Friday Night Lights Season 2
Overview
Even people who adore this show — and people adore this show — will warn you about season two. It opens with Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) away at TMU, Tami holding the family together back in Dillon, and a storyline involving Landry, Tyra, and a body that belongs in a completely different, much worse series. It nearly sank the show, and fans spent years agreeing to pretend it never happened. Here's the thing, though: step around that one plot and the rest of the year is recognizably the same warm, sharp-eyed Dillon drama. Smash (Gaius Charles) is drunk on college recruiting promises that turn out to be worth very little. Matt Saracen is drowning quietly while he cares for his grandmother. Lyla Garrity, whose life fell apart along with Jason Street's, goes looking for meaning at church. And Chandler and Connie Britton remain the most believable married couple on American television, carrying the season through its shakiest patches on the strength of kitchen-table scenes alone. The writers' strike cut the year short at fifteen episodes, so it ends more abruptly than anyone wanted. Flawed? Definitely. But the bones of the great show are all still here.
