"I LOVE FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS!  I'm not sure I can say it enough. And boy...Riggins. Riggins! The tortured soul! The bedroom eyes! Jesus!  Let's end the strike for Riggins!" -- Jenna Fischer, The Office

Oooooohhh, yes, by all means, let's get it on. If you've somehow wandered over here expecting objective critical commentary, sorry, you're S.O.L. There's nothing but flail and squee and inappropriate mmmmmmmsounds in this particular corner of the internet this morning. It's like Jeffrey Reiner called me up and said, "Ran, babe, what can I do for you? What would you like to see? What would make you happy?" So he gave me Eric and Tami under one roof again, being all sassy and lovey dovey. And then the Panthers won in a patented last-minute Friday Night Lights cheesefest. And then Julie got her ass handed to her by Matt. But best of all, I got Tim, Jason, and Lyla -- my OT3 -- proving that the whole really can be greater than the sum of its parts, just like Landry said. *happy sigh* My idea of scathing critique for this episode? "Less praying! More lip-licking!"

Friday Night Lights S2 Cast

I really missed seeing more of Matty this week, but they made it up to me with copious amounts of Tim throwing longing glances at Jason. And Eric, who I knew wouldn’t let us down! And just how much of a sucker am I for nostalgic truck commercials? Also, how glad am I that there isn’t more than thirty seconds of actual football I have to figure out this week, since I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about the game (hey, I know what a touchdown is) as Ran, who will thankfully be back next week.

“THIS IS IT, BABY. THIS IS WHERE MIRACLES HAPPEN.” -- How do best friends party? Why, down in Mexico with a bag full of money, of course! At least that’s what Tim seems to think when he and Jason wind up spend way too many days sitting around a very dingy and depressing hotel room watching Spanish TV. Which is all they can do, since the doctor Jason had an appointment with is on vacation with his family and not expected back for at least a week. Eventually, Tim can’t stand the waiting anymore and manhandles Jason out of bed and onto the streets. Which leads to the natural culmination of a Tim Riggins good time – a few hours in a Mexican jail. Seems he tries to pay off the “only honest cop in Mexico” when he and Jason are stopped for a routine check while walking (and rolling) down the street drinking beers. Of course, Jason isn’t amused, but really. You can’t be too surprised, Six. Then Tim turns around and asks for a couple of tacos. If the camera had been on Jason’s face right then, we would have seen an epic eye-roll.

You know how I can tell NBC is trying to promote Friday Night Lights to a wider audience than high school kids and men who watch football? Both Lyla and Tim were half-naked this episode, providing equal opportunity (and exceptionally high quality) skin time, and advertisers included Maybelline and Fisher-Price. Oh, and of course they're still airing that Chevy truck series as a reward for the big brawny he-men who twiddled their thumbs through the mascara commercial.

I read a lot this week (seriously, I read so much I about peeled my eyeballs off) about Landry & Trouble's storyline, and how people thought it was melodramatic and OTT and an unnecessarily implausible OCish twist, so I'd like to start off this week with a little Ranecdote: Picture high school graduation week in a small town in North Carolina, and the kinds of parties seniors throw, complete with beer, necking in corners, and music cranked too loud. Now picture some older guys crashing the party and rubbing up on some of the high school girls. Picture two good guys, guys we'd all known since grade school, taking it upon themselves to protect the girls being harassed…with a baseball bat. Seconds later, one of the harassers was dead, and the next day, those two good guys were arrested and charged. They were allowed to attend graduation; they walked across the stage in their caps and gowns in front of their classmates and families, hand-cuffed together. We in the graduating class stood up as one and clapped for them, which horrified our parents, but it was the only way we knew to support them, to show we remembered more about them than that one moment of uncharacteristic violence. Melodramatic, I can't deny that, but sometimes truth is as messy as fiction.

I'm so happy to be back with my Dillon family I'd like to climb right through the TV screen and give them all a big hug (and maybe a little grope here or there). Y'all look good! Or, as Tim Riggins would put it, complete with throaty murmur and appreciative leer, "Like, real good." If you're new to the show, hang on to your bathing suit, because we're literally diving right into season two. If you're like me and you've been obsessive stalkerish a big fan right from the beginning, having them start the season with an extended scene at the Dillon community pool -- with more skin on display in two minutes than we saw in all twenty-two episodes combined last year -- is a little slice of Heaven. The kids have obviously decided to get it on, bang a gong, and wring every single drop of fun out of the last days of summer, or, as it's known in Dillon, the "pre-season."

PANTHERS WIN STATE!!!!!!

*insert dorky-yet-somehow-badass endzone victory dance*

Well! That was exciting! It came down to the wire, of course -- a fingertip, come-from-behind, tricky-dicky lateral switcheroo involving Matt, Smash, Tim and some sexy slow motion, but damn it, it worked and the Dillon Panthers beat Voodoo Tatum and the West Cambria Mustangs 27-26 (or maybe 28-26, but it doesn't appear they bothered with the extra point kick) to win the Texas high school football championship. My babies got their rings! Yay, Panthers!!!!! I'll give you a better play-by-play later on, but first, there's some more big news out of Dillon...

Congrats to the cast and crew on winning a Peabody Award! *does the Snoopy dance* Here's what the Peabody judges had to say about FNL: "No dramatic series, broadcast or cable, is more grounded in contemporary American reality than this clear-eyed serial about the hopes, dreams, livelihoods and egos intertwined with the fate of high-school football in a Texas town." Do they know my show or what?!?

"LET ME GUESS – THE OLD LADY YOU WERE GETTING WITH DUMPED YOU" – Wow, when they don't have to cram in a football game, there's lots of time for soapy drama! And a roast! We've got a whole raft of hookups & breakups, so let me just run 'em down for you: Pam & Buddy Garrity are getting a divorce. Jason & Lyla break up for good (engagement-ring-to-the-face broken up) after Lyla catches Jason red-handed sucking face with Suzy Q, who for some reason is still hanging around Dillon. She claims she's paying off a traffic ticket when she meets up with Jason at the City Clerk's office, but it looks to me like she really deserves a citation for loitering. Miffie comes to her senses and tosses a disheveled and barely dressed Tim out of her bed and then literally out the window, which is pretty damn funny. Unfortunately, that also means he's out of "little man" Bo's life, which seems a shame. Yeah, I know, Tim's not exactly an Eagle scout when it comes to being a role model, but frankly? In that environment? Bo could do a lot worse. I mean, come on, Bo sleeps in a shirt he made himself that says "MILLER" and "#33" on it – how cute is that?!? Waverly offers Smash a "hiatus" for the next two weeks, giving him carte blanche to ho around as much as he wants, but not only does he decline her generous offer, he turns down a party (and certain laidhood) and brings her cake. Now that's the way to treat a lady, Smash! Good for you! Tim & Trouble decide to try being friends; after what she's been through, it might take her a while to get back in the lunch meat saddle (though I don't think Tim knows about the attack yet...heaven help us all when he finds out...). But on the other hand...it's Tim, Mr. Irresistible, so...odds are even at this point. Wait, though, hang on, because there at the end, Landry comes on as a surprisingly strong dark-horse competitor in the race for Trouble's fair hand...Boy, I sure do hope they get another season to work on all this romance!

Rain, rain, go away, the Dillon Panthers want to play! Oh, what the hell...rain, rain, stay all night, come on, Panthers, fight, fight, fight!

"OUR DILLON PANTHERS ARE GOING TO STATE!" – There, I've answered tonight's biggest question right off the bat: The Panthers beat the Brant Vikings 14-8 at "The Mud Bowl" (aka "The Cow Patty Bowl"), and next they'll meet West Cambria, and its quarterback, our old friend Voodoo Tatum, for the title game and a chance at the state championship. But the journey's as much pleasure as the destination, so settle in and I'll tell you all about it.

"IT'S ABOUT PLAYING FOOTBALL, MINUS THE CRAP" -- When a toxic spill caused by a train derailment renders Herrmann Field unplayable, Coach T turns his lemons into lemonade by taking the opportunity to remind himself, his boys, and the entire town of Dillon what football's all about. It's the 'Texas Forever' version of 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' – Forget the rampant commercialism and remember the baby Jesus the love of the game. He declines an offer of a stadium that would have effectively eliminated the home-field advantage for Dillon, to Buddy Garrity's chagrin (Buddy liked the fancy schmancy box seats and all the wide open spaces where he could have slapped his logo), and instead puts the boys to Tom-Sawyer-like work turning a cow pasture into a makeshift football field. And can I just say that I could have gone my whole life without ever seeing Buddy Garrity pee in a pasture? *shudder* Tami's not too sure about the plan, but the cows seem amenable, and she comes around eventually, saying with her wonderful bawdy laugh, "You know Buddy Garrity's head's gonna explode! I love it!" Coach T takes the team to the hardware store and sets them to work pulling supplies. When Smash protests that he'd wanted to sleep in, Tim, who's in an awfully good mood these days, says, "Let's just embrace the suck for once, all right?" and Smash surrenders.

Meanwhile, 'Coach Street' sacrifices his Oprah time to help Matt work on making his feet quicker (which, if you'll recall, Grandma's been hounding him about for the entire season), building on the beer-fueled, vaguely Brokebackesque night at the field with Smash and Tim. When the Viking coach protests the whole field-with-cows-still-pooping-in-it thing, Coach T says, "It's a football game. What you need is a football field, twenty-two kids and a pigskin." The Viking coach rebuts with, "My boys could kick your boys' butts in an ice skating rink wearing nothing but socks if they had to." Okay, now that's a game I'd scalp tickets to see. "Butch up, Sally," the Viking coach says, "cuz you've got a game." Butch this, coach. Tami sells tickets (helped by Grandma Saracen, so I hope she counts the night's receipts a couple of times), the Panther faithful sell popcorn and drinks, they've got open seating, and, as Slammin' Sammy says, it's a home game in the truest sense of the word. It's fun to watch the Brant coach eat his words when the skies open, the flooding rain starts, the cow patties and pasture turn to a muddy mess and the Panthers open up a can of whupass on the Vikings. Everybody's wet, everybody's muddy, and Matty Saracen himself, who's been coached by Jason on the sidelines, runs in the scoring touchdown. We get a beautiful, rain-drenched montage of all our favorite townsfolk as they celebrate the win, which makes me downright giddy. I just love them all SO. MUCH.