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trelkez · 1 year

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Things I enjoyed about Ted Lasso 3.08:

- Will and Henry - Beard and Henry - Richard tearfully saying goodbye to his camera roll - "woof" - password with two s's - Jamie in general

On the whole, though, I was pretty unhappy with this episode, so let's get into it.

1. Let's get this out of the way first, because this is one big part of the episode I wasn't mad about: the Isaac and Colin stuff. I thought the set-up was actually really effective: Isaac trying to force the team to be better people, being firm and supportive and a good ally to women (I was literally clutching my chest during that scene), and then the sharp, sudden drop when he sees the pictures on Colin's phone and storms off. This felt unfortunately true to life for me; being a good ally in some ways doesn't automatically make someone a good ally in others.

I'm hoping this is going to be resolved in the next episode in an uplifting way, because Colin needs it and frankly I, as an Isaac fan, need it. (I've been dreading this moment since Isaac's "that's gay" comment earlier on. This is a show about growth! I need to see that growth.) But I'm not too worried, because they haven't set up anything unresolvable here. I would do whatever the 2023 equivalent of burning your DVD boxed set is if they decided to give Isaac an unredeemed homophobic villain turn at the very end of the series, but I don't think they're going to do that. Conflict, sure; some needed growth, yes; but this isn't a show designed to suddenly pull the rug out from under you and tell you that people are bad, actually. In this one, very specific area, I have faith in the show to do right by us.

And on a sidenote: I've seen mixed reactions to Isaac getting on his soapbox about privacy and then grabbing Colin's phone and looking at his pictures without permission. I wasn't upset about it, tbh. They have been really consistent in showing how Colin defaults to toxic masculinity as a cover, and never moreso than here, where he tries to say what he thinks the average straight guy in a locker room would say and is then surprised to be called out on it. He implied he's going to be looking at the leaked photos, pushes back hard when he's told not to, slinks off with his phone - with every single part of how he acts, and especially with them knowing that Keeley's photos are out there, I would've grabbed his phone too.

What gets me about that moment isn't Isaac violating Colin's privacy, it's that Colin has so thoroughly drawn toxicity around himself like a shield that Isaac has no reason to trust him to do the right thing.

2. I know this isn't really a show about football, but it's still a show structured around football. Season three has been largely indifferent to that, and the lack of structure is really becoming a problem.

3. Nate and Jade are truly adorable, and that makes it all the more frustrating that they went so far with Nate last season and are now attempting to heal it through the power of "but he's a good guy actually." You took him pretty far down the path, show. Move him out of Richmond, and suddenly he isn't the cruel, narcissistic, handsy, life-ruining guy the show slowly built him up into? If this is supposed to be Nate returning to the light because he sees how terrible Rupert is and realizes where he's gone awry, they aren't showing Rupert nearly enough to get that across.

I don't want Nate to have to suffer forever for what he did, because this whole show is about flawed people getting second chances and finding joy and having people to lean on! But what they've done this season has felt like mid-season two Nate suddenly woke up and found out he was the manager of West Ham, and now has to bumble his way through fame while slowly realizing that the things he thought would make him happy are actually hollow without the people who cared about him along the way. Which is a perfectly fine storyline, if Nate had in fact spontaneously disappeared halfway through season two. Since he didn't, we're left with a season that is mostly just saying a lot, "but you still LIKE Nate, right?"

We're being asked to take it on faith that at some point, there will be a reckoning over season two - but for now, can't we just go along for the ride? If they had just let Nate apologize to Ted in episode four, that could have been part of a longer arc of character growth instead of - it seems like - the end point of the story. They could even have had Ted get swept away onto the team bus before he had time to respond, left it unresolved, and still taken a concrete step forward for Nate that is so far entirely missing.

Nate and Jade and their cute romcom scenes especially stand out within this episode. This ep violated Keeley as a plot device; remember when Nate kissed Keeley in the dressing room and we just moved on like nothing had happened? This ep has (at least temporarily) confirmed Colin's fears about the team finding out about him; remember when tearing down Colin's self-confidence was a key part of Nate's journey to the dark side? This ep has Ted taking his kid to Nate's game in West Ham gear; remember when Nate tried to ruin Ted's life? It makes complete sense for Ted, being Ted, to forgive (or tell himself he forgives) and move on without doing any actual emotional processing about it, but you can't ask the audience to do that too.

I was really worried about this after season two ended, knowing that season three was going to ask me to go along on a Nate redemption arc and not being sure how that would go. So far, I'm wildly unimpressed.

But Nate and Jade are very cute.

4. I am so tired of the Ted and Michelle drama, and I really wish I didn't know enough about Jason Sudeikis' personal life to be stuck seeing this as a guy throwing away his own titular character so that he can take shots at his ex-wife. There has been absolutely nothing to Ted's character arc this season except his angst over Michelle. The Dr. Jacob stuff is in fact really unethical and you can look at all of this and say, yeah, this really would send someone into a season-long funk! But why is it even happening? It's like all of the life has been drained out of the character. I for sure do not expect Ted Lasso to be happy and engaged all of the time - I made an entire Ted vid about anxiety and panic attacks and gloom! - but there are storylines about depression and then there's this, which is turning the show's central character into narrative dead weight.

The point at which Ted is so obsessed over Michelle that he's neglecting his extremely limited time with his son to try and stalk his ex-wife on her vacation - that's the point at which things have officially gone off the rails. Episode after episode I've thought, okay, now things are turning around. I really thought we'd turned a corner in Amsterdam, but somehow, things keep getting worse instead. Are we finally going to turn a corner now? Is there enough time left in the season for them to do anything meaningful with Ted Lasso the character at all, particularly given that this season is probably his swan song?

(And I’m not even sure if the feeling of things going off the rails was intentional or not! Did they know what they were doing when they put a story about Ted trying to PI-stalk his ex-wife alongside a story about a woman’s right to privacy? Is that an intentional contrast so we go, wow, Ted has really gone off the deep end here, or did no one do the math?)

About the only good thing to come from this storyline to date is Beard's Hey Jude interlude with Henry. Beard, you have some interesting ideas about what kids should do on vacation, but you are a very good friend and uncle.

5. And finally, oh god, Keeley. I don't even know where to start.

It really feels like they said, "you can have bi Keeley, but only if her girlfriend is obviously a villain who exists to put her through it on her way back to a man." That writing on the wall was why I was never particularly excited about Keeley and Jack.

Even so: in my wildest dreams I did not imagine they would do her this wrong. In what way was this ep's storyline even remotely necessary? The one and only thing it does that couldn't be achieved by other plot means is to violate and traumatize Keeley, and there is absolutely no reason to do that.

I know the episode was (co-)written by Keeley Hazell, who surely has some feelings about a model's right to privacy, and a lot of it does feel very pointed in that Very Special Episode way of commenting on how women are sexualized without their consent and impressing on the audience the importance of men standing up for women & everyone respecting the privacy of your partners, even after relationships are over. Other women won't defend you just because they're women, class solidarity wins out, internalized misogyny is very real - that all feels very deliberate. I feel like I get where this episode is coming from, and I can see the good intentions and desire to communicate specific messages behind it.

But, honestly: this is a mess. We always knew the Jack plotline was going to end poorly one way or another, but there were plenty of ways to reveal Jack as a not-great person without swerving into "your sex tape is your fault" partner blame. No matter its intentions, what this episode actually does is use a violation of a woman's privacy as a way to let male characters show off as good guys while a woman becomes a villain. It uses Keeley's suffering to advance plotlines she isn't even remotely part of, like Colin being outed to Isaac. It is, very clearly, setting Keeley up to lose her business - Jack was her source of funding; this isn't going to be a one-episode plotline. Some of these are bigger, structural problems rather than questionable one-episode script choices, and it gets me back to how I really just don't know what the show thinks it's fucking doing with some of these season arcs.

(Where is Rebecca? I'm not mad about the fertility storyline like some people are - it tracks for me - but why is she spending entire episodes as an expository device and plot advancer for other people's stories?)

And since I've seen so much back and forth on it: my assumption in the moment re: Roy was that he was trying to ask if the video was for him, if the leak was in some way his fault, and wasn't interrogating her about who she was making explicit videos for. But I'm ... also not sure that makes any sense (wouldn't he know if it had been for him?), so I may just be giving a lot of benefit of doubt here to avoid how otherwise wildly out of character that exchange would be. There's a difference between expecting characters to be good and unproblematic all of the time, which I don't, and expecting characters to stay loosely true to who they have consistently been all along, which I do. "Roy expresses himself badly" is not an excuse for the choices that went into that exchange; it was just bad writing.

Four episodes to go! Wow, do they have a lot of ground to cover before then. 😅

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #episode reactions

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hacash · 3 years

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Ted Lasso 2x03 thoughts

SAM OBISANYA EVERYONE

SERIOUSLY

JUST SAM

EVERYTHING ABOUT SAM

IF YOU DON’T LOVE SAM YOU’RE WRONG

I - just - I saw a preview saying Sam was going to have a ‘protest in sport’ storyline this season and I thought that the writers could probably pull it off, but nonetheless it was a relief to see that they did pull it off. The fact that the momentum of the protest was pushed by Sam and the Nigerian players rather than someone like Ted or Rebecca was good - the fact that Sam fully held his own with dignity and integrity all the way through the ep was good - the fact that we had Ted acknowledging that when bad things happen to white dudes like him the press covers it without encouragement was good….

On a slightly more baseline reaction: I love every second I see Sam’s lovely smiling face on my screen and will continue to do so.

There’s literally nothing I can say about the taping-up-the-shirts scene other than it made me tear up at 9.30AM and that’s not a thing that usually happens in my life.

We’re finally getting more Richmond FC screentime! It’s pertinent that we see this on the ep where Jamie returns - how much camaraderie and genuine friendship has built up since he left - but just any excuse to see those daft happy faces together. The general ribbing of Sam’s ad, the post-match party together - I adore these himbos.

A special shout out to: ‘I’m nervous and excited, kind of like whenever Colin takes me somewhere in his Lamborghini’ ‘Yeah it’s way too much car for me.’ As a fellow Welsh person, I can confirm that flash speedy supercars really aren’t part of our national DNA.

I’m also hoping that Richard talking in French and Zoreaux translating for him becomes a regular thing.

I love how they wrote Jamie’s return: it would have been so easy for him to come back and have all be forgiven, but they made it messy and complicated and have forgiveness come in dribs and drabs. I love that Jamie didn’t immediately understand everything about the team’s feelings and that his first impulse was to buy their acceptance back (that’s a painful little snapshot into his psyche right there) and that we saw people like Sam and Nate and Colin be allowed to be petty with him returning. I also loved seeing Keeley not being put into the role of ‘Jamie’s minder’ again but instead pushing him to speak with Sharon, a person who is actually paid to deal with this crap - it was an understated but neat little moment of a woman demonstrating personal boundaries with the men in her life.

What I absolutely adored, though, was that the final reconciliation comes after Jamie puts his own fame and reputation and wallet on the line by joining in with Sam’s protest. It was a proper ‘I’m part of this team even if it hits me where it hurts’ sacrifice when before Jamie has only ever been about himself, and such a neat resolution to the rift.

Is anyone else concerned about Coach Beard’s relationship with Jane? All these fights do not sound healthy.

I really like how the boys react to Keeley now - it seems to be a genuine friendship between her and the team, as opposed to the mutual objectification on all sides that we saw in the first episode. Her becoming the entire team’s big sister warms my cold heart.

Nora was a delight. I was a little worried about her inclusion because so often TV writers can’t get teenage girls right - they’re always a bit too sassy and perfectly put together and smarter than every adult in the room - but Nora was the perfect blend of snark and teenage insecurity. Her crush on Sam was both adorable and the most relatable thing about her; and her bonding with Rebecca was adorable - I really enjoyed the email composition scene, and hope we get more of her in the future.

Rebecca ‘Ally Who Stands By Her Boys At All Times And Takes No Shit’ Welton is an absolute queen.

For a show about Ted Lasso there wasn’t so much Ted in this ep (the Led Tasso scene was pretty fun, admittedly), but all I can say is a dating app with no pictures that both Ted and Rebecca are on, leading to a YOU’VE GOT MAIL AU TED AND REBECCA???? PLEASE. I need this like air.

Also: Ted Lasso as a sexual partner who is, and I quote, ‘so eager to please’??? Rebecca take notes, girl.

Similarly not so much Roy in this ep, but his appearance on Sky Sports was once again a thing of absolute beauty. (’I hope he dies of the incurable condition of being a little bitch’ is a line I am going to use all the time now.) I would pay Brett Goldstein any amount of money to join Sky Sports and commentate on real life football as Roy.

Higgins being so easy around Rebecca and lying (unsuccessfully) to a teenage girl to big up his boss in front of her granddaughter was a perfect and underrated moment. Their friendship just makes my heart explode.

I’ve already shrieked my head off about Colin being all but confirmed as on Grindr and how it will take a lot to disabuse me of my ‘bisexual disaster who drives like an idiot’ headcanon (I mean, they put the two lines in the same scene ffs), but it does bear repeating. I actually love him, your honour.

Probably my favourite episode of the season so far. Next Friday’s Christmas shenanigans cannot come soon enough.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #jamie tartt #sam obisanya #rebecca welton #nora #theodore lasso #isaac mcadoo #colin hughes #coach beard #nate shelley #roy kent #keeley jones

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