Ted Lasso takes a narrative detour without a whole lot to show for it
We like Coach Beard, but was this the right time in the season to spend 40+ minutes on his misadventures?
TV Reviews Ted Lasso
The reveal that Ted’s father died by suicide was a critical turning point in Ted Lasso’s second season, and a reminder that the show is not afraid to put silly comedy alongside heavier drama. Overall, I would argue that Ted Lasso is objectively good at calibrating its various tones, but it is also very much invested in testing the boundaries of what it can accomplish, and embracing the excesses of the emotional swings to maximize their effect. But as we saw with the Christmas episode, some viewers have natural limits: no one could ever argue that the DNA for a sappy Christmas special wasn’t part of Ted Lasso’s first season, but it’s only natural that some felt there is such a thing as too much sentiment. And while I was fine with the Christmas episode, I experienced something similar last week with the sweeping romanticism of Sam and Rebecca, which—even if it eventually gets complicated—seemed to flatten their story arcs to that point.
There were a few comments last week that framed this criticism as “being mad the show didn’t do what you wanted it to,” but I would argue that it’s instead a reminder that Ted Lasso’s tonal mashup creates varying understandings of what type of show it is and what its goals are, and in any given week it will position itself relative to those different wavelengths. The Christmas episode triggered this in particular because it was added to the season after Apple asked them for two additional episodes, and they chose to find space to add “bonus” episodes as opposed to re-breaking the season arc they had planned. Thus, while most of the season’s episodes were designed as part of a larger balancing act, the Christmas episode was conceived outside of that framework, and was more clearly able to indulge in the holiday spirit as it saw fit.
This is why I’m so curious how viewers will respond to “Beard After Hours,” which is almost certainly the second of the two episodes that Apple requested be added to the season. Because while the Christmas episode indulged in well-worn tropes of holiday specials to test the limits of the show’s schmaltz, “Beard After Hours’’ is far more experimental, both in isolating its focus to a single character and in sending that character on a reality-bending journey into London’s nightlife that’s far afield from the show’s regular tone. Struggling to shake off the sheer scale of the loss to Man City, and weathering his latest breakup with Jane, Beard stumbles through a series of misadventures that give us our first real insight beyond his inscrutable demeanor as he loses his pants, squabbles with an imaginary Thierry Henry, and eventually finds religion with Jane and a hula hoop.
Although not quite as ubiquitous as Christmas episodes, the “POV shift” is nonetheless a recognizable episode structure, and one that on the surface would seem like an easy way to “pad out” the season without having to disrupt the narrative flow. POV shifts are meant to be revealing, either focusing on a character’s perspective to reorient our understanding of the story as a whole, or by delivering a side story for that character that reorients their place within the main narrative (or, in an ideal world, both). In an interview about the Christmas episode, Rob Kelly—who wrote that episode and co-wrote this one—said that their goal was to position the standalone episodes between “when shit goes down and is about to go down,” which is naturally a point at which the audience is reflecting on the season thus far. And so going into “Beard After Hours,” my expectation was that his journey would be a bridge between the Man City loss and whatever the fallout will be, and that our new understanding of his perspective would shape those events.
Unfortunately, though, that never materialized, and I regret to say that I found “Beard After Hours” to be almost shockingly dull. Some of this has to do with specific creative choices made within the episode. For one, it’s at least ten minutes too long: the idea that we needed as much time to explore Beard’s night out as we did to tell the stories in last week’s episode is absurd, and I don’t really understand how this wasn’t trimmed down either in the original script stage or in editing. The pacing is glacial, and there are scenes—like his failed attempt to convince the hotel desk clerk to let him use his phone—that are entirely irrelevant to even the minimal plot details supporting this meandering narrative. I realize that the spiraling of the story—the femme fatale, the jealous boyfriend chase scene, the fist fight with Jamie’s father—is meant to be like he’s trapped in a never-ending cliche of movie tropes, but the episode lacks the forward momentum to make that feel thrilling instead of a bit of a slog.
However, it’s important to acknowledge that it’s impossible to divorce our experience of this episode from its place within the season, which is a far more difficult spot to justify this type of narrative diversion than even the Christmas outing. Early in a season, each episode carries a smaller burden in terms of extending or building on the overall narrative, but “Man City” dramatically raised the stakes of the season, and the meandering quality of “Beard After Hours” is hard to accept in that context. The episode begins with the suggestion that we’ll be unpacking Beard’s relationship with Ted and the team, as the imaginary commentators reveal his insecurities over allowing the team’s offensive plan to move forward, and he’s trying to chase away his memories of the game throughout the night. But all his quest to avoid the game did was remind me how I really wish the episode wasn’t avoiding the game, and that this episode needed to do more to connect with the show’s other stories from Beard’s perspective for it to feel like anything other than a waste of time at this point in the season.
I might have felt differently if the episode had actually revealed much of anything about Beard, but it ended up having very little to actually say. Brendan Hunt’s performance as Beard has always been built on mystery, and it’s an important part of the show’s dynamic. The scene in the first season where he loses his cool with Ted and reminds him that they’re dealing with professional athletes now is one of the few instances where it feels like we’re getting a glimpse of something beneath the public presentation he’s chosen. And while we get a bit more of an unfiltered look at Beard’s mind as he gets philosophical with the barflies and stumbles through his misadventures, the episode never commits to revealing anything significant that would reorient our understanding of his choices, and certainly not enough to justify how much time is spent on the endeavor. When he’s in the team meeting with coffee the next morning in his shiny new pants, the goal is to create a moment where we know a story that his fellow coaches don’t, but what does knowing that story really add to our experience of the show?
Of course, this is in some ways unknowable: if a goal of a POV shift is to reorient us for the story that’s about to come, we don’t know that story, and thus it’s possible some piece of what we saw here in “Beard After Hours” could be vitally important in the remaining three episodes of the season. But given how much story there is left to tell with the conclusion of the Championship League season, and the fallout from everything that happened in “Man City,” it’s hard to wrap my head around how 40 minutes of Beard is the best use of the show’s time. I don’t know if it’s that I’m less interested in Beard’s character than others are, or if I’m just at a different place with regards to the season’s story arc, but I constantly felt like the story was isolating itself in an unproductive space throughout the episode. And yes, because it wasn’t working for me, I did start brainstorming other options, if they wanted to shift perspective. What if we had gone home with several different players who usually remain in the background? What if Beard had split time in the episode with someone like Higgins as a point of juxtaposition?
I realize this kind of armchair-rewriting is considered poor form, but the issue with “Beard After Hours” is that we know the episode was a solution to the problem of Apple’s late request for additional episodes, and that the writers had to make a decision about what to add to the season without actually changing the season. And while the ultimate judgment on their choice will be when the season concludes and we see whether anything here adds value to what’s still to come, the episode fails to justify the time spent on this diversion given the important stories that were left unaddressed for an extra week.
However, while the isolated nature of “Beard After Hours” is its biggest problem, it also minimizes its impact on the season as a whole. Whereas the show’s handling of Sam’s protest and his subsequent relationship with Rebecca have eroded some of my trust of the season’s storytelling, the same isn’t true of this episode, because it was “extra.” While I didn’t connect with the strategy they chose for adding this to the season, the reality is that the show is going to reset to its “normal” self next week, and we’ll see how the show intends to pay off its various story threads and bring the season in for a landing. I’m just a bit perplexed as to why the plane took this particular detour at this particular time, and so we can add that bit of confusion to the list of story points in need of resolution in the remaining episodes.
Stray observations
- “Would you BELIEVE they did such a thing?!”—although I don’t think it was worth the episode being as long as it was, I did appreciate the extra time with the barflies from The Crown and Anchor, and appreciated that Beard helped them cap off their epic evening.
- Beard’s confrontation with Jamie’s father and his goons is the closest the episode gets to directly tying into the “real world,” as it were, so I’m intrigued by whether it’s something that ever materializes again or if this whole affair really is effectively written off as a fever dream if not for his fancy pants and mild facial abrasions.
- Martin Solveig and Dragonette’s “Hello”—which soundtracks Jane and Beard’s reunion—is one of those songs that I imagined would have been licensed by a lot of movies and TV shows, but a search brought up only a handful, but one of them was Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, but I regret to inform you that it was not a song performed by either the eponymous trio or their counterparts the Chipettes. I’d be linking to it if it was.
- Speaking of music, I appreciate that they did remixes of the show’s theme song for both of the stand-alone episodes, and the melancholy version used here—with vocals from Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy—was a nice way to signal a shift of pace even if it didn’t fully match the rest of the episode.
- And yes, I love that the barflies on the pitch scene was worth enough that Apple shelled out for “We Are The Champions.”
- Although the screener for this episode was only released this week, the special effects were still in an early state, which was mostly fine except for that when Beard entered his apartment, he did his ritual to a set of visual effects reference dots, meaning that as I write this I have no idea what they super-imposed into that location. I’ll report back after the episode goes up at midnight. (Update: Okay, I thought it would be a person, but it’s some kind of building that I don’t recognize? Please advise.)
- “Look, Gary – the man has no va va voom”—I don’t know if any of the show’s football cameos have been star turns, per se, but they’re effective collectively speaking, and I enjoyed Henry mistaking Fight Club for Moonrise Kingdom. [EDIT: And now I realize misheard this line going over my notes on the episode and missed the part BEFORE he said Ed Norton, which I now realize was about curb stomping and thus American History X. My bad.]
- Revisiting the early parts of the episode, I’m not sure which parts of the story we’re meant to see as real or not: when Mae attacks Beard about the offensive strategy, for example, I presume the first ribbing is in his head, but the return attack was in his head? Or was she really just that angry?
- “One night is good. Two nights are perfect. Three nights is too many”—Beard, on Vegas.
- I admittedly didn’t really catch the significance of the blue moons—the one in the sky, the sign on the club—the first time through, but then I figured out that they used “Blue Moon” as the soundtrack for the rout by Man City in the previous episode.
213 Comments
American History X?
Can’t really disagree about the pacing, but I did like this one since it was stylistically interesting, and past due for more of a spotlight on Beard. Knowing of course that this was an extra episode means it won’t move the plot forward, though I do think it gave a good amount of insight into him, showing his self-loathing (which I don’t think has been brought up before) and how that ties into his toxic relationship.I could see this kind of serving as specific background for where his head’s at going into the last stretch of episodes, like all season it’s seemed like he should maybe notice more of what’s going on with Ted and Nate, but that was because we only got a hint of what he really had going on.
Blue Moon is Man City’s anthem, like You’ll Never Walk Alone for Liverpool or I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles for West Ham. Beard probably saw it as a horrible portent sent by the gods.
I love how you phrased this as though those other examples would help clarify the concept, as opposed to my being equally oblivious. (Thank you for the clarification, truly, that makes way more sense.)
Ha, I mean they’re all songs the fans sing when they’re excited. Or emotional. Or drunk. Or fighty.
Or at the beginning of each game.
You don’t understand anthem?
Do you need me to tie your shoes?
You’re Canadian, it’s like Habs fans singing Olé.
Heh, yes, this is the correct analogue. (I do understand the principles of fight songs broadly, let’s be clear.)
Don’t forget the mascots for City are Moochester and Moonbeam!
Isn’t Wonderwall the unofficial anthem for City? You know, cause of Liam and all.
Giving my an excuse to post my absolute favorite of Antonio’s celebrations. Massive win yesterday. COYI!.
Also note that in the last scene Ted juuust happens to say “Once in a blue moon, there’s a game so bad…”
Allegedly that’s the origin of the song as a Man City favourite, because there was a joke going round in the late 80s that City only won once in a blue moon, so the fans took it to heart.
I’ve been a City Girl since the days of relegation and I’m always torn between Blue Moon bringing up memories of City or of An American Werewolf in London. Either way, win.
I enjoyed Henry mistaking Fight Club for Moonrise Kingdom.Pretty sure he was mistaking American History X, where there’s a famously unnerving curb stomp scene, for Moonrise Kingdom, not Fight Club.
First time, long time here, calling to see if I’m the only one here, but I’m genuinely perplexed by this reviewer. I am rather convinced that we’re watching two different shows. “However, while the isolated nature of “Beard After Hours” is its biggest problem, it also minimizes its impact on the season as a whole … he same isn’t true of this episode, because it was “extra.” So while this episode was a bit of a bottle episode as it were, it was very clearly tying into the overall mental health theme of this season, and both Ted and Beard fully coming to terms with living overseas and coaching a sport that’s still incredibly foreign to one of them (Ted). “…and weathering his latest breakup with Jane.”I’m convinced this guy didn’t actually pay attention to the episode. Beard didn’t break up with Jane, he was struggling with accepting the fact that he loved someone so much, but had no idea how to allow himself to be happy enough with himself to love her back. He even said it out loud when he was with the redhead that his happiest moments were as a single man, and that he was pretty much terrified of letting Jane in because he didn’t know how, but that deep down he wanted to. There’s no way that Apple insisted this episode be made, I think this was the perfect encapsulation of Beard and his struggles to adapt to life in a foreign country, in the perfect Lasso style. There was some really deep, affecting moments in this episode, particularly where he was struggling with going out quick and easy that were quite impactful to me, but what I love about this show is that even tho they put you in a dark place like that, the moments with the Baz, Jeremy and Paul we’re absolutely wonderful. I loved every moment with them and Beard, I mean I remember one of the criticisms from this website last year being that they hoped the background characters would get more exposure in season 2, and I think that what we’ve gotten so far has been largely successful and entertaining. As a died hard fan of a team, I won’t mention right now, the moments with the 3 of them on the pitch were damn near perfect for me.I remember the AVClub back before Kinja, those were the days.Also how does someone who is paid to review TV & Movies not know American History X?
Four things.1) Given everything we know, this is indeed an episode that Apple asked them to add to the order. This isn’t to say that Apple literally forced them to make an episode focused on Beard, but the episode and its creative choices only exist because of the additional episodes that were ordered. The value you saw in it was not part of the season as it was originally broken.
2) Given that a key point in my review is how the show’s tonal choices create wildly divergent reactions to things, I agree that we’re probably in a way watching different shows, and so I mostly see this as a feature rather than a bug, and as opposed to an intense disagreement (and legitimately appreciate your adding your voice to the discussion, that’s the whole point of this).3) I won’t contest the idea there are thematic points to be made in the episode (it’s not like I gave it an F), but my point is that there are times in the season where such a rumination works and parts where it doesn’t, based on my own relationship to the season’s narrative and the show’s current priorities. We’re on different wavelengths with this, and—again—that’s just how this works. You were deeply invested in what was happening in this episode. I was very, very bored. We’re coming together to discuss why that is.
4) To your point about my not paying attention, I admittedly missed the first part of the Ed Norton line when taking notes, so touche. It’s been corrected. But on the topic of Jane, Beard has broken up with her for not saying “I love you” when the episode begins, and is clearly weathering it, so I’m not sure where the confusion rests there.(Oh, fifth thing: I pre-date Kinja, so your fight’s just with me here.)
“The value you saw in it was not part of the season as it was originally broken.
Stop pretending you know shit you don’t know. Just review the fucking show.
Maybe get obsessed with the music budget AGAIN.
Thematically, this episode could have done something really interesting, and I hung in until the end waiting for that to happen, but it never did. There were some fun moments, but overall we learned nothing new about Beard; no actual character work happened here, which made the whole thing a massive missed opportunity.
“Beard didn’t break up with Jane”
He very specifically did break up with her.
…What do people think a bottle episode is?
A bottle episode, to be clear, is an episode that takes place in one location. One room, most of the time. This is about as far away from a bottle episode as one could get while staying in London.The episode doesn’t really accomplish anything because Beard has been on and off again with this woman for the entirety of the series. And it’s not just his fault. She’s a bit of a kook. I don’t know that he’s wise to pursue her. So whether he comes to some epiphany this night doesn’t mean anything for tomorrow night. He, you’ll recall, was the one who trotted out the word “Love” (*hack, gag wheeze*) and didn’t get it reciprocated. So the guy seems in touch with what he’s after. This episode didn’t really reveal that much about Beard, either. He’s making appearances in other people’s stories half the night.I agree that the Bar Cronies having a bigger role tonight was great. I hope to see more of them
Def agree it’s not the conventional definition of a bottle episode, but in essence, by cutting all main cast (save one) they saved a ton of a money and added flexibility to scheduling, which is the ultimate point of these.
I’m convinced this guy didn’t actually pay attention to the episode. Beard didn’t break up with Jane
Of course he did. He tells Mae they broke up, he tells her why, and the whole context of their texts at the pub are basically her telling him to stop being a baby and come have fun with her.And then, when Beard finally gets his phone back, he’s missed 72 messages and 52 calls from her, and in canonical show time, Jane goes from “If you’re not going to join me, I at least hope you’re having fun” to “I do Love you, you know” to “You’re dead to me. Lterallly dead, like, I hope you’re lying face down in a ditch somehwere and a squirrel is [hand blocking]” in less than 90 minutes! Brendan Hunt’s 49 and not coded much younger; Phoebe Walsh’s age is unlisted but it’s fair to say she’s playing in her 30s. They’re both too old for this shit.
You can infer Beard’s expat/isolated status as maybe feeding his codependence, but it’s certainly not shown. Either way, Jane’s at least as big of a mess as he is, and everybody at Richmond who cares about him knows it. Strip away some of the cartoonishness of the episode and you’re still looking at a middle-aged assistant coach who overreacted to a predictable bad loss by going on a bit of a bender, getting the shit beaten out of him, and getting back together with his toxic ex, the sum consequences of which so far is that his face is scraped up and he’s tired the next day at work.
Be honest: do you think the show’s going to spend any time on this, or give any space to Jane to be anything other than her impact on Beard?
Spot on. Well done, brah…er…breh.
I’m amazed that the fact this episode is a love letter to Martin Scorsese’s neglected 80s gem, After Hours, which starred Griffin Dunne, as a hapless shunned lover getting knocked around the Downtown Scene of 80s NYC seems to have gone unnoticed. It’s a pastiche or an homage, or maybe Coach Beard’s fever flashback to seeing it in an art house in Lawrence. I really felt like that picture at times, only replacing Dunne’s manic panic with Beard’s stoicism. One needs to chill, the other needs to get knocked out of his low.
And let’s not forget that ultimately, like Ted Lasso does, it’s a meditation on love and friendship, in the pressure cooker of terra incognito.And it was fun! And definitely check out the Scorsese picture, too.
I disagree with you entirely about this episode. 100% disagree. It doesn’t affect the pacing of the series for me at all, particularly as it’s refreshingly week-by-week.Gary is Gary Lineker is probably the most recognisable face in British football. He presents Match of the Day, the most famous football show in the world, a legend for the England team, Golden Boot winner, and face of Walkers Crisps for years.
I don’t think the show should be about the overall success of the club, per se, but it would help me understand Ted and Beard’s mental states better if I knew how the club was performing. Having just played the FA cup semi they must be close to the end of the season and I have no idea if they’re mid-table, on the verge of promotion, etc.
We actually got a glimpse of the white board with their record at the very end of the episode. Richmond is 21-16-6 in the league and on 79 points with 3 games left in the season. That means they’ve taken 53 points from the last 63 available to them and are likely quite comfortably in the playoff places with an outside chance of automatic promotion.
At least in the league, they are doing VERY well.
I agree that the episode was too long. This is the first time watching an episode where my attention really wandered. In the future, when I rewatch this series, this will be an episode I skip.
Good examples of arc-breaking POV-shifted episodes that actually work (and even pay off, narratively) include Mythic Quest season 1’s “A Dark Quiet Death” and season 2’s “Backstory!” In fact, the former is so good that—despite how much I enjoy the regular cast—I kind of wish the show was about Doc and Bean instead. Mythic Quest was also smart enough to release their overly schmaltzy, disbelief suspending Christmas special outside of the regular season…in April, but whatever. Follow Mythic Quest’s lead, Ted Lasso!
“Zuko Alone” from Avatar The Last Airbender is the gold standard for me.
I loved this episode. I enjoyed the pacing and I’m happy it didn’t end when Beard said he wanted to go home. The back to back film references were a delight as well. Brett Goldstein said that he and Joe Kelly wrote this as a love letter to Brendan Hunt and I think it showed. I could see how it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but this Ted Lasso obsessive film geek gives the episode a solid “A” rating.
We watched ‘After Hours’ again this week to prep for the episode. It had some parallels, but was a good spiritual successor. I forgot it was directed by Scorcese and wonder why it’s never really mentioned in his pantheon of great works.
Probably not the most timely or astute observation, but this sounds like yet more evidence that the writers put everything that had into season one, never expecting they would have to write more. There are moments in every episode this season where I feel like a PA is standing just barely out of the frame and making taffy-stretching motions to the actors.
My understanding is that Sudeikis & co started with a 3 season structure. I’ve listened to/read interviews with actors like Nick Mohammed, Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham who have mentioned being taken aside and told information that we won’t see materialise until season 3. And that this season is kind of the “Empire Strikes Back” dark zone that ultimately serves a purpose (we shall see).That doesn’t mean they’re not dealing with some sophomore slump-type stuff, whether in regards to unmet expectations or in figuring out how to incorporate extra content for minor characters without detracting from the overall arc.Tl;dr: It was a 3 season vision from the get-go. And the second season was already largely written before season 1 even dropped (with the notable exception of the 2 add-on episodes).
OK, if that’s what they say then I have no room to disagree. Still, though. This season sucks; I have the same taste in my mouth with this season that I had about four episodes in to True Detective’s second season.
There’s just no way the writers go with a Felliniesque-Kubrickian After Hours tribute bottle episode starring the character with the narrowest emotional range if there’s a better story—or really any story!—to be told. What’s next? A Christmas episode? To air in August?
“And the second season was already largely written before season 1 even dropped (with the notable exception of the 2 add-on episodes).”
The show was renewed for a second season five days after they dropped the first three episodes of season one. Care to explain how you think the second season was “largely written” before the show was even renewed? Also, it wasn’t “planned” as a three-season show, Bill Lawrence said in 2021 that it would “likely be a three-season show” because of Sudeikis’s schedule.Would you like to cite any of your sources, since all your opinions seem to be largely dismissable?
Oh, you’re making things up even though it’s 2021 and all your bullshit is easily researched and debunked??
Why do that? Why do you need so badly to win an argument that you will simply make things up?
I received a ‘sophomore slump’ notification for this?! 😛
The reveal that Ted’s father committed suicidePlease stop using this phrase.
I’m really confused by this statement. Why? What else should be said? I’m someone who’s battled suicidal ideation my entire life, and I’ve had several friends and family members die that way. “Committed suicide” doesn’t offend me in the slightest, and I can’t figure out why it would. What is wrong with that phrase?
The new standard language is “died by suicide.” There’s a ton of literature out there explaining the change.“The term ‘committed suicide’ is damaging because for many, if not most, people it evokes associations with ‘committed a crime’ or ‘committed a sin’ and makes us think about something morally reprehensible or illegal,” said Jacek Debiec, an assistant professor in the University of Michigan’s department of psychiatry who specializes in post-traumatic stress and anxiety disorders.”https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mental-health-language-committed-suicide_l_5aeb53ffe4b0ab5c3d6344abI’ll be honest, I find the language change clunky but there it is.
Sure, I’ll switch. I find social language policing mind-numbingly exhausting, even when it’s ostensibly being done to protect me, but whatever. “Died by suicide” it is.
Agreed. This very much looks like a situation of good intentions run amok but it’s also one where I just don’t argue about it. That usually ends badly. We’re having a decent conversation in these comments but that’s rare.
Please don’t use the word “rare.” It makes me think of raw bloody meat and that makes my tum-tum hurt.
Also, thanks for the explanation. I could’ve Googled instead of just bitching. That was very thorough and helpful.
I can see how “committed” is problematic, and it’s important to avoid criminalizing suicide, but “died by suicide” doesn’t quite sit right with me either. Something about removing agency and intentionality from the equation entirely—essentially saying that dying by suicide is the direct equivalent of dying of a heart attack or cancer—seems…weird to me.
I feel the same way. I don’t think of suicide as something that happens to people. It’s the result of a choice. A tragic one but still a choice.
Mental illness is still illness. People who die by suicide are generally dying by depression (or related disorders). It’s not that they have no agency, but they generally feel that they have no other options. So is it the same as a heart attack? Well, no, but haven’t you noticed people stigmatize heart disease and cancer as being contributed to by personal choice?
Eh. I guess you could say “lost the battle with depression/anxiety/insert mental illness here” like people do when they say someone “lost the battle with cancer” (side note: I hate that phrase. It makes it seem like the person who died just didn’t mount up enough cavalry or something). I’ve seen people use “died after struggling with depression” but to me that goes back to that “battle with cancer” phrasing.Died by suicide seems okay to me, or better than alternatives, at least. If someone has a stroke, we would say “died from having a stroke” so it seems fairly similar.
“I can see how “committed” is problematic, and it’s important to avoid criminalizing suicide”
The sad thing is that it’s 2021 and “commit” is only apparently allowed to mean one thing, so nobody is allowed to say it because some people are too stupid to understand that “commit” isn’t JUST something you do related to crime.
Now I’m rethinking my committed relationship.
“Committing” makes me think of marriage before I think of crime, which is even more harrowing and intense than suicide.
it’s less about offense on a personal level, and more about reshaping general perception and/or stigma around suicide: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/why-mental-health-advocates-use-words-died-suicide-ncna880546no one’s forced to use it, but i think it’s a nice change. it’s true that “commit” is often used when describing a crime, so, i get wanting to move away from that word when talking about suicide.
Reshaping should be done by example, not simply hectoring TV critics.
The man killed himself. I’d say he was committed. Jeez. Also, is this not deemed an at least undesirable act? I’m pretty sure I committed that to memory somewhere along the line.
We got to see Jane. Any episode where we get to see Jane is good. Jane is cool.
Is she, though? I thought the whole thing was that Jane was toxic
Jane is, indeed toxic…or isn’t. The show seems to be back and forth on this. When in doubt, I say, move on.
Yep. This was a stumble. Not terrible but a stumble. It seemed too many ideas were thrown at the wall borrowing from “After Hours”and “Eyes Wide Shut” and then decided to double down in hopes of amping the absurdity. Unfortunately leaving behind much of the wit. But Brendan Hunt delivered everything he could what was on the page and clearly elevated much of it. It certainly needed to be tighter. Also cutting, (irrespective of how gleeful) from Beard to the three regulars at the bar inside the stadium, screwed up the isolated point of view his night on the town.But be damn with that last cut of his silly pants when putting his legs on the desk, tipping his ball cap down to sleep wasn’t worth the whole trip.
“But be damn with that last cut of his silly pants when putting his legs on the desk, tipping his ball cap down to sleep wasn’t worth the whole trip.”
Yo, agreed.
It hit like one of those early, or season 2 episodes, of “Community” or “Silicon Valley” (not sure if you’re a fan of either or not), where they pan out from the Study Room, or Erlich’s house, and you just go “this is one of the best goddamn shows on television”.
And even though “Ted Lasso” isn’t my favorite show, it’s when a show can pull off those moments of magic where it’s just some people sitting in a room, releasing the steam after a potent experience, that you realize, in your words, watching it is “worth the whole trip”.
“And so going into “Beard After Hours,” my expectation was that his journey would be a bridge between the Man City loss and whatever the fallout will be, and that our new understanding of his perspective would shape those events. Unfortunately, though, that never materialized, and I regret to say that I found “Beard After Hours” to be almost shockingly dull.”That’s a perfect example of how *not* to review something. If a story doesn’t unfold the way you were expecting it to or the way you wanted it to, that’s not a fault of the writers.“I realize this kind of armchair-rewriting is considered poor form, but the issue with “Beard After Hours” is that we know the episode was a solution to the problem of Apple’s late request for additional episodes, and that the writers had to make a decision about what to add with the season without actually changing the season.”That’s not an issue at all, because 99.9% of viewers had no idea at all that Apple requested additional episodes this season. “ I enjoyed Henry mistaking Fight Club for Moonrise Kingdom.”
it seems like the effort put into Ted Lasso reviews is now just aimed at finding anything possible to complain about, just for the sake of it. it’s not just this site, but this site is definitely part of it. i guess Ted Lasso just isn’t cool anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m not sure how “cool” this show ever really was, and that’s a big part of why I love it. Any show as popular and earnest as “Ted Lasso” is bound to trigger a backlash sooner or later, but this reviewer strained so hard to be critical that I’m worried he’ll hurt himself and wind up in a Roy Kent ice bath.
This is partly why people will hate a show without having watched it. Fans who rush to the first scent of criticism to defend their current fad are toxic and taint the general perception of the show itself.
Critic hates being criticized.There’s a surprise.
It’s okay to dislike a single episode of a TV show. You can still like the show. It’s really okay, I promise.
I’m happy Brendan Hunt got a showcase episode and I couldn’t care less if some people found it to be tangential to the series.
I’m sure other commenters have noted these points already, but I loved Coach Beard’s paraphrased “Fight Club” quote in the elevator ride to the club, and how when the three lads took Beard’s instruction to strut, one of them did the Nate strut from season one. 🙂
“which is almost certainly the second of the two episodes that Apple requested be added to the season.”
Thank Christ the second one has arrived so maybe you can fuck off and shut the fuck up about the extra episodes.
While I already enjoyed this episode a lot as a standalone, it also seems destined to make a lot more sense when we look back on its place in both the season and overall show arc.I can’t say I didn’t really want to explore the immediate fallout of Ted, Jamie, and Roy’s big moments last week, but having the context on Beard’s journey has now positioned him as a key player on this great big chess game on my emotions. Last week’s hug put my heart in check, now they’ve moved the bearded knight in place and I’m ready for an absolute checkmate.
I feel like fhis was a breather episode, giving the series an uptick in mood so any downer energy next week doesnt drag things too far down. Not that this is that kind of show
Also, what’s the deal with Jane? Are we supposed to be rooting for her and Beard? I thought she was supposed to be bad for Beard. But now she…isn’t? I assume they’re trying to give it a layered approach, where she does some good for Beard, and Beard is in love and doesn’t see it, but sometimes complexity and layers can come across as incoherence.
Admittedly, I went to grab a glass of water and came back halfway through the scene, but Jane’s text freakout when she texted Beard and he didn’t immediately respond was a huge red flag. Girl, sometimes people’s phones die.
On the one hand, yes, but on the other, she’s been at an all-night rave and has probably been tripping for hours.
Yeah! Why aren’t all the relationships on the show cut and dried?!?!?!?!
I get what they were doing with this episode (a nod to Scorsese’s ‘After Hours’ and numerous other films set over the course of a tumultuous night), but I was disappointed that we learned so little about Beard that we didn’t already know. He’s dated a lot, has a kind soul, takes losing harder than he initially lets on, and is the master of deadpan. But by the end of the episode we have learned nothing new about him. I get that he’s an enigmatic character and that’s a well that can be drawn on for humorous purposes a least a couple of times an episode, but I was hoping we’d discover at least a little more about what makes him tick outside of his neverending search for love.
Beard has the same problem as Ted in that they can’t be honest with their feelings. They both deflect or stay quiet when their insides want to say something or just cry. Beard hating losing but not saying a word tells me he needs to see the therapist.
I wasn’t sure I liked this at first. The tone was different from the main show and I just wanted to get to the fireworks factory, but I did enjoy the episode itself. So I’m counting this as an homage to the classic “let’s not show everyone who Cartman’s dad is, here’s Terrance and Phillip instead” gag and saying I liked it.
Character based “bottle episodes” are often not appreciated contemporaneously (Breaking Bad’s superb “Fly” was widely viewed as one of the worst episodes of the series when it aired.)It’ll be interesting to revisit this review when the series has wrapped to see if there’s a new perspective on it.
That’s ALWAYS interesting, but yes, especially in this case.I do think “Fly” is very different. It’s actually a bottle episode, for one, and it also features two characters, and on central characters at a pivotal point in the story where isolating them to highlight Walt’s growing paranoia is a key thematic beat in the larger story arc. All of that, I would argue, was clear in the moment, whereas while I understand why someone might have enjoyed this episode more than I did, I don’t really think there’s a good argument for it being as vital as “Fly” was thematically (although I’m glad folks are chiming in).
This episode is not what a bottle episode is.
Yeah, I thought a bottle episode was about money: an episode that is filmed with the main cast almost exclusively or a subset of main cast so that few, if any, additional actors need to be cast. And it takes place in one location, preferably using existing sets, so that there is not cost of scouting locations, location filming, etc.
The Fly actually signaled something about the ongoing BB story (Walt realizing the problem that Jesse represents to his life and livelihood — the fly of the episode title). It’s a bottle episode but its import actually impacts the show significantly beyond its borders. This Ted Lasso episode truly did not. That’s not always bad. Some of Gilmore Girls’ best episodes were breaks from forward narrative, but those kinds of hangout episodes are sadly missing in the streaming era. And when they show up now they can feel like squandered opportunities.In any case, I love a good hang with Ted Lasso, even in the off weeks.
When I saw “The Fly” the first time, I was very aware of the fact that what I was watching was “good” and that I would probably appreciate the episode in the future. But, in the the moment, I was just deeply frustrated that the extremely engrossing storylines had been put on pause.
You will still get argument about “Fly.” I understand what they were trying to do but I don’t think they did it well. Failure of execution.
What? Sorry, Myles. I disagree. This was a solid B+.I don’t watch this show for plot momentum. I watch it for the characters. Beard, since day one, has been the hardest character to understand. He’s been a cipher. Someone we know has a rich inner life but is a mystery. This episode sheds some light on that, and it turns out that Coach Beard, full of self-loathing as he is, he remains the coolest motherfucker alive.(Also, totally called it that Tartt Sr. was going to end up jumping Beard. Very glad it wasn’t worse a beating than it does. Ugh, 3v1 is such a coward’s move. Duuuude suuuuucks.) I’m also a sucker for dark nights of the soul detours. I enjoy these kinds of episodes way more than like, overly saccharine Christmas episodes, you know? There was actual catharsis here, and I found Hunt is a captivating leading man. I don’t know if the screener included the VFX of the recurring Blue Moon and Cross imagery showing up at different times throughout the episode, but I thought that it was subtle enough to work at showing his state of mind.Beard is obviously devastated by the loss, and he knows he could have done something to make it less brutal if he’d only spoken up. He’s also seemingly resisting his “salvation” by meeting up with Jane and pulling himself out of his anger about the loss.I think the season will likely “work” more cohesively as a whole, once we get through it, but I’m okay with side stories and detours becoming part of the way it structures itself.My one gripe is that I think Jane should actually get some screen-time. The texts reveal a real person, but if you don’t pause the screen to read them, she just sort of becomes this manic pixie dream girl.
Your point about preferring this to Christmas episodes is a reminder of the wavelength point I’m making above: for me, I love a holiday episode, whereas I don’t know if this type of “dark night of the soul” works for me in the context of a comedy where the tonal shifts are wonkier. (The music, for example, felt like it couldn’t decide if this was a bleak insight into his life or a parody, and I don’t know if that fits the basic genre of the episode).And yeah, I absolutely want them to think about how they can use stand-alone episodes next season as well, although I do think they’ll work better when they’re broken into the season from the beginning.
All this talk about standalone episodes reminds me of Mythic Quest and their standalone episodes. I think the middle-of-the-season ones in MQ is definitely baked and planned into the season instead of being added later like in Ted Lasso, but they’re also similar in that they’re detours just when the main plots are getting tense. The midseason standalones for MQ are universally praised, and I don’t see why the ones in TL should be any different.
Agree that the MQ stand alones are exceptional, but its because they’re actually good and compelling and provide a deeper understanding and context for the character and their motivations. I just… did not feel that way about this episode? It wasn’t exceptional. In this episode we learned he has some imposter syndrome, likes playing an imposter and sees challenging authority as a way to have fun. We learned his lonely. And that he’s in love, but also willing to go back to a woman’s apartment he just met. A focused episode gave us about 6inches of depth on who he is and what motivates him—as opposed to what we learned about Grimm (wanting money, fun and fame) or CW (lack of talent driven self-loathing and unrequited love). Those stories also support the rest of their seasons, directly, in the narrative. Maybe this one will, but given that it was shoehorned in after… probably not?
They’re different shows, though. Should all mid-season standalone episodes receive Universal praise just for their structure alone?
I think the thing that bothered me the most about it is that it wasn’t funny, and maybe it wasn’t trying—it was instead trying to be overly clever in unearned ways. Also, Brendan Hunt doesn’t have the charisma to carry an episode like this.
Also, Brendan Hunt doesn’t have the charisma to carry an episode like this.Thank you for saying this.Beard annoys me to no end. The way he’s written—and sorry, Mr. Hunt, performed—makes him much more of a caricature of a deep, introspective, mysterious person than an actual person who contains multitudes, as it were. And then we have an entire episode to explore those multitudes and we get… more broad strokes and platitudes? “I listen more than I talk.” Eesh.I feel like I can predict what Beard’s reaction is going to be 90% of the time in this show, and I think it’s because this character has been done to death in other shows/books/movies/etc.: the brooding quiet guy who only says one or two things, but when he does, whoo, boy, watch out, and then when he decides to let loose and get loud? WHOO, BOY, WATCH OUT!Interestingly, though, because I knew this was going to be a Beard-centric episode, my expectations were ground-floor low, and I actually enjoyed the episode as a whole. LOL
I actually think, on purpose or not, they’ve undermined the character’s strengths. He really isn’t mysterious or multi-layered, he’s just a regular fucked up, well meaning weirdo. But maybe that’s the point? I don’t know but I’m currently feeling iffy about this episode. Hope it ends up actually setting up something elsewhere in the story.
I think it was somewhere in between. We didn’t really learn anything about Beard except that he has the same fears and insecurities as pretty much everybody else in the world. It didn’t tell or show us anything about why he handles them differently than everybody else. It was fun to see his world, but it didn’t tell us anything about why his world is so weird.
“My one gripe is that I think Jane should actually get some screen-time. The texts reveal a real person, but if you don’t pause the screen to read them, she just sort of becomes this manic pixie dream girl.”This touches on one of my biggest pet peeves of making films/TV in the smart phone era—no matter how much you zoom in, and no matter how much you stage the shot to make the screen directly visible, it will always take your audience extra time to read text on a phone screen. We’re used to reading texts at a specific distance and viewing angle, which is nigh on impossible to recreate on TV, so even if we know we’re supposed to be focusing on the phone screen it still takes a couple of extra split seconds to make out the words, especially when we have to adjust to the character’s typing or scrolling speed as well. The show pulled the same thing with Sam and Rebecca’s dating app flirtations and it drove me nuts having to pause just to make out what they were saying to each other. What’s annoying is we’ve already invented an easy-to-read visual convention in showing a prominent and clearly visible graphic meant to represent the phone screen—which has the added benefit of allowing us to see the actors’ reactions as they type and read—but I get the sense that a lot of creators feel that it’s too hokey or not naturalistic enough or something. Sorry, rant over.
As someone with astigmatism in only one eye that makes my vision not bad enough to warrant glasses for most things but does make it hard to make out small details from a distance, I wholeheartedly concur.
Plenty of other shows already have done the technique of showing the text to the side of the character on screen instead of a shot of a phone screen (Sherlock, You’re the Worst etc) and why this isn’t just standard practice for all shows now is beyond comprehension.
Ugh, the Christmas episode. They had to do it; it’s a UK tradition! Besides Outnumbered, Extras and Black Mirror they usually suck.
(Some series’ of) Doctor Who would take umbrage to being left out of your list of UK shows that have non-sucking Christmas episodes.
If there was ever a show that didn’t need a “dark night of the soul” episode, this is it.
The issue that I see with criticisms of the second season are fair in some ways: This is a show that, apparently, did not foresee a second season to arc. So season one had a central focus on one character and looked at other characters as spokes from that hub.Season two has given hints of at a more interesting depth to that central character, but ALSO decided to more fully develop the characters in those spokes. Sure, this is a bottle episode, but it doesn’t feel an extreme reach beyond what they’ve done focusing on Keely/Roy and Rebecca/Sam subplots, even significant b-stories for Higgins and Nate.But that’s where I feel that the criticisms are unfairly looking to compare with season 1. And, as others have said, after the Christmas episode ruckus, I think a lot of critics, Myles included (and my wife, amateur critic that she appears to be), are going into episodes looking to pull the strings to unravel what will, ultimately, be an uneven second season. Bottom line is they have the talent to pull off these kinds of episodes (the Xmas episode will eventually be a problem of release date more than quality). I thought this was a detour that should come in a season 3 versus a season 2. But glacial pacing? Hardly. It had a bit of a “Lost in Translation” vibe to it and was an interesting take on what may/may not have been a “dark night of the soul” with the joke being that this may be more normal for Beard than we think.
I actually LIKE that they went with Beard for the existential crisis BEFORE we go deep on Ted (I mean this season ends with Ted in tears, undoubtedly).
You really seem to be going into these episodes expecting not to like them, looking for things to pick apart. It feels like that more & more with each episode you review.
Okay, but why would I do that?I’m here in the comments. I’m acknowledging that this will be a divisive episode. I don’t get paid more if the article is “clickbait.”I’m a critic. The job is to pick things apart to see how they tick. But it’s far more enjoyable to pick apart something that you loved, and I did that for episodes from earlier in the season that I thought worked better. If I didn’t have to spent 2000 words working through why I was bored by something, I wouldn’t.I really have no issue with someone disagreeing with me, but I have to admit to finding it frustrating that someone would presume some type of bizarre vendetta against a show I’ve invested this much time in wrestling with.
You sound more like a wannabe tv writer than a critic. Telling us how you would have done it is more pitch than critique
You might do it because you are human and people do that.Critics like to think they are objective, but decades of Siskle and Ebert demonstrated that sometimes they just liked a bad thing and hated a good thing and would rationalize their view instead of just admitting they went in not really wanting to see something.
Myles, pay no attention to these folks. They’re all just fanboys/girls incapable of reading even the mildest criticism of a show they refuse to find any fault with regardless of what a steaming pile of trash this episode was. Given where we are in the season, as well as ALL the dangling plotlines from last episode, this “extra” episode’s placement is the worst decision this show has made to date—which would include the Christmas episode in what for viewers occurred in August. The episode itself, which you kindly graded a C+, deserved some ancillary symbol that denotes something worse than an F. It took all the world-building of this series, and casually threw it all away. But because someone notices a couple of allusions to other films, which makes them feel smart (they’re not) they think that alone makes it good (it doesn’t). Tonally, it was a mess. If you were to read the script with the character’s names redacted, not one of these people heaping accolades upon it, could even place this as an episode of Ted Lasso. That’s how bad it was. I realize and appreciate the time and energy you put into these reviews and I find you to be an excellent writer—even when I don’t agree with you. Perhaps I’m just made of stronger stuff than the rest, but my fragile little feelings are not hurt by a letter-grade that you assign to an episode of TV, even when you’re inflating the grade of absolute garbage so as not to offend them. The better approach, a la Coach Beard while walking away from Ted following the game, is to not engage the trolls why thrusting your finger in the air skyward. It’s amazing to me how a group of people can virtue-signal how a show like this can be a salve for these troubled times where indecency and incivility rule, and then immediately take to their keyboard and do exactly that to you. Hypocrisy is the true order of the day.
They’re all just fanboys/girls incapable of reading even the mildest criticism of a show they refuse to find any fault with
We just want to read a review written by someone who isn’t trying to rewrite the show.
You mean in-between your being a “lawyer” and your posting of hundreds of comments on various Kinja discussion boards, bitching and complaining like a 2-year old? Got it! I give you credit. You’re an entertaining “unemployed and living in your mom’s basement” little internet troll. And of course, by “entertaining,” what I really mean is, you’re a joke. You’re either the world’s worst attorney, or the world’s worst liar. I’ll let readers decide, given your incessant postings…because what would the world do without your voice and your incisive ccommentary? LOL! Too funny!
Thanks, finally someone stating what should be plainly obvious: this episode was s**t, from conception, to writing, to execution. Absolute excrement. Was it a fever dream? Halfway real? Who cares, none of it matters. It was dumb, boring and completely unbelievable from beginning to end. Can’t believe it wasn’t just dumped, and actually released.
I just suppose you like more “formulaic” type shows. Sometimes it’s nice to break new ground.
I really thought you nailed it with this review. As a bottle episode, it’s weak, but I can acknowledge that the bottle-ish nature of the episode means that it won’t affect the season arc, so I’m not “angry” with it — I just wanted to read a review that helped me understand why it wasn’t effective. This review did exactly that.
I give your review an A-.
Stray Observations
– Armchair rewriting is poor form, but it’s what viewers do constantly, and acknowledging it as an inescapable part of criticism is valid.
– The idea that episode-by-episode reviews are “clickbait” can only come from commenters who have no perspective on the unprofitability of internet content, even at a major publication like AV Club.- Why am I writing this? Is the meta-joke worth continuing? Almost certainly not.
“Okay, but why would I do that?”
Because it makes for lame, whiny reviews that make a reader wonder why you even bother and then wonder why said reader wastes his time reading reviews by people who clearly don’t like the show?
Reviews don’t HAVE to be cunty, you know.
Let People Not Like Things.
Nah this episode was bad and he graded and critiqued it appropriately. The “X” character alone is one of my favorite devices in television so I was excited at first, but like he said in the review we didn’t learn anything about Beard and nothing except for MAYBE they fight with Jamie’s dad will have any consequence to anything going forward. Didn’t seem like he even learned anything about his relationship with Jane and even undid the great moment with him and Higgins.
These reviews are sounding more defensive each week.
Why are these episodes now 40 minutes long? I was really confused when I watched the last one and thought it was moving really slowly before I realized it was nearly double the length.
For someone who really doesn’t like this episode, I’m surprised by the C+. Why not just give it an F?
Really disagree, I think this is an A, although I’m a sucker for the POV shift mechanic. I think this episode for all its lack of football is the one that requires the most cultural knowledge of football culture, with its central metaphor being Man City’s Blue Moon tying in to Beard’s long midnight of the soul. I’m similarly curious if Tart beating up Beard will be picked up going forward, but I think the use of Blue Moon as he’s pummeled makes a strong visualization of not only Beard’s standing but also Richmond FCs within the football league, at its absolute nadir after a pummeling. I think it’s an incredible encapsulation of narrative, theme, and characterization. I also was won over by Beard rewarding the barflys with time on the pitch, something that means more and is more sacred to those three than winning the Premiere League would mean to most of our protagonists. It felt like the show both developing Beard and giving love to the football community it covers.
Thanks, Myles. Now that I know about the additional episodes requested by Apple this week makes more sense.I enjoyed that they tried something different, but I was curious on a show with such little time for so many people why they would produce this one.I liked the moments with Coach Beard helping out the local supporters and could have watched a whole episode of that storyline.
You know, your question is about The Purpose of this episode.
I’ve got theories.
A) Sometimes, we see the story throw in a bit of fun before things get DARK. I’m not saying it doesn’t take away from the momentum, but it certainly isn’t without reason.
B) This season has a central theme of therapy, and Coping Mechanisms. When I saw the title and screen cap for “Beard After Hours” following last week’s episode, I was like “awwwww shit, this is gonna be GOOD”. Thematically, after a big loss, we see how Beard COPES.. He may listen more than talk, he may take on experiences more than manipulate them. It’s a strange way in which he reorients himself, and honestly, to go through all this and still keep Beard a bit of a mystery, I’m kind of impressed.
C) Format shifts are fun. Whee! (which is the weakest of the bunch).
Anyways, this episode held up for in terms of the experience. I’d forgotten the title about halfway through…I wuz all “Duh…this is Beard’s Odyssey, right? duhr…” and then realized some similarities with the flick “After Hours”, which I have an odd affinity for whenever I see it after a few years. And then re-saw the title. “Ohhhh…”
So. Perhaps personal preference in terms of style is what made this ep work for me. Maybe I got a jones for detour episodes myself, even though not all of them are good, or are insane (Darius & Teddy Perkins, anyone??).
The mood is different, but I’m thinking of Ringo Starr’s melancholic detour in A Hard Day’s Night.
You know, it’s an episode I find myself wanting to like, that I enjoyed a lot while watching, but that I doesn’t totally make sense for me. Whether or not it features into the larger story isn’t all that consequential to me, because there’s plenty of runway left for it. What I don’t really understand is what the show is trying to tell us about Beard. The idea that his shift in perspective is much darker and more surreal than whenever we’re anchored to Ted is interesting—where Ted makes everyone love him,Beard almost exclusively draws scorn or malice, be it from Jamie’s dad or random old ladies on the bus or trouser-obsessed club-goers. He seems to be a magnet for trouble. Which makes sense of why he would allow the barflies on the pitch. They’re always kind to him. It makes sense of why he would flock to Jane, despite her volatility. Most importantly, it makes sense of why Ted is such a good counterpart. The problem is that the episode lays out most of this, but never fully connects to the dots.
So, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll rewatch it and come around. I still like this episode a lot—although, I’m more at a B, as I love it as a mood exercise, and it still has a solid story, even though it doesn’t come together very well thematically.
Update: Okay, I thought it would be a person, but it’s some kind of building that I don’t recognize? Please advise.)
The photo Beard does his ritual with is The Man from Burning Man. This is one of those subtle details that completely set the stage for what to expect of an episode titled “Beard’s After Hours” if you know what you’re looking at — a surreal voyage potentially with high highs (as with the barflies’ journey) and very low lows (I loved the possible cinematographic nod to A Clockwork Orange as Jamie’s father and his two “droogs” appeared in that tunnel to kick the crap out of Beard) with a protagonist who’s down to go with the flow wherever it takes him and eventually finds himself exactly where he needs to be. Most Burners have had exactly this kind of night.I loved this episode. It reminded me of Broad City at its surrealist best (two episodes immediately come to mind: S1E3 with North Brother Island and S5E9 with the couch) though infused with the heart and comedic sensibility one would expect from Ted Lasso. An episode like this is way more about the journey than the destination and how our lives intersect with those around us and where the characters are on their journey at those intersection points.I can definitely understand how some might find this an overextended unnecessary detour — but what is life if not but a series of them?
I thought of A Clockwork Orange as well–that tunnel scene is iconic. This had to be intentional.
>>> “The photo Beard does his ritual with is The Man from Burning Man.” ‘<<<. That explains the hula hoop!
The mood called to mind some of Mozart in the Jungle’s better episodes to me, but Broad City is also a good comparison, nice.
I got a Russian Doll vibe from it, myself.
I gotta say, this was quite an interesting episode, even with the idea that it likely was the second “bonus” episode. I feel we learned a lot about Beard as a person, and namely that this move to London has just as many struggles for him as it did for Ted. Hopefully he can find some happiness.Even though I am far from a fan of the barflies, the fact we got to spend more time with them was great.The trousers girl and her giant meathead boyfriend were an interesting addition. I would have never guessed keeping someone’s trousers would be an interesting thing (but then again, I find it odd and gross when men keep stuff from women they’ve been with).Finally, because this is a sports show somewhere along the line, with the record standing at 21W-6L-16D, sitting on 79 points, this shows Richmond is going on quite a tear. I am curious what will happen (if they will get automatic promotion or if they will go through the playoffs, which would be much more dramatic). With three regular season matches left, their current PPG puts them roughly in 4th (based on last year’s EFL championship table), and would mean hosting the second semifinal leg. Of course, we obviously don’t know the rest of the table in the show universe, and I could be wrong on all of this.
Loved this one.
I thought the fact that there was no opening, even a re-tweaked one like for the Christmas episode, is something probably worth mentioning. Feels like the writers tipping their hat that this is not going to be an episode tied into the story arc. I felt it was solid (I didn’t like the Christmas episode, and felt it just came off like filler), and the Vegas line was in character for Beard as the spot-on truth. The mystery with Beard is certainly half the charm, but I did feel like this added a little context to what you can often tell from his facial expressions were “crazy last nights” when he shows up in the morning in several episodes.
I’m putting this episode in B territory just for the inclusion of Dave Bautista’s south London doppelgänger.
He sounded so much like Roy Kent that I was expecting him to turn out to be Brett Goldstein in surrealistic prosthetics.
The Roy Kent CGI truthers might be on to something…
Glad I wasn’t the only one.
I’m surprised they didn’t bring in Danny Dyer and Leo Gregory as Tartt’s sidekicks since they’ve played hooligans I don’t know how many times.
It’s not Fight Club, it’s American History X.
I completely agree with Myles. This was a total snoozefest, and far too long. By the time Jamie’s dad was about to literally murder Beard with a pipe I was almost completely checked out.
Clearly the second of the two “bonus” episodes. An act break repreive is well-earned and we actually get to at least see more of a character we know little about. What the fuck is there to complain about?
this one bored me to tears. i really don’t like this season much at all.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t like this episode. This was like a backdoor pilot sitcoms did in the 80s.
I’m glad Coach just went out and drank and didn’t kill himself or something like I was afraid he would do but the episode was just way too cutsey.
These TV episode homages never work. All they do is remind that you could be watching the superior original, as opposed to a cheesy, diluted fake.
you know how I KNOW this episode was too long? my laptop crashed halfway through and I didn’t really feel like finishing it so… big whoops
I thought the dreamlike nature of the episode (repeatedly dropping the key, images of the game showing up everywhere, etc.) was meant to reflect Ted’s fears about something bad happening to Beard when headed out on his own. (Ted told Beard to stay safe and reminded him about his coffee duty as though he was attempting to elicit a pledge Beard would still be there the next day.) My sense is we’re going to discover that the reason Ted engages with everyone so intently and works so hard to make them feel appreciated is that he’s terrified he’ll lose the people around him if he doesn’t keep them in a perpetually delighted state of feeling seen and cared about. Wonder if he was being a sullen teen around the time his dad killed himself and coped by becoming the antithesis of cool.
I re-watched the film After Hours recently so was primed for Ted Lasso’s take on it.
I think the episode doesn’t work because of the fact they choose to center on Beard. He seems like the character most likely to be pretty unfazed by a weird night out.
A much better episode could have made if it had centered on Nate. It would have been funnier to see him trying to cope with increasing surreal situations, he could have tried to use his new found Twitter fame to try and navigate them only to find out it doesn’t count for anything.
Plus he’s been such a shit this season it would have been fun to see him suffer a bit.
I agree that the placement of these bonus episodes is not great. It seems like both of the episodes came at the time where the feeling of “what’s going to happen next?!” was at its highest and they killed the momentum. I wish that instead of shoe-horning these episodes into the regular season they had just done a couple of special episodes after the finale. Everybody would have loved a Ted Lasso Christmas special…if it had come out at Christmas. The chronological order makes no difference in that episode anyway. And as for this episode, again I feel like it could have been a standalone. Just give us a reminder of “hey, remember when Coach Beard how to blow off some steam that one time?” and then just have the ep be a bonus episode. Also if they had just done it as a special outside of the season then they would not have been held to the constraints of the show’s chronology and they could have maybe cut the stuff with Beard beating himself up over the loss (I liked that this was when we got the most into his POV but in the end it never really coalesced with the Jayne stuff). If it had just been about Jayne or some other Beard centric issue but still sticking with the “one crazy night” format I think it would have been stronger. I really enjoy Beard as a character and was eager to get more insight, but you are right that the ep never delves as deep as it could have. The only moment I felt like I really understood him was when he was dancing before he saw Jayne (though to be fair, that moment felt very special indeed and may not have felt so earned if we hadn’t seen all he had to go through). I enjoyed the episode on its own merits. I really love a one crazy night story but agree it was slow. Though I loved Beard’s reunion with Jayne, it was very beautiful and was the most revealing of just what a wonderful weirdo Beard is. Also the barflies getting to go out on the pitch was a really beautiful moment. I am such a sap and it hit me right in the feels.
Note to those confused: Myles McNutt is never wrong or even perhaps not sure or even, perhaps admittedly flawed. He says as much in the comments, so it must be true.
The significance of the blue moon is its Manchester Citys club anthem and unofficial symbol, so all throughout his night he is being overshadowed by the defeat.(In the 80’s Man City were so bad it was said they only won once in a blue moon and so it became their theme tune).
I wasn’t ever bored (bewildered at times), though I completely agree that it was far too long, especially as it’s “bonus content”. Not only do I feel like it would have benefitted the episode itself being a tight 30min, but I also think it did a disservice to earlier episodes being just a couple of minutes shy of the longest of the season.I have to admit that when I finished the episode, my first thought was, “What did I just watch?” I’m a huge fan of the show and its characters, so I enjoyed the ride overall. It wasn’t an instant classic for me as others have been, so I understand a C+ rating from someone whose job it is to critique. My grade would probably be B- which is more about my ingrained fear of grades below B range.I suspect that I’ll look back on this episode differently once the season is complete. And now having said that, I really wish that these add-on episodes had been released after the “regular” 10 episode season as actual bonus episodes. If the Christmas episode had been released in December and this one next February or March, a “gift” to fans, it would have been an absolute thrill. To find out how Beard spent the night after the big loss would have felt like a delightful peek behind the curtains. There really wouldn’t have been any need for either to “advance the narrative”. And they would have served as wonderful pieces of new content for fans to consume between seasons 2 and 3.Loved the appearances of Thierry Henry. Weirdly enjoy that Jane’s last name is Payne? I’m still trying to unpack whether the Blue Moon symbolism was a marker for when the episode veered into fantasy/Beard’s inner world, or was just generally symbolic of Beard processing the loss to Man City (because that’s “their song”) and seeing it everywhere. Need to rewatch and pay closer attention.REALLY loved the hula hoop prowess of Brendan Hunt! And tip of my cap to the name-baiting that happened both at the posh club and when Beard was praying. “None of my business” was definitely intentional and I would love to know the inside scoop on that.
I would say on the whole that this episode was an “interesting idea” and I do love it when a show leaves its comfort zone.However, if I listed the top 10 things I want to see in Ted Lasso episode, this episode didn’t have any of them. No team interactions, no Jamie/ Roy interactions, no sports moments, no Ted/ Fieldstone sparring, not a ton of funny moments. I watched it and was like, “this feels like a long webisode that they’d release as an extra after the season ends.” I didn’t really have high expectations for a Coach Beard standalone though. He’s funny as a 1 or 2 dimensional side character but I’ve never even wanted them to go deeper with him.I am gonna watch it again though. It was so unusual that I think it needs a second viewing.Last thought: they sure have a lot of soccer plot to squeeze into episodes 10 through 12.
Not one reference or mention of Scorsese’s film in this review, of which a lot of this episode is an obvious homage to? Come on.
Surely, the “curb stomp” comment was referring to American History X, not Fight Club.
It seems like in all of your contextualizing you forgot to actually discuss the episode. I know this is a “review” and not a “recap”, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to at least mention the plot.
Gotta say, I agree with this review. People in the comments seem to be really fond of it, which is lovely, but I didn’t care for this episode at all.What did we learn about Beard? He likes Jane. We knew that. He’s more into Jane than Jane is into him. Yup, got that. Oh, cute moment of connection. Good for them. He does a nice Irish accent and can hula hoop. Cool?I think my primary issue with this episode is the fact that we’re watching it on a weekly basis. I’ve gotten so spoiled with binge watching, where little bottle episodes like this add color and variety, and then I can immediately see the plot pick back up. Love a good detour in that case. But waiting each week for more Ted Lasso, this felt like a cheap facsimile. I’ll probably appreciate it more once three seasons are out and I don’t have to watch it by itself.
I don’t get what doing a riff on “After Hours” meant to anything. I haven’t seen that Griffin Dunne movie since the 80s, but the movie itself just seemed to be a weird adventure movie with little point. I did enjoy that the bar cronies got a bigger part this week.
When you come into an episode with preconceived expectations and have them subverted, that’s not a show issue. Obviously it doesn’t mean the end product is good or bad, but too often in these reviews it feels like just not being what the reviewer expected it to be from a pacing or narrative or structural standpoint is itself a fault. To follow it up with a lengthy section on ways the show should have handled the episode differently is also a slog to read, and more borderline fan fiction than a review.
Agree that this was 10-15 mins too long. And I needed it to be a deeper character study. Otherwise it was the worst of both worlds – boring AND nonsensical. It served to make Beard less mysterious and yet tell us nothing much about him – he’s already been framed via his relationship with Jane plenty. It’s tired – we don’t know her, we don’t care.Give Higgins his own episode instead, it’d probably be funnier.
In the elevator scene, when asked about feeling bad for how they lied to the front desk girl, Beard says something to the effect of “Tomorrow will be the best day of her life.” This is a direct nod to Fight Club, when Tyler Durden says something similar to a store clerk after robbing them at gun point. The music playing in the elevator is actually “Corporate World” by the Dust Brothers, off the Fight Club soundtrack.
Are you kidding? Of course it was “the right time”. Some of the repetitive episodes revolving around the same characters and themes were getting a little samey-samey, and the conclusion of two different narrative sub-arcs in the previous weeks made this one the perfect space to change things up. This plot-arc rhythm couldn’t have been better, IMO.[ Yes, even if it wasn’t intended to be in this position originally when the overarching season was written, and was only squeezed in later. Still a great bridge and/or break in the pace. ]
Worth it for Beard going Hula Techno Viking.
I for one enjoyed getting weird with Beard
The shot of Beard in the train in real-time while the other passengers whirled around him…it gave me literal chills and very much Scrubs vibes. I was sort of expecting that style of surreal comedy told from Beard’s perspective with perhaps a reveal that would hit us in the heart and explain how this man came to be second-in-command to a failing football club.But that emotional hit never landed. My friend thought we’d get it around the time that Mr Tartt showed up, but clearly those aren’t Beard’s daddy-issues coming into play. I thought “in all my happiest memories, I’m single” would foretell why such an otherwise independent guy repeatedly returns to a failing relationship with Jane (mirroring his own failing relationship with Ted??)But nope. The episode was fun but it never landed so I was similarly dissatisfied.
All right, actually watched the episode, and was surprised at how much it worked for me. In this case I think reading the review first helped temper my expectations and helped me get in on this episode’s wavelength more easily. It’s a weird shaggy fever dream that follows its own logic that helps us learn a little more about Beard. And yes, I do think we gain some additional insight, even if we already could’ve guessed that Beard’s stoicism conceals some major insecurities and self-hatred. I don’t particularly mind that this episode ground the season arc to a halt, mainly because there still hasn’t been much of an obvious season arc—at least from our current vantage point—so I’m happy to let this episode be a weird standalone experiment in surrealism.
but the issue with “Beard After Hours” is that we know the episode was a solution to the problem of Apple’s late request for additional episodes
Well, I didn’t I know that; I think these sorts of things are a little “inside baseball,” and kind weird to assume it would be common knowledge to all regular viewers going in.
So…Confession: I don’t love Coach Beard. He’s solid, good for a cute one-liner every now and then, but I just like a lot of other characters more. So I didn’t think this episode would do anything for me. Not even very big on experimental, fever dream kind of stuff either. But I thought this was fantastic. It wasn’t too head-trippy, but it had just enough whimsy to make me wonder where it was going. And I thought the way they were able to maintain Beard’s mystique even in his own episode was clever. In a season where much of the cast feels written differently, I appreciate his consistency. I’m an advocate for maintaining mystery anyway. The irony of a character-centric episode not revealing much character was the whole joke for me.
Does that play into the philosophical conversation brought up early in the episode? Maybe. I think “Beard After Hours” is rich with things to analyze. Not only Blue Moon, but what was the significance of him always losing his keys? And at the beginning, the moment after he gives Ted the finger, he’s walking away, making a face, almost mumbling under his breath, and if I didn’t know any better…
I can understand this episode not landing for everyone. It’s risky by design, but if anything I left liking Beard more than I had previously. His demeanor in a variety of heightened situations, was just delightful to watch. Plus I am a big fan of the barflies, and a night out with them was great, capped with a visit on the pitch- the team they love, the sport… I’ve been given that gift before. They captured the elation perfect.
it’s weird to be concern-trolling an episode of television. it is what it is, like it or don’t. but worrying about it’s placement in the season is foolishness.
“Beard After Hours” is the lowest user rated “Ted Lasso” on IMDB. Currently at 7.2/10 and dropping as more people watch and rate it. It was 7.4 on Thursday after it aired.
I just came down here to give a shout out to Brendan Hunt’s skills with a hula hoop. As someone who can’t hula hoop to save my life, I was definitely impressed.
I’m not surprised to see all of the defensive comments here, but I agree with your review wholeheartedly. This was one of the worst episodes of television I’ve ever watched. It was so, so hard to sit through. Beard was revealed to be one of the worst types of straight dude, which is one who fancies himself a fun, harmless eccentric but who is actually as obnoxious as the bros they play pool with at the start of the episode.
I’m sure I’ll get over it, but as of now I have zero remaining interest in this character.
The least believable aspect of this episode was the notion that an underground London dance club would be playing a Martin Solveig track from 2010.
Ok, there are lots of reasons why I like this episode that are probably just a matter of taste (I love beard, I love weirdos in general and weird things happening to them, I’m a sucker for romance, I love it when “is it true” is a legitimate question, and even more when there’s some indication that the answer is yes, and I can see why all of these might not be someone else’s cup of tea, even though I’d have liked to see them analysed per se in a review, at least shortly), but I’d like to discuss Myles’ perplexities with it on one point: is it really a problem that it doesn’t further or connect to the main narrative in any impactful way? I know we have few episodes to go and lots to cover, but I personally love bottle episodes right before the moment when shit goes down, as the screenwriter said: it’s the deep breath before the plunge, it builds the tension and helps detachment at the same time, simply by removing the spectator from the flow of the action. The more it is meandering, self-concluded and silly, the stronger the effect. If the time that’s left is spent carefully, the catharsis is actually magnified by the pause, and I refuse to believe that 3 45 minutes long episodes are too little time to do practically anything, let alone address some plot points, however key. I see where Miles’ concerns come from, and partly agree with them, because I share his worries about some of the choices this show has made in dealing with the stakes it raises (especially the whole oil company thing, which is the main reason why the christmas special felt off for me as well), but in my opinion that’s no reason to question this particular episode: if the show does in fact come off as shallow, refusing to deal appropriately with the questions it raised with regards to its characters’ development and its philosophy, it will have been because of poor writing, not because it took 45 minutes to focus on Beard (and I do think these have provided interesting insights on him, deepening the focus on certain aspects of his inner life, as other comments have pointed out).
This episode lands completely differently if you’re old enough to have rented After Hours from Blockbuster Video.Everyone whose takes I’m seeing about how the episode was strange and unwatchable seems to be under the age of 45. That’s fair: If you haven’t seen After Hours, you’ll probably have no idea what’s going on in it.
But I loved* this episode. And I didn’t even realize until the episode was over that it was titled “Beard After Hours,” which (rather ham-fistedly) reveals that the vibe was 100 percent intentional.* The asterisk is for the fact that even in an homage to one of my favorite cult films, I’m just not down with Beard taking a beating from Daddy Tartt. That should not have been allowed.
One connection that I can’t unsee is Beard’s self-loathing and his ride-or-die relationship with Ted. It’s entirely possible that Ted got Beard through some tough times, that Ted’s relationships are all built on him getting others through tough times, because Ted is living in a world where it is unacceptable that someone he (Ted) is in a relationship with engages in self-harm. Ep. 8 ended with Ted’s revelation to Doc that his dad committed suicide and this episode explores the internal workings of the man who has arguably the closest relationship to Ted. Those inner workings are self-critical, self-loathing and lead to cycles of repeated self-destructive behavior (e.g. repeatedly losing his keys – get a chain, man; repeatedly going back to Jane; repeatedly leaving his support group – like the team and the barflies; and, most clearly, his repeated choice to re-engage in a 1v3 fight). When he had the chance to reveal these via the “confession huddle” in ep. 8, he decided to say something about ‘shrooms.And another emotion I read on Beard’s face at the opening of the episode: resent/contempt as he walked away from Ted and flipped him off. Last episode, I thought “oh, it must be a half-jokey gesture.” Seeing Beard’s face, he looked just annoyed at what Ted was spitting out. But again, he won’t really let Ted see this.And, when Beard actually DID blow up at Ted, it’s because Ted’s “niceness” was entrenching a serious issue, rather than actually addressing it. (I think we all got this out of that scene.) Has Ted’s relentless optimism created a barrier that Beard can’t get past in their own relationship? Beard has really invested in the “I’m quirky and okay with it” schtick. We now know he’s NOT okay with “it” and he might find the schtick is taking over in his relationships.tl;dr – this episode revealed that Beard, Ted Lasso’s closest friend, deals with inner darkness and repeated destructive behaviors – and that he won’t let anyone see this. (Just like….Ted’s dad?)
I am surprised the critic made no mention that the episode was obviously a homage to Martin Scorsese’s classic dark comedy, “After Hours”. Sadly, all resemblances end there!
I think that I appreciated it for what it was, a somewhat off the rails romp that was stacked with homages to other works.I might agree that Beard wasn’t the ideal character to focus on, and I wonder if this would have been better suited to one of the other members of the team, maybe even Jamie Tartt, but they have established a thread of Beard’s relationship throughout this season.
Overall this season has been less focused than last, and while I feel that we lost the concise story line that this show began with, we’ve opened up the “world” that these characters exist in, and also get to know more about the team.
This isn’t like when Stranger Things took that left turn and tanked their season.
I liked it. Sorry you didn’t get it.
Myles I think you missed an important point in that it was a parody of Scorsese’s film AFTER HOURS. Like RomCom with Roy Kent, they looked at coach through this film homage. I appreciated that the Lasso gang did something experimental. I even liked the longer pacing. In some ways it made the pay off of finding love and being loved back the sweeter for Beard. I’m also going to guess that what bothers some of the others about this review is that you knew this episode was “tacked on” afterwards. I’d offer that this information is really coloring your view of it. You’re right, it doesn’t propel the narrative forward. And neither did the Christmas episode. But I think like Breaking Bad, an episode to reflect on things and take a “sorbet” before the next big story exposition is less irksome than you find it.
What’s even more disturbing than you giving this a low rating is you continuously defending your rating against people who liked the episode. It’s one thing for you not to like it, but it seems you can’t accept WE like it. That’s not being a critic anymore, is it?
Far far too many coincidences in this episode.
Did you know Coach Beard is the “Jesus Loves Marijuana” hitchhiker from Community?
Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus = Elvis Costello
Bless you for pointing this out.
I totally agree, Myles. This felt painfully self-aware. I could almost hear the writers room pitch. Episode-long narrative digressions have become an “offbeat” TV cliche. When done well, they provide a much-needed break from the momentum while lending depth to the subtext (“The Fly”) or they’re just batshit hilarious (“B.A.N.”).While the Christmas episode felt like an overlong M&S ad (quite cosy nonetheless), this just made me realise Beard only works well as the straight-faced counterbalance to Lasso. On his own, the lack of charisma or emotional depth (“boohoo, i lost the match and i miss me ex”) made for really boring TV.
Sorry to use a baseball metaphor, but a swing and a miss!I don’t know what this episode was going for, but it did absolutely nothing for me, other than wishing I could fast forward to next week and get the show I love back.
Your reviews seem to be rooted more in railing against the show for refusing to go in the direction you want it to go rather than actual analysis. I’m not a “fan girl” who is angry at the grade you give the episode, I’m just getting frustrated each week reading what should be a recap and perhaps a dive into the craft behind the show but is in fact a list of your grievances against the writers for not taking the characters where you think they should go. Here, for example, you don’t even comment on the many references being made to other movies (the very title making a nod to Scorcese’s “After Hours”).
You know what would have changed my view of this episode? If it all led to something that had an effect on the team’s arc for the season. A new play style that maximizes their talent, a redefining of his coaching role, or even him quitting. But since the episode was added after the season story was planned out, it couldn’t do that. So I have to agree with Myles on this one.That being said, we may find out that they put things in this episode that foreshadow events for episodes 10 to 12.Also, still haven’t figured out the full meaning of the constantly lost, then broken house keys.
Terrible episode. The worst Ted Lasso has ever done. Just liked the very first minutes, then just wished it was over.
The poster on Beard’s wall is the Man from Burning Man. That detail actually set the tone for the whole episode for me. It establishes that Beard is a Burner (apparently the actor who plays him is, too) and that he’s no stranger to Campbell-esque hero’s journeys. While I would have expected this detail would have created a more magical and bizarre journey than the one he went on, it established for me that this isn’t his first rodeo and that in fact nights like this may be his #1 coping mechanism.
Completely agree with you on this episode. It was too long, and I had hoped we’d get more into who Beard actually IS. I do get that part of his character is that we don’t see a lot of his internal life, but then why did we spend 40 minutes with him? Also, while I appreciated his comment that Ted is just a man, I feel like I’ve been waiting for more of a fallout between the two of them due to Beard’s frustration with Ted’s unending positivity when things are going so badly. I thought this episode might be that payoff.I can appreciate the show wanted to take the risk, but I don’t think it paid off in the slightest.
I liked the episode (though it was not without some dross), for the reasons mentioned by many above. I was getting very bored with the subplots/jokes about Beard and it was finally good to see *why* he has so many crazy stories (especially given the strength of Hunt’s performance). But I agree that we need to know soon whether Beard is going to finally speak up about the team’s lack of consistent success.
The team HAS had consistent success since the Roy Kent effect. That’s probably why the FA cup loss hit so hard.
Hi Myles,I liked this episode a little bit more than you (while also disliking the Christmas episode—CGI Santa was a a bridge too far). I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh a lot during the scenes in Crown and Anchor, and then Bones and Honey. And I enjoy this show in general enough that spending an extra 10 minutes with (at least one of) these characters wasn’t grating. However, I definitely appreciate what you say in this review about the strange timing of this episode. They had to add a standalone episode at some point, but I totally agree that this brought several emotional plots to a standstill (I guess James Tartt’s assault slightly adds to that storyline if it’s mentioned again). While it’s extremely likely they will return to Ted’s breakthrough about his dad, Sam-Rebecca, Nate’s issues etc… at some point, this yet again was another episode where I wanted them to directly build on a plot line and instead it just swerves in the other direction. I wouldn’t go so far to say it’ frustrating, since again I did find enjoyable elements here. But it’s slightly a bit jarring. That all brings me to my bigger point, which is I really wonder how this season would have played out if it was released all at once. I’m 100% glad that this season is being released weekly, since it allows such great conversation in places like these reviews—even if the backlash discourse was perhaps a little bit much. But I think on rewatch, a lot of people, including many professional reviewers, are going to appreciate the season as a whole more where it’s only an hour or two instead of weeks when certain plot lines are ignored.
Oh and I love your idea of showing several players/coaches going home after this devastating loss. I guess we could get a few lines showing people’s reactions in the next episode, but my guess is the Man City match itself is barely mentioned again. Like how we haven’t heard about their place in the Championship in several months of the show’s timeline. (Speaking of which, it’s just “the Championship” not “the Championship League.” The official name is “English Football League Championship” or EFL Championship.)
You know I was under the impression that Richmond had not completely turned the season around yet and was still not even close to the top of the Championship standings. However, in the final scene of this episode, the whiteboard in Ted’s office says 21 wins, 6 losses and 16 draws. Since Sam’s protest, they are an incredible 21-5 with 9 ties. They must be somewhere in the top half with only 6 losses in 43 games. Also, there are only 3 games left in the season which is 46 games.The amount of points they have now with 3 games left would have gotten them into last year’s promotion playoff.
Great catch. I hadn’t noticed it. At Christmas they were 4-4-14. So since then that’s 17-2-2! That would be a record pace over the course of a 46-game season.It’s kinda too bad they’ve completely swept this under the rug. When was the last Championship game that was referred to? I guess at the start of “The Signal” there was the mention of the Roy Kent effect?
Your reviews have been pointing out the musical choices and I think the person in charge of that does a great job, and it is nice to be able to have Apple $ so when there is the perfect song for a scene it can be used. It probably did not cost a ton as opposed to the others, but the use of Sir Mix-a-lot’s “My Posse’s on Broadway” which you can just make out as the Pub boys roll up in the limo to give Beard a ride is outstanding. The perfect song for a limo to roll up like that.
Huh. I have to admit I was expecting some kind of reference or acknowledgement of the episode’s obvious inspiration, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. I do agree it was slow, and the POV shift to Beard was jarring at times. Mostly it felt like quite a different show. In the end it was just a filler episode, but on the After Hours homage/pastiche front it hit a lot of great notes for a big city late at night.
Well I have to say I was just relieved they didn’t kill Beard off after last week’s scene. The way he said “I’m gonna go and shake it off” in the last episode only for Ted to decline going with him seemed to telegraph that Beard was going to kop it. I guess that would’ve been a bit too heavy in quick succession to the whole father-suicide thing, in hindsight.
I kinda wonder if this isn’t going to be a table-setting episode for something down the line; stuff they might have elided a bit and referred to in later episodes but ended up making explicit in an “After hours” episode.
Like, okay, we know there’s been conflict over Jane simmering for a long while; everybody thinks she’s bad for Beard, including at various points Beard himself. Now if he’s all-in on the relationship, that could be a point of conflict later as it affects his work with the team.
Similarly his interaction with the fans – the same fans that call Lasso a wanker every week and deride every coaching decision – were just given the opportunity to live out their dreams by the same guy they yell at in the pub every weekend. That could come back later too.
Or it may all amount to nothing. The thing about these sorts of episodes is that you never really know if they’re important or just a one-off until the whole show is done.
What an odd, poorly constructed episode. When a character starts hallucinating other characters it is a well used trope that helps the viewer see the protagonists state of mind. This is done by the commentators criticizing coach Beard in his apartment and appearing while he is fighting Jamie Tartt snr. Those hallucinations can not appear later in the nightclub discussing food with the protagonist dancing in the background. It is just terrible writing. Having the groundskeeper, who was working at about 3am, let the fans into the ground and turn on the flood lights at 3am may have been fantasy who knows. Awful episode.
Huh, I thought the episode was fun. It was basically “After Hours”, but in England instead of NYC.
I liked the episode (even though indeed, the events do not change anything and we didn’t learn much more about Beard) but my biggest confusion is about how everybody is acting like this loss was the worst thing ever. We’re talking about a League One team making it to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, that on itself is quite amazing. It would be very surprising if they didn’t lose with the budget difference of a few billion pounds. I would even say keeping it at 5-0 is pretty decent. Bayern won 7-0 last weekend, Ajax won 9-0, and that was just against a team of their own league.
Ah, see, I really liked it. I think it’s bold and clever of a show that’s earning so much popular support right now to just shift tones completely and make a lot of deep cut references to other tv shows and movies that some of the audience (ahem, the youths) won’t understand. (Also to the commenter who called out Jamie Tartt Sr being like Alex and his droogs – yes, I thought the same thing when they appeared in that alley.) While watching I could never quite tell what was real and what was imagination, so to see him turn up in the “real world” with bruises and ugly-ass pants just capped off what, to me, was a really enjoyable episode.Granted, I am more partial to “a long dark walk through the soul” type episodes than others might be, so I was already inclined to enjoy this. I loved that we got a look into Beard’s own self-loathing (Thierry Henry, how could you be so mean?) since we’re also dealing with Ted, Nate and Roy’s nadir this season. (Well, Roy has since bounced back, but he had a lot of negativity in the first part of this season) That he isn’t always calm and collected and that he’s spiraling a bit emotionally was an interesting reveal to me. Beard’s a bit like a duck – placid on the surface and busy underneath – which should be really interesting if/when he and Ted end up going head to head.I am impressed with this show’s ability to get some pretty big names (in the football world) for cameos. That Apple money must be pretty sweet.
I didn’t pick up on it immediately but it’s a concept episode parodying (emulating?) Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, which was great. I don’t know how I missed this because I only saw that movie for the first time a few months ago. I don’t think this show needs concept episodes – they belong in Community (and I didn’t get a notification for that).
The Moonrise Kingdom and Benny Hill joke were worth the price of admission.
I’m fine with a random Ulysses/After Hours episode. Hell, Sopranos would do that a lot and some of those were actual dreams that lasted a few episodes themselves.
Well, I liked it.
Yeah hard disagree from me here (now that I’ve caught up). This was one of the most exciting episodes of television I’ve experienced recently. Expectations were put on their ear, and the just-as-much-of-an-enigma after the fact of Coach Beard (my god, its full of stars) was incredibly satisfying to me. It spoke to very fundamental human needs for validation, the fragility of perception and how it derives from self-worth, and demonstration of a vastly different perspective or set of perspectives, in a way Teds character arc isn’t. Think of how much Ted has build on the foundation of Beard, and we just got a tour of the rebar beneath the concrete.I’d struggle to evaluate the episode against the others as it’s such a different beast, but it wouldn’t fall in the C range. I’ll accept demerits for not advancing the overall season arc, but I hope the new world of prestige TV continues to create room for delightful little side bars of character focus like this as the stakes of doing so are much more acceptable in a bingable world (perhaps this is not so compatible with a weekly drop show like Ted Lasso)
“but the issue with “Beard After Hours” is that we know the episode was a solution to the problem of Apple’s late request for additional episodes”
No, the issue is you won’t FUCKING let it go.
Just like you kept going on and on and on and on and on and on about “HoW coUld apPLe aFforD MusIc rIgHTs?!????!???!???!?”
Review the show, not your pointless and useless assumptions about the show.
WHO FUCKING CARES THAT IT WAS AN EXTRA EPISODE? Do you think this is the first instance of “straight up creativity” NOT being the impetus for a show existing?
For fuck’s sake. get a god damn grip and REVIEW THE SHOW, not Apple’s contractual policies.
I agree with a lot of this. I think the episode was overlong by 10-15 minutes. My favorite aspect was Beard and the three guys from the pub. I was hoping for more of a glimpse into his character. I feel like the line he said in church while praying (“…it’s Margrets little boy…first time caller”) or whatever said more about his character than almost anything else. I do like that we see he just wants love and someone that makes him happy, showing that he’s just human even if he hides so much of himself. Jane did seem like a jerk a little bit, so the fact that he’s still hung up on her and the line where he said something akin to “All my best memories I’m single, and that may be a problem” show that he’s at that point in life where he wants to settle down. That was good to know, but doesn’t really change anything else going on in the main show.Also, the ending felt like a waste. Ted was like “We gotta watch the tape, it’s the only way we’ll get better” or whatever and Beard proceeded to…not watch the tape at all. Felt like when Nate almost corrected his ways just to act like an ass again at the very end of the episode, negating all the progress it seemed he was making. I like that he was wearing the pants, probably a nod to his late night with Jane and the fact he never made it home (damn key!) but that didn’t really affect anything.I like these kind of episodes, where they focus on a side character’s adventures apart from the main cast, but like you said, it should’ve fed back into the main plot and character progression but it didn’t feel like it did in this case.I love this show but I do hope that the writers see some of these criticisms and bring more of an A game for the next two episodes and the eventual third season.
Totally agree with the C+ rating for this one. There were some entertaining moments for sure (one being when he and the barfly’s faked their way into the fancy club and he convinced the dudebros he was a retired Oxford professor.) but outside of that this was a totally pointless episode for me. I think it might be because I just don’t really care about this character, I feel like he’s the least developed of anyone on the show.
I actually really enjoyed this “one shot” episode. I know other television shows have deviated with one off type episodes, but for a show that is predominantly rooted in comedic tradition, I think it is ok here. Also, I enjoy reading internet and fandom critics sometimes, and I don’t want to go overboard criticizing internet critics for being too subjective, not professionally trained, and not doing good research (I am trying not compare you guys to the late Roger Ebert, who just came to mind) and I notice some often bypass the research sometimes. Thus, this episode is an obvious reference (and homage), partially, to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, although a much more heartwarming one. It’s even in the title. 🧐🤓👍
Finally saw it. Two thoughts:1. The episode really captures the woozy, shaggy-dog rhythms of wandering alone around a still-strange city, far too late. Know it well (hello, Chicago! Hi. Dublin!)2. All those doors and keys made me think of Alice in Wonderland; ending in a heaven-like nightclub with Jane made me think of the Divine Comedy. I wonder if either one provided any inspiration.
Fun callback…Thierry Henry’s “va-va-voom” line was a reference to commercials he did back when he was at Arsenal and was arguably the best footballer in the world.Also, “Blue Moon” is the fan anthem for Man City (like “You’ll Never Walk Alone” with Liverpool), not just a soundtrack they used. Its constant appearances were likely references to how much the loss to Man City was in his head.
Why are fans of this show so sensitive? I don’t know if it has something to do with the “this show is so WHOLESOME and people that don’t like it are MEAN” but God, it’s been a while since I can recall a show with such a tender fanbase. Sorry if I’m not a fan of schlocky comedy escapist porn. Sorry if I don’t like how every one-liner (which make up the bulk of each episode) seems to have been formulated by a focus group with about as many members as a small country. Sorry that every single joke in this show being a pop-culture reference doesn’t really gel with me. sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.
After the Christmas episode, I was absolutely dreading the second “bonus” episode.But I found this to be rather enjoyable and diverting in all the right kinds of ways.
An all-time classic? Well, no, but it was consistently amusing, even if the heart of the episode didn’t quite land. Hard to really care that much about a relationship which has existed only in a few random asides up to this point.