Couch Potato - Missing scenes: Friday Night Lights

 

 

 

 

 

 

Background:

  

Friday Night Lights is a show about a high school football coach in the small town of Dillon, Texas, his family and the kids that orbit around him.  It is loosely based on a book "Friday Night Lights: a Town, a Team, and a Dream"  by H. G. Bissinger.

Context:

 

The East Dillon High football players initiate their new rally girls at a party, making them chug beer.  One girl gets so drunk she is half way passed out.  One of the players grabs her from behind and is holding her arms, making her flail around like he's a puppeteer.  Someone films this and puts the video on the net.  Parents call the school asking for all the football players in the video (there are many) to be expelled.

 

What I believe is the missing scene:

 

FADE IN: 

 

INT. SCHOOL HALL - EVENING.  

 

Various parents are gathered, seated facing a table where Coach Taylor and the school principal sit.  There is a buzz of conversation in the room, with an angry overtone.

 

Mr Donahue, an angry parent, stands up and points at the principal.

 

 

MR DONAHUE

 

I want those boys expelled!

 

 

Close up of Coach Taylor's face.  It is impassive.

 

 

COACH TAYLOR

 

Mr Donahue, have I ever slept with your wife?

 

  

Mr Donahue looks down at his wife, seated next to him.  Mrs Donahue has a shocked expression on her face.

 

 

MR DONAHUE

 

What?

 

 

Coach Taylor turns to look at another parent.  As she notices him focus on her, she shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

COACH TAYLOR

  

Mrs Foster, have I ever slept with you?

  

I think we all know the answer is No.  So there is no way that I am the father of either of your sons.

  

I'm also not the father of those girls who were at the party, where not one of them helped that poor girl who was being ridiculed.  Not one boy, or girl, tried to stop what was going on.

  

See, here's the thing, folks.  These kids are y'alls kids.  You are their parents.  We have them for 7 or 8 or even 9 hours 6 days a week, and we do the best that we can to instill the right values in these young boys and girls, but y'all have a job to do too.  

  

Now if these kids should be expelled from school, should I be calling up Social Services to remove them from y'all's homes?  

  

That behavior on the video was disgusting.  I don't deny that.  But we all - all of us in this room - have a part to play in making sure these kids have the right Christian values and behave in the right way.  

  

So how about we stop making threats and try to find a way to work together to help these kids see that there is a right and wrong way to behave, that we should all treat each other with respect, that what they did is not acceptable behavior and that there are going to be consequences and that the consequences are going to fit the crime?

 

FADE TO BLACK.

 

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