Ted Lasso (TV Program)

Rebecca, Nate, Ted, Keeley, and Zava all move forward.Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Signs’This episode of “Ted Lasso” was a bit disjointed — what Raymond Chandler would have called “passagework” — following individual stories that were only loosely connected. But it did push forward several important subplots.The episode opens with the news that despite the heroics of Zava, AFC Richmond is on an epic losing streak that dates back to their loss to West Ham last episode. I’ll have more to say about Zava below, but first let’s address the arcs of a few of the show’s central characters.RebeccaThe predictions of the psychic she visited in Episode 3 continue to materialize. First it was the green matchbook. Now it’s the spoonerism for “knight in shining armor,” i.e., “[expletive] in nining armor.” (This is a family newspaper, even when the swears are distinctly British.) At the coffee shop where Rebecca dumped the unfortunate John Wingsnight last season, she runs into him with his new fiancée, who immediately blurts out that precise inverted phrase. Rebecca is, understandably, more than a little freaked out.The remaining question regarding the “nining armor” phrase is whether it has any meaning beyond its repetition in the coffee shop. The green matchbook, for instance, doesn’t seem to have any significance beyond the fact that its appearance was foreseen by the psychic.If the phrase does have further significance, it seems all but certain that it will involve Jamie, who sharper observers than I am quickly noted wears the No. 9 on his jersey. (It is typically the number worn by the striker on a Premier League team, which Jamie was until Zava showed up and surely will be again now that Zava is gone.) And here I can see two obvious possibilities, one more appealing than the other. It could mean that Rebecca is going to hook up in some way with Jamie, but that would be bizarre, given that it’s very difficult to believe either would be remotely attracted to the other. It would also be, forgive me if you must, gross. After Sam, Rebecca really can’t date another 20-something subordinate, or we are entering the territory of a damaged psyche and probable lawsuits.A far better — and more plausible — reading is that under the 4 a.m. tutelage of Roy, Jamie emerges as a true star and begins leading Richmond to wins again. This, in fact, seems to be where we’re headed, psychic prediction or no psychic prediction.It’s perhaps worth noting here that so far the psychic’s predictions have occurred in the order she predicted them: the matchbook first, and the nining armor second. Does this mean that her third prediction — “Thunder and lightning, and you, and you’re upside down, and you’re drenched” — is imminent? Time will tell.But Rebecca is obviously far more interested in the psychic’s final prediction: that she will become a mother. So she heads to a doctor who gives her hope that her age might not be an obstacle to pregnancy and then, after tests, dashes that hope. Rebecca will not have a baby.There has been much speculation, here in the comments and elsewhere, about how and for whom Rebecca might become a surrogate mother. Put me in the camp that thinks Bex will leave Rupert (presumably after learning of his affair with Ms. Kakes) and that Rebecca will somehow help to raise her awful ex-husband’s infant child. But feel free to offer alternative theories.Hannah Waddingham offers a magnificently subtle performance here, some of the best acting she’s done on the entire show. And she is at her peak when she is not speaking at all, when her face oscillates seamlessly between hope and disappointment, sometimes conveying both at once. Her work during the devastating call from her doctor and immediately afterward is beautiful and heartbreaking, and the choice of music, “Quiet,” by Rachael Yamagata, is perfect.NateNate is oscillating too, as he has been for a few episodes now, between his true self — decent but hopelessly insecure — and the mask of the bullying egotist he keeps trying to wear, with limited success. After a nice bit in which he calls his mum to practice how he will ask the supermodel Anastasia on a date, he does in fact call her, and they go out for dinner.Nate being Nate, of course, he takes her to the relatively downscale restaurant where he and his family have celebrated special occasions for years. With Anastasia in tow, he tries once again to impress the hostess, Jade, and she is once again entirely unimpressed.Anastasia is unimpressed, too, but with the restaurant itself. If Nate were truly the big shot he is trying so hard to be, he would have foreseen this and taken her someplace “cool.” But he didn’t, and Anastasia, worried that she might appear on social media in a place “so dumpy and sad,” makes a quarter-hearted excuse and flees the premises.At which point Jade sees the true Nate, wounded and vulnerable, and joins him at his table, where we see them drinking wine and laughing easily. The mask is off, at least for now. I found it a lovely, if perhaps improbable, twist. It is certainly further evidence that in the battle for Nate’s soul, Good Nate is gaining the upper hand over Bad Nate.TedLast episode, we saw signs that Ted was tiring of his own mask of perpetual affability when he voiced his displeasure about Dr. Jacob to his ex-wife, Michelle. This episode, he has to contend with the news that his son, Henry, has been involved in a bullying incident at school.The immediate assumption is that Henry was the one bullied, leading to a hilarious scene in which Coach Beard suggests that they fly to Kansas and burn the bully’s house down, before Roy offers the sensible advice that the “best thing you can do with bullies is ignore them.” This advice is not quite what it seems, however, as Roy goes on to paint a late-at-night vengeance scenario, involving a heavy rope soaked in red paint, worthy of a Bond villain. (I can’t be the only one who was reminded of a particular scene in “Casino Royale.”)But it turns out that Henry was not the bullied but the bully. And as much as Ted is upset at this news, it’s clear that he is equally upset that he is not there, in Kansas, to be a father to his son. Despite Ted’s absence, though, Henry is still a Lasso, and he corrects his error in the most Lasso manner imaginable: “I let him know I was sorry by doing an apology rap in front of the whole class.”Ted, too, is gaining firmer control of himself. He begins to have a panic attack before his call with Henry, and it becomes full blown after he gets off the phone. He envisions the last time he saw Henry in person, as he vanished down an escalator at Heathrow on his way back to Kansas. But he gains control of himself, whispering, “He’s OK, he’s OK,” and to his own apparent surprise, the panic attack is over.I don’t know whether Ted will reunite with Michelle, or whether he should. But I have a very difficult time believing he will not wind up back in Kansas to be a father to Henry. This is a show, after all, supremely concerned with the failures of fathers: Ted’s, Nate’s, Jamie’s, Rebecca’s. (Sam’s is the exception that proves the rule.) Ted is surely not eager to join that list.Later, after the brutal loss to Man City — Beard’s joke that it has the same name as the strip club he worked at in college is priceless — Ted addresses the team about the things we let bring us down: “Crap like envy or fear or shame. I don’t want to mess around with any of that [expletive] anymore.” It’s an admission of something we’ve already seen: Ted has been suffering from all three of those feelings. But there’s hope. Ted is committed to “believing that things can get better, that I can get better.” This, again, appears to be Ted’s trajectory for the season: Becoming a better man and a better father. This doesn’t mean being a less generous person. But it may mean stashing away at least a little of his perpetually chirpy, upbeat facade.KeeleyPlease tell me we have seen the last of Shandy. Her character arc was evident from the moment Keeley hired her, and the decision to play it for broad laughs (“condoms for balls”!) just made it feel like a weekly dose of last season’s “Led Tasso” misfire. She seemed to have walked in from another, much worse sitcom. Her over-the-top tirade on the way out the door — and subsequent experiment in animal husbandry — served only as a reminder of what a feeble character she has been from the start.Jack, on the other hand, is kind of awesome, at least from what we’ve seen so far. “Compliment sandwich,” “talent dysmorphia,” sex with a birthday clown in a car with 30 of his clown buddies? Sign me up. Essentially trading Shandy for Jack could improve the Keeley story line by an order of magnitude. I’m not sure I fully buy the sudden romantic attraction. But I’m not sure I care.Even the dour chief financial officer Barbara gets in a worthy zinger upon Shandy’s departure.Barbara: “Well, I’m not going to say it.”Keeley: “But you’re going to think it.”Barbara: “Yes. Often and forever.”There may be hope for this subplot yet.ZavaHe was in only three episodes meaningfully, but Zava was a pleasant surprise. The obvious way to present him was as an astonishing egomaniac and horrible teammate — indeed that seemed to be how they were setting him back in Episode 2. (It also captures the real-life superstar he is based on, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is famous for his many verbal and violent physical altercations, many of them with teammates.) But the show went with something weirder and at least a bit more interesting. Egoist? Sure. Messianic? Definitely. But not the living nightmare we were led to expect. And his retiring, as opposed to being kicked off the team or demanding a trade, was a pleasantly unexpected exit as well.I confess I found his description of his love for his wife modestly adorable. And even though it doubled as a semi-dirty joke (more on this category later), his line at the end of the video he posted captured the Ted Lasso ethos about as well as anyone has: “If you put your energy into the things you truly love, the universe puts its thing back into you.” Yet another hint that Ted will return home to Henry?Odds and endsI loved it when Colin noted that “She’s All That” was based on “My Fair Lady,” and Sam one-upped him by noting that the latter was itself based on “Pygmalion.” Now that’s a locker room where I could feel at home.I enjoy watching Jamie’s progression, which I’m sure we’ll see on the field as well now that Zava is gone. “Hey, enough of that negativity,” he scolds his teammates. “Stop acting like a bunch of little bunny rabbits and let’s [expletive] do this.”Poor Coach Beard, whom Gina Gershon evidently left to meet her soul mate.Anyone else notice that when, in his big speech, Ted mentions, “Maybe we’ve hurt someone else,” the camera immediately fixes on Roy? Of course you did. We still don’t know precisely why he broke up with Keeley. But I’m quite certain it goes well beyond “we’re both too busy.”Was Higgins’s early reading of a cellphone note about the team’s poor play — I’ll omit the setup for obvious reasons, and cite only the punchline — “This is a text from my father” the dirtiest joke that has yet appeared on Ted Lasso? I say yes, but anyone who wants to offer an alternative candidate should go right ahead. Although watch your language if you want to get it past the moderators. More

What will the signing of a world-class striker mean for AFC Richmond?Season 3, Episode 3: ‘4-5-1’Welcome to the Zava era. For those who skipped the first two episodes of this third season of “Ted Lasso” — and honestly, shame on you; go back, do the homework and rejoin us — Ted’s team has signed one of the greatest players of the age, a mercurial striker named Zava. (He is based closely on the real-life star Zlatan Ibrahimovic.) This was accomplished by Rebecca rudely accosting him while he was using a urinal last episode. Whatever works, right?Zava is immediately weird — showing up hours late with his cellphone on another continent, ostentatiously meditating while the rest of the team prepares for games, and so on. But so far he seems reasonably friendly, even if his preferred alignment is everyone in the midfield or on defense except him. This is the meaning of the episode’s title, “4-5-1”: He’s the “1.” As the coaches explain, all free kicks will be taken by Zava. All penalty kicks will be taken by Zava. And all corner kicks must be intended to set up Zava. Jamie, who was the team’s best player before Zava’s arrival, is visibly nonplused. But everyone else seems fine with the arrangement.And why not? The first time he touches the ball for Richmond, after Jamie passes it to him at the opening of his first game, he scores a goal from midfield, an insane feat. He follows up with scores off headers, off bicycle kicks, and even off something I’d never heard of called a “scorpion kick.”Again: What’s not to like? Richmond, universally picked to finish at the bottom of the Premier League — which would entail them being once again “relegated” to an inferior league — is now near the top of the standings.That said, I’m guessing the relationship between Zava and his teammates will sour before long, because a) the show has made a big deal about how he changes teams almost every season; and b) his real-life doppelgänger, Ibrahimovic, has a history of violent altercations with teammates. So stay tuned.There is another delightful musical choice for the montage where we see Zava dominating the Premier League and taking Richmond toward its peak: “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” a classic 1972 song by Adriano Celentano, performed with his wife Claudia Mori. It is a song written in nonsense-language that was meant to sound like English to a non-English-speaking audience. There have been various versions, but the original video is, in my modest opinion, one of the greatest of all time. (Again: 1972!)Having already apologized last week for missing a reference to “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the season premiere, I also need to cite the use of its titular song, “Superstar,” with regard to Zava this episode. Although I will confess it is, for me at least, one of the weakest songs of the musical, an unwisely adorned version of the brilliant “Heaven on Their Minds” that opens the show. (And again, that’s Anthony Head’s older brother, Murray, singing as Judas in a genuinely brilliant vocal performance.)Even Roy — Roy! — suggests that Crimm’s book about Richmond’s season might be a “fairy tale.” I offer as a semi-deep cut the idea that his niece, Phoebe, may be letting him play the dragon role more often in their ongoing “Princess and Dragon” game, the casting of which was clearly an issue of contention last season. As Roy requested in Episode 8, “Can I be the dragon this time?” I speak from experience: The male ego is a ridiculously fragile thing.In other news …Sam and RebeccaWe haven’t seen a lot of Sam so far this season, perhaps in part because the show seems reluctant to dive back into the Sam-Rebecca romance it ignited last season. I don’t think there was any mention of it at all in the first two episodes of the season, and it was still very much a live question at the end of Season 2. (I went back and checked!) Readers from last year will recall I was not much of a fan of this story line. Sam is 21 years old, Rebecca is roughly twice that age, and she’s the owner of the club that will make decisions about his salary, his career and all the rest.Last season she gave him the choice of staying with the team or leaving for another, which is something no responsible boss could ever do. However delightful Sam and Rebecca were together, this was a massive lawsuit — from Sam, from his teammates — waiting to happen.This episode, both Sassy (the return of Sassy, played by Ellie Taylor, is always a delight) and Keeley suggest that Rebecca is missing out on a good thing. Seriously, does AFC Richmond have an HR department? Does anyone comprehend employment law? And please don’t think that I’m expressing a double standard here: If she were a fabulously wealthy older man having a relationship with a much-younger female employee — Rebecca’s “grooming” line from last season hit all too close to the mark — the obvious moral, professional and possibly legal quandary would be only clearer. Situations like this are exactly why we rightly revile Rupert. (Remember: “I got bored with the same old, same old,” from last episode.)Rebecca is a beautiful, incredibly successful woman. John Wingsnight notwithstanding (remember him from the Season 2 premiere?), she can certainly find a perfectly kind, decent, loving man who is not her borderline-underage employee.But enough of my re-litigating a relationship that may already be over. Let’s look at Rebecca and Sam separately.RebeccaSo here’s the payoff (or at least early payoff) of Rebecca’s brief call last week with her mother, played by the tremendous Harriet Walter. Now, under pressure, Rebecca visits her mom’s psychic, Tish (Emma Davies). The opening is lovely: Rebecca asks for a White Russian, and Tish responds with a “Big Lebowski” reference. “I was literally just making a joke,” Rebecca allows. And Tish responds, “I know, that’s why I made two.” A psychic with a sense of humor? Sign me up.Rebecca then hears a lot of what sounds like nonsense, including the importance of a “green matchbook.” (Rebecca even checks her kitchen drawer to see if she has any.) And then: “You will have a family … you’re going to be a mother.” This is the cruelest thing one could say to Rebecca, whom you’ll recall Rupert didn’t want to have a child with, before immediately having one with his new, very-young wife, Bex (Keeley Hazell — and yes, she is the real-life Page 3 model whom Juno Temple’s character is named after). As Rebecca notes to Tish, explicitly: “You’re [expletive] cruel.”Ambreen Razia, left, and Juno Temple in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Wow. This is what we call a major plot twist, one that will continue to bear fruit if the green matchbox from Sam’s restaurant is to be believed. But if this plotline is fulfilled, who will be the father or partner? Sam? He’s the obvious choice: It is, after all, his matchbook. But having a child with someone 20-plus years younger does seem a little Rupert-y, no? And Sam and Rebecca no longer seem to be an item. I welcome alternative theories. (No! Not John Wingsnight!)Sam’s RestaurantIt’s so nice to see a bit more of Sam (Toheeb Jimoh) this episode. He was arguably the breakout star of last season. (As he told Rebecca in the closet, “I’m only going to get more wonderful.” If only I could have honestly spoken that line … ever.)It’s the test run for Sam’s new restaurant and obviously a huge night for him. But perhaps not only for him. The moment in which Rebecca, next to Keeley, looks at Sam and obviously wonders what could have been — what might still be — is followed instantly by Keeley giving an all-but-identical look at Roy. What could still happen with Roy and Keeley? What has to still happen with Roy and Keeley? Don’t let me down, “Ted Lasso.” You broke one of the best things you had going, and I’m waiting for you to fix it. “There are better things ahead than any we have left behind,” Keeley tells Rebecca. That may be the least true line ever uttered on the show. Can Keeley do better than Roy? Can Roy do better than Keeley?TedAs noted earlier, a mild gimmick of “Ted Lasso” is that each season opens and closes on the face of the person who follows the clearest evolution. Rebecca, the first season; Nate, the second. This season, it’s Ted, who is long overdue. He came to the U.K. from Kansas and left his 10-ish son behind because he and his wife had split, as we learned in Season 1. His father killed himself when Ted was 16, as we learned in Season 2. This is the season — the presumptive final season — in which we will hopefully witness him healing himself, instead of others.The signs are not, for the moment, terribly good. He has discovered that his wife is dating and perhaps living with a new man, and that man, “Jake” or “Dr. Jacob,” is their former couples’ therapist. (Am I wrong, or is this the first time we’ve seen Ted’s ex-wife refer to herself as “Michelle Keller”?) Ted’s hands shake so much he scarcely sees Zava’s first goal. He has what is clearly a heavy pour of Scotch as he plows through social media confirming the relationship.Cardinal rule: Only see doctors who use either their first names or “Dr. [surname].” “Dr. [first name]” is no longer appropriate once you hit age 14. And while I don’t pretend to know the professional guidelines for dating someone you’ve treated in couples therapy, I think 18 months is not enough time passed. The presumptive rule should be “never.” The conflict between being meaningfully attracted to someone and being the person in charge of rehabilitating their current relationship — well, let’s just say that this is about as direct a professional conflict as I can imagine. You are not in Ted Lasso’s cool book, “Dr. Jacob,” and you’re not in mine either.Odds and EndsLast week, I suggested that Trent Crimm’s theme song should be the Kinks’ “A Well Respected Man,” but after this episode I think Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” would also be pretty terrific. Trent is just so easy to score. Maybe it’s the hair? If anyone has another song they think would be perfect for him, definitely cite it in comments.The moment in which Coach Beard suggests Jamie is being accidentally “ironic,” and Jamie retorts that, no, he’s being deliberately “hypocritical” — and then Ted notes that the whole scenario is ironic? Gold.I liked the moment when Jamie and Roy argued about “prima donna” versus “”pre-Madonna” and Jamie was basically right? He is growing before our eyes.Zava (who owns an avocado farm) asks Sam where he gets his avocados and, when told that they don’t really feature in West African cuisine, says “not yet”? A definite callback to Ted’s “not yet” response last week when Roy lamented his inability to continue enjoying playing at Chelsea once he felt his powers fading.The Coach Beard-Jane story line continues to do nothing for me, and I can’t imagine it does much for anyone else. Drop it, “Ted Lasso.”Perhaps I give myself away too much. But the “favorite Julie Andrews’s movies” scene in which Roy confesses a longstanding crush because of “the way you knew she’d always tell you off if you’d been bad” and Crimm sneaks in with a “Princess Diaries” reference? This is the office I totally want to work in, every day, forever.The “I think you mean ‘In Zava boots’” question addressed to Dani Rojas? No further comment necessary.Additional references: Daniel Day-Lewis(!), Public Enemy, “Mrs. Maisel” and no doubt many others I missed. Please let me know in comments. More

Also: Can AFC Richmond acquire one of the greatest footballers alive?Season 3, Episode 2: ‘(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea’“Trent Crimm! Are you kidding me?”If you did not share Ted’s joy — and mine! — at the reappearance of the erstwhile writer for “The Independent” (played by James Lance) in Rebecca’s office, well … I think you’re watching “Ted Lasso” wrong. But that’s just one person’s opinion. (And this is despite the psychologically bizarre and wildly unethical series of events that led him to leave “The Independent” in the first place.)But he’s back, with a role that looks as though it may be considerably larger, and I believe the world to be a better place for it. Welcome back, Trent Crimm.One more Trent note before I move on. I know the show doesn’t do leitmotifs. But “A Well Respected Man” by the Kinks is so perfectly suited to Trent — not the lyrics particularly, but the mood — that I desperately want it to be his regular theme music.Instead, it looks like we may have to settle for Ted’s new nickname for Trent, “Sport.” It’s not perfect, but we could do worse.OK, moving on (although you have not seen the last of Trent in this recap).Roy’s very bad dayLast week, obviously, we suffered the gut punch — plenty hinted at in Season 2, but a bit out of nowhere in the Season 3 premiere — that Roy (Brett Goldstein) and Keeley (Juno Temple) have broken up. I don’t mean to dwell on this, but it would have been so much more powerful if it had taken place at the end of last season. Here it felt a little bit thrown in, a move-the-narrative-forward tactic rather than an opportunity for one or more genuinely heartbreaking scenes.But this week we get a bit more, starting with Isaac’s delightful disquisition on the study of kinesics that enables him to instantly interpret what has happened. And then, the whole team knows. Which, of course, infuriates Roy.But angry Roy Kent is almost always the best Roy Kent. OK, fine: He’s essentially the only Roy Kent. (I was him for a Halloween party last year — the beard was tricky — in part because it gave me such an elegant excuse to shout “Oy!” and utter various expletives all night.)But then, the cards and balloons? The sighs and well wishes from the entire team? The fact that even the security guy for Chelsea knows and offers his condolences? It’s a miracle that no one was violently murdered this episode.And at the end, after the famous-but-unprintable “He’s here, he’s there, etc.” chants at Richmond’s opening game against Chelsea, where Roy was once captain and superstar, a rare moment of vulnerability: “It just felt sad, or something.” After a lousy game against Arsenal years earlier, he felt, “for the first time ever,” that he was fading as a player and could no longer keep up. So he left and came to Richmond. But as he explains, “There’s a part of me that thinks I should have stayed, and just [expletive] enjoyed myself. But that is not who I am, I guess.”Followed by Ted at his very best: “Not yet.”And no, I’m not yet done with Roy, either.It was an emotional week for Roy (Brett Goldstein).Apple TV+Origin storiesHow did Rebecca and Rupert initially hook up and eventually marry? Well, now we know. He went with his wife to a club where Rebecca — presumably 20-plus years his junior — served drinks. And then he came back, sans wife, and asked Rebecca out. She wisely said no. So he came back every night for weeks and just chatted with her. He told her it was fine that she wouldn’t date him; he just enjoyed her company. And then, finally, he asked her out again, and she said yes. “He made me feel special,” she confesses to Keeley. “Chosen.”Given the man — and the husband — he turned out to be, this is genuinely heartbreaking. And then, in a scene minutes later, he twists the knife: “I guess I’m just like any man. Got bored with the same old, same old.” So, just as he had with the previous wife, he traded Rebecca in for a newer, younger model. So brutal. Men like him make me feel like Roy Kent on a particularly furious day.A side note: I mentioned last week that Anthony Head’s turn as the kind, decent, always concerned “watcher” in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is among my favorite TV roles ever. (“There is no spell.” You’ll know precisely the moment I mean if you watched the show.)But Rebecca’s description of Anthony Head’s superhuman charm reaches back still further, to the “Gold Blend”/“Taster’s Choice” commercials he did with Sharon Maughan for Nescafé between 1987 and 1993. They formed a serialized romantic story line that is considered among the best ad campaigns of all time. (Gold Blend sales went up over 50 percent in the U.K.) They were one of the greatest will-they-or-won’t-they romances on American and British TV in the 1980s and 1990s, even if they were doled out only in occasional episodes, months apart, and each lasted less than a minute. That’s the Rupert that Rebecca met in the bar: suave, self-confident and very, very persistent (without, I should add, ever being later revealed as a selfish, cheating scumbag, which probably wouldn’t have helped sell much coffee).But that’s not the only origin story this week. There is also the question of why Roy hates Trent so much that he threatens that anyone who talks to him will get “my forehead through their [expletive] skulls,” which is extreme even for Roy. And the answer is that, when Roy was a 17-year-old rookie prodigy, Trent wrote a withering critique of his very first game. Roy — we don’t know his precise age, but I have it on excellent authority that he is “pushing 40” — has carried that newspaper clipping in his wallet for two decades. Again, another moment of profound vulnerability and perhaps regret — for both men. Great stuff, nicely executed.ZavaThe episode’s central story line was, for me at least, perhaps its least interesting. Rebecca wants to sign superstar striker Zava (Maximilian Osinski) explicitly because Rupert wants him for his own team, West Ham. But Zava is planning to go to Chelsea. Except we already know he won’t go there because the title of the episode is “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea.” It’s a reference to the first single from Elvis Costello’s second album, “This Year’s Model.” (Personally, I prefer the songs “Radio Radio” and “Pump It Up.”)While I self-evidently enjoy this show’s wealth of pop-culture references as much as anyone, this one doesn’t really have any connection apart from the title, which, again, pretty much gives away the whole game. Zava’s not going to Chelsea, and he obviously can’t wind up at West Ham, because that would remove any tension from the entire Premier League season. So he’ll obviously wind up at Richmond.That he decides to do so because Rebecca accosts and “sour yells” at him while he’s at a urinal requires a higher-than-usual suspension of disbelief. Yet her diatribe — essentially, you’re already fading and can no longer carry a team — does have a nice pre-echo of Roy’s later confession about why he left Chelsea. That’s the downside of being a professional athlete: You know that your years of greatest fame and accomplishment are probably over by your early 30s.Odds and endsI am ashamed to confess this, but last week I failed to notice a “Jesus Christ Superstar” reference — Ted’s “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening” — until it was too late to get it in before publication. I say this because I wore the original album to a nub at least twice as a boy. My wife took me to a production at the Kennedy Center for my birthday last year. But to make up for my omission last week, I will offer the tidbit that on that original album, the part of Judas — really the central figure of the musical — was sung by Murray Head, elder brother of Anthony (i.e. Rupert).I should also say thank you to the numerous readers who pointed out that Ted’s son, Henry, is almost certainly not a “teenager,” as I described him last week. I was thinking he was 13-ish, but on reflection 10-ish seems more likely. If anyone can point to his exact age as described on the show, please do.I don’t know much about soccer — and what I do know is mostly gleaned from my son — but something about Zava seemed awfully familiar. For those who follow the sport as little as I do (or less), he is a lightly fictionalized version of the real-life Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimovic: also a world-class striker; also quite tall (6’ 5), with similar facial hair and a man-bun; also famed for goals both long distance and exceptionally athletic; also a famously difficult teammate who has changed teams many times.I don’t have much to say yet about Keeley’s PR firm, her cranky C.F.O. — which, no, does not stand for “Corporate Fine Object” — or her longtime friend and new hire, Shandy (Ambreen Razia). We’ll see where this story line goes.The scene with Jamie and Roy was a pleasure, most of all when Jamie goes in for a hug “too fast” and Roy responds as if he is being attacked. It is of course a callback to their iconic hug in Episode 8 of last season.Ted’s semi-faint when he heard the news of Keeley and Roy’s breakup was a lot like his delight at seeing Trent Crimm again. You speak for all of us, Ted.It was wonderful to see the great Harriet Walter again as Rebecca’s mom (she was so good last season), but blink and you’d have missed it. I assume this brief scene was a setup for things to come.The joke about “The Office,” in which Ted explains that it’s set in Scranton, PA, not England and, when reminded of the original, describes it as a “pre-make” — spot on. (Sorry Ricky Gervais!)More Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernández) is always better than less Dani Rojas. And his line about Richmond landing Zava, “I just wished for that 30 seconds ago”? Well, I think we can all agree that if anyone on Richmond has a direct connection to a higher power, it’s Dani. More

There’s a lot going on in the season premiere, and most of it is not good.Season 3, Episode 1: ‘Smells Like Mean Spirit’Wow.The first episode of the third season of “Ted Lasso” — and I’m trying to summon my own inner Ted here — is a humdinger.Savvy viewers of (or readers about) the show will know that one of its minor gimmicks is that each of its three seasons have begun and ended with close-ups on the character who will undergo the most substantial evolution.The first season, it was Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), the newly divorced owner of her ex-husband’s football (i.e., soccer) team, the fictional AFC Richmond. In an effort to cause him very appropriate pain, she hired an apparent clown from Kansas—Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) — to come to the United Kingdom and coach a sport he scarcely comprehended. The point, obviously, was to have the team always lose and thus infuriate her grotesque ex, Rupert. But Ted’s extreme decency and generosity (he made her biscuits every day!) won her over, and she became fully Team Ted by the end of Season 1.The second season had an opposite evolution, with the likable kit boy Nate (Nick Mohammed) getting promoted to assistant coach, growing a swollen head over his professional emergence and (in part because he has a horrible father), turning into an abominable jerk. He left the team to be the new coach for a different team, West Ham United (an actual team, unlike AFC Richmond), which has been purchased by the awful Rupert. (The fact that Rupert is played by Anthony Stewart Head, who played one of my half-dozen favorite characters ever, as Giles on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” has created more emotional confusion for me than I prefer to admit.)The new season opens with a close-up of, of course, Ted Lasso. But his trajectory is far more unclear. Rebecca went from mostly evil to mostly good, and Nate took the opposite track. (Although it’s worth saying that both could still be up in the air.) Ted, by contrast, can’t become any more decent. And a show in which he turns into a villain? That might be the worst idea for a show in the history of television.Two more final reminders: Ted is recently divorced, and that was a large part of his decision to move across the pond. And last season, which had a very strong emphasis on fathers and sons, we learned that Ted’s dad killed himself when Ted was 16. (If any of this isn’t ringing a bell, feel free to refer to my recaps of Season 2.)So here we are: We see Ted in close-up at the airport. His teenage son, Henry (Gus Turner), has been over for a six-week visit and is now returning home to his mother in Kansas City. Ted is visibly bereft, squeezing out every last instant, to the point that Henry almost misses his flight. Underlining his sadness, Ted has Henry’s phone in his hand, and sees a text from his ex-wife, Michelle, saying “Have a safe flight! I love you!”Most of the episode doesn’t have much to do with Ted, though, so as with last season, I’ll go through the individual story lines. But we’ll return to Ted by the end.A return to bitter form? Hannah Waddingham and Jeremy Swift in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+RebeccaNow that AFC Richmond is back in the Premier League, after last season’s mild heroics — they got in via a tie — the team has been universally picked to land at the very bottom of the standings. With West Ham, her ex-husband’s new team, picked to potentially win it all, the Rebecca of Season 1 re-emerges. She repeatedly refers to West Ham as “he” (i.e., Rupert) and demands that Ted “fight.” Not to be unkind, but if your entire concept of owning a professional team revolves around your relationship with your ex, sports-franchise ownership might not be the healthiest thing for you.Later, Rebecca goes further: “Everyone is laughing at us, Ted,” she berates him. “At you, at our team, at me. Rupert is laughing at me. And I am begging you, please, fight back.”And yet, as she confides in Keeley, she believes she has made progress: “The now me doesn’t need to destroy Rupert’s life. It just needs to beat him. To win.” Will this season see good Rebecca or bad Rebecca? I’m betting on the former, eventually. But right now she is somewhere in the middle, a work in progress.Nothing, really, on her and Sam’s last-season romance at all. Is that story line concluded? Time will tell.NateLike Rebecca, Nate is showing signs of both his earlier and later selves, even if the evolution, as noted, is reversed. As the manager of West Ham, he behaves as a bully and a thug. He ignores co-workers or tells them bluntly to get out of his office. He puts his players on the “dumb-dumb line” when they screw up and tells an assistant coach to run them “ ’til they drop.”He ridicules a reporter at his news conference and, learning that Ted has taken AFC Richmond on a metaphor-rich tour of the London sewers, explains that they had to do that because “their coach is so [expletive].”And yet. While he has earned the admiration of Rupert (plus a new car!), he clearly knows that Rupert is a bad human being. And he is reminded that Ted is quite the opposite when, rather than take the bait and lash back at him — as Rebecca had explicitly requested — Ted instead praises him at his own news conference. Ted won, not by fighting but by refusing to fight.And Nate’s “The King and I” reply at the news conference, when asked about his relationship with his players was remarkable: “Getting to know them. Getting to know all about them. Getting to like them, getting to hope they …” And he can’t finish the line. Because on some level, he knows what he has become.There’s hope for Nate yet.Nate (Nick Mohammed) has a new job but the same old resentments.Apple TV+Roy and KeeleyThe show did it, the one unforgivable thing: Roy (Brett Goldstein) and Keeley (Juno Temple) have broken up. More unforgivable — if such a thing is even possible — is that they did so little to set it up this episode. Yes, obviously, they were on the precipice last season. But the episode in which they actually break up should be a big Roy and Keeley episode, and instead they both had small roles this week and the explanation for their breakup goes no deeper than that they are both working too hard, especially as Keeley now has her own PR firm.When Roy’s niece, Phoebe (Elodie Blomfield), asks why, they scarcely have an answer — for her or for viewers. This is narrative malpractice. And Phoebe’s response to the breakup, “One of my core beliefs is that nothing lasts forever” — what are you doing “Ted Lasso”? You’re supposed to be our feel-good show. We have “The Last of Us” for when we want to go the other way.TedAnd then, having already pulverized us once, you close with Henry’s Thanos-gauntlet gift from “Mommy’s friend,” Jake. What are you trying to do to us, “Ted Lasso”?Odds and EndsIt’s lovely to see that Sharon (Sarah Niles) and Ted are still in touch even after her departure from the team. And nice to see, too, that she seems to have found someone to make her happy.Ted’s brief story about the time he was left at school “until my dad remembered to come pick me up” is a pretty strong suggestion that his father may not have been the most reliable parent. Given the show’s very strong emphasis last season on fathers and sons, this is worth keeping an eye on.I don’t think I’d previously encountered the Goethe quote (which Sharon offers), “Doubt can only be removed by action.” What a tremendous line.I enjoyed the sneaky quick reference to Rupert’s vacation with “the Sacklers” and the need to stay offshore.Ted’s line about being “Ned Flanders doing cosplay as Ned Flanders” — also precious.Any scene ever shot in a sewer anywhere in Europe is automatically a reference to “The Third Man,” one of the greatest films of all time. The last shot is probably my favorite in the history of cinema. If you haven’t seen it — or even if you have — do yourself a favor.If you didn’t enjoy the gag about Keeley’s mascara ruining the shirts of everyone she’s ever hugged, well, that is where we part ways. More

Also: Sam gets a remarkable offer. And are Keeley and Roy OK?Season 2, Episode 11: ‘Midnight Train to Royston’And when you least expect it, “Ted Lasso” has something to say about … soccer.Look, obviously it’s not a true sports show, nor should it try to become one. But the first season paid significant attention to the trials and tribulations of AFC Richmond, the wins and the losses, the looming threat of relegation out of the Premier League and into a less competitive one.The explicit goal at the end of last season (both the AFC Richmond season and the “Ted Lasso” season) was for the team to play well enough to get promoted back into the Premier League. But, unless I’m mistaken, it took until this episode — the penultimate of the season! — to inform us how close Richmond is to accomplishing what had been promoted as the primary quest of the season.And who could have imagined: It all comes down to the final game! If they win, they’re promoted; if they lose, they remain in the inferior league. This is, of course a minuscule variation on the end of Season 1, in which they had to win the last game in order to avoid relegation. (Obviously, they didn’t.) It would all be terrifically exciting if not for the fact that the show forgets about the team’s win/loss fortunes altogether for long stretches.The latest victory comes at the hands of the fan favorite Sam, who scores a “hat trick”— three goals in a single game. Now I do not pretend to know much about soccer. But isn’t Sam a right back defender? Aren’t the odds against a player in that position scoring three goals astronomical? Especially when we are told time and time again that the team’s best players — and scorers — are its strikers, Jamie and Dani? Again, “Ted Lasso” is not really a sports show. But sometimes it seems to treat the sport it revolves around with extraordinary negligence.This week’s episode was not as eventful as last week’s bravura outing. But breaking the recap down by story lines seemed to work pretty well, so I’m going to do the same here.Ted and SharonIs that really it? We were told that Sharon needed to leave the team a day early because of some crisis. But at least for the moment it appears that it may just be that she doesn’t like to say goodbye in person?I have a few qualms. Had we ever been informed before this episode that Sharon’s tenure was about to be over? Doesn’t she have — let’s say conservatively — a ton of work still to do with Ted? Their breakthrough talk about his father’s suicide was tremendous, but I don’t think one conversation, however productive, is going to fix him.And what about the strong hints that Sharon is going through something, too? The comments from her therapist on the phone? The collection of wine and liquor bottles that Ted saw on her counter when he escorted her home from the hospital? Perhaps all of this was in the letter to Ted. But if so, read the letter aloud!Now perhaps this will all be resolved next episode: Sharon will wind up not leaving, or will come back, or something along those lines. But to have Sharon sneak out the door while in the middle of her most important work with Ted, for reasons that are never expressed aloud? Very disappointing.That said, having Ted send her a final beer (with an army man in it!) along with a goodbye note was a pretty clever turnaround. But I certainly hope it’s not the end of their story. And I’m guessing it’s not.Roy and KeeleyKeeley’s irritation with Roy’s teasing about the corpse-tree last week was one thing. Jamie’s declaration of love after the funeral was another. But both could perhaps be written off as bumps in the road. This week, it’s becoming clear that the whole road may need repaving.Roy’s scene with Phoebe’s teacher seemed more than a bit flirty, culminating with his curt answer when she asked if he was married: “no.” (Phoebe’s boob drawings were a riot though, recalling the early phallic obsessions of Jonah Hill’s character in “Superbad.” And no, I’m not going to link to the scene. This is a family newspaper.) And there was, of course, Nate’s idiotic kiss — but I’ll come back to Nate’s behavior later.It’s at the photo shoot that it all comes to a head, with escalating confessions by Keeley and Roy.Keeley tells Roy about Nate’s attempted kiss, which is no big deal. Roy replies with a customary expletive and “that must have been awkward.”Then Roy tells Keeley about spending three hours(!) with Phoebe’s teacher and the incompleteness of his “not married” answer. This is more concerning, and you can see Keeley struggling with whether to go One Confession Further.She does, telling Roy what Jamie said to her after the funeral. The worry on her face and in her voice is palpable.But it’s Roy’s reaction that really struck me, a slight tilt of his head to one side. This is Roy’s “do I understand this correctly?” look, a lower-key version of the face he made to Phoebe’s teacher back in Episode 8 when she was trying to tell him how his swearing was affecting Phoebe.I don’t believe Roy was thinking about what Jamie had done, but rather about Keeley’s response to what Jamie had done: She hadn’t told him. Keeley and Roy’s first two confessions were about incidents that had just happened. The Jamie episode was something Keeley had kept to herself until now, and clearly had qualms about revealing at all.My own confession: I am officially worried.And was it just me, or was the final shot of the scene, after they turn to face the photographer, an echo of the last shot of “The Graduate” (yes, one of the most widely misunderstood movie endings of all time). I saw two people who had been thrilled with their envisioned future suddenly wondering whether that future was theirs at all. I could almost hear “The Sound of Silence” playing in the background.Someone, somewhere — by which I guess I mean everyone, everywhere — needs to have extra depression hotlines set up in preparation for any possible Keeley-Roy breakup. I don’t mean to sound apocalyptic, but just by myself, I may need to speak to as many as three or four mental-health professionals simultaneously.My fingertips actually hurt after typing this section.Sam and RebeccaFirst things first: I love Sam Richardson, the actor brought in to play billionaire Ghanaian heir, Edwin Okufu. (If you know him principally from “Veep,” as I do, you’ll find him unrecognizable.) From the moment he got out of the helicopter, his joyous charisma was evident.The bit about buying out the art gallery and filling it with actors was silly. (I mean, a £1.2 billion inheritance makes him barely a billionaire.) The bit with the pop-up Nigerian restaurant was more plausible. But it’s not really those perks, but Edwin himself that seduces. He is a sharp, likable and persuasive pitchman.So far, so good. Sam is coming into his own as a star-level player. And as much as he loves Richmond, this seems like an incredible opportunity: to be the early centerpiece of a team, based in Africa, that has aspirations to be one of the top clubs in the world, alongside Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Man U, and PSG. And the team has an owner with the apparent will, resources and connections to make this happen. It’s a far cry from playing for a mid-tier club like Richmond thousands of miles from home.Sam certainly seems excited when he describes the meetings to — of course — his dad on the phone. Indeed, he’s still grinning from ear to ear as he arrives home.But there’s Rebecca, waiting by his door. (Brief note: I don’t believe for an instant she would do this. She’s a highly recognizable figure, waiting in full view by the door of a 21-year-old player’s place well after dark. If some passer-by recognized her, the whole thing would be in the tabloids by dawn.)And what does she tell Sam? Three things: 1) I can’t decide about us. 2) And I can’t ask you not to go. (This second sentence, incidentally, is false in every meaningful way: Sam is under contract. He can’t leave unless Rebecca lets him.) 3) But “I hope you don’t.”Brett Goldstein and Juno Temple in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+I’ve noted earlier that this season has essentially turned the powerful (if frequently scheming and intermittently evil) Rebecca of Season 1 into a Carrie Bradshaw figure, utterly consumed by romantic decisions, yet somehow unable to make any romantic decisions. But I may have been being unfair to Carrie Bradshaw.This “I don’t know if I want to date you, but I want you to make massive, life-defining decisions based on the possibility that I might, someday” seems more like the high-schoolers of “Sex Education.” Although, that’s probably unfair, too. They’re mostly more mature. (Incidentally, the third season of that show may be the best yet. If you’re not watching it, you should be.)And even beyond the sad emotional blackmail, there’s this. Rebecca has a fiduciary duty to AFC Richmond, its other shareholders, and (to at least some degree) it’s tens (hundreds?) of thousands of fans. When Edwin said he would pay her a transfer fee so exorbitant that he would look like a fool in public, she declined even to hear it.But this is her explicit job. If Edwin wanted to pay her so much money that she could sign two or three players as good as Sam, then of course she should do it. And if that decision is too difficult, then she should hire someone else to run the team or sell it altogether. Then she could explore whether she and Sam still work — or work better! — when she’s not his boss’s boss.One last little observation: This season has focused a lot on Rebecca’s recovery from her awful marriage with Rupert. It’s understandable. Like Sassy, I think of Rupert’s death every day. And that is despite the fact that Anthony Stewart Head (who plays Rupert) also played Giles on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” one of my favorite TV characters of all time.But for all the angst about “being alone,” it’s worth remembering that Rebecca was only married to Rupert for (correct me if I’m wrong) about six years. She is not some starry-eyed young ingénue who married a powerful man and was controlled by him from her early 20s on. By the time they wed, she’d had plenty of years of being a self-sufficient, independent woman. So why is the show trying so hard to persuade us that, post-Rupert, she can’t help but revert to being 16-years-old?Sigh.NateThis is the one we’ve been waiting for. Nate has been belittled by his father and by the hostess of a modest Greek restaurant. Ted laughed unintentionally when Nate considered himself a “big dog” in the coaches’ office. Social media has messed with his brain (as it does with everyone’s), and every single time he wears a necktie, someone has to straighten it for him. In the words of the classic “Seinfeld” episode “The Contest,” something’s gotta give.And give it did this week.After Nate suggests a “false 9” formation to Ted and Ted distractedly tells him to give it a try, Nate loses it in front of Roy and Beard. “I give Ted yet another idea that he’ll take all the credit for,” Nate fumes. (Notably, I don’t think we’ve ever seen Ted do this. He’s called out Nate as a genius assistant coach on multiple occasions.)Later, Nate expresses the precise same “don’t you want to be the boss” sentiment to Keeley while they are shopping, which Keeley inadvertently encourages with her talk of their both being underdogs. And then Nate kisses her, which is such a spectacular misreading of the situation that even he knows it instantly.Nate’s transformation this episode has been abrupt: For all his anger and frustration throughout the season, he has always punched down — at Colin, at Will — not up. Remember his mortified look when he asked Beard if he’d told Ted about his treatment of Colin in Episode 7?What accounts for this shift? Occam’s razor suggests that it’s whatever Rupert whispered to Nate on the way out of the wedding last week. I had surmised that Rupert was buying a new team and suggesting that Nate could coach it. (He had, after all, just divested Bex’s shares of AFC Richmond back to Rebecca, which I assume would be required before buying another team.) And it could still be the case that Rupert is on the market for a new team.But it could also be that Rupert is merely trying to sow dissension within Richmond by stoking Nate’s fragile ego and burgeoning resentments. That is, after all, a lot less expensive than buying a team.Whatever it was that Rupert said, it appears to be working. Nate places a story in “The Independent,” bylined of course by Trent Crimm, revealing that Ted left that AFC Cup match not because of food poisoning but because he was having a panic attack. Classy move, Nate.A closing note, however, on journalism. In his texts to Ted, Trent says he felt obligated, “as a journalist,” to write the piece, which is perfectly reasonable. But then he immediately reveals to Ted that his source is Nate. Now presumably, he is telling Ted this because Nate was an anonymous source — otherwise Ted would just read it in the piece. And “as a journalist,” revealing the identity of a source to the subject is crossing one of the clearest ethical lines in the profession. This would never happen so casually.I’ve come to expect “Ted Lasso” ’s oddly dismissive approach toward the finer points of soccer. But now journalism, too?Odds and EndsColin needs to dump the Lambo for a car he’s capable of driving competently.There’s been some discussion about whether the romance between Sam and Rebecca is a play on the romance between Ted Danson (Sam) and Kirstie Alley (Rebecca) on “Cheers.” The argument against: They’re two fairly common names. The argument for: Jason Sudeikis is George Wendt’s nephew! I think Ted’s comment this week — “Sam and Rebecca are already one of my favorite TV couples” — pretty much lays the debate to rest.In addition to those already mentioned, this week’s pop-culture references included ‘Nsync, “The Godfather,” Ziggy Stardust, Bo Jackson and Bo Diddley (from a series of Nike ads they did together), “I May Destroy You,” and Prince (a.k.a., Prince Rogers Nelson, the “Mr. Nelson” Ted refers to when Sharon tells him the origin of her “SMF” pinball handle).Thank you to those who pointed out last week that Roy and Keeley’s “hit by a bus” discussion included both a reference to “Red Dawn” (“Avenge me!”) and, by inference at least, one to philosopher Philippa Foot’s famous trolley problem.And finally, special recognition to the reader who noted that Ted’s getting dressed to “Easy Lover” last week was not a solitary mistake. A couple of episodes back, he stated, “I think a fella should only take as long as the tune ‘Easy Lover’ by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey to get dressed in the morning.” So apparently, Rebecca’s mom, Deborah, is not the only character with an appalling musical-morning routine. Nice catch! More

This week brings Ted’s origin story, and other tales of the damage fathers can do.Season 2, Episode 10: ‘No Weddings and a Funeral’We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.Last week, “Ted Lasso” gave us a moderately interesting but extremely bizarre bottle episode that temporarily abandoned all of the existing story lines in favor of an “After Hours”-themed night out with Coach Beard.This week, the sun rises on a new day of narrative momentum.“No Weddings and a Funeral” — I won’t lie, I think my headline is a better title — is, at 46 minutes, another lengthy episode. (The last three episodes have been the longest three of the entire series.) It is also the most intense and emotionally revealing episode to date, and perhaps the best of the season.Tonally, it’s all over the map, alternating between hilarity and grief and fury. But the writing is superb and the acting even better. In particular, Jason Sudeikis (as Ted) and Hannah Waddingham (as Rebecca) are both asked to go places they haven’t gone before on the show, and both rise to the occasion more powerfully than one could have hoped.A quick aside: Unlike the “Love Actually” episode, the rom-com episode, and the “After Hours” episode, this one has no interest in toying with its source material. There are few if any clear references to “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”I watched the 1994 film again to check, and I felt about it more or less how I did when I last saw it 20-plus years ago: It’s remarkable the degree to which a bit of Richard Curtis treacle, a Pottery Barn soundtrack, and Hugh Grant’s sheepish grin can convince viewers that anything is a “romantic comedy.”Because by any reasonable interpretation, “Four Weddings and a Funeral” is a film about two amoral sexual predators circling one another while casually leaving chaos and heartbreak in their wakes. They’re like Tom and Daisy Buchanan, but substantially more promiscuous.In any case, back to the main event. There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so I’m going to try something a little different and break it down by story line.Ted and SharonCoach Lasso’s scene with Sharon is the one we’ve essentially been waiting for all season. We watched the panic attacks and increasingly manic behavior for a while. And then two episodes ago we had the big reveal: Ted’s father killed himself when Ted was 16. That was the headline. This week, we get the story.Ted, dressing to go to the funeral of Rebecca’s father, gets the shakes and is paralyzed with anxiety. (There are some who might say this is the appropriate response to his choice of getting-dressed music, “Easy Lover” by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins.) So Ted calls Sharon, who immediately comes over.Ted tells her what is essentially his origin story, the reason he always tries to have a kind word for everyone around him: On Friday the 13th of September 1991, teenage Ted came home from school to get ready for a Jason Voorhees marathon with friends. He arrived in time to hear the gunshot. He was the one who called 911, then called his mother to tell her she had to come home from work.Ted’s father had been a good dad. (The Johnny Tremain story is lovely.) But he was focused on other things — work, friends — and Ted fears he didn’t really know he was a good dad. And of course Ted thinks it’s because he didn’t tell him often enough. Perhaps if he had, things would have turned out differently.It’s an admission that subtly but meaningfully alters almost every word we’ve ever heard from Ted Lasso’s mouth. Amid all his goofy banter, the closest thing Ted has ever had to a catchphrase is “I appreciate you.” And now we know why. On some level, Ted believes that if he’d said it more often as a child, his father might still be alive.Sudeikis’s work here is among the best I’ve seen from him on the show or anywhere else: raw and heartbreaking, the precise opposite of his customary chirpy persona. This is the real “Led Tasso,” not that ridiculously contrived on-field bully. (Sarah Niles, who plays Sharon, is excellent, too. But it’s Sudeikis’s scene.)The scene ends, as it should, with a hug between Ted and Sharon. I’d grade it the third-most-significant hug of the series so far, behind Ted and Rebecca’s after her confession last season and Roy and Jamie’s back in Episode 8.Hannah Waddingham and Harriet Walter in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Rebecca and DeborahLike Sudeikis, Waddingham gives her most impressive performance of the series. In the first season, she mostly played an icy schemer. This season, to my disappointment, she’s spent most of her time checking her phone, looking for love. In this episode, all the masks come off.Attending her father’s funeral, Rebecca confronts her mother, Deborah. As a teenager Rebecca, like Ted, stumbled upon something she was not meant to stumble upon. In this case, however, it was not her father’s suicide but his extramarital coupling. (And, unlike Ted’s experience with his father, Rebecca was cursed with being an eyewitness.) The next day, he acted as if nothing had happened. She has despised him, and to some degree her mother, ever since.I confess that back in Episode 6, when Harriet Walter showed up to play Deborah for a fairly halfhearted subplot, I wondered why the show had cast such a gifted actress in the role. This episode is why. Although less well known than many of her British contemporaries, Walter (that’s Dame Harriet Walter to you and me) has been a titan of stage and screen for decades.It is of course Waddingham’s scene. But Walter plays off her magnificently, giving her all the space she needs while never receding as a presence. Walter excels at this kind of quiet intensity, and was a brilliant casting choice.It’s an extraordinary scene — in some ways, more memorable than Ted’s — but I did have a couple of small questions/quibbles. In Episode 6, when Deborah “left” her husband for the umpteenth time, I simply assumed infidelity was involved. If Rebecca didn’t think that was it, what form did she believe her father’s mistreatment of her mother was taking? As “revelations” go, it seemed as though this one was already something everyone already knew or strongly suspected.Another quibble applies to the highly choreographed stretch in which the show cuts back and forth, aggressively and often midsentence, between Ted and Rebecca’s stories. As moving as those stories were, the crosscutting felt too clever by half. If anything, it blunted (if only at the margins) the power of both Sudeikis and Waddingham’s performances. But perhaps that was the point? When “Ted Lasso” pours out naked grief and fury, it prefers to do so only a few words at a time?And is there any sensible reason to imply (as the scene does) that Ted and Rebecca discovered their fathers’ actions on precisely the same day in 1991? It’s a strange and unnecessary flourish that does little but throw the viewer out of the moment — both moments, in fact.Thankfully, it would take a lot more than this to ruin two of the best scenes the show has ever had. But it still feels like a failure of nerve, a worry that the show might get too dark or emotional or heartbreaking.NateAFC Richmond’s most insecure coach has had something of a break from his story line for a few episodes now. It was way back in Episode 7 that he threatened to make kit manager Will’s life a misery.But for anyone who thinks Nate is back on track, I recommend this interview with Nick Mohammed (who plays Nate). Things will almost certainly get worse, even if there are only two episodes(!) left in the season for them to do so.And while this episode did not engage directly with Nate’s narrative path — there are, after all, only so many things you can do in 46 minutes — it did nod at it a couple of times.The first was in a discussion of the afterlife. Higgins envisions an exceptionally Higgins-y heaven in which he role-reverses with his dead cat Cindy Clawford (she passed away in Season 1), and curls up at her feet in front of a fire.Nate, perhaps inspired by the feline theme, announces that he’d like to be reincarnated as a tiger so that he could “ravage anyone who looked at me wrong.” Yes, Nate still has trouble reading the room. More important, he again conveys that he is disturbingly close to becoming Travis Bickle.The other nod to Nate is more subtle. As Ted is dressing, right before his panic attack, we see two pictures on his dresser. One is of his son, Henry, whom he misses terribly and about whom he feels enormous guilt. (Remember that he said he “hated” his own father for “quitting.”)The other photograph is one of Nate leaping into Ted’s arms after being named a coach, with the handwritten note, “Ted, Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” It’s the reminder of a Nate we haven’t seen in a long while.Side note: On his way out of the church, Rupert stops to whisper something to Nate. I have my guesses about what this means — is Rupert buying a new football club? — but surely it means something.Rebecca and SamAnyone who read my Episode 8 recap will recall that I was not a huge fan of its closing implication that Rebecca and Sam would be jumping into bed together. Well, the very opening of this episode confirms that they did indeed jump, and have continued jumping for at least a couple of weeks.My principal concern with this story line is that it is in some ways a replay of the Dubai Air plot from Episode 3: A decision is presented as bold and daring in part because the consequences could be disastrous; and then the show completely ignores any possibility of consequences.Right or wrong, the owner of a sports franchise having a relationship with a 21-year-old player for the team would be a big scandal. Yet the show conspicuously avoids even acknowledging this.Rebecca’s stated reason for not going public is “I’m enjoying the secrecy.” But here are a couple of other things she could have said (and in real life, almost certainly would have said): “I don’t want to be dragged through the mud by the tabloids again” or “I don’t want to create huge organizational — and quite possibly legal — issues for AFC Richmond.”Likewise, none of the women to whom the relationship is revealed (Deborah, Keeley, Sassy, Nora) seem to have even a moment of “Are you sure this is a good idea?” when they learn the news.Are Rebecca and Sam charming together? Of course they are. But there seems to be more than a whiff of fan service in hooking them up without paying any heed at all to the risks involved.That said, Sam’s closing line in the closet almost makes it all worth it: “Rebecca, there’s something I should warn you of: I’m only going to get more wonderful.” Is that even possible?Keeley and Roy (and Jamie?!)Keeley and Roy’s banter before the funeral is some of the best writing in an episode brimming with good writing. The bit about her wanting to nourish a tree with her corpse and his being modestly disgusted at the thought of eating fruit from that tree is excellent dialogue, perfectly delivered.But nothing’s going to beat Roy’s response when Keeley asks him whether, if he were run over by a bus, he would prefer her to have him buried or cremated: “Go after the bus driver and make him pay for what he did to me! Avenge me, Keeley. Avenge me!” And her subsequent response about the (theoretical) bus driver swerving to avoid a child? And his response to that response about not knowing of the existence of the (theoretical) child? Shoot it straight into my veins.Unexpectedly, Keeley is rather angry at Roy for the tree-fruit jokes. But the real potential complication is unrelated.Jamie has been pretty much in the background this season. But his evolution has been quite clear. Of late, he’s been consistently kind and supportive to teammates. But the question of why has lingered.Now we know, and the show couldn’t possibly have offered a more persuasive explanation. At the funeral, Jamie confesses to Keeley that he came back to AFC Richmond in large part because he loves her. And he tells her this, like the better man he is trying to become — and whom he thanks her for recognizing he might one day become — with the appropriate good-guy apologies: I know you’re with Roy. I know you’re happy. I don’t want to complicate things. I just felt I needed to say this out loud.This was a potent scene, maybe — I know I keep saying this about various cast members — the best work Phil Dunster (who plays Jamie) has done on the show so far. I’m pleased that they haven’t overplayed his evolution. I wish Jamie well, and I hope he finds true love.But I am confident I speak for millions when I say: If Jamie breaks up Roy and Keeley, I will spend every waking moment rooting for Nate to turn into that tiger so that he can slowly tear Jamie apart, tendon by tendon. I couldn’t take a Keeley-Roy split. The world couldn’t take it. Don’t undo all the good you’ve done for the global psyche, “Ted Lasso.”The EulogyIs it cute when Deborah tells Rebecca that she plays Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” throughout the house every morning? Sure.And the bit at the end, when Deborah discovers 30-odd years late that Astley is a dorky white guy (“That’s Rick Astley?”), is fairly delightful.But to Rickroll Rebecca’s eulogy in between? Even if you leave aside the (rather obvious) fact that people at funerals — even daughters! — are not called up without warning to provide eulogies they never volunteered, everything about this scene is cringe-inducing.It’s as if the writers challenged themselves to outdo the most saccharine-yet-vaguely-creepy moments in “Love Actually.” (“The Beatles at a wedding? The Bay City Rollers at a funeral? We’ll see your bet and raise you a Rick Astley…”)Needless to say, I hated this scene. Thank goodness the rest of the episode was as great as it was.There’s a lot more to say, but I feel a recap shouldn’t take longer to read than the episode itself took to watch — especially when it was such a long episode. So let’s close things out.Odds and EndsSassy is always great, but this episode may represent her peak to date. The over-the-balcony entrance? Terrific. And who could fail to love her manic new friendship with Keeley? (I want to join that pod.) But Sassy’s best moment this week comes when she tells Rupert something that needed to be said: “I think of your death every single day. Ooh, I can’t wait.”Coach Beard’s invocation of “21 Grams” (the theoretical weight of the soul) was excellent. But Roy’s reply was better: “Whoever figured that out clearly weighed someone, murdered them, then weighed them again.”Once again Jan Maas demonstrates his complete lack of filter, telling Nate, “Another man buying you clothes is infantilizing, yes?” I would say that there is a 100 percent chance he would not have said this if Nate were a bloodthirsty tiger. But it’s Jan Maas, so … 70 percent?One more great line, referencing Sir Mix-a-Lot: “I hate big ‘buts’ and I can’t lie.” Brilliant. But to have it come out of Sam’s mouth? Absurd. There is only one person on the show — and on the Earth — who would make that pun, and his name is Ted Lasso.In addition to the many already noted, this episode contained references to Tracy Anderson workouts, Obi-Wan Kenobi and “Singin’ in the Rain.” And I think Ted’s “I wish you doctor would” reply when Sharon asks if she can sit down is a reference to Robert Wood, a physicist and pioneer in optics.Let me know what others I missed. And thanks to those who pointed out painful omissions from last week from “A Clockwork Orange,” “Fight Club” and Elvis Costello. More