Rewatch thoughts about Ted Lasso 4.01.. I haven't wordcounted this but I'm doing it on my phone and it looks long and is full of spoilers so... under a cut it goes.
First of all, TIMELINE. Ted says "couple of years," it says 2025 on the screen of computer in the opening shot, and they've been saying three years in the press. I think it's three. We left them in summer 2022 and this is summer 2025. That three year gap is a fucking gold mine to think about.
DUH of course not, because he has to be totally unfulfilled for this premise to work, for literally everyone in his life to push him to take the job in London again. Even his mother, who remains a fucking piece of work. They obviously had to call that out because she was the one who told him to leave! Now she's saying go back! She's right (and she was right before, too, because for the show to end permanently, it was the right advice) but what an infuriating woman.
Second of all, the premise. Did Ted really not have any job opportunities aside from working at the poop candy man's store. It's clearly meant to be Not Good - no offence to the other workers, it's a necessary role! He sees no shame in it! But narratively, it's meant to be beneath him, especially shown when meeting his former player. Was there literally no other job he could do that utilises any of his professional skills? Something in American football again, even coaching high school? Some sort of consultant at the MLS? Literally nothing?
I think there's going to be more of this and I'm a little worried about it, about how they'll handle stuff that landed, that felt right and hit right in s3 but now somehow has to be undone in order to carry on the story, hopefully without disrespecting the fact that it was right at the time.
Because Ted leaving, as the main example, WAS right at the time. It was written to be the inevitable conclusion of his arc and his issues. And if Ted had found a new career in KC doing literally anything else, maybe KC with his family would have been right forever. So I guess the way they fix that is to make him unsettled, non-committal, unfulfilled, and for his mental state there to once again make him a suboptimal father to Henry, now that Henry is older and has a more developed mind and values and stuff. He wants different things from Ted, he wants his dad to be the cool soccer coach again.
(Also, Henry being too good at football and that line from Ted about the player "always playing in cursive when I needed him to play in print" (love the poetry of that about my guy, but kind of hate how fondly and generously Ted was remembering the issues he was having with Jamie and Jamie's not-unjustified issues with him) makes me think that Jamie's inevitable cameo is going to have a focus on Henry, maybe talking about what life in a football academy was like for him, and the culmination of that will be Henry being accepted to the Richmond academy. Because they wanted a kid with excellent football skills, and the way that this move TRULY benefits Henry, if he's serious about playing, is to get him in the system this way, because the US doesn't have any equivalent pathway to pro football.)
Obviously there are people who would have liked Ted to stay in the first place, that Michelle and Henry should have moved to London 3 years ago when Rebecca offered, but honestly Ted and Michelle needed time to regroup and get to know each other properly as co-parents in close contact, and recover from the Dr Jake disaster. I hope that guy's dead. I don't think them moving over with Ted back then would have been all that good. However, now with Henry older and more autonomous and also like, clearly not happy with the state of the USA lol, and about to change schools anyway... it makes sense. It doesn't negate the prior choice.
(Michelle and Ted mouthing along to Public Enemy together while the principal reads out "Henry's poetry" is one of the funniest things this show has ever done and it kind of makes me want them to get back together SORRRRY. They won't but if they did I'd be really happy.)
REBECCA. She's an angel. She feels so... herself and I have missed her so much. Hannah Waddingham is just so good at loving people on screen (see also, Ride or Die.) She's the coolest, fondest queen. I also could not last a week with those people. As another queen, Georgia Nicolson, once wrote: Hamburger-a-gogo-land. What do they want from us.
I do feel she's leaving it a bit late to be asking Ted this, though I guess she said she reached out several times and this has now become urgent. I wonder if she was laying out the offer before, and he was seeing and ignoring it. I wonder how much they've even spoken since he left. They clearly haven't visited. Also, from what I've seen of Alice Chilton in the clips and what's said about her here... I'd die for her already and Rebecca better be nice to her about letting her down in favour of Ted. Also, from the description of her, I need her and Roy to become best friends immediately.
THRILLED about Mathijs and Jelka, God that's good to see. But again, one of those things that the show clearly intended to have permanent closure with - new love, a great partner and the child she wanted so much. That was meant to be done and dusted, but now we are back and because we haven't seen them together in a relationship, the relationship has to become a story. Which means conflict, probably, when he was designed to be perfect and never seen again. Don't fuck it up, show, not least because I don't think you have the time and space to deal with Rebecca grieving the loss of the relationship with the child, if they don't stay together as a couple. A break up is one thing, but the kid thing is something else.
It's very cool to include the KC Current - what a lucky thing that this ultimate model for women's football happens to be in Ted's home town - but, though they are looking at something very possible, literally seeing it in action, I'm a bit concerned about the weird babyish silly vibe they've given Keeley in terms of her hopes for the women's team, like being delusional about what's realistic money wise. And also.. reality wise. Private trains are not a thing. At least not in England. That is a deranged thing to say. And they kind of had her acting like a literal little girl in her excitement, like the fountain? She's a lot sharper and more savvy than this, or she should be. I don't know, maybe her arc of leaving modelling and starting over career wise has also offered her the opportunity to have some sort of second childhood situation, a more innocent one, but like.. if you watched the Pilot then this episode you'd think she'd been lobotomised. This whole ep was a bit cartoony so I'm really hoping this levels out, but if the plot here is like, Keeley is delusionally hopeful about the amount of success the women's team will have as a brand, and also about the money Rebecca is willing and able to invest, and then she doesn't get what she hoped for.. it's more of just.. Keeley not being very good at her job, in this case not understanding the scope of what she's doing. CONCERNED.
The interlude with Tammy Dineen was fun, though - I assume this is she, from 1.04:
"Love of a sports team is a lifetime obsession. Kinda like your best friend's older sister, right? Hey, but do me a favor. If you're ever in Kansas City and come across a fella named Tom Dineen, don't tell him I said that."
Go get her, Ted! I'm sure she's do great in London.
Okay so like. Yes, it is realistic that Higgins would try to go to the American Jazz Museum, yes the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is right across from it. It's great that it's an important place in KC and that the show wanted to honour it.
But, how do I say this. I am not keen on the way they used it, with Higgins comparing the colour barrier in baseball to the professional ban on women's football in the UK. It does a disservice to both circumstances. This scene downplayed how big a deal the football ban actually was, and although it's obviously hard to compare that injustice to something like the history of American racism and segregation, it's still a really big deal in terms of the oppression of women and I wish the show had introduced that concept to people in a way that was serious in its own right and not being downplayed as less bad in a funny bit about a worse wrong.
In very basic summary: The game became popular for women nearly at the same time as the pro men's leagues started, the late 1800s. In WWI, women going to men's jobs like factories joined factory teams like the men used to, became very popular as all the men were away. It became more and more popular, then when the men returned they found the women's were selling more than the men's games. And that the women's organisations were also organising a lot of the money to go to charities. So in 1921, the FA announced that women's football was banned from all professional sporting grounds in the country, claiming it was unsuitable for their bodies and should not be encouraged. They weren't literally not allowed to kick in a public park, but the concept of them playing professionally in organised ways was outlawed, so many of the established clubs died through lack of funding etc. This was all an act of jealousy and control. And this ban was only lifted in 1971, so the modern women's game has had to grow itself from the ground up since then. As the museum guide says, the ban being lifted is recent as hell.
Ted's Richmond wall. Roy with the FA Cup. When did they manage it? I doubt it was the 2025 one, a month or two earlier than this ep, just.. for reasons. The framed photo feels fairly established, and I feel like they would have mentioned it, in terms of Richmond's current success. The phrasing in the article about Jamie that seems to reference the FA Cup as one of his crowning achievements in a who could forget way, so maybe at the end of Roy's second season as manager? His first? Delicious things to consider for both.. Though the 2025 FA Cup, with Richmond taking the place of Crystal Palace, that could definitely track on real football canon. God. Much to think about... And...
Gracias, Jamie Tartt. Well, off he goes to Spain I guess. Georgie is going to have the time of her life visiting him in Spain! The concept of him trying to speak decent Spanish!
I'm actually thrilled it isn't another Prem team to have him in competition with Richmond. The only other Prem team I would have accepted him on is back to City for heart reasons, so moving on to a huge team with a sure fire shot at the Champions League... it had to happen, and I'm going to have a lot of fun and shed a lot of tears imagining how. I'm thrilled he was there with Roy for these full three years, and that he's only just left, in the current summer. I wonder if he was getting itchy and knew he'd outgrown Richmond or if Roy had to force him out the door because he wanted more for him, especially if Richmond missed out on a Champions League spot for the upcoming season. Because at 28, Jamie will be peaking in his powers. Absolute prime. This is the moment he should make the most of at a top, top, top club. And that club WILL be Barcelona, because if it's Real Madrid I'll [redacted.]
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