7 Things: The "Friday Night Lights" Edition

The series finale of "Friday Night Lights" aired on NBC last week, which is months after the DVD came out and months more after it aired on DirectTV, but with my busy TV schedule, that was when I watched it, so I present...
1. "Friday Night Lights" (FNL) is in theory about football.  I mean, it is, and I like football, but it's also about football the way "Battlestar Galactica"* is about space.  There is football, and football practice, and football players, and coaches, and fields, but there are also great stories about fascinating characters, football is the reason they (most of them) tend to keep hanging out together.
2.  FNL is not perfect (there is that second season storyline of which we do not speak), but there are some amazing episodes.  Many even.
3. FNL shows over and over again that a happy, committed, adult couple can make for riveting television. 
4. FNL also often makes me wonder if this show (fictional, scripted, yes, I know) shouldn't be shown in parenting and maybe even teaching classes.
5. This is certainly not to say that everyone in FNL is perfect (how boring would that be), but, to paraphrase Coach, it's about people (most of them, anyway) trying to be good** people and the struggles that entails. 
6. There are some bad people too.  But why focus on them?  And of course, some of the ones who seemed bad at the beginning, well...
7. It's been an excellent five seasons, watching players from two different schools grow and change and become adult people.  (Yes, I know they are fictional. Still awesome though.) It's also the kinda show that makes you think, well thank god that poor girl has those strippers to talk to.

*The new one, not the original.
**Okay, I might be straining the definition of good, when one ponders the characters who have committed illegal acts, of which there are quite a few. But it is a testament to the character building that I still like these characters.