TED LASSO - S2 - EP 8 - “I Just Wanted You To Know” (Patreon)

Reminder! Like I said last time, I know people involved with the very heart of making this show so I’m crazy biased / disregard my take / yada yada yada. I just mostly want us to have a space to talk about this show each week and hear what y’all think. Cool? Cool!

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Sorry this one took a little longer. It was for reasons that, well, should be obvious concerning the show’s content matter…. *Deep Breath*

This season I’ve talked a lot about how this is the kind of show that “has earned your trust.” This is important because it means that when you see something sitting there being unaddressed, you should understand that the show is probably not in ignorance of it. That they’re going to get there. They are going to address it. And mostly likely, they will address it well. Because that is what the show has done. And that is what it will continue to do. And yet, a few weeks ago tHe DiScOuRsE came just because a few wrongfully amplified voices who were missing the forest for the trees, whether they were talking about how the show was “too feel good” or whatever, I honestly didn’t engage it because 1) you don’t need to defend something that speaks for itself and 2) sometimes it’s just clear people are missing what is being set-up. And now we are actually seeing what has come from that set-up. Which means we got a week full of heavy hearts, bad dads, and loaded loss (along with the confirmation of something I wrote about Ted’s Father back in week two). We will get to this, of course.

But for now let’s go subject by subject and work our way up to it…

Sam / Rebecca - In a way, this is a story about bravery. After receiving a call from his father about how his activism helped to put a dent on the inhumane oil drilling in Nigeria, Sam decides to learn from that successful act of bravery and ask out the woman he likes. He wants to be at his best, so he of course decides to ask Isaac for a haircut. After all, a good haircut is one of the few things that can make you feel more brave (and I love every single part of the sequence). When the time finally comes for their meeting? It’s written and played perfectly. Particularly in how much Sam wears the funniness of the situation on his sleeve (because yes, it’s funny). But it’s also important how mortified Rebecca is and how seriously she takes the boundaries involved, as well as the age gap (I especially love those words “I mean it. I have to mean it”).

This fits them both for so many reasons. Sam is young, perhaps a bit naive. And Rebecca has seen a whole lot of heartbreak. She knows why these exact kinds of protocols exist. Even after they enjoy their “not date,” she holds onto them... But then the brutal loss comes. And there’s a way that kind of loss puts so many things in perspective. Not just because it shows you how days get shorter, but gets you to ask those bigger questions - why was I so wrapped up in X? Why are we here? What are we doing?  And then you decide to be a very different kind of brave. Perhaps even foolishly so. But that’s part of it. We the audience know there will be complications. But so does Rebecca. And they will get to them. After all, this is a show that’s earned our trust. But for now, there’s just the bravery of trying the complex, possibly foolish thing…. Because in the end, how often are you (both) struck by lightning?

Roy’s “Bad Influence” - Hahahahha, I love that Phoebe has developed a swearing problem. It’s one of those TV conflicts that’s kind of adorable, but, of course, still real. Because there are some situations where swearing is just genuinely inappropriate (though I still find it weird when people don’t like cursing in these columns? I don’t know, I grew up in a curse heavy area - even among, nay ESPECIALLY among the deeply Catholic). But just because it’s a cute conflict doesn't mean there aren't deeper things going on. Roy tells Phoebe as much, saying that “I worry I've been infecting you with the worst parts of me.” What he’s talking about here is much bigger than swearing. You just have to have a longer memory (which is true of a lot this season). You have to remember the kind of childhood that Roy had.

He was abandoned and surrounded by shitty people, having all kinds of “bad dads” in his life and they left him both deeply scared and deeply scarred (remember the story he told when he burned the blanket that kept him warm when he was on his own). And now, he’s scared that he’s going to be the kind of “bad dad” for Phoebe. That all that upbringing that infected him will somehow infect her in turn. The swearing is a metaphor for this. Because he’s not just an uncle who appears once in a while, he’s her dad figure. They say as much when Roy’s talking with the teacher about her actual shitty dad. The conflict of all this comes from a very deep place. So yeah, as much as Phoebe knows she can stop swearing, this isn’t about that. And she can tell Uncle Roy with her child-like brightness that, “I’m as good as the best you,” but there’s still an innocence to that answer. And Roy knows deep down that it's only going to get more complicated. But the real thing about this storyline is that everything Roy is feeling directly impacts his behavior in another character’s storyline…

Jamie and His Dad - Jamie’s dad is back and, of course, he wants tickets for the big cup game against Man City. He goes to Higgins and ends up getting some advice about fathers and sons and “making peace” with who his father is and isn’t… But honestly? Higgins doesn’t get it. This is a guy whose family problems involve a lot of secure attachments and earnest love. Jamie’s Dad is, in all abject clarity, a complete piece of shit. And he’s the kind of piece of shit that I worry some people may think is an exaggeration? But I feel like I know those dads intimately. In Boston, the “alcoholic asshole sports dads” practically grow on trees. I mean, I knew someone whose dad literally killed my friend’s uncle at a youth hockey game. My mom taught a kid who ended up being an all-star for the White Sox and had family members who were genuinely mad he wasn’t asking for a trade to the red sox. There’s a certain nexus of myopia and anger and substance abuse at the heart of this. The dark side of everything sports. And because Higgins comes from a secure place of love, he is just  inadvertently shoring up all the conventional wisdom which emphasizes “the bond of blood.” Which is supposed to be what matters, but instead mostly gets invoked as a licence for people to treat their family members like shit. So Jamie keeps going along with it as he always does and gets him the tickets. All because it’s what he “should” do. After all, how bad could it be?

Bad. Real bad. Because Jamie’s dad is always the person who always makes it worse. Who can’t feel better unless he’s making a whole room of people feel awful. Who crosses the line so many times that you’re always just waiting for the other shoe to drop. In short, he is the kind of person you need to draw a finite boundary with, not “accept” as some kind of flawed person with good and bad. And when all of his jerkitude hits a fever pitch in the locker room after the loss, Jamie finally does just that and draws a boundary: “don’t speak to me like that.” It’s heartbreaking the way he can barely get out the words. And naturally it spills into punches and all the hateful things that physically abusive people love to lord over you. But it’s those final words that cut deepest: “Don’t you forget where you came from!” It’s exactly the kind of line that people who talk about blood and family love to say, because it demands your honor and obedience and all the attitudes that got Jamie into this mess in the first place. But most painful of all? Jamie couldn’t forget where he came from if he tried. It hangs over him like an albatross at every moment. It’s everything he’s been fighting against his entire life. And as he sits there in the shock of it all… there’s one person who really sees him.

It had to be Roy. Just like when he read Wrinkle in Time and knew, “it’s gotta be me,” he knows it here, too. Because he is the person who understands this moment. He knows what it’s like to want to punch your dad in the fucking face. He knows what it’s like to come from abandonment and neglect and worse. He was the scared kid surrounded by shit adults. And because of this, he understood how important it was to hug him. Roy Kent spent the whole episode quietly being afraid of being “the bad dad,” but in the end it was that understanding of bad dads that allowed him to transcend it. And be the kind of person who hugged a scared child in his moment of need. No, the show doesn’t draw this line for you with an abject underlining, but there’s a reason that this is how the episode started... and a reason why this is how it ended. It had to be Roy.

And just like before, this story moment informs another storyline...

Sharon and Ted - One of the biggest arenas of season two when it comes to “earning your trust” has been the depiction thus far of Doctor Sharon. After all, I wrote about the dangers of the “black lady therapist trope” which is all about putting some magical healer person there to just lift up and support white people, etc. As so, the questions abound. What’s her inner life like? What does she want? How is she funny? What is her existence outside of it? Sure, I knew we’d get there because the show had earned our trust. But still, we’ve been waiting. Luckily, this episode does all that and more so. The episode starts with a rapid fire sequence of characterization. We get to see her be sardonic, straight-forward, judgemental, wry, and how quickly she is ready to call strangers out on their bad public behavior. We see her own therapy session and learn that, duh, Ted’s driving her up a fucking wall. We even see that she’s been drinking. But right as she’s biking along, listening to music, and in her happy place of life... Bam. She’s struck by a car.

The mind races on how this could be milked for drama, but it's an utter testament to Ted Lasso that it then did everything different from every other kind of show. There isn’t some grand emergency. No hospital bed soul-saving here! Instead, it’s minor injuries and watching for concussion signs. But it nonetheless brings Ted right into her orbit in a way she doesn’t want. It’s perfect, really. Because in this situation Sharon simultaneously gets to let down her guard and be openly annoyed, especially as Ted inadvertently starts piercing her well-maintained boundaries. But a few of them come down for a reason. For it turns out that while high on pain meds, Sharon left Ted a bunch of funny voice messages saying how she really feels about him. She’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to hear it, but Ted, ever the golden retriever, doesn’t seem to mind much. If anything, that kind of frank honesty makes him feel a little better. Sometimes it’s good to know when you’re getting on someone’s nerves. And sometimes it’s good to know that someone else is human. Upon returning home he sees lots of things about her life (including the empty liquor bottles) all of which makes her feel more guarded and him the more curious. But Sharon’s also right, this is not the right way for them to do this.

No, it’s not until Ted calls and checks in on her with a genuinely kind consideration that she opens up (“oh so that’s what it sounds like when you laugh?” and the moment inspires a beat of productive honesty. She tells him that she was really scared after the accident. She outright tells him that biking is her happy place and she was worried that this accident might scare her away from it for good. Ted tries talking, but she tells him there’s no trying to fix it, “I just wanted to tell you how I was feeling.” Not just because it’s leading by example and modeling behavior for him, but because it is true. And at first we think this inspires Ted to tell his fellow coaches he’s been suffering panic attacks (and their confessions in turn are fantastic), but it will go deeper than that. Cut to a whole terrible match later, we see Ted witnessing the altercation between Jamie and his bad dad - and it’s something that deeply scares him to his bones. And so he runs outside to call Sharon. And then he says it.

“My father killed himself when I was 16.”

I’ve already received a few messages from y’all about how I “called it,” but I don’t think it’s so much a matter of calling it. We don’t watch Ted Lasso to play the guessing game. In the end, it’s just that good writing sets you up emotionally for things you will experience in watching it. It implies events and feelings that will come and fit in with broader characterization. And if you study writing long enough, get to see the architecture of what’s being built, especially as you watch a really good television show. To that, I’ll go back to what I wrote after the second episode that name checked The Prince of Tides because all the same insight applies to the here and now:

“Don’t get me wrong, the book is a MUCH darker story than anything that will probably happen in this show, but it’s easy to start doing the math about what this probably means… it means that we’re going to be getting into Ted’s trauma and… Gulp… Some things start adding up. We know Ted's father died when he was 16. We know they spent every Sunday in a sports bar. And just this episode Ted said his dad “a lot harder on himself than he ever was on me.” There are some big warning signs of depression here and I genuinely hesitate to make the guess that “Ted’s dad possibly killed himself,” because such guesses feel crass. But... we know there is an emotional nugget here that is sincerely traumatic. And more importantly, we know the version of Ted who has come out of that whatever this traumatic event was. We see the way he staves off depression with relentless positivity, the way he bounces off so much pain, the way he’s quick to forgive, and also relentlessly tries to fix problems, and we even saw him have panic attacks last season when couldn’t fix said problems.”

All of this is now coming to a head. But the most heartbreaking part of the exchange was not the knowledge in and of itself. No, it is when Ted stutters out the words about how this “might have something to do” with what's been going on with him and… oof... Yeah, Ted. It does. Because it has everything to do with everything. It’s an event that so redefines everything about your life. It’s a fulcrum. A crux. A crucible of hellish pain and loss and all the things that make us fearful. You did everything you could in your midwestern wisdom to take those lemons and turn them into lemonade and look how far you’ve come. You’ve done so much good. But if any quaint saying points out the facile nature of that attitude when facing the deepest trauma, it’s that one. You’ve spent a life running from it, Ted. We’ve seen the power of what good you held onto with your father and what comes when playing darts and thinking about barbecue sauce... But there’s a dark, wounded well of abandonment and loss and pain that’s sitting right there, right below that happy surface.

And it’s time to start healing it <3

RANDOM THOUGHTS / BEST JOKES

-I love the idea that Roy and Beard just gruffly stare at one another all day and are perfectly happy to do so.

-I also love that beat where Nate feels less special knowing he was not asked first to be a spokesman (man, his thin-skin is really showing lately and man oh man is any perceived slight all about his inability to please his own bad dad).

-I love that Roy and Phoebe got ice cream anyway.

-Rebecca: “What are you 24?” / Sam: “I’m 21” / Rebecca: “I’m a pedophile!” … But seriously, Sam’s 21!?!?

-One of the many things I love about the haircut scene is it shows off how much sports teams  are full of ceremonial weirdos. No, really. It’s a whole thing where a bunch of dumb boys have to spend a lot of time sitting around being bored, so they basically invent all these strange characters and superstitions and goofy ceremonies. This is particularly true of baseball dugouts and bullpens.

-In a sure sign that I am old I have never heard “textual chemistry” before but I laughed at it.

-Ted’s kermit-y voice when he said “have you been feeling dizzy or nauseous?” made me laugh out loud.

-I also love Ted’s deeply inaccurate speech before the big game that basically hurts all his metaphors (I didn’t know the fields were different sizes either).

-I really like the way this show handles the sports side of things. I particularly loved how much time they spent on their nervousness before the big match today. And then how it goes real bad real quick.

-The confession scene is also great. Roy: “I don’t read the scouting reports you all write. They’re boring and I won’t do it” / Beard: “There was one game this season where I was accidentally on mushrooms.” And of course ending on: “butts on three”

-There’s the final moment at the end where Beard says he’s going to “shake this off” and I’ll be honest that I’m still a little shaky in writing about all this. Not just because suicide is a really hard topic for me to just launch back into a moments notice (everytime I write about it, it’s by choice), but there’s a way it comes to ahead with all the other abusive storylines here. Even when Ted pulled out the line “bird by bird” at the end, it’s actually saying that someone would say to me a lot and now whenever I hear it it feels like a gut punch - all because it emphasizes everything I ever should of listened to / something I completely destroyed through my own bullshit, which all existed in the first place because I had spent a lifetime running from trauma no less. And so it all just wells up inside you. That’s the thing about the architecture of this kind of emotional baggage. The specifics can evoke memories and images. And sometimes it all can be very different, but the broad strokes still get at something painful in our heart of hearts. Pain is pain. Trauma is trauma. But we’re here now. And we are in it. Because there was no other place it could go, really.

Sure, season two of Ted Lasso hasn’t been telling its story as an A to B to C method of conflict and resolution. Instead, it’s been expanding out in multitudes of directions, often connecting its ongoing stories on a deeper psychological level. And while sometimes more evasive, it can often be even more meaningful. Yes, it’s aiming for the dramatic expression of something that’s a hundred times more complicated, but given all that’s come before…

… It’s the only place it could ever be headed.

<3HULK