Ted Lasso Is Good Again. Why Did It Take So Long?

6 min readWhen I think about the best parts of Ted Lasso, it was whenever I felt it holding my hand and showing—and not telling me—how to feel. How to recognize whatever was bubbling up inside, and to let myself get lost in the suspense of Richmond’s performance on the pitch. When it was unafraid to show me tough love, with equal weight behind both words. Halfway into season 4, Ted Lasso is finally remembering its old ways. But it can’t let go of its worst habits, either.The fifth episode of season 4, “Riches of Embarrassment,” is old school quality Lasso I haven’t seen in a long time. It’s also a busy episode with plenty going on at once. It’s been forever since Ted’s folksy wisdom didn’t come off as grating, or since his evolution as a coach—and just as important, a boss—has been more than making him out to be everyone’s surrogate fun dad. We’re also finally getting into the heart of Alice (Tanya Reynolds), who, until now, has lacked substance beyond her straight-faced contrast with Beard and Ted. There’s a problem with her presence, and I’m thrilled by Ted Lasso’s end-of-episode resolution for her because we finally see he’s grown too.We begin this week taking pity on Ted. Some Greyhounds spot him in the wild, eating alone. While I think eating out solo is an underrated way to spend time, Jason Sudeikis really does look pathetic with a mouthful of hot dog and a napkin collar. He looks pathetic enough that the two players swiftly, and hilariously, resolve their breakup. Then the camera quietly lingers on Lasso, and you wonder where this is going. By the end of the hour, we figure it out.At the end of the week lies a matchup against the scary-good Chelsea, a team Richmond is in no shape to truly compete against. The pressure has Alice, in turn, putting the pressure on the team. But Alice’s coaching is abrasive, fiery, and, dare I say it, full of toxic machismo. She’s more a bully than a coach. (Her picking on Shannon moves that story forward, slowly but surely.) When Lasso tries to use a clunky barbecue metaphor to tell her to ease up on the heat, it falls on half-deaf ears.Colin HuttonRichmond squares off against Chelsea, but it’s what happens off the pitch that really matters this week.We can deduce where this comes from in Alice. She’s lonely in a way even Ted is not. She is not a peer to her players but someone with power and authority over them. Which, yes. She’s a coach. But she’s a coach who cares; remember Ted’s first impression of her when he surveyed her desk, neatly organized with files and handwritten quotes that are not at all the mark of a tyrant. But for reasons that are still unsaid, her exclusion eats her from within. I suspect her background as a player, forced to retire due to injuries, has left her incapable of accepting her new station. That’s my guess, anyway. She could be missing the camaraderie that comes with being part of a team, and has walled herself off. Even in a crowded jail cell, she was pathetically alone.We know Alice isn’t “one of the girls.” She is, to quote Gemma (Faye Marsay), a “bitch.” Alice used to take that in stride from staff. But from Richmond players? Brutal. And would a “bitch” crack in the way Alice does when she points out no one has ever asked her anything personal? When the Lady Greyhounds chip in to buy Ted jeans, they show their bond to him in a way they can’t have, or maybe don’t want, with Alice.At the Chelsea game, Alice’s coarse coaching style not only gets her in hot water with Ted, but compels Ted to finally be vulnerable with these new players—if for nothing else than to put the kibosh on their distractions. It’s here, in a motivational halftime speech when the score is two-nil against Chelsea, that we glimpse the old Ted Lasso. Not to the NBC Sports blowhard, but the one who quoted Walt Whitman in a rowdy pub. This time it’s the playwright Elizabeth Appell, whom Lasso channels—with the help of Alice, suggesting their clash isn’t fatal yet—to get the Greyhounds fired up, albeit in a healthy way, to play their best. Though Richmond briefly ties the game, they can’t quite clinch the W, so there is still a long way ahead of them.Yeah, I’ll admit it here: I damn near almost teared up when Ted talked about the embarrassment of feeling embarrassed, and how Ted wisely redirected his own shame into something productive for the betterment of the team. That there is the mark of a good coach, or at least the kind we wish good coaches were. So it’s a mighty shame when Ted Lasso takes several steps backwards into its recurring bad habits.Overstuffing this week’s episode are other progressing storylines I struggle to make heads or tails of. There’s Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), whose relationship with her hunky Dutch pilot turns sour when he fails to communicate the fuller picture of his move to London. Yet her tense relationship with Zelda (Tracey Ullman) turns around for the better. Meanwhile, Keeley (Juno Temple) still struggles to get butts in seats to see the Lady Greyhounds, but her confidence is rejuvenated after hearing some honest and reassuring words from her firm’s manager. But her “challenge” to Roy (Brett Goldstein) from last week comes back to bite her when Roy’s (off-screen) tenth date is actually becoming something more. Sorry Keeley, but, like, that one is all on you for putting on a stupid challenge in the first place.But the gravest misstep this week belongs to Beard (Brendan Hunt), unfortunately. His story takes a bizarre detour to bad comedy when he sees Jane’s acclaimed play (which is bad) and the two still hook up like cartoon characters. Given the severity of Jane’s story and how it was teeing up to be something real and raw, it’s a big-time bummer how empty it feels to see Beard panting out of the dressing room with disheveled hair. Critically, the story isn’t done; the success of Jane’s play has her bound for the West End. Should there be a Ted Lasso season 5, we’ll be seeing jokes about Beard being played by, I don’t know, Michael Fassbender in some movie adaptation.It’s not all a lost cause. Backstage, Ted enjoys a meet-cute with Jane’s (age-appropriate) stage manager, which has Ted feeling a pep in his step. Enough to make Ted pause during his own speech when he confesses to being open to dating again.Ted is also open to being a firmer coach, and not only for his players. After recognizing that Alice’s drive could be her undoing—which Ted alludes to Nate and how his own fire nearly burned him “to a crisp”—he ceases being everyone’s folksy dad to act like a real coach. “I’m gonna try a different approach with you,” Ted says before dropping the bomb on Alice. A one-match suspension. When Alice says there’s only one match before holiday break, Ted says he knows what he’s doing. “Maybe that will give you some time to think about what’s going on, make some adjustments, and hopefully we’ll see you in the new year.”“Hopefully” twists like a knife. And there’s a rare, remarkable sternness in Sudeikis’ delivery that makes the moment especially heavy. This isn’t Ted Lasso, the guy who stole snacks from his grocery store job. This is, to borrow from Keeley in the premiere, “Ted fucking Lasso.” Ted is making harder calls coaches are supposed to make, without too much mind how it makes them feel. But it’s productive. It’s still for the good of the team, and hopefully for the good of Alice herself.My mantra with Ted Lasso this season has been to the effect of, “Ted Lasso can’t help itself.” For every flash of brilliance come one or two or too many cloying Lasso-isms and desperate reaches for wit, which only remind me I am watching a television comedy instead of investing in characters whose lives revolve around professional football. It’s funny how Ted offers a riddle: “The more you take, the more you leave behind.” Ted Lasso has taken a lot out of me, including my time and patience. But it’s been years since it’s also left me with more to think about.