‘Ted Lasso’ Season 2 Premiere Recap: A New Foil for Ted

Season 2, Episode 1: ‘Goodbye, Earl’

So here we are. Relegation.

At the end of the first season of “Ted Lasso,” the show’s fictional English football (soccer) squad, AFC Richmond, lost its final game of the season in the closing minute. As a result, the team’s record was so bad it was relegated (demoted) from the Premier League to lower-tier competition.

And yet, not much has changed. The team has not been “broken up,” as we were repeatedly warned was the fate suffered by many relegated teams. Coach Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) and the gang are all still here, minus the talented miscreant Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster), who was sent packing to Manchester City last season. (More on him in a bit.) And the team is still struggling on the pitch (field), though this time not with losses but with a string of ties so interminable that a rival club sends them an enormous, ironic order of Thai food.

Since Season 1, the fates of AFC Richmond and “Ted Lasso” have diverged dramatically. While the team failed its way into relegation, the show succeeded its way into a deluge of accolades. Last week, it was nominated for 20 Emmys, including acting nods for seven (!) of the show’s principal characters. As the series co-creator Bill Lawrence explained in the wake of the Emmy tsunami: “The trickiest thing on this show is to kind of stay true to the ‘Ted Lasso’ ethos, which is, awards and winning don’t matter as much as the people you get to spend time with and work with.”

He’s not wrong. Success does seem to have altered the show, though only at the margins and little if any to its detriment. The first season felt like a happy accident, an island of hope and decency in a prestige-TV ocean of antiheroes, violence and dysfunction. Season 2 looks to be a touch more polished and self-confident, the humor a little broader and the writing a little more meta and refined. It was easy to forget last season that the show was not some out-of-nowhere hit but was made possible by the participation of Lawrence, who has been churning out stateside comedies (“Spin City,” “Scrubs,” “Cougartown”) for more than two decades.

You can see the additional layer of polish in the very first, ostentatiously slow-mo’d scene, in which a potentially tiebreaking penalty kick by the gleeful striker Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández) instead collides with and kills the team’s canine mascot. Thus, the episode’s title, “Goodbye, Earl,” in honor of the elderly greyhound whose effort to catch an airborne pigeon instead resulted in his ascent to heaven.

Dani, the team’s best player, is disconsolate, and he immediately loses all ability to kick in a straight line. He wakes from terrible nightmares. (I confess I wasn’t a big fan of the cartoon-dog goalkeeper who haunted the one we saw.) But unlike the rest of us, when Dani bolts upright in bed in terror, he does it between a pair of beautiful paramours. I mean, why make existential despair any worse than it has to be?

And so, our first big plot development: Given Dani’s case of  — don’t say it out loud! — the “yips” (a psychological condition in which athletes lose the ability to perform even the most basic skills of their sport), Higgins (Jeremy Swift) persuades Ted to hire the team a sports psychologist named Sharon Fieldstone, played by Sarah Niles. (Niles, seen previously in “Catastrophe” and “Beautiful People” among other series, is the principal addition to the cast this season.) Ted’s discomfort with the hire is immediately apparent: Even as he says yes, he’s shaking his head no. As he explains to Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) over beers, “I think there’s part of me that just doesn’t trust therapists.”

Things hardly improve when Sharon arrives at the office to meet the coaches. She is unamused by the men’s customary antics, demonstrates strong displeasure at being called “Doc,” and informs Ted that however good he is at his job, she is twice as good at hers. I confess that this is definitely not something I would tell my boss on my first day at a new job. But maybe shrinks are cleverer about these things.

In any case, Sharon lives up to her boast, restoring Dani to his usual “football is life!” self almost instantaneously. This only makes Ted more insecure — he, after all, prides himself on being a kind of amateur psychologist — especially when other players on the squad start seeking out Sharon (who, of course, speaks with each of them in their native languages).

Last season was loaded with foils for Ted: Rebecca, of course, but also Jamie, and in their different ways, Roy, Higgins and Nate. By now, Ted has won all of them over — except Jamie, about whom I again promise more shortly — and the show needs a new source of friction. Will Ted find a way to make Sharon appreciate him? History suggests it’s only a matter of time.

The secondary plot tonight involves Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) and a new beau named John Wingsnight. After watching Keeley (Juno Temple) and Rebecca exchange “girls’ talk” over the bloke, Ted asks if he can join in. But his efforts — “His name’s John Wingsnight? Like at a sports bar? Like ‘Monday night is wings night down at P.J. Flatts’?” — are deemed unhelpful.

A later intervention by Roy (Brett Goldstein) proves more productive. Since his retirement after last season’s injury, Roy has gone into coaching. He just requires occasional reminders not to bully and berate his squad too mercilessly, given that it is made up of 9-year-old girls, including his niece, Phoebe (the adorably named Elodie Blomfield).

Roy and Keeley are still happy together, thank goodness, their mutual gravitation having been one of the best trajectories of last season. And so, they are invited on a double date with Rebecca and Mr. Wingsnight, a dull boor whose stories always seem to revolve around his almost beating someone up. Roy endures it all with frequent requests that his waiter — any waiter, really — bring him another drink. (The look on Roy’s face is priceless when Wingsnight, a self-proclaimed football fanatic, tells him, “I bounce back and forth between United and City, whichever club’s winning, typically.”)

In their after-dinner assessments with Rebecca, Keeley offers the customary “he seems nice” pablum. But Roy, with the blunt ferocity he applies to most things, demurs. “He’s fine, that’s it,” he says. “You deserve someone who makes you feel like you’ve been struck by [expletive] lightning. Don’t you dare settle for fine.” Yes, Roy is still the best.

Throughout the episode, Keeley keeps urging Roy to become a TV sports commentator. I, by contrast, want to see him take a job as a relationship columnist. In any case, Rebecca gives the unlucky Mr. Wingsnight the heave-ho, in a scene scored to Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up” — the episode’s second reference to Paul Thomas Anderson’s flawed but fantastic “Magnolia.” (The first involved Tom Cruise and tiny ponytails.)

Roy is also given the closing scene as he hangs with his “yoga moms,” drinking wine and watching reality TV. They, as you may recall, have absolutely no idea that he’s a world-famous (former) football star, and so he is left quite alone in his perpetual fury when it’s revealed that one of the contestants on the reality show “Lust Conquers All” — and a favorite of the yoga moms — is none other than Roy’s existential nemesis, Jamie, who boasts with customary class, “I’m the top scorer on the island … sexually.” (What’s going on? Is Jamie still playing football? We need answers!) Roy understandably requests a refill of his wine. Between this scene and the “can you get me another drink” dinner with Mr. Wingsnight, one might fear that Roy is on a dangerous path.

Then again, if he made it through sharing a locker room with Jamie without becoming an alcoholic, an extra glass of rosé with the yoga moms will probably turn out OK.

Odds and Ends

• Confronted about Earl’s death at a news conference by Trent Crimm (James Lance) — everyone in the room chants “The Independent” in unison — Ted tells a lengthy, touching story about the dog who mauled him as a toddler, and whom he wound up taking care of as a teenager. It’s a nice evolution from the brief, chirpy colloquialisms he typically trots out. If the silly dog cartoon in Dani’s dream represents the potential downside of the show’s modest shift this season, Ted’s tender dog story represents the upside.

• Phoebe is increasing both the range of her football skills (“I got a red card for elbowing another girl in the neck!”) and that of the financial portfolio she has accumulated by charging Roy 1 pound per curse word. The current tally: £1,236 — or, at current exchange rates, just under $1,700 in U.S. dollars.

• The promotion of Nate (Nick Mohammed) to assistant coach has revealed a darker side of the self-effacing former kit manager, as he recommends harsh treatment of both Dani and his own young replacement. This will surely be a story line to keep track of.

• In addition to Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, the other, much smaller, addition to the cast is a decidedly ill-mannered new player, Jan Maas (David Elsendoorn). But as the ever affable Sam Obinsanya (Toheeb Jimoh) reminds his teammates, Jan “is not being rude, he’s just being Dutch.” Is this a thing?

• The premiere’s pop-cultural references — which may ultimately require their own subcategory — included (in addition to “Magnolia”) Boba Fett, “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” Harry Potter and the Gin Blossoms. If I missed any (and I probably did), please let me know in comments.