Random thoughts and spoilers on the second season….
I never really know how to pin down why I love Ted Lasso so much, it’s such a ludicrous premise held down by it’s sheer enthusiasm at existing. The same might be said of the eponymous character, and while Ted is those things, it’s his flaws that keep the experience so redeeming. At a little more than halfway through the second season it’s clear that there is a lot of steam left in the writing room, however predictable the episodes might be. The redemption of Jamie Tartt, the coaching of Roy Kent, and the resurrection of AFC Richmond’s side were hard to not see coming but damn if every minute hasn’t been working the way they want it to. I believe.
One of the finest moments in my mind is the Christmas episode but not just for the relentless joy, it’s actually pretty weak from a storytelling perspective as there is no real conflict outside of poor Phoebe’s horrendous breath. It’s in the Sexy Christmas conversation with Keeley and the coaches. She talks about her sexuality openly and is not mocked or shamed, she’s teased and they are all in on it. It’s just accepted as a part of life, a particularly fun one and in another TV show this could have gone horribly wrong but, and I don’t like to repeat my adjectives, joy is all that’s there. It’s a joy and fellowship and a respect for her that belongs in the real world far more often.
Jamie had an admittedly quick turn around after being essentially the main villain, if such a thing exists outside of Rupert, the ex-husband of the team owner. Bill Lawrence and company have done their jobs making everyone essentially the stars of their own show, even Nate had a prominent arc while also being the least interesting side character of all time (sorry Nick Mohammed). I will make a case for Tartt, that after his ejection from the reality show…. sorry, the hilariously silly reality show LUST CONQUERS ALL, he spends a reasonable amount of screen time meeting and greeting fans with absolute dignity and respect. He was a massive asshole in the first season but he was a massive asshole because of the first season, that was the point. A gentlemen I met who had a Ted Lasso jersey could only go on about how much he disliked Jamie Tartt (Do Do Do do do doot) but if you missed the scene where his father is emotionally abusing him you missed the whole point of Ted Lasso, show and person. He’s as much a victim as the people he spent the first season abusing.
I’d also make the argument that Roy Kent, while being my favorite character and essentially an analogue of Dr. Percival Cox from Scrubs, is almost too perfect. His wisdom is all encompassing. He has less of an arc and more of a shortened curve. There’s no real conflict there and I say this as a grown adult man who is going to, if I can find an AFC Richmond jersey, dress up as the character for Halloween (I’m working on my gravelly “NO“). But I’d adore this show even more if he had anywhere near the character conflicts that Ted is going through. Which brings us to Ted.
Mental health, anxiety and panic attacks, these are all serious issues that are devastating the medical community at the moment. For a variety of reasons, including work from home, climate change, and political divides have wracked the popular consciousness, we’re all dealing with some aspect of this either personally or with a friend or family member and it’s both honorable and admirable that Ted Lasso is so serious about showing how even the most relentlessly positive character, however fictional, can still suffer from these issues. It’s what makes him human as opposed to a caricature.
For the record, I called Sam Abisanya and Rebecca. I called it after obsessively watching the first season while dealing with my own depression and mental health, there’s a moment before she does karaoke when Sam takes her coat that they look at each other and it’s Sam and Diane, it’s Jim and Pam, it’s everything expressed in a simple exchange and, while I appreciate the head-fake in an earlier episode, there is no chemistry between Ted and Rebecca. It’s just not there, I said looking at my friends with accusatory contempt because they have social lives and I’ve rewatched Ted Lasso…. none of your business-times. At this point in the season it’s too early to tell if they are going to try and make this work but given the progressive approach to each episode I really look forward to seeing it unfold. Also, Sam deserves a queen and a queen is what Rebecca is in a nearly literal sense.
Predictions for the last half of the season, well, I should have piped up about Sam and Rebecca earlier but now there is no record of that happening or my amazing knowledge. I predict that Ted is going to have to find some way of combining himself with his alter-ego, Led Tasso, a character I am bummed I did not commit to tattooing on myself before I chose his BELIEVE type. I predict that Sam and Rebecca won’t be a perfect match but they will have fun trying. I predict that Jamie Tartt is going to try and win back Keeley, that Roy won’t even bother putting up a fight, and that she’ll make the right choice in the end. I predict that Nate is going to continue being sort of boring and off-putting. I predict that AFC Richmond will succeed in getting promoted from the confusingly named Champions League and, as Ted put it so eloquently, get on the road to winning the whole fucking thing.
For what it’s worth, Emmy nominations and wins aside, Ted Lasso has been such a fun time that the second half of the season could be awful and I wouldn’t care. That Roy Kent quoted Jerry Maguire, that Jamie stood with Sam and his boycott, that Keeley keeps saving people from themselves, that Higgins and his wife are the Turk and Carla of the show, that Nate spit on a mirror for some reason (?), that Rebecca continues to reinvent herself, that Rom-Communism, the belief that love is real and sometimes we’re in the middle of the dark forest but that that isn’t the end as much as the middle, is a thing I’ve been trying to put into words for years on this blog, so to me Ted Lasso has already won.
Brave It All Alone 