So, I’ve been devouring Friday Night Lights recently. I’ve got four episodes left of season three, so don’t tell me what awaits the Dillon Panthers and their surrounding small-town Texas community.
I was pleasantly surprised this weekend while watching season three. I didn’t realize that Crucifictorious, a Christian death metal band formed by Dillon High’s Landry Clarke, was getting a new female bass player named Devin Corrigan. A good female bassist who proved a needed asset to the band, no less.
Devin Corrigan; image courtesy of tvguide.com
As an aside, I have now rewatched the season two episodes where my friend Brea played brainy, metal-fan music geek Jean Binnel. Now that I’ve watched almost the entire series thus far and know its larger context, I can say 1) I really like Jean and think I’d be her friend, 2) I want her to make me a power pop metal mix CD, 3) I think her small part might have been one of the best things about a sporadically brilliant but uneven season plagued by network tampering and the writer’s strike, and 4) Landry did her wrong, even if I like the girl with whom he briefly reunited.
Sorry, couldn't resist posting a picture of music geek Jean Binnel; image courtesy of blogcdn.com
I was also stoked that Devin was played by Stephanie Hunt, a back-up singer in T-Bird and the Breaks.
And I thought it was rad that the girl who seemed to be a too-perfect rebound girl for the recently spurned lead singer was actually a newly out lesbian teenager, as she reveals in “Keeping Up Appearances.” While she does kiss Landry before coming out to him, she does so to make sure of her orientation, perhaps suggesting that Landry is the first person to whom she has come out. I was impressed by a) her confidence in identifying herself as a lesbian, as I don’t imagine too many girls I grew up with felt comfortable owning their identity like that at that age in our small Texas town and b) Landry’s maturity about the situation. The episode ended with the band jamming to The Flaming Lips’ “She Don’t Use Jelly,” which Devin sang to Landry earlier to help him with a broken heart.
The next episode for me is “The Giving Tree,” which seems to focus on Crucifictorious’s first gig with Devin. I’m hoping for a good turn-out. I’d be there. My only hope is that we see more of her, hopefully with a girlfriend to boot. I don’t know if she will be appearing in season four, which premieres on DirecTV this Wednesday, much less the rest of season three, but I like her.
