Friday Night Lights-"Wind Sprints"

Tim Riggins and Coach Taylor have a talk on "Friday Night Lights"
Credit: NBC

Here's my delayed continuation of my look back at Friday Night Lights with the episode "Wind Sprints" after the jump.

I have to admit, this episode was a little disappointing for me. The episode was a disappointment  because it lacked the huge emotional payoff at the end of the episode. Sure, there was an emotional scene at the end of the fifth act, but it wasn't nearly as good as Street's injury or Matt on the football field. I guess my issue with it was that it was the first "good" episode after two great ones.

I guess I should start with the Coach Taylor plotline. The Panthers lost the game! I was a little surprised that the show would go to this place a little early in the run, but it makes sense. They have to give the coach something serious to do in the early run to hold viewers. The town hates losing, and the backlash from that was as huge as I would have expected it to be. And of course, the target of the animosity is the quarterback. So much so, that Buddy Garrity has made Coach Taylor recruit a new quarterback. This could and probably will go very wrong for the coach and the team. This is a disaster in the making. What I wonder is what will the community think when this goes wrong.

The show hinted at a breakup between Jason and Lyla in the previous episode, now the show finally shows cracks in the relationship. Lyla just can't accept that Jason will not walk again. Jason finally confronts her about it and we see them fight for the first time. This was a very good scene for the two of them. The emotion that was behind it was clear and it was a well put together scene. This is another plotline where what they did in the episode isn't what is the most interesting aspect of the plotline. I'm very interested in how Jason is going to react to Tim Riggins and Lyla entering a relationship when she's still dating him. All I can say is that it won't be pretty.

Some other thoughts:

• Like I said earlier, the team running through the rain wasn't a huge emotional climax. It was a good climax to the episode, but it wasn't as good as previous moments that have filled the slot.
• The Tim Riggins material in this episode was very good. I'm glad that they got to what was going on in his head and they tried to fix it. I don't know if it was a permanent fix to his problem, but it was a great plotline.
• Mrs. Coach is now the guidance counselor of the school. I'm glad she gets to be in more then one or two scenes per episode and this will allow Connie Britton to be more prominent.
• Matt Saracen will have more to deal with next week when his starting job is under contention.
• I was quite surprised to see that Voodoo was played by Aldis Hodge from Leverage. He doesn't get to say much, but he does a good job with playing imposing.

Overall, this wasn't the strongest episode of Friday Night Lights. It wasn't a bad episode, but it wasn't as good as the first two. 

What did everyone else think?

Next Week: We begin doubling up with the episodes "Who's Your Daddy" and "Git 'Er Done"

For more information about the Old TV Watch Project and an archive of previous FNL reviews, please go to the home of the project right here.