grams of protein made to keep up with whatever comes next. New Sweetgreen wraps hit different order now@order.sweetgreen.com
- [32:28]
B
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- [33:07]
A
This is the most convincing teen slash slash least convincing teen question which we asked about skins. A show full of actual teenagers.
- [33:13]
B
Yes.
- [33:14]
A
Not so the case here.
- [33:16]
B
No, it is not.
- [33:17]
A
Who is your most convincing teen in the pilot episode?
- [33:19]
B
I do think it's Jesse Plemons.
- [33:21]
A
Yes.
- [33:21]
B
In part because he is legitimately one of the youngest members of the cast.
- [33:24]
A
I would all say Amy teagarden who was 16. Yeah, yeah, Julie. Julie. And Landry. I agree 18 and 16 year old actors here.
- [33:31]
B
Landry in particular. And maybe it's just like the T shirt with the long sleeve shirt underneath, like big Ethan Embry energy coming from Landry.
- [33:38]
A
You're speaking my language now.
- [33:40]
B
It's really not an accident how you got into the Landry pipeline, but there is an awkwardness to him that I think is deeply recognizable and especially like you know, whatever you may make or judge in Tim Riggins, like he is a confident, self assured like warrior poet in this episode compared to Landry. And you know, Street's obviously a boy scout but is like a senior, more polished, more put together until the moment his whole life kind of falls apart. So it's like all these other characters feel and look quite older, but Landry does. There is something about him that is so nervous and anxious and unsure maybe. Except when he's talking about Crucifixorius. That is just like very teenage and
- [34:16]
A
convincingly so Christian speed metal band. We're all listen in the first episode, crucifixorius Forever. Why don't I have a crucifixorius shirt? We should get some.
- [34:25]
B
I guarantee you they're Available.
- [34:26]
A
Oh, I know they are. Okay. It's just the color scheme. Like, I like the design of the crucifixorius shirt, but the color scheme is kind of like a. It's like a Christmas green and red for some reason.
- [34:35]
B
I'm sure you can get a black shirt in a metal tradition.
- [34:37]
A
Maybe because of Jesus. Jesus. Okay. Scott Porter was 27.
- [34:44]
B
You know, Christmas straight to Jesus. That must be the reason for the color scheme.
- [34:48]
A
Crucifixorius.
- [34:49]
B
I'm with you.
- [34:50]
A
Jesus is ever present in their mind. Okay.
- [34:52]
B
I hate to be the one. Spoiler alert. That's not when he gets crucified.
- [34:56]
A
What?
- [34:56]
B
You know, it's crazy. Not his birthday, maybe. Maybe we fudge the details.
- [35:00]
A
Okay. It's not even his birthday. Rob, to be honest with you, okay. Scott Porter was. Who plays Jason street, was 27 years old. Taylor Kitsch is 25. And Zach Guilford, to be honest, he's 24. He looks.
- [35:13]
B
He looks a little. A little more teenage.
- [35:15]
A
Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's plummets and like the Landry's. Again, Landry fits into that. Like, those are the guys that I was friends with in high school. And that's. That's who I relate to. And I. I love Landry forever. I wonder Saracen, being like, Matt, you need new friends. I'm like, grandma, that's the only time you've ever been wrong. Grandma Saracen, you're a perfect person, but it's the only time you've ever been wrong about anything.
- [35:36]
B
It's such a funny line, though. Her introduction in this episode is really great.
- [35:39]
A
Oh, my God, she's perfect.
- [35:41]
B
She really is perfect.
- [35:42]
A
Yeah.
- [35:43]
B
I wonder how much of this casting stuff is sort of chain reaction too, where it's like, I don't. I don't know the order of events in terms of who they found first,
- [35:48]
A
but did they start with Scott Porter and they're like, ooh, what's cast around him? Yeah.
- [35:52]
B
If Scott Porter's best friend looks like he's 15, yeah. It would be really weird. And I think most crucially, I would say Taylor Kitchen, Adrian Policki, those. That's not what high schoolers look like.
- [36:02]
A
No.
- [36:03]
B
And it would be very weird if he was dating a girl who did look like what a high schooler looks like.
- [36:07]
A
So let's talk about this. So, like, one of. What do the episodes do to push the limits of the kinds of stories we see about teens on television? And other than that sort of like Burden of Expectation, the Entire town's identity is riding on you.
- [36:19]
B
Yeah.
- [36:20]
A
I think it really just comes down to Tim Riggins waking up shirtless on the couch, surrounded by beer bottles. And then Adrian Peliki as Tyra comes in and, like, lays on top of him wearing his shirt, you know, and that's just sort of like, this is an ordinary. It's Tuesday morning or something like that for these. These kids. Can I read a section from the New York Times review? This revealing sound cue comes when Tim Riggins, the hard living running back, wakes. Oh, he's a running back. Wakes up on a bachelor sofa where he's passed out. The sticky sound of his skin on the leather, as well as the creak of the furniture under his weight. This person was really feeling. This metaphor reminds you of the role of leather in Texas. Those tan hides that are native, of course, but also not especially comforting in the hot Texas weather. Sleeping on it. Sheetless scenes for young athlete in training. Yet another act of stoicism or sacrifice, or possibly in Tim's case, just arrogant indifference. Whatever it takes to play high school football. I just thought that was, like, a person really up their own ass in the moment. Shout out the New York Times.
- [37:17]
B
But there's a long and rich history of New York Times writers writing about Texas in exactly this fashion. So it's part of a great tradition.
- [37:24]
A
When I got to the role of leather in Texas, I was like, are you kidding me? Okay. But Tim Riggins shirtless on the couch, Tyra sandwiched on top of him, surrounded by so many bottles of Lone Star was. Is an indelible. What are the teens up to? You know, when the interviewer. This sort of, like, mockumentary format of this pilot episode is like, excuse me, Tim, I think I can smell alcohol in your breath.
- [37:51]
B
No, you don't.
- [37:53]
A
What are you talking about? That's as far as it really feels like it gets inside of this episode in terms of, like, what are the kids up to? The drinking, having sex, like, seems pretty tame compared to euphoria.
- [38:04]
B
I mean, this episode has a lot on its mind and its heart in terms of what it wants to explore. And so it's like we're going to throw out the, you know, the empty beer cans. We're going to allude to, like, maybe there's some racism within the team, but really we're trying to tell, like, the Jason street and surrounding story here.
- [38:18]
A
It's not racism. Tim Riggins just hates Smash.
- [38:20]
B
Doesn't care if he's from Saudi Arabia. Honestly, I. You know what? As maybe Racists go. I thought it was a compelling argument, but it's really just. He could be from anywhere. But I legitimately hate this man and I'm telling the local news about it.
- [38:34]
A
Okay, Rob co signs Tim Riggins.
- [38:36]
B
Not what I said.
- [38:37]
A
Comments about Smash. Got it. Okay. Can I read you another line from New York Times? This is. This is in. This is. In regards to season two, this is a dancing around the moment that we talked about in season two that was. Is wildly unpopular, but this is in terms of, like, capturing what the teen depiction on Friday nights was like. If Friday Night Lights hadn't been inspired by the fascination with a Southern fascination with college football, it would be easy to imagine that it had been born somewhere on the outskirts of Marseille. So committed is it to divorcing images of adolescent sexuality from standard American anxiety narratives. The teenagers on Friday Night Lights, as we are reminded the season jump freely in and out of one another's bedroom windows to consort. There are no back seats or back alleys or broom closets forcing them to quarantine their erotic identities. And the show imagines that it is the denial of sexual urges, not the submission to them, that can carry dangerous consequences. So the whole thing that happens in season two kind of happens, this article argues, because Tyra does not want to have sex with a character. And I'm like, that's a stretch as far as I'm concerned. But, like, in terms of, like, bedroom window hopping, I don't. I don't know that I think about Friday Night Lights that way. What. What's your experience with it?
- [39:52]
B
I think about it only in the sense that a lot of the parental figures, as we alluded to, are out of the picture for various reasons. And so it's very much like a generation of kids who are raised by their grandmother or their older brother or whoever. Whoever may be around still. And so there is a freedom of movement that I think you do kind of need to explain and have baked into the show. It's also, again, like, inextricably, like, if you are growing up in small town, probably anywhere, but especially Texas, like, yeah, there's a lot of freedom of movement. There's a lot of, like, gray area for you to navigate the world.
- [40:21]
A
I also think there's something about Adrienne Peliki's character. Tyra Colette is an arc. If you want to go to the Riverdale archetypes, I need to learn about it. Apparently your Betty's and Veronica's, right?
- [40:35]
B
Is she more Betty or Veronica?
- [40:36]
A
She's a real Veronica, Right. Like, what does that mean? Lila Garrity is. Betty is the girl next door. And Veronica is like the sexy alternate option. Right. And she, like, is all over Smash, is all over street, is all over Tim inside of the same episode. Right. But Tyra is smart and cool and confident and there's, there are, there are dimensionalities to these archetypes. All of the archetypes are here. Yeah. Lila Garrity, good Christian girl, cheerleader. But there's a dimension to her. Tim Riggins, bad boy, leather couch sleeper. But there's depth to them. So, like.
- [41:11]
B
Well, there's depth to that hair for sure.
- [41:12]
A
Absolutely. It's very important. It's very, very important. But I think of all the characters, Tyra as an archetype, like the sexually forward, wants attention. Extremely hot blonde girl in the, like, 2006 appropriate low rise jeans. I've seen that character done so poorly and it is done so much better on this show in terms of what it has to say about young women and their sexuality and their power and their intelligence and what they think can get them attention and what they think can get them ahead in the world.
- [41:49]
B
You know, she winds up having one of the best arcs on the show, and that's really saying something considering I think she's already a great character in season one. It's not like they had to rewrite or reinvent her. It's just she's on a journey like everyone else is and there's so much there to work with from the jump that they take her to some really compelling places.
- [42:05]
A
Something I wanted to mention this is this just goes back to the parent thing. This is something I. We try not to, like, discuss these shows before we get on the pod, but I could not resist texting you last night because when in the final moments of the episode when they're still playing the game. And we keep cutting to Minka Kelly as Lila Garrity in her, like, perky little cheerleader ponytail crying in the hallway of the hospital. Then we come back to the game and her dad, Buddy Garrity, is there, like, cheering for the Panthers. Not with his daughter, no, at the hospital, but still at the game. And that is Buddy Garrity through and through. One of my favorite TV characters of all time, Buddy Garrity. I. I just think that's a perfect crystallization of what you're talking about, is like, Buddy Garrity, you know, a business leader in the community. We are interested in his car dealership inside of this episode. There are church functions, there are all These things. He and his wife have this huge house, Lila has siblings, she's a member of the boosters, you know, et cetera, all of this. And he's just not there for his daughter at all remotely.
- [43:14]
B
You have those kinds of fully articulated characters in hand from episode one. You're already dropping iconic lines here in the first episode, and then you have a fully complete dramatic arc that leaves you in shambles by the end of it.
- [43:27]
A
Right.
- [43:28]
B
It's just hard to do TV better than that. And I think they managed to build on all of this thing so well, especially in season one. But it really is like a force of nature, this episode.
- [43:38]
A
Did your Friday Night Lights fandom change or was it impact the way that you watch television at all? You talk about evangelizing it, sort of trying to get people in your life to watch it, separate it from cancellation. Is that the first time you, like, I remember signing a position to keep my so called life on air.
- [43:56]
B
Okay.
- [43:56]
A
That is something that I did. Did it change? Were you on, like, message boards? Were you reading recaps? What was your level of involvement?
- [44:03]
B
Definitely reading recaps, definitely. Like, I literally had like the Dylan Panthers P logo on the rear view window of my car. Like, I was out here, like, trying to get people to watch the show.
- [44:13]
A
Yeah, you really clear eyes, full heart.
- [44:15]
B
And I do think, to your point, you just have a very particular kind of relationship to those shows. The ones that you had to push for, that you had to fight for, that you were trying to get people to be on your side about. And that had that, like, quality of if someone. You did find someone who loved it. It's like we share a fundamental thing about our tastes in something.
- [44:32]
A
Right.
- [44:32]
B
It's not fully defining, but it is. It is, you know, an olive branch to another human being. It is like a way of reaching out in the world and seeing somebody who's a little bit like you. And I think this is one of those shows like that for me, where I was online about it, but to me, it was more like trying to understand why this. Why this was the kind of show you had to fight for. Why this was one of those shows that was like, always on the chopping block, even when it was relatively well received and successful.
- [44:57]
A
Right.
- [44:58]
B
What was it about? Something that should like, football is one of the most popular things in America. Why is a football show that has these performances and this kind of production value and the explosions in the sky part of this, where it's like you have these high soaring, like, visual and audio references but also this really grounded premise, and you're just like in suspended animation between those things at all times. Why am I having to sell this?
- [45:21]
A
I had a really. Watching this episode last night. I had such a visceral reaction to the explosion. This guy, like, that score is immediately identifiable.
- [45:32]
B
Yes.
- [45:33]
A
When you hear it and you hear imitators of it is distinctive. They used the same outro music for the closing credits for every episode. And as soon as it hit and just, like, did something to me, and which I was not expecting, it really. It really surprised me. I was on the message boards, I was reading recaps. And the reason I brought that up is this was like the real Television Without Pity era. And I don't know if you were involved.
- [46:01]
B
Dabbled.
- [46:02]
A
Yeah. But the. The recappers, the Television Without Pity used to call Mindy, Tyra's sister Ol Sis. Like Ole Miss, but they called her Ol Sis. And I just think about that all the time as one of the, like, top tier recapper nicknames for a character of all time. Yeah.
- [46:20]
B
It's really an important part of the craft. If you're gonna recap these shows, you have to find ways to entertain yourselves. And honestly, it's a cutesy little nickname more than anything.
- [46:27]
A
Did anything surprise you watching this pilot? You said you've seen it a million times. Was there anything that leapt out to you where you're like, no, I can close my eyes of an evening and just replay it on the back of my eyelids?
- [46:38]
B
I think it's mostly that all these years later and all these watches later, it still has that power and that pull. And the emotional heft of this episode is really breathtaking. And I mean that in a kind of a literal sense, too. Right. It's like you're coarse over watching it. You know all the beats, you know all the characters, you know exactly what's coming. And yet it's undeniable in the way it pulls it off. And that shouldn't feel like a surprise to me at this point, but kind of consistently does every time I turn it back on.
- [47:04]
A
I think one of the miracles of this episode is the way in which these families are so, you know, specifically, I will say the Taylors and the Saracen household and in the way in which these just feel like real family. Yes. When Eric and Julie and Tammy are having a conversation all overlapping on top of each other, where Julie is talking about how Moby, like real New York Times writer style, talking about how Moby Dick represents the town.
- [47:33]
B
Don't spend too long on the smash comparison. Don't worry about it.
- [47:36]
A
Yeah, really don't worry about it. Yike. Eric trying to watch game tape while also kind of talking to his daughter while his wife will not stop talking.
- [47:48]
B
Yeah.
- [47:48]
A
About the new house that she wants to live in. And when he says to her, like, relentless, you know, or just like. And also, this is the thing I love about watching the pilot of a show that you've watched a million times. The number of images from this pilot that are in the opening credits forever. Like him on the couch, like, looking over at Julie and sort of like winking at her. Or like Tammy coming up behind him while he's sitting at the office, you know, or her in the kitchen, you know, dancing away. Like his and hers closets. Like it's Friday Lights iconography. And to your point, we get a clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose in this opening, which if you ask people on the street who've never seen Friday Night Lights of a certain age, they can probably tell you clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
- [48:30]
B
Yeah. Because we're annoying as hell about it.
- [48:32]
A
And I'm glad that we were all right. What else do you want to say about this show?
- [48:37]
B
Well, do you want to get into, I mean, the incredible at the high end cast and what they went on to do and maybe some of the disappointments they're in on some of our favorites as well.
- [48:45]
A
Right. So the, the, the clear breakout, early breakout of the show was Taylor Kitsch as Tim Riggins. And everyone's like, oh, my God, who is this Texan Heathcliff? Blah, blah, blah. So broody. The long hair, the shirtlessness, the warrior poetess, to use Robinianism. And then Hollywood really tried to make fetch happen with Taylor Kitsch. What's your favorite version?
- [49:07]
B
I mean, make Kitsch happen was right there.
- [49:09]
A
Sorry. You're the best.
- [49:11]
B
Sorry. I'm sorry to line edit you, but, you know, it's a collaborative medium.
- [49:15]
A
You're always punching up my work, and that's fine. What. What in his early filmography would you like to shout out here?
- [49:23]
B
I mean, it's not good. It just never happened. It never happened in a way that I'm still trying to figure out a little bit. I do think there is something so magical about Tim Riggins as a character that is hard to escape.
- [49:35]
A
I also think to a certain degree, and I think about this a lot when I think about Zach Guilford is like a lot of these characters were modeled to just the kind of the person. I'm not saying that, like, Taylor Kitsch is Tim Riggins, but there are ways in which his natural state is. Is rigging Z.
- [49:51]
B
Right.
- [49:51]
A
And certainly Zach Guilford, like, is like
- [49:55]
B
the shucksiness a little bit.
- [49:56]
A
Not have a ton of range that I've seen. Except for Midnight Mass, which you will watch eventually, like outside. I. I was really hoping that Zach Guilford would like, really go some places, and it has not yet really, really happened for him. But for Taylor Kitsch, Gambit in X Men, Wolverine, really tough Gambit, my number one guy. And they cast Tim Riggins and it was an absolute shit show. Nightmare.
- [50:19]
B
It's really good headshot casting. It's like, yeah, that guy looks like Gambit kind of. I mean, I could see it. Maybe not your Gambit.
- [50:25]
A
No. Hashtag not my Gambit.
- [50:26]
B
You have a very specific association to animated Gambit.
- [50:28]
A
Hashtag not my Gambit. All right. Battleship, which I watched for the first time during COVID and is one of the funniest experiences of my entire.
- [50:35]
B
Quite something. Rihanna, who knew?
- [50:37]
A
It's a lot. And then of course, John Carter. I mean, in 2012, he does Battleship, John Carter and Savages. And it's just sort of like a. This isn't happening.
- [50:45]
B
And it was supposed to be, I would say, especially John Carter. Right. That's the big vehicle. That's the big gamble. I think you're right that responding to the magnetism of Tim Riggins, you feel like maybe something should happen for him. But I. I also really don't know that he does a lot beyond it. And I think maybe the best role I've seen him in. I've heard good things, actually, about his performance in Waco, where I think he's drafting off a similar charisma.
- [51:08]
A
Sure.
- [51:09]
B
As like a dirty cop in 21 bridges. I think he's pretty good, but it's a very small part.
- [51:13]
A
Okay.
- [51:14]
B
That's. That's about the best I can do.
- [51:15]
A
And you have not seen two Detective Season two.
- [51:17]
B
I genuinely tried.
- [51:20]
A
It's tough.
- [51:20]
B
Yeah.
- [51:21]
A
It's not for me.
- [51:22]
B
I couldn't. I couldn't even see it through, to be honest with you.
- [51:24]
A
So then the real, like, honest to goodness, slow burn breakouts of this are Jesse Plemons, who goes from this to do Breaking Bad, and then goes from Breaking Bad to becoming one of our great movie actors, full stop. One of my favorite people to ever watch on screen.
- [51:41]
B
Not a single argument from me. And is like, as good showing up and carrying half of begonia as he is, like, for one scene in Civil War. And he can just do Anything That Civil War scene.
- [51:53]
A
And then the Oscar winner I'm so delighted to announce is Michael B. Jordan, who shows up later in the series on the East Dillon team Post the Wire.
- [52:06]
B
We should note. Yeah, this isn't the full breakout and like, identifiable. Yeah.
- [52:10]
A
Where's the boy? Where's Wallace? Like, exactly. He's on Friday Night.
- [52:13]
B
This is an elevation into a different kind of team.
- [52:15]
A
Stardom, soap operas. Also before this, as was a lot of the cast of Friday Nights.
- [52:19]
B
We don't cover that on the show.
- [52:20]
A
Yeah, he was on the Wire. Incredible. Briefly, incredibly, memorably on the Wire. And then in a more adult. Like he's a kid on the Wire and he's like, you know, a young adult here on Friday Night Lights has some great tragic dad, daddy issue stuff. Eric Taylor stepping in. Incredible stuff. A great love triangle with Jess and Landry and it's just. It's great stuff. And then like, Jason Cadems likes him so much, he puts him on Parenthood. He's great on Parenthood. So good.
- [52:53]
B
And then that theater system is quite strong in terms of random Friday Night Lights people who show up on Parenthood. Yeah. And rightly so. That's. That's the point, you know, if you're going to run your own mini Hollywood empire.
- [53:01]
A
It's true.
- [53:02]
B
What are you doing to $4,000?
- [53:03]
A
We love it. But then, like, you know, Michael B. Jordan, he does Fruitvale Station, he does Creed, he does Black Panther, but they're really like. There really was a sense for a little a minute where it's just sort of like he's not echeloning up to the exact level that we really feel like Michael B. Jordan should be.
- [53:21]
B
Is he falling too much into, like, Tom Clancy action fringedom as opposed to superstardom?
- [53:27]
A
It's a great question. And then comes Sinners, and it's just like questions answered. We're on a different level altogether and we're enjoying ourselves so much.
- [53:33]
B
Just as importantly for freaks like us, seeing him and Jesse Plemons point to each other at the Oscars.
- [53:38]
A
Very important.
- [53:39]
B
It means something to us. It really does.
- [53:41]
A
I told you the story about how I was at this fxming party the year that they. That Jesse Plemons was on Fargo and Connie Britton was on American Crime Story. And like, like a real creep. And I never do this at, like a work function. I took a blurry, very distant photo of Connie Britton talking to Jesse Plemons because it was important to me to see it. It was like.
- [54:02]
B
Well, as we discussed on the Skins Pod Some people are taking blurry camera phone images of like random high school girls and gawking on them, on. At them on a train. Here you are. Not the same Friday nights reunion. Friday nights reunion across the room.
- [54:15]
A
It's very important to me. If John Travolta was there, who cares?
- [54:18]
B
You know, if you zoom in just enough. Yeah, you can see that this looks like Connie Britt's hair.
- [54:22]
A
Two gingers are talking to each other is very important.
- [54:24]
B
A momentous event.
- [54:25]
A
Anything else you want to talk about? Anyone else in the cast that you really expected to sort of like go somewhere and didn't?
- [54:29]
B
Yeah, I think if you told me to pick off of season five, like, who are the people really going to pop? Michael B. Would have been a great and obvious answer. I think Taylor Kitsch, clearly a lot of people even at that point were still kind of banking on and thinking, okay, he could be something. I think Adrian Palicki I really thought was going to have a career and she has of a kind. I mean doing stuff like the Orville. I think she's actually quite good in John Wick in the first John Wick.
- [54:51]
A
Like that's what I wanted her to do was she is. If she had an even bigger role in that John Wick. But she's like one of my favorite parts of her in John Wick and like she deserved her own action franchise. She also showed up on agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. like, you know, they kept trying to.
- [55:09]
B
We don't have to. Jomi's not here. We don't have to pretend that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- [55:12]
A
is so good. I did watch it.
- [55:13]
B
I also watched it. It was not good.
- [55:15]
A
Okay.
- [55:16]
B
But you know, this is also the power of a show. Like this is again, someone is advocating for Friday Night Lights. I was trying to follow the cast into these other projects and believe wholeheartedly that she could be good on agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that you know, that you could watch. Like, I'm trying to think of even what the best comp is otherwise. Because it really is like you follow Taylor Kitchen to one movie and you're like, oh no, this is not going the way that I hoped it would. But Adrian Plucky's really got something as Tyra and I don't think it's something she's ever fully recaptured in his. Her. In her career. And I. It's hard not to think that the. The real moment that felt like something and then died on the vine is that like dead on arrival Wonder Woman pilot that she shot where she's again black haired Adrian Policki I don't like, we're kind of missing something fundamental there,
- [56:01]
A
but she's a brunette sometimes on Friday
- [56:03]
B
Night Lights, it's, it's true, but I don't know that something, something about that Diana Shade just like, did not quite work for her.
- [56:10]
A
Speaking of DC Comics, we should, on the Eve of Lanterns, talk briefly about Kyle Chandler. Right? It's not the same in terms of like, young talent, blah, blah. But. But he's had an interesting Friday Night Light, like, post Friday Night Lights career in the same way that like, sort of Bryan Cranston has and stuff like that. Jon Hamm has like, really kind of struggled in a way to break out of Eric Taylor. Because, like, I would say specifically Cranston and Chandler, there was a real effort to sort of put them in a lot of like, movies for adults. And Kyle Chandler for a while was showing up as like, guy who sits behind a desk in a show about,
- [56:45]
B
like, if there's an agent in your story, he has played it.
- [56:48]
A
Yeah, exactly. So like, he's the boss of the agent and he's going to be real fussed and his hair is going to show all the full range of his emotions. You and I both have talked about Early Edition and I really am still like, mystified the fact that you ever watched Early Edition because you were way too young.
- [57:03]
B
Like, it's an adult show, but Kyle
- [57:05]
A
Chandler was on Early Edition for several seasons. Please just Google the premise of that show.
- [57:10]
B
I think you need to explain it on this podcast. Okay, listen, if you're not familiar, you got to get familiar.
- [57:14]
A
Here's the deal of Early Edition. This is pre Friday Night Lights. What if you got the newspaper? Remember newspapers? What if you got the newspaper delivered to your door with a mystical cat one day early?
- [57:26]
B
Yeah. Tomorrow's news today and you and your
- [57:28]
A
pal Fisher Stevens could prevent terrible things from happening. You have one day to fix whatever truck is going to crash or et cetera, et cetera, that you read about in the one day early newspaper. And that's the premise of four seasons of a CBS show called Early Edition.
- [57:44]
B
And it rips.
- [57:45]
A
It really rules.
- [57:47]
B
What's the equivalent? Like your Instagram feed in 2026 is a day ahead.
- [57:50]
A
Oh, tough.
- [57:52]
B
I don't know what that gets you.
- [57:53]
A
Well, we don't like your apple. New curated newsfeed. I guess. I guess I don't know how people read news anymore. They don't. That's the spoiler.
- [57:59]
B
Guess what? I got to find out that, like, the latest talks with Iran failed again. A day in advance. I'm really benefiting from that.
- [58:05]
A
Did you disappoint me again?
- [58:07]
B
Wow.
- [58:08]
A
What a surprise.
- [58:08]
B
What are we going to do with it?
- [58:11]
A
But we've been waiting for Kyle Chandler to have like a real thing since Friday Night Lights. His four episode arc on Grey's Anatomy aside. And I would say Lanterns is our, is our, our great hope. We're really excited for it.
- [58:23]
B
Well, he is in multiple Godzillas so I don't want you to just like poo poo that.
- [58:26]
A
You can't keep bringing up Godzilla movies.
- [58:28]
B
Then these actors need to stop being in Godzilla movies. Like that's not my fault. I do think he's like, he's awesome in Wolf of Wall Street. That is a great smaller dose deployment.
- [58:39]
A
You know what he's awesome in?
- [58:40]
B
What's that?
- [58:40]
A
Game Night. A perfect movie.
- [58:42]
B
Everyone is awesome in Game Night with Jesse Fleming. There are, look for the Friday Night Lights heads out there. A lot of random reunions happening among this cast in a way that I'm not so naive to think it's one actor vouching for another. But it's a bit of serendipity I can appreciate.
- [58:57]
A
Yeah. If you could recommend people who like Friday Night Lights. Watch one thing
- [59:04]
B
that one of these people has been in. Good lord. I mean it's. Here's the thing. Some of them are obvious, right? Like you don't need me to recommend White Lotus to you. What you do need me to recommend to you is Speed Racer. And Scott. Scott Porter pops up in Speed Racer.
- [59:20]
A
The Speed Racer agenda. It's really tough for me to handle.
- [59:23]
B
It's very strong. It's very important. Speed Racer, a movie so dazzling visually that it was demanded to be re released in 4K in theaters. And guess what? The gods listened. Racer X listened himself and put it back in theaters for us.
- [59:36]
A
I'll say for good time. Try Manchester by the Sea. Just kidding. I would say Midnight Mass is what I would recommend. Or Game Night if you haven't seen it. Those are two of my all time faves.
- [59:47]
B
I also don't want to gloss over Minka Kelly popping up in Euphoria specifically because kind of barely. Kind of barely, but quite memorably and quite well. Lila never my favorite character on Friday Night Lights, Minka Kelly is just kind of like trying to find her place into this story for a lot of these seasons.
- [60:04]
A
Yeah.
- [60:05]
B
Gets lost in the shuffle, is tasked with some very annoying storylines and like, I don't know, Christian boyfriends. There's. There's a lot happening. But then she shows up on Euphoria, and I'm like, this is like. Has real juice. There's some, like, real sizzle here in terms of. Yes, granted, she is parachuting into scenes with Alexa Demi, so it's like, this works on a level that's gonna work for me.
- [60:24]
A
Rob Catnip.
- [60:25]
B
Yeah. But I do think she was very good in it and very good in a way that I never would have expected for her. So I would love to see more of version of Minka Kelly if. If that's something she can dabble in.
- [60:35]
A
All right, well, that has been us barely touching, honestly, on the depths of our Friday Night Lights fandom.
- [60:41]
B
Well, we touched God this time, though.
- [60:43]
A
We sure did. Thanks to Devon Aldo. Thanks to Jacob Cornette. Thank you to everyone here at Sick Motion Studios. Thank you to Kai Grady, if he did anything on this show. I don't know. Probably always.
- [60:55]
B
I hope so. Another Texas boy.
- [60:56]
A
Thanks to Robini.
- [60:57]
B
Thank you, Joe.
- [60:58]
A
Texas forever.
- [60:59]
B
Texas forever. Hokum, etc. Etc.
- [61:02]
A
Bye.