Here’s why series regular Tyra was absent during the fourth season of Friday Night Lights. NBC’s critically acclaimed sports drama Friday Night Lights aired for five seasons between 2006 and 2011 and scooped a Peabody Award, several Emmys and an NAACP Image Award along the way. Set in the fictional small town of Dillon, Texas, the show followed the trials and tribulations of a high school football team and its coaches, friends, and families.
The talented ensemble cast of Friday Night Lights featured future Fargo and Breaking Bad star Jesse Plemons as lovable nerd Landry Clarke and Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson in The Orville) as former bad girl Tyra Collette. The friendship and subsequent relationship between the seemingly mismatched Tyra and Landry was the focus of many a Friday Night Lights storyline, including a rather ill-advised murder subplot in season 2 that saw the pair cover-up their killing of Tyra’s stalker and would-be rapist.
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Tyra’s transformation from an over-sexualized teen resigned to living out the same fate as her hard-drinking mother to a determined young woman with ambitions was another focus of Friday Night Lights plotlines. Towards the end of the show’s third season, Tyra set her heart on going to college and was overjoyed to find out in the season 3 finale that she’d been accepted into the University of Texas at Austin. It was because of Tyra’s move to Austin to begin her academic career that the character was absent in season 4 of Friday Night Lights.
Although Tyra didn’t physically appear in Friday Night Lights’ fourth season, she was on the lovelorn Landry Clarke’s mind a lot. In the season 4 episode “In The Bag,” Landry was supposed to meet up with Tyra but she stood him up which was the final nail in the coffin for their romantic relationship, and resulted in Landry leaving an awkward break-up message on Tyra’s voicemail.
Tyra’s was also absent during most of the fifth and final season of Friday Night Lights although she did return to her hometown for a brief visit in the last two episodes of the show. Unfortunately for the Tyra-Landry shippers, the pair didn’t reunite although she did reconnect with her on-and-off-again season 1 boyfriend Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) instead. In the Friday Night Lights series finale, it was strongly suggested Tyra and Tim would be getting back together again and – better yet – that Tyra was considering a career in politics.
