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Critic's Notebook: Strike — and Life — Goes On
Calista Flockhart, Dave Annable and Sally Field in Brothers & Sisters by Craig Sjodin/ABC
How’s this for irony? All last week, trying not to get too depressed about what a protracted writers’ strike might mean for the TV season and the industry at large, I was secretly looking forward to a weekend getaway: catching former Alias star Jennifer Garner’s Broadway debut in a revival of Cyrano, opposite Kevin Kline and Rescue Me’s Daniel Sunjata. Unfortunately, my tickets were for Saturday night, by which time the stagehands’ union had initiated their own sudden walkout and work stoppage.
At this rate, I might actually finish the book I’ve been reading since mid-October.
(Thankfully, I was lucky enough to catch Aaron Sorkin's new play, The Farnsworth Invention, before the strike. It was scheduled to have its official opening night later this week, but when it reopens, I predict a healthy run for this fascinating, entertaining play recounting the birth of television.)
While consumers of TV, movies and even theater wait for unions and producers to reach deals and get back to work (can it really be so hard?), we at least can lose ourselves in the fruits of the November sweeps, where nearly everything will remain fresh in first run for at least the next few weeks. Over the weekend, there was still plenty to enjoy. Among the highlights:
Sunday’s Brothers & Sisters was a marvelous hour of confrontation, recrimination, revelation and healing. Intervention episodes in domestic dramas are often dynamite — remember the Salingers forcing a showdown with Bailey at the height of Party of Five? — and this was no exception, as drug-dependent Justin (the excellent Dave Annable) lashes out at all of his imperfect siblings, driving interlopers Rebecca and Holly out of the house, while mocking the wine-imbibing Walkers for their hypocrisy in ambushing him over his latest postwar-injury lapses. About 15 minutes into the episode, Justin finally caves, and the caretaking begins.
His brothers sit with him as he hits the first wall of detox. His mother Nora (the sublime Sally Field) puts a spot to his whining when he tries to manipulate her into letting him go outside for even a moment. And the morning after the all-nighter, Kitty (the quietly moving Calista Flockhart) realizes she can be warm and maternal as Justin finally falls asleep in her arms after she massages his scalp in a wonderfully big-sister way.
Justin’s intervention becomes the catalyst for other major plot action. Tommy, exposed in his affair with his comely assistant, finally puts a stop to it, worried he was turning into a facsimile of his cheating father. Uncle Saul finally reveals to sister Nora that he’d been living a lie all of his life, that he had secretly been in love with a man.
The angst and drama ends with Justin and Nora sharing a quiet, funny moment while dangling their legs in the pool. I really hated for this hour to end.
Felt much the same way after Friday’s episode of the seriously ratings-challenged Friday Night Lights, which is returning at last to top form as the major characters resettle in Dillon after ill-advised detours: Street and Riggins’ Mexico adventure, Coach’s college job. The coach is happy to be back home with his frazzled family (joined this week by the amusing Jessalyn Gilsig as Tami’s free-spirited sister) but is now dealing most unhappily with very realistic financial pressures. He just found out he has returned to much less than his earlier salary, and now he’s got to play athletic director at the school as well (his encounter with an indignant female coach was pricelessly funny; so glad Rosie O’Donnell passed on that one).
Meanwhile, Jason Street has an epiphany at his 19th-birthday party and decides to put old-football-hero Jason behind him and forge a new identity, even if it means quitting the coaching gig. The episode’s biggest lump-in-the-throat moment comes as Jason levels with Coach Taylor and says he hoped he wasn’t letting his mentor down. To which the Coach tells Jason, "You lift up everyone around you" and "I hope I didn’t let you down."
In moments like these, you want to assure Friday Night Lights that it isn’t letting us down either, even if we wish we’d never had to live through the whole Tyra-Landry murder affair. The way that was resolved this week, with Landry’s dad (the powerful Glenn Morshower) torching Landry’s car to destroy the evidence, again feels so at odds with the show’s usual realism, but the genuine pain in the performances of Morshower and Jesse Plemons as Landry turns this sequence of a father risking everything to protect his son into searing drama.
As in Brothers & Sisters, the final scene of Friday Night Lights was so touching and understated it reminds you just why so many of us continue to hold this show in such high regard. Riggins, currently banned from the team for his many lapses and absences, watches reformed juvy-delinquent Santiago haplessly practice football moves alone on the field. Riggins offers advice, at first peevishly but soon enthusiastically, as the love for the game once again kicks in. Before long, Smash and Saracen (not long ago at each other’s throats, but life goes on) have plunged into this ad hoc practice, as Coach Taylor walks by, offering encouragement to the newbie while remaining firm that Riggins has a ways to go before he’ll be back in uniform.
As Coach walks on, probably with more of a bounce in his step than he’d enjoyed all episode, a plane flies overhead, symbolizing the aching undercurrent of so many characters (including Tami and Jason Street in this episode alone) that a rich life awaits them outside of the stifling confines of Dillon, Texas. I figure our days are numbered when it comes to being invited back to the world of this show (and not just because of the strike), but for now the best news is that the sophomore-season hiccups appear to be mostly behind us.
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Nov 12, 2007 10:43 AM
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I agree that Brothers & Sisters was excellent. I, too, did not want the hour to end. This show always seems to go too quickly.
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Nov 12, 2007 12:21 PM
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I completely agree with your take on the wonderful episode of Friday Night Lights. How I love this show and the characters. At first I was skeptical about Landry's dad burning the car instead of taking him to the police, but the more I thought about it, I realized my dad would do almost anything to protect his kids, and suddenly, it didn't seem so far-fetched.
I'm hoping and praying that FNL won't be cancelled. I just don't understand why more people aren't watching it, especially with the amount of complaining about the lack of quality and realistic television.
During this strike people should do themselves a favour and get the first season of Friday Night Lights on DVD.
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Nov 12, 2007 1:16 PM
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Matt, we had opposite weekends! I was in NYC and got to see Cyrano, but missed out on Farnsworth. (I did, however, take a picture in front of the theater, with all the strikers.)
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Nov 12, 2007 1:22 PM
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Street's Mexico "detour" is the only reason why this second season deserves to exist, so far.
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Nov 12, 2007 1:59 PM
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Friday Night Lights is just one more wonderful contribution by Jason Katims to a rich resume of awesome shows. Matt, if you ever get a chance to talk to Mr. Katims, please ask him to go to Cable ASAP. It's the only place where his genius can be celebrated w/o pandering to ratings or watered down networks....deep breath...sorry, still not over "My So Called Life" being cancelled.
How do I plan to spend the strike?
Plan A - Watch re-runs of The OC and eat lots of chocolate
Plan B - Watch my Jericho DVD's in preparation for their Season 2 premiere. It may be the only decent scripted show on.
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Nov 12, 2007 2:29 PM
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The last scene of Friday Night Lights with Riggins teaching Santiago about football was so damn awesome - perfect, perfect, perfect!
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Nov 12, 2007 2:46 PM
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I'm lucky, I got to see Cyrano before the strike. It was wonderful, I'm sad you didn't get to see it.
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Nov 12, 2007 6:20 PM
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Both of these episodes were fantastic. Brothers and Sisters did what it always does so well - makes me cry. The acting from every member of the Walker family was just superb, and Dave Annable gets better every week.
Friday Night Lights this week was television perfection. I'm still not loving the murder storyline (and I really don't see how burning the car achieves anything, once it gets traced back to Landry) but the acting by those involved has been fantastic. I can't fault a single other storyline or actor on the show. I'd like to think that having more episodes in the bag than most other shows will help increase ratings, but I'm not too hopeful we'll get to see any more of Dillon once those episodes have aired. I'm going to enjoy every second until then though.
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Nov 13, 2007 7:20 AM
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That last scene of FNL was beyond moving - I am really enjoying the introduction of the character of Santiago, and how his presence is helping to bring some positive changes in Tim, and mend the fences between the fractured teammates. Also from the looks of the previews, how this determination of a young man who had known nothing but violence and the dark depths of human nature, is finding a place in life - some real hope, and bringing out the best in Coach Taylor. The Coach/Jason scene was just heartwrenching. I have loved the friendship and respect that the writers culivated between those two, and they never fail to hug at my heartstrings.
I got a chuckle out of Riggins asking Coach if his good deed in helping Santiago would get him back on the team, and Coach responded "not even close," I do appreciate how the writers aren't taking the easy route with this and want to make Tim learn something - and realize that if he wants something, he really has to work at getting it back.
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Nov 13, 2007 1:24 PM
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Great article, Matt. Thanks.
Two wonderful shows and you captured them perfectly.
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Nov 13, 2007 5:20 PM
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It's so refreshing to read positive things about FNL these days. It's not that I think the show's perfect (Landry's a murderer and football star), but it's so much better to focus on the good - and there's plenty!
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Nov 13, 2007 9:06 PM
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OK Matt you were right. I FLOVE FNL.
I got the DVD's and made myself watch the pilot episode which I DID NOT like...until the game started. And then oh my. I am so hooked. I love these characters. I just love Jesse Plemons' Landry. He absolutely just tickles me.
Thank you thank you thank you for your repeated recommendations on this show. I didn't think I would like it and I was so very very wrong.
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Nov 20, 2007 6:27 PM
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