Ted Lasso - Season 2 FINALE - “You Abandoned 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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With that, the season two finale of Ted Lasso arrived and aside from a few brazen and bumpy moments, it was a story told gently, calmly, and carefully. Which is not to say that it was without rousing catharsis. In fact, so much of that catharsis came in the calm itself.

As always, let’s go subject by subject

THE LITTLE THINGS - A good season of television is not just made up from the catharsis of one storyline, but often lots of arcs coming together. What I found particularly affecting here was how many little beats played as little climaxes throughout the story. Like The Dutch guy’s powers of blunt telling the truth being used as a rallying call (I knew it would be something like that). Then there’s the moment when Jamie gives the penalty kick to Danny not just to remind him that “football is life,” but to learn that a traumatic event doesn’t define you. That you can come back to the same spot of pain and try, try again. And perhaps my favorite little thing was Isaac’s big leadership moment when instead of going into the huddle, he went for the Believe poster and everyone followed suit.

The little things even paid off with Trent Crimm. Last week, many seemed rightly frustrated at the idea that he would give up a source. But here at the end, we realize it was not some blind action done on the sly. In fact, Trent told his bosses too precisely because it was of moral importance for him to tell Ted. This is a really big deal. And so much of that weight hangs in that little look Ted gives, where he essentially realizes what Trent gave up for him - along with the pain of how unnecessary it may have been in a certain way - but it seems that doesn’t bother Trent much either. He’ll be okay. He even seems to have a little pep in his step. But nonetheless the scene addresses the concern from last week. And if anything, it was one of the final lessons in the “trust the show” mantra that we’ve been employing all season long. As Ted told us during the speech rom-communism, “it will work out. Just maybe not what you think.” Which is certainly true for...

SAM - One of the big questions overhanging the finale was Sam’s decision to leave or stay. It sounds like such an amazing offer, after all. But when looking to the universe (which is really just a way of saying take a look around you and take stock) Sam sees a young Richmond fan with Sam’s jersey on. He thinks about it… and for some unspoken reason, it inspires him to stay. Cue him telling the bad news and Edwin Akufo going absolutely ape shit. This does three very important things: It 1) confirm that Sam’s choice was absolutely correct and it was in fact too good to be true. 2) Finally give the great Sam Richardson an excuse to go full comic unhinged with the performance (the threat to poop in every room of his childhood house just slayed me). And 3) it confirmed the age-old lesson that you should never, ever expect a billionaire to be anything but a petulant little shit no matter how much they talk about charitable instincts.

But it’s really the last bit of the episode where Sam let’s us in on his thought process on staying (all by talking to Rebecca through Ted). The truth is that it’s really about his personal journey and still not being done with his time here in England. I really loved the articulation of this and how it connects to the jersey we saw before. Because it’s about Sam’s desire to make an impact here. There was a reason he journeyed away from home in the first place. It’s not just about being a part of the new world and growing because of it. It’s also about bringing a part of his old self to the new world as a gift in turn. And sometimes that can be as simple as opening a Nigerian restaurant. It’s just such a beautiful little victory because we know how much it means to him and the joy in his own soul. It’s not about anyone else… It was something Sam did for Sam. And sometimes those are the most mature gifts we can give to ourselves.

REBECCA - You could argue this was a “light” Rebecca episode in the sense that she’s not driving a lot of core action. But that no less makes her a pivotal figure in everyone else’s stories. She instantly has Ted’s back when the news hits. She has the beautiful moment of letting Keeley go on the couch (the “hire your best friend” line wrecked me). She gets to voice her frustration of Rupert buying the rival club, but we also see how much she’s grown because it really doesn’t seem to bother her that much. And in the end, we see Rebecca process and hold joy in Sam’s decision to say. And the reason why so many of these moments work so well is because of all the story work this season has done to get there. Better yet, they reflect her utter ability to hold emotional spaces for others whether they be support, joy, or even healthier boundaries. And the real catharsis is in seeing all that growth from where she was two seasons ago.

KEELEY / ROY - Last week we talked about the “Graduate Moment” during the photoshoot and part of what I love is how they’ve already moved right past that vague feeling of ennui to get at the realistic questions under it. Because Keeley gets a huge chance here to start her own PR firm. To be a boss. To do these wonderful, grand, professional things that she never imagined for herself. Roy’s truly elated for her, but it leaves him in that questioning place of being unsure about his own future and his role. Not in a way that feels petty, mind you. It’s just that complex kind of worry. To that, Roy’s cathartic moment of growth is when does a huge thing and turns to the Diamond Dogs for help in all this. Turns out, he loves it because he just realizes it is just a chance to express feelings and not necessarily have things get solved (note: this is the exact wording Ted learned about “girl talk” earlier on). And the “not solving” lesson will need to stretch even further.

Sensing the growing distance, Roy concocts this whole big plan for the two of them to have this grand vacation before Keeley starts her new firm, spinning seductive tales of tapas and the first vacation he’s ever taken in forever. But as lovely as it sounds, the reality is that Keeley’s gotta spend the next six months hiding in a hole and working on her new business. This is something she HAS to do and it is going to take up so much damn time in her life. But for that very reason she encourages him to go. Worried, Roy asks, “Are we breaking up?” and Keeley responds, “No, don’t say that.” And she’s not just saying that. She wants to be together. And what I ultimately love about this story is that it gets at the truth that relationships can often, well, not get harder, but heavier with time. No, not for the usual reasons we see in movies of boredom / new love. Those are often small. But for the way that life gets way too real and full of hardship. The way that difficulty and time and dreams and so many other things will just fight and take up space. But that’s why you need to be comfortable with the space you have. To know that distance isn’t always distance. And that being teammates in periods like that matters more than ever. Will they last? Will they not? I don’t know. It’s too existential. I just know the answer has very little to do with common misunderstandings or simple questions of love. Instead, the real test of a relationship is simply going through it.

TED - We start the episode right dab smack in the middle of Ted’s brainspace. The news is everywhere of course (but so is his friend’s support). What I love is the way it portrays a paparazzi-filled world that’s looking at you / prying / and judging you. And as Sharon echoes, “the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” And yeah, he’s angry. But Ted doesn’t fly off the handle or even really get into it. He just calmly processes and stays grounded. Even with his ownership in speaking to the team, he keeps the air of folksy professionalism we’re used to seeing. Even while offering that huge wisdom like that “I can’t be wasting time wishing for a do over on it all.” And it’s that sure-handedness that carries itself all the way through the match and through the final press conference where he talks about how sports covers mental illness. But do you want to know the thing that was most powerful about this to me?

They showed what it honestly looks like. Because the truth is that “victory” with mental illness is rarely cinematic. It’s not like you feel a panic attack coming up and then remember some life lesson and “defeat it” like you do a common villain. Panic attacks aren’t something you defeat. That misconception not only sucks, it’s harmful. No, you just do the work beforehand. You battle the thing for hours inside your head long before the moments that seem to matter. You get yourself in a place where you are ready. You develop processes. And on a good day? Nothing happens. That’s what “victory” looks like. And it comes with the understanding that if another panic attack comes, well, then that’s just what happened on that particular day. You can’t really control a world full of triggers. Which means there’s nothing to “defeat.” It’s all a part of everyday treatment, doing the work, continuing therapy, and being your most grounded self. So the idea that Ted had that kind of day with everything going on means so much to me. Especially when his biggest test came at halftime…

NATE - Like most of this season, the emotional weight of the episode truly belongs to Nate. We see it all building early on. The fear of being called out for leaking. The sense of guilt he feels that Ted is just going to move past it. The continued brooding in the suit. Then there’s that incredible moment where he’s mad that Roy *isn’t* mad at him for trying to kiss Keeley. Because he wants to NOT feel insignificant. To matter. To be feared and respected (because that’s how his dad matters to him). There were so many moments this season that Nate could have learned, but the anger just kept taking hold. Because it was his normal. The normal a father created for him long ago. And it’s been eating him from inside, until the moment it all comes spitting out. But instead of going for the anger first, Nate starts with the wound:

“You abandoned me.”

The tear forms in his eye. The boyish pain. Nick Mohammed channels such incredible range as it all bubbles up into a pitch perfect articulation of anxious ambivalent attachment that follows (both written and performed). Here’s a guy so wounded by his father that he carries around the most outrageous self-hatred and misery. No, Nate wasn’t “nice” before. He was meek precisely because he hated himself / everything. Then Ted gave him the first feelings of self-esteem. Of pride. Of excitement. The belief that he could be more than meek. And that’s all Nate wanted from then on. It’s as if he wanted to bottle those feelings forever. But you can’t do that. The truth is that after you make breakthroughs like that, you still have to go back to normalcy. And Nate hates normal. Because Normal is still full of all the terrible things mentioned above; all products of a lifetime of his father’s treatment. Nate really thought Ted’s adoration could rescue him from all that. But when Nate stares in the mirror, despite everything, it’s still him.

So then comes the anger. The frustration. The spit. He lashes out at Ted because Nate never learned the skills that make up the crucial bottom of the Pyramid of Success (developed by UCLA’s Coach Wooden), which we even see him look at in the episode. Things like cooperation, loyalty, and friendship. The things that build the critical trust in helping them strive for the top of “competitive greatness.” But, as the title of the episode tells us, Nate is trying to invert it all. He’s putting competitive greatness before everything. He puts it between himself and Roy, himself and Beard, and ultimately, himself and Ted. Because his new surrogate father didn’t save him. Didn’t make him feel special forever. Didn’t erase years and years of casual cruelty in a single continued act of coddling. Nate doesn’t realize that he wanted an emotional impossibility. And so he tore down the belief in everything he had here. He looked for things that could tell him he was right. He ran into the arms of West Ham and Rupert. He will prove Ted wrong. He will prove his dad wrong. He will prove everyone wrong. He will be feared and respected. He will worship at the altar of competitive greatness. He will put the whole world in a bottle. And in doing so?

Nate will find himself without cooperation, nor loyalty, nor friendship.

He will be miserable. Of this, there is no doubt.

The only real question is if he’ll ever be able to find his way back.

RANDOM THOUGHTS / BEST JOKES

-Delivery can really make huge differences, huh? I mean, on paper a joke might play, but with a performance it could kill. I felt that about Higgins two lines: “I saw it in a Denzel Washington movie and Ithought ope! I’m taking that!” / “Please don't lose Ted, it will kill me.”

-Same goes Beard’s comic delivery of  “horticulture, baby!” and dramatic delivery when repeating Nate on “Yeah, it was awful.”

“Fuck you Piers Morgan.”

-The cut to Keeley and Rebecca crying was perfect.

-Fun fact: "inverting the pyramid" is also a famous book about soccer tactics that Beard was reading in his very first scene in the show!

-So much of Jamie’s storyline was about being a humble teammate this season, but I think he’s gonna get a lot to do next season. Specifically with Ted, because it’s going to be about how he becomes a leader. Plus he has his own dad stuff to contend with.

-Higgins writing gems: “A good mentor hopes you will move on, a great mentor knows you will.”

-Roy, trying to share with guys: “I hurt my… feeling.”

-The masculine / melancholy Renaissance shot

-In case you never heard it before, the “medium talent” line is a reference to one of the great all-time insults leveled by Bill Murray at one Chevy Chase when the two of them got in a fight.

-The handshake guy doing the “too slow” dis was fantastic.

-We spent a lot of this season worrying about the finances of the club after the Dubai Air fallout and I think I realized that, in the end, the real lesson was “find more moral sponsors you dinguses, it will be fucking fine.” Which is probably a really good lesson.

-Trent Crimm, upon seeing Ted being surprised that he doesn’t know how to ride a bicycle: “Is it because of the hair and the whole vibe?” / “Yeah, I guess so.”

And thus concludes season two of Ted Lasso. It’s funny. I felt like every week I’d take a handful of notes and not be sure how much I would have to say that week. But in the end, I wrote over 33,000 words about this season and all of them came spilling out from a deeply passionate place. Because the thing about this second season is that it stretched its proverbial wings. Meaning it didn’t try to do re-treads of the first season. Nor did it walk back any of its relationships or try to undo progress. It would have been so much easier to try those avenues. But it instead sought to evolve. To take on more complicated subjects. To find more esoteric framings of conflict. To dive into mental health and African politics and mature ways of dealing with relationships, whether they be friendship or love (and really, what’s the difference?). Most of all, it sought honesty. Honesty about who these characters are. What they want. What drives them. What haunts them. What makes them grow. And thus they wrote a story that echoed out from those deeply human places, all to tell a story that echoes truth in turn.

I can think of no higher compliment.

<3HULK