Porter: After the final shot, we all stood out there and cracked open a beer. We stood in this field in the middle of Austin, Texas, and Pete very quietly pulled us all in and said, “Every story has an end, and we’ve really accomplished something. And we think it’s time for Friday Night Lights to go ahead and say goodbye. This was something special.” To see Pete get very emotional, and very quiet, and reflective about something is a rare sight.
Nan Bernstein (producer): For the wrap party, we went to a honky-tonk place in Austin called Midnight Rodeo. We brought a lot of people in who had worked on the show but had never met each other — writers, casting people, assistants who worked in L.A. and never come to Austin. Katims: At the end of the night, somebody came up to me and said, “We want to go to the field.” I was like, “What?” It was like two in the morning. Hudgins: We played a touch football game with everyone who wanted to play — actors, crew. We busted out some of the old uniforms and put them on. Plemons: It was so perfect. You didn’t think about it at the time, but it was just so perfect. Chandler: I was back home in Los Angeles and we wanted to put a gate up in our yard. The fella came over and said, “Mr. Chandler, how do you want me to build this?” I said, “I’m not going to tell you how to build this gate. You just look around at what’s here, and you build the best gate you can. Be as creative as you want. Take your time, and just give me a good gate.” That gate’s probably going to stand for 400 years.
