Plot twist will ruin ‘Friday Night Lights’

A small but wrong change
It was a small change, and the wrong one. In fact, it would only have required one tiny fix to keep the show on track and prevent it from becoming a small-town mystery, and that’s for the attack to be brutal but non-fatal. With that one small but crucial difference, a number of dramatic possibilities would have opened up, and those would have been far more interesting than Tyra and Landry living in fear that their terrible secret will be revealed.

Letting the victim survive would have allowed him to press charges, creating a situation where everyone has dirt on Tyra and Landry (and better dirt than blood). Considering Tyra’s reputation as the town slut — a reputation that, with the help of guidance counselor (and coach’s wife) Tami (Connie Britton), she had been trying to lay to rest — the accidental outing of the fact that she was almost raped would have had consequences.

What was a charming (and possibly one-sided) courtship plotline would have expanded to address her public humiliation in a small town, even though Landry tried to protect her.

But while some of that may still be on the horizon, that’s not ultimately the direction in which the show is currently headed. Instead of being a complicated situation, it’s a simple one complicated only by the viewers’ affection for the characters.

It’s the type of move that smacks of network interference, trying to sex up a ratings-challenged show that barely made it to a second season, but “Friday Night Lights” writer/producer Jason Katims denied that theory in an interview with New Jersey Star-Ledger TV critic Alan Sepinwall.

In a way, the plot twist coming not from outside pressure but from the show’s creative team makes it worse. But even if it’s only an aberration, the damage is done. Landry and Tyra will either be torn apart (a realistic possibility) or brought closer together (cliché), unless they’re simply unaffected by it (preposterous) or the show removes them entirely (a terrible solution to an avoidable problem).

Whatever happens, the killing will send out ripples into the rest of “Friday Night Lights.” And that could be enough to ruin a terrific show for good.

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