Friday night lights – Episode 15 – Blinders
Oh… Wow! I truly believe this show has just surpassed all other shows I watch, with this one beautiful episode, such a simple, yet absolutely devastating look at racism in this small little Texan town. – Will have to wait and see the conclusion of the storyline (guessing that it’ll be concluded in next weeks’ episode - looking at the episode summary of the one after that, it doesn’t look very racially inclined…), but thus far it’s been handled extremely skillfully…
Mac (The Assistant Coach) makes some pretty stupid, and racially inclined comments to a reporter after the Panthers win their game. This leads to sparks of anger and resentment between the different races (and between people of the same races – as can be seen in the argument between Waverley and Smash).
My thoughts first on the comment Mac made, and then we’ll look at the outcome in more depth…
Mac said that there is a fundamental difference between black and white players, white players being more “thinkers”, whilst black players are doers, they are naturally more ferocious, and “are like hound-dogs”. This final analogy is what pushes the issue over the edge. He compared black players to dogs… Was this his intention? I really and truly don’t think so, like Smash himself had said, the man has a reputation for saying stupid things, but overall he is still a good man, that has the teams’ best interest at heart.
However, he had said it, and it shows that he does have certain racial issues, and misgivings. The fact that he didn’t believe what he had said was wrong, and that he didn’t want to make a public apology (and when he finally did apologize, it wasn’t even close to being apologetic), just shows that this man still has a lot to learn about human relations, and that fully grown men can still be pretty damn prejudiced without noticing it, or believing it themselves.
Were what he said the most racial thing ever uttered? Hell no, come on, we live in South Africa, you hear things worse than that every day (from all races, I’m not going to start pointing fingers), but to say something like that, where he said it, for the whole town to hear, well, that just shows a lack of tact, and again, a misgiving about what he deems right and wrong.
As the episode develops, the tension builds between the races. People are at each other’s throats for the smallest comments, races bond together (as tends to happen in these cases), and you can cut the tension with a blunt knife…
Tami organizes a forum where people can air their thoughts, and where the students can in an orderly fashion speak about what they deem right and wrong, and how they feel about racial issues in their town. Unfortunately, the forum quickly gets out of hand, people from different races are at each other’s throats, and what was an honourable idea, and could have done a lot of good for the town, turns into a disaster for Tami.
What I loved about that scene was that it was so clear that these kids are just that - kids. They’re looking at things from a young perspective, they are sheltered, some still have “blinders” on, and are only now starting to peer around them. They took this issue by the horns, but are slowly starting to realize that there are no easy answers… People seem to be inherently racist, or at least prefer to mingle with the same type of people. Like the Afrikaans saying goes: “Soort soek soort” (For readers who don’t understand Afrikaans, that basically means the same as the saying – birds of a feather flock together).
Smash witnesses the end of the disastrous forum, and realizes he’ll have to do something. He tries talking to Mac, but seeing that the man just doesn’t realize the implications of his statements, he makes a drastic decision, and organizes a “walk-off” – All minority players are refusing to play anymore. – This was at the end of the episode. Such a simple action, but something that has a major impact on these young mens’ lives, they are starting to stand up for what they believe is right, they are making difficult decisions for the sake of getting what they believe to be fair treatment. What the consequences of this are going to be, well, guess we’ll have to see next week…
Other stuff that happened this episode, that wasn’t this serious…
Julie and Tyra are grounded, and are forced to participate in the “Powderpuff” football game (girls-football), because of skipping classes in the previous episode.
Julie and Matt are at odds, but when Matt chooses Julie for his team, things start of awkward, but end at a better place than where it had started.
A very cute moment in the episode is when Julie gets home from Powderpuff practice, and Eric is giving her the third degree for the whole “skipping classes” thing. Julie is completely dismissive of everything, rolling her eyes as he speaks, making non-committal noises all the way, and basically acts like a bratty teen.
When Eric points this out, he says something like, “don’t do that, don’t take our trust for granted, don’t do that to our trust…” Firstly, such a beautiful thing for a dad to say, because that is essentially what any teen does, when they are disobedient, but secondly, I loved his total turn-around when Julie quietly, and close to tears say that she is sorry, she’s just so tired after arguing with Matt the whole day about “powderpuff quarter-back” stuff.
The look in his eyes when he realizes what she’s said (she’s already turned around and headed up the stairs by this time), and his absolute exuberance as he follows her, asking her “Saracen’s got you playing at quarterback… Julie… Honey…” Or something to that effect, and Tami’s little smile at his antics, great, great little scene. I love this family!
Eric shows Julie some QB tips, and on the big game day Matt’s team (which includes Tyra and Julie), just barely beats Tim’s team (which includes Lyla). Oh, final thing I loved about the game, Landry’s smackdown of Coach, where he tells him not to step over “his” line, or he’ll be carded and sent away. I love Landry! (Oh what the heck, I love everything about this show :wink:)
Jason also returned to school in this episode, but that turned out to be a bit of a minor disaster as well. He realizes he doesn’t belong there anymore, as Herc said, when he had gone back to school he felt like a hundred-year-old man with some kind of sacred knowledge that can’t be shared.
Jason decides he doesn’t want to continue with normal schooling, and that he’d rather just finish he’s GED early, graduate and do something else with his life.
This something else, may in fact be wheelchair rugby… He is invited to a “practice camp” where new players for the National team will be selected, and this team is to compete in China. I don’t know, it seems like his storyline is developing extremely fast all of a sudden, now, admittedly, I know next to nothing about paralysis, but I don’t think he’ll be able to play on a National level after only a few months in that chair…
Overall, as said before, great, emotional, sweet, devastating episode, and I can’t wait to see it’s conclusion…