Believe me, Ted Lasso is worth season 3
Last week I watched the final episode of Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. A show that has become everyone’s favourite comfort watch due to its immense characters, quick wit and emotive writing. Whilst season one and two of the show were 10/10 in quality I was massively disappointed in most of the latest season. It felt a bit all over the show, there were so many storylines introduced and not nurtured making everything feel rushed. But despite this, the last few episodes of season three brought back everything I love about Ted Lasso. Consider this blog filled with spoilers as I breakout my love letter to this show, its characters and all the themes they address.
But first, who is Ted Lasso?
If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard of Ted Lasso I’ll give you a quick rundown. This is a story about an American football coach who moves to England to manage fictional soccer team Richmond F.C. Ted (played by Jason Sudekis) brings with him fan favourite and co-creator of the show “Coach Beard” (played by Brendan Hunt).
The pair are immediately faced with scrutiny from the team, Richmond fans and wider football community due to having never coached soccer before. Surprisingly to the naysayers, none of that really matters to Coach Lasso as he is more interested in changing everyone else’s attitudes about themselves than what they think of him.
So, that brings me to “The Lasso Way”, three seasons of positive thinking, self-belief and facing the feelings that haunt you - all to the backdrop of sometimes outlandish humour, quick wit and heart wrenching performances.
The elephant in the room
Look I said it, I didn’t like most of season three, some of it was really bad. The episodes were so pointlessly long with lacklustre content especially in comparison to the previous stellar runs. This isn’t just my opinion, the last season received mixed reviews from critics with the consensus opinion on Rotten Tomatoes being,
“Ted Lasso's third and possibly final season takes time to find its footing, but patient viewers who believe will find that they appreciate Coach as much as ever.”
I am the patient viewer they refer to, I made it to the end through pillow fights, Amsterdam and Jade’s intense and boring stares.
“You’re Keeley Fucking Jones”
Yes, she fucking is. Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) is one of the most fabulous female characters in recent times. Her extravagant, whacky and insane outfits paired with her cheeky wit, intellect and captivating personality made her a total fan favourite. Iconic model turned powerhouse PR manager everything she did was totally on brand for the Richmond FC players. Her and Roy Kent were a power couple. That was until they weren’t.
As of season two, I would have loved for them to have been a forever couple whilst still killing it in their respective fields. But as of season three, Keeley Jones’ character development was railroaded and Roy Kent was a dick.
From thrusting Keeley into a new relationship with Jack, the female owner of the company financing her firm to the excruciating first few episodes with Shandy the storyline was bland and overdone. We knew Jack was going to a be a monster and this was evidenced in her reaction when Keeley became a victim of an internet leak exposing an intimate video. This felt like an unnecessary event to happen to her character with little to no outcome except Jamie apologising for not deleting the video and Roy being horrible.
This would have been the perfect opportunity for Keeley to take control of the situation and publicly declare that what she did wasn’t wrong, it was the actions of a criminal that were wrong by illegally sharing personal videos. She could have came back out on top as the empowered icon she is but we sufficed for a tender moment between her and best friend Rebecca. The only real “highlight” of this episode was the locker room talk that occurred between the players.
“Believe”
One of the overarching themes in “Ted Lasso” is the notion of believing in yourself. In reality, it is sometimes a feeling we can’t quite get on our side. Whether we don’t believe we’re good enough at our jobs, in our relationships or in our general being. I do “believe” that this portrayal in the series is why it’s been such an incredible hit. We see on-screen Jamie’s strained relationship with his dad, Rebecca’s devastation and hurt towards her ex-husband and Ted’s inability to understand why his wife wanted a divorce. These are very much real life things happening to fictional characters and viewers can relate to their feelings. It’s how Ted Lasso’s characters pick themselves up, over the course of three seasons, and deal with these feelings that are inspiring. By believing in themselves, acknowledging their hurt and sense of powerlessness and rising above it, they will come out on top. Ted Lasso is filled with enough motivational quotes to fill a petrol station yearly calendar and some of my favourite are:
“Be curious, not judgmental.”
“I believe in hope. I believe in believe.”
“There’s two buttons I never like to hit: that’s panic and snooze.”
“Oh boy, I love meeting people’s moms. It’s like reading an instruction manual as to why they’re nuts.”
Nate the Great
I could write multiple blogs about each character in the Ted Lasso world but I want to focus on the rise and fall of Nathan Shelley: the “Wonder Kid” (Played by Nick Mohammed). From kit guy, to assistant coach to manager, all because Ted believed in him. That worked out well, didn’t it?
Nate’s subplot was a masterclass in character development. In the early days he couldn’t even string a sentence together to club owner Rebecca and sadly declared that “No one has ever asked my name before” on his first meeting with Ted and Coach Beard. The audience feel in love with his early character and we rooted for him every time the players disrespected him. Queue scene where Jamie puts chewing gum in the decorative box Nate made as a donation plate. He was seen as a lowly figure in the club but with a little self-belief it was clear he was a football strategist and Ted promoted him to Assistant Coach.
But with this new found confidence and attention, seen with Nate reading articles about himself online, came an inability on how to act and behave. Perhaps Nate was so used to seeing confident a-holes at work that this is what he based his new found personality on. Whatever his inspiration, it was difficult to watch as each other character gained more emotional and social maturity. Every episode he subtly changes, from his treatment of Will (my heart) to his nastiness towards Colin, you as an audience member grow to dislike him and what he has become. The coaching staff see it, Beard witnesses his brutality towards Colin first hand but as Ted built him up on such a pedestal that meant he had to of course, come crashing back down again.
After ripping up the Believe sign from the locker room, leaking to the press that Ted suffered from panic attacks and being laughed at in front of the Dynamo Dogs for kissing Keeley and not being seen as a threat by Roy, Nate finally crashed. He rose again in the arms of Rupert Mannion , Rebecca’s ex-husband and owner of West Ham United F.C where Nate would take the role of Head Coach. The narrative and styling of West Ham in season 3 was another reason I disliked it purely because of the stereotypical evil villain vibe. With Rupert and Nate even dressing in black suits and leather coats, it was an unnecessary use of costume and set. We know Rupert is the villain, he’s a sleazy slime ball with or without a leather black trench coat.
Needless to say Nate struggled at West Ham, he was a small fish in a big pond and the bad boy persona he left Richmond with was met with the real bad boys at his new club. Season 3 referenced sexual harassment claims in the club, with Rupert’s new wife Bex and assistant, knocking on Rebecca’s door for advice. Nate left his high paying premier league job and moved back home where he learned a lot about his life. Nate was a genius, a violin maestro and only ever wanted to please his father. After many scenes spent sleeping, having food brought to his room on a tray, Nate was finally able to go back to work as a waiter where his girlfriend worked.
But don’t worry, because apparently a lot of action was happening at Richmond for two players and kit man Will to come to the restaurant and ask for Nate to return. I mean, why was this conversation not had on-screen, why would they want him back - he was awful to them. After being let go due to the command of his girlfriend Nate was visited by Coach Beard who reads him the riot act on betraying Ted and how you have to redeem yourself with him, just like Beard had to.
Redemption was fully back on the table as Nate re-joined the Richmond team and with an emotional sorry to Ted all of the unpleasantness was forgotten. With areas that were perhaps dwelled upon too much in Nate’s season 3 story and conversations the audience would have preferred to be privy to, Nate’s story was complete. From shy young boy, to conceited manager and finally, respected, loved and confident friend.
“I love you guys so very much!”
Ted Lasso has become one of my comfort watches, I add it to the list with Schitt’s Creek, Superstore and Abbott Elementary. Despite the long road we had to travel in season 3, it was definitely worth it. To all the characters I say one of my favourite lines from the show from the Richmond players, “I love you guys so very much!”