I Like to Watch

Dec. 23, 2007 | Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Happy New Year, inflatable geniuses! 'Tis the season to festoon our residences with several miles of blinking lights and then blow up seven to 10 giant Christmas characters for our front yards, festive polar bears and jolly snowmen, most of which light up and swivel and hiss, because big, tacky overzealous displays of Christmas cheer aren't just for lunatics anymore! 'Tis the season to deck the halls with photos of awkward, smiling families in their cutest Christmas-themed Cosby sweaters! 'Tis the season to roll out our most exaggerated, hideous impressions of all of our relatives, with their weird verbal tics and their lazy eyes and their fishy breath and their mercilessly long anecdotes! 'Tis the season to engage in interpretive readings of the latest "Dear Friends and Family" letter to arrive in the mail, heartlessly mocking every sweet little detail about Madison's first steps and Henry's latest display of adorably bratty remarks and uncanny athletic prowess, already demonstrating that he'll grow up to be just as much of a bloviating, self-satisfied crotch tugger as his daddy.

In my family, you haven't caught the Christmas spirit until you chug a double dose of DayQuil, then wheedle everyone into playing Risk, forming international alliances with your youngest nephews and nieces, spewing propaganda that teaches them to see their parents as malevolent forces on the global stage, begging to be taken down by a plucky band of the world's underdogs (spearheaded by you, of course). For us, it's not Christmas until my mom's Jack Russell leaps onto the table and dashes away with the smoked trout and my mom makes half a dozen passing "jokes" about the practicality and budget-mindedness of taking a lethal overdose in order to avoid a long, drawn-out stay in a nursing home.

Oh, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! So bright and cheerful and happy and gay! I can't wait! After I've beaten everyone at Risk and Monopoly and Scrabble and rifled through all of the mass-mailed Christmas letters and speculated as to whose marriages are falling apart and whose daughters unwittingly married gay men, we make a big traditional Carpatho-Rusyn meal that includes pierogi and prunes and sauerkraut and other weird meatless dishes that make our spouses curse the day they married into this family, and everyone drinks a little more red wine than is prudent, and my sister's in-laws ask me when I'm going to be on NPR again, since to them, I'm an impudent troublemaker whose only redeeming quality is that on National Public Radio I once whined about something that got on my nerves.

But seriously, they're great, especially when they bring that really good Nova Scotia lox with them. And listen, Madison and Henry are awesome, so please, dear friends and family, whatever you do, don't stop sending those letters!

Go, Fight, Kill!
I wonder what Landry's mom will write to her family and friends this year. Landry (of "Friday Night Lights") and his folks have had quite a year, what with Landry beating that poor fella to death, then dumping his body into the river. Ah, well, you can't have a great year every year, can you? No doubt Landry's mom will downplay the whole ugly affair and try to focus on the positive ("Canning season was busier than ever this year, thanks to that bumper crop of okra we got this summer!")

Sounds just like the way the show's writers have handled the whole Landry-as-murderer storyline. Apparently sensing that they'd wandered into dark and soapy territory for a drama that always took pains to remain realistic and focused on the challenges of everyday people, the writers swept the story under the rug and tried to distract us with Landry-and-Tyra couplings, then gave Landry (Jesse Plemons) the moral high ground ("I'm tortured by what I've done! I must confess!"). Meanwhile, his cop daddy took the low road, hugging his son and then driving out to the middle of nowhere to torch his son's car (which was linked to the murder). The kid killed someone -- shouldn't he at least get a smack in the head?

Finally, Landry confessed to the cops, and we assumed he'd pay the price for going along with Tyra's (Adrianne Palicki) terrible, impulsive decision to dump the body. Instead, the cops of Dillon took pains to convince Landry that he acted in self-defense: Tyra's attacker was coming at him, wasn't he? He feared for his life, didn't he? Landry balked; he was ready to do hard time! But eventually, he lied like a good boy. At the end of the very same episode that began with his confession, Landry drove to Tyra's house and told her that the charges were dropped. We're off the hook! High five! Hey, teens, don't sweat it if you have to murder someone! Sure, it's inconvenient for a day or so, but then everyone forgives and forgets.

In short, the Landry-Tyra storyline proved to be just as disastrous as we thought it would be at the beginning of the season. No big surprises there. But has it ruined everything? Not by a long shot. There's no way you could ruin a show as good as "Friday Night Lights" (8 p.m. EST Fridays on NBC) with one stupid storyline. While Landry stuttered and stumbled through his bum steer of a plot, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) left his big-deal university job with his tail between his legs and retreated back to his beloved Dillon Panthers, only to find the team in a serious state of disrepair. Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) was missing practice, Smash Williams (Gaius Charles) was cockier and less of a team player than ever, and Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) was seriously broken up over the Coach's daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) dumping him to go out with an older guy. But in the last episode, Riggins rejoined the team, Smash got his head back on straight, and Saracen started fooling around with his grandmother's hot nurse, while Julie developed a major crush on a teacher (played by Austin Nichols, see also: John of "John From Cincinnati"). (Does every high school kid in Dillon have a thing for older men and women? Remember Riggins' affair with his older next-door neighbor?)

Tami's (Connie Britton) relationship with her daughter Julie has been one of the highlights of this season. Their scenes together have always been great, but lately the writers have made their dynamic more combustible: Instead of being respectful and careful of her mother's feelings, Julie has been more reckless than usual, and Tami has been lashing out in return, mirroring the rockiness of most mother-teenage-daughter relationships.

It's unfortunate that the crappy Landry-Tyra murder storyline has received so much press, because lots of people have said to me, "That show's not good anymore, right?" Nope, sorry. "Friday Night Lights" is still one of the best dramas on TV.

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