NBC
Spoilers for Friday Night Lights coming up:
This is a good place to talk about choice. Not choice as in “a woman’s right to choose,” though the subject of this episode of Friday Night Lights was abortion, but choice as in a storyteller’s ability to choose how best to make believable decisions in a narrative, and characters’ ability to make choices that seem organic rather than forced.
When it comes to abortion, on broadcast TV stories involving series regulars, there hasn’t been much choice.
Maude famously had an abortion in 1972. Since then, peripheral characters have had abortions on big-network shows. Regular characters have had abortions on some cable shows–memorably Claire on Six Feet Under–but more often women, after emphasizing that they could choose to do as they wish, end up deciding to have their babies, including Miranda on HBO’s Sex and the City.
Beyond politics, this is a dramatic problem. It undermines even the best portrayals of the decision, because if you know anything about the history of TV, the talk about “choice” rings false. However well-written the script, however dead-on the performance, you’re always aware of a meta-force that takes you out of the story: the network pressure that, if the pattern holds, is forcing the narrative to a predetermined end. It’s not unlike watching a series knowing that a lead actor is (probably) never going to be killed off: it undercuts the stakes of even excellent scenes.
So I had to watch parts of “I Can’t” twice to really appreciate them. The first time, right up until Becky told Luke, “I took care of it,” I was convinced she would change her mind (or–the other classic out–miscarry) at the last minute.
Watching a second time: damn, but the final scene between Becky and Tami is good. In a way, Connie Britton had an even more difficult part to play here. Becky’s fear and anguish is obvious and immediately easy to apprehend. But the layering of conflict and concern that Britton shows are, as usual, fantastic: we get Tami’s ambivalence, her obvious awareness of her position advising a girl (not her student, yet at a school where her husband coaches) on a controversial decision, her doubt, her struggle to decide how she would handle it if Julie were in this situation, her evident passion to help, and her anxiety not to screw up. Their pivotal exchange–“Do you think I’m going to hell if I have an abortion?” “No, honey, I don’t”–choked me up but good.
But I don’t want to take anything away from Madison Burge, who has made Becky self-possessed and confident–while still a believable kid–which made her being overwhelmed by the decision all the more effective. Becky is taking advice from all sides (sought out or not), but in the end, you see how she is, finally, alone, as she decides for herself: “I can’t have a baby.” Credit as well to the producers for showing the facets of her experience–from the state-mandated doctor counseling to Luke’s objections to her mother’s ferocious insistence on the abortion–without turning the script into a political checklist.
I’ll be curious to see if this episode makes a splash or has any larger effect. (Sadly, I’m afraid that FNL’s low ratings mean it won’t.) I don’t need it to be NBC’s or FNL’s project to advocate for abortion rights. I do care about integrity of storytelling, especially when it comes to a series so dedicated to realism. It’s not just about having characters choose abortions; knowing that it’s possible also makes it more believable when a character chooses not to have one. So kudos to NBC (and of course, first DirecTV) for allowing this story to air, and I’m glad FNL was the show to do it.
Beyond this storyline, “I Can’t” definitively shows how season four has now become a show primarily about its new characters, with Vince in a different moral bind, one that overshadows Riggins’ wrestling with his brother to get out of the chop-shop business. With the anchor of the Taylors–for whom Britton and Kyle Chandler got well-deserved Emmy nominations–FNL has relaunched this season not just successfully but better. It’s earned the right to choose as it pleases.