TED LASSO - S2 - EP 11 - Thank You For Telling Me (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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This week’s penultimate episode of Season Two “The Midnight Train To Roystown” involves a lot of people telling each other some very important, very difficult things. I know that sounds vague, but the specificity of each is loaded beyond belief.

As always, let’s go subject by subject.

SAM - The little opening  with Sam is just one of those beautiful little scenes. It’s the light charm of life feeling good, and everything going so well, and yet having this one little pang in your heart leftover. That little bit of disconnect from the thing he wants on a deeper level. Which of course is just the emotional set-up for the big instigation of the episode. Because new-heir-to-billions Edwin Okufu (the great Sam Richardson!) is coming in and to try and buy Sam away from the club. Everything about it seems like an ideal situation for Sam. Edwin is a person who doesn’t believe billionaires should exist. The kind of person who genuinely wants to take his father’s fortune and help Africa in every way he can. And we already know what this means for Sam. We know what his family and his home mean to him. We know the boy whose dream was to play for the Nigerian national team. We know so much of this is everything he wanted on the deeper core level. But… there’s the one pang in his heart still there...

REBECCA - “I’m just going to come out and say it… I had a torrid affair with Sam.” I literally made a note that this was Rebecca’s second “second to last episode confession to Ted,” but in typical fashion in this show, they called it right away, too. First I’ll say that I love Hannah’s performance in this scene. It’s so underplayed and funny in its directness. And Ted’s “Listen to me, don’t listen to me,” response is perfect. But in the end, the most she can ultimately muster up for Sam is a convoluting “telling” of her feelings. That she can’t tell him what he wants to hear yet, that she understands if he needs to go, but she doesn’t want him to go. For Sam? Being put up on a shelf is a really hard feeling to deal with, as if some cruel Shroedinger’s Cat like scenario where your heart is both in and out. But when the person is being direct with you, sometimes all we one can do is understand that and do the best for ourselves in the meantime. It’s just not a fun, liminal space to exist within. But Sam and Rebecca are not the only ones having trouble with their unsure romantic space…

KEELEY / ROY - Relationships can be toxic, horrible, and debilitating. They can also be loving, helpful, and growth-inducing. But no matter what, even the most amazing ones are difficult. That’s the simple truth of them. Because what would be easy about two different people trying to share a complete life? What probably doesn’t help matters is how much the world of media is so often more obsessed with “finding love” than “staying with love.” I get why, of course. It’s more cinematic that way. It tells a story that leads to all the warm feelings of elation. And dealing with the problems or foibles doesn’t much make for that hopeful story. While there are a few dramas that really do it well, most of those relationship things make the plot fodder for the purgatory state of marriages in long-running sitcoms, where the daily problem gets solved and nothing ever really changes status. But despite all the sitcom ancestry within Ted Lasso, it’s just not that kind of show.

It feels like Keeley and Roy have been the couple du jour / #relationshipgoals / just all around great to watch this season. The reason for this is that they’re cute and entertaining as fuck. But also because we’ve watched them solve problems in real, earnest ways. We’ve watched as they’ve solved their hiccups and grown. Especially Roy, who is that nearly perfect version of the guy who is actually sensitive / listening / learning underneath the gruff exterior. And every time the show had a chance to get sitcom-y or soap opera-y with the plot, they’ve instead pulled back and had the real, adult conversation. The dynamic actually cues up the incredible moment where Keeley has to give an interview and confides to Roy. She talks about finally being vulnerable as “the real me” and not just the surface (all while trying to hold on from crying with all the makeup on in a beautiful touch). And given her experience with Nate just a moment prior, it shows how good Ted Lasso is at understanding a character’s emotional arc in terms of how we carry feelings from one scene to the next. And as she expresses those fears, like always, Roy comes up and gives one of his patented amazing “struck by lightning” type pep talks that reassures Keeley of her deepest worth. But the truth is that as powerful as the feelings are that come from this, it doesn’t automatically solve deeper, more existential things.

Like the momentary feelings of disconnect they’ve both felt that had been building lately. And in that moment of them having a break in the photoshoot, a symbolic gesture of them putting up their happy surface level, Keeley confides that Nate tried to kiss her. But it’s not really about that. Because it’s just a healthy thing to say and has no real impact on the deeper issues within them. No, that part starts when Roy admits he spent hours at the school and when asked if married (really, asking are you single) didn’t explain anything and he didn’t know why. And when there, that’s when she reveals that Jamie told her at the funeral that he still loves her. And those two things?

Those are not hiccups. Nor are they misunderstandings. Nor are they boundary-breaking horrors that would send one flying out of a room. They’re moments that strike at the deeper existential questions about what these two people want out of their lives going forward. Like Sam and Rebecca’s conflict, it’s asking “what do I really want more than anything?” As the two of them sit in their modely pose, they both feel the weight of that question press on them. Like I said above, sometimes navigating the “I don’t know” Shroedinger’s Cat space is just as difficult. In the end, we come away with the understanding that the pep talks are easy. The hard talks are not. Which is revelation which is also true for…

TED / SHARON - And so Sharon’s leaving the club on her last day. Of course, Ted has a whole surprise party planned along with a whole N’Sync choreography routine. We know now this as is one of the ways Ted shows appreciation. These big gestures and cookies and so much more. But Sharon’s style is of course to stealth out while leaving everyone letters. Naturally, having just had huge breakthroughs with her, Ted freaks out. He storms in and talks from that same scared place to Sharon about his abandonment issues. But really, it’s now having to say goodbye to something (therapy) that he learned is so valuable. To which Sharon responded about how all of it “is in the letter.” But Ted doesn’t want the letter. He wants things to be the way he likes communicating. This one hit a little hard because writing is the place I feel like I communicate best. Words is where it all stumbles out wrong and it’s a kind of vulnerability that is so damn hard. But hey, we live in a world that works that way a lot of times. Maybe we need to be good at both. And in the end, what’s in the letter is all the kinds of things that touch Ted deeply. And in the end, Ted even steals her stealthy goodbye … But the end is never the end.

Because therapy isn’t one touch sorcery. There’s no just understanding your flaws and trauma and then being cured. Therapy is the day to day work, the maintaining, and the not caving completely when you backslide. We have to keep going on and bringing the things that we learned from our lives and relationships to keep growing forward. Because there is always going to be another challenge…. Which brings us to the final “telling” of the episode. One where Trent Crimm does the honor of telling Ted about a news story they’re running tomorrow… about how they know it was the panic attack that caused him to leave the field that day. And because Trent respects Ted, he tells him who the source was…

NATE - And boom goes the dynamite. It is here that the point of Nate’s arc finally snaps into focus… We’ve been watching the dawn of the villain figure (well, villain-like, but I’ll get to that). But what did I say at the start of the season? You often don’t even realize when you’re in the set-up? It started with Nate’s little comments and all of us being like, “what’s up with Nate?” But then we got the architecture of his internal pain and his father’s casual cruelty. We felt catharsis as he got those first bits of glory. We kept looking for the things that would “solve” what he was struggling with in the way that Ted Lasso does with so many other characters. But now we see that other character’s not addressing his problems wasn’t a bug, it was a feature. Same goes with him taking the wrong lessons from Keeley. This is about how a problem wasn’t getting solved. Heck, maybe it couldn’t have been solved. But all the time it just kept building and building, until Nate does the thing that truly breaks all boundaries. Literally betraying Ted, the person who believed in him before anyone else did.

This is why we “trust the show,” as it were. And when we think about what specifically spurned that final moment of betrayal it’s not just the “wanting to be the boss,” nor doing all these grand aspirations which Nate thinks will somehow please his unpleasable father. No, it’s the moment in the mirror. The moment where he is reeling from his mistake of trying to kiss Keeley and spits. It’s here we realize who he’s really spitting at: the scared, meek boy inside of himself. He hates that boy for so many reasons… which is understandable. And something we have empathy for. But instead of growing past his father, he wants to take the worst parts of his father. He fails to see that the boy in the mirror doesn’t need to be seen as a tough man to not feel that way, nor use any of the toxic lessons he’s learned this season…

Nate needs to hug him.

Oof. And now going into the final episode, we are now filled with questions about what kinds of happiness these characters will chase. Will Rebecca want to take a chance? Will Sam want to follow his personal dream? Will Keeley and Roy use their foundation to try and keep growing? Or will it be time for space? Will Ted use what he’s learned to be open and address mental health head on in the wake of the news going public? And most of all, there is Nate. Will Ted forgive him or throw up a new boundary? Even if forgiven, is Nate even ready to be in that place of growth? Does Nate really understand the consequence of what he’s done? That this won’t be some Machiavellian result that will make him finally feel like “a boss” or whatever else is raging inside him? Is this all going to shove him directly into Rupert’s arms (because he clearly has some other club he’s buying) and there Nate will get everything he supposedly wants and probably learn what it means to be truly alone? We know the hell that made him. But so much of what’s coming for Nate now will probably be a hell of his own design… but that’s the thing about our own personal hells…

Who else would design them?

RANDOM THOUGHTS / BEST QUOTES

-Now having full architecture of this season, I really want to single out Nick Mohammed’s performance. The way he’s played the see-saw of Nate’s journey has just been exceptional, from the anger, to the vulnerability, to complete willingness to be a little shit, but be a little shit in this completely understandable way. It’s actually pretty brave, especially in a loveable show where everyone often gets to be a charming little goof. In a way, it’s sort of the most daring thing the show has done yet.

-Ted: “Bing Bong Ya Ding Dongs!”

-They directly call out the Sam / Rebecca thing from Cheers!

-Yeah, Sam Richardson deserves that entrance everywhere he goes

-Proper thanks to Toasty in the comments for pointing out last week that Rupert was likely selling his shares to buy his own rival football club and seducing Nate away!

-Beard: “Trees work in harmony to share the sunlight.” I just want to point out how good this show is at psychology because emotionally-speaking, Nate has never known what sharing really is. In his family, he knew what it felt like to always be at the lowest end, seemingly unwanted and without merit, while his dad adored his mum… which means he was the owner of ALL his father’s disdain. He never even had to share in that hate. Which is, of course, why he only knows how to deal with disdain in a downward trajectory, rather than commiseration.

-The detail of Nate not wanting Ted’s gift suit anymore is such a good set-up.

-Also there’s been some discussion about Nate’s increasing grey in his hair which I really double noticed this episode. It’s possible he didn’t like being seen as the “wonderkid” and wanted to look older and maybe stopped dyeing it / started dying it - or it could be a manifestation of his inner anxiety - or it could honestly just be the actor’s hair getting grayer over course of filming on a long shoot schedule! All are possible but I definitely noticed.

-The moment when they all erupt in cheers after nailing the “Bye Bye Bye” choreography was maybe the most elated note of the season? Also, have you noticed that they’re all SO GOOD at “acting” their celebrations out? It’s actually a kind of hard thing to do!

-Ted: “I wish we had two Sams. Hey where we at on cloning lately, anyway?”

-I will never not dislike how people in the UK say “pasta” like the A in the word tack. I CAN’T HELP IT. SAME WITH TACO.

-Roy, trying not to swear: “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun… That’s fun innit”

-I think the “crotch feels loose” part of the scene is an allusion to an old Wonder Years episode?

-Higgins: “Don’t LETTER get away with it, Ted” Ted’s infuriated, but necessary recognition of his puns is one of my favorite running gags.

-It is canon that Sam is a fan of I May Destroy You.

-Also this episode prompted me to research and learn about the Nigerian / Ghana football rivalry! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana%E2%80%93Nigeria_football_rivalry

-Ted: “Well well well, look what the weird bike rolled in!”

-Not being able to see the letter is one of those interesting things because as the audience we want to know, of course, with our god’s eye and such! But I can at least assure you that whatever’s in it, it might not be said verbatim, but the emotional truth of it will be said by Ted in the next episode. As always, trust the show to get there.

-Sharon’s love of pinball and saying “playing against just yourself and gravity,” reminded me of this great piece from Laura Hudson that I read years ago about women and the pinball circuit. https://boingboing.net/2015/08/03/pinball.html

-Paul: “I just don’t want to be afraid when I’m tending to my tomatoes.” I love Paul the most.

-I keep thinking about the scenes with Nate here and how smart they are. Like when Keeley says, “Today, you are one of those twats.” What’s so interesting about these scenes with Nate / Keeley is how you can see Nate circling the IDEA of the healthy thing. Like, yeah, it can be fun to suddenly splurge a little money and do that thing you never do. You see it in that little smile on his face. The little self-esteem boost. It’s like Keeley keeps showing a healthy relationship to the bigger thing - But Nate just keeps just missing it because he’s still dealing with that deeper trauma that wants different, more troubling solutions. Like when Keeley talks to Nate about dreams and her mom getting stuck while others get the credit, he doesn’t realize the bigger thing. Because the great irony is that if he came forward and talked to Ted from the open heart? If he explained that it’s important for him to coach his own team or grow into a leader? Nate would realize he was surrounded by the people who would most help him do that… But thanks to dad, he doesn’t know how to elevate him without stepping on someone in the process. And perhaps thanks to his unaddressed relationship with his mom, he feels babied if someone even tries to help him in the process. All the ugly architecture is just there, ugh. Hells within hells.

-Lastly, I’d be so happy if that was actually Banksy.

<3HULK