It’s been over 10 years since the last episode of Friday Night Lights aired. It’s funny now to think that the show has bounced from streaming service to streaming service, still remaining in some vague sense of popularity. One of the unquestionable strengths of the show that follows high school football coach Eric Taylor is that despite his name often running first in the credits he is seemingly not the main character. In fact the coach like all great coaches acts as more of a catalyst for those around him to shine. In this sense there are many great characters and with them many great actors that entered the show however no story is more interesting than that of Tim Riggins, played by Taylor Kitsch.
If you haven’t seen Friday Night Lights you may still recognize Kitsch. For the longest time he was tabbed as the next big star in Hollywood but a few box office failures later, Kitsch is still most well known for his often silent role as the troubled star football player. It may be fair to remark if this was why Kitsch wasn’t successful as a leading man, maybe he lacked the charm. In fact in a sort of revival Kitsch has settled into more supporting roles. This might seem the most likely route for the actor because if you watch Friday Night Lights you would be hard pressed to say that Kitsch lacked acting skill. Maybe that’s it, Kitsch was destined to be a person in silence, a contemplative character actor. It’s honestly hard to say. His impact as a central character in the high school football drama however is not so vague.
Tim Riggins shouldn’t work as a sympathetic character, more importantly he shouldn’t work as an emotional focal point. Yet for some reason it’s his emotional moments that work the best, and it’s often Riggins in or around the core of the show's most complex moments. I think it would be foolish to say that he is the main character, because he is not but like a great fullback he leads the way. I must say that Riggins is likely the soul of the show, the physical embodiment of Friday Night Lights. As much as the audience grows to love Tami Taylor, Matt Sarecen, Landry Clark, and so many others, there is a reason they all leave. Heck even our main character Coach Taylor isn’t in Dillion when it’s all said and done. But Riggins is really the only one from the core group of characters that remains. As the show concluded the audience can't help but see clearly that through it all Riggins still sits there in Dillion, Texas.
Originally this ending might feel unbecoming of Riggins, he is sitting on his land in Texas with his brother building a home. Yet it wasn’t, it somehow became the perfect encapsulation of the Panthers mantra, “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” Riggins spends most of the series with a full heart. This is shown directly through his love of others. We see it early on in his guilt and shame of not wanting to see Jason at the hospital, and it grows to the point where he spends a year in prison so his brother can be with his newborn son. However this is straightforward and is almost omnipresent in the show. What is more complex is how Riggins spends most of the series stumbling, lacking clear sight for what he should do and as a result he ultimately spends most of the show losing.
Riggins is almost always losing, whether it’s never being able to steady himself enough for Lyla or the fact that when he becomes the real star and face of the team in season 3 it ends with them losing in the state championship. This evokes one of the best images of the show which is Riggins looking on in an empty cotton bowl. It’s goosebump inflicting stuff but another example of Riggins always on the doorstep of happiness. Never truly getting an opportunity to walk into it. It seems as though Riggins struggles to love and to move forward that he is stuck. Riggins loses as he watches the people he loves most move on with their lives. With the most potent example being when he says goodbye to his childhood best friend Jason Street. He knows that this is right yet it’s heartbreaking nonetheless. In moments like this we start to see Riggins through the alcoholism and faulty judgment finding his clear eyes and yet with his full heart he still seems to lose. A lovable loser but a loser nonetheless.
Riggins may not be the main character despite the fact that he is one of the most consistent characters in the show. However with no clear main character he stands out as the soul of the show, the mentality of “Texas Forever” if you’ve watched Kitsch in his best roles he does this so well. There is a clear soul to his acting. Riggins rarely gets a moment of rest, or even a stretch of time where you feel like things are going well. It seems that for each problem he conquers, another one pops up. Yet at the end Riggins sits building a house with his brother on his land and he seems to be in good spirits and in control of his life. This ending gives so much justice to a story about the highs and lows of high school football that for once the man once a boy in the heat of the turmoil of nights spent under the lights has finally found his peace and that is truly something special, something with some real substance. It makes one wonder that perhaps the most important win for the former Panther, for #33, is peace.
Kaleb Unger
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