As season 2 of Friday Night Lights opens, Jason Street is having a tough Fall.The assistant-coaching gig that helped him through in the wake of his paralysis has been diminished by the new Dillon football coach, who whiplashes between respecting his experience and dismissing him as the "team mascot,".

He's still fighting with his self-destructive best friend Tim Riggins, only partially because Riggins carried on an affair with Street's girlfriend while he was in rehab.

In the midst of everything(all of the emotions played admirably by able-bodied actor a href="http://www.tvguide.com/ News/Views/interviews-Features/Article/default.aspx?posting=%7B721B4DAE-D7EC-469C-A733-6A436907B270%7d"> Scott Porter An audio interview with Porter is embedded in this post.) Street regains the ability to make a fist with his left hand. This encourages him sufficiently that he takes off to have an experimental stem-cell surgery in Mexico.

I'm not a football fan. I wouldn't know a sack from a canvas bag. Friday Night Lights is full of human drama, however, and I mention it specifically here because Jason Street is such a fully-realized character whose story doesn't end on some sweaty rehab exercise mat. He is a realistically portrayed person who's coping after his dreams of college and pro football have been dashed, in a small Texas town where he might always be the fallen quarterback.