What Happened To Santiago After Season 2

Friday Night Lights season 2 introduced viewers to Santiago Herrera (played by Benny Ciaramello), but after the season came to a close the character was never seen again, despite his storyline not being wrapped up - so what happened? Created by Peter Berg, Friday Night Lights was led by Kyle Chandler's Coach Eric Taylor and Connie Britton's Tami Taylor throughout all five seasons, but its high school setting meant that new characters were frequently introduced across its run.

That applies to season 2, which saw Santiago come into the world of Dillon football. After being released from a juvenile detention center, Santiago made friends with Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) and was soon taken in by her father, Buddy (Brad Leland) who, while being somewhat well-intentioned, also saw the clear potential in him as a football player. Santiago was soon a part of the Dillon Panthers' defensive line, and a key part of several storylines in the show, being involved with Buddy, Lyla, Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), the team, and having his own sub-plot involving his old friends too. It seemed like he'd be there to stay, but when season 3 rolled out, Santiago was not missing, but never so much as mentioned again.

The reason Santiago's storyline is cut short is because of the 2007-08 Writers' Guild of America strike, which hit the production of almost every TV show going at that point. Friday Night Lights season 2 ended after episode 15 of a planned 22 installments, meaning all of its storylines were left hanging. When the writers came back for season 3, they decided to simply move on with a fresh start, rather than trying to shoe-horn in what they'd originally looked to do with the rest of season 2. That meant some storylines were changed-up - Smash Williams(Gaius Charles) had a new injury worry, for example, before going off to college - but many were abandoned completely. That included the controversial Landry (Jesse Plemons) and Tya (Adrianne Palicki) murder storyline, and so it went for Santiago too.

Speaking to Uproxx back in 2011, Friday Night Lights showrunner Jason Katmis explained the decision, saying: "We were faced with this decision of would we tell this arc that we knew where we were going, so do we just pick up and tell those stories for four or five episodes and then jump to the next fall? Any way we thought of that, it just felt like it wasn’t whole cloth. It felt like we would be starting and stopping, so we decided to make a clean break and move forward to the next year of school, and with that, there were some leaps that the audience had to take with us."

Santiago was among those leaps, but while the other characters whose storylines were cut still returned, it doesn't fully explain why he never appeared again. That was down to a matter of contracts, as Ciaramello explained in an interview with Uproxx's Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Pod Cast back in 2016. Since work stopped on Friday Night Lights, he simply took on some other jobs, including signing a contract with the network ABC. That meant that while the other characters returned, Santiago simply couldn't because of scheduling. With Friday Night Lights aiming for a fresh slate, he simply fell by the wayside.

As for what happened to Santiago in-universe, it's never been officially revealed what became of him, not least since he isn't mentioned again, but also because by the writers' own admission no one ever really asked them, despite it becoming something most fans are curious about. The general assumption is that Santiago simply (and sadly) fell back in with his old friends, perhaps ending up back in juvie or something even worse. However, on Entertainment Weekly's Binge Podcast, during the series on Friday Night Lights, featuring two of the show's writers Bridget Carpenter and Kerry Ehrin, they explain that Katmis said "let's not worry about it" when discussing season 3, but that they think Santiago may have gone on to a "long and happy career in broadcasting". Santiago was shown to have good grades and be a smart kid, though a career in broadcasting does seem like a surprising turn for him, but it's a much happier ending for his Friday Night Lights story than the alternative.

Next: Friday Night Lights: Why Tyra Is Absent During Season 4