1. Was all about the primacy of family–both natural families and those formed by necessity and circumstances.
2. Was very hard on Dillon–the small town, the place. The evil oligarchs who really run the town decided to consolidate the two football teams (of the two high schools) into one incredibly well-funded and talent-laden team. They offered the COACH (Eric Taylor) the job of coaching this team.
3. Previously, of course, they had fired him from being the corch of the Dillon Panthers and sent him to the seemingly impossible task of coaching the new team at underclass East Dillon. It takes him just two years to make greatness out of almost nothing. Not surprisingly, he’s more proud of this team than any other (and, although he has the class never to say it, more proud of the job he’s done there–which has made him a national legend).
4. So he turns down the new job as destroying the family that is his East Dillon team (and as forcing all but his most talented players out of football–their salvation). It’s also no challenge to win “state” with all those advantages. Any coach could do it. Thank God he finally stood up to those jerks who had been pushing him around for years. Even Buddy Garrity, who had evolved over the years to East Dillon’s biggest booster, had been corrupted by those evildoers once again.
5. The COACH leaves Dillon (because the town leaders have left him nothing there) and follows his wife to Philadephia–where she can fulfill her ambitions at an elite college. It’s pretty clear, immediately, that Philly and college and far more her kind of place. And we see the COACH taking on the challenge of rebuidling an urban Philly team, and he’s confident, of course, that is talent and virtue will succeed in their transformative ways once again.
6. We see the Riggins brothers (warriors with big hearts but no prudence or book learning from the very wrong side of town) saying “Texas forever” and staying around in Dillon as a family. But they have absolutely no prospects, and the town isn’t about helping them.
7. So life is all about family, families can be families anywhere. The coach goes to Philly, in large part, for his family, and they readily leave Dillon behind. Others do too. The family that is the team is viewed with indifference by the town. And anyone with brains and talents has to get out of Dillon, because there’s nothing for them (even the COACH) to do there. Not a Porcher message…
July 18th, 2011 | 8:07 pm
Not sure I agree with #s 5-7. While I agree that they very much put family over place, I don’t think they entirely neglect the latter. I surely do not think the Riggins narrative ends with the kind of hopelessness you suggest. It’s true that “getting out” after high school seems like the definition of success, but there’s a large sense of the value of coming back too. I thought they dealt with the displacement of a modern society very well, and in a way that, if not entirely sympathetic to the Porchers, doesn’t seem antithetical either.
Consider the following, lifted from Grantland’s “oral history” of the show:
Hudgins: The show was about Dillon, about the people. And we knew we wanted to end it somehow honoring the idea of Texas Forever.
Katims: When I talked to Taylor about that final image of him on the land building the house, he said, “I want to be with Billy.” We end up with Tim, the guy in the pilot who said “Texas forever,” and he’s living his dream of building on land in Dillon, Texas. That’s the beauty of what the show is about.
Aubrey: We pull out there, and it is a beautiful location with rolling green hills, and the sky is that only-in-Texas pink sky as the sun is starting to set.
July 19th, 2011 | 5:00 am
Consider the various Riggins facts:
1. There really is nothing worthy of those two MEN to do in Dillon except coach.
2. Tim and Billy run an illegal chop shop together–that’s how Billy takes care of his family and Tim gets the money to buy his land. It’s hard to get all porchy about the land, if you really think about it.
3. After that, Billy gets by as an assistant coach, thanks to COACH who hires him despite his lack of obvious qualifications for the job.
4. He gets by because his wife (obviously also a person with a huge heart) works as a stripper. She, of course, doesn’t like it, although the other strippers bond with her baby and Becky (her semi-adopted daughter). Becky–who is, despite it all (including her abortion out of desperation), is pure of heart–also works in the strip club for money she really needs.
5. Tim gets parolled because of the testimony of coach and Buddy Garrity (ostracized from the power elite of Dillon, of course). The rest of the town viewed his incarceration etc. with remarkable indifference, considered what he, as a player etc., had done for Dillon.
6. The only job Tim can get is working for Buddy in his bar, which he, of course, hates.
7. With COACH going to Philly, it’s clear the coaching opportunities for Tim and Billy are over.
8. So they have the pretty piece of land and are building a house together, but their prospects remain bleak. And we can hardly say that Dillon, the place, has done much of anything for them.
9. The nobility and love of the Riggins brothers shines through despite Dillon, not because of it.
July 20th, 2011 | 2:26 pm
LOVED the finale. Loved the show. The finale was both perfect and understated.
However…you talk about the “nobility” of the Riggins brothers?
For me, Tim Riggins was probably one of the biggest losers in TV drama history. I don’t think there has been one camera shot off the football field where he didn’t have a longneck in his hand. Tim, how about you mix in a shower every month? He does one great thing, taking the fall for his brother’s (and his own) illegal actions…but then cannot even be gracious about it. He’s so bitter he might as well have turned Billy in (thank God that Christ doesn’t have the same attitude!) And does anyone, besides me, think that Tim should have left his things in jail for when he goes back??? Cause you know he’s going back.
Matter of fact, Tim and whiny, bratty Julie Taylor should have ended up together and left Dillon. It would have made the show much better.
That said, Eric and Tami were the best couple on TV and the plot with Vince was as good as any.
Final 2 seasons were the best.
July 20th, 2011 | 5:54 pm
A couple of points.
1. It clearly portrayed the husband-wife-both-working dynamic in a realistic way, including the willingness [belated on the part of Coach] to sacrifice for the other’s benefit.
2. It also did an excellent job of articulating the generational difference of working through the marriage proposal and engagement process. The patience and wisdom shown by daughter Julie to hang in there and maintain the family structure lies in sharp contrast to what frequently occurs in today’s world.
Altogether first rate and a grand treat. Pflugerville Pforever,
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