Ted Lasso Is Giving Me Stockholm Syndrome

6 min readEven a cynical jerk like myself can feel something sometimes. All season long, Ted Lasso has oscillated between its worst eye-roll-inducing habits (what belabored simile did Ted make now?) and genuine emotional highs reminiscent of when it was an Emmys darling. The newest episode, “Mae Rides the Bus,” isn’t free from more Lasso-isms, but the sudden exit of one of its longest supporting characters is disarmingly graceful and restrained. Maybe this is the Stockholm syndrome talking—I’ve had to tune in every week and muster enough energy to write about it since June—but Ted Lasso finally, really got me this time.In episode 9 of Ted Lasso season 4, “Mae Rides the Bus,” the characters spin their wheels until it’s time to head to Bristol City for an important game that could decide Richmond’s standings and, more or less, its future as a team. But it’s not just football players whose futures are decided. Keeley (Juno Temple) and Roy (Brett Goldstein) have only just gotten back together, and already Keeley is grappling with a massive change: pregnancy.It starts with her passing out from high blood pressure—blunt foreshadowing for later in the episode—and it ends with her telling Roy at the moment she knows he’s the right man. Not that anyone would doubt Roy would be warm to being a dad. We’ve spent years watching Roy play doting uncle and coach overgrown manchildren into doing what they’re told. Roy has fatherhood in his blood. But perhaps the show could have unearthed a bit more uncertainty, to let the hour-long wait for the two to jump on each other feel earned rather than inevitable.But Keeley/Roy isn’t the main story this week. There’s Gemma Jay (Abbie Hern), who is one doctor’s note shy of getting off the bench. But Alice (Tanya Reynolds) is naturally gun-shy about risking Gemma’s health again. As Gemma has grown more invested in the team—there’s no chatter about her other life as a law student this week—her relationship with Alice remains mildly contentious as the engine driving the season forward. I think there are unresolved issues between them still, going all the way back to New Year’s, that they need to address, and I wonder how much longer they can keep ignoring it. I don’t know if they’ll ever be best buddies, or have the kind of relationship Ted had with Roy and Jamie, but they need to become something to each other eventually.Apple TVTed Lasso can and will always be extremely Ted Lasso about everything it does.Luckily, Gemma’s recovery affords Shannon (Shannon Hayes) the opportunity she’s been working hard for, and it pays off beautifully. I’m no coach, so no one should listen to me, but I’ve always thought good coaching meant making sure every player on a team gets to excel. Let star players rest from carrying the burden and let your rougher players (like Shannon) get their reps in as much as possible so they can become stars too. Again, I’m not a coach—I’ve never even played any of the Football Manager games—but the Gemma Jay/Shannon storyline this season shows me the virtue in never betting all your chips on one thing.There’s another big story this week: At the invitation of Ted (Jason Sudeikis), Mae (Annette Badland) gets a wee bit of the spotlight as she rides with Richmond to Bristol. Any other show would have mined awkward, even mean-spirited humor in an eighty-something landlady hanging with a bus full of spry young women. On the upside, Ted Lasso isn’t any other show, and it has already established Mae as a livelier character than just “old lady.”On the downside, Ted Lasso can and will always be extremely Ted Lasso about everything it does, so of course the team embraces Mae, and it is all impossibly earnest. As is her impromptu locker room speech, which gestures at the importance of women in sport (and by extension, in other places of tremendous visibility). It is just inspiring enough to tug at your heartstrings a teeny bit, and short enough to not overstay its welcome. This is the kind of stuff I really miss about Ted Lasso in its early days. And if the show can keep delivering like this, I might not think of its quality as a television show in the past tense anymore.I just wish Ted Lasso would stop being such a fucking teddy bear all the time. Maybe it would have actually done some good to see Mae and the Richmond girls have some friction on the bus. It might give more weight to her speech about being from a different time and place. I’m not in the business of telling professional TV writers what they should do, or God forbid, what I want to see. But, sort of like Shannon on the pitch, I keep spotting interesting creative opportunities the show sets up for itself, only to watch it never actually seize on them. Because before you know it, those opportunities are gone.Mae gets an (intentional) unceremonious send-off when she collapses on the bleachers after Richmond prevails in a nail-biter. We don’t actually see the grisliness of what happens next; Ted Lasso is, again, refreshingly graceful about this. We hear and see only what we need to hear and see, and it works in the show’s favor.It sounds cruel to say, but I don’t think losing Mae will do so much to the Ted Lasso status quo. Sure, she was always a welcome presence and brought a dry sense of humor to Ted’s suffocating folksiness. And Ted’s son will be devastated. He’s basically made the pub his home. To say nothing of maybe losing the pub outright, unless Mae has a secret family member set to inherit it and is waiting to show up in the finale. (Oh gosh, what if Mae has a hot, age-appropriate niece who could become Ted’s next love interest? After the stage manager went nowhere, Ted is open for business again.) Most of all though, I hope Ted doesn’t internalize her death as his fault. It was Ted’s idea to bring Mae with them to see the game in the first place, but he—and I’m sure all of us did too—assumed Mae was a tougher cookie than her advanced age let on. I hope the poor guy doesn’t beat himself up too much about it.Meanwhile, in a more consequential development, we finally see Zelda’s (Tracey Ullman) true colors. (And let me say for the record: I called this one.) Since Leslie began digging into the matter of Richmond shareholders selling their stakes, the primary suspect has been Rupert, played by the late Anthony Head, who is finally paid tribute to in the credits. Last week, I speculated whether Head had shot a surprise episode (or two!) before the actor passed in January.At this point, it’s safe to say Rupert is firmly and officially out of the series—his lawyers deny knowing anything about the shares, Leslie says—which means it’s someone else who is up to funny business. We learn soon enough it’s Zelda buying up the shares to get a majority stake in the team. Why? Well, besides money, we’re still figuring that part out. But I knew I couldn’t trust Zelda, and I’m glad my instincts were right. All the same, I am trying to navigate the feeling of watching a show pay tribute to one actor while killing off a different on-screen character. I don’t think it’s gross or anything like that. It just brings a weird shadow into a show that, until now, hasn’t really talked about death beyond Ted’s father. I imagine next week we might open at Mae’s service, with Richmond bolstered into going all the way in her honor. Can you expect Ted Lasso to do anything else?Also: I physically recoiled when her underling Hugo talked about their “linguistic foreplay” with his “wicked pussycat.” I need to bathe in Lysol. Why am I still watching this show?