Ted Lasso (TV Program)

Jamie, Nate and Ted find their paths forward.Season 3, Episode 11: ‘Mom City’Just as last season’s eighth episode, “Man City,” was an exploration of the wounds inflicted by poor fathering, this week’s focuses on the healing power of maternal love. It was in that earlier episode that we first learned that Ted’s dad had killed himself; this time, he and his mom find at least a modicum of long-belated closure. And Ted has what appears to be the long-simmering revelation that … But I get ahead of myself.I noted last week that with so many story lines and just a couple of episodes to go, “Ted Lasso” would need — in a strategy adopted by fourth graders since time immemorial — to write the remaining words smaller and smaller to get them all to fit on the page. What I overlooked, of course, is that streaming television now offers the alternative of simply making the pages bigger.When “Man City” came out last season, it was the longest “Lasso” episode to date, at 45 minutes. “Mom City” puts that number to shame, clocking in at one hour and nine minutes (the show’s latest longest run time). Yet in contrast to several episodes this season, the extended length is spent not hopping among unrelated subplots but developing a relatively uniform theme. In keeping with that mood, this week I will abandon my own typical subplot-by-subplot format as well.We open with a typical Ted morning, in which he ambles down his street exchanging pleasantries with everyone he passes, even the longstanding semi-antagonist who insists on referring to him as “wanker.” And then the morning suddenly turns atypical: On a bench at the end of the street is none other than his mom, Dottie Lasso (Becky Ann Baker).When we return to the two of them after the title sequence, Dottie explains that she’d decided on a trip to England as a “Mother’s Day gift to myself.” She is staying in a hostel filled with backpacking Australians who engage in “so much sex,” and she has already been in town a week. This is obviously no typical maternal visit, and Dottie and Ted will spend the episode circling one another, with mother, like son, deflecting every question about what’s wrong with some variant of “Don’t you worry about me.” (Mae sees right through it in the pub, reciting Philip Larkin’s poem “This Be the Verse” to Ted over the pinball machine.)In the meantime, Dottie will regale the team, the pub and pretty much anyone else within earshot with substantially exaggerated tales of Ted’s youth. (No, that was not him dancing onstage with Bruce Springsteen in the “Dancing in the Dark” video.) She will also demonstrate where Ted got his resolutely chipper demeanor, as the two of them trade lyrics from “The Sunny Side of the Street” on the way out the door to his apartment. Perhaps most importantly, she will at last speak for all of us when she informs Trent Crimm that his hair is “fabulous.”Nate and Jamie, meanwhile, have both fallen into ruts of self-doubt. For Nate, this consists of leaving his wunderkind coaching persona behind in favor of a job waiting tables at A Taste of Athens and refusing an invitation from Colin, Will and Isaac to rejoin Richmond as an assistant coach. “It didn’t really end for me too well there,” he explains to Jade guiltily.Jamie is a still greater mess, declining kudos for winning Premier League player of the month and apologizing for a goal he scored accidentally while trying to pass to a teammate. With the team on a 15-game winning streak and an upcoming match against their nemesis Manchester City standing between them and a shot at the league championship, this wilting flower is not what the team needs, as Roy explains in typically salty fashion.But Jamie merely blubbers in response. He can’t eat, he can’t sleep, he’s even given up on using conditioner when he showers. He’s like the fellow from the Red Bull ad, but with his wings plucked off. Roy, sensing that Jamie needs greater emotional I.Q. than he can provide, quickly enlists Keeley to help. Her first effort is a flop, reminding Jamie how brutally he’ll be booed back in his hometown, Manchester, where he also played. (His description of a suitcase as “a drawer without a home” underscores the point.) Things go from bad to worse when she tells him his hair is being mocked on social media.So after a team viewing of “You’ve Got Mail” at which Dani says how nice it is to see them together again — I’ll have more to say about the movie and the couple below — Keeley and Roy surreptitiously follow Jamie across Manchester to the home his mother (Leanne Best) shares with her partner. In her maternal embrace, he explains that his drive has all been a product of his rage toward his father, whom we got to know all too well in the aforementioned “Man City” episode.The visit with mom gets Jamie partway back, but it falls to Ted to complete the recovery. After Jamie injures himself in the midst of a brilliant game against Man City, Ted refuses to sub him out. If hating his dad — who, surprisingly, is nowhere to be seen in the stands — no longer inspires Jamie, Ted suggests he instead try forgiveness: “When you choose to do that, you’re giving that to yourself.” Needless to say, it works, with Jamie sprinting his way to a solo goal to ensure the win. (And, yes, that’s James Tartt Sr. whom we see watching the game appreciatively from a rehab facility.)Wingless in Richmond: Brett Goldstein, left, and Phil Dunster in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+For Nate, a bid at redemption comes not from his mother but from Jade, who blackmails the A Taste of Athens manager, Derek into firing him. But like Jamie, Nate too needs a second intervention. Beard had been violently opposed to Nate rejoining Richmond, until Ted showed him video proving that even at his black-clad, Rupert-influenced worst, Nate was still a wounded innocent. So Beard relents, telling Nate the story of the “Les Mis”-like second chance Ted once gave him. (Careful viewers will note that this is the second vehicular theft we learn of from Ted and Beard’s past, following the former’s joyride in the family car as a 12-year-old.) And so, with the gentlest of head butts — a clear callback to Roy and Jamie’s hug in “Man City” — Nate is welcomed back into the Richmond fold.Which finally brings us back to Ted himself. Tired of waiting for Dottie to spill why she has come to England, he erupts in a litany of “Thank you”s and “[Expletive] you”s that echo Jamie’s words on the pitch. Like Ted, she masked her grief at his father’s death beneath a facade of perpetual cheeriness; like him, she “pretended I was OK.” (As the Larkin poem Mae quoted earlier goes, parents “fill you with the faults they had.”) The ice finally broken, Dottie tells Ted what she has crossed an ocean to say: “Your son needs you.”We knew this, and Ted knew this. But like Nate and Jamie, Ted needed to hear it. He needed to let go of his pain — the divorce, the jealousy — to see his path clearly.The episode closes with Rebecca and Ted alone in his office. In a charming inside joke, she tells him that this is the time for her big revelation. (In Season 1, it was that she had been deliberately undermining him; in Season 2, it was that she was sleeping with Sam.) Alas, she has nothing, “no truth bomb this year.” “Well, that’s OK,” Ted responds. “I have one.”The end credits roll before he can declare it. But for anyone uncertain of Ted’s revelation, the credits are accompanied by a Brandi Carlile cover of “Home,” from the 1978 movie “The Wiz.” And we all know where it was that Dorothy needed to get back to.Odds and endsSo perhaps I jumped to the conclusion that Roy and Keeley were back together after the former showed up conspicuously underdressed in the latter’s apartment following his “stuck” revelation and subsequent letter. At the “You’ve Got Mail” viewing, they tell Dani that they are merely there as friends. At first, this seems like it could just be a taking-it-slow maneuver. But later, alone in Jamie’s childhood bedroom — where a prescient Jamie had long ago placed posters of the two of them on the wall nearly side by side — Roy tells Keeley he doesn’t want to be “just friends.” She’s interrupted before she can reply. And, unlike Ted, it’s far from clear what she intends to say.Speaking of “You’ve Got Mail,” someone in the “Ted Lasso” brain trust is awfully fond of the movie. This is at least the third reference I’ve noticed, following Sam and Rebecca’s Bantr handles back in Season 2, Episode 5 (LDN152 and Bossgirl, respectively) and the choice of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” to score the opening scene of Episode 7 this season. And given the closing-credits song this week is it a coincidence that we see the team watch the “Over the Rainbow” scene? No, it definitely is not.Also at the “You’ve Got Mail” screening, there’s a significant glance between Sam and Rebecca to follow up their hallway encounter last week. Should our Dutch houseboater be worried? I think I’m probably worried enough for both of us.But enough “You’ve Got Mail.” I’m with Ted: “Sleepless in Seattle” is a far superior film.The idea that Freddie Mercury once owned Richmond AFC and tried to make the team theme song “Fat Bottomed Girls” (played later in the episode) was amusing. But better was the gag that back in art school Mercury considered his greatest talent to be “flipping straights.” And no, that’s not a poker strategy.How great is it that Jamie’s hair color is Walnut Mist? I say pretty great.And speaking of great, I don’t know what Rebecca, Bex and Ms. Kakes will be up to in next week’s season finale. But I can’t wait to find out. More

How quickly can a story line end? Very quickly.Season 3, Episode 10: ‘International Break’Do you remember when you were young and — at least if you were like me — you frequently misjudged how much space you had on a line to write what you intended, resulting in smaller and smaller, tightly squeezed letters as you approached the edge of the page? I feel as though that is where we find ourselves now in “Ted Lasso,” with just two episodes left in what is still theoretically the show’s last season.This week’s episode answered two of the show’s principal remaining questions — regarding Nate’s fate with West Ham and the future of Roy and Keeley — but so abruptly you could almost imagine you’d missed a scene or two along the way. This level of concision may have been necessary in part because the episode spent much of its hour-plus running time on two new and completely unnecessary story lines, two redemption arcs for tertiary characters, a fair amount of moping and a genuinely bizarre conception of how rich business owners make decisions. Even as we near the page’s edge, to put it another way, we’re still adding more words. The remaining ones will almost certainly have to be scrawled very small.First off, the story lines that did not move forward meaningfully: After focusing on Ted’s relationship with his son, Henry, and ex-wife, Michelle, two episodes ago, we have a second consecutive episode that has no interest in that subplot. Likewise, no news on Rebecca’s presumably upcoming familial developments — at least, unless a plastic Army man is saying more than I hope he is. But more on that later. Let’s start with the least important developments and work our way up.International break and Edwin Akufo’s proposalBoth of this week’s new subplots felt less like continuations of the season’s arc than like clogs that we needed to work through before getting to the real story.International breaks, as the name suggests, are weekends when national soccer leagues skip their matches in order for their top players to participate in FIFA-sponsored, nation versus nation competition. There have presumably been several of these in the three seasons of AFC Richmond play we have watched, although I can’t remember any mention of them before this episode.But now it is, for an episode at least, a Big Deal. Who will be selected to represent their native countries? Jamie for England, Van Damme (formerly Zoreaux) for Canada, Dani for Mexico, Bumbercatch for Switzerland and Colin for Wales. But no Sam for Nigeria? Not even after an episode-opening commentary singling him out as crucial to the team’s current 10-game winning streak?There appear to be two purposes to this subplot. The first is to set up the idea that joyous, loving Dani Rojas becomes a cruel competitor the moment he is on an opposing team. This entails some of the broad humor that has never been the show’s forte. (Remember Led Tasso? This is basically the same gag, with Dani substituted for Ted.) And it’s another idea that comes out of nowhere: I can’t recall Dani rejoicing in his efforts to injure the goalies for, say, West Ham, Manchester United, or any of his other Premier League opponents.The second purpose of the international break subplot is to help set up the Edwin Akufo subplot: The reason Sam wasn’t chosen to play is that Akufo, the unpleasant billionaire introduced back in Episode 11 of Season 2, bribed the Nigerian government $20 million not to select him. But that’s not all! He also plans to open another Nigerian-cuisine restaurant 20 meters away from Sam’s! And to deny Sam customers by personally calling and making reservations he doesn’t intend to keep using a variety of silly accents! I feel confident in saying this is not how billionaires — not even thin-skinned ones — spend their time.Toheeb Jimoh, left, and Phil Dunster in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+I’d like to stop there, but alas there’s more. Akufo is also planning to create a “super league” of exceptional teams that will compete only against each other and thus can charge more for tickets than typical matches. The details are unimportant, apart from the fact that this would theoretically make the team owners vastly more money while pricing average fans out of attendance. Color me cynical, but I’m confident that if it were this easy for rich team owners to make themselves richer it would already have happened.It’s a complicated setup to enable Rebecca, at a meeting of team owners, to stand up for everyday fans. Which is a setup for her to remind Rupert why he loved her and cause him to try to kiss her. Which is a setup for her to get over her longstanding obsession with beating Rupert on the pitch. Have I wasted your time with this lengthy explanation? Apologies, but that’s pretty much how I felt by the time this subplot was over.NateDepending on whom you ask, Nate has either been fired from managing Rupert’s West Ham squad or has quit. Either way, you’ll notice the past tense. We don’t actually see Nate quitting or getting fired, which would have been, I suspect, a very interesting scene had they bothered to film it. Instead, we go from the beginning (Nate belatedly realizing that Rupert is a bad man at the club last week) to the end (Nate being mopily unemployed) without any of the actual drama of a confrontation. It won’t be the only time this episode that “Ted Lasso” skips from start to finish without bothering with the messy “how did this happen?” part.Instead, we get Nate moping in his own bed, and then moping in his childhood bed at his parent’s place and then playing a violin (has this been mentioned before?) so that his dad can hear him and have a scene in which he shows that he’s not quite as crummy a father as he had appeared to be. We don’t even have any nice scenes with Jade this week, because she’s headed off to Poland to help her family screw in light bulbs, a joke that sadly may be the high point of this dreary story line. I’d like to say more, but I’m not sure what else there is to say.KJPRMy prediction last episode that Keeley’s breakup with her girlfriend/financier Jack would be forgotten without consequences proved incorrect. In fact, Jack has abruptly pulled all of the funding for Keeley’s firm, KJPR, and Keeley needs to be out of the office within 48 hours.For those keeping track, this is the third apparent instance in this episode in which a fabulously rich person has made a business decision based entirely on personal pique: Akufo spending a fortune to keep Sam off the Nigerian team (and opening a competing restaurant!); Rupert firing (or at least quickly accepting his resignation of) Nate, his by all accounts exceptionally talented and successful manager; and now Jack pulling the plug on KJPR. It’s a peculiar imagining of the way rich people typically make business decisions.But at least the show takes pains to show that rich people also make dubious business decisions based on sheer generosity. Following the owners’ meeting in which Rebecca decides against profit based on an appreciation of the fans — and persuades the other owners to do the same! — she decides to save Keeley’s firm by financing it herself.A couple of quick thoughts: First, if Keeley is in fact the P.R. whiz we keep hearing her to be — without ever seeing any evidence of this — couldn’t she, you know, find financing from someone who wasn’t a friend taking pity on her? Or has the fact that she takes many vacations, hires completely unqualified friends and never seems to do any work finally caught up with her? And second, has Keeley learned anything about mixing business and intimacy from her experience with Jack? If there is a Season 4 of the show, I half-expect Rebecca to pull her funding the next time Keeley fails to answer her texts.But at least we get to see Barbara redeemed after Keeley buys her a snow globe.Keeley and RoyWell, that was easy. Roy runs into Phoebe’s teacher — yay, Phoebe, genuinely and always — and she says he seemed “stuck” the last time they spoke, which evidently serves to immediately unstick him. Really? This wisp of a scene rather than, say, the powerful and spot-on lecture that Rebecca offered last week?But evidently that five-letter word is all it takes to make Roy want to get back together with Keeley, and his subsequent letter is all it takes to make Keeley want to get back together with Roy. There’s no conversation or negotiation, no working through what went wrong last time.Actually, I’m being unfair. There may have been such interactions. “Ted Lasso” just made the borderline unconscionable decision not to show them. We go from the two of them awkwardly standing in the doorway to a semi-clad Roy comfortably re-ensconced at Keeley’s.It’s precisely the same jump from the beginning to the end that we saw with Nate and Rupert, without any of that tricky middle part where people actually speak to one another. For that matter it’s the same nonchalance with which we moved from early signs of trouble between Roy and Keeley at the end of last season to the two of them already split up this season. If the show didn’t bother to show us the actual breakup, why should it show us the actual reconciliation? As someone who was rooting as hard for Keeley and Roy as anyone, I was astonished at how little emotional weight their reunion had.I know I’m quite down on this episode, and I know that many readers will like it more than I did — as was the case the last time I was substantially disappointed. Which is fine! The world don’t move to the beat of just one drum. But to be clear, especially for new readers: My disappointment is not because I dislike the show or any such nonsense. It’s because I like it enough to hold it to a high standard.Juno Temple in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Here’s hoping that there are better things to come in the final two episodes, no matter how small the handwriting needs to be.Odd and endsI have always been in the camp that presumes Rebecca and her Dutch fella will get together by season’s end. (Why else show us the little girl’s room on the houseboat?) I now fear that, given the whole rush-to-the-end quality of this episode, their next meeting will also be abrupt — him showing up in London or her showing up at the houseboat with “happy ending” all but written on the screen. I for one was hoping to see them spend some time together again. But we’ll always have Amsterdam.Unless, of course, those predicting a Rebecca-Ted romance are right, which I dearly hope they are not. But Rebecca playing with the green matchbook and the green Army man together has me appropriately worried.Don’t even get me started on the odd and awkward hallway meeting between Rebecca and Sam.Wait, Rupert has already split up with Ms. Kakes before Rebecca got a chance to expose his affair? Boo! And did I hear correctly that her replacement is a Ms. Bread? I guess this makes Rupert a reverse Marie Antoinette.It’s a bizarre idea that Akufo, no matter how rich, could throw food on a variety of other very-rich folks without facing their rage, lawsuits and possible assault charges.I love Higgins’s delightfully dark take on Willy Wonka.Jamie’s evolution into the best guy ever continues. He’s the first to commiserate with Sam when the latter isn’t chosen for Nigeria and then he wears Sam’s number on the pitch. And his Uncle’s Day gift to newly minted best friend Roy — thank you, Phoebe! — is perfect.Speaking of: Roy wearing Phoebe’s tie-dye shirt to work was fine. But it would have been funnier if he’d worn the shirt Jamie gave him, even if it entailed a meeting with H.R.Sixty quid for a snow globe? That’s $75! Keeley may be the worst bargain-shopper ever. More

This week brought a return to form as the series shed some of the subplots that had been bogging down the story in recent episodes.Season, 3, Episode 9: ‘La Locker Room Aux Folles’For anyone doubting the adage that less is sometimes more, I offer the example of this episode of “Ted Lasso.” While it’s not what I would describe as remarkable, or even especially memorable, it has a nice rhythm to it, in part because it tackles fewer unrelated story lines. The aggressive jumps from subplot to subplot, many involving new or peripheral characters are less in evidence — Keeley’s professional and romantic dalliances with, respectively, Shandy and Jack, had been particular offenders — and their absence is a welcome break.Speaking of Jack, it appears that particular subplot has already run its highly unnecessary course. I cited most of my objections last week. But even I’m a little taken aback at how casually the show has discarded a once semi-central story line. Keeley and Jack had one fight, Jack slammed the door like Nora in “A Doll’s House” and now (unlike Nora) she has relocated to Argentina. What does this mean for her financing of Keeley’s business? If past discarded subplots are any clue — remember the momentarily club-threatening dispute with Dubai Air? — absolutely nothing. Still, for the record: Good riddance, and on to what still matters.ColinAnyone wondering about this episode’s central theme had to do no more than read the all-too-specific title. It’s a reference to “La Cage Aux Folles,” the play about a gay couple that was later adapted into a French film, an American film and a hit Broadway musical. For anyone who missed the episode title, we helpfully open to the strains of the musical’s prelude, as the AFC Richmond squad goes through a beautifully choreographed practice (sorry, training) that culminates, after several pinpoint passes, in a goal by Isaac. The team has been playing incredibly since last we saw them, and will soon find themselves on an eight-game winning streak! (Has anyone else noticed that Richmond seems to alternate between long winning and losing streaks without ever being, you know, average?) Spirits are high.Well, all spirits save one. When Colin congratulates Isaac on his shot, the latter merely scowls back. Later, Isaac refuses Colin’s invitation to get a beer with a curt, angry “No.” Next, before the game with Brighton & Hove Albion — I’m with Ted; sounds like a law firm — Isaac leaves Colin’s attempted fist-bump un-bumped. And finally, he lays into Colin after an error on the field, before charging furiously into the stands to confront an abusive fan.There are two possibilities here. Either Isaac is angry that Colin is gay — a fact he discovered accidentally last episode — or he is angry that Colin never told him. I think I speak for most if not all regular viewers of “Ted Lasso” when I say there was never any doubt in my mind which would be the case. This was a plot twist that was (forgive the phrase) straight as an arrow.But that doesn’t mean it was an ineffective one. Colin’s announcement to the team is not merely the setup for a nice Lasso lesson of the kind we’ve seen fewer of this season, it’s the setup for Colin’s own comeback: “Coach, did you just compare being gay to being a Denver Broncos fan?”Billy Harris, who plays Colin, has been excellent throughout the past few episodes, and never more than in this one, in which he repeatedly displays a deft comic touch. After explaining to Trent that this was the “second-best way” his revelation to the team could have gone, he describes what would have been the best way. And let me tell you: I would’ve been first in line to buy that copy of Oprah’s magazine.Don’t even get me started on Colin’s final conversation with Isaac, after both have laid their cards on the table. These are two friends having a hilarious conversation neither one envisioned, but one for which they are both finally ready.Is it a bit of a stretch that a men’s professional sports team would harbor zero outspoken homophobes? Probably. But given that we have just three episodes to go, it’s almost certainly for the best.Nate (and Jade and Rupert)It’s a pleasant surprise, for us as well as Nate, when Jade stops by his office bearing lunch. But several items of West Ham merch later, storm clouds roll in. By which I mean, of course, Rupert.The turtle-necked Lucifer proceeds to offer a brief yet comprehensive master class in his personal art of seduction: the offhand compliment about Jade’s smile, the display of his “amateur dialectologist” party trick, the intimation she might be out of Nate’s league. None of it is too strong or obvious. Rupert is testing and assessing, displaying his well-rehearsed charm in doses small enough to see what might stick.Jade is having none of it, just as she was unimpressed by Nate’s attempts at a “wunderkind” persona at A Taste of Athens. Her immediate response to Rupert’s visit — “He seems very wealthy” — may be the most delightful cutting-down-to-size he has inspired to date. And when Nate explains that his boss is “actually really decent,” Jade responds with the eternal half-smile of the person who knows better.When we next see Nate and Rupert, the scene is staged almost like a horror movie. As Nate sketches plays on his whiteboard, Rupert appears behind him in the doorway to lurk for a moment, silent and unseen. Just listen to the ominous music: If this were a different show, Rupert would be holding a machete. But his jabs are more subtle: ostentatiously forgetting Jade’s name, helping himself to Nate’s baklava without invitation.The smiling face of evil: Anthony Head in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Later, Rupert invites Nate out for a drink without Jade, a “guy’s night.” It’s a phrase that evidently means different things to different guys, as Nate discovers when he shows up to find Rupert happily ensconced with two beautiful women. “The girls will be joining us,” he explains, to absolutely no one’s surprise but Nate’s. One can almost see the scales falling from his eyes; it’s like watching a glacier calving.Nate makes his excuses and instead heads to Jade’s apartment where, in a lovely touch, they do not kiss but merely hold each other for a moment. Nate has passed life’s test, but he has failed Rupert’s. We will learn soon enough whether or not there are consequences.RoyAsk and ye shall receive. I was pretty hard on the show’s treatment of Roy last week. And, behold, we’re granted, for the first time in a while, reason to be optimistic about him, courtesy of some long-overdue tough love from Rebecca. (That line in Episode 6 regarding Keeley’s whereabouts — She’s “somewhere that believes they deserve her” — was merely a warm-up.)After some characteristic Roy grousing, Rebecca sits him down to discuss his skipping the news conference he was supposed to be giving. “Is that the plan for the rest of your life? You’re just going to walk away from everything the second it isn’t fun or easy?” she demands. And no, she’s definitely not just talking about the news conference. For good measure, she adds, “Get out of your own way, man!”And for the remainder of the episode he pretty much does. When Isaac storms out of the locker room, it’s Roy — you will recall he helped turn Isaac into a strong team captain last season — who offers support while withholding questions and judgment alike. And at a surprise makeup news conference, he explains Isaac’s rushing into the stands with a story that can only be described as Lassoean. There’s hope for Roy yet.Which of course means there’s hope for Roy and Keeley yet. Maybe. Last episode, it seemed like a Keeley-Jamie reunion was more likely. Or perhaps neither will take place. Maybe Rebecca will adopt Keeley: After all, she’s already playing a fairly maternal role and the psychic, as discussed, merely said that Rebecca would “have a family” and “be a mother.” Two central plotlines solved with one unexpected twist! Which brings me to …The ticking clockWe are now 31 episodes into the 34 episodes of “Ted Lasso” that will, to the best of our current knowledge, ever be broadcast. Even if the showrunners ultimately relent and offer a Season 4, they have been adamant that three seasons were all they intended and will conclude the story they intended to tell.Which means we have three episodes in which to determine Rebecca’s romantic/parental status, Keeley’s romantic status (likely but not necessarily involving Roy or Jamie), Ted’s parental/geographic status, and the status of Nate’s soul. If Ted leaves, who will be Richmond’s new coach? Will the team be relegated — or win the Premier League championship?And those are just some of the big questions. The smaller ones — will Rebecca ever use her knowledge of Rupert’s affair with Ms. Kakes against him? Will we ever see the wonderful Phoebe again? — are too numerous to catalog. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy few weeks.Odds and endsAnother episode gone by without any sign of Rebecca’s marvelous Dutch love interest. At this point, I think this is both good and bad news. Bad, because presuming he shows up, their arc will be rushed by definition. Good, because I sincerely doubt there’s time to introduce another potential love interest. Though there’s always the Keeley adoption option, I suppose.In that early training, a near-perfect Beardism: “I haven’t seen 22 dudes have this good a time on grass since I saw the Grateful Dead jamming with the Black Crowes and Phish.”The joy in Nate’s voice when he introduces Jade to Rupert as his “girlfriend.” He practically sings the word.Speaking of singing, the episode ends as it began, with “La Cage Aux Folles,” in this case the song “I Am What I Am.”After all the focus on Michelle and Jake’s potential matrimonial status last episode — and Ted’s existential concern about the topic — our Ted/Henry/Michelle quota is limited to a single parent-teacher phone conference. And as much as the idea of being on the teacher end of that call frightens me, Ted’s “We’d better go let Ledbetter go” was pretty clever.If Coach Beard really had to start a trans-Atlantic beef over rock guitarists at his news conference, I wish he’d picked a better champion than Joe Walsh. Although it did set up a nice line about “the guy from Cream.”Ted: “That’s what that lady from the American ‘Office’ said.” Speaks for itself. More

Ted prepares for a new reality, Nate plunges in and Keeley (maybe) steps away.Season 3, Episode 8: ‘We’ll Never Have Paris’This is yet another episode that feels somewhat disjointed, following multiple story lines that don’t overlap much or offer a strong through-line. One could make the case — as I did in the headline — that this is an episode about the ends and beginnings of relationships. But the subplots nonetheless felt more like separate pieces than parts of a whole.Ted and HenryWe open with the news that AFC Richmond has beaten Aston Villa 3-0 for their second decisive victory in a row, an outcome that was easy to anticipate following last episode’s discovery that Total Football with Jamie as facilitator rather than scorer is a winning recipe. (To underline the point we hear the play-by-play of Jamie passing to Dani for a goal.) Moments later, we learn the win streak is up to four.“You have to think,” one of the commentators declares, “that no one is happier than Coach Ted Lasso.”Well, if you did think that, it surely became unthunk as soon as we cut to a close-up of Ted looking not at all happy. He’s in the pub with his ex-wife, Michelle, and her new beau — and their former marriage counselor — Dr. Jacob. “Please, I insist, call me Jake,” he tells Ted, proving that he is just as bad at reading a room as he is at meeting a minimal standard of professional ethics.Michelle and Jake are dropping off Henry with Ted as they take a surprise trip to Paris. (“Jake told me on the plane,” Michelle explains.) Ted may not know much about Europe, but he is confident of this arithmetic: Paris + newish couple = marriage proposal. This assumption is confirmed when, asked where they would propose if they could do so “anywhere in the world,” Trent and Roy in unison cite the City of Lights.This entails a meeting of the Diamond Dogs — plus the rookie member Trent but minus a cranky Roy — though a brief one. Once the others learn that an engagement is merely Ted’s assumption, they agree to follow Higgins’s advice to “find out before you flip out.” It’s OK, though, because this meeting is largely a setup for … But no, that would be getting ahead of ourselves.Ted — again, not happy — decides not to wait for Michelle’s return but instead to ask Rebecca to procure a private investigator to shadow the couple in Paris. Even when he reads to Henry (a children’s book by the Premier League footballer Marcus Rashford), he is consumed: Does “Mommy’s friend” Jake read to Henry? Watch TV with him?Granted the wish to do whatever he wants on a day that Ted and Beard are taking off, Henry opts for a Premier League game and, wouldn’t you know, the only team playing is Rupert and Nate’s West Ham United. So the fellas go to the game, deck out Henry in a West Ham jersey, and shout and wave to get Nate’s attention on the sideline. Again, more on this soon.We next see Ted, Henry and Beard sitting outdoors at the pub as a busker plays “Hey Jude” nearby. My mind immediately went to the song’s Paul-John-Julian back story, which Beard then helpfully unpacked for Henry before advising him, “I know right now it feels like you’re in a sad song. But you, young man, you have the power to take a sad song and make it better.”Ted has by now absented himself to call Rebecca, who had texted to say she had “info.” Its precise nature, however, was apparently revealed to Ted while we were Beatling with Beard and Henry. The most we hear from Rebecca is, “But seriously, who gives a flying [expletive] if Michelle gets engaged,” which is suggestive but not dispositive.Is the omission deliberate and, if so, what is it intended to accomplish? Time will tell. But the tug that Henry exerts on his father’s heart, while scarcely new, is ever more evident — in particular during the goodbyes that close the episode, when Ted can scarcely let go of Henry’s backpack.NateWhen we first run across Nate this episode, he is in bed in the morning. Moreover, he is not alone but with Jade, our favorite hostess at Nate’s favorite Greek restaurant. Upon waking, she quickly determines that, charmingly, Nate had already gotten up, showered, shaved, brushed his teeth and gotten back into bed. Alas, love-struck boy that he is, he quickly falls into the trap of trying to “label” the “relationship” while claiming he’s trying to do no such thing. Slow down, tiger.I confess I feel somewhat disappointed that we went directly from Jade not standing Nate up at dinner to the two comfortably ensconced in bed for what is evidently not the first time. (Indeed, in a later scene, she accedes to the label “boyfriend.”) We have not yet seen a single real conversation between the two, a glimpse of why it is they enjoy each other’s company. We’ve gone straight from romantic tension to romantic fulfillment without witnessing the romantic journey at all, at least so far.Which is perhaps part of the reason Nate’s most moving relationship is still his complicated one with Ted. I noted last episode that even as we watched Good Nate’s re-emergence from Bad Nate, it had been some time since we’d seen him at work at West Ham. Could Good Nate survive in the malignant shadow of Rupert?Smitten, he evidently can, even if only briefly and only with Rupert absent. Nate gathers a couple of subordinates together for a meeting of the “Love Hounds,” a shameless rip-off of …well, I hardly need to tell you. It goes about as well as one might expect, which is to say that the drop-off from the “Diamond Dogs” — I told you we’d get here — is comparable to that between Alvy Singer’s first and second lobster dates in “Annie Hall.” Does the awkward fiasco remind Nate of what made his time at Richmond with Ted special? Oh yes, it most assuredly does.And in case he abruptly forgot, he gets another reminder when Ted, Beard and West-Ham-clothed Henry show up at his match. Visibly stunned at first, he then briefly allows a small smile past his lips.Yet it’s soon clear that Nate still has a way to go. When Rupert later texts him, “Sorry about Ted being there. Won’t happen again,” Nate begins to type, “It’s okay, I thought it was funny.” But even that level of moderate snark seems insufficient. So Nate deletes it in favor of a corporately cold “Good. Thank you.”Still, his ongoing path seems clear. Even in the aforementioned “boyfriend” scene with Jade, what lingers is the smile on his face as he looks at a news photo of Ted, Henry and Beard at the match.Keeley and Jack (and Roy and Jamie)Did I mention the preponderance of red flags in this relationship last week? Why, yes I did. But whether or not the relationship is actually over, as this episode suggests it may be, the developments are connected only peripherally to Jack’s creepily over-the-top love-bombing.Rather, we have what could be called a fairly literal “ghost in the machine”: a selfie sex video Keeley filmed for a past paramour that has made its way onto the internet and, by extension, Keeley’s phone. Keeley is mortified and begs the seemingly omnipotent — read: ultrarich — Jack to fix the situation. “I’m gonna take care of it,” Jack promises.But the photos ripple outward quickly. When Sam tells the rest of the team, Roy leaves the room angrily while Jamie looks worried. Could the latter be wondering what terrifying vengeance the former might be contemplating? Jamie doesn’t know about the rope-dipped-in-red-paint scenario, but he had firsthand experience with the genitalia strings.But no, it’s simpler than that. Jamie is genuinely concerned, as he expresses near the end of the episode — and concerned not only that the video was leaked but that he may have been unintentionally responsible. Keeley had sent it to him, of course, and he confirms that his password is the highly crackable “password,” even if he cunningly disguised it by using two “S”es. For anyone rooting for a Jamie-Keeley reunion, this is a clearly promising scene. For the rest of us …Roy is genuinely angry, and not merely at the leak but at what was leaked. He approaches Keeley and, after saying all the right things, moves on to say precisely the wrong thing: “Who’s it for?” — a question to which he has almost certainly guessed the answer. Keeley promptly exits, and who could blame her?An overdue aside here: What in the world is the show doing with Roy and with Keeley? The original sin was not merely breaking up the two of them, but doing it at the start of this season (and so offhandedly) rather than at the end of last one, when the emotional impact would have been exponentially greater. The show has only compounded that misstep with how it has presented each character since — let me start with Roy and then return to Keeley at the end of the section.I made the case last season that Roy had become the star of the show, and it wasn’t a hard case to make. But this season? His screen time is a fraction of what it was, and his charming, obscenity-laden crankiness has devolved into outright sadism. (See, again, the paint-rope and penis-strings.) And now this scene with Keeley?Was Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy, too busy with “Shrinking” — he is one of the creators of the show, which is quite good — to occupy as central a role as he did last season? Were the other writers punishing him for his televisual two-timing? Whatever the explanation, “Ted Lasso” is killing one of the best things it had going. No matter what the intended narrative payoff, happy or sad, it’s hard to envision it making up for the way Roy’s been portrayed for two-thirds of the season and counting.Sorry not sorry: Juno Temple in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+But back to Keeley and Jack. It turns out that the latter’s “taking care of it” is not quite as envisioned, when Keeley receives the abjectly apologetic note that she is expected to post to social media. Confronted about the statement, Jack demurs that her dad’s lawyers drafted it. But her solution to the dilemma is simply another, different apology note for Keeley to put her name to.Keeley refuses. And after showing her hand probably more than she intended — “the person I’m seeing, the person whose company I’m funding” — Jack shows herself the door with no promise she will return.I confess that this scene didn’t really work for me in any direction: On the one hand, Jack seemed far too quick to make such an existential issue of the dispute, even for someone clearly accustomed to getting her way; on the other, Keeley seemed implausibly surprised that a lover or a boss — let alone someone who is both — would be unhappy about the public exposure of her partner/employee’s sex tape.But this relationship has always seemed a bit forced, a way to give Keeley’s P.R. firm story line the semblance of a plot without actually spending any time on her job itself. Keeley has been largely broken off from the story of Ted and the team with the premise of embarking on her own career. Yet instead of giving us any meaningful sense of that career, her season has consisted almost exclusively of Shandy drama followed by Jack drama, with regular scenes to discuss each with Rebecca.Indeed, there are times it’s hard to believe — between traveling to Amsterdam with Rebecca, Aurora Borealising in Norway with Jack, and then taking the day off for mini-golf — that Keeley has a job at all. Likewise with Jack, who was initially introduced as something of a business titan but who seems more and more to be the daughter of a billionaire who dabbles in investing while reserving most of her energy for amusing herself.While I’m on the subject: It’s wonderful that “Ted Lasso” has made such a clear effort to have substantive female characters in a show about a men’s sports team. But it would be awfully nice if one of its two female multimillionaires had achieved her fortune through skill or perseverance rather than marrying or inheriting it from a man. (How much time, for that matter, has the show devoted to Rebecca’s job? Awfully little since Season 1, when her “job” was principally undermining Ted.)Last season, Keeley and Roy were the delightful hub around which much of “Ted Lasso” revolved. This season, they’ve both spiraled out into disappointing spots on the periphery of the show.ColinKeeley’s relationship with Jack is not the only potential casualty of the leaked sex videos, which Colin initially laughs off with a self-protective “I guess I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.” But after Isaac commands the team to empty their cellphones of any signs of past sexual encounters, he sees Colin lagging behind and snatches his device. We don’t see what Isaac sees, and obviously we don’t have to. If we didn’t know it already, Colin’s crestfallen face speaks as loudly as any dialogue.What will Isaac do? I have no more idea than any of you. I expect there will be considerably more to say about this next week.Odds and endsThere was no mention of Rebecca’s charming Dutchman from Episode 6. Does this mean he really was just a one-night love affair to remind Rebecca she still had the ability to fall so happily? Or is he being held in reserve for a late-season surprise? Obviously, I’d prefer (and honestly, anticipate) the latter. But I’d ideally like it sooner than later, by which I mean immediately.So, Keeley sent a topless photo to one of her teachers when she was 15? Are we supposed to find that amusing?On a lighter note, here’s to Jamie’s extensive inventory of deodorant sprays.As with the Episode 5 locker-room banter regarding “She’s All That,” “My Fair Lady” and “Pygmalion,” I thoroughly enjoyed Dani’s reference to “Les Misérables,” followed by another player (left back Jeff Goodman?) concurring, “[Expletive] yeah, 24601!”Likewise, Rebecca’s description, however unfounded, of the Eiffel Tower as a “lamppost with a publicist.”I’m not entirely sure what to make of Alyssa, Jack’s college friend whom she and Keeley meet at mini-golf. Perhaps an ex? More

Nate pursues a crush, Sam endures a lesson in politics, and the team discovers the cost of “Total Football.”Season 3, Episode 7: ‘The Strings That Bind Us’The episode opens upon a sunny London morning, with stores opening to the lovely song “Dreams” by the Cranberries. And not just any stores: a bakery featuring a rainbow of macaroons in the window; a florist shop whose fragrant, colorful wares are being laid out for the day.An ever-training Jamie is pulling Roy on (of course!) a bicycle, while the latter growls “Mush!” And Nate, whom we didn’t see at all in last week’s Amsterdam episode, pauses as he passes his favorite restaurant, A Taste of Athens. He waves to Jade, the once-hostile hostess with whom he shared some conciliatory baklava and wine two episodes ago, after his model-date ditched him. Jade is surprised at the attention but waves back, and Nate smiles more happily than we’ve seen him since, a season ago? Longer? Oh, the heck with it, let’s go on directly from here.NateI won’t lie. It’s nice to see Nate smile again, and not just any smile: the smile of innocence and insecurity that all but defined his character in Season 1. Jade’s abrupt transformation over baklava may have strained credulity, but it was nonetheless the kind of understated feel-good moment that has long been a “Ted Lasso” specialty. My ongoing prediction that Good Nate would ultimately overcome Bad Nate is looking more and more likely. (A bit more on this — and on what was arguably missing from this episode — in a moment.)Later, Nate’s mother texts to urge him not to forget his sister’s birthday, and he recommends A Taste of Athens, his treat. Now, he would almost certainly have done this under any circumstances: He has made abundantly clear that the restaurant is his family’s default for celebrations of any kind. But now it’s also clear that he has another motive in addition.No such luck, however. Mom has decided to cook at home. “Please don’t be late. You know how your father gets,” she texts, in a brief reminder that Nate’s dad is one of the show’s many problematic fathers.So Nate distracts himself like any lovestruck fool in the age of smartphones, asking Siri, “How can you tell if a girl likes you or is just being kind to you?” The succinct answer supplied by Apple’s engineers: “You can’t.”This is not, of course, how Siri responds to this particular query in real life — I asked my own iPhone the same question and was presented with multiple websites on the topic. And yes, I now fear that some distant corporate subroutine will begin inundating me with ads for dating sites.But back to Nate, who asks his mother and sister the same question at dinner and receives precisely the same response. But after his father, niece and brother-in-law have left, Nate’s sister cajoles his mother into sharing with him the “map” his father had made for her before their first date, showing how they had been growing closer — in geographic terms, to be clear — for years. It’s settled. Nate will ask Jade out.His first effort, however, is abortive. “There’s something I’d like to ask you,” he stammers, “umm … would you … excuse me one moment?” He takes a quick trip to the bathroom — I can’t be the only one who was pleading “Please don’t spit on the mirror!” — where he has an epiphany. Like his father, he will construct a grand gesture-cum-visual-aid to woo Jade.So he puts the decorative-shoebox skills he has honed with his niece to work. And though the box is crushed in the street, Jade says yes to dinner and, despite Nate’s fears, does not stand him up.So, what, as I suggested above, did I think was missing? We only saw half of Nate’s ongoing evolution. He is apparently reverting back toward Good Nate but what does that look like at work, particularly in relation to his boss, the Mephistophelean sleazeball Rupert? We don’t know. Glimpses of what remains of Bad Nate will have to wait for another episode.SamWe first see Sam visiting his own restaurant, Ola, where he asks his chef, Simi (Precious Mustapha), whether there’s an open table on Friday. After a rowdy laugh, she replies that the place is “booked for months. The ‘waiting list’ is a lie we tell people.” But when told that Sam’s “very special guest” is his father, traveling all the way from Nigeria, she agrees to work something out. Yes! Sam’s dad, whom we’ve only heard over the phone to date! The best father — with the possible exception of Higgins, whose parenting of five boys we rarely witness — on a show full of lousy ones!Juno Temple, left, and Hannah Waddingham in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Simi, meanwhile, is furious that the (fictional) U.K. Home Secretary, Brinda Barot, is turning away a boatload of Nigerian refugees from English shores. So Sam being Sam, he sends a mild tweet intended to appeal to her “better angels.” Barot’s Twitter reply, however, falls decidedly short of angelic: “Footballers should leave the politics to us and just shut up and dribble.” For those who may not recall, the show is directly channeling a 2018 quote from the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who said the NBA stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant should leave politics alone and “shut up and dribble.”The tweets escalate on both sides, until Sam, on the day of his father’s arrival, goes by the restaurant to find it in ruins: the door smashed in, mirrors shattered, tables and chairs broken into kindling. But Sam’s father (played by Nonso Anozie, whom I remember best as the actor saddled with the line “I invoke Sumai” in Season 2 of “Game of Thrones”) preaches patience and forgiveness. “Don’t fight back, fight forward,” he counsels.At the end of the episode, Sam takes his father to see the fractured restaurant, only to find his teammates hard at work repairing it. Now, I confess I’d spent much of the episode trying to remember why Sam had named the restaurant “Ola”; I was planning to recheck Episode 3 and even last season for clues. But no need. When Simi introduces herself to “Mr. Obisanya,” he is having none of it. “Call me ‘Ola,’” he tells her. The look on his face when Bumbercatch re-illuminates the restaurant’s sign is utterly endearing, but still less endearing than the groove he gets into with Sam in the kitchen just before the credits roll.Keeley and JackPresumably having Aurora-Borealised to their hearts’ content last episode, Keeley and Jack mostly limit themselves to coffee this time around, even if those coffees involve signed Jane Austen first editions and jewelry-filled pastry. In between, Keeley — who’d confided to Jack her love of daisies — returns to an office overflowing with them. She is being “love-bombed,” as Rebecca explains, overwhelmed with grand, expensive gestures.A brief aside: When Rebecca compares this love-bombing by Jack to her own wooing by Rupert so many years ago, it is surely a bad sign, no matter how quickly it is waved away. But it also paints Rebecca, deliberately or not, in a somewhat less than appealing light. She accepted a Jaguar from Rupert on their second date? And upon learning that Jack is paying for her and Keeley’s dinner, Rebecca — who is, of course, herself fabulously rich — puts two bottles of 1934 Chateau Cheval Blanc St. Emilion Premier Grand Cru on the tab to go? They sell online for about $2,000 a pop! (Also, is it just me or is it a tad stalker-y for Jack to secretly pay for Keeley and Rebecca’s dinner?)Earlier, in Keeley’s office — the on-again, off-again gag about the opacity of Keeley’s window was a bit much — she wondered about the nature of having a relationship with her boss. (This was the scene for which I waited in vain during last season’s Rebecca-Sam relationship; more on that later.) Jack replies, “We can’t get in trouble because we’re two consenting adults” — this is quite untrue — “and because I’m get-away-with-murder rich.” Which is probably true, but not terribly becoming. And when Keeley presses and Jack compares herself to “everyone connected with Epstein” — well, that’s not the comparison I would be looking for in a romantic partner.Is it just me, or do Rebecca’s Jaguar and Keeley’s Jane Austen, flowers and diamond ring (however quickly returned) stand in stark and probably deliberate contrast to Nate’s grand gesture of a shoe box with glued-on glitter and stars? I see red flags aplenty here — I hadn’t even mentioned Rebecca’s “Sometimes shiny things can tarnish” line — and I’m not sure that any level of love-blindness will ultimately turn them green.The TeamThis was the episode’s weakest link. Following Ted’s hallucinatory reinvention of the Dutch star Johan Cruyff’s 1970s strategy “Total Football” last episode, the coaching staff begins drilling the team in its principles in preparation for their very next match.The first practice, on “conditioning,” is fine. Ditto the second one, on “versatility,” although no matter how “total” Total Football may be, it does not involve swapping out your goalkeeper, especially not in favor of the team’s shortest player. (The Beard-Will swap was modestly amusing, though, and kept to the requisite small dose.)But the “awareness” practice in which the players used red string to tie themselves to one another’s man parts? Count me out. Humor this broad — see also Isaac’s corner kick into Higgin’s office window — has never been a strong suit for “Ted Lasso.” (Given that the show based its episode title on this gag, the writers evidently disagree.)Total Football proves to be a disaster during the first half of the team’s match against Arsenal, with Richmond players colliding all over the field. But at halftime, Good Jamie — who’s beginning to prompt the question “How good can he get?” — suggests he become a facilitator rather than a scorer. And though the team still loses, this plan unleashes a “symphony,” in the words of the match commentators, “with Tartt in the role of conductor.”That said, my favorite part of this story line was Ted’s response when an incredulous Trent asked him if he really intended to swap strategies midseason: “It’s kind of like going on a hike with Robert Frost. It could go either way.”From left, Cristo Fernández, Toheeb Jimoh, Phil Dunster and Moe Hashim in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Odds & endsSee? I’m not alone in doubting the propriety of last season’s Sam-Rebecca relationship. Sam’s father clearly agrees, and I’ll happily be on Team Ola any day of the week.Speaking of Rebecca: She confirms that she and last episode’s mysterious Dutchman did not have sex but shared something that “transcended sex.” It was “Gezelligheid.” Alas, that’s all we get this episode. I, for one, still hope for more.For all of Nate’s positive evolution this episode, it’s still a little disturbing to discover that he’s programmed Siri to address him as “Wunderkind.” He still has a ways to go.I’m sorry, but going back to the early-ish scene of Beard and Ted in the pub: There is no way Ted Lasso knows what “pegging” is. If you don’t know either, feel free to look it up, with caution.In response to Ted’s suggestion that if he’d kept an early beard, he and Coach Beard would look like a ZZ Top cover band, Roy dubs them “Sharp Dressed Men,” before catching himself: “God, I hate what you’ve done to me.” His Sasquatch-themed pun is even better, if unrepeatable here.I mentioned the Cranberries’ “Dreams”.” This was a particularly musical episode, also featuring (among others) the Monkees’ relatively obscure “Sometime in the Morning,” Ray Charles’s “What Would I Do Without You,” Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” John Fogerty’s “Centerfield,” Primal Scream’s “Rocks,” Supergrass’s “Alright,” and Snoh Aalegra’s “Find Someone Like You.” More

In Amsterdam for an exhibition match, everyone tends to their individual story lines.Season 3, Episode 6: ‘Sunflowers’This was for me an odd and largely dissatisfying episode in addition to being, at over an hour, the longest episode to date. It felt an awful lot like the “bottle episodes” added to the run late last season: “Carol of the Bells” (which I rather liked) and “Beard After Hours” (which I did not). It is not, however, a bottle episode, as two characters’ story lines move notably forward; it’s just an episode that, apart from those characters, goes essentially nowhere. And did I mention it was really long?The team is visiting Amsterdam for a “friendly”(an exhibition match) against the Dutch team AFC Ajax. They lose 5-0, but this blowout is quickly forgotten. The team’s dejection leads Ted to declare that there will be no curfew in this city of vice — a more accurate episode title would have been “Everyone After Hours.”In any case, let me start with the story lines I thought were dull or unnecessary and then reward your patience with the ones that were actually moving and/or interesting.The team (minus Colin and Jamie)What will the team do, set free in this world capital of legalized drugs and prostitution? Van Damme (formerly known as Zoreaux) proposes, plausibly enough for a pro athlete let loose in Amsterdam, that the team attend a sex show. Jan Maas, back in his home country, recommends an all-night party where his cousin is DJ-ing, located two hours away. (Dani suggests the team look for a single tulip but finds no takers).The sensible route, as Dani notes, would be for the players to split up and seek their pleasures wherever they wish. But Isaac, the team captain, demands that they all do something together, and from that moment it’s clear that there will be an exceptionally silly resolution to the dilemma. Although they finally choose to make the trip to Jan’s cousin’s party, they immediately fall into a subsidiary argument about where to get food beforehand.So, of course, it winds up that they go nowhere and instead have a pillow fight at the hotel. If I’d made a list of 10 possible lame conclusions for this story line, “pillow fight” probably would have been worse than any of them. C’mon, “Ted Lasso.” You’re better than this.Higgins (and Will)Shortly after the match, Higgins announces that he can’t go out with Rebecca and Keeley because, “I have a date with someone special in the Red Light District.” Later, after inviting Will the kit boy to join him, he announces, “Tonight’s the night young William becomes a man.”Scandalous! Higgins, who seemed so happily married with five boys at home, is going to the sex hub of Amsterdam — and he’s taking young Will with him!Except, of course, anyone who’s watched more than 10 minutes of “Ted Lasso” knows perfectly well that this is a red herring, and that Higgins will have some perfectly innocent reason for visiting this zone of iniquity. Moreover, as with the joint team activity, it seems likely that the faux-surprise will be silly, bordering on annoying.And indeed it is. The “someone special” whom Higgins drags Will to see is jazz legend Chet Baker — or rather, a plaque commemorating the spot where he fell out a window to his death in 1988.As for making young William “a man,” Higgins means that he will introduce him to jazz, a meaning that I suspect has never before been imputed to that phrase in human history. Later, Higgins himself ascends to the stage of the jazz club they visit and is delighted to play Baker’s “Let’s Get Lost” on standing bass with the band.Cute? Sure. And if Higgins’s previously (if briefly) glimpsed love of jazz were a significant theme of the show, it might have been a charming scene. But mostly it all felt like many more minutes spent for very little payoff.Jamie and RoyThis subplot is a bit better, in large part because the evolution of Jamie, however quick and improbable — his namesake on “Game of Thrones” took seasons to achieve the self-improvement Tartt has accomplished in mere episodes — is pretty enjoyable.But what is it with “Ted Lasso” and bikes? Last season, Dr. Sharon was run over by a car while cycling, which itself seemed to be an inside joke on the fact that the actress who plays Sharon, Sarah Niles, didn’t know how to ride a bike when she got the “Lasso” gig.Now it’s Roy who is lacking in basic bicycle skills, because the grandfather who was going to teach him died before he had the chance. So it falls upon Jamie to teach him, so they can go out in search of a genuine Dutch windmill.Like the Higgins story line, it’s modestly charming, and in this case has the advantage of being part of the ongoing Roy-Jamie subplot. But it’s still an awful lot of time spent to move that story forward only incrementally.That said, there are a few amusing moments along the way. When Jamie reveals that his degenerate father brought him to Amsterdam to lose his virginity at 14 and Roy notes, “That must have been traumatizing,” Jamie’s response is priceless: “No, she loved it.” Pause. “Oh, it’s me you mean.”And we see Good Jamie at his best when Roy, clearly upset all day, reveals “I think Keeley’s got a girlfriend.” Jamie does not take the bait, replying only, “Hmm. Let’s go find us some windmills, eh?”Relatedly, the scene earlier in the episode, when Roy learned of Keeley’s trip to Norway with Jack to see the Aurora Borealis, led to one of the best exchanges of the episode. Roy: “Where’s she going?” Rebecca: “Somewhere that believes they deserve her.” I tire of saying this, but the show was simply better when Roy and Keeley were together. Please fix this before it’s too late, “Ted Lasso.”Phil Dunster, left, and Brett Goldstein in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+TedCoach Beard unsurprisingly follows the motto, “When in Amsterdam, do as the Amsterdammers do.” And so he makes cups of hallucinogenic tea for him and Ted. Beard drains his quickly and heads out for what we can assume is another chapter of “Beard After Hours” — we are only privy to the postscript, when he shows up for the team bus as “Piggy Stardust.”Ted, on the other hand, is understandably conflicted. He’s uncertain about the drugs, and he already despises tea. But he nonetheless ultimately gives it a shot, following which he heads out to the Van Gogh museum, where a docent provides Ted with what can only be described as a series of Lassoisms — i.e., “When you know you’re doing what you’re meant to do, you have to try.” Is this a hint about Ted’s complete failure to learn anything much at all about coaching soccer (a failure many commenters here have pointed out)?The next scene suggests it may be. Ted, having had his fill of foreignness, heads to the Yankee Doodle Burger Barn restaurant, which advertises American food in American portions. (For those who didn’t make the connection, the barbecue sauce the waitress brings him is from Arthur Bryant’s, Ted’s favorite joint in Kansas City.) Faced with a pyramid of onion rings, he begins thinking about triangles. Coincidentally, an old Jordan-era Bulls game is on the television, featuring the triangle offense implemented by the coach Phil Jackson.I initially thought that this was merely a callback to the John Wooden “Pyramid of Success” that Ted has hanging on his wall, and at which he gave a meaningful look late in the last episode. Instead, after a rather tedious hallucination in which he believes himself to be speaking to the True Spirit of Adventure (Disney voice actor Corey Burton), Ted begins formulating a variation on the triangle offense suitable for soccer, utilizing ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles.It all leads to two late exchanges with Coach Beard. The first is the revelation that Beard’s drugs were duds: Ted wasn’t high at all! I’m not sure how precisely we are meant to take this. Ted’s hallucination was rather a lot to be a placebo effect, and the only alternative would be that he is clinically mentally ill. It’s another element of the episode that would have been better left on the cutting-room floor.The second interaction is better: Coach Beard, impressed by the fact that Ted has come up with a game strategy for perhaps the first time in the series, recommends the term “Total Football,” before explaining that the concept was in fact invented right there in Holland back in the 1970s. But as the Van Gogh docent recommended, they will give it a try.ColinAt last, a story line with some genuine emotional impact. Colin, feigning a stomach ache, sneaks away from the team to head to a gay bar. But he is followed by Trent Crimm. Colin is horrified, but Trent reassures him: “I’ve known for months. I haven’t said anything to anyone. I must have a good reason for that, mustn’t I?”The reason, of course — and I know I’ve been writing “of course” a lot, but it’s that kind of episode — is that Trent himself is gay and out to both his wife and daughter. Which is all well and good, but seems unnecessary. How about letting his “good reason” for not outing Colin be merely that he is a decent human being? Memo to the “Ted Lasso” writers: You don’t need to be gay to want not to potentially ruin a gay person’s life.The scene is redeemed, however, by Billy Harris, who plays Colin. “I don’t want to be a spokesperson; I don’t want a bunch of apologies,” he explains. “All I want is for, when we win a match, to be able to kiss my fella the same way the other guys get to kiss their girls.”RebeccaI have saved the best for last, a subplot strong enough that it almost justifies the whole episode. Rebecca, alone in Amsterdam after her abandonment by Higgins and Keeley, is nearly run over by a bicyclist while standing on a bridge and falls head over heels into a canal. It appears that this is what the psychic predicted back in Episode 3: “You’re upside down, and you’re drenched.” There is, however, no “thunder and lightning” — unless that is a metaphor for what happens next.A nearby houseboat resident, kind and endearing, helps her dry her clothes and offers her the use of his shower. (The character, as yet unnamed, is played by the prolific Dutch actor Matteo van der Grijn.) He makes her tea and later dinner, and Rebecca gradually sheds the emotional armor in which she encased herself following dates with jerks such as John Wingsnight.It’s not easy at first, as each shows signs of sexual paranoia sheathed in jokes: Is the tea drugged? Could there be a peephole into the shower? Are the women’s clothes he has in his closet “trophies”? Happily, the answers are no, no and no.As she did last episode, Hannah Waddingham does marvelous work. You can almost hear the tension gradually leaving her body. Dinner, which had been a “no,” becomes a yes. Likewise, the invitation to a drink (or several), and ultimately a foot massage. (Shades of “Pulp Fiction”: As Vincent Vega would explain, “There’s a sensuous thing going on.”)The next morning, Rebecca asks this nameless charmer, “Did we?” He answers, accurately, that they did not. (We saw him pull a blanket over her after she fell asleep during the foot massage and then retire to his bedroom.) But after she departs with a rather significant kiss, he asks himself the same question, and answers “Oh yes, we did.”That’s because he’s asking himself a different question. Something happened between them. It was not sex; rather, it was more important than sex — a genuine connection of kindred spirits. I mean how often do two people find themselves sharing a bilingual duet of Kenny Rogers’s “She Believes in Me”? It is, as he keeps noting, “Gezelligheid.”I found this truly lovely. TV and film typically operate on the premise that a romance is not real unless it is consummated in bed. It’s heartening to see a show recognize that that is not the case. Oh, and did I mention that Rebecca, post-shower, looked into what was clearly the bedroom of a young girl and beamed with delight?I don’t know where this story line is headed. Will Rebecca learn her quasi-paramour’s name and track him back down to make the “family” the psychic promised her? Or will the house-boater merely have served the purpose of proving to her that she can take the armor off, that she is still able to love and be loved? Given that I found the scenes between the two of them to be perhaps the best of the entire season, I am strongly rooting for the former. And let us not forget that Sassy shared a premonition with Rebecca — a warmth in the belly — right before Rebecca tumbled.From left, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple and Jeremy Swift in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Odds and endsTwo enjoyable moments with the Dutch reporter after the blowout match: Jan responding (in Dutch), “Luckily our spirits were already broken,” and Roy deriding every element of the proceedings, including the reporter, as “pretend.”A nice little joke with the Zava poster in the Ajax stadium, which shows him characteristically to have played with the team from 2013 to … later in 2013.Ted is pretty quick to interpret Coach Beard’s “Pineapple Percussions” to be “doldrums.” And one has to like him name-checking “Hill Street Blues” as the inspiration for his “Let’s be careful out there.”You have to love the use of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” as Roy is learning to ride a bike, especially if you remember the scene from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” that it was written for. More