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the dynamics between tammy and eric are outstanding
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So the thought that occurs to me is, are the boosters thinking about what happens when JD graduates? Does Joe McCoy hang around, or does he go to tu or tceh with his boy?
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What this episode also demonstrates with unerring realism and conviction is the decency and devotion of friends and family in a close-knit community like Dillon.
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Most dramas, even the really good ones, will take you so close to the characters' emotions and no closer, as if they fear the audience will grow uncomfortable if there isn't some distance between themselves and the characters. (Based on the show's microscopic ratings, those other shows are probably, sadly, correct.) But the improvisational, documentary-style aesthetic that Peter Berg created in the film and the series pilot, and that Jason Katims, Jeffrey Reiner and company have continued over the last three-plus seasons, shatters any kind of barrier between viewer and viewee. The actors are encouraged to let everything hang out, to let us feel the fear that Tami might be feeling as she has the sex talk with her daughter, the anticipation and joy that Smash has when he gets the call from Texas A&M, the heartsickness that Eric feels when he tends to his shell-shocked troops at halftime of the Lions' first game.
Most of the actors on the show are great at this (it's no doubt part of why they were cast), but few are better at it than Zach Gilford, who owns every minute of his greatest spotlight to date.
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A lot of shows might have tried to have Eric give Matt a big pep talk, or even to spell out that Matt could always count on him, but the writers here were wise to recognize that nothing Eric could say would have made things even a hair better for Matt right now, and that actions would be more powerful than words.
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Eric has a Texas A&M game on while he's reading to Gracie, and we learn that while Smash is still coming off the bench
