I Am Officially Obsessed with Friday Night Lights

For years, I listened to one of my friends go on and on every day at lunch about this show. Every Thursday, it was "Did you see Friday Night Lights?" None of us watched it except one other girl, and each Wednesday we engaged ourselves in separate conversations as they spent the better part of the period as they analyzed last night's episode, discussing plot points and their reactions to individual characters' storylines. I always wondered what the show was really about, but I had never paid too much attention to their discussions to figure out what had gone on.

Now, last Friday, as I perused the racks of my local video rental store, a familiar title caught my eye. The complete first season of Friday Night Lights. Five discs for five nights for a mere three dollars. So I thought, "What the heck?" and brought it home with a pint of Rocky Road. I sat down on my couch, popped it in, and not a minute into the very first episode, I was hooked.

I'm not going to give away much about the show, just to make sure it isn't ruined if y'all haven't seen it. But my favorite part of the show by far is Minka Kelly's portrayal of Lyla Garrity, cheerleading captain and girlfriend of the small town high school football team's quarterback. Stereotypical? At first glance.

However, Kelly made her character totally three dimensional and believable. Lyla is smart, witty, and totally wholesome (for the most part. Hey, everyone makes mistakes!), opposite of the stuck-up dumb blonde with less than stellar morals that cheerleaders and members of high school dance teams are so often portrayed as on TV. Add to that the fact that everything is done in adorable sundresses, tops, and wedges, when she's not in her Panthers cheerleading uniform, completed with an ever preppy polka dotted bow. And that, my friends, is definitely something to cheer about.