Believing that Hope Does Not Kill with Ted Lasso — Full Season Wrap Up
I’ve been lucky to get some resources to watch Ted Lasso from AppleTV since few months ago. It’s a comedy series about Ted Lasso, a football coach from USA. He coaches American Football. Things get funny when he agreed to have a contract to be the head coach of another football club, in English Premier League. This is another kind of football, not American Football. English Football is different with American Football. American called English Football: Soccer. So, Ted Lasso will coach a completely different sport. For me as an Indonesian, it’s more common to mention soccer as football.
Let’s check the trailer first:
Is he over optimistic? Most probably yes. But, in the midst of recent sadness and uncertainties, maybe Ted’s ultra-positivity is a grab of optimism of we need.
I’m gonna write episode by episode, so it will be full of spoiler for anyone who haven’t watched the series.
Episode 1
It’s started with Rebecca fired AFC Richmond head coach. Rebecca is the new official owner of AFC Richmond. It seems it’s part of her divorce with his husband. And then we got a short introduction about Ted Lasso and his right hand man, Coach Beard. Nice touch on the scene to show Coach Beard read a football book entitled Inverting The Pyramid, which is written by Jonathan Wilson. Coach Beard mentioned to Ted few differences between football and rugby.
Once he landed in London, Ted met his boss, Rebecca. He is surprised because he had to met the press right away. The press aren’t so nice to him and grilled him with his very little knowledge about English football. Things getting harder for him because the bottled water prepared for him is fizzy water and he spitted it out to the journalists. We also got and introduction with one high profile journalist, Trent Crimm from The Independent. One thing that Ted doesn’t know yet is that Rebecca the new owner wants the club to fail at many levels to hurt her ex-husband. And things get interesting from here.
We also got introduced to other characters in this episode. Nathan the kit man, Jamie Tartt the arrogant striker, Roy Kent the captain, Keeley as Jamie’s girlfriend, and Higgins as Rebecca’s right hand man.
Episode 2
This episode shows Ted’s team lost on the first official game for Ted. Rebecca seems happy about it but Ted doesn’t know. He still try to keep the spirit up for his team. It’s kind of working, except for Jamie. In this episode, Rebecca also tried to get Ted got problem with Jamie by hiring a photographer to get some picture of Ted and Keeley while Ted is about to understand how to get to Jamie so Jamie can be a team player.
Episode 3
Rebecca’s idea to make a gossip about Ted and Keeley failed. But she got another idea to have Trent Crimm from The Independent to make a profile for Ted Lasso. She hoped that it will be bad profile and the fans hated Ted. Trent spent a day with Ted and discover that he developed new attacking scheme based on idea from Nate, the kit man. He found out that Ted gives books to his players even some of his players think it’s silly. Ted gives A Wrinkle In Time for his captain with a little hope Roy can be a good leader for the team.
Ted and Trent continue spent their day in an Indian food, Ted wants to go there because he is invited by his first driver from airport to AFC Richmond’s home base. Ted doesn’t even have taste Indian food before. Ted is being honest about his philosophy about coaching to Trent.
Rebecca’s hope to get the fans to hate Ted fails again. Trent Crimm actually write a heartwarming profile about Ted.
Wayward Ted.
Whatever you think of Ted Lasso as a football coach, I assure you the truth is harder to swallow. And swallow you must, because Ted is out there in the community either bravely or stupidly facing the music. That’s for you to decide. And yes, he’s in over his head. He insisted twice that he didn’t care if Richmond won or lost. But if the Lasso’s way is wrong, it’s hard to imagine being right. In a business that celebrates ego, Ted reins his in. His coaching style is subtle. It never hits you over the head, slowly growing until you can no longer ignore its presence. Whether that means allowing followers to become leaders; or in a show of respect, eating food so spicy it’s sure to wreak massive havoc on his intestinal system. Though I believe that Ted Lasso will fail here and Richmond will suffer the embarrassment of relegation, I won’t gloat when it happens. Because I can help but root for him.
I can’t help but root for Ted too after this episode!
Episode 4
Episode 4 is about AFC Richmond having a charity gala. We got to know more about Rebecca and her ex-husband, Rupert. Ted is trying to make his team captain, Roy Kent, to be in peace with his team wonderkid, Jamie Tartt. Ted shows again that he’s an optimist and curious person. He tried in his own way to make sure these two pole on his team can get along. He also managed to bring some calmness for Rebecca. We see in this episode that even she looked strong, sometime she felt alone. It’s also good to see Keeley and Jamie finally breakup.
Episode 5
It’s one of the sad episode, but it’s charming at the same time. Ted’s wife and son is visiting him in London. We got more hint about his troubled marriage. On the weekend, the team faced another game. Jamie Tartt again showed his excellent skill but terrible team member. Ted made a brave decision to replace him with another player. During halftime, he gave the team a hopeful speech about embracing change. It’s powerful enough to motivate the team to fight in second half and win the game in the very last minute.
Episode 6
There is a nice one-liner in the beginning of this episode about assume.
You know what they say about assume? You put an a** outta you and me.
I guess it’s applicable in many things.
We see for the first time Ted getting angry in this series. It might be also caused by his marriage problem. But in this episode, Jamie really make Ted mad. On the other hand, we got new character, Dani Rojas. He is a striker from Mexico and just recovered from injury. The soundtrack when he is introduced feels nostalgic. Jerk It Out by Caesars
This episode is about reversing a curse.
Ted asked the team to sacrifice a memento to reverse the curse on their treatment room. All of the team joins, including Rebecca the boss, and Jamie whom previously clash with Ted. We finally understood that Jamie had some kind of father issues. Once again, Ted shows his capability as a team-builder to ensure the team get together and bond tighter. Which makes Rebecca frustrated, again.
The ending of this episode is sad because in the next day Jamie is returned to Manchester City. Ted is getting angry to Rebecca because he started seeing that she’s not interested to make the team better. Harmony Hall by Vampire Weekend ends this episode with a little bit of hope.
Episode 7
It’s one of the most fun episode in the series, the team is traveling to Liverpool. The team face another bad history that they never win against Everton in 60 years. Another curse to be beaten.
There is also a sweet addition in this episode with the introduction of Sassy, Rebecca’s best mate. Ted is still in the middle of his divorce.
It’s a surprising episode to see Nate gave the pre-game talk and being harsh for few minutes to almost everyone on the starting eleven. Another winning strategy from Ted to make the team put their anger to the game and beat the curse.
The team celebrates the win by going together to karaoke. It’s another sad moment for Ted because he got some kind of sudden panic attack while listening to the song Let It Go.
Ted signs his divorce papers after he got back to hotel with Strange by Celeste playing in the background. It’s heartbreaking.
The episode still had sweet ending with Keeley and Roy getting closer and Sassy spent the night in Ted’s room.
Episode 8
This is also one of the most awesome episode. Ted with his child-like confidence and politeness helps Rebecca. They supposed to meet the club minority owner. But, it turns out Rupert’s new girlfriend already bought that minority share. Rebecca with Ted, and Rupert with Bex (his new girlfriend) met at the pub. Ted ended up challenging Rupert for a game of darts. At first, Rupert doesn’t think that Ted can play or even understand darts. But turns out, Ted has a great skill for darts because he played it in his young age with his father.
Ted wins the bet and avoid Rupert to be near owner’s area on every Richmond’s game. He reminded us to be curious instead of judgmental.
Episode 9
Other thing on the previous episode. Keeley found out that Rebecca was the one planning to bash her previous relationship with Jamie and to broke the situation in the team. In this episode, Keeley tried to get Rebecca to tell Ted the truth about her ambition to destroy the team her ex-husband love the most.
Ted, being the man he is, big-heartedly accept Rebecca’s apology. It’s one of the warmest scene in the series.
This episode also about Ted need to accept the fact that Roy Kent, his captain, is showing his age and Roy’s poor performance has been affecting a lot to the team’s numerous defeat. Ted needs to decide if he plays Roy on the final match against Man. City. This final match will decide the fate of AFC Richmond in Premier League. The internal struggle inside Roy tells a nice perspective about masculinity these days.
Episode 10
It’s the end of Season 1. We got a surprise for Nate. He is promoted to be one of the coaching team with Ted and Coach Beard. The team is on the brink of relegation, everything will be decided on the match against Man City. Ted understand that he can fail the team and he speak to Rebecca that he’s ready to be fired because he can bring the team to higher rank on Premier League. The team and the city already realized, there is no hope.
Of course, Ted disagree.
There is a little light of miracle during the game and a spark of drama. The game didn’t end well for Richmond, even there was a little bit of hope for them to stay in Premier League. It’s another heartbreaking moment on this series. With rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone by Marcus Mumford.
Ted gave another speech after the game, about being sad. Being sad together after such a great fight is still better than sad and alone.
At least we can have Ted Lasso to accompany us, and he will stay with Richmond for next season. I guess the series on its first season is ended with a happy-sad moment.
I think that’s all that I could write. It’s been a lot. And hopefully you can enjoy Ted Lasso too. Enjoy being curious.
Onward.
Forward.
