Ted’s and Rebecca’s parallel breakthroughs set the stakes for the rest of Ted Lasso’s season
Although not all of the show”s momentum feels like it manifested organically in the season thus far.
TV Reviews Ted Lasso
Picking up a few weeks after Richmond’s loss to Man City, “No Weddings and a Funeral” wastes no time clarifying its emotional purpose. After opening on Sam and Rebecca musing about whether to take their relationship public, Rebecca’s mother arrives with the news that her husband has died, and all of the show’s narrative energy converges on his funeral.
After Beard’s divisive detour into the streets of London, the choice to once again largely ignore the on-field dimensions of Richmond’s season is a bit of a surprising one, with only two episodes left to go in the season. But what becomes clear is that for the show’s writers, whatever ending the season is building to cannot happen until Ted and Rebecca achieve a sense of clarity about how they intend to approach those circumstances, based on what they’ve experienced in the season thus far. For Ted, that means confronting the core emotions about his father’s death which were inevitably brought to the surface by someone else losing their own father. For Rebecca, this means confronting her mother about how she could be romanticizing the cheating, gaslighting man she kept letting back into her life, and what her understanding of this means for her own relationships.
The climax of “No Weddings and a Funeral” is a cross-cut between Ted’s house call therapy session with Sharon—who he called after he had a panic attack putting on his tie to head to the funeral—and Rebecca confronting her mother with the truth about her father’s behavior. For Ted, this is the culmination of the season’s strongest storytelling, gradually allowing us to understand how Ted’s philosophy is founded on his grief and anger over his father’s suicide. It isn’t as simple as the idea that Ted is compensating for his sense of loss. It’s that his entire personality has become about simultaneously working to help everyone in the way he wishes he could have helped his father, and also doing everything in his power to not show his pain and become a burden on them. It’s Rebecca’s mother who says that “once I love something, I love it forever” when defending her choice to stay with her husband, but in many ways Ted’s stubbornness about his coping mechanisms was equally absolute, up until his divorce shattered the equilibrium he had managed to attain. And so not only is Ted feeling that he’s quitting on his family like his father quit on him, but he’s also trained himself never to let anyone else share his pain, trapping him in a toxic cycle.
Based on what Sharon says to Ted over the phone about breathing exercises, this is not their first session since the phone call after the Man City game, but it’s their breakthrough moment. Jason Sudeikis has always been at his best when the show asks him to strip down to Ted’s deep well of sadness, and he’s excellent here as Sharon flips a switch in his brain about how he thinks about his father. It’s important for his therapy that he details the day he found his father’s body, and the hatred he felt for what his father did to his wife and son, but it’s more important that he understands the love he feels for his father in relation to that. The Johnny Tremain story is a core memory for Ted, but one that he had pushed aside, even as it informs the responsibility he feels for his players and his family. And his wish that his father could have known how good he was at being a father is hopefully the permission he needs to let himself accept that he is a good father, friend, and coach, even if he isn’t able to solve all their problems (and even if things like the Nate situation might reveal ways in which he’s failed in those roles at times).
It’s a powerful and important scene, and one that has clear reverberations through all of Ted’s relationships both personal and professional as we head into the rest of the season. The choice to cross-cut it with Rebecca’s conversation with her mother, though, is where things start to get more muddled. To start, Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham is tremendous throughout the scene, matching Sudeikis’ energy and reminding us how well she taps into Rebecca’s vulnerabilities. It’s a tall order to match up something as dark as Ted discovering his father’s body to her finding her father cheating when she was a teenager, but Waddingham sells it, and fully anchors us in Rebecca’s struggle to understand her mother’s choice to act as though this funeral isn’t celebrating a man who did them wrong. And ostensibly, the choice to run the scenes in parallel makes the case that even if it may not have been traumatic to the same degree, Rebecca’s life philosophy has been similarly shaped by her father’s cheating: it informs her approach to romantic relationships, whether it’s her divorce from Rupert or her anxiety over her relationship with Sam.
Except, try as Waddingham might, I struggled to find a coherent narrative in Rebecca’s storyline here, mainly because her arc in the season has been so opaque. As I’ve explored previously, the show entirely lost the character’s work-life balance this season, pivoting exclusively to the bantr storyline outside of the Cerithium Oil situation in “Do The Right-est Thing” that ended up being part of the bantr storyline anyway (which Nora cements by reprising the “Boss Ass Bitch” line to describe Rebecca shagging Sam). What “No Weddings And A Funeral” does is make the argument that her narrow focus on finding love this season is a symptom of her own pathology: whereas the first season saw her come to terms with how her unhealthy desire to hurt Rupert was blinding her to the relationships she was building with her co-workers and her investment in the team she vowed to destroy, that realization didn’t suddenly mean that she knew how to be in a healthy relationship, or that she necessarily knew how to run a football club.
In writing that out, I’m starting to better understand the writers’ goal for Rebecca’s story, but placing it in such close proximity to the subtle yet purposeful setup for Ted’s breakthrough underlines how there wasn’t enough work done early in the season for this to fully register. If you have Hannah Waddingham, giving her a lengthy monologue at her father’s funeral is going to solve some of that problem, but there needed to be more evidence in the season that Rebecca was neglecting parts of her work, and that she was doing more than scrolling through dating apps. The season started with the goal of being promoted, but Rebecca didn’t seem to have internalized that goal, and seemingly didn’t have a professional priority heading into the year. I’m glad that Rebecca still has things to figure out about herself, as the whole message of the show is that personal growth is a process that never ends and can often feel tremendously isolating, but her story just has too many mixed signals for this not to register as an overreach.
While this retcon isn’t entirely successful at justifying her storylines this season, it does at least create a clearer path forward in terms of where the consequences of her and Ted’s actions will complicate Richmond’s future. Although Rebecca weirdly never brings up the power dynamics of her relationship with Sam as a point of anxiety when she decides to break things off, the choice to reintroduce Rupert is indeed conspicuous, and lines up with some discussion in the comments about how the Sam relationship could be used to undermine her leadership given the —fittingly clunky, given the joke earlier in the episode—exposition reminding us about Becks’ shares in the team. And it’s no mistake that Rupert whispers sweet nothings into Nate’s ear on his way out the door, making it increasingly likely that he stages a coup of both Ted and Rebecca in one fell swoop. While my concerns about some of the lack of immediate consequences for past storylines remain, I will be more than happy if the show takes the accumulating neglect from all these storylines into a finale cliffhanger.
However, I am less happy with the clunkiest part of this episode, which was the reintroduction of Jamie into Keeley’s romantic life. I was going to write that it was the return of the Keeley/Roy/Jamie love triangle, but to be honest the show never actually told that story: Keeley had dumped Jamie on her own accord before she really started connecting with Roy, and by the time Jamie returned to the picture Roy and Keeley were already settling into their relationship. Jamie’s return has featured a few moments between him and Keeley, like when he went to her looking for advice on connecting with the team and she took him to Sharon, but those were all fairly minor. Concurrently, the show has never really given us much reason to doubt Roy and Keeley’s relationship, especially given how—as Alan Sepinwall said when I was discussing this episode with him—every fight they have seems to only bring them closer together. And so it was deeply perplexing to watch an episode where Roy picks a dumb fight without a lot of reason, Keeley seems overly impressed that Jamie was willing to wear a normal suit, and they kept stealing glances until Jamie reveals that one of the reasons he came back to Richmond was because he loves her and wants her back.
I just don’t understand the logic of this eleventh hour story. It seems unfathomable to me that anyone in the show’s audience is rooting against Roy and Keeley based on the stories that have been told, and nothing about his minor teasing about her desire to fertilize a tree after she died would have impacted that. And while Jamie has indeed done a lot to fuel his redemption arc, we haven’t been given enough of his point-of-view for him to be an equal rooting interest to Roy, even if Roy had been taken down a peg here. If the show wants this to feel consequential or suspenseful, they needed to have approached the resolution to Roy and Keeley’s past conflicts differently, leaving meaningful wiggle room for it to seem like a legitimate competition. As it stands, it reads as writerly intervention to fuel late-season conflict, without the textual evidence necessary to make it an organic part of the story being told.
With the entirety of the team ditching their trainers—poor Dani might never recover—for the occasion, and Sassy and Nora returning to the fold, “No Weddings And A Funeral” uses its longer running time to deliver lots of small moments of joy, in addition to Rebecca’s Rickroll eulogy serving as an emotional anchor for the funeral itself. And while I do think that this much time spent away from the pitch reinforces the risks associated with Beard’s detour last week, there’s enough fuel in those small moments here to generate momentum, and hopefully bring us a step or two closer to pulling the season’s various threads together. What’s clear here, though, is that the writers may have overreached on how some of these arcs are meant to converge, which is going to create some hurdles to bringing everything full circle by the time Richmond’s do-or-die moment comes at season’s end.
Stray observations
- To our back-and-forth discussion last week about how narratively significant “Beard After Hours” would be, he Facetimes Jane into the funeral like it’s a concert, without any delving into the unhealthy dimensions of that relationship. For me, it’s still a misstep, although I was happy to continue the dialogue we started about it here in the comments last week with the good folks at Lasso Cast.
- In addition to his little moment with Rupert, Nate’s super villain arc was also fueled once more by Jan, who notes the infantilizing detail that Nate’s only suit came via Ted. At this point, I don’t see how he turns away from the dark side, given how much someone like Rupert validating him and giving him authority would fuel his ego.
- After this week’s Emmys—where, if you missed it, the show won Outstanding Comedy Series, Actor, and Supporting Actor (Brett Goldstein) and Actress (Waddingham)—and the number of times they played the beginning of the show’s theme song, it stood out how when the episode awkwardly transitioned from “He died” to “Yeahhhhhh.” Definitely intentional, I thought, given the way they didn’t try to fit in any dialogue in between.
- Rebecca’s mother made a joke about how Sam’s boxer briefs left little to the imagination but if the writers really wanted that joke to land they would have chosen a lighter color (although it’s possible the black was a standards and practices note).
- I appreciate the show’s follow through on throwaway jokes, like Ted getting ready for the funeral to “Easy Lover” as he explained earlier in the season. It’s the kind of attention to detail that makes it harder for me when the show contorts itself to make things like the love triangle materialize.
- As his panic attack comes on, Ted sees the army man his son sent to protect him, his son’s visit last season, and then finally a dart hitting a board.
- After I watched this episode, I had a conversation with a friend about “Never Gonna Give You Up” where he also brought up the fact that everyone initially presumed Rick Astley was black, so I appreciated that Rebecca’s mother still believed this was true decades later. (Also, while I know that the song has become infamous due to Rickrolling, for me as an older millennial it is instead a definitive “Song I Learned About Due To Pop-Up Video”).
- I thought Jane Facetiming into a funeral was creepy, but I did appreciate that you could see her on the screen singing along to “Amazing Grace.”
- I’ve never fully understood shipping Ted and Rebecca, to be honest, and a big part of that is because I find Ted and Sassy’s whole dynamic far more compelling. I’ll ship that.
- Although he started the season as its first case study, Dani has largely faded into the background, so his little runner about the shoes was fun here.
- Did anyone get really distracted by how small the doors in Rebecca’s house were, given that she towered over them? How many times did she hit her forehead as a teenager?!
- Not that I’m entirely hung up on that Grindr joke from Colin earlier in the season, but it’s Bi Visibility Day as I’m writing this, so I’m just going to note we’re still waiting for any other piece of evidence to go along with it. His weirdness that Becks was breastfeeding her baby during the funeral and his ignorance to the fact that not all shoes require you to stand in line and wait for them were both unhelpful in this regard.
- I’ve been told I am not appreciating Higgins enough, so while it probably wasn’t an expressly necessary scene narratively to see the coaches all debriefing after learning Rebecca’s father died, I appreciated it for Higgins’ belief that in heaven animals are in charge and humans are the pets. I look forward to fan art of him curled up in front of Cindy Clawford.
164 Comments
This show needs to learn how to edit. Three episodes in a row of 45+ minutes. It’s self indulgent. Good comedy is about pace and editing. This wasn’t it.
There’s no rule that says comedy has to be under 30 minutes. Just silly, outdated “traditions”. More comedies should have longer episodes.
Making episodes long just because you can doesn’t make them good.
Last week’s episode is over there ->
Good thing the episodes are actually good, then.
Yeah if I go to a comedic movie and it’s more than 22 minutes long, I am out of there!How dare Bridesmaids, Spy, Anchorman, Tootsie, Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, etc…. be 2 hours long.
I think that’s fair, and the question then is what should the show do differently?I think the review brings up one issue with Sam/Rebecca and the lack of addressing the power issues, and while I like both actors I don’t think there is any way they can bring to life all of the issues that would be swirling around them in the time and amount of dialogue that the show allots to them.
I think the writers should have faced up to the issue — if they couldn’t budget the time to fully develop the subplot, they needed to cut it. I’m sympathetic to writers of ensemble shows — the balancing act is brutal. But I think romances are especially tough to work in, since they have so many more demands if they’re going to be done right.
I think you could go in two directions–excise subplots or scenes that aren’t working, or develop further and split into two episodes. Imagine if this season had been 12 episodes all along, not 10 plus 2 added later on.
lol, they don’t film it all at once and then break it up to fit the required episodes per season. They didn’t add episodes because the content was weak, they added episodes because Apple likes money.
Wow. Fans of this show are something else.
I was thinking the same thing. Odd that you would criticize a show I assume you like by saying its not good or funny and you wish there was 30% less of it.To each their own, I guess.
“The food is terrible! And in such large portions!”
I suspect the management of the show’s plotting has been moderately loose — a show like Fargo is deeply plotted out and every character fully defined before the vast amount of dialogue is written, while other shows, especially sitcoms, are a lot more open.Ted Lasso falls in the middle as a comedy/drama, and I suspect they define certain things tightly with centralized control, like Ted’s arc, while others are built up by separate efforts. Roy tends to work well in a decentralized writing setting — once he was established he was an easy character to write well and he works in isolated scenes. I think some of the other characters, like Nathan, are trickier, and the lack of a stronger hand overall hurt the coherence of his story line.
I think there are times when the ambition of the show outstrips its ability to deliver, which leads to the pacing problems you talk about. For me it’s a mixed bag — I think there are definitely too many hanging pieces, but I also appreciate the compensating energy that can come out of trying to fit a lot in.
Making episodes 22 minutes long due to tradition doesn’t make them good either.The benefit of streamers is that episodes can be whatever length they need to be. No doubt this leads to excess at times, but it also allows for shows to breathe and tell more detailed stories.
I didn’t check my watch until there was about 2 minutes left in the episode… Maybe this show isn’t for you if that’s how you feel.
Maybe comedy isn’t the only goal of this show? There was after all a segment in which one character described the suicide of his father.
Then don’t watch.
One thing I like about streaming shows is their flexibility with runtimes since they don’t have to worry about commercials and such, so sometimes they avoid padding the episodes like networks might but on the other end it can feel a bit indulgent at times for sure. I don’t mind it as much here especially at this point in the season when they’re leaning into the dramatic storylines a bit more to give those more room, but as pointed out in these discussions, there have been some storylines like the Dubai Air plot that have still seemed awkwardly dropped. Anyway, it’ll definitely be interesting to think about how to possibly re-cut things once the season is done.
Or hear me out here, maybe the plotlines that were “awkwardly dropped” will come back with a vengeance at the end of the season where their repercussions are felt – like say Rupert using it as ammo to wrestle control back of the team…?
Sure, of course, we’ll have to see. I let the word “seemed” do too much heavy-lifting I guess because I’ve definitely been on the side of “they’re telling a story, let’s wait and see how it plays out” in terms of this season debatably moving slower than last. I can just see how not explicitly mentioning a storyline for weeks might imply it’s done, especially when you compare it so unlike something like Nate’s story where basically every episode has at least a small piece of it and more obviously appears to be building to something.
Where people see “awkwardly dropped” I see “conspicuously backgrounded”, but we’ll see how it plays out 🙂
For most of the episode I thought Roy was being weirdly mean and overly rude in a way that felt kind of out of character, and it irritated me when I realized it was entirely so the show could pretend there’s a bit of suspense with this love triangle it randomly made up. It’s also honestly the least compelling thing they could do with Jamie; after the blowup with his dad, I’d much rather see him bond further with the rest of the team and develop some sort of closer mentor relationship with Roy instead of competing with Roy in a love triangle that has no stakes because it’s incredibly obvious who Keeley is ultimately going to end up with.
I reject the idea that this is all to create a love triangle. I think it is more plausible that is creating a conflict for keeley where she is wrestling with who she was and who she wants to be. The men involved are essentially metaphors. I don’t think she has actual doubt about what she wants especially given how perceptive she’s been with Rebecca. Jamie speaking out might have been in a moment where she was questioning Roy, but nothing about it seemed particularly earthshaking. He may think she’s made him better but even at his best I think she recognizes that he hasn’t treated her well
I think that Jamie confession moment wasn’t about Keeley at all. It’s about Jamie admitting he has feelings for someone and being vulnerable. It’s big growth for him.
I agree that I think this is not exactly trying to set up a love triangle plot, although I saw the moment as being as much about Jamie as it is about Keeley; it was him expressing feelings without any need or expectation for them to reciprocated or for Keeley to comfort or support him. I think it shows that Jamie has changed a lot, in that he’s now able to clearly communicate about his feelings in a way that is honest but not cruel.
it’s incredibly obvious who Keeley is ultimately going to end up with. “obvious” from the “what will create dramatic tension” perspective, or the “who would this person in real life end up with—the caring adult or the immature narcissist”?
The way this show took the DubaiAir plot line, there’s an equal chance the next episode opens with Roy and Keely laughing about it, and then never mentioning it again.
Why would this be an ongoing thing? They’re happy and Roy’s not an insecure baby like Jamie was.
Totally agree. I gave a loud “Meh” when Jamie told Keely that he loved her.
It was out of character for one of them, and it wasn’t the direction that they had established for the other. Seemed like some plain ol’ television stuff that I feel that this show is better than.
I don’t think this is a triangle at all. This is just another chance for the show to contrast Jamie and Roy.Jamie approached Keeley at her good friend’s father’s funeral and -after acknowledging that he knows she looks happy with Roy- tells he her loves her, which is a really shitty thing for him to do.
Meanwhile Roy had his jokes but caught on pretty quickly to the fact that he was upsetting Keeley for real and apologized before the day was over.
I’ve been saying all season “PLEASE don’t do the love triangle.” I mean, every fucking sit com does the love triangle. They don’t need it here. They have so many more interesting things to do.
The storyline I wish was pursued is the changing dynamic between Jamie and Roy, especially after Roy comforts Jamie after he hit his dad in Manchester. The new “Jamie-confessing-his-love-to-Keeley” plot seems tacked on and weirdly conniving for Jamie to do after all the work there has been put in this season to show the changing relationship between Roy & Jamie.
At this point Jamie confessing his love for Roy would have felt less out of nowhere than the Keeley stuff.
I always assumed Jamie’s bi realization comes in season 3
I can’t believe that people are surprised in any way about this.
I always thought he clearly still has feelings for her, that’s not a surprise to me at all, but I agree if they’re going for a love triangle (ugh) the show hasn’t earned those stakes. I don’t know if that’s the goal though. They could have easily constructed a bigger and more necessary fight to hang it on, if it was.
Maybe they aren’t building up a triangle, but laying the foundation for a Jamie/Roy/Keeley throuple. That’d be a glorious train wreck.
I mean…I’d be into that.
It depends on how much we’d get to see of it.
I definitely see where people have felt S2 has been much slower on moving all the balls in the air than S1 (which was stupendously paced.) But I thought this episode did a great job moving most fronts. The interleaving of Ted and Rebecca’s stories and the acting Waddingham and Sudeikis did here were definitely good for another Emmy reel. Considering we barely have spent any time with Rebecca’s mother, they’ve done a great job with the mom and her relationship with her dad as well. I don’t really care about Keeley and Roy and Jamie, but I also don’t really think they’re trying to really make it A Thing. As well-adjusted as Roy and Keeley are, they are also very different people, and I think I would be more bothered by the show continuing to give them as much screen time to their relationship if it’s all just set it up, knock it down-type conflicts that are dealt with in the span of an episode (which, in some ways, this one is, just with the added frisson of Jamie’s disclosure.)I wasn’t entirely sure we’d see Rupert again, and I kind of love that the kid seems like it has softened him in some ways, while he’s also trying really hard to deliberately use it as a way of excusing all his cruddy behavior beforehand, and Sassy just ain’t gonna’ let that happen. The quick chat with Nate does feel like we’re seeing him feed into some sort of heel turn with Nate, which I’m here for.I do feel like it doesn’t seem like we’re only 2 episodes away from the end, but I guess they’re going to be longer episodes like these last few.
The season has made me really think about episodic release vs. dropping them all at once.Bill Lawrence said the first three episodes were originally meant to be dropped together. That makes more sense, narratively, than the slow unfold over three weeks. And Jamie doing the right thing would be a nice way to end the return of Lasso after a year.Add to that how the stand-alone episodes (4, 9) stop the arc in their tracks. Back in the old 23 episode days, I wouldn’t have blinked. But Apple forced them on Lasso and Lasso delivered. It just makes no sense with the flow of the narrative.So, I’m wondering, when the entire season is out there, if I binge it all, skip 4 and 9, will it hold together more than I’m sensing now?Note: I just really want to watch the last two episodes because I just wanna know.
Personally I don’t think it will make much difference. Maybe’s Ted’s storyline will seem stronger but the other stuff will feel (not feel) as stop/start as it currently does.The Dubai Air stuff hasn’t really impacted much on the team and has been (apparently) completely forgotten. Roy and his dad’s issues still resolved in the Man City episode, we just don’t get the reprise on Coach Beard’s After Hours episode. Sam & Rebecca’s stuff stays largely the same and Nate’s awful attitude issues haven’t totally come to the boil yet.I’m with you on wanting to see these last two episodes, though I don’t mind that it’ll be prolonged for another two weeks.
So I was actually dreading that Rupert might be the funeral in this episode and we would never see ASH again but I am so happy to see he’s got an evil goatee and is manipulating Nate for his nefarious purposes. This is the darkest timeline. I also think that Rebecca taking a pause on her relationship with Sam is smart even if it robs us of more opportunities of seeing exactly what the implications of this would be. Though I am glad we don’t have any farcical episodes of them sneaking around trying not to be caught beyond what happened here. At least we had Nora falling off the balcony I do sincerely wish that we had seen dr. Fieldstone unpack more of Ted’s issues especially in relation to his son. Maybe this is me wanting to push the pace of therapy but I feel like for Ted that would make things “real”
I’d like to know why Ted’s father killed himself. Was he suffering from depression? Was he sick?
Ted’s comments about his father not knowing what a great dad he was, and how knowing might have changed things, suggested to me that mental health played the largest part in his death.
I’m not sure what that would really add to the story. I think an essential element of the story is that Ted doesn’t know why his father killed himself, and that feels like a failure on his part.In my limited experience, that seems very true to life.
I think one of the tragic things about a lot of suicides is that we don’t always know what led to people doing that. I think narratively it’s quite realistic to not know why Ted’s dad killed himself.
“I’d like to know why Ted’s father killed himself.”
Yeah, I think the point is that Ted probably would too…
I don’t understand how one can rightly applaud Waddingham without mentioning Harriet Walter (niece of Christopher Lee!) as her mother. The two of them made this episode, their scenes even stronger than Lasso and Sharon irrespective of how great Sudeikis was.It felt so lived in and real, and clearly it was to give insight into Waddingham’s character. I liked not knowing where it was going, but a lot of pain was being shared in that vestibule. So when Rebecca started singing the Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up it all made sense that it was bridge she was building to her mother based on her piping in songs into all the rooms a memory of a song clearly heard in the mornings time and time againJust a top tier pairing of actresses.
Ok 1) I had no idea who she is related to, and b) I have adored her from numerous other uptight british roles but you are right that she absolutely shone this week. She took all of her character’s pain and hid it just as I imagine my own mother would have done in those circumstances. I know another comment was irritated at this not being a 30min comedy but the work that these actors are doing is proving that the genres just do not apply.
Nice to see Harriet play a more loving mother, she played a stone cold bitch in Succession. Wasn’t she the hateful sister in law in Sense & Sensibility? And I loved her one throwaway scene in The Force Awakens as the doctor who treats Chewy.
Indeed that was her in Sense & Sensibility. Based on her appearance in that film and Ted Lasso, one could make the argument she is all but ageless!
Listen, she had to roast the pigeon and it’s not her fault that her children showed up out of the blue.
I can’t believe that I got Rick Rolled by Ted Lasso.
I really really really loved the moment between Ted, Rebecca , and her mother at the end. Ted using something he had just learned in therapy and reminding Rebecca of a happy memory of her father. That’s the moment that really got me. It was a simple detail, but seeing Ted be so gracious and helping his friend by using a technique that had just helped him. It was lovely.
Thanks for this. I hadn’t considered that particular interpretation of the scene, and that makes so much sense. Love that way of looking at it.
It seems that this season is going to be a reversal of last season’s ending. Last season ended on a downturn for the team (relegation) but an upbeat note for the various characters.This season is heading to a positive note for Richmond with promotion but the characters will get dark cliffhangers. Nate’s heel turn, a possible Rupert coup, Roy/Keeley/Jamie situation, Sam maybe leaving the team (based on next week’s episode blurb). I can see how this is going to be their “Empire Strikes Back”I am hoping that the Ted/Sassy thing happens though. I like that character.
For sure, on Ted and Sassy. The chemistry/sexual tension there is palpable. (And I think I agree, in general, with your suggestion that this will definitely have an Empire-type of cliffhanger.)
Telling Rupert that she was going to wear red to his funeral, be a beacon of joy, and to fuck off and die – amazing
I hope she borrows Zoreaux’s Yeezys to complete the outfit.
It was very much a literal vocalisation of how we all feel about real life Rupert.
We can all only hope for a friend as loyal as Sassy.
Wondering if Rupert’s been dripping poison in Nate’s ear all along. He would know who to exploit and how on his former team.
Poison here being dangling replacing Ted with him when he takes over the team I am pretty sure.OR now that I think about it with him relinquishing the remaining shares, perhaps purchasing a rival London club and poaching some of the top Richmond staff/players (Nate? Maybe Jaime? Jan? Someone we’d be shocked to see disloyal like Isaac?)
This season is heading to a positive note for Richmond with promotionI’m not so sure, and I’m not saying that in a idk what the writers have planned kind of way. I follow the Premier League and for the life of me, I cannot figure out where Richmond stand in the Championship table. The on-field stakes have been pushed so far to the background that I couldn’t tell you their position or at what point of the season we’re in. They lost to Man City in the FA Cup semi so we could maybe speculate that we’re in April or early May but apart from mentioning that Richmond had 7 consecutive draws to open the season, there’s been zero mention of their progress towards promotion.
I think they briefly mentioned their record in last week’s episode and I remember a 14 somewhere in there, but I don’t remember which column that was in.
It will mean very little to most viewers but the inclusion of a Molly Drake song at the end was just gorgeous.The autumn leaves are tumbling down and winter’s almost here
But through the spring and summertime we laughed away the year
And now we can be grateful for the gift of memory
For I remember having fun
The Keely/Jaime thing feels like a Jaime took his shot, Keely will stay with Roy, Jaime will leave (probably with Nate) to avoid seeing them together every day.It also seems like Rupert is definitely up to something. I’m not sure how he can initiate a takeover, the team is owned by Rebecca so getting a controlling interest in the team is unlikely? He did talk to sassy about being a changed man, but I’m not buying it. It may be setting him up for some sort of competing club capitalizing on Nate and Jaime’s on field successes. Or it means nothing and won’t be addressed again, you never know.
My guess is that Rupert is aware of something coming down the chute that Rebecca can’t see yet. Maybe the final fallout of the Dubai Air situation?
They did mention Rebecca’s discomfort at the owners meetings and how the other owners don’t really consider her part of the “club”.Perhaps Rupert is trying to rally his friends (other owners) to kick her out of the league with the idea that he would either assume control or be given a new club to re-open in Richmond?
Yeah, there could be something there, potentially. It would be kind of neat way to bring back something that was largely part of Nate’s story in the moment and anchor it back in Rebecca’s.
Football clubs in the UK aren’t franchises like that. You can’t just open a new one, slot it into the second division, and play in competition. A brand new club would have to earn it’s way up into the FA from one of the regional associations, and that takes years (in a best case scenario, if it happens at all). There are clubs that have been around a century or more that are competing for a slot in the FA.They also can’t relocate like American sports franchises do. Arsenal and Liverpool, for example, are *only* going to play in London and Liverpool. They might sell off all of their players or sell to new owners, but the only way the club moves is up or down tiers in the FA via promotion and relegation, they don’t relocate geographically. Nobody is buying Arsenal and moving it to Leeds…because Leeds already has its own team.At most Rupert could purchase a rival in the Championship division to beat Richmond out for promotion (which may be why he told Rebecca he and his wife were divesting themselves of their shares in Richmond…owners can’t own multiple clubs).
I’ve suspected all season that Nate is going over to the dark side, and that Rupert sold his interest so he could buy another team, and take Nate in as a coach.
Nate is probably going to reveal Ted’s anxiety/panic attack, because Nate has become a giant nob. Ted will talk about it with Trent Crimm in the end.
Absolutely expecting Nate to reveal Ted’s panic attack or some other shitty move at the end there. That feels like something that’s been slow building all season.
I think Rupert is less interested in taking Nate on as a coach and more interested in using Nate to sow dissent and take down Richmond from the inside. When you think about it, Nate is still very much a nobody in the broader world of football outside of Richmond. He had his 15 minutes of “fame” and now he’s back to being the low man on the totem pole, and that has been eating at him all season. Nate has football knowledge but no status (although I would argue he overestimates his own football acumen). Ted has status but no football knowledge. Beard knows the game and is Ted’s right-hand man. Roy is a legend and has his football career to establish his bona fides as a coach. Nate is the last person in rank when it comes to it, and all season he’s been stewing in that. But that’s an internal conflict, both within Nate and within the Richmond clubhouse. Outsiders wouldn’t have the feeling that Nate is an underappreciated asset. The internet largely seems to have moved on (no more passing mention of news articles saying that Nate should manage his own team for several episodes now, and the only references to him being a “Wonder Kid” are made in jokes at his expense). If Rupert is really interested in challenging Rebecca/Richmond from the outside, he would hire someone more established than Nate to lead that charge. Instead, I think it’s pretty clear Rupert wants Richmond to crumble from within, either so that he can swoop in and save the day, or so that he can establish his ownership of a new club.
Absolutely. Since the DubaiAir guy is his buddy, you can basically guarantee that they are in cahoots somehow to take Rebecca down a peg.
I don’t think Rupert is angling to take Richmond from Rebecca. I think he got rid of his shares so he’ll be free to buy a *different* club, and hire Nate as his manager.
Boom, Season 3 villains.
He just handed his own financial stake (Bex’s shares) back to Rebecca, where he can’t see financial harm. He’s planning sabotage, maybe he has been for a while. It’s possible Nate’s actually been feeding him info for a while now, or at least he will be. It’s just a question of what’s getting a leak to the press to sabotage the team.
In fairness, I didn’t make it past the tagline this week. Criticism is one thing, but maybe next season AV Club can find someone that can actually share an enjoyable experience.
every review feels like an essay he didn’t want to write for that GE class he didn’t even want to take
Rebecca’s motivation for owning Richmond was to get revenge on Rupert. I wouldn’t be surprised if she realized that she is at peace, doesn’t really care too much for being a football owner (thus not spending any time managing the team) and decides to sell.That, or Rupert knows that DubaiAir is about to sue Richmond in the next episode and is plotting a coup.
I’m sorry but I was laughing so hard during that Ted/Rebecca dueling monologues thing. I know the actors both have Emmy cred now, but nobody could’ve made that weirdness work. Also great when they both stated the date and Ted said he remembers it because he organized a Jason marathon because he has old-pop-culture-tourettes. I was rooting for the protagonists until recently when it dawned on me that Ted’s actually a terrible coach who still doesn’t understand the basic rules of the game he’s coaching: not getting passive offsides in your 2nd year really does negate that whole “be curious, not judgmental” thing. And Rebecca acting boy crazy instead doing the slightest bit of actual work trying to make the team better reminded me that she never actually said she’s not still trying to tank the team. She’s just nicer now so she can shag the players.
I’m coming to all this late. Generally I think many of the criticisms of the season might be addressed subsequently, so it seems a bit odd to complain about things that may actually just be setting up future episodes.But the cross cutting of Ted and Rebecca was all kinds of bad. Rebecca’s trauma at seeing her adulterous father in the act would undoubtedly be a big deal, but comparing it with Ted finding his father dead is so wrong that I really don’t know what they were thinking. That kind of editing can be very funny for humorous moments, but applying it to big (imbalanced) emotional moments? Just no.
I guess I’m just less concerned with the actual football/sports politics side of the show than some people. I’m not bothered by the detour away from the field for a while. I’m here for the character interactions and emotional arcs. The game itself is one vehicle for that and can be pretty cool, but it’s not the only vehicle. Like most workplace comedies, sometimes the show is more about work and sometimes it’s less.I don’t find Rebecca’s storyline that illegible. I think it’s been really clear all season that Rebecca has a lot of trouble making herself vulnerable, and that it’s preventing her from being happy, especially in her romantic relationships. It seems like a pretty natural follow up from last season, where she was lashing out at her ex, and seeing her resentment has deeper roots than just Rupert makes a lot of sense for the character. The parallel between Ted and Rebecca works for me despite the differences in the severity of their experiences because both of them experienced these things with their father that led to them cutting themselves off from feeling the full range of their emotions, and they’re both still healing from those injuries.The only part of this episode that didn’t entirely work for me was the Roy/Keeley/Jamie bit, which mostly felt like an afterthought to keep Roy/Keeley from feeling too perfect.
More evidence of Nate turning into a supervillain: he wants to come back as a tiger so he can maul the people who wronged him.
it’s not his proudest moment, but supervillain is a bit extreme. like many of his other actions this season, it’s a normal human response to being dumped on and looked down upon.
I don’t disagree. Just using the same phrasing that Myles used in the review.
ah, my bad then; feel free to disregard my comment 🙂 . i admit, i basically skipped to the comments for this one, so i didn’t see that.
HOW DARE YOU. (I get it. And maybe supervillain is too far, but it’s at least a Joker narrative, and that’s pretty close to supervillain).
had to rush to the comments after drying my eyes; this episode really got me :’(
to be fair, human or not, it’s still headed somewhere bad; Nate’s definitely expressing things we’re generally meant to keep in check.
I have been surprised at how often this show has made me cry in one form or the other.
You’re not alone there. When Ted had his panic attack outside the club… Man, I was a mess. The way it was presented just felt entirely too familiar…
I think S2 Nate is meant to contrast with Ted in some ways, particularly in regard to doing the work to become mentally healthy. Ted resists that impulse for most of the season but eventually is open to change and because of that we see him improve. Nate, on the other hand, does nothing to address the places where he is socially anxious, lacking in confidence, and prone to outbursts. He indulges those feelings of inferiority and then persecution to a harmful degree, and we’re meant to see that as not healthy or normal, but rather something toxic. We are supposed to see how his meekness in season one masks an inadequacy that he feels, and that removing the ostensible source of his feelings of inadequacy (his lowly job as kit boy) doesn’t actually remove the way he feels about himself. So we see what happens to his feelings of inadequacy when he realizes they aren’t external but are rather a part of himself, not to be cured by a better job, better social standing, or more respect in the eyes of his father. Because of that, Nate turns to behaviors that have him replicating the abuse he suffered. So I suppose in a way his response is somewhat normal—victims of abuse sometimes become abusers themselves—but we’re meant to see that as a less-than-ideal outcome that didn’t have to happen and could have been avoided had Nate sought help and community rather than placing himself apart from (and above of) the rest of the Richmond staff.
He’s definitely going to be a rival manger to Ted and Richmond next season. That’s what Giles from Buffy whispered in his ear at the funeral.
I think either Ted finally intervening and helping Nate will be sort of a climax to this season’s Ted arc (ie-Ted’s back), or Nate will leave and return next season similarly to how Jaime left and returned the following season. This show has never shown itself to give up on its characters. Whatever happens with Nate, I will be really surprised if the series ends with him as a heel.
When she asks him what he loved about his father, and he gets that look on his face and asks “why?”oof
I was worried for a second he was going to retreat and/or lash out again. Sudeikis’ acting has of course been really good throughout the show, but it was so raw and moving here.
I agree that we’ve lost the “Rebecca at work” storyline for several episodes now but I’m reading a lot (not just here) that comes across as people seeing Rebecca focusing on her love life as some sort of step back, or that it’s unrealistic, or that it’s cliche and reducing a woman to only focusing on finding a man, etc. If I’m misreading that in this review I’ll apologize now. However, I really get tired of people immediately jumping to those conclusions. I get that we women have focused on long time on being independent and taking care of ourselves out of necessity and a desire to do so. I agree that it’s important to love yourself and love being with yourself in a healthy way before you can truly share yourself romantically. I get that we don’t NEED a romantic partner (in a co-dependent way). But the truth is: no one wants to be alone. Rebecca said as much to her mother. It’s hard to be alone in this world and most people do want to find love in this world so I really don’t think it’s that crazy for the show to focus on this for Rebecca, especially after her painful divorce. And it does seem that Rebecca taking a break from Sam is her trying to address some issues and behavior before jumping into a serious relationship. But here’s another truth: if we all had to wait until we were 100% healthy and “had it together” before we paired up, we’d all be single! If we’re lucky, our friends and families tend to accept our messy parts and still love us and share their lives with us and I’m not sure it’s that different with your romantic partner.Also, the Jamie/Keely/Roy triangle…not into it. I really hope that this was just some momentary plot device for Keely as I like her and Roy together. It seemed weird and out of nowhere. Perhaps the show is moving toward showing Roy and Keely out of their honeymoon phase and into them dealing with the more challenging aspects of being together, which I think will be interesting.
I don’t think you’re misreading the review, and I really appreciate your perspective here. For me, personally, I do think that part of the issue for me is that you hear Rebecca talk about her relationship with the other league owners (when she’s talking to Nate and Keeley), but we don’t actually get to see that work, and so the show feels like it’s artificially narrowing our perspective on her character. To me, it’s not an issue that Rebecca is focused on relationships, it’s that the show only seems interested in that part of her character, which is robbing her of the dimensionality that comes with how that goal intersects with her other priorities.In other words, it’s not that Rebecca needs to be prioritizing work over life. It’s that I’d like to see her navigating the choice to prioritize relationships over her work to better understand her motives and how it shapes the day-to-day of the show.
Thank you. That’s a great perspective as well. Here’s hoping the show finds a way to balance both of these worlds/storylines for Rebecca. Rebecca did seem to notice Rupert talking to Nathan so perhaps that’s how the work story will come back.
Again with the “How good is Rebecca at her job” stuff?… Again?
Higgins is the real brain behind running the nuts and bolts day to day operations.
I can easily see Rupert doing the same amount of “non-work” (without a word of criticism. )
“Team Owner” is more a ceremonial title. Her “job” would be to sit in on staff meetings. Leave the coaching and scouting to the coaches, the sponsorships and PR to the experts etc…
I know there’s been a lot of chatter on the internet about Season 2 and a lot more criticism of this season. All I can say is, from a story perspective, I think it makes sense. If Ted Lasso is only going to be 3 seasons (as I’ve heard) then we’re in the “Act 2″ portion of the series. This is where all of the characters are going through bigger challenges leading to some major upheaval before we head into Season 3 aka “Act 3″ where everyone pulls it together for a final push towards victory. I mean, does anyone really think this series is not going to end on a wonderful note?
Yeah, I think we’re pushing toward a triumphant if bittersweet ending for sure. I don’t see any way that this show ends without Ted going back to America to be closer to his son, which will be sad for the community and culture he’s built in Richmond. But I think he’ll go out on a high note, with the team either getting promoted or winning the Premier League. A lot of people have speculated that the promotion will happen at the end of Season 2, given the conversation that Ted and Rebecca have at the end of Season 1 about getting promoted then winning the whole thing. The way this season has depicted the actual soccer of the team, however, hasn’t really established them as a team ready to make that leap. Likewise, the show hasn’t yet given us a glimpse of Ted the Soccer Coach, and I think that’s necessary for the club to advance. In the FA cup final he was still shaky on the rules of the game, and that’s a schtick that is clearly wearing thin with Beard and probably others, too. I think we have to see Ted doing a bit of the work to get better at his job after he does the work to get better mentally. So I wouldn’t be surprised if promotion is the big goal of Season 3 rather than a PL championship. And after that Ted can leave the team in the capable hands of Manager Roy Kent to lead them into the Premier League. But that’s just my speculation.
I think it would be too much of a shark jump to have Richmond win the PL immediately after getting promoted, something which has certainly never been done in the Premier League era and I believe has only ever happened once before – when Ipswich Town did it in the 60s. Getting promoted and leaving them with a strong enough legacy to survive in the Prem would be more than enough payoff.
personally, everything felt too…rushed? the last we really saw Ted he was having a panic attack on the street, and the last we saw Rebecca she was inviting Sam in. this episode’s time jump made nothing feel earned. you dont see R&S build any sort of relationship for her decision to end it to have any weight. ted having another episode doesnt feel important because we never really saw him start down the road to recovery after the reveal, other than calling doc. and the cross-cutting between rebecca and ted as they explained their past really did a disservice to both stories. maybe they were trying to show they have a lot in common in the way of trauma, but lets hear each characters story completely. jumping back and forth, especially with the trope of one character picking up the others dialogue just didnt work. the early roy lines were delivered like the actor didnt believe the character would say them, so he didnt get behind them. near the end of the episode, when he apologizes, he felt genuine, but every previous line delivery was stilted. jamie telling keeley what he felt? sure. why not. the triangle relationship should really have been there to start once jamie came back, but it felt like they just ignored it. jamie could be confused in his feeling; thinking roy is more a father figure than he wanted and keeley is now in that odd bill&ted hot stepmom category.this episode felt messy. ps: the reveal that teds dad killed himself really annoyed me. it would have been a huge story from his college coaching days. there is no way that wouldnt have come up before.
Why would it be big? Ted isn’t so famous as a coach that people would go digging up his family history, and he’s extremely private about it.Ted and Rebecca’s pivotal life-changing trauma moments both happened on the exact same day. They interweave with each other because the parts where they overlap are largely the same or at least that’s how it seemed to me.Roy’s actor is one of the show’s lead writers, if he thought the dialogue felt off he kind of had his chance. Makes more sense that Roy was uncomfortable and awkwardly making jokes, just like he said.
I mean, I have to imagine that the British tabloids would have had a field day with Ted upon his arrival, and would have gladly dug up this kind of stuff. Heck, you’d think Trent Crimm would have done so, even, given his desire to expose Ted early on?I’m not suggesting that it’s definitely something everyone would have known about, and it’s entirely possible that his father’s suicide wasn’t really public knowledge and was swept under the rug at the time. But it does feel a bit weird that he’s a huge ESPN story upon being hired at Richmond and no one tried to dig into his past other than Trent.
Trent Crimm is from the Independent; he is a SERIOUS JOURNALIST, sir!
British tabloids would even know what Ted’s mother wore at his dad’s funeral.
From back when he was 16? He’s not the Queen.
ted took a college football team to a championship. granted, not the *big* one, but still a college in the Missouri Valley Conference winning that level’s championship would be a big news story, especially on espn. and espn loves the underdog story. one of the first things they do when they look at a coach or player story is their upbringing, and they certainly would look into his parents,
great review. you summed up a lot of my thoughts. this was the first shit episode of Ted Lasso.
He revealed it in episode 8 after the Roy/Jamie hug he called the doctor and told her. Ted’s entire personality is based off that event. It’s basically what the show is about.
i know when it was stated in the show. what i am saying is there is no way his employer wouldnt know based on his previous college football coaching success and the stories out of that.
The Roy and Keeley stuff felt a little forced, but I think we can all agree, “Avenge me Keeley” was pure gold.
Two less serious things to start out(1) Maybe it’s just because I enjoy dark humor, but the transition from “He died” to the theme song was something and (2) Dani’s hatred of dress shoes is both hilarious and factual. Dress shoes are awful.Being serious-I gotta say I love the performance put forth by Jason and Hannah. The anger felt by both dealing with their fathers, and their ability to find hope and humor in things (especially with Ted asking if he can get a hug, followed by if he will be charged for the session, followed by Rebecca rickrolling her way through her eulogy, a song reminding her of her childhood). I know this comment may come to bite me in the ass, but I think they both will go 2 for 2 in this role at the next Emmy’sThe Roy/Keeley/Jamie love triangle is some bullshit. I really hope that nothing comes out of it, but I do worry more will come out of this. Considering this is the tag line for next week-“A billionaire football enthusiast from Ghana makes Sam an unbelievable offer”, I really doubt we are done with the Sam/Rebecca romance. I imagine there will be some “Is Rebecca gonna let Sam go” drama in this.I’m frankly surprised Nate didn’t try and dress down Jan Maas. I really also hope Nate doesn’t let Rupert manipulate him into the dark side. He was the chosen one! (Had to go with the Star Wars metaphor there lol)Finally, and I know this might get me kicked off the internet, but Together Forever is the superior Rick Astley song. Yeah, I said it.
Hannah Waddingham’s face was perfect in that reaction shot. The whole first half of the episode had me bursting out laughing while waiting for the underlying tensions to peak.
I have a feeling that Jan Maas would be unsusceptible to one of Nate’s takedowns.
That’s almost 100% true but still, I’m surprised he didn’t try
You’re completely right about Together Forever. I went onto my computer to listen to the other song after this episode but ended up playing Together Forever on repeat.
But his singing on “Cry for Help” and “She Wants to Dance with Me” is better than both of those tracks.
Bet Hannah Waddingham goes for lead actress next year.
I think one thing that needs to be put up with this series (among others), is how amazing actors UK produces. Acting is sublime. I think it’s quite important part of this series, why it feels like nice hug.
Is it just me or did Nate dye his hair gray so that he’d look older and be more respected?
But he’s the Wonderkid!
Same; he seems to have gone grey very quickly! That could be a symptom of his inner turmoil (or more likely – he cut his hair short, which shows more gray).
Ted Lasso Season 2 is bad. Real bad. Michael Jackson Bad. It’s lost the plot. The thing about season 1 was that it was a fish out of water tale with hope and positivity being the main take aways. This season, all the characters have become caricatures of themselves. It’s a struggle to watch this show now and I’m not really sure what the conflict is anymore. Ted having panic attacks? Rebecca not wanting to have a sexual relationship with one of her players? Keeley now suddenly catching feelings for Jamie Tart? Puh-lease. This is just bad writing and horrible character and plot development.
They haven’t mentioned football for the past 3 episodes. That’s the point of this show. Making sure that the football club succeeds right? Otherwise, why have them fall to the championship? The FA Cup doesn’t count. Are they going to be promoted or are they just going to be a Championship club now? If they don’t have to worry about relegation or promotion anymore, it’s just become a stale version of Cheers.
They haven’t mentioned football for the past 3 episodes. That’s the point of this show.That’s not the point of this show.
“Rebecca’s mother made a joke about how Sam’s boxer briefs left little to the imagination but if the writers really wanted that joke to land they would have chosen a lighter color ”How subtle
Sometimes I think we just overanalyze things, like this review does.
For me Ted Lasso is a “good feeling” series, cause well.. at the end it makes me feel good. As I read somewhere, it is like a warm loving hug.
I enjoy the sentiments and the acting is top notch. Is the writing perfect? No, there is no such thing anyway, but it is definitely better than most of the top“serious” TV dramas that are usually completely unrealistic only to deliver climax scenes that make the audience go wild. And Ted Lasso is certainly a bazillion of times better than those “comedies” that are actually dramas in disguise.
My only beef with Ted Lasso is that it uses a big past trauma to define it’s heroes’ lives.
But this is something almost every show seems to do now days. And it is such lazy writing.
Just to be clear on something (and I know you’re not HARPING on this but just because it’s come up a lot): a review is not an assertion that the perspective/approach of that review is the best or only way that a show can be approached. It’s entirely understandable that this is more of a feel good show for people, and yet there are times when some of the comments are framed as though there is an implicit “and everyone who doesn’t agree with this is watching it wrong” in my review that is very much not there.I’m glad this is a “good feeling” show for you. If your or anyone else’s response to these reviews is “That doesn’t line up with how I see it,” that’s fine! That’s why the comments are here.
Art is there for everyone to enjoy the way (s)he desires!
I have no problem with this.
I just find weird to approach a show like TD this way. It is like overanalyzing Parks and Recreations. Maybe I am a tad tired of the whole reviewing “industry”..
On the other hand I can write lots of paragraphs analyzing why I despise Star Trek Discovery 😀
Ted Lasso seems like a show that is interested in ‘generating discussion’: it didn’t have to use a very real and recognizable environmental disaster, for example but it did. At the same time, it also doesn’t seem like a show that wants to make those discussions what the show dwells on or is ‘about.’
This is a curious, possibly unique position to take if it is deliberate. I’m not necessarily for or against that positioning, we’ll see how it goes.
It’s just a way for the av club to cover it, and for fans to talk about it on the internet. I like reading breakdowns of the shows I watch because it reveals layers I may have missed and starts the conversation, even if I don’t always agree.
The AV Club also did reviews of every episode of Parks & Recreation.
I absolutely love how this show has taken what has essentially been meme’d (AI’s “We talkin’ bout practice, man” and Rickrolling) to land two emotional moments. It is a testament to the writing to be able to take what has been conditioned to be an instinctual punchline and twist it into a real lesson with resonance. Kudos
Head empty, only thought is that I am enamored of Sassy.
I’m not sure Nate is completely headed to be a super villain but I do think he’s open to manipulation by Rupert. Our theory is that Rupert will follow through on the shares of Richmond to Rebecca but because he’s already bought another team and wants to wipe Richmond out entirely and will ask Nate to be the head coach. Not because there’s going to be a coup.. but we’ll see.. It’s unfortunate that someone who was regularly bullied by the team and his father has potential to immediately become an abuser rather than choose compassion and to be a better person. I get that sometimes happen w/ victims, but I’m disappointed they can’t write Nate a bit more complex than just being solely driven by his ego and need for a power position.
The writing on this show has become increasingly lazy. They seem to be moving pieces in place for conflict in the finale when they should have been building those stories throughout the season. Where are the team in the league? Do they have any hope of promotion this year?
Hint: This isn’t a sports show
I would hate it if it were. The show is about a sports team and much of the drama in the first season was related to Ted’s performance in his job. So ignoring one of the main elements that made the show such a success in the first season for a flurry of Rom-C0m pastiches takes away part of its strength.
I agree. Even though I don’t watch Ted Lasso for the sports aspect, it was so effective in the first season as a way to dramatize some really interesting character stories (like Friday Night Lights did so well). It’s conspicuously odd that they’re neglecting this part of the show this season.
His Dad’s suicide may not of been reported. Some families just do a death notice, not cause of death.
Rebecca’s mother made a joke about how Sam’s boxer briefs left little to the imagination but if the writers really wanted that joke to land they would have chosen a lighter color.I could not disagree more. The joke didn’t land at all to me, and changing the color of the briefs would have made it worse, not better. That line was one of the weakest parts of the episode in my opinion because it felt cheap and lazy. Ted Lasso rarely goes for the lazy joke, and that’s what they did here. Making that bad joke more obvious would have wandered toward slapstick at best. At worst, it risked objectifying Sam in a way that definitely would have crossed the line into damaging racial stereotypes. The character of Sam has shown himself to be racially and socially conscious. He’s the moral center of the team. He’s the character who talks about imperialism and exploitation. For the show to visually exploit him while another character is commenting on the size of his penis would have been a major misstep. I wish that whole line had been left on the cutting room floor.
Eh, it was a meta joke on writing. I can see why they put it there.
I actually thought the meta-ness made it even worse. It wasn’t good meta. There are usually so few lines that clang in Ted Lasso, which is a testament to their writing staff and the work they do. They manage to incorporate characters’ idiosyncratic, pop culture reference heavy speech patterns in ways that seem natural. This line seemed clunky, maybe that’s why it stood out to me.
That joke didn’t bother me much, but unless Rebecca specifically told Sassy that Sam’s got a huge penis, it annoyed me that she just assumed he did.
Late in the episode the actually did make a joke about him (probably) having a huge hog. And it was just as cringy as you might expect, for the reasons you mentioned.
Okay, this episode really annoyed me for a variety of reasons…not just for what was in the episode itself, but that it represents the overall decline of “Ted Lasso” during its second season.1. Enough with Rebecca’s man problems. Everything about this season regarding Rebecca has been, frankly, horrible. Last year she was a jilted and humiliated woman seeking revenge in self-destructive ways and she learned the error of her ways. This year, she’s regressed to being a middle schooler, going all googly-eyed over pretty boys and tossing aside relationships with stable, decent men because they’re “boring”. Does this strike me as credible with someone in her position? Absolutely not. The relationship with Sam is particularly galling. She’s made quite a fuss about how all the male owners of other clubs look down on her for being a woman…so she goes and sleeps with one of her players? Something that would absolutely earn the scorn of everyone, not to mention the incredibly messy workplace dynamics? Nope…not buying it, unless the writers’ goal was to show that Ted Lasso kindness causes people to revert to childish mentalities about everything.2. The footballers and coaches seem interested in literally everything *except* football. Seriously, is the season over? The FA Cup semi-finals generally take place in April, near the end of the season. The only thing we’ve heard about this season is that they started the year with a bunch of draws and won one game. Are they close to promotion? Are they close to relegation? Are they going nowhere? If they’re not moving back up to the Premier League, then honestly where’s any of the payoff for Coach Lasso’s “kill them with kindness” mentality towards football? In any serious football club, a manager who gets the team relegated and then struggles in the lower division after the team retains all of their previous season’s players (something that rarely happens, BTW, since it’s a huge revenue hit) is looking at getting fired before the end of the year. Especially when, after coaching for a full season in football, the coach still doesn’t understand basic rules of the game (seriously, is Ted incompetent as a coach, or just lazy that he doesn’t understand how offsides works…it’s not that hard). You’d never know from the players how well the team is doing…they’re too busy oohing and aahing over Sam’s texts on Bantr (something I doubt most pro footballers, who have access to lots of women, would care much about) like, again, a bunch of middle schoolers.3. The only good thing about this season, IMO, has been the relationship between Keeley and Roy. That’s not really a compliment towards the season, because the show is called “Ted Lasso”, not “Roy and Keeley”, but their relationship has generally been well done and the characters are likable and believable. Then, in this episode they threaten to blow it up over Jamie…a character who was a focal point of the excellent first season but who barely has a role this year except to talk about his daddy issues. Out of nowhere. Why? Where’s the point to it? Because they can’t figure out what else to write about besides Ted’s therapy sessions and who Rebecca is sleeping with?This was originally a show about how an unconventional coach with a positive outlook on life can inspire people to perform to their best. I loved that show. This season, it’s a show about how positive people are really miserable and dysfunctional on the inside, how real-world results are irrelevant compared to sitting around moaning about their lives, and how middle-aged grown-ups are somehow praiseworthy for regressing to their pre-teen years. That show is pretty awful.
TL;DR TV people behave like real people and I don’t like it.
I do wonder how much of the backlash S2 has had has been caused by its lack of engagement with the football related issues. I imagine a lot of the viewers thought they were watching a football show and are now disappointed.Personally I agree – while I can certainly understand that it’s not a football show really, and it’s more about the interpersonal dynamics of a workplace, the show does seem to be ignoring the mechanics of the football team to a fault.If they’re going to use the football team as a framing device, completely neglecting it to the point where the action just seems unrealistic really breaks the immersion.
I don’t think it’s the primary problem with this season, but it’s a big one. The primary issue, IMO, is the overwhelming amount of navel gazing and childishness from the characters…utterly unconcerned with achieving anything beyond exploring their feelings. They weren’t this way last year…they were driven people with a goal by the end of the year, bring the team back to glory and win the Premier League. Now they just sit around and wallow in their feelings with no real point to their jobs or lives.And here’s a dose of reality…as Trent Crimm said in season one “This club means something to people”. If Ted Lasso wasn’t crushing the competition in the Championship, looking at automatic promotion, his folksy personality would *never* save him in England. The fans would *hate* him. They’d be screaming for his head every week. They’d be calling Rebecca every name under the sun for not fixing the problem. The press would *never* give her a pass and ignore her messy personal life. The fans care about the wins and losses with their teams. So does the press. So do the players…if they aren’t winning in the Championship, they’re looking to force a transfer to get to a team with a shot at the European tournaments, because their careers are short and that’s where the money is. All of this is just ignored for some b.s. storyline about whether Rebecca will find true love with some 21 year old she barely talked to in Season 1. What’s the problem with this season? The characters, except for Roy and Keeley (and probably Nate, whose heel turn is actually pretty good), are completely inauthentic. They were people you cared about and rooted for in season 1. This season they’re caricatures spouting gooey-eyed, feel-good b.s. and there’s nothing really at stake for them except their feelings.
I want to disagree with you, because I’ve genuinely loved this season and forgiven its flaws, but I think you’re right. I prefer the show when it’s not dwelling on Rebecca or Ted’s romantic life. For no better reason really than I find it refreshingly unconventional when a show doesn’t go where you expect it to go. Having said that, however…I guess that’s what they’re doing by not focusing on the football aspect, but I don’t like that. While football hasn’t been the primary draw of the series for me, even I’m puzzled by how much they’re neglecting this storyline this season.I have to agree that the focus this season on everyone’s hidden emotional dysfunction — which I like, on paper — hasn’t been developed well. For me, the episodes are still working on an emotional level…I’m heavily invested in the characters, and I think for the most part the writing is still strong…but the season is nearly over and it barely feels halfway done.
I don’t think football should be the primary draw of this show, but if they’re running a football team, it still has to be a focal point of the show. For professional athletes and coaches, it is an overwhelming, all-consuming part of their lives, because their careers can end at any point. Without it? No narrative tension.I suppose that the reason the season feels so rushed is partly because the progression of the football season is our best way of marking time for storylines in this season and gauging progression in their lives. Football mattered in the characters’ lives last season because success or failure at work determined if they stayed around. Now they might as well be working for a failing paper company with a weird goofy boss who doesn’t always understand boundaries between work life and personal life and has lots of unresolved past trauma and work is irrelevant…problem is, that show has already been done, and “Ted Lasso” is going to flame out badly if it tries to go that route.
this was the worst episode of Ted Lasso so far. i would have swapped the C+ from last week’s episode, with the B+ of this episode. Last week’s episode was great and absurd, this week’s episode just felt rushed and so mechanically plotted that it was obvious and brought me out of the narrative.1. i hate the “smart kid” troupe, and in this show that little kid can just f**k off.2. Roy actor can’t act to save his life. it feels like i’ve reached a limit with is bad acting. and he won an emmy for it?3. Rebecca and Sam don’t have chemistry.4. the editing from Rebecca and Ted unraveling didn’t work. I would have prefered they were unedited together and we could have took in the emotion more.5. that funeral sing a long was soooo cringe and obvious. 6. giles from buffy definitely whispered in Nate’s ear that he will make him a manager at a rival club.7. colin is hot. fact.
I actually liked Jaime’s confession and his acting in that scene. To me, it more registered as a sign of his growth. He seemed to be saying that he knew it was a bad time and that Keeley was happy with Roy, but he just had to get it off of his chest before he regretted it. I don’t think he was trying to get back with her, just let her know that he was at one point and still cares about her. That was huge for his character imo. He’s been stealing glances at Keeley for a while now, so it checks out.I also felt like Rebecca’s monologue, even though it was intercut with Ted’s, somehow ended up being stronger. Don’t get me wrong, Ted’s breakthrough was really emotional, but I feel like Hannah sold hers more and I started tearing up during that scene. I did cry when she started singing as her eulogy. She’s a great actor.
“Definitely intentional, I thought, given the way they didn’t try to fit in any dialogue in between.”
Really? You don’t think that happened by accident???
“I’m just going to note we’re still waiting for any other piece of evidence to go along with it.”
Not every minor character is a major character, you know.
I understood the artistic idea behind the cross cut of Rebecca and Ted’s stories, and I dig Myles’ take, but I found it super jarring and unpleasant to cut away from such a formative story and character-climax. I really wished the director stayed on Ted and figured out a more elegant way to weave his story with Rebecca’s.
Way to namedrop Sepinwall LOL
I agree that the Keeley/Roy/Jamie triangle feels very much plucked out of nowhere and at least in this corner, it’s unwelcome. Part of Keeley’s charm is that she’s turned what should be on the surface a very silly character into a force of nature who knows what she wants and knows how to stick up for her friends. I don’t really look forward to her dithering back and forth over Jamie and Roy (especially as, let’s face it, Roy Kent is motherfuckin’ Roy Kent. Plus his song is much less annoying than Jamie’s). Maybe this is just a late-minute gotcha and Ted Lasso will not choose to go down that path. They’ve certainly taken the road not traveled before, so I hope they do here again.Rebecca’s house and her comically tiny doorways made me laugh so much. That looked like maybe a Grade II Georgian? In which case, yeah, ridiculously tiny doorways. That’s Rebecca for you, born to always be bigger than her circumstances would suggest.Rebecca, Sassy and Keeley having a gossip at the funeral made me chuckle. I too have been told to “keep it down” by an irate priest before a funeral. Additionally, I loved that little detail of FaceTiming Jane in so that she could see the body. I enjoy her and Beard’s weirdness. (Also, since Beard quickly ends the call when it’s time for Rebecca to speak, it’s clear he does understand the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable – at least sometimes.)I don’t know how this show has managed to turn ASH into this much of a villain (and an increasingly sexy one?), but I am dying to know what he said to Nate.Having your parent die of suicide is terrible. Having to be the one to find the body (and, as Ted describes it, he was basically right there) is going to call all kinds of fucked up feelings. I want to hug teenage Ted. (Also, am I right in thinking that both his dad’s suicide and Rebecca’s dad’s cheating happened on Friday the 13th, 199__? Or was that just me not following the editing very well between cuts?)
My read on that editing was that it wasn’t literally the same day, but did happen in the same year.
It pretty clearly was the same date. Friday the 13th was a Friday in September 1991 to edit it like that and not have it be the same date makes less sense. The other Friday the 13th in 1991 was December.
The fact that I’m streaming the episodes in rapid succession has made it less enjoyable with each passing episode. After two in a row I just want Ted to STFU. The jokes and puns have become an annoyance, whether intended or not. I just stop paying attention to his scenes. It’s damn near impossible to write that many good alliterative jokes (“that’s like when……(long winded joke, falls flat) or puns. I was really in to it season 1, first four episodes or so, but I’ve been less and less enthralled ever since. I understand they had two filler episodes, but the Coach Beard episode was an absolute throw away and waste of time. I so wanted this to get better, not worse.