In the silent locker room at the half. And I might as well say it here, but I'm choosing to take this entire scene as a shout-out to me. Why you ask? What do I have to do with male rituals like football locker room half time speeches? Well, not much. But I do have a lot to do with the burgeoning academic field of Kyle Chandler Hair Interpretation (there's been a theoretical vacuum in the academy since the fizzling out of poststructuralism, you know). And, as we've seen, Kyle Chandler's hair has been in lockdown for much of this episode. And so it seems that, in this scene, when we get Kyle Chandler's hair released in its full glory, BACK LIT, rising from his head like a phoenix, nay, like the Karate Kid doing that one famous one-legged crane pose, well it seems to me that this glorious Kyle Chandler hair moment simply HAS to be a shout-out to me. I like to think that I have enabled the hair. You're welcome.

So. Let's get serious. Because this is a seriously great scene (with some seriously great backlit hair emoting). Coach, a spotlight behind him, blinding our, and presumably his players', view of him, walks into the silent room. The boys look pissed and guilty and nervous, they aren't sure they CAN be pissed, but they are, and they don't know if that's why they aren't playing well or what the deal is. In short, they need their coach. And he fucking delivers. Coach starts, "When Jason Street went down first game of the season, everybody wrote us off. Everybody. And yet here we are, at the championship game. Forty thousand people out there have also written us off." Shots of the packed stadium, a sea of undifferentiated bodies. Back to Coach, "There are a few out there who do believe in you. Who'll never give up on you." Shots of the Streets, Grandma, Billy, Jackie, Bo, Nonnie, Corinna, Tami, Julie. Back to Coach, "When you go back on the field, those are the people I want in your mind, those are the people I want in your hearts. Every man at some point in his life is going to lose a battle. He's gonna fight and he's gonna lose. But what makes him a man, is that in the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself. This game is not over. This battle is not over." Shots of the faces of all the boys, slowly realizing all their individual potentials, a realization that gets them so effing psyched up that when Coach tells them "Let's hear it one more time. Together." They don't hesitate, they don't start out quiet and then get loud, they do it in perfect unison, a team of fully realized individuals, strong from the very first, ready to follow Eric Taylor wherever. They respond to Coach's "Clear eyes, full hearts" with a resounding and powerful and affecting "CAN'T LOSE!"