This series took a turn toward the melodramatic in season II. There were more bare-chested boys, more hot and heavy make-out sessions. It seems that adolescence and texas football are insufficiently dramatic without throwing the cover-up of a fatal beat down into the mix. And it was certainly a disadvantage of being interrupted mid-season by the strike that the full arc of the stories remains unplayed.

In spite of all this. This remains a complicated, moving, well-drawn multi-generational, middle-class drama. And I appreciated the inclusion of stories acknowledging the proximity to the border.