Friday Night Lights has always been known to have favorite episodes for just about everyone who has watched this five-season series. One of my favorite episodes came during the latter part of the 22-episode season. This episode was titled “Mud Bowl.” In the episode, a local train derailment threatens the Dillon Panthers’ last home game of the year. This game just happens to be an all-important semi-final game with the opportunity to move on to the State Championship Game! The Panthers, led by new-to-them Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), has already had a very challenging season that began during the second half of his very first coached game when his 5-star quarterback, Jason Street (Scott Porter) suffering a paralyzing injury. Now, Coach Taylor and his team must deal with an environmental hazard that has taken their home field advantage from them.
At the same time, a few of the Panther players have their own soap-opera-type issues to deal with in their own personal lives. Fullback and legendary ladies’ man Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) is having a fling with a female next-door neighbor who just happens to be twice his age! (way to go, Riggins!) . This relationship was not taken very kindly with Riggins’ older brother, Billy (Derek Phillips), who gave his younger brother the following opinion of the situation. “I might not have a Ph.D. in stupid like you do, but I can tell you right now that this is gonna turn out badly. And It’s probably gonna end badly right around State.”
It’s one of many one-liners from Friday Night Lights that are excellent because it’s couched in the authenticity of the show’s naturalistic dialogue. In another scene, geeky Landry (Jesse Plemons) calls himself the Mr. T. of mathematics while trying to impress his dream girl, Tyra (Adrienne Palicki). “And the T stands for Tyra’s algebra tutor,” he bravely states, with awkward bravado. The series’ realism, which creates an emotional vibrancy for both comedic and emotional scenes, can be credited to its unique production style. The writers and production team for this series did a wonderful job with each and every episode.
Riggins’ not the only team member working on a new relationship in “Mud Bowl.” Waverly (Aasha Davis), the girlfriend of running back Brian “Smash” Williams’ (Gaius Charles), is bipolar and off her medication, but does not care to tell anyone. She has also taken up shooting guns, a hobby that has Smash worried about her well-being. Some of Friday Night Lights’ short-term plots can feel borderline soap-operatic in a prestige drama package, but this one works thanks to Davis’ performance and the consideration the series gives to Waverly’s point-of-view as a black teenage girl coping with mental illness. I love how this series brought awareness to a mental disorder, such as bipolar.
In the long run of the series, the side plots here don’t matter much except in contrast with a later, more mature version of these characters; Coach Taylor spends the entire series guiding these boys as they become men and doing what he can to curb their more toxic instincts. He doesn’t want them to be thugs or screw-ups. He also can’t abide by the money-hungry, football-obsessed people of Dillion, who this week are plastering their corporate sponsorship logos on his field and giving his quarterback secret envelopes of cash. When he and smooth-talking capitalist incarnate Buddy Garrity (Brad Leland) make a roadside pit stop on the way home from a fruitless meeting with their opposition, Coach Taylor sees a “for lease” sign and is struck with inspiration while beginning to chuckle a bit.
He brings his wife, Tami (Connie Britton), back to the spot where Buddy just relieved himself on a fencepost. They’re in a grassy field. There are cows. Coach Taylor paces around, deep in thought, while Tami stands, her hands on her hips, incredulous. “Where would people park?” she asks. “I don’t know,” Coach answers. “And how would you put lights in here?” she asks. “Where would people pee?” She then asks. Coach responds with “I don’t know that either. They can use cups for all I care.” “The cows are more supportive than you are!” he insists, as one strolls up to Tami and she chuckles as she moves away from a cow that has decided to come say hello to her.
Coach Taylor walks over to Tami, closing the distance between them. The sun is setting. Sparse, scraggly trees somehow look picture-perfect. “I just…all I want to do is just…” He cuts off, then quietly asks her to close her eyes. He puts one hand on either side of her face, and she does so as he asks, radiating trust, “Pretend you’re ten years old again. You’re just playing’.” He says it like a whispered Sunday morning church sermon. “You’re just playing…I wanna play football.” We can imagine it, too, if we try: playing as kids when all we needed was some empty space to imagine a great adventure. The idea crystallizes into something pure at this moment. Tami accepts it, so it’s really happening. They seal it with a kiss as coach excuses himself to get some blankets from the truck. I wonder what he had in mind?
If Friday Night Lights is only be remembered in the eyes of Its loyal fans’ imagination for only one thing, it should be Coach Taylor and Tami’s powerful performances that made it come to life. Every inflection, gesture, and looks the two share is blooming with the chemistry of a couple who have loved each other for years, and who will go on loving each other until death do they part.
“Mud Bowl” is, in many ways, about money and the utopic idea of freedom from it. Waverly is in crisis with little awareness of her already-limited mental health resources. Riggins has been playing the role of upstanding dad while he and his brother continue to struggle to make ends meet after their own father left them several years back. Jason Street’s family is suing Coach Taylor and Dillon High School to pay for his ongoing medical treatment. And let’s not forget the now-infamous plot that’s better left unmentioned — aside from, perhaps, Palicki’s excellent performance — Tyra is put in a dangerous situation when Landry’s car breaks down. All of these problems are socio-economic at their core. Coach Taylor can’t fix any of that, but he can build a football field and put on a game, one that has no VIP seating or sponsorships or multi-million-dollar stadiums, much to the shegrin of Buddy Garrity.
The game starts off with a sense of novelty as the acoustic version of The Killers’ “Read My Mind” lends an auspicious soundtrack: ”The good old days, the honest man, the restless heart, the Promised Land.” Folks in cowboy hats and camo jackets look on from the sidelines. There’s a joy in the air, the kind that comes with making something with your own two hands because you love it so much. Then, in the very first play, the opposing team scores a touchdown and then added a two-point conversion. Coach Taylor has his tight-lipped sideline look on, one of a dozen different silent microexpressions that Chandler conveys perfectly. Then it starts to rain. And when we say rain, we are talking about a real Texas toad-strangler!
The field that Coach Taylor and his team built by hand turns to mud. Visibility is low, rain is pounding down, and everything is slippery. Many Friday Night Lights fans don’t care about sports at all, but, this series, and in particular, we may as well be on the sidelines holding our breath along with the spectators. Coach brought us to this point, and now we’re committed. The weather, it turns out, works in the Panthers’ favor. Sophomore quarterback Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) sets up a play, Smash breaks off a touchdown, and the teams are tied at halftime. Heck, at one point, the referee had to be talked out of canceling the game at halftime because of the monsoon and the poor field conditions. The referee then proclaimed “Alright twenty more minutes and then someone is going to state.”
Could an episode of Friday Night Lights truly be great without a speech from Coach Taylor? This one’s a classic: short, passionate, and likely to make your eyes well up if they haven’t already by this point. Coach lays it all out at the half:
“Everything that has been asked of you this year and that you have asked of yourselves, gentlemen, comes down to this. Blood sweat, and tears, it all stays right here on this field right now. This is our dirt. This is our mud. This is ours, baby. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”
With nineteen seconds left, a block from Riggins and a clever play by Saracen, with guidance from former quarterback Street, impromptu coaching from the sidelines — ends in a touchdown. Panthers win! Every player we know and love helped make it happen. We’re going to state! The whole scene after the game ended was awesome. You had players, as well as members of the school band diving across the muddy field.